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december 2004
12.1.04
I just got my new dual-processor G5, and it's got a wicked fast DVD-CD combo drive and a ton of disk space, so I'm going to spend this weekend feeding it a good portion of my CD collection that I haven't already converted to digitial files. I think my iTunes library is finally going to outgrow my iPod and I'll actually have to start doing micromanagement to cull down the undesirables. Don't get too comfortable, Audioslave. And all you remixes of Jay-Z's the Black Album? None of you are as good as the Grey Album, so prepared to be banished from the mobile collection. |
12.2.04
I tried to use my new G5 to rip the Screaming Blue Messiahs' Gun Shy into iTunes, but it was only able to pull a couple of tracks cleanly. This is one of my favorite CDs of all time, and it frustrates me to no end that I can't put it on my iPod. I just don't know what's going on with this disc——I bought it a few years ago on eBay, and while it plays fine on pretty much any conventional CD player, every attempt to rip it into a digital format has resulted in utter failure even though it doesn't have any noticeable blemishes that seem significant enough to cause problems reading the disc. I've tried it on seven or eight different machines now, and my new machine did the best with it, but it still choked on most of it. Oh well. At least now I've got "Wild Blue Yonder". |
12.3.04
Mixtape: 1987
The Connells would later go on to a middling level of national recognition (think Death Cab for Cutie before their profile-raising release on Atlantic earlier this year), but when this record came out, they were just an up-and-coming college act from Raleigh, NC with a devoted local following in the Triangle area (the other two corners of which were composed of Chapel Hill and Durham). Their first disc, Darker Days, received some acclaim from critics and expanded their fan base, but Boylan Heights really got people's attention and set the stage for the success that would follow with Fun & Games, One Simple Word, and Ring.
Boylan Heights has always had a special place in my heart because the title comes from a neighborhood adjacent to my grandfather's house in Raleigh, and listening to it always reminds me of driving around at night with my high school friends. We never had any money, and there was never anything to do, and our futures seemed so uncertain. But for those few hours, there was nothing outside the car and the conversation, and everything felt alright for a little while.
The title track, which was running neck and neck with "Scotty's Lament" for inclusion on this mix, has that same kind of weird childhood longing that you get from the Smiths' "Back to the Old House" or, well, Billy Bragg's "The Saturday Boy", but I've always loved "Scotty's Lament" for its odd blend of an atmospheric irish-influenced instrumental swirl that suddenly changes tempo and morphs into a whirlwind of vocal tracks and pointed percussion. This used to be a favorite among the kids into alternative music (we'd call them indie kids today) at NCSSM school dances, along with the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" and Sinead O'Connor's "Mandinka". And no, it probably wasn't the best dancing you've ever seen in your life. |
12.6.04
Hopkins sucks. It's a running joke on campus about how decentralized everything is, and how no one knows what's happening in any office but their own. And now it's finally fucked me over. Last Friday night, Rufus Wainwright, who I've never seen in concert and who I've been listening to a lot lately, was apparently playing on campus. But there was no announcement on the main JHU site or calendar of events, there was no email message that went out about it, and no fliers posted around campus. The kids in charge of the concert (it was sponsored by a student group) didn't even bother to post anything about it on the student message boards, which is usually where information like that gets distributed. Even though there were articles the day of in both the student newspaper and the Baltimore Sun, neither of them mentioned ow much the tickets were, where to get tickets, or even what time the show started.
After some research and several phone calls to different student-oriented offices, I was able to determine that they would sell any remaining tickets at the venue starting at 6:30 (which I assumed meant that the show would start at 8:00), but at that point Julie and I already had other plans for our evening and weren't sure we wanted to change them to stay in Baltimore until late in the evening because we had to meet my mom early the next morning. So we didn't go. And I'm pissed. I would have loved to have seen that show, and it's just because of the piss-poor communication at Hopkins that I missed it. God knows how long it will be before Rufus makes his way back to the Baltimore area. |
12.7.04
Hail to the Thief is a much better record than I orginally gave it credit for. |
12.8.04
Downloaded some new stuff from iTunes last night. First up: the Walkmen's Little House of Savages EP, which included three new songs (I didn't repurchase the title song, since it's pretty much the same version that appears on Bows and Arrows): "Clementine", "Fly into the Mystery", and "The Christmas Party". I'd already downloaded "The Christmas Party" MP3 from the band's web site, but hey, I'd like to see bands continue to offer free unreleased tracks to their fans, and I don't mind rewarding them for their generosity. None of the tracks is blow-you-out-of-your-seat good, but they're all decent and share a nice laid-back vibe.
Next I grabbed two Fiery Furnaces songs that are only available as singles: "Single Again", which was billed as the first single from their amazing Blueberry Boat even though it didn't actually appear on the album, and "Tropical Ice-Land", a more rocking version of a song that was included on Gallowsbird's Bark. "Tropical Ice-Land" (which Eleanor adorably pronouces "icy-land") is pleasant enough, but "Single Again" is just as weird and revelatory as anything on Blueberry Boat.
Finally, I picked up the iTunes exclusive "No Cars Go" from the Arcade Fire, originally included on a rare eight-song EP that they recorded in a barn. It's not as strong as their work on the incredible Funeral (and the repeated shouts of "Hey!" get a little tiresome), but it's a nice little footnote and definitely worth $.99. |
12.9.04
Speaking of the Walkmen: several year-end best-of lists are already starting to appear, and Bows and Arrows, which was released in February 2004, is noticeably absent from most of them. And Iron and Wine's Our Endless Numbered Days, released in March, seems poised to suffer a similar undeserved fate. What's up, critics? Did you forget that these albums actually came out this year? Don't go all Oscar on me and only reward recent releases. |
12.10.04
The iPod was sick in love with Tom Waits yesterday. Every other song, his gnarled growl would come grumbling out of the speakers, and I eventually got to the point where I just had to hit the skip button. I mean, I love Tom Waits and everything——he's probably the only artist working in the last twenty years who hasn't made a bad album during that entire span——but I was more in the mood for the Faint, the Arcade Fire, Interpol, and Elliott Smith yesterday, and the iPod just kept giving me more and more Tom Waits. Most of the time when its rotation gets weirdly heavy on one artist, it has shown a real knack for picking stuff that I'm really in the mood to hear, but not this time. I'll have to give it a stern recharging and hope it does a better job on the way into work today. |
12.14.04
Combining Rage Against the Machine with Soundgarden seemed like such a great idea. Why, then, does Audioslave suck so much? |
12.15.04
Alright. I'm happy Modest Mouse has acheived a decent amount of success and exposure. It's nice knowing that their label won't drop them anytime soon, that they'll be able to keep making records for a long time, and it's been fun seeing them show up on SNL and Letterman and all the other places that you don't normally expect bands like Modest Mouse to show up. But now they've apparently been nominated for two Grammys. Enough's enough, people. What's next? A guest appearance on the O.C.? Aw, damn it. |
12.16.04
In the past month, the only CD I've purchased is U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. And that hardly counts because I've hardly listened to it——just enough to know the writers of all the glowing reviews I've read must have only listened to half the record. |
12.17.04
The iPod dished out lots and lots of Badly Drawn Boy yesterday——too much, acutally. The stuff from About a Boy, which I normally love, is pretty good for Christmas time——lots of bells and pianos and just generally the feel of falling snow——but as I'm not properly in the holiday mood yet because I still have so much to do before we leave next week, I found it more grating than anything else. |
12.20.04
Again with the Tom Waits. I'm not in such a weird mood these days, iPod——how about a little variety. |
12.21.04
I hope some new music comes out before too long. Oh, sure, I've still got some discs that I could pick up from 2004——G. Love's new one, Rilo Kiley's More Adventurous, and a few others that are on my radar that I never found in stock at the local record store——but none of them are releases I'm dying to hear or else I would have bought them from Amazon by now). It's been close to two months since I've bought something crucial, and I'm ready for an influx of new material. |
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