3.3.09
Tonight is the first meeting of the Atomic Music Club, a monthly discussion group hosted by Benn of Atomic Books. The idea is that one or two people each month make a mix CD of their choosing, people pick it up from Atomic Books a few weeks before the next meeting, and then we all get together to chat about it. Benn made the first CD, and I only just picked it up over the weekend, and it's pretty eclectic:

1. "Teenagers"——Ed Schrader
2. "Fuck Everything"——Jack Logan
3. "La La La"——Deep Throat Soundtrack
4. "All Pink on the Inside"——Bernard Purdie
5. "The Lions and the Cucumber"——Manfred Hubler and Siegfried Schwab
6. "Zapata"——John Barry
7. "Je t'aime moi non plus"——Serge Gainsbourg
8. "Viens"——Francoise Hardy
9. "Kauoha Mai"——Sol Ho'opi
10. "C'est la Mort"——Stereo Total
11. "Heavy Dub Mix"——EPakSa
12. "Moonlight on Vermont"——Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band
13. "BTK Blues"——Pink Nasty
14. "Deep Red Bells"——Neko Case
15. "Look at Your Game, Girl"——Charles Manson
16. "Lillian"——Hangnail Phillips & Bullette
17. "Not on Top"——Herman Düne
18. "Cool"——Pylon
19. "Fuck Me Around"——The Winks
20. "I Wanna Holler (But the Town's Too Small)"——Detroit Cobras
21. "All Grown Up"——Gore Gore Girls
22. "She Lives In (A Time of Her Own"——13th Floor Elevators
23. "Things I Wonder"——The Shaggs
24. "Efficiency"——Exxon Singers
25. "Bedroom ETA"——Earles and Jensen

A few of these I recognize, a few seem thrown in for kitsch value, and a few are new to me but I like a lot, particularly the tracks from Stereo Total (a French progenitor of CSS, or at least that's what this one track sounds like), Hangnail Phillips (this song would fit in well on Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs), and the Winks (this is not the Winks that you will find if you look up this band name on iTunes——this is apparently a now-defunct Texas punk band).

I'm curious to see how the discussion will go, especially because I'm pretty apprehensive around groups of strangers and I'm betting that 1) the only person I'll know there will be Benn, and 2) everyone else there will know at least a couple of people besides Benn. I tend to get pretty quiet and observant in situations like these, but even if I'm a little uncomfortable, I'm willing to give it at least two or three tries.

3.12.09
They changed the frequency of the Atomic Music Club to twice a month instead of once, but I'm probably still only going to go once a month. The next meeting also happens to fall on St. Patrick's Day, and since I'm going to be in DC watching the Pogues that night, I'll miss that meeting too. Here's the tracklist for the second mix CD though:

1. "Coke 2"——The Who
2. "Leaving Here"——The High Numbers
3. "The Humid Press of Days"——Camper Van Beethoven
4. "Ooh Las Vegas"——Gram Parsons
5. "I Got to Tell You"——Dr. Octagon
6. "Descrambler"——Chester Stacey
7. "Jingling Baby"——LL Cool J
8. "GBV Philosphy 101"——Guided By Voices
9. "Harnessed in Slums"——Archers of Loaf
10. "Public Service Announcement"——Jay-Z and Dangermouse
11. "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing"——Minutemen
12. "The Rat Patrol and DJs"——Centro-Matic
13. "Walter's Theme"——R.E.M.
14. "Real Cool"——Grand Buffet
15. "Swan Blues"——King Pleasure
16. "Magic Johnson"——Red Hot Chili Peppers
17. "Before They Make Me"——The Rolling Stones
18. "What's What"——Riverboat Gamblers
19. "Hayday"——The Replacements
20. "Hey Aardvark (Live)"——Guided By Voices
21. "Cut You Loose"——T-Model Ford
22. "Panes from Windows"——Superchunk
23. "Soldier's Grin"——Wolf Parade
24. "Devil Doll (Demo)"——X
25. "Cowboy Song"——Thin Lizzy

This mix seems less full of forced whimsy and willful obscurity than the first one——I know a lot more of the songs, and when it's an artist that I don't own any of, I at least recognize the name and know something about them.

3.16.09
I'm glad I went to the Modest Mouse show, but that might be my last one. I still dearly love their music, especially all the stuff through the 2001 sessions for The Moon and Antarctica and its related releases, but the overly-complicated, overly-populated studio efforts of their last two albums have carried over to their live show. They had no fewer than six musicians onstage for the entire show, including two drummers, and somehow they managed to sound less supple, less layered, less nuanced when I saw them with their original three-person lineup in 2000.

Anyway, here's the setlist:

"The View"
"Interstate 8"
"Dashboard"
"Here It Comes"
"Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes"
"King Rat"
"Custom Concern"
"3rd Planet"
"The Whale Song"
"Black Cadillacs"
"Broke"
"We've Got Everything"
"Fly Trapped In A Jar"
"Blame It On The Tetons"
"Paper Thin Walls"
"Bury Me With It"
"The Good Times Are Killing Me"

Encore
"Satin In A Coffin"
"Satellite Skin"
"Parting Of The Sensory"

I was really psyched that they played both "Interstate 8" and "Broke", two of my favorite songs from pretty far back in their catalog (I would have been satisfied if I had only heard one of them), and there were also three new songs, at least a couple of which are likely to show up on their new EP that's coming out later this year.

But like I said, I'm not sure if I would go out of my way to see them live again——it just didn't have the magic of the first time I saw them live, and even their older songs had that too-pristine sheen that's become the hallmark of their last two records applied to them in the live setting. Some of it might have been the 9:30's sound system——sometimes I think they forget they're a rock club and not a hip hop club, because the bass sound is enormous and the treble can be piercing——but then again, I've heard plenty of bands play there and sound great.

Oh, and a note to opening band Kinky: you guys are talented musicians, but I'm just not digging your songs. And it's criminal how you're wasting your lead singer with so many instrumentals——the crowd definitely engages with you more when he's on the mic standing at the edge of the stage.