7.2.12
I need to write about my first Los Campesinos show before I write about my second, but suffice it to say I'm still pretty in love with this band.

7.3.12
I was concerned about not getting to see as many great live shows in Atlanta as I was able to in Baltimore/DC, but already I've seen Los Campesinos in a club 20 minutes from my rental house, I've got tickets to see David Byrne and St. Vincent in October at a symphony hall, and I'm going to pick up tickets for Jens Lekman at a converted theater that seems to host a lot of the kind of acts I thought I'd have to drive to Athens to see at the 40 Watt. A lot of other quality-of-life issues have gotten an upgrade with my move here, and it looks like ease and frequency of seeing live acts may be another.

7.4.12
No matter what we end up doing today, I know that I'm going to hear Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" at some point, especially now that we're living in Georgia. I know there are a ton of poeple that would vote for this to be our new national anthem if given the choice, but for me personally, Titus Andronicus' "A More Perfect Union" would be high on my list. What I wouldn't give to hear a stadium full of people chant the first verse in unison, ending with the line Patrick Stickles co-opted from Springsteen...

7.5.12
I feel like I should like Twin Shadow more than I do.

7.6.12
I liked Magnetic Fields' "Andrew in Drag" from the very first time I heard it——it's one of Stephin Merritt's best singles, and he's a man who has produced a few dozen great ones over the course of his career——but I fell for it really hard earlier today, listening to it a dozen times in a row. Unless I listen to it so much that I get sick of it, there's almost no way this isn't going to be in my top 10 songs for this year.

7.9.12
Going through a phase of listening to older albums in my collection that I haven't heard/rated since converting them to digital and adding them to iTunes. Best rediscovery so far: Wes Anderson's Rushmore soundtrack.

I'm also hitting the unrated stuff on records for which I've already given good ratings to the standout tracks. Stars' Set Yourself on Fire and of Montreal's Satanic Panic in the Attic each yielded a few four star ratings, but most everything else has ended up with the two or three star designations that I expected.

7.10.12
I'm so eager to hear the new Frank Ocean that I'm seriously considering paying for the digital version of Channel Orange, which was released today, instead of simply waiting for the physical copy that I've preordered that won't arrive until a week from today. I think patience/fiscal prudence will prevail, but I'm not going to make any promises.

7.11.12
I went to see Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom last night, and I noticed in the credits that there were a ton of Hank Williams songs, even though when I was watching the movie I only remember one song that could have been a Hank Williams song (and it was used more than once). Looking at the soundtrack on iTunes, however, there are only three Hank Williams tracks listed, and none of them sounds like the only song I remember from the that I would have been tempted to credit to Hank Williams, although it didn't sound like a prototypical Williams song to me.

So in short: I'm confused. I'm either remembering the credits wrong, or the soundtrack doesn't actually contain all the songs that were used in the film. And whether it's three Hank Williams songs or twice that that were used in the film, I only remember one song that could even potentially be a Hank Williams track, and that one doesn't appear to be on the soundtrack.

7.12.12
Here are my recommendations for this months this month's list of 100 MP3 albums for $5 from Amazon: Violent Femmes' eponymous debut, Depeche Mode's Violator, Green Day's Dookie, and Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot make up a solid and varied list of must-haves. And in the pretty good albums category, we have the Black Keys' Brothers, Death Cab for Cutie's Plans, Passion Pit's Manners, Japandroids' Post-Nothing, and Magnetic Fields' Love at the Bottom of the Sea (which contains my recent obsession "Andrew in Drag").

For the first time in a while, there's nothing that I'm thinking of purchasing myself. But that's the best lineup of recommendations I've seen in several months, so I guess it all evens out.

7.13.12
The Frank Ocean situation resolved itself without me spending any more money: after Ocean did a surprise digital release of his album a week ahead of schedule, the retailers with physical copies of Channel Orange sitting in their warehouses ready to ship must have convinced his record company to pull the trigger on releasing those as well, because mine shipped out the next day and is due to arrive in my mailbox this afternoon. Really looking forward to getting to know it this weekend.

7.16.12
After an extended absence, Titus Andronicus' frontman Patrick Stickles suddenly returned to Twitter recently and confirmed that they are in the mixing stages for album number three. Fingers crossed that they get it out this year; I've gotten more and more impressed with their first two records the more I've listened to them, and another blistering tirade about the state of the nation might be just what we need heading into a huge election cycle.

7.17.12
My son likes to have music going all the time, which in theory I'm really happy about, even though he tends to be obsessive about wanting to listen to the same song or CD over and over all day long.

My wife has developed that wonderful ability that many parents seem to have to completely tuning this out, and I sometimes even catch her mindlessly humming along without realizing it. I, on the other hand, do not have this skill, and there are moments when we've got a music DVD playing on the tv, there's a CD playing on the boom box in my son's room, and anywhere from 3-5 of his toys are all belting out their own tunes when I'm pretty sure that hearing one more version of the ABC song sung by a cheerful puppet will send me over the edge.

7.18.12
It took a few listens to sink in past the songs I was already familiar with ("Pyramids" and "Thinkin Bout You"), but Frank Ocean's Channel Orange is a pretty solid effort. I'm not sure that it has anything as strong as his best work on Nostalgia, Ultra. ("Songs for Women", "Novacane", "Swim Good", and "We All Try"), but there's a lot to love about this record, and given that it took more than a few listens before I fell in love with Nostalgia, Ultra., it's still possible that this will continue to grow on me.

I don't know how Frank Ocean's work might compare to other cutting edge R+B modernists like Drake and The-Dream because I don't really listen to this genre very much, but I have a hard time believing that if you like them that you wouldn't like this album.

7.19.12
Finally got around to giving Dirty Projectors' Swing Lo Magellan a serious examination after abandoning it midway through my initial listen because of the early arrival of Channel Orange, and I instantly love it. The difficult detours that sometimes threw me off in Bitte Orca are mostly smoothed over, and the sweet spots that made me love that record despite some of the less-than-necessary tangents are front and center on almost every track.

I'm not going to go so far as to call it a pop-oriented record, but it's definitely more accessible than their previous efforts, both in terms of accessibility and song length. I'll be curious to see if the hardcore fans think they are selling themselves short or going too mainstream, but for someone who wanted them to be a little more mainstream in the first place, I'm pretty happy with how this album sounds.

7.20.12
In case any of you was wondering what Mike Mills is up to these days now that R.E.M. has officially called it quits: he's grown his hair out long and he likes Caddyshack enough that he'll dress up in 70s-era golf attire for a special showing of the movie at a community theater in Athens. This makes him just that much cooler in my eyes.

7.23.12
Robyn Hitchcock is offering two new tracks for free download on his web site, "There Goes the Ice" and "Twitch 4 Sam Surfer". Both are pretty solid additions to his late-career catalog; grab them here.

7.24.12
Passion Pit's Gossamer arrived a day early yesterday, but I didn't get around to listening to it until today. It makes a decent first impression, but it's not quite as immediately hook-y as their debut full-length, and it's not atmospheric enough to compare with, say M83's last couple of records. I could be bored with this in a week or it could be a slow grower that will still be in my rotation in three months.

7.25.12
I got into a little Unicorns rut today. I still love it when I get in that weird mood where only the Unicorns will do. There is no doubt that their only record, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?, is the best release in the history of rock from a band that only released a single album.

7.26.12
Japandroids' Celebration Rock (and maybe Japandroids in general) is turning out to be one of those collections of songs like many of the Raveonettes records where you could plug almost any of them into a shuffle mix and it's going to be a memorable track, one that stands out from the tracks that come before and after it. But when you hear them all together, in a row, they lose so much of their impact and distinctness.

Now that I've listened to the record closely enough to sort out the many gems from the few duds, I doubt I'll ever listen to the album proper again, and instead just be happily surprised when the songs appear in my random playlists.

7.27.12
Frank Ocean's "Pyramids" is a weird, weird song. It's also one of the best so far this year, and that's saying something for me, because there are few songs that clock in anywhere near the 10 minute mark that I can listen to over and over without feeling like it's a 10 minute song (the Stone Roses' "Fool's Gold" and of Montreal's "No Conclusion" are the two others).

7.30.12
New Animal Collective track:

Not really digging it, and I didn't like Panda Bear's latest solo record at all. As much as I hate to say it, I'm beginning to think I might be done with them.

7.31.12
In addition to "Who", the opening track from the upcoming David Byrne/St. Vincent collaboration Love This Giant, which you can download for free in exchange for your email address, you can also now download track 2, "Weekend in the Dust", if you preorder the record from the Love This Giant web site.

From what I've heard so far, this record is shaping up to be the best thing St. Vincent has done so far in her career (and I loved Strange Mercy), and the best thing David Byrne has done since his Talking Heads days (although I did think his solo record Look Into the Eyeball was pretty brilliant).