This week: Amanda Shires, Fiery Furnaces Tickets, and I'm going crazy.

Sorry I've been somewhat absent this week, but it's been one of those weeks of all the bad kinds of mania:

1) My wallet was stolen this weekend.  The thief spent forty dollars at Krystal and thirty dollars at Dollar General.  Things that I would not do with a stolen credit card: by forty tiny hamburgers.

2) I requested a new voter registration card so I could vote early (for Obama!) today, and they sent my mother a new voter registration card instead.  Thanks, Tennessee government!  Job well done!

3) I slept three and a half hours Monday night in preparation for a test on Tuesday afternoon, then received an email saying the test was cancelled, then received an email saying the test wasn't cancelled, then failed the test.

4) It took seven days for the transcript I requested to make the journey from one building on campus to another building on campus where I could pick it up.  I'm really curious as to what it did with its six-day vacation.

But all those things aside, it's almost the weekend, and there's a lot worth getting excited about.

Upcoming on the show tomorrow, I'll be giving away two guest list passes to the Fiery Furnaces show on 2/6 at 

Exit/In, because in all the madness of last weekend I forgot that I actually had four spots to give away.  So all of last week's callers, you're still in luck!  Tune in this week for a second chance.  

More importantly, this week kicks off the killer lineup of guests I've got coming into the station this spring.  If you were in the crowd of hipsters and cowboys and bros (Lucero fans are so damn weird) who caught Cory Branan and Ben Nichols at the Mercy last fall (and GOD if you weren't, you missed out), you may remember the denim-skirted, cowgirl-booted brunette onstage with the boys, all but stealing the show.  That woman is the extremely talented Amanda Shires.  You might know her as Pearl from the Thrift Store Cowboys, who she still plays with, but in 2005 she took her fiddle-playing solo with Being Brave, and she's been playing a bunch of shows with A Band of Men lately around town.  Tomorrow night she plays my favorite East Nashville haunt, the Foobar, and she'll be coming into the radioshow around 4:30 tomorrow, so tune in for a preview.  Amanda's been playing since she was a kid, and she's got that pure southern atmosphere about her that carries over into her songs, honest and classic in that realm of true southern country that's best heard with a few drinks and a few friends.  It'll be perfect for Foobar, which loves its ear-blowing rock and roll shows but has been begging for something a little more refined.  Plus, no cover!  So come by, have a few drinks, say hello, meet Amanda (you'll fall in love.  I promise.), and I'll see you there.  Show starts at 8pm.  

Listen to songs at Amanda's website.

First and Foremost:

It seems my music host has exceeded his bandwidth (reliable much?) so if anyone has suggestions for music hosting sites that are reputable, I'd appreciate it.  In the meantime, I'm going to do what digging I can, try to keep up the (music-less) posting, and do my damnest to get the music back up there.  Bear with me!

Playlist, 1/25

Thanks to everyone who tuned in yesterday!  My trainee Anna did an excellent job on her first show, and you guy will be hearing a lot more from her, so I hope you liked the picks.  I've hosted as many songs as I can, they're all right-click save-as or alt-click on Macs.  

Also, thanks so much to all of you who made it out to The End last night, and to the bands for playing for us.  I had a fabulous time.  Thanks to everyone who chatted with me at the merch table, danced around and sweated with me, let me buy you a beer.  Thanks for putting up with my slightly drunken band introductions (for the record, I didn't know I would be doing that until I was onstage...).  It was a fantastic night, and I met (and re-met) some really terrific people that I'm  hoping to see again soon.  

1. Caribou, "Cherrybomb" from Nelab

2. The Books, "Be Good To Them Always" from Lost and Safe

3. Shipwreck, "Walk in the Woods" from Rabbit in the Kitchen With a New Dress On

4. Happy Birthday Amy, "Bait" from EP

5. Andrew Bird, "Darkmatter" from Armchair Apocrypha

6. Cory Branan, "Miss Ferguson" from The Hell You Say

7. Velcro Stars, "Hiroshima's Revenge" from Hiroshima's Revenge

8. Neutral Milk Hotel, "Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone" from On Avery Island

9.  Modest Mouse, "Baby Blue Sedan" from Building Nothing Out of Something

10. Emma Wallace, "Exceed My Expectations" from A Reason to Stay Up All Night

11. Happy Birthday Amy, "Mystery Scars" from EP

12. The Owls, "Peppermint Patty" from Daughters and Suns

13. Frightened Rabbit, "Go-Go Girls" from Sing the Greys 

14. Kings of Leon, "Fans" from Because of the Times

15. Menomena, "Wet and Rusting" from Friend and Foe (R)

16. Chromeo, "Call Me Up" from Fancy Footwork

17. Daft Punk, "Face to Face" from Discovery

18. Makeup & Vanity Set, "This Is It" from Charles Park

19. Justice, "Waters of Nazareth" from [cross]

20. Ratatat, "Wildcat" from Classics

21. Junior Boys, "Double Shadow" from So This Is Goodbye

22. Four Tet, "As Serious As Your Life" from Rounds

23. Mstrkrft, "Neon Knights" from The Looks

24. Simian Mobile Disco, "I Believe" from Attack Decay Sustain Release

Lylas returns from the undead! Also, tune in tomorrow!

!!! 

Nashville lovelies Lylas, who I had all but given up on, have been covertly recording a record to be released this year, entitled Do You Believe in Blood?  New songs are up on their myspace, and they're playing a show (the first Nashville one in how long?) next month with Evangelicals and Headlights over at The End.  (February 17th!  Be there!)

I've had a soft spot for these boys ever since they came on my show back when it was just a baby, charmed me, I kinda sorta fell in love, and then they sealed the deal by dedicating "The Virgin Annie" to me at a couple of shows.  Plus, I run into Luke everywhere I go in Nashville, and Kyle every time I leave Nashville.  Our paths are intertwined.  

2006's Lessons for Lovers was a dark merry-go-round of whimsy and morbidity, skeletons in smocked dresses and poets drunk on poison and moonshine.  The cover art says it all:  four full-skirted, coloring-book dancers, twirling circles around their decapitated partners.  Just when Kyle starts to creep into the realm of the sweet, he reminds you that Lylas is not here to write you a love song.  At least, not the one you're thinking of.  My one complaint:  at a cool thirty-five minutes, sixteen songs, six of which are two minutes or under, Lessons never really reads like an album, but more like a collection.  The non-filler songs are delightful in their own right, whether the sinister "No Seance for Sweetheart", the eerie, orchestral "Teenage Phantasm", or of course, my favorite, the dreamer's ballad, "The Virgin Annie."

This next album offers a chance for the Lylas boys to step up to the plate and make the complete album their music's been calling for.  Do away with the thirty-second interludes.  Don't worry about themes.  Tell us the whole story, the poignant bits and pieces that have been building up.  Unveil!

The boys are also looking for a label to release this album, so if you're a label sort or know some label sorts, shoot an email their way or my way and I can pass it along.

Below are two songs from last time they came in the station, one of which looks to become the title track for this year's album!  I'm gonna try to get them in again this spring if possible.  (Also, look to the right for all the currently in-the-works in-stations coming up--Amanda Shires, Amy LaVere, Nite Nite, Meemaw, Caitlin Rose, more to come!)  Enjoy!

LYLAS on Antennas to Heaven:

"Do You Believe in Blood?"

"My Sleepwalking Summer"

Also, tune in tomorrow for lots of excitement:

-Wilco ticket giveaways!  (see below)

-Fiery Furnace ticket giveaways!  (see below)

-meet my trainee Anna, who is almost definitely cooler than I am.

-listen to all the sweet music you can hear tomorrow night at The End!

Last week was also one of the first weeks ever that I've been able to fulfill all my requests, so I'm gonna try to keep at up!  321-ROCK, 422-ROCK, 615 area code, wrvuradio on AIM.  See you there.

Velcro Stars, Makeup & Vanity Set, Happy Birthday Amy!: Where are you going to be on Friday Night?

As I've been saying again and again, we've got a show coming up on Friday that's going to be an excellent chance for all you Nashvillians to catch a slew of local bands that you may or may not have had the chance to see yet, all with quite different esthetics.  Read below to see the treats we've got in store for you.

In addition to the music, don't forget I'll be giving away a pair of tickets to the totally sold-out Wilco show at the Ryman on 3/2.  TOTALLY SOLD OUT.  Read the post below for the details, but you've gotta call into the radioshow this Friday (4-6pm) or be one of the first twenty people at the End that night to get your name entered!  We'll be doing the same thing for the Fiery Furnaces show, which, while not sold out, is going to be a great one.

Plus, I'll be dancing.  And sometimes when I get all dancy, I start buying strangers drinks.  No promises.  But it happens.

And now, the music.....

*In my quest to get music together for this show I had the pleasure to meet the entire Happy Birthday Amy crew (who confessed that they're fans of the radioshow, which is terrific) in the crowded mess of Cafe Coco, where they charmed me entirely and I got ahold of their latest EP, a bouncy, jumpy ball of piano-wit wailed by Amy Smith (of The Protomen & Jared Micah & Hats) bowed by her husband Dillon (of The Ascent of Everest, Noir Test, & Jared Micah & Hats) and banged by Miles Cramer (of...well okay, he doesn't have any side projects, give him a break).  Spiraling cymbal crashes and boundless energy.  Delightful.

HBA: "Bait", "Mystery Scars" 

**Out of Murfreesboro, Velcro Stars are playful, nostalgic, heartfelt, sometimes haunting.  A sound that is undoubtedly youthful, but not without skill.  These songs are from Hiroshima's Revenge, the latest full-length, out on our very own Grand Palace Records.  The title track is sweeping, basic rhythms overcome by the energy of chins up, fists up, eyes to the sky.  

VS: "Hiroshima's Revenge", "Another Winter"

Makeup & Vanity Set boomed into my life when he opened for The Protomen (see the connections being drawn? no?  see above.) at The End.  Complete dance-electro mixes, all vocal-less, techno influence best played in a dark basement packed with beer and sweat.  (Okay, I'm biased, but I've seen him play in such a setting and my dance moves have never been so inspired.)  His shows are always full of energy, done mostly on the spot, mixed by Matthew Pusti donning a ski mask and helped along by "MTV, crack cocaine, and JC Penney catalogs", along with whatever friends he's got on hand.

M&VS: "No One Gets Out Alive", "This Is It"

Bonus: Makep & Vanity Set take on The Protomen--"Vengeance?"

*Photo by Jonathan Kingsbury Photography

**Photo by Laura Leigh Smith, www.acebangup.com 

You're blowing my mind, internet.

Apparently I have international readers.  Which (I hope) means maybe I have international listeners to the radioshow.  Maybe?

So hey, who are you, strangers?*  Where are you from?  How did you stumble upon this little site?  Have you heard the radioshow?  Would you like to hear the radioshow?  What music do you like?  Do you have a band?  Would you like to start a band?  I know a few people who play instruments.  I could get you talking. 

It's lonely on this side of the line.  As a WRVU DJ  you very rarely actually know who your listeners are, or if they exist, or if there are six of you or six hundred of you.  We love it when the phones ring.  We're not allowed to say that on air.

This is the great thing about having a blog to go along with the radioshow.  I can curse!  I can tell you to call in!  I can say GO TO THIS SHOW IT'S GOING TO BE SO GOOD without getting kicked off the station!

*(Please don't feel you need to be international to answer these questions.  I like nearly all strangers.  It's true.)

Black Before Red

I have to say thanks to Austin (and Matt McCarroll) once again for throwing my way what promises to become one of my favorite albums of the year, although it's really a 2006 release that never made much of a ripple here in Nashville.  That unto itself is a complete tragedy.  Belgrave to King's Circle is a string-picking, hand-clapping, electric acoustic meld of music that starts marking itself into your lazy mornings, your busy afternoons, your dancing evenings.  Music that becomes a part of your year.  Music that stays with you.  "Underneath Gold" kicks it off with a Broken Social Scene "Stars and Sons"-esque energy, the kind of dance music you're not sure you should be dancing to.  "Matagorda" is a crooning, piano-driven ballad, flowing into "Our Last Summer", a quick two minutes of echoing guitar riffs and Beach Boys refrains.  You'll have to pick up the album to catch that one, as well as the quirky, soaring "Bosa Nova #7", my personal favorite.  And you should be picking up the album.  Instead of a thriller borne of the fickle energy of debuts, Belgrave promises bigger and better things to come.  I've only one complaint: at a quick 33 minutes, I've got the whole thing memorized already.  When's the next one, boys?

Black Before Red:

"Underneath Gold"

"Matagorda"

"Goddess in Trauma"

"Teenage America"

Playlist, 1/18

Thanks to everybody who tuned in yesterday and for all the excellent requests!  If you missed it, here's what you need to know:

My show will be from 4-6pm on Fridays this semester, so tune in a little earlier next week!

Next week I'll be taking names to give away a pair of tickets to the (sold-out) Wilco show, and a pair of guest passes to the Fiery Furnaces show.  To win those, you need to do one of two things:

1) Call in during my show AND come to the WRVU Benefit that night

2) Be one of the first twenty-five people at the WRVU Benefit that night

Keep in mind, the Fiery Furnaces show is 21+, so please don't try to win tickets if you're not 21.  Good luck getting in  underage to the Mercy, their doormen are mindreaders.  I believe the Wilco show is all ages.

Either of those things will get you on the list to win tickets, and I'll be giving them away during the show that night!  The WRVU Benefit happens at The End, at 9pm, with Velcro Stars, Makeup & Vanity Set, Happy Birthday Amy, and Another Side of Bob Jasmin.  It's only five bucks & profits go to the radiostation, so  you've no excuse to be staying hom on Friday night.  I'll do a full preview post in a few days, but in the meantime, mark your calendars.

Here's this week's show.  Enjoy!  All songs are right-click save as or alt-click on Macs.  Sorry I can't host every single one of them, but I'm sure some will show up again.  Also, (R) means it was a request.

1. Múm, "There Is a Number of Small Things"

2. Rock Plaza Central, "When We Go, How We Go (Part I)"

3. The Dodos, "Nerds"

4.  Luna, "Ihop"

5.  Ferraby Lionheart, "Small Planet" (R)

6.  Kings of Convenience, "I'd Rather Dance With You"

7.  Mary Epworth and the Jubilee Band, "The Saddle Song"

8.  Once and Future Kings, "I Must Be in a Womb" (R)

9.  Magnetic Fields, "California Girls"

10.  Yo La Tengo, "Stockholm Syndrome"

11.  Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, "Baltimore"

12.  Frightened Rabbit, "Behave!"

13.  Emma Wallace, "A Reason to Stay Up All Night"

14.  Imogen Heap, "Hide & Seek" (R)

15.  Watery Graves of Portland, "Ce que je vais faire plus tard"

16.  Midlake, "Roscoe" (R)

17.  Ruby Isle, "Aly, Walk With Me" (cover)

18.  Meat Puppets, "Paradise"

19.  Makeup and Vanity Set, "Vengeance?"

20.  Black Before Red, "Underneath Gold"

21.  Shipwreck, "Devils"

22.  Ween, "Blue Balloon" (R)

23.  Rock Plaza Central, "When We Go, How We Go (Part II)"

24.  Luna, "City Kitty"

25.  Lylas, "Star of the Family Portrait"

26.  We Will Build, "Pandaemonium"

Minimix: Something about a deserted island and your only five bands

First and foremost:

Tune in to the show tomorrow from 5-6pm for your weekly indie salvation.  It's 91.1 FM for locals, wrvu.org for anyone else.  The realplayer is kind of squeamish, so if she doesn't work, give her a few tries.  And give me a call at 322-ROCK or 421-ROCK (ROCK = 7625) if you want to hear something, or IM me at wrvuradio or annieweisner during the show and harass me and keep me company.  

Tonight at the Yo La Tengo show (yeah, more to come on that tomorrow, but it was great so thanks again to the stranger who made sure I got my ticket on time) I remembered being asked a lot of ridiculous music-limiting questions in high school to the tune of "If you were stuck on a deserted island / were the last person on earth / got locked in a cellar and could only listen to three albums / ten songs / five bands, what would they be?"

The album and song limitations I still have a hard time with, but I've mostly got my five bands sorted out and solidified.  I return to the ones that have stuck it out with me, that have reemerged at crucial points in my youth, 

So since you probably already own a bit of music by the following five bands (and if you don't, you should reassess your life and see if there's an ache of unfulfillment, since clearly you've been missing out) I'm going to try to give you a song by each that you  may not already have your hands on.  Enjoy:

To the left is me, around age sixteen, in Dragon Park, with something like fruit-rollups stuck to my head.  Charming.

1) Built to Spill, "Girl" (from The Normal Years)

Itty bitty newborn Built to Spill gets a little stripped down and teenage in a way they won't really ever return to.  There is in fact no percussion of any sort in this entire song.  The Normal Years is also notable since the original version of "Car" appears on this album after showing up on There's Nothing Wrong With Love and claiming its spot as potentially my favorite song ever.  

2) Yo La Tengo, "Upside-Down"

From 1992's May I Sing With Me, which I in fact do not own, but I grabbed this single at an outdoor Grimeys sale when I was seventeen or so, little knowing the gem I had in my hands.  What fool would not bring YLT on a deserted island with them?

3) Luna, "City Kitty" (from Pup Tent)

Classic dark sexy Luna.  Pup Tent has become a recent favorite of mine after grabbing a used copy for five bucks and having nothing but a CD player from the early nineties hooked up through an adaptor in the cassette deck of my car for five weeks.  It restarts every time you hit a bump, so it's good the beginning of the album's so damn good.  But really, this song proves, in case you had any doubt in your mind, that Luna do in fact know how to break it down.

4) Cinerama, "Tie Me Up" (from Torino)

So my Cinerama catalogue is not that impressive, but since every one of David Gedge's songs is about sex, I went for one that was excessively so.  Do not play this track for your children.  Do play this track for your girlfriend.  Follow it with "Lollobrigida".  You won't even need roses and candles.  David Gedge--best wingman ever.  "Anything that you want to do, I'll do it."

5) The Who, "We're Not Gonna Take It (Alternate Version)" (from Tommy)

Six minutes of somewhat reshaped goodness from the rock opera that I thought I was so cool to know about.  I bought cassettes of The Who in high school because they were ungodly cheap and I was the only person around who still had a cassette deck, and my copy of Tommy got an upgrade a few Christmases ago to the brand new DELUXE edition.  I still kind of think disc two of the deluxe edition is kind of a stretch.  Some of the alternate versions are little more than longer, instrumental takes on the originals, so unless you're a die-hard, its probably not worth the extra cash.  

BONUS!

Luna, "Ihop" (from Pup Tent)

I was only going to give you "Kitty City", but I just really need you all to revel in the first fifty-three seconds of this song with me.  

We Will Build: In celebration of mania

We Will Build stumbled into my life sometime during my first month as a DJ, at my request for some good talk-break music to keep the energy going between sets.  It's a grave misstep, however, to suggest that We Will Build is in any way background music--they're far too manically energized to remain the backdrop.

We Will Build is joy and bright lights, dancing in fields and drunk stargazing.  They're saturated with blips and bleeps and glitches-turned to drumbeats, the earthy crunch of cymbals and the aquatic echo of timpany.  Their latest album, This Is Necessary, draws them away from the sheer brightness of their first (called just Untitled Collection on the site), throwing in more loops and whorls and what can really only be called a breakdown.  It's suited to the kind of dancing that's really  more flailing limbs, out of breath, explosive expressions of youth.

In the age where every afterthought has a blog post, there's precious little to be found online about We Will Build.  You can check out their website to download their full catalog of music, including Liphe Sonuds, an improvisational album sans any sort of instrument in the conventional sense of the word, and stocked instead with captured sounds via a gritty tape recorder.  Other than that and a few dead YouTube videos, there's really not much to be read.  I'm somewhat charmed by We Will Build's seeming lack of concern about whether the world at large has any idea what they're doing with themselves.  Their news feed hasn't been updated since August, and the only sign of life is the erratic comments on their Yellbox that hint at a new album to come soon.  They could live down the street or across the world.  They could have six new albums ready to come out or have not touched an instrument since this summer.  I've no idea.

It just goes to show: don't judge a band by its Wikipedia page.

We Will Build, "Pandaemonium"

We Will Build, "Dirk" 

We Will Build, "Out These Doors Inside"

A brief reflection:

Where were you at five AM last Sunday morning, Nashville?

I was dancing on a coffee table with Corey McAfee.

Yeah, you should've gone to the Protomen/Wax Fang show.  

Tonight: The Protomen and Wax Fang conquer Nashville.

Tonight marks the union of two bands I've had the delight of seeing at separate times, now coming together in a pile of dancing limbs and robot masks in a show that promises to be a stunner. 

The Protomen played a month or so ago to a sold-out crowd at The End, bringing performance rock at its best to a crowd of thumping fists and homemade rocket guns.  The Protomen play urgent, gritty rock operas about Mega Man (there's the Wikipedia page for you non-gamers) ripe with synthesizers and sound effects.   Their commitment to their art is enough to get you soaked in it as well--but it's not just the theatricality that makes Protomen worth seeing.  Their music is damn good as well, hugely energizing, darkly captivating.

Wax Fang are equally epic, but with an added playfulness that's all their own.  Out of Louisville, Kentucky, Wax Fang play Nashville enough to call themselves Nashvillians, with a contagious energy and an infectious exuberance.  They've got their own batch of found instruments and costumes, including a pair of gardening shears that provides the critical soundbite on "The Doctor Will See You Now" and, at times, a masked, caped, near-motionless villain whose only purpose seems to remind their audience: you, too, are being watched.  

So don't miss the show tonight, at The Mercy Lounge, starting at 9pm with local lovelys The Velcro Stars kicking things off.  It's only seven bucks (SO cheap for The Mercy) and it's 18+ (don't try to get in with a fake, the door guys there are nearly mind-readers and they'll take it up) with Wax Fang up second and The Protomen rounding off the night.  There's a solid chance it'll sell out (or at least be packed), so get there on time and plan to park on one of the side streets if you don't want to shell out a little extra cash for a spot in the lot.  See you there?

The Protomen, "Hope Rides Alone"

Wax Fang, "Cannibal Summer"

Wax Fang, "World War II (Pt 2)"

Update on Wilco Ticket Giveaway

At the bequest of our estaff, the Wilco ticket giveaways scheduled for late February are getting changed around a bit.

Instead, I'll be taking names during my show on 1/25.  Anyone can call in during that show at any time and get their name added to the pile.  Then, that night at the WRVU show at The End (only 5$!) we'll be taking the first twenty names at the show to add to the pile, and giving away the tickets during the show!  So you need to listen in on Friday 1/25 to get your name added to the pile for sure, and then also be at the show that night!

It's only five bucks to get in, it's three excellent local bands that I'll be telling you more about, and it's for a good cause (your local poor college radiostation).  So no excuses.  Let me know if you have any questions, and thanks for putting up with the changes!

Amid the asbestos and the heating unit, there was something real.

Last night was a refreshing pause in the rhythm of shows and school and work I've come to expect from Nashville.  We trekked our way over to Belmont, six-pack in  hand, for whatever basement Meemaw and Jeff had in store for us.

My friend Patrick said it best:  "This scene is real.  The kid in the fedora is not being ironic."

That's the thing.  Neither is the guy with the mohawk.  Or the girl with her nose triple-pierced.  Or the kid in khakis.  Or my sister, trendy in her yellow tights.  We're crammed together, shoulder to shoulder, peering between limbs for a glimpse of the band, who are squeezed off in a corner in a tight triangle, facing one another, singing without mics, dancing into us.  When the live music halts, someone yells 'Put on the house music!' and dance tunes come eeking out of a boombox dangling from the ceiling.  Beer is passed from hand to hand.  Kids crouch on the stairs, singing along.

Nevermind the fact that the backyard is a junkyard of bicycle parts and livingroom furniture.  Nevermind the mud puddle masquerading as the bottom step.  Nevermind the guy who screams he smells like "pennies!" but really reeks sweat onto all of us.   

Meemaw's drummer, Jessica, plays with a rhythmic calm that's almost unnerving.  She's suave to Daniel's enthusiastic belting. Those of us who knew the words sang along, those who didn't danced along anyway.  The good mood was contagious.  Jeff was equally phenomenal.

It was just fun.  Unpretentious fun.  It's a scene that, if you're not the one trying to be ironic, you'll fit right into.  This is what Nashville music should be about.

And Daniel did promise me that they'll come by the station sometime, so stay tuned for an upcoming Meemaw in-station soon!

Also, here's a bonus treat:

Meemaw, "Clubber Lang"

Best Songs of 2007

Now, without further ado...

23. Jens Lekman, "Friday Night at the Drive-In Bingo"

from Night Falls Over Kortedala

Jens Lekman makes me feel young and want to be old.  "Friday Night" is nostalgia for nights I've never experienced, orchestral pop without any hint of downswing.  Catchy and delightful.

22.  Tokyo Police Club, "Box"

from Smith EP

In their complete history as a band, Tokyo Police Club has released slightly under thirty minutes worth of music.  Those thirty minutes, however, are so damn good that by the time they give us something worth calling an album, the anticipation might be too much to bear.  The overlapping vocals and calm self-degradation reminds me of the bands we loved at fifteen--with all of the positive connotations and none of the negative.  

21. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, "Underwater (You and Me)"

from Some Loud Thunder

The hymn of my summer evenings.  Plunging steadily forward, open-eyed and resolutely hopeful.  

20. Dan Deacon, "Wham City"

from Spiderman of the Rings

A dizzying twelve minute build of jubilant shouts and dancing in circles.

Note: The song link above is to an edited version of Wham City.  To get the full twelve-minute effect, check out Spiderman of the Rings.

19.  Gogol Bordello, "Supertheory of Supereverything"

from Super Taranta!

If you haven't yet been introduced to the mania of gypsy punk, you're in for a treat.  Clever, wry, and unlike anything you've heard lately, for sure.  

18.  Wax Fang, "The Doctor Will See You Now"

from La La Land

Tune in on Wednesday or Thursday for a full sampling of what you'll be hearing this weekend at the Wax Fang/Protomen show at The Mercy.  

17.  Animal Collective, "Peacebone"

from Strawberry Jam

Bouncy, discordant, messy brilliance. 

16.  New Ruins, "Book Lung"

from The Sound They Make

15. The Little Ones, "There's a Pot a Brewin"

from Lovers Who Uncover\

whimsy-pop!

14.  Pela, "Tenement Teeth"

from Anytown Graffiti

13.  Small Sins, "It Keeps Me On My Toes"

from Mood Swings

12.  Justice, "D.A.N.C.E."

from [cross symbol]

11. Robyn Hitchcock, "Brenda's Iron Sledge"

from I Wanna Go Backwards

10.  Okkervil River, "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe"

from The Stage Names

9. Le Loup, "We Are Gods!  We Are Wolves!"

from The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly

8. Of Montreal, "Bunny Ain't No Kind of Rider"

from Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

So yeah, I actually  heard this song somewhere around July 2006 along with the other thousands of people who got ahold of the leaked version of this album, but it's a testament to the utter staying power of Of Montreal that it's been in constant rotation since then.  

7.  The Clientele, "Bookshop Casanova"

from God Save the Clientele

6.  Spoon, "The Underdog"

from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

5. The National, "Fake Empire"

from Boxer

4.  Sunset Rubdown, "Up on Your Leopard, Upon the End of Your Feral Days"

from Random Spirit Lover

3.  Architecture in Helsinki, "Heart it Races"

from Places Like This

2.  LCD Soundsystem, "All My Friends"

from Sound of Silver

1. Black Kids, "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You"

from Wizard of Ahhhs

Comments to come.  For now, I'm getting sick and I'm going to call it a night.  Tomorrow, I promise!  Also to come, updates on the tickets I'll be giving away this Friday, and the show you shouldn't be missing this weekend.  Night, Nashville.

Minimix: Music to ride bikes to

One of my resolutions this year is to bike the Jack and Back, a 130 mile,  2-day bike ride from Franklin TN to the Jack Daniel's Distillery and back.  Seventy-five miles one way, fifty-five the other.  I've been told it'll be easy.  Sure, Mom, sure.

For kicks, my other resolutions are as follows:

2) keep up this blog

3) read 25 books (did that last year as well)

4) don't live in Nashville this summer.

5) visit a new city

Last year was the first year of my life that I've actually kept all three of my new year's resolutions, so I have high hopes for this year.  We'll see.

So in honor of that oh so distant goal, here we have minimix number one: 

The Ladybug Transistor, "The Reclusive Hero"

Guillemots, "Trains to Brazil"

The Apparitions, "God Monkey Robot"

Arcade Fire, "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)"

(photo courtesy of Bekah Cope)

The best songs of 2007 post will be up in a few hours, in case you've been eagerly awaiting it.

The return of the houseparty

Last night, after the usual cycling through phases of being too tired to go out and then wanting to make a night of it, we were persuaded into making our way across town to the buddytown-endorsed Be a Victim houseparty in east Nashville.  There was in fact, a girl with a bulls-eye emblazoned across her chest, but other than her and a few whiskey-killed dead-eyed hipsters, the party seemed to take no prisoners.  The dancefloor was presided over by DJ Travitron and others atop a disco-lit mountain erected from stretched bedsheets, billowing smoke over the already steaming crowd of kids in lamé fabric and skinny jeans and that one guy in a striped polo shirt.  

Later in the night though, when everyone got a lot sweatier and a little less hip, I remembered what I love about this scene.  It's okay, in this crowd, to be that guy who came by himself and is dancing awkwardly near your friends with a PBR and heavy eye-contact.  I was even that guy for awhile.  It's also a deep affirmation of that hope we all hold dear: a few beers into the night, no one's too cool to dance to Criss Cross and Ludacris.  Houseparties make me miss the brilliance of the things we stopped doing once we graduated high school, like lighting sixteen cardboard boxes on fire in the middle of your backyard and watching forty drunk hipsters flock to flames.  Kudos to the kid who had that idea last night.

But outside the danceparty hipster hip-hop scene, you should be checking out the slew of shows that's been going on at houses around town.  East Nashville trio Meemaw  have been rallying the crowds of young, broke, unsigned bands and fans to bring the music back to where it began--in backyards, in basements, shoved into someone's living room stripped of its secondhand sofas and coffee tables.  Their cave of a basement has been home to a ton of manically brilliant shows, including a mindwarp of an electrodanceparty I was lucky enough to end up at this summer, as well as the recording studio for their first batch of songs, oddly compelling in their roughness and imperfection.  They've got a sense of humor, too, but if you're not their best friends already you should start with the two below, both kind of dazed hot drunk summer afternoon ballads played on a Walkman at the start of a block party.

Meemaw, "Fever Dreaming"

Meemaw, "Blue in the Blacklight"

You've got two chances to catch Meemaw this week, this Tuesday with Jeff (not to be missed) at 2930 Primrose Circle, and this Saturday with Jeff and Dawn/Marj! at the Princess Mao House, at 330 Bellevue Road.  Seeing as Protomen and Wax Fang are playing Saturday as well (more to come on that show), I highly recommend you check out the show Tuesday, bring your own booze, and come dance with me.  We'll have a blast.

Top 13 Albums of 2007

Today's show was dedicated to my favorite 13 albums of the year--13 only because that's how many I could fit into an hour.  I'll return to some of these albums in later posts in more detail, but for now, here's the breakdown in brief:

13. BOAT, Let's Drag Our Feet! 

"I'm a Donkey For Your Love"

Completely whimsical and sublimely charming. Whistles and handclaps recorded off basement walls.

12. The Clientele, God Save the Clientele

"Here Comes the Phantom"

Pop genius.

11. Rock Plaza Central, Are We Not Horses?

"Are We Not Horses?"

Dark and haunting and beautiful. Full of mystery and violence and 

intrigue. Absolutely captivating.

10. Beirut, The Flying Cup Club

"A Sunday Smile"

Written to evoke a different French city with each song, gloriously 

arranged. Hot air balloons and cobblestones.

9. Animal Collective, Strawberry Jam

"Derek"

All we love about Animal Collective, the airy mess of strings and fuzz, 

sometimes listening underwater, sometimes from the sky.

8. Lovers, Sleep With Heat

"Perpetual Motion, Perpetual Sound"

I've loved this band since high school. Silky female vocals, hollow 

echoes, ballads and lullabies.

7. Sunset Rubdown, Random Spirit Lover

"Winged/Wicked Things"

Mysticism from an era of wild things and dangerous romances; manic 

and startling. Definitely best listened to as a whole.

6. Explosions in the Sky, All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone

"What Do You Go Home To?"

Monumental instrumental thunderstorms. Propulsion through 

catastrophe and creation.

5. The New Pornographers, Challengers

"Myriad Harbour"

The playfulness we've come to expect of the band, but alright, I'll say 

it: It's no Twin Cinema.

4. Dinosaur Jr., Beyond

"Been There All the Time"

Twenty-two years later, still rough-edged and classic as ever.

3. Arcade Fire, Neon Bible

"Black Mirror"

Slightly ominous, slightly cathartic. The sound of church hymns driven by guitar rock toward a turbulent heaven.

2. Okkervil River, The Stage Names

"Unless It's Kicks"

Inventive and expressive, imperfect and immediate.

1. LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver

"Watch the Tapes"

Kudos to James Murphy for being so unflinchingly unafraid of seven 

and eight minute songs, and so unquestionably skilled at making them 

worth every damn minute. We have it: a dance album that isn't 

headache-inspiring when listened to in one sitting.

So there you have it: 2007. It was certainly a strong year for familiar 

names in indie rock, whether they were striving to outlast hype or on 

that lifeless path called 'making a comeback'. It was a year for 

appreciation of rough-edges, a year for singers who can't really sing, 

a year for remembering why we started dancing in the first place.

Coming up next: Best Songs of 2007. Longer list, less words.

All band names link to the band website; songs are right click save-as or alt to save on Macs.

Welcome, strangers, to the birth of my life as a music blogger.  In the next few posts I'll be putting up my best of lists for 2007 as an introduction to my musical leanings, but first and foremost, I thought it prudent to give you a little introduction to myself.

Weezer, "Teenage Victory Song"

I've been a Nashvillian for the last fifteen years of my life.  I grew up in the suburbs listening to The Who's Tommy on cassette and watching Empire Records nonstop.  I simultaneously loved Talking Heads and The Ataris.  When I was fifteen I made friends with the most handsome boy and the coolest girl I had ever met by writing Thursday lyrics in my planner.  We made buttons out of laffy taffy wrappers in my bedroom and had my dad drop us off at Indienet to see some local band thrash around and sweat for a few hours.  Later we'd gush about how we'd been kicked in the head by a crowd surfer.  We thought we were so damn cool.

Built to Spill, "Car"

I bought Built to Spill's There's Nothing Wrong With Love for twelve dollars at a Borders because I recognized it from a poster on my European History teacher's wall.  I found a crowd of kids who thought about life the way I did, and we spent two weeks mourning Elliott Smith's death and watching Wes Anderson films after school.  We tricked the DJ into playing "Idioteque" and "Deceptacon" at our junior year prom.  I spent a hundred dollars on Fugazi albums after learning I had gotten an A in my impossible calculus AP class.  Music marked us.  It measured our successes and failures.  It judged the strength of our loves.  We made out to Beulah and Portishead.  We danced to Muse and Le Tigre.  We drove around with the windows down and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea on repeat.  

Animal Collective, "The Purple Bottle"

I thought I'd go north to college, but Brown waitlisted me and I ended up at Vanderbilt, wooed by the green of March and some guy with glasses who said hello to me.  A good friend of mine who had come to Vandy a year before me also offered me this enticement: "You can go to some alternative school and find a thousand people just like you, or you can come here and make people understand why you love what you do.  I prefer it here."

Cinerama, "Careless"

Enter Vanderbilt University, in the heart of Nashville, and enter two thousand mingling faces just beginning to gain color and form.  Enter a brief fling with a guy with a wall full of Modest Mouse and Ryan Adams posters.  Enter a warped relationship with the most sharp-tongued, elitist, self-defeating man I have ever met.  He turned me on to Cinerama and The Hold Steady.  When upset he'd play The Format on repeat for days at a time, which might account for why I've never really cared for them.  He is, to date, by far the coolest person I have ever slept with.

Didley Squat, "Tigerlily"

Enter also WRVU 91.1, Nashville's beloved college radio station and my sanctuary.  I trained my freshman year and started my own show that December.  When I entered the station for my first solo time behind the board, three of our four microphones weren't working and I couldn't find a set of headphones anywhere in the station.  It's been a steady climb from chaos to sanity, but that's the charm of college radio, right?  WRVU is populated with hipsters and hippies, metalheads and sorority girls, high schoolers and grandfathers.  Our shows range from hipbilly to dance to Persian music.  Vanderbilt hardly knows we exist, but Nashville is good to us, and there's absolutely nothing better than having someone stop you on the street, point at your t-shirt and say "WRVU!  It's all I listen to!  What's your show?"

Wax Fang, "The Doctor Will See You Now"

So here we are.  I'm entering my third year as a DJ, my sixth semester at Vanderbilt, my sixteenth year in Nashville.  And I'm finally doing something I've wanted to do for about three years now--starting this blog.  I'm hoping to make this an extension of the radioshow, and I'll try to do the same things with this that I do with it--share the music I love, share the music you love, and keep it personal.

So, thanks for reading.  Wish me luck.