MP3 Junior Senior - "Itch U Can't Skratch"
I was a big fan of 2003's D-D-Don't Don't Stop the Beat, the poptastic debut album from Danish gay/straight duo Junior Senior, and I'm talking about more than the "Move Your Feet" single. Though it has yet to see a U.S. release, the group's sophomore Hey Hey My My Yo Yo LP expands the Junior Senior sound, adding a number of female vocalists to the mix including Kate Pierson & Cindy Wilson of the B-52's, The Velvelettes & Le Tigre. "Itch U Can't Skratch" was the album's advance single, which Matt Fluxblog first posted back in March (months before I offered my own commentary):

I love that Junior Senior extend the inclusiveness of their twee party music to people like Bigfoot. Even in spite of that one Beastie Boys video, I can't imagine that Bigfoot gets out much. He's probably very insecure about his body, you know? He's exactly the type of person who needs a happy song that specifically asks him to dance. Come on out of the woods, Bigfoot! It's time to party. It won't be a coffee & cake affair, Junior Senior are going to have a DJ and dancing, pizza, chips, soda, everything!

The new album should find its way into stateside record shops sometime in early 2006, at least according to the last report from Pitchfork, though it can be ordered directly through Junior Senior's label Crunchy Frog or downloaded via iTunes. And to nobody's surprise, they're on MySpace too.





MP3 Most Serene Repbulic - "Content Was Always My Favorite Colour"
While not actually any part of the ever-expanding universe that is Broken Social Scene, fellow Canadian upstarts The Most Serene Republic sound right at home on BSS' Arts & Crafts label. Overflowing with band members, densely layered pop hooks, earnest intentions - check, check & check. Underwater Cinematographer, the band's debut album, was one on my sleeper favorites of 2005 that I grew to really enjoy. The M4V oddball music video (18.4mb, iPod ready) for this track is full of big bright colors & wide-eyed enthusiastic faces (often on "decapitated" floating heads) & boundless exploding bursts of energy that match the song's frenzied tone. What fun!





MP3 Iron & Wine - "Woman King"
Sam Beam took things up a notch IMO (well, added more production to his sparse arrangements anyway) on this past spring's Woman King EP (possibly my favorite Iron & Wine release to date, despite its relative brevity), particularly on this powerful (and fiercely feminist) title track. I'll let Pitchfork's Amanda Petrusich do the rest of the talking:

There are a lot of ways to describe Iron & Wine's dark, woozy folk songs: writers and fans scramble to find the appropriate modifiers, the correct verbs, the variations on "hushed." [...] And now, for the very first time, "loud" can be added to that arsenal of adjectives: the six-song Woman King EP, a follow-up to 2004's Our Endless Numbered Days, opens with relentlessly click-clacking pieces of wood and a brash slide riff, booming out in all directions. And we haven't even gotten to the electric guitar yet - or the distortion.

[...]

Sam Beam has tweaked and re-imagined Iron & Wine's whisper-folk imprint to include a much broader palette of sound - anxious and intense, Woman King inches Beam even farther away from his scratchy lo-fi origins without sacrificing any of the microphone-eating intimacy that made his work so appealing to begin with. [...] Somehow, each step Beam takes feels organic, proper, true - Woman King (much like Our Endless Numbered Days) is different, but fundamentally linked to its predecessors.

MP3 The Radio Dept. - "I Don't Need Love, I've Got My Band"
More cheating here, with this track from the 2003 Pulling Our Weight EP from Swedish fuzzy popsters The Radio Dept. But the band was new to me this year (thanks blogosphere), and I kept coming back to this particular track throughout the year. It was part of my extended Valentines Day post, which is probably one of the better things I have written on this blog.





MP3 The Decemberists - "On The Bus Mall"
As we slide further into more sentimental tones, here's yet another repost, this time from Colin Meloy & The Decemberists. While "The Engine Driver" may have had the best lyrics ("And I am a writer, a writer of fictions. I am the heart that you call home. And I've written pages upon pages trying to rid you from my bones.") on Picaresque, "On The Bus Mall" is the most preciously majestic, and is probably my favorite off the band's third full album. I'll repeat the sentiments of Pitchfork's Stephen M. Deusner:

Perhaps the best song he's written, "On the Bus Mall" is Meloy's own private Idaho full of boy gigolos amok in the city, and he evocatively contrasts their innocent affection ("Here in our hovel we fused like a family") with the grittiness of their lives: "You learned quick to make a fast buck/ In bathrooms and barrooms, on dumpsters and heirlooms/ We bit our tongues/ Sucked our lips into our lungs 'til we were falling/ Such was our calling."

MP3 Sia - "Breathe Me (Four Tet remix)"
With the penultimate track of Mix '05, I made an unusual pick with former Zero-7 singer Sia, whose song "Breathe Me" played over the breathtaking final sequence of the Six Feet Under series finale. The song appears on both Sia's sophomore LP Colour the Small One as well as the second Six Feet Under soundtrack. The day after HBO aired the finale, Scott Stereogum was first on the scene with the MP3, though I prefer this remix by Four Tet off the "Breathe Me" import single. For more on the SFU finale, check out an segment from NPR's Fresh Air (via bradley's almanac) & a nice long blog write-up (via Kottke). Yes, I've had these links sitting around for a while.



MOV Sia - "Breathe Me" (7.2mb, lo-res)
Director Daniel Askill took A LOT of photos to create this video (check out more of his past work). Video via Aussie-based Collider Design/Film.



MP3 Sufjan Stevens - "Come on! Feel the Illinoise!"
Is it too cliché to end Mix '05 with Sufjan Stevens, given the ridiculous year he's had? Perhaps. He's topping best-of lists left & right with his second "50 States" album, the gargantuan yet lush Illinois that even spurred a controversy over cover art. I desperately wanted to post this fabulous title track when the album first leaked last spring, but (not suprisingly) the recently inactive Keith TTIKTDA beat me to it by a matter of hours:

So, Sufjan Stevens has finished another state, moving south from Michigan and on to Illinois. And the tracklist should have been an indication that he’s continued his long steady fall right off the deep end. And thank god. Because if he hadn’t, we wouldn’t have "Come On Feel The Illinoise," with it’s surprisingly dancable horns and choirgirls and xylophones - Sufjan’s gone vaudeville, like a whitebread David Byrne without the nervous stutter. Every time I try to listen to another track on Illinois, I end up struggling to suppress the urgge to skip back to this moment of magic. When the guitars and the string section take over and the song transitions into "Part II" we have something transcendant. I don’t remember who it was that said Morrissey is trying to become the weird, gay, british indie Frank Sinatra, but it seems like Sufjan might be trying for crazy, christian, indie Sinatra title himself. And he’s not falling too far from the mark on "Come On Feel the Illinois" - that whispering croon lacks the force of old Blue Eyes, but the backup singers are downright transformative - the MP3's genre tags may say folk, but thats hardly an appropriate label for this album. It’s more vital, more kinetic, and perhaps most appropriately, more urban. Where Greetings From Michigan found it’s urban moments in the joblessness of Flint and the desolation of Detroit, Illinois captures the hopeful vibrancy of the windy city on the lake, the constant transformation and rebuilding of a city thats probably been destroyed more times than any other city in America. There’s a wierd optimism in that really.

I eventually got around to posting this track myself when Sufjan & the Illinoisemakers rolled through Mpls this fall, so here's one more re-post for old time's sake. I really can't think of a better song to end the year on.



Just as he did last year, my good pal Chicago Marc Shapiro was able to whip up some sweet-ass cover art to go along with Mix '05, and as always I thank him for his lending me his talents once again. That's ka-blamo!



This mix is a totally subjective collection of songs from 2005, and I regret not being able to include Animal Collective, Antony & The Johnsons, Annie, Metric, Feist, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Andrew Bird, Art Brut, Fiery Furnaces, Franz Ferdinand, José González, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Of Montreal, My Morning Jacket, Super Furry Animals, Deerhoof, M83, The Raveonettes, Fiona Apple, Caribou, Archer Prewitt, The Kills, Common, Architecture In Helsinki, Gorillaz, The Books, The King of France, Doves, Kaiser Chiefs, Final Fantasy & every other artist/group that I didn't get around to or didn't listen to enough etc. It was tough to keep current with everything during the last year, and I know that I probably missed tons of good stuff while I was busy off doing something else. In 2006, I hope to be more receptive to new music, more attentive in general, more consistent with my posting & maybe even get around to responding to my e-mail (which is way backed up, btw). I dunno if I'll be able to live up to all of these resolutions, but I'll certainly give it a whirl. Happy new year everybody.

DISC ONE
Track 01: The Constantines - "Draw Us Lines"
Track 02: Spoon - "The Beast & Dragon, Adored"
Track 03: The Russian Futurists - "Our Pen's Out of Ink"
Track 04: Broken Social Scene - "7/4 (Shoreline)"
Track 05: Bunky - "Chuy"
Track 06: The New Pornographers - "The Bleeding Heart Show"
Track 07: Stars - "Ageless Beauty"
Track 08: Danger Doom f/Cee-Lo - "Benzie Box"
Track 09: Legendary K.O. - "GWB Doesn't Care About Black People"
Track 10: M.I.A. - "10 Dollar"
Track 11: Soulwax vs Lipps Inc. - "NY Lipps (Kazasaki Dub)"
Track 12: Vitalic - "My Friend Dario"
Track 13: Low - "When I Go Deaf"
Track 14: Gogol Bordello - "Undestructable"
Track 15: Silver Jews - "Punks in the Beerlight"
Track 16: Sam Champion - "It's Getting Late"
Track 17: Stephen Malkmus - "It Kills"
Track 18: Okkervil River - "For Real"
Track 19: Wolf Parade - "I'll Believe in Anything"

DISC TWO
Track 01: The Mountain Goats - "This Year"
Track 02: Howard Hello - "More of the Same"
Track 03: The Deadly Snakes - "Gore Veil"
Track 04: The Hold Steady - "Stevie Nix"
Track 05: Sleater-Kinney - "Wilderness"
Track 06: Bloc Party - "Like Eating Glass"
Track 07: LCD Soundsystem - "On Repeat"
Track 08: Mylo - "In My Arms"
Track 09: The Juan Maclean - "Give Me Every Little Thing"
Track 10: Junior Senior - "Itch U Can't Skratch"
Track 11: Most Serene Republic - "Content Was Always My Favorite Colour"
Track 12: Iron & Wine - "Woman King"
Track 13: The Radio Dept. - "I Don't Need Love, I've Got My Band"
Track 14: The Decemberists - "On The Bus Mall"
Track 15: Sia - "Breathe Me (Four Tet remix)"
Track 16: Sufjan Stevens - "Come on! Feel the Illinoise!"

The entire Mix '05 can also be accessed via the December archive.

FWIW: Touch-ups aside, I honestly did publish this post mere moments before the ball dropped (well, the midwest time zone TV replay anyway).

What, did you think I was gonna bitch out on disc two of The Big Ticket's Mix '05? Wrong, suckas. Here's the whole friggin' thing. Happy new year.



MP3 The Mountain Goats - "This Year"
This second disc is probably more sentimental on the whole, and it starts off as such with this bitterly nostalgic-yet-defiant track by the Mountain Goats. Singer/songwriter John Darnielle passionately belts out this autobiographical tune, from this year's The Sunset Tree LP. Stylus writer Matt Sheardown breaks it down for the site's top singles list (#50):

What strikes me most about this song is the optimism that reverberates through every sung lyric and strummed chord. Considering that our protagonist is an under-aged alcoholic with a penchant for scotch and an abusive home, this is no mean feat. But this is the same optimism that has burned through all of our own veins. This (with all respect to Broken Social Scene) is the true anthem for a seventeen-year-old, girl or boy. You’re a year away from the glorified age of eighteen, the year that freedom begins and the year you can get as close to or as far away from your life as you could want. You’re just waiting for time to catch up with you. And you are gonna make it through this year if it kills you.

I posted this song during one of my lower moments this spring, but am pleased to re-post it while in a better mood. Check out its video (via).

ETA (1/13/06): The first StyPod entry of 2006 is about how this song soundtracked the rocky terrain of one Stylus writer's ups & downs in 2005.





MP3 Howard Hello - "More of the Same"
Another re-post (from back in March), this elegant piece of guitar-laden shoegaze is the centerpiece of electronic duo Howard Hello's self-titled EP, and I just had to include all 7+ minutes of it. And yes, they're on MySpace.





MP3 The Deadly Snakes - "Gore Veil"
Just as "More of the Same" fades away, we jump into this precious bit of velvety lo-fi pop from Canadian indie rockers the Deadly Snakes. I missed my chance to see these guys at the 7th Street Entry this fall, despite my affection for the band's previous album, 2003's celebratory Ode To Joy. This year's Porcella LP is somewhat murkier than its predecessor, with the exception of this happy-happy track. 3hive's Sam wrote back in October:

On "Gore Veil" you'll hear Donovan or Love or Neil Diamond, but what'll stick in your head is that recorder (or is it flute?) melody line just begging for a Wes Anderson movie to call home.

MP3 The Hold Steady - "Stevie Nix"
Out of the quiet final moments of "Gore Veil" explodes a fat guitar lick, and we've definitely come about. I really enjoyed Kathryn Yu breakdown of the album that holds this song, so I'll let her to the talking:

"They've made a Springsteen album." A fucking Springsteen album. That's how a friend described the new Hold Steady album to me earlier this year, and he was right on the money. The killer classic rock riffs are still there, as are Finn's unique vocal mannerisms and the memorable, thousand-allusion-a-minute lyrics, but this time around he's supported by what sounds like a cast of a thousand church ominous organs. Separation Sunday is the way it feels to be swept into an unholy alternative universe where everything's just a little bit off. But it's still a little evasive and sexy and totally fucked-up; the freaks from Almost Killed Me are all still bumming around, but this time they think they've found God. Everybody's a sleazy hoodrat or a shifty drug dealer or a born again Catholic school girl gone wrong, or something I'm not even sure how to describe. Craig Finn couldn't write a conventional song to save his life, but somewhere in his complex poetry, stuttering delivery style, and cast of misfits, this collection of songs contains dozens of hooks that stick around like soft, melting bubblegum. I could spend hours unpacking what Finn is really saying, but I'm too busy reveling in how tight and accomplished the band has become, the well-oiled machine they'd always threatened to become. I'm not sure how a resurrection really feels, but by the time our poor, lost Holly rolls around to the front of the congregation, broken and battered, my ears are ringing. But all I want to do is listen once more.

Yes, this is another re-post. There will be more to come, so get used to it.





MP3 Sleater-Kinney - "Wilderness"
We continue on with everybody's favorite veteran grrl punks, Sleater-Kinney. The ladies showed up with a whole new level of rawk on their latest album, the raw & screechingly powerful The Woods, and it was very much on display when I finally caught the trio's live show at First Avenue in June. I almost picked the previously posted "Rollercoaster," but in the end I decided that "Wilderness" just seemed a better fit to follow the Hold Steady.





MP3 Bloc Party - "Like Eating Glass"
2005's best new wavey brits Bloc Party rode into this year with oodles of buzz for their debut LP Silent Alarm, which actually turned out to be quite good. But for whatever reason, I slowly stopped listening to them as the months passed. Perhaps it was indie hype overload, or perhaps it was the overkill of having their whole album chopped & screwed Remixed so soon after the original's release. I've barely listened to Bloc Party since summer, so I guess they lose points for lacking staying power. But they still put out a solid record, and this opening track is certainly one that's worth revisiting.





MP3 LCD Soundsystem - "On Repeat"
In early 2005, all I listened to at times was LCD Soundsystem. I was addicted, and I didn't want to listen to anything else besides the self-titled double-disc LP ("Beat Connection" in particular). Of the tracks on the main album, "On Repeat" was the one that really hooked me (hence this re-post). LCD mastermind & DFA co-big cheese James Murphy had quite the year, making my trek down to Chicago for Hipsterfest Midwest worthwhile.





MP3 Mylo - "In My Arms"
Okay, here's where I start cheating a little. Destroy Rock & Roll, the debut album from Mylo (aka Scottish electronic musician Myles MacInnes), originally saw its release in 2004, though it will finally be getting a proper US release on February 6th, 2006. I first stumbled across Mylo late last year via Music For Robots, but I really got into the rest of his stuff throughout 2005, hence the inclusion of this cheery, albeit sample-repetitive, track on Mix '05. I previously linked to this song's lovey-dovey WMV music video, but I think we should all watch it one more time, just in case you don't have somebody to kiss after the ball drops at midnite tonite (like me).





MP3 The Juan Maclean - "Give Me Every Little Thing"
Prior to seeing The Juan Maclean open for LCD Soundsystem this fall at First Avenue, my pal Rachel got freaked out while reading of Juan's bizarre, drug-induced stories on his website. Apparently, the dude is just as crazy as the DFA guys described him:

Tim: Juan is originally from the much-missed and totally underrated Six Finger Satellite, who Sub Pop should really put out a compilation of, ‘cos they were years ahead of everybody else. They were electronic, but tough and scary. Awesome stuff. His own stuff has elements of Kraftwerk and… I don’t know how to describe Juan really. He’s insane. One of the most intense people you’ll ever meet. You can ask people about Juan and they’ll says he’s extremely scary. Then you meet him, and he’s not. But then you get to know him and he is. There are many, many layers to Juan, and he’s very real.

James: 'I was a big fan of Six Finger Satellite, then we were friends and I was their live sound mixer for years, and I helped them produce their last album. He’s just terrifying to be around. A very heavy character. He was a junkie for 13 years and I hated him at first. But that changed and its an honour to work with Juan. He’s a very genuine character, and an unusual talent… much more surreal than most people.'

Anyhow, I suppose I'm also cheating a bit on this track, since it came out as a single on a split 12" with The Rapture in 2002 or 2003. Since it's also on Juan's debut LP Less Than Human, which only came out this fall, I'm using that technicality to keep the electro thing happening here. Check the vid:

WMV The Juan Maclean - "Give Me Every Little Thing" RAM



Drat. Ran outta time before having to jet off to work. This is only the first part of disc two, so stay tuned for the stunning conclusion later tonite.

DISC ONE
Track 01: The Constantines - "Draw Us Lines"
Track 02: Spoon - "The Beast & Dragon, Adored"
Track 03: The Russian Futurists - "Our Pen's Out of Ink"
Track 04: Broken Social Scene - "7/4 (Shoreline)"
Track 05: Bunky - "Chuy"
Track 06: The New Pornographers - "The Bleeding Heart Show"
Track 07: Stars - "Ageless Beauty"
Track 08: Danger Doom f/Cee-Lo - "Benzie Box"
Track 09: Legendary K.O. - "GWB Doesn't Care About Black People"
Track 10: M.I.A. - "10 Dollar"
Track 11: Soulwax vs Lipps Inc. - "NY Lipps (Kazasaki Dub)"
Track 12: Vitalic - "My Friend Dario"
Track 13: Low - "When I Go Deaf"
Track 14: Gogol Bordello - "Undestructable"
Track 15: Silver Jews - "Punks in the Beerlight"
Track 16: Sam Champion - "It's Getting Late"
Track 17: Stephen Malkmus - "It Kills"
Track 18: Okkervil River - "For Real"
Track 19: Wolf Parade - "I'll Believe in Anything"

At last, disc one of The Big Ticket's Mix '05 is finally up in its entirety, despite its tardiness. Cramming in all of disc two before 2006 arrives will be a tough chore, but I hope to be up to the challenge. Fingers crossed.



MP3 Okkervil River - "For Real"
As disc one comes to a close, things start to get a wee bit dramatic, bordering on epic. "For Real" is the second song on Okkervil River's dark & emotional 2005 release, Black Sheep Boy (though this is actually the slightly longer single version). It starts off as a slow burner, quietly rising out of the ether with a subtle-yet-persistent guitar strum & becoming somewhat menacing with frontman Will Sheff's opening line: "Some nights I thirst for real blood, for real knives, for real cries." But then power guitar chords kick in & Sheff's voice turns more insistent, more desperate, and it all feels more & more intense. The tone ebbs & flows from there on, but it retains the fire-in-the-belly feeling that only builds & builds. Sean from Said The Gramophone (where Sheff guest-posted back in August) has been a big fan of this tune (his #2 song of the year), and he described it far, far better than I ever could on multiple occasions.

Upon first hearing it back in March:

"For Real (There's Nothing Quite Like The Blinding Light)" is one of the best things they've ever recorded, that perfect boom of word and sound, barbed yells and crushing blows. It's sinister but elegiac, scary but true. It's about murder and feeling, voices crying for sensation. "There's nothing quite like the blinding light / that curtains cast aside." The electric guitars are stuck through with spruce branches, with nails, with bits of eggshell. It's like the stamp in the middle of Wilco's "At Least That's What You Said," only instead of Tweedy's guitar solo there's the lamplight of a rhodes, the mounting panic of Will Robinson Sheff, and then a terrible tumble of drums, the searing chorus of pierced guitars, the knowledge that you're hurtling downhill, downstream, downtown, toward the smack and clasp that will make things clear. (The joke's on you though - you don't quite get there.) "Those blue bridge lights might really burn most bright / when you watch that dark lake rise. / If you really want to see what matters most to me / just take a real short drive."

And guest-posting at Beardblog in August:

A song full of such roaring life, covered in such black and flashing fur, that it’s hard to imagine it as a thing composed, the work of men in a room trying out parts and kicking at pedals. Okkervil River were a band of rustic mountain-men, Austin’s lonesome hermit poets, but here Will Robinson Sheff’s got teeth and a fever, he’s got claws, he’s got an electric guitar that shorts the lights. This is rock music for after you realise what you’ve done, or a song for running panicked through a field. It’s a track that requires a lantern – hold yours high.

Sean talk, you listen. He smart, write more good than me. Music, hooray!



MOV Okkervil River - "For Real" (24.1mb)
In his year-end wrap-up, Frank Chromewaves points to this animated video, which he thinks "is just creepy." I'm not sure what's creepier, the creepy video or the creepy cover artwork cover artwork by artist William Schaff.



MP3 Wolf Parade - "I'll Believe in Anything"
Coming in at #10 on Pitchfork's 2005 albums list, writer Amanda Petrusich describes this track as "the record's shining center, a gut-punchingly perfect portrait of shit gone awry." Well said. The record she refers to is the debut album from Montreal's Wolf Parage, Apologies to the Queen Mary, which received plenty of buzz prior to its release on Sub Pop this fall. PopMatters (oddly) called it "the album of this year's decade," and Cokemachineglow simply ranked it as their #1 album of the 2005. Oh look, some more hype.





I was able to catch Wolf Parade twice this fall here in Mpls, opening for pals The Arcade Fire in First Avenue's mainroom in September & headlining the Entry just weeks later. On both occasions, they closed out their main set with this song, and both times it kicked my ass. The recorded version boasts the same powerful build-up, with verses seeming to circle round each other repeditively until they work the song into a frenzy. Keyboardist Spencer Krug doesn't just sing the lyrics, he lets loose mad, plaintive wails that grab & shake & get in your face. Louder, louder, louder..."NOBODY KNOWS YA, AND NOBODY GIVES A DAMN ANYWAY!" over & over & over & out. And I'm just left breathless. I thought this was a decent way to end disc one. Whew.

BTW: Wolf Parade did an interview w/the 'fork & has a MySpace, obvs.



DISC ONE
Track 01: The Constantines - "Draw Us Lines"
Track 02: Spoon - "The Beast & Dragon, Adored"
Track 03: The Russian Futurists - "Our Pen's Out of Ink"
Track 04: Broken Social Scene - "7/4 (Shoreline)"
Track 05: Bunky - "Chuy"
Track 06: The New Pornographers - "The Bleeding Heart Show"
Track 07: Stars - "Ageless Beauty"
Track 08: Danger Doom f/Cee-Lo - "Benzie Box"
Track 09: Legendary K.O. - "GWB Doesn't Care About Black People"
Track 10: M.I.A. - "10 Dollar"
Track 11: Soulwax vs Lipps Inc. - "NY Lipps (Kazasaki Dub)"
Track 12: Vitalic - "My Friend Dario"
Track 13: Low - "When I Go Deaf"
Track 14: Gogol Bordello - "Undestructable"
Track 15: Silver Jews - "Punks in the Beerlight"
Track 16: Sam Champion - "It's Getting Late"
Track 17: Stephen Malkmus - "It Kills"

More lists!!! On Wednesday, Marv's Tiny Mix Tapes checked in with their top 25 album list (who needs 50 anyway?), not to mention their 2005 Tiny Mix Tape. And I thought my doofy little Mix '05 was semi-original - who was I kidding? Jeez. Well, at least I can feel a little validated by Stylus' agreement with yours truly that M.I.A.'s Arular was the top record of 2005. Told ya so.

Rumors abound re: Arrested Development switching networks.

Patience, grasshopper. Stay tuned. Off to read Bob Loblaw's Law Blog.

Okay, so I've fallen way behind on my attempt to get the entire double-disc Mix '05 out before Christmas. All of disc one will be up this week, and I hope to cram in disc two before the end of the year. Three tracks today:



MP3 Silver Jews - "Punks in the Beerlight"
While I wasn't paying attention over the last couple of years, David Berman apparently did the stereotypical Behind The Music-style rockstar flame-out & nearly boozed & drugged himself to death. He even cops to the cliché in an extensive interview with Pitchfork's Ashford Tucker back in August:

My Y2K party lasted four years longer than I expected it to. It was fun. Not the last year. The last year was bad. I went to rehab. Relapsed a couple of times. Doing good now. I went down in 1999 for a long, suitcase-battering journey of sub-aqueous intoxication, only resurfacing on January 1, 2004 in a tiny Minnesota village. There is a recent Fader (PDF) article that does a good filmic version of my time away. After that article came out, I read someone on the internet who felt betrayed, by me; that I'd become a cliche. There's nothing I can do about that. The problems of performance have begun already.

Ironically enough, the man behind the Silver Jews is anything but a typical rockstar, deciding not to play his music live (until now), choosing instead to make public appearances only at his poetry readings. Berman seems insolar, not so much a man of excess, with his own demons that drove him toward substance abuse in the past, but likely also informed his lyrical content. This year's Tanglewood Numbers, the Silver Jews' first album in four years, comes off as a recovery record in both content & style, more clear-headed & focused than previous efforts. It's ten tracks of straightforward rock songs cut with an alt-country twang, it's Berman's tightest disc yet, and it's one of my top releases from 2005 - and I knew it would be during (not after) my first listen. With Stephen Malkmus on board to rip it up on guitar, this track opens Tanglewood Numbers with confidence & authority ("punks in the beerlight, burnouts in love!") and refuses to let up until Berman's final, breathless "MAX!" fades away. Correction: I knew Tanglewood Numbers would be one of my '05 faves during (not after) my first listen to this song.

ETA: LA-based director Todd Lincoln chops up Planet of the Apes & Beneath the Planet of the Apes to suit his own devices (via goldenfiddle). Yes, it's very random & fairly bizarre. I suppose it figures:

MOV Silver Jews - "Punks in the Beerlight" (37.9 mb)



MOV Silver Jews - "How Can I Love You If You Won't Lie Down" (3.6 mb)
Berman's label Drag City hosts this video for another of Tanglewood Numbers' stand-out tracks, featuring Berman along with his wife Cassie (who does all the female voicework on the album) and sometimes Silver Jew & former-Pavement "percussionist" Bob Nastanovich (lounging around, not playing the drums). Also appearing is the Berman family dog, Jackson.



MP3 Sam Champion - "It's Getting Late"
It's no coincidence that this track is the meat in the Silver Jews/Malkmus sandwich that makes up this post (and it's corresponding section of Mix '05). Frontman Noah Chernin, bassist Jack Dolgen, guitarist Sean "Bones" Sullivan & RANA drummer Ryan "Tugboat" Thornton make up Brooklyn NY's Sam Champion, whose debut album Slow Rewind is another top ten (maybe top five) '05 release for yours truly. Caveat: I suppose I am somewhat biased toward these guys, seeing as I worship the Jersey-loving f**k out of RANA (how I found them, duh) and have hung out with them on a few occasions. That said, their first outing on Razor & Tie is still an impressive one IMO. Chernin & company aren't re-inventing the wheel here, and they don't hide their obvious influences (see tracks 15 & 17). They just put together a solid-yet-loose rock record, and oftentimes that's all that you need. I could have picked from any of the songs on Slow Rewind, but I went with this one because it just seemed to fit best with the surrounding tracks.



MOV Sam Champion - "TV Fever" (23.2 mb) WMV RAM
Sam Champion's first video: home movies cut with band footage.

Due to the general busy busy busy, I never got around to posting much about the show-packed month that was October. I hope to recap some of the backlog before the end of Mix '05, and I'd like to start with Sam Champion's first visit to Mpls in early November. Even though Okkervil River (I'll get to them soon) was also playing the 400 Bar that Saturday nite (11/5), I just had to see the Champion, especially since I hadn't seen them sine Sean joined the band. I dragged Sam out with me to the 7th Street Entry, where the band played to a sparsely population (aka nearly empty) room. The lack of attendance was regrettable, but the guys rocked out nonetheless, playing a solid that that concluded with a cover of the Beatles' "Get Back" IIRC. A good time was had by me at least, and even Sam was impressed enough to pick up a copy of Slow Rewind. The road-weary warriors actually crashed back at the Gilbert resort (aka the rents' house) before heading out the next day, and I was happy to offer the hospitality. As-per-usual, I snapped some digital pics because I'm dorky like that:











MP3 Stephen Malkmus - "It Kills"
Finishing off the trifeca is none other than Stephen Malkmus, whose third solo album Face The Truth was yet another stellar release from the former Pavement frontman. S.M. played a lot of his new material when I saw him play First Avenue in June, shortly after Face The Truth dropped at the end of May (but long after it sprung a leak, obvs) on Matador. This track has a light, airy feeling to it that is infectiously smile-inducing. I think "It Kills" sounds optimistic, even without paying any attention to Malkmus' lyrics.

WMV Stephen Malkmus - "Mama" RAM
Here's a streaming video for another track off Face The Truth, starring a bikini-clad asian chick for who knows what reason. Random as ever, S.M.



DISC ONE
Track 01: The Constantines - "Draw Us Lines"
Track 02: Spoon - "The Beast & Dragon, Adored"
Track 03: The Russian Futurists - "Our Pen's Out of Ink"
Track 04: Broken Social Scene - "7/4 (Shoreline)"
Track 05: Bunky - "Chuy"
Track 06: The New Pornographers - "The Bleeding Heart Show"
Track 07: Stars - "Ageless Beauty"
Track 08: Danger Doom f/Cee-Lo - "Benzie Box"
Track 09: Legendary K.O. - "GWB Doesn't Care About Black People"
Track 10: M.I.A. - "10 Dollar"
Track 11: Soulwax vs Lipps Inc. - "NY Lipps (Kazasaki Dub)"
Track 12: Vitalic - "My Friend Dario"
Track 13: Low - "When I Go Deaf"
Track 14: Gogol Bordello - "Undestructable"

It's list-mania! Aside from every blogger & their blogger cousin's year-end lists, the online rags have put out theirs. Cokemachine Glow has its top 50 albums list, as does Pitchfork, Stylus & PopMatters. Pitchfork & Stylus also run down 2005's top 50 singles, for those of us with short attention spans. Read up on what you should've been listening to, but probably weren't.

Though it happened last week, I still wanted to mention the death of Emmy-winning West Wing actor John Spencer, who suffered a heart attack that claimed is life on Friday. It's terribly sad news, and there isn't much else to say about it. A John Spencer fansite has gone black in his memory, leaving only a truly apt WW quote, written by series creator Aaron Sorkin.

And while it has been posted everywhere (from Boing Boing to the Huffington Post) over the last couple of days, I'll happily add to the echo chamber of folks laughing at this past weekend's SNL "digital short" Lazy Sunday by my boys The Lonely Island, whose Samberg & Parnell hip-hop jam about Magnolia cupcakes & The Chronic-WHA!?!-cles of Narnia was the highlight of the show. I got the heads-up about the online buzz from goldenfiddle, and found a WMV link from Gorilla Mask. And after two days of hype, the video is now currently featured on both the NBC's front page as well as the network's SNL page. Ardy, Kiv, Jorm, Parn - well done.

My favorite line: "Mr. Pibb + Redvines = CRAZY DELICIOUS!"

ETA: Oh, snap. Now you can get Lazy Sunday as an iPod-ready free download from iTunes, likewise posted on their store's front page ("a holiday gift from NBC & SNL"). Damn, this got huge fast. God bless the internets.



This is my 300th post. Aren't round numbers a fun reason to celebrate?

ETA: Rep. John Conyers of Ohio calls for investigations to impeach or censure Bush & Cheney. I don't like calls to sign this or e-mail that etc, but I'll just say that I did so here & here. Y'all can do as you see fit. That is all.