Since high school I have been making a yearly mix cd of songs/bands that I've been listening to all year for some friends at home. I usually would burn a big pile of copies and give them out to friends- it's a fun little gift to give people.

Since I've been in London for the past week, I've been annoying the other hotel patrons by playing these songs over and over again, but I finally finished this year's edition of The Chrismukkah (what, it's a good word) Mix, and I thought you guys might be interested too. Merry Christmas, team droolycat!

(Those of us who frequently follow my posts might recognize some of these tunes - sorry for posting them repeatedly!)

tracklist
01 i didn't see it coming - belle & sebastian
02 miami - foals
03 good intentions paving co - joanna newsom
04 someone great - lcd soundsystem
05 i heard it through the grapevine - the slits
06 john, i'm only dancing - david bowie
07 tighten up - the black keys
08 12:51 - the strokes
09 inspiration information - sharon jones & the dap-kings
10 one - yeasayer
11 not in love (ft. robert smith) - crystal castles
12 used to be - beach house
13 all the wine - the national
14 abel - the national
15 snowfall - esquivel

download the chrismukkah mix 2010 here

If all things go to plan, tomorrow i am booked on flight #3 back to the States. This Time Tomorrow is one of my favorite songs about flying:

i hope i make it home sometime this year! wish me luck...

Snowy Mix

Snow! It is finally here, and while it may not accumulate to much, at least it feels like winter finally. I think the mixes we make for wintertimes are sometimes the best ones. I remember winter 2007 when I came home from my first semester of college, I got in a very wonderful Animal Collective (Sung Tongs + Feels)  cocoon, complimented by some eccentric retro pop. Actually, I've never really left that mode. Anyway, if you can't go out because of the weather, might as well listen to fantastic music. What music makes you feel comfy, cozy, warm-all-over? 
Warning about this playlist: I've been really into Bollywood music lately...

Extra: Beach House just released this new track, "I Do Not Care for the Winter Sun", what do we think? I was completely in love with Beach House last winter, but I think I'm done with them now...? Love Victoria's voice, but I need something new, I don't know what. 

GET ME BACK TO MY CONTINENT

As you may have heard, the UK is experiencing an extreme weather event (six inches of snow, not the 2 feet they're making it sound like) which is causing airports to shut down, flights canceled, etc. Basically nobody can get anywhere. I've been trying to get back to the states since Saturday - I had no problem getting from Glasgow to London, but then I sat on a plane on the tarmac for 3 hours while we waited to be de-iced, and then that flight was canceled, despite the fact that we had just sat there for 3 hours. Long story short, everything was canceled or overbooked indefinitely, so I got myself on another flight from London > Paris > Boston for the 21st, but then my flight from London > Paris was canceled. Everyone's trying to get back home, so all buses and trains anywhere are booked until sometime into next year. Luckily I was able to cancel my flight from Paris to Boston. I am now booked on a third flight from London to NYC on Christmas Day.

Thankfully I am not still sitting in Heathrow Hell (the below picture is 100% true - those are people sleeping under tinfoil for warmth)

but rather in a hotel in Windsor, London - with all my bags, a bed, and a shower. I am VERY grateful to be here (I've been here since Saturday night) - it was a good plan to get a hotel room after I got myself on a new flight; shortly thereafter I was kicked out of Heathrow itself. More people kept showing up, and if you had alternate plans you were being asked to leave to make way for more people.

But in the meantime i present to you my ANTHEM OF HEATHROW HELL 2010

YES.

Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy with Will Ferrell & John C. Reilly from Will Ferrell

Merry Christmas?

Janelle Monae!

Check this woman out. Janelle Monae, you may have heard her single "Tightrope" which features Big Boi of Outkast fame. I actually saw Ms. Monae live in Summer 2009, when she opened for No Doubt. Well, I was expecting Gwen Stefani to steal the show fashion-wise, but Janelle put up a stiff competition with her awesome bouffant and retro menswear outfit. And she can sing!

I have been playing "Cold War" over and over in my car, what a great driving song. My favorite part is how just when you think it is just another 2010 pop song...two minutes in some guitar action blows in out of nowhere and carries the whole thing away. Thank god, some pop stars still like guitars. I mean, yeah, I can dig some electro beats, but I'll take some classic Queen over Lady Gaga any day.

If only to wish Janelle a belated birthday, (it was yesterday, December 1st!) have a listen to "Cold War", and definitely check out her website to listen to her entire album, The Archandroid (originally released May 2010). Ugh, I just think she is the coolest. Her and Lady Gaga should probably battle, and then the both of them should unite and lock Ke$ha away somewhere where we never have to hear her again. While on the subject, I'm not concerned about The Bieber, he's pretty much doomed anyway.

Too much?

So Sufjan Stevens played Jimmy Fallon a couple night ago... Thoughts?

step into my office, baby

There are two perks of being a postgraduate research student.
Perk #1 is having a card that says "[University] Researcher"
Perk #2 is spending my days in an office where the only directive is really just to read.
(Implied Perk #3 is that i have an office.)

Luckily I'm the sort of person who can read and listen to music at the same time, but unluckily we do not have access to Pandora here in the UK. I understand there are ways around this, but lately I've been playing with the Genius Button on iTunes for a similar sort of effect. There have been some great things coming out of this, actually.

Since it has been a while since I've posted some music (braver! newer! oh god!) I return triumphantly with THINGS I HAVE BEEN LISTENING TO IN THE OFFICE, the mix. My office faces all of the city; it's a beautiful view and I've been trying to get a halfway decent picture of it, but the major weather pattern here is "Gray", which makes it kind of hard to get a good picture. I've been trying for ages, believe me. So here is another picture of me, because clearly I am important, in my office. Come listen to some tunes with me.

1. 23 - blonde redhead
2. mistaken for strangers - the national
3. gila - beach house
4. lloyd, i'm ready to be heartbroken - camera obscura
5. shine a light - wolf parade
6. all my friends - lcd soundsystem
7. i heard it through the grapevine - the slits
8. bigmouth strikes again - the smiths
9. undertow - warpaint
10. i didn't see it coming - belle & sebastian
download this (.zip)
So now you too can pretend to be in Glasgow reading about pronouns! Fun facts: Camera Obscura and Belle & Sebastian are both from here, and this city might be the perfect place for fans of The Smiths. (Seriously. The Queen is Dead could be the soundtrack to this city.)

Also, I just started writing some stuff this week, and I also just started compiling a database of sorts. For reasons I can't quite explain, I really like listening to pop music and/or hip hop when I do this (I may or may not have written large chunks of my senior thesis to Lady Gaga.) Girl Talk just released a new album which you can get for FREE here, which is perfectly timed! I am very pleased. Like any mashup album, it has its hits and misses, but it is worth a listen to just to hear "Hey Ladies" (the beastie boys) vs "lust for life" (iggy pop), even for a few seconds.

braver newer musics

Do you ever think to yourself, "I am not reaching my potential as a pretentious person?"
Sometimes I feel this way. To fix this, I went to an experimental music festival this weekend.

INSTAL, an annual pretentiousness festival, was pretty much as ridiculously obnoxious as advertised. A lot of it was obtuse for the sake of being obtuse - a lot of it was about how to destroy self-expression in music. That said, there were some really cool parts that were doing something really interesting. I was there for Saturday for about six hours until I really couldn't take it any more - I left shortly after a piece that was entirely samples of sirens.

Soon I will post some tunes again, I promise! I've met a couple of DJs, so if you are looking for some hot beats, this should tide you over for a while. (This second link will contain some Braver Newer Musics from Instal.)

Sunday Seu

Today is a Zissou-Seu Jorge day :)

That was the worst Christmas ever!

Aww, poor Droolycat! No, I have not forgotten you.

I know it is only the beginning of November! But let's be honest. People are Christmas shopping. I'm thinking about Christmas shopping. Which I will do mostly online because I refuse to get caught up in the maddening crowds this time of year. Who likes being stuck in traffic in a parking lot for an hour?

(Helpful random sidenote: "Cyber Monday" is something I never knew existed until it was too late last year...it's like the Black Friday of the internet, post-Black Friday.)

First of all, I generally dislike November. I think the only highlight may be Thanksgiving, for obvious reasons. If you think about it, it would make more sense for Thanksgiving to happen in October, at the end of the fall harvest. However, we've already got Halloween in October, November needs some action, therefore, Thanksgiving in November. Otherwise, it is a chilly month where the nights creep in earlier and earlier and all the beautiful leaves from October are shed away and turned into brown street mush.

Anyway, what does this have to do with music?

Sufjan!

I confess, I've started listening to Sufjan Stevens' Christmas music in my car. I started, like, a week or two ago. Yeah, they are Christmas songs. Yeah, they sound like Christmas songs. But they also sound like great Sufjan tunes, and I can't think of a better person (Andrew Bird?) for making spiritually minded wintery songs that translate all season long. Especially when listening to an album of songs versus a few songs on a mix, because they blend together and create more of a mood/environment. (AKA. If you pop a few of those Sufjan Christmas songs into mixes, you reach them and it's like, wait, what? Christmas? Why am I listening to this? They stand out more.)

So, I was born in December, a so-called Winter Baby, but even so, I have grown to hate the cold (but I do love the holidays!). I commute every day in my car and lately the sun has not been shining, and if you're like me and need a break from this, try on Sufjan's Christmas collection just for fun...if only for the banjo action! Banjos are soooo November, in my opinion.

Also, he is coming to Boston this week and I could not be more dismayed that I won't be going. The tickets are too expensive, even though I've been listening to Sufjan for what feels like forever and it would be worth it. It is also not general admission and I hate concerts like that, where you are forced into a seat and you never know what the view or sound will be like until you get there. It isn't fair! But, cheers to whoever is going this week, he's got two shows, Thursday and Friday.

if it's too loud you're too old

Hi Team Droolycat! I have planned a busy weekend for myself - I'm having a proper Glasgow weekend full of gigs. I've mentioned the list on Droolycat before - last night was their 25th Anniversary party at The Arches, which is this underground performance space. It promised to be the best of Scottish indie culture; since I don't know any good UK things, it was worth my while.

Here are some of the bands I saw:

Come On Gang! (postpunkish)


King Creosole (if neutral milk hotel was scottish and less intrigued by Anne Frank, OR, what I want Okkervil River to sound like.)


Errors (Have you ever wondered what would happen if Giraffes? Giraffes! and Animal Collective were in the same band? WORRY NOT, I have solved your problems.)


RM Hubbard


Tonight I am seeing KT Tunstall, because I like to imagine Life at 40 preemptively, and on Sunday night, a guy from my program is headlining a metal show for charity. I hope I still have eardrums on Monday morning.

SHIRELLES

So, I have been listening to the Shirelles nonstop for a day now. Sometimes I find myself doing this with certain bands, albums, or songs (anyone who knew me in high school can vouch for my consistent obsession with The Strokes, haha). Before yesterday, for example, I had pretty much been listening to Vetiver's To Find Me Gone for a week straight. I have to "thumbs down" the song "Red Lantern Girls", though, just because of the booming madness in the middle of the song...the whole album is so chill and nice, then suddenly it's like he decided to wake us up midway with blaring guitar sirens. It isn't a good wake up, the feeling is reminiscent of having an ambulance crash into your house while you are sleeping at 4 in the morning. The rest of the album is pretty good though, good fall weather driving music.

Anyway, I am a big Motown fan, I've been listening to "the oldies" my whole life. When I was a kid, my Gam would drive my brother and I around all the time with the oldies playing when we'd visit every summer in Pennsylvania. The Shirelles aren't technically Motown, I don't think, but they've got that sound if you know what I mean. I love the video of them performing live, what a fun group. I want to go back in time and be a Shirelle...

But how do you go from Vetiver and Devendra to the Shirelles? Well, I'll admit, I did rock some Beatles in between. The Beatles can pretty much take you from Artist A to Artist X and Artist Z at any point in time. It's true. So I threw some Beatles covering the Marvelettes and Shirelles on the Shirelles mix too...

Headphones Mix!!

Here's what I did with my Christmas break last year. Wear your headphones for this one, kids!

in which I am pretentious / high art, local news

Glasgow might be a hotbed of hipster indie rockers, but there's all this culture to experience. I don't think I've mentioned this here, but I live across the street from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Droolycat is probably a little bit more oriented towards "not classical" music, but I still think this is pretty cool, you know?

This weekend is Minimal Weekend with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
I wasn't able to find a picture of the advertisements around town, but this flyer is basically what they looked like. (Also, I am all dressed up for a Night At The Orchestra!)
It's across the street from me, and with a lineup like that I couldn't bring myself to miss it! Unfortunately, I don't have the money to attend everything (though I wish i did), so I decided I was going to see two performances. It's hard to explain what minimalist music is like and make it still sound appealing, so I figured I would just go by myself and enjoy it. Instead of going out to a pub or a club or something, I figured I could get cultured. When's the next time this is going to be on my doorstep anyway?

I just got back from Brian Eno's Apollo (This Is For All Mankind), as performed in its entirety by the BBC Scottish Orchestra, a band called Icebreaker and BJ Cole on pedal steel guitar. Holy shit you guys, it was awesome. If you don't already own it, download Apollo here.

I ended up running into my professor and his wife tonight; we sat together and we're meeting again tomorrow for Philip Glass' Music With Changing Parts. If it's anything like tonight's performance, I am already excited.

musings on october

I have finally stopped listening to Belle & Sebastian (I totally haven't, their new album just came out, the first song is brilliant), but I should probably talk about something else today.


Fall is settling in here - it's far more gray than a New England autumn, that's for sure! Broken Bells' song October is quite appropriate for fall, no matter where you are.


Last weekend I saw a gig which happened to a farewell show/album release party for a band called Be A Familiar, with two supporting bands, each better than the last. (One of them was called Endor, check them out too.) Apparently this country only produces music I love. I bought Be A Familiar's album, because, well, why not? I'll never get a chance to see them again. It's amazing. Here's the opening track: Had Your Fill (right-click "save file as").

we're not jokin, just jokin, we are jokin, just jokin, we're not jokin

Call me Dwight Schrute, the way that I eat beats.

The track is: Das Racist - "hahahaha jk?"

I've been a big fan of these guys ever since the first time I heard "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell". End of Story.

http://dasracist.net/

I wish that you were here with me to pass the dull weekend

I've been asking the other graduate students what Glaswegians do on the weekends, because I really have no idea what to do with myself in a city by myself. They all said the same thing:

Go to gigs!

Okay, great, but where do i start? Glasgow is kind of like Brooklyn, where everyone I meet is either in a band (or two or three...) or knows the people in the bands. Every pub plays live music at least once a week and there are about eighty thousand pubs in Glasgow. Luckily there are some publications to help me (the list and the skinny), both of which are fairly comprehensive. But what's good and worth my time and what's bad? Remember that this place gave us both Belle & Sebastian (I've been told that if I keep my eyes open I'll run into them around town) and Franz Ferdinand (who, i've been told, are "wankers".)

So, Team Droolycat, I need your help. What are some shows I should definitely check out?

Today is my first day of school!

So glad I found this! It's Paul Simon's son, Harper, and the video features Jenna Malone. So adorable!

What does glasgow sound like?

The Glaswegian accent is something to hear at least once. It's quite a thick Scottish accent; I think I understand something like 45% of what is said to me at any given time.

Here is a very instructional video!



It's slowly getting better though - I've started to pick up what is being said to me, and I'm starting to think in a Scottish accent a bit. ("Teeeeuuuuuuuusday" and "Steeeeeuuuuuuert" are the most prevalent ones in my brain so far, as classes start on Tuesday and I met a guy named Stewart in my program.)


Oh, and for music? Belle & Sebastian is on constant repeat! Check out Dear Catastrophe Waitress if you haven't (download it here). DCW may not their best effort, but it is definitely appropriately Glaswegian. It makes a lot more sense hearing it after being here!

Albums I listen to while flying rainicorns

Hi guys. So a few weeks ago on facebook my friend Jeremy posted a not too deliberated over and quick list of his favorite 15 albums. He prompted me to do the same, and I did. Ashley saw that and prompted me to post it here, so I am. This isn't a definitive list of my favorite albums, there were some thing that had to be cut sadly, and some that i just didn't think about. But anyway, i can assure you that every album on this list will transport you to a state absolute aural bliss. Most of them should be easily available in the usual places, like mediafire.

1. World's End Girlfriend - Hurtbreak Wonderland

2. Animal Collective - Feels

3. Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane over the Sea

4. Joanna Newsom - Ys

5. Sigur Ros - Agaetis Bryjun

6. At the Drive-In - The Relationship of Command

7. Boards of Canada - The Campfire Headphase

8. Marnie Stern - This is it...

9. Mount Eerie - No Flashlight

10. Phillip Glass - Glassworks

11. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport

12. Anton Bagatov - Tetractys (find partial here: http://beta.wnyc.org/shows/newsounds/2010/mar/15/)

13. Modest Mouse - The Lonesome Crowded West

14. The Books - Lost and Safe

15. Toumani Diabate - The Mande Variations

Now that fall is (almost) here, I've yet again commenced with playing Robyn Hitchcock's I Often Dream of Trains (1985), my absolute favorite fall album, by one of my all-time favorite artists. Robyn Hitchcock has been around since he was in this punk band called Soft Boys in the late 70s, and has been a solo artist since the early 80s. He's not really well known outside of England, which is unfortunate because he's amazing and has influenced countless musicians/bands that operate outside of the mainstream. (He also does stand-up comedy, often mixed in with his more acoustic shows - I saw him live a couple of years ago and he's just as bizarre as you'd think and fucking HILARIOUS.)

Anyways, here's a link to some of my favorite songs from him, the first being the title track from the wonderful autumn-themed album I mentioned.

"I Often Dream of Trains"


"Cynthia Mask" (from the album Eye)


"The Man with the Lightbulb Head" (from the album Fegmania! with his band the Egyptians)

Ok The Books are playing UNH for free. That's cool and I just discovered this song. Very reminiscent of Simon and Garfunkel, no?

heather's pick: songs for A Big Move

Tomorrow night (wednesday) at 10 pm, I am getting on an airplane that will take me to London; my connecting flight to Glasgow is on Thursday morning. I'm not a writer and I'm not a musician, so sometimes I have to adopt other people's words and sounds as my own.

Here are some songs I have been listening to a lot lately.

Terrible Love, The National
"It takes an ocean not to break." I could shorten this entire list to The National... but where's the fun in that? (But seriously, listen to The National.)

Think Long, Mates of State
Am I allowed to have a packing anthem? If so, it's this.

Going To Georgia, The Mountain Goats
"The most remarkable thing about coming home to you is the feeling of being in motion again: its the most extraordinary thing in the world." I listened to this as I drove away from NH and watched the sun set on the highway this past sunday night.

This Time Tomorrow, The Kinks
"I feel the world below me looking up at me / Leave the sun behind me, and watch the clouds as they sadly pass me by / And I'm in perpetual motion and the world below doesn't matter much to me"

Come Downstairs And Say Hello, Guster
high-school heather would be happy to see this song on this playlist.

Aside, The Weakerthans
"And I'm leaning on this broken fence, between past and present tense"
a nice reminder that we've gone far, but we're still so young.

I and Love and You, The Avett Brothers
this whole album is amazing, but this first song gets me every time.

A New Career In A New Town, David Bowie
This song strikes me as being oddly appropriate for any sort of move. FUN FACT: it is one of my favorite Bowie songs ever.

Staráfur, Sigur Ros
i always listen to this song as my plane descends over its destination, right as we're about to land. if you can get the timing right, it's absolutely beautiful.

download these songs here.

And, if you happen to be awake at 4:25 am EST, you should listen to Staráfur with me while my plane lands in London.

Loving this song right now. Reminds me of Elton?

Sleepy Sunday

I kinda liked my YouTube playlist thing from last time, so I'm doin' it again. Like last time, I'm not really a fan of the videos, just the tunes. I have to mention, I'm really frustrated with the fact that nobody has a solid upload of "Unmade Bed" on YouTube, and while I enjoy the live version posted above, the recorded version is one of my most favorite songs of all time. Lykke Li, also, I'm a big fan. Scandinavians! Ahh! Love! And Vetiver, well, they will probably be on every playlist I make, so get used to it. The Kinks are also a staple, there must be Kinks all year round.

SLEEPY SUNDAY PLAYLIST

1. Floating Vibes ~ Surfer Blood

2. The Lonesome Border ~ Dear Nora

3. Unmade Bed ~ Sonic Youth

4. Around My Smile ~ Hope Sandoval

5. Happy ~ Mazzy Star

6. I'm Good, I'm Gone ~ Lykke Li

7. How Many Hearts ~ Travis

8. The Right Place ~ Monsters of Folk

9. Sphagnum Esplanade ~ The Shins

10. Everyday ~ Vetiver

11. Days ~ The Kinks

12. Ease Your Feet in the Sea ~ Belle & Sebastian

On another note, I just got ODDSAC (the new Animal Collective film) in the mail and I can't wait to watch! I saw them live for the first time last year in London at the Forum, seems so long ago now. I am keeping an open mind about the film, I just hope that it is as visually stunning as their music deserves. I've always wanted to make a music video for "Winter's Love", which is probably my #1 most favorite song of all time ("Unmade Bed" above is like, #5 most favorite). Their music always brings me into a certain environment, and I hope that ODDSAC will prove to be a fun one to jump inside for 55 minutes.

Hooray for Drooly Cats!

Here's my "Good Things I've Been Listening to Lately" playlist. Enjoy! PS. Use Grooveshark to get tunes to play on here. You can make a playlist right on the site and they give you a code to copy and paste wherever :)

Shaboob!

^This is most of the below playlist, playable via YouTube. Watch the Cee Lo vid!

Revival ~ Deerhunter

Taos ~ Menomena

Five O'Clock World ~ The Vogues

Girls With English Accents ~ Fergus & Geronimo

Baby ~ Devendra Banhart

Marathon - Mastered AAC ~ Tennis

Strictly Rule ~ Vetiver

Baby I'm Yours ~ Arctic Monkeys

Oh! Sweet Nuthin' ~ The Velvet Underground

Fuck You ~ Cee-Lo Green

Blue Spotted Tail ~ White Antelope

Johnny's Theme ~ The Skygreen Leopards

Ahh! I can't figure out for the life of me how to make music play from this blog. Until then, I figured it would be better to just post this playlist as is. In a day or so, I'll post a link to download the whole thing, but for now, I've linked the songs to places where they can be heard (YouTube, MySpace), and that being said, I don't support whatever videos that have been put to the songs, so just ignore them. I'm pretty much obsessed with the first track by Deerhunter lately, so good to listen to while driving. I listen to most of this stuff while driving to school...


I get most of my inspiration from Pandora radio, to be honest. I really love crafting my own station with the system of "thumbs up" or "thumbs down". I like lots of different kinds of music, but in general I'm drawn to retro folky psychadelic stuff. It's so hard to categorize music! Enough of this.

My Pandora station that I work on and listen to all the time is called Guksi. My own blog is also called Guksi, but I mostly post projects or photos on there. On my next post I'll make a playlist comprised of some of my favorite bands of all time. Most of my playlists are pretty relaxed, chilled out, but I do like to rock out once in awhile. 

changing leaves, crisp weather, and hot cider

Hi everyone! my name is Heather and I'm not sure if we should be doing introductions but I'm going to do it anyway.

In my head I call this Team Droolycat and I am very excited to be a part of it! I can't wait to hear what you guys have put together. I like most music, and one of my life goals is to meet someone who writes/produces pop music. I'm about to be (read: in two weeks) a graduate student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland and I maintain a blog about that.

My first playlist is a variation of a cd that's been in my car for the past year. These songs make me think of changing leaves, crisp weather, and hot cider.


FALLTASTIC: a playlist by heather
1. undone in sorrow - crooked still
2. kingdom of the animals - iron & wine
3. satellite skin - modest mouse
4. girl on the wing - the shins
5. sleep the clock around - belle & sebastian
6. my flying saucer - billy bragg & wilco
7. this tornado loves you - neko case
8. measuring cups - andrew bird
9. carey - joni mitchell
10. second hand news - fleetwood mac
11. soul meets body - death cab for cutie
12. speak for me - cat power
13. don't look back - she & him
14. i hear the bells - mike doughty
you can download this mix here.

First post! Welcome to a funky little music project called 

DROOLYCAT!

We are just a bunch of friends posting playlists of stuff we like, themed or un-themed.

It's going to be a lot of fun, and maybe we'll find some new music through eachother.