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").