So, importing these songs just nudged my itunes folder to over 5000 songs. I guess it’s fitting then, that the song that did it was something off an album I’ve had for a long time but kind of forgot about until I reorganized and refiled all my CDs last week. My bedroom is so much more organized-looking now (despite the American flags, Santeria candles, unframed art and pile of beach sand which are still on my floor.) Naturally, I waited until two weeks before I start a new radio show to do that–and chaos will again ensue pretty much the day that starts.
Anyway, here’s this week’s mix. If you like it, buy it. Preferably from somebody that could use your money, and that actually likes music.
1. Johnny Cash, Kneeling Drunkard’s Plea
2. Cerys Matthews, Arglwydd Dyma Fi
3. BLOW, I Know Where There’s A Gaping Hole
4. Cast, Walkaway
5. the cranberries, Disappointment
6. Brandy, Can We
7. Elvis Costello, Leave My Kitten Alone
8. Belly, Broken
9. The Avengers, I Want In
10. Alkaline Trio, Blue Carolina
11. Fountains of Wayne, It Must Be Summer
12. Juliana Hatfield, Universal Heart-Beat
13. Dinowalrus, Photoshoppe
14. Hayden, Nights Like These
15. Echobelly, Something Hot In A Cold Country
16. Ellie Greenwich, This Kind Of Boy You Can’t Forget
17. Susanna And The Magical Orchestra, Enjoy The SIlence
18. Gene, London, Can You Wait?
Filed under: Uncategorized
Is two parts gin, one part sweet vermouth, one part dry vermouth, and a whole strawberry.
My take on the drink, which doesn’t involve strawberries but does involve a splash of bitters, is currently nameless. Although I’m generally good at naming cocktails, I’m sort of at a loss for this one, despite the fact that it’s the drink I’ve made myself to take to bed every night this week.
It’s not quite a Palm Desert Boulevard, and I don’t think it’s exactly a Romp In The Hay. It tastes sort of like a Maud Gonne, maybe, but I feel like a Maud Gonne would involve Bailey’s. If I were naming it after a Saint Etienne song it would be a 4:35 In the Morning, but that seems sort of clunky for a drink name. It could also be a Panopticon, but I don’t think that conveys the deliciousness of this drink…
Ideas, anyone?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: guys that could kick the shit out of me, vin diesel, mathieu kassovitz, movies, semiotext(e)
Back when Heath Ledger was Not Yet Dead, I used to have a theory that he and Charlotte Rampling were the same person. So stony, so inexplicably popular, with dark eyes set way back in their sockets like they were both wearing very heavy, very pale masks.
Anyway, I don’t know if you heard or not, but Heath Ledger is No Longer With The Living, so it’s probably tacky to claim that he and Charlotte Rampling are in fact the same person. Especially when he’s getting all sorts of post-death buzz about his performance in The Dark Knight (which I still haven’t seen, since I only ever go to movies in the winter.) And now she’s in Babylon AD, alongside Gerard Depardieu and sorta-hot-in-a-Bulldog-face-way Jerome Le Banner and Michelle Yeoh and lovably hunky Vin Diesel. It’s directed by Mathieu Kassovitz of La haine and Gothika fame and based on the novel Babylon Babies by Maurice Dantec. Here’s the trailer and the poster, which looks like the poster for every movie ever.
I should mention that the only reason I know about this movie is because the book it’s based on was put out by Semiotext(e). I haven’t seen any trailers or anything, because the few things I watch on TV (lately limited exclusively to the Olympics and Days of Our Lives) don’t ever show any, and I never think to watch them online.
[PS--I'm sorry that my French has deteriorated to the point that I couldn't come up with a clever or particularly grammatical title for this post.]
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Karina Pasian, too. Sadly I’ll be in the backseat for the upcoming New York trip and doubt I’ll have any control over the music selection. So it won’t be like the last time I went to the big city, right after the Lil Mama CD dropped. It’ll be more like the previously non-existent time that I sat in the back seat and probably got car sick and leg cramps while the high-powered people around me all talk on their cell phones.
We’re also allegedly leaving at 3 PM, which I think means we’ll hit the worst of all possible traffic in Providence, New Haven, Bridgeport, Stamford, and, of course, New York itself.
Yay.
So, this marks my 250th post on the site. Woot! I was hoping that would coincide with my finally getting to 5000 mp3s on my computer, but I’m at 4958 and my computer is saying that it’s dangerously low on memory, so i may not actually make it to 5000. But, um, I just hit 200 Facebook friends. So I guess that’s something.
Anyway, that’s all. I sort of thought this would be a momentous post, but I can’t really think of much to say. I’m listening to Nelly Furtado’s last album. After two years and a month I still love the heck out of it.
Okay, back to work on the film festival…
I’m working more or less around the clock until I leave for New York on Thursday, so forgive me if I’m a little light with the posting this week. But I wanted to quickly point out that there’s a new track by Hungarian band The Unbending Trees featuring Tracey Thorn. It’s torchy and lovely, and streaming on her Myspace now.
In general, I think Thorn is a lady with pretty amazing taste, and I’m not just saying that because she’s recently covered the Magnetic Fields and the Pet Shop Boys. I remember back when I was fifteen and the Everything But The Girl website was just text laid over a pink leopard print .GIF. I used to avidly follow all of her book recommendations. Which is how I discovered Philip Roth, and A Very Long Engagement, and a lot of other things that I thought were very beautiful and deep, not to mention Ben Watt’s memoir about his crazy surgery.
Her Myspace is currently also streaming two covers, a version of the Velvet Underground’s Femme Fatale from her 1982 solo album and a take on The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game (a different version of which was on last week’s Mixtape–oh, the synchronicity!!) that first appeared on, of all ungodly things, the Batman Forever soundtrack.
So, in that weird way that I have where I’m simultaneously hyper-aware and totally clueless, I didn’t realize when I posted the other day about Ryan McGinley that he did those new French wrangler ads that everybody’s so worked up about.
I for one don’t see what the big woo is. It’s just a vaguely gratuitous campaign by one of the world’s least interesting brands to remind people that they exist. And, as we all know, there’s no way to do that more successfully than with skinny white girls and ambiguous hints of violence. The company’s not even running the ads in this country, presumably because there would be much moral rallying by moral types, and confusion on the part of the cowfolk who actually wear Wrangler’s formless and unflattering products.
Anyway, I think the ads are sort of interesting-looking, though I tend to judge ads very differently when I see them in print then when I see them on a computer screen when I’m at work trying not to die of boredom.
But mostly I’d say they’re pretty decent, if not amazing or particularly worth twisting your panties about. Though I do agree with the Gawker commenter who said that they look like the inside of Tori Amos’s head.
So, in an attempt to erase this morning’s dreadful American Top 40 memories* and also alleviate the totally annoying work stress I’m going through right now, I decided to spend my afternoon listening to this old thing on repeat until I go to lunch:
(*Seriously, it’s pretty bad when Flo Rida is the best thing in an hour’s worth of music and you have to spend the rest of the time wondering why you’re supposed to care about whoever it is that Ryan Seacrest is interviewing…)
Filed under: Uncategorized
(Re: my post last night)
Today: phelps kavic, ruban viktor, phelps kavic fina, phelps and kavic, truckasaurus, truckasauras, phelps cock, phelps & kavic, kavic serbia swim 100m butterfly, “michael phelps” cock
Yesterday:michael phelps is a twat, karina pasian, sweaty artemisbell, “viktor ruban”, “michael phelps” douche, the brewster project orish, phelps butterfly kavic, tokio hotel, jamie hince, mike kavic swimmer
Filed under: music | Tags: 69 love songs, Stephin Merritt, the magnetic fields
This morning, I threw on the first disc of 69 Love Songs for the first time in a few months. And I’m still amazed that, even though I’ve probably listened to the whole collection hundreds of times it for the last nine years, there are still a few songs on it that I feel like I never noticed before.
Like today, when Parades Go By came on, I wasn’t even sure what it was at first. About twenty seconds in, before the singing started, I remembered the title, but then I didn’t know it enough to sing along. After the song was over, I looked at the lyric sheet and the written words didn’t even look familiar.
It’s definitely one of the slighter numbers on 69 Love Songs, especially in comparison with, say, The Luckiest Guy On The Lower East Side or Sweet-Lovin’ Man. But it’s nice, with Stephin Merritt’s melodramatic vocals laid over a surprisingly arty mix of spare-sounding synths.
