Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Round and Round

Let the '70s AM pop wash over you, like a bald man making out with a fox.



The whole album is laudable, but man, that hook.

Chalkdust - Eric Loves Me

(Even when I call him an asshole.)



My primary motivation for posting this -- though Eric's love for me is no doubt eternal -- is to champion a fantastic cover to one of Chalkdust's other albums:



It's calypso Harder They Come, guys!

Garish red vest, shades, no shirt, mini-fro, big-ass revolver: This one has it all. And look at that belt buckle. I found it at Easy Street a month or so back, and I was probably a fool not to buy it. But the title track skipped something awful, and $15 seemed like a premium for wall art. I don't know, maybe I'll go back and see if it's still there.

Plus it's a nice little motif for the other thing. Rally the legion!


...


Aw hell, just one more thing:

The Moondoggies - It's Hard To Love Someone

First, some music from Seattle-area roots-rock heroes The Moondoggies, which you might remember from their best of 2008 effort "Don't Be A Stranger." I picked up this tour/Seattle-only EP for a few bucks at an independent record store here in town. It's comprised of five tracks that didn't make the cut for their forthcoming album, "Tidelands." They are an awesome band and you should listen to them.



And now a little something for the being banned excellent fun times.

Jose Gonzalez - Far Away

Before I begin, let me say I do have a few quibbles about Red Dead Redemption, which I won't get into here. For the most part, it's hard to imagine a game being more deserving of its acclaim. The music is no exception, and this song in particular is integrated into one of the game's best moments.

The Vaselines - Son of a Gun

This song is catchy as hell, and I just don't know any good soccer songs, so I'm going to pretend this is my no-World-Cup-until-Friday-what'll-we-do-til-then? post.



(I thought about nominating The Sporting Life as the Ballad of Cristiano Ronaldo, but I can't even tell you how much I hate that song, which is of course what makes it so perfect.)

Jimmy Silva and the Empty Set - Big House

I've got a special vinyl-bin discovery to share today. I knew nothing about Jimmy Silva when I found this record, "Fly Like A Dog," in the New Arrivals bin at my local record store, and at $15 for one platter, it might have stayed that way. But the album art -- featuring a deliriously grinning child pilot and a biplane (yes, a biplane) soaring out of the sun -- caught my eye. I gave it a spin on the store's listening station. Can't say I was expecting the explosion of garage rock/power pop you hear in the clip, but I took it home either way.

There's not much I can tell you about Jimmy Silva -- he doesn't have a wikipedia page. From what I can gather from liner notes and scant entries on blogs, he was from the Bay Area and lived in Seattle, and died suddenly in 1994 at age 42 (possibly from a run-in with shingles). His last.fm page doesn't add much detail. And then there's the music, which is pretty great.

Marty Robbins - Running Gun

I love Marty Robbins.

The Beatles - Helter Skelter

So I went out to a sports bar last night to watch Game 3 of the NBA Finals with a buddy of mine, and our waitress at one point said "I got a blister on my finger," to which I couldn't help but reply with a Helter Skelter joke. And then nothing. So I went home and found my girlfriend was watching Glee. I am telling you guys, this music snobbery is a lonely existence.



(And I realize this exact clip has already appeared on our blog place.)

Peter and the Wolf - Safe Travels

I heard this song playing as I walked through Frogner Park in Oslo, and I couldn't for the life of me figure how Redding Hunter had found his way to Norway.



(Norwegian chocolate)

a-ha - The Sun Always Shines on TV

CC Cowboys - Barnehjemmet Johnny Johnny

Mayhem - Freezing Moon

Norway, land of enchantment, fjords, and a badass resistance movement during World War II. Probably a lot of mythological stuff that influenced the Lord of the Rings, I don't know. I'm going there!

There is also black metal there.



He cuts himself on his arms, which I believe is known as "metal as fuck." So Mayhem are legends of black metal. They're like the Beatles with more suicide and intra-band murder and the same amount of satanism. There are two infamous moments in this band's history:

1. Their original vocalist Dead slit his wrists and blew his brains out with a shotgun. Upon discovering the body, band members went to the store to buy a disposable camera to take photos, which later appeared on the cover of some bootleg album. According to legend, they made a stew from his brains and necklaces from his skullbits. The band later denied the former and confirmed the latter.

2. In 1993 a temporary member of the band stabbed Mayhem's guitarist to death, a moment that is hauntingly dramatized here.

Look I'm not going to pretend I know anything about this music. I kind of hate it. I absolutely hate it. I just picked the shortest and most slightly palatable clip for you guys because I am going to Norway this Friday. Your suggestions on the method by which I should kill myself while listening to black metal in the comments.

Pixies - Vamos

HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO!

Sparklehorse - Dark as a Dungeon

Wanted to do something topical, and this song is timeless.

Breathe Owl Breathe - Baseball Diamond

Doing something a little different today -- here's video I shot from Breathe Owl Breathe's show Thursday, April 15 at the Tractor Tavern in Ballard. It's an OWY and YouTube exclusive!



I'm sure I've championed this plucky folk band from Northern Michigan before, but last week was my first chance to see them live. They opened for Megafaun and Horse Feathers at the Tractor. (I was too lame and an old man to stay for the latter two sets, and so can't offer a report.) You'll hear some chatter through this recording, but overall the reception at the Tractor was pretty strong -- enough that they came back for an encore, a rarity for an opening band (in my experience, at least). Lead singer Micah Middaugh -- whose voice could pass for Bill Callahan on an endorphin kick -- dropped references to Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton into one of his songs, which is a thing that I can love. The show was part concert, part summer camp -- they guided us through the typical clap-and-response but also the wave and a sabertooth-tiger dance that involved sticking your hands to the sides of your face and rolling the index fingers downward to form tusks. It was silly and goofball and altogether wonderful.

I picked up their most recent album on vinyl at the show and have given it a couple playthroughs, and I'm pretty high on it. Their songs take these seemingly mundane slices of everyday life and breathe a heartwrenching honesty into them. I think that's a good way to describe them, is honest, and I would not be surprised if many of their songs were inspired by personal experience, a chance encounter or a childhood memory. And then they also have their songs about sabertooth tigers escaping from glaciers to go out dancing (which itself was probably inspired by a trip to the museum of natural history).

And what's this? A Daytrotter session from three days ago?

Electric Light Orchestra - Evil Woman

So many reasons to go with this one:

1. That vurbil dude is cracking me up.

2. This came on the radio when I was driving to work yesterday, and I knew the song but couldn't place the artist, because fuck if I can keep track of 1970s progressive-rock chart-toppers. When the host came on for an air break and said it was ELO, I kind of sank down in my seat a little.

3. It's the other Wilbury!

4. It's an acronym band that sucks!

5. Lou!

6. Need more prog-rock up in this shit.

The Clash - Gates of the West

Still waiting on Reno to hand over that copy of London Calling.

Brainiac - Hot Metal Dobermans

I am pro-Brainiac.



(This one goes out to my buddy Tim, who introduced me to these guys in college. Tim is also the guy who convinced me than Brussels sprouts are really tasty, so your results may vary.)

Big Star - O, Dana

Craig covered the Box Tops sound last week, and as the last person on earth to discover Big Star, I thought I'd follow up with this song from their 1978 (and final) album, Third/Sister Lovers.

"I worry whether this is my last life."

The Pogues - Streams of Whiskey

I'm not one to tinker with the formula.



(Just make sure it's not Bushmills -- that's Protestant whiskey.)