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oxford collapse party monday night plus playlist

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

I’ve finally purchased a new external hard drive, so… once i get all the new music i’ve been stockpiling on there (umm… literally 80 GB awaiting importing), these playlists should come more often. In the meantime, here’s a great long playlist, and then a very exciting announcement below about Oxford Collapse.

Here’s this week’s playlist.

NP: “A Vespertine Haunting” - Alive In Wild Paint. A band that sounds like Coldplay on Equal Vision Records? Bizarro.
NP: “Tears In The Morning” - The Beach Boys. Just a damn pleasant song.
NP: “Time After Time” - Cyndi Lauper. I gave the Cyndi Lauper debut album a bunch of listens last week. What a seriously amazing work of art this thing is. Check out the Bonus Tracks below for some more from it.
NP: “Adam And Nathan Totally Kick Ass” - El Ten Eleven. For fans of Ratatat and Holy Fuck… this is some seriously catchy electronic instrumental rock.
NP: “Accountants Dream” - Entire Cities. Toronto band checks in with a deliciously fun record. This song kinda gets me fired up in a very teenage way.
NP: “Rat Pack Dad” - Half Cousin. I don’t know anything about this. Reminds me of Hood, with a bit of something else that I can’t put my finger on. As soon as it stops playing, I forget what it sounds like. Then I click on it again, and I remember. Strange.
NP: “Master Of The Universe” - Hawkwind. Andy from Frightened Rabbit has taken to wearing a Hawkwind shirt with regularity, and it’s gotten me on a Hawkwind kick.
NP: “Stripmining & Refrain” - James. The last number (or two, depending on how you look at it) on their masterpiece (in my opinion) Strip-Mine.
NP: “Stood Up To Leave” - Jules Mark Shear. New Jules Shear album! Oh, my! I had no idea. Jules is best known for being covered by other folks, but I’ve always been a massive fan. See Bonus Tracks below for some more Jules Shear goodness.
NP: “You Don’t Come See Me Anymore” - Malcolm Holcombe. New record from drunken fuck-up Malcolm Holcombe proves he’s officially taken the baton from Steve Earle.
NP: “The Sun Smells Too Loud” - Mogwai. This seems to be everybody’s favorite from the new record, because it’s so damn pretty. But… you know what? it’s really fucking pretty, so I’m putting it on here.
NP: “Young Love Delivers” - Oxford Collapse. The next single from their new album “BITS” Look for a kick-ass new video in the next couple of weeks.
NP: “Little Ones” - Parts & Labor. If I told you this was an early 7″ on Lazy Records from 1986, you’d believe me. If I told you this was some new California 15-piece quasi-religious ensemble, you’d believe me. Amazing.
NP: “Block Preachers (Edit)” - Richard Pryor. Classic Richard Pryor.
NP: “A Beautiful Place” - Robert Wyatt. Simply beautiful. Download immediately.
NP: “The Prettiest Tree” - Slow Down Tallahassee. A bit too indie-by-numbers, I suppose, but a pretty lovely song nonetheless.
NP: “Fear And Convenience” - Thao. Remember the other day when you said that you were ready to hear a songwriter that combined the voice and inflection of Edie Brickell and Tanita Tikaram and wrote songs that sounded like Stephen Malkmus or Isaac Brock was the principle songwriter in Wilco instead of Jeff Tweedy? You don’t remember that conversation? Never mind, then. I’m a bit late (a lot late) to posting Thao, but… better late than never.
NP: “George Says He Has Lost His Way In This World” - The Clientele. Song from the new EP. The Clientele have just simply hit their stride. It’s amazing to watch and hear a band 100% being themselves.
NP: “Love In A Car” - The House Of Love. A couple of weeks ago I listened to The House Of Love’s first eponymous album from 1988 for a day or two. In particular, “My Love In A Car” over and over and over again. At the time I said, “I’m not much of a writer, but I think I could put down a good 5000 words David Foster Wallace style on this song if I wanted.” I feel a bit awkward about the DFW reference, but it IS true. Here’s a hint: you might be disappointed with the fade out on the first 15-20 listens, but by the time you get to the 50th listen, you’ll recognize just how genius the fadeout on this one is.
NP: “Blood” - The Middle East. I know nothing about this. Not even sure how or where I got it. But this is a pleasant and pretty song.
NP: “Sparkle” - The Nothingdoers. This is either boring and predictable, and comfortable and quaint. The jury’s still out.
NP: “On A Letter” - The Sea And Cake. Time after time, album after album… The Sea And Cake really do just keeping getting better. It’s easy to forget that that’s true, but if you pay attention for a little bit, then you realize. Kinda amazing.
NP: BONUS TRACK “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” - Robert Hazard. Philadelphia lost it’s only real New Wave hero a couple of weeks ago when Robert passed away. Growing up in PA, i thought that Robert Hazard was a pop star the world over. Sadly, that just wasn’t true. But he did write this gem.
NP: BONUS TRACK “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” - Cyndi Lauper. And what an inspired cover this is.
NP: BONUS TRACK “All Through The Night” - Jules Shear. More from Jules.
NP: BONUS TRACK “All Through The Night” - Cyndi Lauper. And Cyndi’s cover from her debut album.
NP: BONUS TRACK “If We Never Meet Again” - Reckless Sleepers. Jules Shear’s shortlived band, with, for my money, one of the 20 most beautiful songs ever written.
NP: BONUS TRACK “If We Never Meet Again” - Tommy Conwell & The Young Rumblers. Another Pennsylvania-only legend. A nice cover, but i can just never forgive them for the small change to one of the most subtle and lovely lines in the original. Listen close and you’ll hear it.
NP: “30_milkshakes__2008_09_30.m3u” - stream all of the above songs.
NP: “30_milkshakes__2008_09_30_part_01.rar” - rar file of all of the above songs (Part 1).
NP: “30_milkshakes__2008_09_30_part_02.rar” - rar file of all of the above songs (Part 2).
NR: Nothing. Being incredibly lazy and bad about reading.

Please come out tonight (Monday night) to our favorite new club to wish Oxford Collapse a bit of a bon voyage at the end of their long US/Canada tour. With a little help from the fine folks at Jack Daniels, Oxford Collapse will be sharing the stage with MiniKiss (yeah… the Little Kiss Tribute Band: http://www.minikissonline.com), there will be drink specials all night, AND we have pretty much unlimited guest list. Wanna come out and party with us?

Monday, October 6
Le Poisson Rouge
—————-
Oxford Collapse
MiniKiss

for guest list, just RSVP to this email with your full name, and whether you need a +1 or a +2.

directions / info:
158 Bleecker Street
New York, NY 10012
http://lepoissonrouge.com


It’s a big week. On Tuesday, we’ll be volunteering at the Barack Rock event at Music Hall Of Williamsburg. It’s 7 bands and 6 comedians donating their time to raise money for the Obama campaign. Here are the advertised entertainers:

Tuesday, October 7
Music Hall Of Williamsburg
—————-
The Fiery Furnaces
Andrew Bird
Les Savy Fav (Acoustic Spectacular!)
Guster
Martin Bisi
Alina Simone
AND SECRET MUSICAL GUESTS!
Lizz Winstead
Eugene Mirman
John Roberts
Kumail Nanjiani
Adira Amram
Heather Lawless
(not listed in order)

for more info, go here:
http://www.myspace.com/barackrockoctober7th

advance tickets:
http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0000413AD6CD6C1B?artistid=1261202&majorcatid=10005&minorcatid=0

or you can go to the Mercury Lounge Box Office from noon to 7:00 PM to avoid the ticketmaster fees

I’m not going to attempt to give you all a political lesson, but suffice it to say: if you are an Obama supporter, and haven’t donated any money, then you need to change that. I’m not saying you need to go to this event, but… you need to make a contribution. Here’s an easy tip: sell a couple of things on ebay, and instead of keeping the money, paypal it to the Obama campaign. Then it doesn’t cost you anything!


And, mark your calendars for this one, the long-awaited return of Frightened Rabbit:

Saturday, October 18
Music Hall Of Williamsburg
—————-
The Spinto Band
Frightened Rabbit
The Sw!ms

advance tickets:
http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/00004105AF6273ED?artistid=1015844&majorcatid=10001&minorcatid=1


And… here’s a dumb note: any poker players out there? i’m reviving my old home game, and looking for a few new folks. mostly $2/$4 limit rotation, but maybe a little $.50/$1.00 PL omaha, or NL, too. Drop me a line if you are interested in more information!


Filed in blogging, mp3s, new music

Frightened Rabbit on One Tree Hill last night

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

episode #107 (s06e01) of One Tree Hill (the season premiere) called “Touch Me I’m Going To Scream Part 1″, first airing on September 1, 2008.  Featuring “Poke” by Frightened Rabbit from the album “The Midnight Organ Fight”.


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finally… a new music playlist

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Wow. alright. it really has been far too long again. a bit of a decent excuse this time, as I recently had a computer stolen, and have slowly been getting back up to full speed. There’s nothing good about it, but… one thing that did come of it was that I lost all the music I had that wasn’t already on the external hard drive. So, I’ve went back and discovered some stuff I missed the first time around. I’ve got like 60GB of stuff waiting to be imported to Itunes already, so… i should be able to put together a bunch of playlists in pretty rapid succession. But you don’t want to hear about that. Here’s some music, and then a very exciting announcement below about Oxford Collapse.

Here’s this week’s playlist.

NP: “For Love Instead” - In The Pines. This isn’t new, but it’s new to me. Kansas City band made an awfully fine record full of simple melodies and plaintive strings. It’s wrought, but not overwrought.
NP: “Summer’s Not The Same Without You” - James Yorkston. It’s nice to hear James sing a simple song without too many production bells and whistles. He drops the whispery, gauzy atmospherics and knocks me on my ass with this straight up little love song.
NP: “Emer’s Dream / Aisling Eimear” - Colm Mac Con Iomaire. Violin player from The Frames drops this absolute gorgeous instrumental album. If I ever produce a movie, I’m having this guy do the score.
NP: “Hungry Heart” - Aidan John Moffat. Speaking of accents, how can I not highlight this cover?
NP: “Holding Out For A Hero” - Doveman. Speaking of covers, how can I not hightlight this? Doveman covers the entire Footloose soundtrack song-by-song. Either the boldest or the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. It definitely works, though.
NP: “Beautiful Eyes” - The Aluminum Group. I will always have a massive soft-spot in my heart for The Aluminum Group. They’ve made a couple of the most ridiculously overlooked records I’ve ever loved. And while this new one doesn’t quite live up to some of their previous work, I’ll still listen, and I’ll still try to cram them down your throat.
NP: “Needlepoint” - The Spinto Band. The long overdue new album from The Spinto Band is finally here. I need to give it about 25 more listens, but… it’s already grown on me tons, and I can’t wait to see them with Frightened Rabbit in a couple of months.
NP: “Alright” - Shh… This Is A Library. Honestly, the worst band name ever. I can’t even believe I’m typing it. And the record is inconsistent, but has some flashes of brilliance. Needs an editor and somebody to call “Oberst” on him every now and then, but… maybe somewhere down the road could be somebody to keep an eye out for.
NP: “Here It Is” - Sennen. If you’re going to name yourself after an early Ride single, you’d better have the songs to back it up. Not just the style, but the songs. Sennen don’t have either, unfortunately. But they DO have a couple of pretty songs. Eight-tenths deduction for appropriating the name.
NP: “I Love You Like A Madman” - The Wave Pictures. OK. I don’t know how the hell I never found this one last year, but… I’m kinda obsessed. Honestly, if you download just one song out of this bunch, make it this one. And if you don’t like it, then, well… I don’t even know what to tell you. Maybe just keep it to yourself, and know that you’ve got something to work on? (For a bit of a hint, though… think Go-Betweens, Jonathan Richman, and Jens Lekman).
NP: “My Mother The War” - 10,000 Maniacs. Oxford Collapse covered this at their last couple of shows. I’m chagrined to say that I didn’t recognize it, but I’m also man enough to admit it. I’m also man enough to admit that it caused me to go back and listen to nothing but 10,000 Maniacs for an entire day last week.
NP: “Bear Face” - Abe Vigoda. The younger, scrappier, punker parallel evolutionary branch that brought us Vampire Weekend in NYC.
NP: “Danseparc (Every Day It’s Tomorrow)” - Martha And The Muffins. This stuff is pretty dated, but… it’s still kinda nice to hear a couple of these songs remastered and reissued.
NP: “Graveyard Dog” - Sunset. I liked this for a little while, but now that I’ve heard it like ten times while making this playlist… now I’m not so sure. I like the OMD-keyboards in the verses… it makes me think of The Breakfast Club, but I guess it’s just too long for its own good, and the drums are starting to sound too much like early Nine Inch Nails.
NP: “Night Terrors” - Wild Sweet Orange. This isn’t really the most representative song on this album, but it jumped out on one of the listens, so I threw it in here. I definitely recommend you track down some more music elsewhere, as the rest of the album has a much different production value.
NP: “In The Battle Of Sun Vs. Curtains, Sun Loses And We Sleep Until Noon” - Woodpigeon. A nice little pop song with a snarky Indie 2.0 song title.
NP: “30_milkshakes__2008_08_20.m3u” - stream all of the above songs.
NP: “30_milkshakes__2008_08_20.rar” - rar file of all of the above songs.
NR: New Yorker article about “The Chameleon”. Lots of web stories about how to encrypt your laptop data for travelling through airport security.

Please come out Thursday night to celebrate the release of “BITS” by Oxford Collapse. Their fourth (and finest) full-length, it came out last Tuesday on Sub Pop. Here’s the show info:

Thursday, August 21
Glasslands Gallery
Oxford Collapse
Italian Ice
Seance
Skiing

advance tickets:
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/41319

more info:
289 Kent Ave (between S. 1st & S. 2nd)
Brooklyn, NY 11211
L to Bedford, J to Marcy
http://www.myspace.com/theglasslands


And, mark your calendars for this one:

Saturday, October 18
Music Hall Of Williamsburg
The Spinto Band
Frightened Rabbit
The Sw!ms

advance tickets:
http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/00004105AF6273ED?artistid=1015844&majorcatid=10001&minorcatid=1


And… here’s a dumb note: any poker players out there? i’m reviving my old home game, and looking for a few new folks. mostly $2/$4 limit rotation, but maybe a little $.50/$1.00 PL omaha, or NL, too. Drop me a line if you are interested in more information!


Filed in blogging, mp3s, new music

holiday 2-for-1

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

OK, OK… it’s been forever. Far too long. But get ready for not one, but TWO big playlists. A lot of this has been piling up, so apologies if some if this isn’t exactly new. We’ll move on with a collection of much newer music next week.

But here’s installment #1 for today, which is a rocking set full of good times.

NP: “Junkeee… Julie…” - Blood On The Wall. The best album outta NYC in the last year? I think so.
NP: “Amongst Friends” - Oxford Collapse. The next “best album outta NYC this year” is going to be the BITS album by Oxford Collapse coming out next month on Sub Pop. This is a song from their 12″ that just came out on Jon Solomon’s new Comedy Minus One label.
NP: “This Love Is Fucking Right!” - The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. And, of course… this may be the best EP outta NYC in quite a while. C-86 fans take note: when The Big Takeover namedrops Close Lobsters in the review of TPOBPAH, you gotta take it seriously.
NP: “The Sandwich Song” - Benny Stoofy. I can’t even begin to explain the strange method by which we became aware of the utterly retarded Benny Stoofy from Detroit, but i have to admit: coming back to it a year later, there’s something worth a listen here. Especially if you’ve ever been a fan of Ween or early Beck.
NP: “Robbin’ The Clown Bank” - Benny Stoofy. Since the songs are so short, here’s a second one.
NP: “Read About It” - Midnight Oil. Went through a kick where I listened to a bunch of the early (pre Diesel And Dust) Midnight Oil records. A couple of them definitely stand the test of time.
NP: “Royal Gregory” - Holy Fuck. So so good. You absolutely must own this record and go see them live. Anything less is not permissible.
NP: “Out At The Pictures” - Hot Chip. Ended up hanging out with them and seeing them play like 5 times in a short period of time. And they were great every time, even though they were plagued with sound problems every time (problems that weren’t the fault of Steve or Ilias, their awesome sound engineers).
NP: “Bendable Poseable” - Hot Chip. Couldn’t pick what song to put, so…
NP: “Wrestlers” - Hot Chip. So I put my 3 favorites from the recent album.
NP: “Come And Dance” - Awesome Color. Glad that something like this is getting some attention. Great organ sounds, truly awesome solos… this is some great rock n roll.
NP: “Jump In The Fire” - The Night Marchers. I wanted for this to be the best thing ever, but instead it was just really good. Great to see Gar from Tanner on guitar and Jason on drums, though. I would watch those two every chance I get.
NP: “Darksided Computer Moth” - White Denim. Austin’s next big export, possibly. I’ve missed them play far too many times. Next time through they are a must-see.
NP: “Alpha” - The Forms. Solid second record from these boys came out last fall and I totally missed it while in the UK for 3 months. Trying to make up for lost time. They’ve added a bit of Wolf Parade or Arcade Fire to the mix this time.
NP: “Cappo” - No Age. Honestly, I don’t really get all the rage. I think they’re fun and have written a couple of catchy and fun songs and put on fun shows, but… I don’t think they’re as worthy as the attention as some other bands, but… It’s still damn exciting to see a band like this getting tons of play on mainstream MTV.
NP: “Foxes Mate For Life” - Born Ruffians. Just a damn catchy song that I’ve been meaning to post here for quite a while. Old news, but still a great song.
NP: “Out Of Sight” - The Brother Kite. Their set with Frightened Rabbit at Piano’s at the start of the tour feels like forever ago, when it was merely 40 days ago, but… they played a great set.
NP: “Campaign” - Russian Circles. I thought this was going to be a little more rocking, but it’s quite lovely in an Explosions In The Sky meets something a little poppier kinda way.
NP: “Fear And Loathing In Mahwah, NJ” - Titus Andronicus. I meant to write about them before they were Pitchfork darlings, but… it was only going to be by like 4 days, anyway, so it doesn’t even matter. They are good, and made an engaging record. Somehow they’ve done for Jersey emo (think: Lifetime, Bouncing Souls) what the Pogues did for Irish Traditional, without it sounding like Dropkick Murphys or Mighty Mighty Bosstones or something and instead sounding like a high school marching band covering Neutral Milk Hotel after practice.
NP: “The Thing I Like Best About Him Is His Girlfriend” - The Wedding Present. Best Wedding Present song (and song title) in quite a while. Couldn’t sniff the bicycle seat of anything offa George Best or Tommy or Bizarro or Seamonsters, of course, but… still an awfully solid track.
NP: “Answering Machine (Solo Home Demo)” - The Replacements. This is the kind of thing re-issues are meant for. I can’t even begin to explain the tingles this caused the first time I heard it. Absolutely spellbinding.
NP: “30_milkshakes__2008_07_01.m3u” - stream all of the above songs.
NP: “30_milkshakes__2008_07_01.rar” - rar file of all of the above songs.
NR: Just purchased “Bullet Park” by John Cheever for at least the third time in my life. 100 pages in and i can’t believe i’ve never opened it before. I’m an idiot.

Installment #2 for today is a much calmer set, but also features some amazing tracks.

NP: “Ay Distress” - Baptist Generals. Still wondering if this is real or staged. I’m thinking real.
NP: “Brothers And Sisters” - Micah P Hinson. Not sure if i’ve met a nicer musician than Micah. It helps that he’s both great and worships Eric Bachmann.
NP: “If It Rains” - Robert Forster. Really should be dedicating like 1000 words to this record. It’s really lovely in every way, and sad as hell. It still hasn’t really sunk in that we’re living in a world where Grant McClennan is dead.
NP: “Peace Has Come” - Hackamore Brick. These guys can still sing and play. Really hope I can help them get another show booked one of these days.
NP: “Dark Horse” - Bowerbirds. Gets mentioned in the same breath as Bon Iver a lot, but I really don’t hear the similarity. This is perhaps a little too in the middle for me… I can’t tell if I wish it were happier or darker.
NP: “A Pencil Without Lead” - Lost On Purpose. Los Angeles bedroom taper guy that perhaps has a bit too unhealthy obsession with Elliott Smith, but… when he nails it, he nails it.
NP: “See The Sky About To Rain (Live)” - Neil Young With Crazy Horse. If you don’t have “Live At Massey Hall” yet, you need to go purchase it right now. Maybe the best live album I’ve ever heard.
NP: “I’ll Be Here In The Morning” - Propinquity. Hands down the re-issue I’ve listened to the most this year. From 1972, this very little-known group made a sweet little LP. This is a Townes Van Zandt cover.
NP: “Standin’” - Vetiver. Another Townes Van Zandt cover.
NP: “When We Go, How We Got (Part II)” - Rock Plaza Central. I always forget about how much I like this song, then I listen to the album and I remember.
NP: “I Had A List And I Lost It” - The Drift. Kinda reminds me of Hood… I don’t know anything about these guys, nor where I got it.
NP: “Killing Off Our Friends” - The Coast. Young Canadian band. Reminds me a bit of that band Spouse that I loved so much, or perhaps All Shook Down-era Replacements.
NP: “Hallelujah” - The Helio Sequence. I thought this record was going to make them huge. It didn’t, but it’s still a solid effort.
NP: “Lovecraft In Brooklyn” - The Mountain Goats. “Some kid in a Marcus Allen jersey asks me for a cigarette.” Somehow, after 400+ songs, this is one of my favorite John Darnielle lyrics ever.
NP: “Glamour” - For Against. I’ve been a fan of For Against ever since seeing their exquisitely packaged records on Independent Project Press in the 80’s. But who knew they’d get better (and meaner!) with time. Wow.
NP: “About To Walk” - Throw Me The Statue. I was obsessed with this song for about 48 hours. It’s lost a bit since then (it had to), but… still a great song.
NP: “Hercules’ Theme” - Hercules & Love Affair. You’ve already heard all the hyperbole you need about this record, but… it is a delightful little romp, for sure.
NP: “N Wddng Ck” - Fol Chen. For fans of Of Montreal, this one’s for you. Super catchy and awesome.
NP: “Kaounding Cissko” - Toumani Diabaté. I’m not going to claim this is the best record of the year so far (as I’ve heard some other folks say), but… If you are looking for a record that works the same way as a nice cold glass of sparkling water between two glasses of sangiovese, you should definitely consider this. A pallet cleanser of the highest order.
NP: “Lucklucky” - Veda Hill. A catchy song with a hint of Tanita Tikaram in there, perhaps? I like. A lot.
NP: “Family Glue” - Wye Oak. If I wanted to listen to Myra Lee-era Cat Power, I would put on Myra Lee-era Cat Power. This song still manages to be OK, but over the course of an album Wye Oak fall flat.
NP: “30_milkshakes__2008_07_02.m3u” - stream all of the above songs.
NP: “30_milkshakes__2008_07_02.rar” - rar file of all of the above songs.

In other news, it’s really all about the show at Southpaw tonight:

Wednesday, July 2
Southpaw
Frightened Rabbit
Oxford Collapse
The Lame Drivers

There are still some tickets left, but it will sell out, and early. (if there will even be tickets left at the door at all).

We hope you can make it out.

We’ll submit a more even-handed rundown of recommended shows sometime very soon.


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Frightened Rabbit live on KEXP

Friday, June 20, 2008

they just did a wonderful live on-air on KEXP with Kevin Cole on Wednesday. it’s not archived in with the live performances yet, but… you can access it by clicking here:

http://kexp.org/streamarchive/streamarchive.asp

and then selecting:

Wednesday, June 18

03:00 PM

[it’ll start about a minute in (after Iron & Wine song finishes)]

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I Drink Your Milkshake

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

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even cheesier than we thought it was going to be…

Friday, May 9, 2008

but still pretty cool.

kicks in at the 20-second mark:

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Frightened Rabbit on Grey’s Anatomy tonight!

Thursday, May 8, 2008

pretty exciting!

it will be in the episode known to illegal downloaders probably as Greys.Anatomy.S04.E14 .

If somebody is stumbling upon this from a google search, the song is called “Good Arms Vs. Bad Arms” and you can get more info on Frightened Rabbit by going to:

http://www.myspace.com/frightenedrabbit
http://www.frightenedrabbit.com
http://fat-cat.co.uk/fatcat/artistInfo.php?id=121
http://www.30milkshakes.com/fr/

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some political movements i would start if i weren’t lazy

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

1. As a tall man, I find it ridiculous the height that most shower heads are installed.  We’re in a relatively nice hotel in LA right now, the shower is 3′x6′ and about 10′ tall.  The shower head could have been installed anywhere on the wall.  It could have even been made into a nice outdoor-type shower with a big overhead nozzle or perhaps have been located on an arm that could be rotated up and out over the shower.  I can also only assume that this shower was “built for two.”  But… where’s the shower head installed?  The height is about 6′2″, and it sticks out from the wall no more than 4″.  This gigantic shower, and you have to take it standing in about 10% of the space it takes up.  This shower doesn’t offend me as a tall person, this shower head just offends me as a human.  Totally stupid.  If I weren’t so lazy, I’d do some serious campaigning to make showering better.

2. Fix the fucking post office.  Going to the US Post Office is possibly the worst experience of any given week.  These people are slow, stupid, petty, and, ironically, there’s not enough of them!  The new postage rates (for those of us that have to mail out promos and mailorders all the time), are ridiculous, but…  here’s the thing:  raise the prices even higher, just give me better service.  I don’t want to walk into the 4th Ave. and 10th St. post office and find only 2 people sitting behind the 12 available windows and 35 people in line.  People unite!  This is OUR post office.  We pay for it with our postage.  If any other company had the customer service of the US Post Office, they’d be dead.  But somehow we put up with this shit.

(And… An aside:  has anybody ever been in the post office when they lock the doors WITH A KEY from the inside after closing time, but before the line clears?  What the fuck is that all about?  I mean, I understand the need, but… let’s see a bar do that at 4:00 AM and see how fast they get closed down for fire code violations.  Can you imagine?  Where’s the quality of life violation for that?)

3. This one’s actually political.  It needs a catchy name that I haven’t come up with yet, but the idea is this:  “Kids, educate your grandparents.”  There will always be a giant political gap between the young and the old, and this is an attempt to address that.  I know it’s hard, but, on a purely personal level, the goal would be for each young person to attempt to sway the political opinions of just two older, more conservative, perhaps religious, perhaps rural, etc. people.  The upcoming election is likely to be decided by a small gap… if just 100,000 kids can sway 2 people each to vote against the Republicans, then that would be a 400,000 vote swing.

Now, I’m not saying it would be easy.  It won’t be.  But, there are a plenty of people in the middle of this country who have never been to another part of the world.  They need to understand the way other people view America and Americans.

But even more than that (or perhaps, even, LESS than that).  To just try to convince these folks to give the Dems a chance, even if they don’t agree with it.  To hopefully perhaps to get them to understand that it’s not all intellectual elites, but it’s actually the friends of their grandchildren and that those people are looking for a better life and a better government, and it’s the older, conservative folks that are out of touch with modern life, and city life, that are standing in the way.

Anyway, it’s destined to fail, and I’m describing it all wrong.  But… the idea is alright.  It’s not homegrown, it’s literally HOME.  Hell… buy the vote, trade the vote, say “Grandma, I’ll bring you to NYC for the weekend, and you can see what it’s like, just do this for me.”  Anyway, there’s something to it.  Maybe some day.

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feelies tickets are on sale for Maxwell’s!

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

The Feelies have announced their shows at Maxwell’s that have been highly anticipated:

July 1 & 2

http://www.maxwellsnj.com

we can only go on the 1st, as Frightened Rabbit are going to be playing NYC on July 2 (shhh….), but… yay!

Filed in music