Grifting my way through the interweb wilderness with a bindle and a lightning bolt

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

New Devotchka album drops March 18


And thanks to Stereogum.com's gumdrop email list, you can download the sneak preview track "Transliterator" from Devotchka's upcoming album "A Mad and Faithful Telling"--I dig the dialectic title. My parents love these guys and so does my East Coast art school sculptor cousin, who was flummoxed by my parents' recognition of the Devotchka posters on his wall. As talented and fusion-forward as these guys are, it is no wonder they appeal to such a wide swath of humanity. Nick Urata makes playing the theremin look like eating a piece of cake at a picnic while taking candy from imbecile baby turtles, when it truth it is more like licking your own elbow--it seems attainable but unless you are some double-jointed monster, it is in actuality impossible. He sings in at least three languages (Spanish, French, and English), and the rest of the band, like Nick, are all multi-instrumentalists, which I must admit was more impressive before I saw Jon Brion perform live at the largo. But still, it is always a thrill when drummers bust out trumpets and violinists switch to accordions. To hear the new song follow the stereogum link; you'll find one of my favorite songs below from these troubadours of Eastern Eurpoean, Spanish, Colorado country, rock fusion. The accordion on this track is off the harpoon!

Mp3:REMOVED

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

MP3.com Resurrection II - Work of Saws



For the second installment of MP3.com Resurrection, I've decided to dust off Work of Saws. I don't know much about them except that they are masters of short pop songs and their catchy hippie sing-along "Tangerines and Blue Cheese" was a monument in the soundtrack of my underweight, undergraduate, and undeveloped life of the late 90s/early 00s. If you haven't already noticed, I like some rasp in my folk-pop.

Mp3s: Work of Saws - "Tangerines and Blue Cheese"
Work of Saws - Moth Swarm

If you'd like hear more you can download mp3s at their website, or you can buy one of their albums at eMusic.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Of Montreal get their T Mobile on.


Looking good and glam as usual. Get that cheddar! You deserve it.

Deal of the Month -- $3 for a 1GB stick of Ram


Various lesser known retailers have been selling HP PC2-5300 Ram for peanuts. There is a $20 rebate on these sticks and the rebate check comes back fast--I bought four sticks and I got an $80 check in less than a month. The rebate is good till the end of this month, so if you are building a system or just want a very cheap upgrade, jump on these guys. As if $3 for 1GB of ram wasn't enough, according to many of the reviwers at PCSuperstore, these are overclockable to 800Mhz with the right mobo! Free shipping at the moment too! You could buy five of them for $15 and use the ones you don't need as ninja stars!!!!111






Thursday, January 24, 2008

Scary Mansion startles me with good tunes.



The Daily Download from eMusic yesterday was choice. Scary Mansion is vocalist Leah Hayes and her band Braadly Banks and Ben Shapiro. Emusic's Yancey Strickler says she "channels early Cat Power," and while the similarity is quite clear, I'd still give the Cat Power mew the edge closer to absolute beauty. Even so, approaching Cat-Power-like beauty is more than good enough for me.

MP3:REMOVED

Leah Hayes is also pretty handy with the pen.

Monday, January 21, 2008

MP3.com Resurrection


Back in the late 90's mp3.com was an ocean of frothing goodness; it was a site where thousands upon thousands of independent bands posted DRM-free mp3s for anyone to download and enjoy. Sure, Napster was around for those who wanted songs they knew or have heard of, but for those who loved a more legitimate thrill of discovery, mp3.com was a waking dream. I spent countless hours following the link web, sampling music, and occasionally gett'n my dopamine fix from something completely new and mind-shaking. Some of the bands I heard there for the first time have now "made it" like Rilo Kiley, and others have have faded into the oblivion of long untouched bits of 10 and 20 gigabyte hard drives. This will be the first post of a few where I'll try (as best and if I can) to resurrect a few of these songs for you.

The first comes from Oldominion. This Seattle rap crew had a dozen or so excellent songs on the old mp3.com. Many members from Oldominion are still making good music (Grayskul, for example), but nothing will affect me like the first time I heard Azrael's "Beloved," the most original, sense-busting, bible-thumping, horror-core rap song I have ever heard.

This in 1998 was unlike anything I had ever heard. Today there is still not much that compares.

Mp3: "Oldominion - Beloved"
Zombies, Christ, Dungeons and Dragons! This song has it all.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Frontier Ruckus


Frontier Ruckus are as awesome as their name. Matthew Milia's voice is a wilderness moan, but much more musical than most prophets. He sounds like Raymond Raposa (from the Castanets) but brighter, resonating at a higher timber. Whether or not the warble of either vocalists is in part an affectation to fit the sound of the genre is really irrelevant to me. I dig it because it is damn beautiful. Milia loves to rhyme, and despite my expectation that its aggressive use would wear on me, it usually works. He concludes "Dark Autumn Hour":

Tearing moons, these moons are tearing
Swearing terror inside their daring,
Crumbling prayers, dark autumns faring,
Straight out of our hands


At first look it seems like he just threw together a bunch of rhyming euphony without much attention to making sense or telling a narrative, but in the context of the rest of the song these lines do outline the ghost of an image-experience, which for me illustrates the dark autumn of a love lost. Of course this kind of ambiguity elicits the fetishizing tendency in all of us; and to be honest I still have no idea why the songwriter means by "swearing terror inside their daring." In any case, Milia's lyrics can be and often are as vivid as poetry and certainly as sonically interesting.

"The Blood(demo)": the wilderness prophet-lover heralds us all the dove.
"Dark Autumn Hour": The dark autumn of a love lost?
"Christmas Eve, Driving Home": Christmas is over, but I'm still playing this (Another tune selected by those Asthmatic Kitty elves).



1.God bless the man who starts on the saw, moves to melodica, and ends with the trumpet.
2. Melodicas and harmonicas make a great team.
3. Beards!

Visit their myspace and website for additional downloads.

Oh and since I made the comparison, here is a glory-bound Castanets song available for free at last.fm: "This Early in the Game"

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Text Adventure -- A Gem from Archive.org


"If It Could Talk It Wouldn't Say Anything" is a lovely electro-pop song, and as an excellent bedroom production it is great inspiration for all you DIYers out there. If you like acoustic guitars, bleeps, bells and Casio keyboards (and who doesn't), you will dig this song.

Download the complete album, Fantastic Disaster, for free at archive.org

Text Adventure - If It Could Talk It Wouldn't Say Anything

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

The Postmarks -- By The Numbers



Over at Emusic, The Postmarks are giving away a free single each month for the next 12 months. Their first is a cover of Antonio Carlos Jobim's "One Note Samba." Female vocalist Tim Yehezkely is well suited for this classic samba; her silky voice drips over lush synths and hushed male backup vocals. Sealing the deal for me are the song's final thirty-seconds where Tim is joined by tasteful Air-like vocoder harmony. Vocoder harmonies, even understated ones, always get my vote.

Keep it smooth!

Monday, January 7, 2008

Worst Deal(s) of the Day

Those who are buying $25 off $25 Dell coupons being sold on Ebay for three to five dollars a piece will be sorely disappointed. Every single one of those codes is dead.
Some poor guy just bought 100 of them for $127.50.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

25 off 25 Dell Code Madness

I do not know where these codes are coming from, but ebay is flooded with them, and this slickdeals.net thread is frothing with beggars and benefactors. I got in on the 8 dollar 4gb usb drive yesterday from the aforementioned thread--I am very surprised that these coupons are still alive and not being killed by Dell, especially in the light of their seemingly endless supply.

EDIT: Apparently this site is the source of all these codes. And according to this post, once you find a working purchase ID you can generate codes with different email addresses each time. The small print of course reads, "One coupon per customer," and while none seem to be heeding the small print, I am not one to transgress reasonable laws or defy a sensible request. Here is a code I got when testing the method above.
5N23L7C59335LG
Oh the frenzied capitalist grabtacular! We build up giants to destroy them.

Falsetto Pop Jam



I confess, I have always had a not-so-secret love affair with falsetto harmonies (Imagine my disappointment when Weezer split with Matt Sharp's falsetto on the Green Album). This song delivers big-time--my favorite falsetto jam discovery of this year. It comes form Hal's self-titled 05' album, which is quality, but none of its songs got as many plays from me as this one.

Hal - Play The Hits








Official Website

Friday, January 4, 2008

Candy Claws and Candy Clouds

At the time of this posting, Candy Claws have only 220 friends on myspace. If you download this song, you can feel truly distinct and falsely superior with your early adoption of Candy Claw fan-hood. True, you will be riding the coattails of the refined taste and hard work (who knew abstract ideas wore coats?) of the Asthmatic Kitty Xmas Xchange elves who selected Candy Claws' excellent song "Snowdrift Wish" as one of their favorites, but we can pretend that you and I found this treasure all on our own.

Speaking of pretending, I see myself sailing on billowing luminous candy clouds in a catamaran when I listen to this song.
And I've been listening to it a lot! No cavities yet!

Candy Claws - Catamaran