Ashtrays

Farvel

2009-03-13T18:57:00.000-07:00

It’s been two years.

Honey, he says, don’t kill that last cigarette…

But it’s time to go.

From time to time, I’m sure I’ll miss this blog, but there’s no real motivation. I don’t do radio any more (nor, in fact, do many of the people I first did radio with). I graduated from college seven months ago, and have been taking Danish since then only because I had nothing better to do; my last class is Monday. Josh has long since given up smoking. Even Oliver North Boy Choir, the first band I wrote about here, decided to call it quits last month.

So… I guess I might as well. I've got things to do. You can keep in touch with me via email (as long as you don’t mind how slow I am in response), or keep an eye on what I’m listening to on last.fm -- although it should be borne in mind that, especially lately, I find myself listening to vinyl (and sometimes streaming audio) far more frequently than mp3s, and even when I do listen to music on the computer, I’m prone to turning off scrobbling for large swaths of time. Take everything there with a grain of salt.

Finally, and most reliably, you can find me also at my other (better?) blog, RQEBIR, where I write about books and short stories and, occasionally, how badly I want to work at Powell’s. I’m very fond of this blog right now. I hope it lasts. And I hope that things get better too.

Thanks everybody for reading.

--DL--
~~Twilight (the Raveonettes)~~

Hvad er død må have lov til at dø

2009-03-06T12:16:00.000-08:00

Much as it pains me to say this, I fear I will not be able to carry this blog on much longer. I still love and listen to new music, though not with such… excitement, perhaps, as before. Things have changed, and, well, things have changed.

Who knows -- maybe a week from now I’ll change my mind and begin blogging twice a day. There’s always the chance that I’ll continue to pop in here from time to time, and I’ll still read It’s A Trap! daily and other music and mp3 blogs regularly. I’ll try to keep somewhat abreast of music news, and if anyone wants to keep in touch with me via email, keep in mind that I’m not the most reliable or punctual of email correspondents, but I’ll do my best. As for the blog, though -- this has been a long time coming, and I think it’s best not to drag it out any longer. So I’m going to let the blog die now, while there are still a few readers around to mourn its death.

(On the bright side, though, after nearly a year's absence, Emodreng & Indiepige is back! Go read their stuff instead.)

Before I go, a few music tidbits (but no downloads, sorry) to end with:

For those lucky enough to live in or near Denmark, Psyched up Janis, Sune Rose Wagner’s first band (I think? He can’t have had that many before it; it was 20 years ago) is planning a brief reunion tour. They sound, by and large, completely different from the Raveonettes and Sune’s recent solo stuff, but you can also hear hints of the same influence. I like to think of Psyched Up Janis as sort of a grunge band. On the other hand, they covered the Ronettes’ Be My Baby, in a decidedly non-grunge way, so… you never know. Their big song, I Died in My Teens, won me over nearly three years ago, back when I still was one.

El Perro del Mar’s new single, Change of Heart, is still great. Another one undoubtedly worthy of vinyl. Can’t wait for 1 April, when the EP, Love is Not Pop, comes out.

I’ve also been listening to Jonathan Johansson’s fairly new album, En Hand i Himlen. It’s all Swedish. It reminds me of the few songs I know by fellow Swede Nordpolen -- but it’s also a lot more diverse. The entire album (which includes a cover whose name, even in English, you will not recognize, but which you will know as soon as you hear) can be streamed on his website. My favorite track is the fifth one, Aldrig Ensam. Means never alone.

Oliver North Boy Choir released their final songs before calling it quits last week. Once again, I like the B-side (Crash) better than the single (Blackmail). Stream them all -- those two and more -- here.

Efterklang, who I saw in an absolutely insane show at last year’s Roskilde Festival, are playing Portland tomorrow night, supported by Peter Broderick, who is actually from Portland. I’d like to see them, even if just for the contrast, but unfortunately, I am expected at work (and even if I didn’t have to work, I’d have to be on the guest list to go, because impecunious is the word of the ~~day~~ ~~week~~ ~~month~~ ~~year~~ probably decade). Provided the venue doesn’t get as crowded as that stifling Roskilde tent (and it won’t; they’d get shut down for fire code), I can’t think of a more pleasant way to spend Saturday night. Well, yes, I can, but you know what I mean.

Outside of Scandinavia:

Is it just me, or is the new myspace music player really overdone and ugly? God. Let’s kill that, too.

I’ve been listening a lot lately to the new Black Lips album, 20 Million Thousand. (Stream at last.fm.) Very... diverse? I never thought I’d say this, but I guess it might be the rap song that I like best. Actually, no, but it’s very good. Long live whatever this is.

And finally. I will write one more post after this, on 13 March, which would be the blog’s two-year anniversary. Aside from that, this is goodbye.

Japanske grammofonplader

2009-02-23T10:16:00.000-08:00

I haven't written anything in a while because I haven't listened to anything new in a while. Actually, to be honest, it started with something new -- Change of Heart, the first single from El Perro del Mar's upcoming EP. (Stream here; buy (soon) here.) It's old-sounding and beautiful, and I know it's only February, but this one could be the song of the year, easy.

It's catchy and addictive, and it made me want to something old and scratchy. I started with the Bee Gees (whose earlier stuff is amazing) and quickly moved on to a Telerad comp album called 24 Original Happening Hits. Judging from the appearance of the cover, the ages of my aunts (from whom many of my weirder records were inherited), and the release dates of the individual songs themselves, I'm guessing it was released in the mid-sixties. The 24th happening hit (the last track on side two) is my new favorite song. It's by a group I'd never heard of (though I know I've listened to the album before; I guess I must have never paid attention to songs I didn't already recognize), the Chantels. The song was their biggest hit. It came out in 1958. It's called Maybe. The lyrics are nearly unintelligible, but the sound and the message are not - and it's sad, so sad. It's fifty years old, and I don't care -- this is how music is supposed to sound. Beautiful song. (Stream (a different version) at last.fm.)

But since I can't listen to the same two-minute song over and over without having to get up to move the needle every two minutes, I decided eventually to try and listen to something else. This brings me to the Japanese bootlegs. Among my vinyl inheritance were a number of strangely packaged imports in plastic sleeves and monochromatic cases, some of which bore the Universal Records logo, many of which do not, and one of which was attributed to Nancy Siatra, and the omission of the N is not my spelling error.

My favorites of this collection actually came as a set. They lived in what was, by the time I got it, a slightly sunken grime-encrusted cardboard box, and were smaller than ordinary albums (the same size, actually, as 78s, though they play at 33 rpm), pressed on translucent red vinyl. Originally there were ten; now there are only five, plus an unplayable sixth, retained for reasons unknown, which melted at some point before my time into a shape roughly similar to a newsboy hat, and which no longer fits in the box. The surviving records are great. I remember sequestering myself in the family room and listening through each one after I first got them. It was the first time I heard the Small Faces (and probably countless others). It was the first time in years that my dad had heard a song he remembered playing for ten cents on a jukebox, a song which I later found someplace weird and bought on 7" (and which somebody has put up with a really bad video on youtube, but which should still be listened to).

Of course it was these albums that, when faced with a desire to listen to something old yet new, that I went for - but I discovered, to my dismay, that they were not here. I must have decided, for a now-unknown reason (possibly related to not wanting to contaminate my apartment with their filthy storage box) to leave them at my parents' house. Now I'm annoyed, upset, and slightly afraid that something might happen to them -- those aren't the kind of things you ever find again.

But anyway. New music. Aside from the aforementioned El Perro del Mar track, Jesper Norda also released an EP, We Have the Guts, last week. It's piano-based as before, and, I think, even better than the previous EP. The title track, six and a half minutes long, is great, but my favorite track is the first one, Let's go to a place infected with truth and resist with all of our hearts. It's gentle and calm for the first three minutes; then there's a sudden crescendo before the last bit, and for a few seconds it's just pounding, intense. This man can play the piano. The entire We Have the Guts EP, which, I must add, flows very well together as one cohesive unit, is also available for download in the Jesper Norda archives.

Next week I will write something else, perhaps on the horrific possibility of not becoming deaf but suffering amusia, which I think would be even worse.

--DL--
Let's go to a place infected with truth and resist with all of our hearts (Jesper Norda)

Den svensk popstjerne

2009-02-12T21:21:00.000-08:00

Lykke Li is approximately 20 blocks away from me right now. This makes the third time she’s been to Portland in the past year. I haven’t seen her on any of these occasions, nor did I see her set at the Roskilde Festival this summer (as I probably ought to have done). In fact, I have as of today only ever heard two of her songs, for a grand total of maybe five plays. I never intended to actively avoid her, I was just never interested. And now she’s become one of my “records” -- like not having been to a movie theater in five years, not having driven a car in nearly three, and (this one is entirely without reason) absolutely, point-blank, no exceptions refusing to listen to the Long Blondes, even though all evidence points to a high probability of my liking them.

But that is that. I am always annoyed when small bands I like become wildly popular (the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, anyone?) so I’m probably the last person to start listening to someone simply because she’s the new Swedish sensation and therefore someone I should know about. So no Lykke Li for me. I’d take the snark and swagger of Ida Maria (Norwegian, yes, I know) over her any day. Or, staying Swedish, Robyn. How about that trip to Portland she promised she’d reschedule? Again -- any day.

Endeligt programmet (på engelsk)

2009-02-04T11:30:00.000-08:00

There’s no way to break this gently.

The radio show is over. The last hour was last Wednesday evening, January 28. If I’d stuck it out until today (February 4), like I originally planned to do, the last show would have marked the fifth anniversary of my radio debut. I’m sad to have missed it, just like I’m sad to have given up my show, but the station had become too unpleasant a place for me to be. Maybe in time, I’ll make my way back onto the air, but as for now… it doesn’t much look like it.

I also can’t say how frequently I’ll update this blog in the future. Much as I hate to say it, I’m kind of burned out on music right now. I’ve been listening to the same six or eight bands and albums over and over. (If I were scrobbling, my last.fm neighbourhood -- and charts -- would be all messed up by now.) It’s all very good music, but I can’t seem to get myself to care much about it, and I care even less about everything else.

These albums are getting lots of spinning:
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea – Neutral Milk Hotel
All Hail West Texas – the Mountain Goats
Forever Changes – Love
Takk… – Sigur Rós
Chain Gang of Love and Lust Lust Lust – the Raveonettes

There’ve been some digressions, but they generally happen when I’m really not paying attention (as opposed to only sort of not paying attention) and just want some sort of background noise, and they generally tend to be bands and/or albums that sound some degree of similar to one or more of the artists mentioned above.

Anyway, now that I’ve listened to Two-Headed Boy Part 2 at least ten times in a row, I feel ready to… I don’t know. I just wanted to point out that I’ve now listened to Two-Headed Boy Part 2 at least ten times in a row. It's that bad.

Tonight, while the automix plays bad 80s music during the timeslot my show used to occupy, I will be spending the first of many now-free Wednesday evenings in one of my favorite places, Powell’s City of Books, in the company of one of my current favorite authors, Lauren Groff. I know that, due to length, it’s very likely that she won’t, but I hope she reads “Majorette.”

I have a book blog. (I would say “I have a book blog now,” but I’ve actually had it for more than a year.) If I become too negligent with Ashtrays, and you still crave my writing, you can read it here.

Endeligt programmet

2009-01-29T12:06:00.000-08:00

I gårs var mit endeligt programmet. Det skal jeg savne, men det var tid for at afgå. Jeg var led og ked af at føle lige en andenklasses borger. Hvis du vil gerne snakke med mig eller ved mere om alle af det, må du godt emaile mig eller skrive en kommente.

Spillelisten fra i gårs:
1. A Whiter Shade of Pale – Procol Harum
2. Where Damage Isn’t Already Done (live) – the Radio Dept. (SV)
3. Hoppípolla – Sigur Rós (IS)
4. Stay Alive – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
5. At Least I’m Honest – Tiger Baby (DK)
6. All You Want – Said the Shark (DK)
7. The Quiz – Hello Saferide (SV)
8. The Twist – Frightened Rabbit
9. Remember – The Raveonettes (DK)
10. Something New – Bakers at Dawn (SV)
11. Teenage Life – Club 8 (SV)
12. Cobra – Oliver North Boy Choir (DK)
13. Where Do You Go To (My Lovely) – Peter Sarstedt

Tusind tak til alle som hjalp at lave min tid med stationen god. I skal jeg savner, og jeg håber jeg skal endnu se I engang i mellem, og håber også, at I alle lave den bedste af det. Og der er ingen af I, som kan læse dansk, så skal jeg stopper nu. Hilsen til alle, og på gensyn.

English forthcoming.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (28. januar 2009)~~

Den sidste halm

2009-01-26T15:27:00.000-08:00

Jeg kommer til at forlade alle med radiostationen.

Ligeglad

2009-01-25T10:04:00.000-08:00

Jeg er nu faktisk helt uinteresseret for musik tinge. Jeg skal ikke skrive mere, men... det er ikke so godt.

Spillelisten fra i onsdags:
1. Comforting Sounds - Mew (DK)
2. White Roses for Blue Girls - My Favorite
3. Night Surf - Robotboy (SV)
4. Missing - Doí (DK)
5. We Move in Silence - Club 8 (SV)
6. Avec - Dazzle Ships (DK)
7. Hoppípolla - Sigur Rós (IS)
8. Cut and Run - Electrelane
9. Farrah - Action Biker (SV)
10. Thirteen - Big Star
11. Loneliness is Better When You're Not Alone - Hello Saferide (SV)
12. Little Dance - Jesper Norda (SV)
13. Tonight the Walls are Closing in on You - David & the Citizens (SV)

Og i fredags:
1. Skimret - Nordpolen (SV)
2. Drama Queen - moi Caprice (DK)
3. Stranger on the Fifth Floor - the Flaming Stars
4. 156 - Mew (DK)
5. Summer Babe - Pavement
6. Everyone Else I Know - Slumber Party
7. Love Can Destroy Everything - the Raveonettes (DK)
8. Down the Track - A.K. Hansn (DK)
9. Disappearing Act - the Bear Quartet (SV)
10. Poor Cow - Peter Bjorn and John (SV)
11. På Drift - Kent (SV)
12. In Some Distant Future - the Honeydrips (SV)

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (21. januar 2009)~~
~~Ashtrays Podcast (23. januar 2009)~~

Treserne

2009-01-17T10:04:00.000-08:00

Her er spillelisten fra i gårses program:

1. Inez - Juni Järvi (SV)
2. Bewitched - Luna
3. The Gun in God's Hand - Slowmotion Club (SV)
4. Crooked Spine - Sambassadeur (SV)
5. I'll Never Be Yours - Bubblegum Lemonade
6. How Did We Forget - El Perro del Mar (SV)
7. Things Are Gonna Get Easier - Low Motion Disco
8. Black Satin - the Raveonettes (DK)
9. Totalled - Wallpaper
10. Eventually It'll Break Your Heart - Moneybrother (SV)
11. Words Enough to Tell You - the Mascots (SV)
12. Never Take the Beauty - Northern Fields (SV)
13. Love Doesn't Last - Broder Daniel (SV)
14. Gone and Passes By - the Chocolate Watch Band
15. Your Mind and We Belong Together - Love

Overalt, havde jeg en god fredag. (Undskyld, Andrew.) Spillelisten havde nogle gammel sange, og nogle sange som synes gamle, synes jeg. Det var lidt svært for mig, at finde dem (fordi det fleste jeg har er meget nye), men det var også meget sjov at spille.

Jeg tror ikke, der er sange man må downloade, men du må have podcastet. Håber, jeg skal have nogle for at downloade næste uge.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (16. januar 2009)~~

Mærkelige

2009-01-15T11:55:00.000-08:00

Spillelisten fra 14. januar:
1. Tell the King - the Libertines
2. I Want You - Mugison (IS)
3. Hip - Marybell Katastrophy (DK)
4. Terrible Angels - CocoRosie
5. At Least I'm Honest - Tiger Baby (DK)
6. You Can't Buy My Life - Tomas Halberstad (SV)
7. Go Progress Chrome - Grandaddy
8. A Space Boy Dream - Belle & Sebastian
9. 1983 (Pelle & Sebastian) - Pelle Carlberg (SV)
10. The Empty Threats of Little Lord - Sunset Rubdown
11. Glowing With You - Anna Maria Espinosa (SV)
12. A Room Without You - Moto Boy (SV)
13. I Sing I Swim - Seabear (IS)
14. What to Pass On/What to Keep - Jomi Massage (DK)

One thing I want to particularly mention is the Moto Boy song, A Room Without You, from the recent For Martha EP. Normally I'm not a fan of Moto Boy; I guess it's the gimmick that got me. The first, instrumental, part of this song has been released, in addition to all the usual ways, as a music box. You know, the little tiny kind that you wind up and that plays tinny little piano notes off a metal spool, the kind I had five or ten of when I was a child. Lately, as I've gone further along my descent back into childhood, I've become enamored with music boxes again. I think this is really cool.

The rest of the song -- which has vocals and less sparse instrumentation -- is very nice, too. All the Moto Boy tracks I've heard have a very distinct sound; this one (once the song proper starts, at least) is no exception. Again, I'll say that that sound is something I don't usually go for, but in this case it worked. A very pleasant surprise. More information on the music box, as well as a video of Moto Boy demonstrating it, and links to purchase the box or download (free) A Room Without You, are here.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (14. januar 2009)~~

Forkert

2009-01-10T12:32:00.000-08:00

Last night I hit a wall, and I just wanted to go home and curl up in a ball and cry. I didn't do that; instead I went home and curled up in a ball and read a whole book, which I wish I hadn't done -- because I wanted to read this book, called The Customer is Always Wrong, during my breaks at work today. Maybe I will take it along and re-read anyway.

Yesterday's show came out well, because I was still happy then. Some really nice segues.

Spillelisten:
1. Doing All the Things that Wouldn't Make Your Parents Proud - the Pains of Being Pure at Heart
2. Yes This Is My Broken Shield - The Deer Tracks (SV)
3. Universe - Heidi Mortenson (DK)
4. Kevätrumpu - Paavoharju (F)
5. The Sweetness of Air France - Taken by Trees (SV, SV)
6. M.A.G.I.C. - The Sound of Arrows (SV)
7. Kids - MGMT
8. Den Støjende Tid - Lampshade (DK)
9. The Twist - Metric
10. Plantage - Under Byen (DK)
11. Dirty Dancing - Frida Hyvönen (SV)
12. Don't Let Him Waste Your Time - Jarvis Cocker

Again, some really good segues. I'm proud.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (9. januar 2009)~~

Bedst af 2008 -- på radioen

2009-01-10T12:17:00.000-08:00

Since I couldn't do it last year, I did it Wednesday.

Clearly I couldn't play all the songs from my favorite albums, or even all my favorite songs, in one hour, so I've tried to pick a combination of those not as easily accessible and those I liked the very most. I wish I could have done more, but a good playlist nonetheless.

Spillelisten fra 7. januar:
1. I'm a Lady (feat. Trouble Andrew) - Santogold
2. How Did We Forget - El Perro del Mar (SV)
3. Two Skylights - Southern Belle
4. In a Jar - Bakers at Dawn (SV)
5. Gi' Mig en Pige - Sune Rose Wagner (DK)
6. June Evenings - Air France (SV)
7. Count Backwards from Ten - the Big Pink
8. Isabella of Castile - Starfucker
9. Lovesong - Oliver North Boy Choir (DK)
10. Middle Class - Hello Saferide (SV)
11. You'd Never Know - Said the Shark (DK)
12. Oh! You Pretty Things - Au Revoir Simone
13. Arrows - Einar Stray (N)
14. The Twist - Frightened Rabbit

In other news, Annika Norlin/Hello Saferide just won a Swedish Grammy for best lyrics. Well-deserved.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (7. januar 2009)~~

Hjemme

2009-01-06T13:22:00.000-08:00

After a few weeks out, I am back home, and will start listening to music again momentarily.

Tomorrow night on the radio will be the best of 2008 show -- a little late, but I already had it planned, and I (obviously) rather like the playlist. Having been gone for so long, I'm sure to make lots of mistakes, but tune in anyway.

Yndlinge albummer af 2008

2008-12-21T12:30:00.000-08:00

I wanted to have this up yesterday, but I was getting tired and incoherent. When Sune Rose Wagner’s Altid (see number seven) nearly dropped me off to sleep, I decided to quit. But now I’m awake -- now two days later -- so here are my ten favorite albums this year. The numbers, especially five through ten, don’t really mean that much, though, and are subject to frequent change.

10. No Way Down (EP) – Air France
In my opinion, this is the least outstanding of all the albums on here, though it’s probably also the one that’s gotten (elsewhere) the most good press. It’s a good EP, but right now I think it sounds a little tired, and I’ve never liked it as much as Air France’s previous effort, the On Trade Winds EP (number 6 on my 2007 list). But it has just enough of that same Caribbean tinge, mixed this time with a feeling of adult-longing-child wistfulness, and their samples and sounds are well-chosen and interesting. Sort of like a dream -- no, better is great, and “No excuses” has become my mantra for the year.
(stream two tracks + others)

9. Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust – Sigur Rós
I must admit I was not impressed at first listen; I was particularly let down by Gobbledigook (though the video made it better for me). Light and happy Sigur Rós was not something that particularly interested me, and this is without doubt their lightest and happiest album. A few more listens and it got better. I still prefer the second half of the album (actually, technically, Festival through Straumnes), and I still like their earlier work better, in general, but no matter how peppy it may be, there’s no denying that Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust is a very beautiful album, and very much in the vein of other music by Sigur Rós. You can study to it, you can appreciate nature and snow to it, but in this case you can also, as proven by Gobbledigook, run around in a forest in the summer and scream and swim and just have a really, really okay time.
(mp3 -- Gobbledigook)
(stream three tracks)

8. Little Ones (EP) – Jesper Norda
Maybe my favorite song title of the year comes from this album: Tomorrow You’ll be Forgiven but Tonight You’ll Have Your Teeth Knocked Out. This line just rings true for me. Norda’s composition, throughout the EP, is excellent. It’s sparse, just gradually crescendoing piano, occasional percussion, and, of course, his voice, crisp with very slight reverb, resonant, and surprisingly low -- you don’t really hear many singers in the bass register any more. On Little Dance, for example, Norda's voice sounds kind of soothing, but it also sounds kind of sly. His voice, instrumentation, and subject matter (though I’ll admit I don’t listen to the lyrics all that much, but rather the sound) all fit together really well. It's a great little EP.
(mp3 -- Tomorrow You'll Be Forgiven...)
(download full album)

7. Sune Rose Wagner – Sune Rose Wagner
Sune Rose Wagner, my favorite half of the Raveonettes, released his solo debut just a couple weeks ago. It’s all Danish, but aside from that, it sounds just like what you’d expect -- the sixties influence is strong (he really should have been born earlier), the instruments are stripped down -- nothing overproduced -- and the songs are very reminiscent of the calmer parts of the Raveonettes. (Think The Heavens, from Pretty in Black).
Honestly, speaking of the Raveonettes, I’d have loved to have put their most recent full album, Lust Lust Lust, on here, but even though it wasn’t released in the US until February, it was out in Europe in 2007, and therefore ineligible. That’s probably part of the reason I put Sune’s solo effort on here. However, it sounds just like I hoped, when I first found out, that it would sound, and I do like it a lot. I translated the Danish titles easily enough, but other than that, I don’t really know what he’s saying, and I don’t mind keeping it that way. I’m happy with simply the sound.
(stream four tracks)

6. Silly Killings – Said the Shark
Silly Killings is Said the Shark’s second album, and it’s just as pretty as -- and far more pessimistic than -- their first. The stand-out track is, without question, Shaky Heart. The songs have a very distinct, very sad, sound -- bells or chimes in, I think, at least half of the tracks, maybe more. It’s not just the bells that make that sound, but the combination of those and the instrumentation and Maya Saxall’s unique voice (she lives now in Denmark, but is originally from Canada). Even so, every song is different from the one before; nothing is overused or overdone. The music is so good, and the lyrics are, as well. My favorite, from Miles and Miles, with vocal duty shared with a J Mascis-sounding guest: you just can’t build a picket fence around miles and miles of home -- so good. You have to hear it.
(stream three tracks + others)

5. Starfucker – Starfucker
It’s important for me to clarify a few things. Starfucker got a really bad review on Pitchfork, and I’ll admit I do agree with parts of it. Yes, if you’ve seen Starfucker live, their album is something of a letdown in comparison with the show. But really -- does any album, by any band, ever come close to matching the intensity and excitement of their live show? I really don’t think so. Pretending I have no idea what the band is like live, the album comes out sounding very good. No, it’s not dance-y music with neon and day-glo and Mardi Gras beads; it’s more like studying music (that’s what I did) that also happens to be catchy. But it’s also very lonely, sort of drifting, and Josh Hodges’ sadly effected voice (which I wrote about last year, too, when I put his former band Sexton Blake’s Hungry Heart on the songs list) does it just right.
It's not a perfect album; I like the second half a lot better than the first, and the fourth quarter a lot better than the third. The last song, Isabella of Castile, is particularly beautiful -- I know you have to go, but I want to keep you to myself, like a dream, I can tell, we’ll never be alone -- I just can’t imagine any other voice -- or even band -- doing that.
Pitchfork called this album introspective and detached, like that was a bad thing. I don’t think it is.
(mp3 -- German Love)
(stream full album)

4. Saturdays = Youth – m83
Okay, everyone has heard and loved this album already. So I’m not going to say much about it. It should be clear, of course, that Kim & Jessie is not the only good song on the album. What’s less clear is what my favorite song is or should be -- largely, they all blend together; this is much more a cohesive album than a collection of individual songs. This could be just one big thing.
I like the shoegaze feel and the spaciness and distortion, the swells and waves, and the sort of vagary. But I also like that it sounds kind of like these creepy monastic choral recordings one of my sociology professors used to play -- and that in this context that slight creepiness is a good thing.
(stream full album)

3. Recordings 2008 (EP) – the Big Pink
The word I was searching for was swirling. All Leslie speakers and distorted guitars and echo-y, pleading vocals. If this EP were more than seventeen minutes long, I might die. This is perfect in so many ways, and I really cannot understand why more than 428 people (according to last.fm) have not listened to it. Thank you.
(stream three tracks + others)

2. More Modern Short Stories From Hello Saferide – Hello Saferide
I went back and forth so many times with this one; it’s been in the number one spot just as long as, if not longer than, it’s been number two. And if I could have two number ones, I would. As it is, I put More Modern Short Stories here because of Sancho Panza and 25 Days, mostly, because I had to pick some reason -- but I’m not going to talk about what I don’t like. This is still a really great album. (I mean, even my dad likes X Telling Me About the Loss of Something Dear, at Age 16.) The music is wonderful -- no handclaps, sadly, but it’s more advanced than Introducing… Hello Saferide, really fleshed out -- and Annika Norlin was nominated, not surprisingly, for a Swedish Grammy for songwriting. There may be a few songs I’m less fond of, but the others more than make up for it, acoustic and electric, and all different degrees of heartbreaking, like my favorite, Middle Class’s wishful, never to be fulfilled promise: And then I’ll be happy, I swear. The album title is fitting, because Hello Saferide really is a wonderful storyteller. Every song brings a wide-eyed gasp.
(mp3 -- Anna)
(stream full album)

1. The Midnight Organ Fight – Frightened Rabbit
As I said before, I had a terrible time deciding between my number one and number two. I was tempted to put Hello Saferide here, because I love her as a person, and I don’t feel that way about Frightened Rabbit, but what I do love is their album, and in the end, this is an album list. The Midnight Organ Fight is unimpeachable and pretty much flawless. There are no bad songs. The lyrics are brilliant and both the music and singer Scott Hutchison’s voice are perfectly suited to them. There’s pain here -- real pain -- and it’s conveyed so well, time and time again. The emotion is honest -- almost too honest to be bearable. The album skates just on the edge between disaster and excellence, and when it falls, it falls on the right side. I really liked Scottish pop for a long time; this is the album that made me love it. I can’t even pick a favorite song.
(stream full album)

--DL--
Gobbledigook (Sigur Rós)
Tomorrow You'll Be Forgiven... (Jesper Norda)
German Love (Starfucker)
Anna (Hello Saferide)

Ingen radio

2008-12-17T21:21:00.000-08:00

So. There is currently no snow in the air or on the ground. Thus, I went ahead and walked all the way over to KPSU -- with my computer, which is not exactly a bag of feathers -- only to find that, while I got into the building just fine (my access badge still works) the fire doors to the basement were locked tight. Terrific. Since I know of no other way to access the basement or the sub-basement, where KPSU is located, there will be no show this evening. I’m sorry. I was really looking forward to this one, too.

There will also be no shows for the next two weeks, because I will soon be leaving town -- unless, of course, we finally get the massive snow and ice storm people keep shutting things down in preparation for. Maybe I will do a best of 2008 show on January 2, 2009, when I come back -- if I make it back, and if I manage to get in to the station. In the meantime, expect my 2008 albums list tomorrow or the next day, and, probably, since I will get bored, another post or two at least.

Besked

2008-12-17T13:00:00.000-08:00

It's been snowing on and off all morning, but so far doesn't seem to have stuck. At the moment, I'm still planning on going in for the show -- which will be my favorites of 2008 -- tonight, but if the weather takes a turn for the worse, I may change my mind. In case anyone (alarmingly) checks this thing more than once a day, I'll try to keep you posted.

Even though there were several other, far more pressing, things I should have been doing, I spent the morning deleting all my deep links and mp3s no longer offered as free downloads by the artist and/or label. Since I went through the entire archive -- almost two years' worth, and for the first six months or so, I was apparently living in fear of the RIAA, as I refused to host any mp3s myself -- there were quite a few. But I think I got them all. I love cleanliness and order.

Now I will go do something productive -- like actually plan my show.

Yndlinge sange af 2008

2008-12-16T23:43:00.000-08:00

First, a few things to keep in mind:

I don’t listen to a lot of new music, and what I do listen to is not very diverse. These are probably not the best of the year; they are my favorites of the year. Also, unlike many other blogs/websites, I will not repeat artists -- otherwise these lists would be even more homogenous.

Even with all the rules I set for myself, I had a terrible time narrowing this list down to ten, and then, once I’d finally managed that (actually, as you can see, I didn’t), I had just as much trouble putting it into order. The numbers -- 1-10 -- really don’t mean a whole lot.

These are my ten favorite songs that didn’t appear on one of my ten favorite albums:

Except I have two honorable mentions:

12. 7-11 (from the album By-The-Numbers) – the Postmarks
7-11 is a cover of a song by the Ramones, but it sounds like the Shangri-Las. That should be recommendation enough. To be honest, I don’t know why I’m so attracted to this. I was never a huge fan of girl groups, and this sounds, from the ooh-ooh-las to the string instrumentation, exactly like a sixties girl group song; everything is spot-on. My inability to pinpoint just what it is that I like is probably the reason this is an honorable mention instead of being on the list proper. But then again, maybe that uncertainty is what makes me like it.
By the way, if I ever hear the original Ramones version of this song, I will probably have some kind of a seizure. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must sound like.
(stream full album)

11. In the New Year (from the album You & Me) – the Walkmen
The first time I heard this song, I had already pretty much decided on my top ten songs -- but this is so good I decided to tack it on at the last minute. Lately especially, I’ve gotten to really like year songs -- and this, lyrically like many of the others I know -- is bittersweet; looking forward, but tinged with unhappy memories. Even with all its competition, In the New Year probably wins best lyrics of 2008 for me; I would love to quote them all. And sonically, it’s fascinating. I don’t know what those instruments are -- maybe just a really awesome organ? -- but wow. The song starts out like an electric Bob Dylan ballad and retains touches of that sound throughout, but it quickly grows into a tortured yet soaring, crashing, almost anthemic thing. It’s almost off balance, but it hits just right.
(stream)

Now, the actual ten:

10. Travel as I Wait (from the album The Anger) – Tomas Halberstad
I can’t quite place what I like about this one, either. It doesn’t sound much like the other songs on my top ten. I think what I like best is the sound. This is just one guy, but the vocals are layered on thick (and the voice and lyrics go together well) and there are so many little hints of different instruments, many of which you rarely hear elsewhere (by which I mean in other music). This strikes me as a very Swedish song, but it’s also very unique.
(mp3 -- also available at tomashalberstad.wordpress.com)

9. Godzilla vs the Island of Manhattan (with You and I Somewhere In Between) (from the album I Worked on the Ships) – ballboy
This is a silly love song that’s serious. It could mean so many things. Every time I listen to it, I think of a new one.
(stream full album)

8. Two Skylights (from the album Hurry Up and Thrill Me) – Southern Belle
I did a fantastic write-up for Hurry Up and Thrill Me, and then realized the entire thing was about Two Skylights. Not only is this my favorite Southern Belle song (unfortunately, it sounds very little like the rest of their album; I’m reminded more of Ross McLeron’s solo work), but it’s also one of the most appropriate songs I’ve heard in a long time. Even the name -- which doesn’t appear anywhere in the lyrics -- is very fitting. I first heard Two Skylights this spring, and it’s a good spring song -- a bit morose, but also hopeful -- or even a summer song -- uncomplicated and, dare I say it, somehow very pure. You can hear their youth.

7. How Did We Forget (from the album From the Valley to the Stars) – El Perro del Mar
This is such an old-sounding song. My grandmother would love it. I love it, too. The first time I heard it, I knew -- this song was made for vinyl. I can imagine it most, in fact, as a scratchy record with a skip in it, the same loop playing over and over. Of course, I’d keep my record in pristine condition, if I had one, but this is one of those songs that would still sound terrific with a bit of dust and a few scratches. To add character, though it has plenty of that already. Yes it’s slow and yes it’s repetitive and yes it’s true it doesn’t really go anywhere, but something about it is -- God -- just gorgeous.
(stream)

6. Arrows (from the EP Favors and Fields) – Einar Stray
This is a really pretty song -- layered, beautifully orchestrated; delicate; soothing. Instrumental for nearly the first two minutes, Arrows has that Icelandic sound -- think Seabear, think Múm -- despite Einar Stray’s being from Norway. I don’t know much about Norwegian music, but if the rest of it sounds anything like this, I’ll be listening a lot more.
And I will refrain from being jealous because this is so good it’s beyond me. Yeah, jealous -- because this guy (not band -- one guy) is eighteen. I’m amazed.
(mp3 -- also available at nrk.no)

5. I’m a Lady (feat Trouble Andrew) (from the album Santogold) – Santogold
I didn’t like Santogold at first, and once I started liking her, I still didn’t like this song for quite a while. It’s different from my usual fare; poppier somehow (though I have no idea what genre this belongs to). And, of course, it’s catchy as hell. I appreciate it, though, especially the changes in pitch and inflection. The production is good, too. Not to sound too technical, though -- I’m a Lady is (in my opinion, at least) a perfectly executed fuck-you. And it’s a versatile one -- it could go so many ways. That kind of thing is hard to come by.

4. Lucky (B-side from the single Neo Violence) – the Tough Alliance
The lyrics (which are not the Tough Alliance’s own; it’s a cover) are not the most brilliant. I don’t really know what this song is about. Listening, I pay more attention to the sound. It’s floaty and ethereal and, as I wrote before, “sounding as if they’re shouted down a long tunnel, the vocals are echo-y, far away, perhaps almost all the way gone… To me, it sounds kinda like a memory.” That’s still what I’m most likely to think of with this song -- a memory, a lost childhood, or maybe just a dream from a childhood I never had. Definite melancholia.
(mp3 via Pitchfork)

3. Lovesong (B-side from the single Weekender) – Oliver North Boy Choir
I wrote about this one before, too – “It’s the right kind of love song -- one for the broken-hearted. I guess nearly all (good) love songs are somewhat broken-hearted, but this one seems even more so. It’s perhaps what happens when you’re still in love, but don’t want to be, kind of; the lie that you need to tell yourself, even though you know it’s not true.” There’s only one thing I’d like to add to that. It’s slow and delicate and lovely enough, instrumentally, but it’s the lyrics that really kill. Once I tried to listen to this ironically and it just didn’t work. It doesn’t want to be, but this song is totally a lie. And that makes it even more painful, and even more real, and an even better song.
(stream)

2. Oh! You Pretty Things (from the album Life Beyond Mars: Bowie Covered) – Au Revoir Simone
Au Revoir Simone made my list last year, with their sophomore album The Bird of Music. They released a remix album this year, but I didn’t like it. What I did -- do -- like is Oh! You Pretty Things, a weird, vastly slowed-down cover from an even weirder tribute album. My favorite part, I think, is the last minute and a quarter or so, which is instrumental and sounds like a lullaby, but I really don’t know what it is about this song that makes me so like it. Perhaps it’s something about the slightly fuzzy organs, the echo, the three-part vocal harmonies… I don’t know. I do know that it’s good, though. And, even as much as I like David Bowie, Au Revoir Simone have got him beat on this one.
(stream)

1. In a Jar (from the album Best of Bakers at Dawn) – Bakers at Dawn
If I were asked to choose a favorite new artist for the year, it would easily be Bakers at Dawn. In a Jar is only one of my favorite of his songs (and its not even one of the ones where he sounds exactly like Elliott Smith!). It’s short and demo-y, very raw. The lyrics aren’t terrific (although, admittedly, the voice pretty much is), and the guitar isn’t all that special. Two other instruments appear briefly, though, and while they’re oftentimes background, almost indistinguishable from the guitar, both lend the song an interesting texture, and all of it fits together perfectly. It sounds good -- really good.
Other songs may be catchy, may appeal to some fleeting sensation or resonate only among a select few, may hit and then fade quickly away. It’s rare that a song comes along that doesn’t do any of those things, but is instead simply and in its own right a good song. In a Jar, I think, does that. This song is gonna last.

--DL--
Travel as I Wait (Tomas Halberstad)
Arrows (Einar Stray)
Lucky (the Tough Alliance)

Bedste ti musik-beslægtede tinge fra 2008

2008-12-13T10:40:00.000-08:00

10 Best Music-Related Things of 2008 -- I think that's pretty self-explanatory. No actual songs or albums included here.

10. Attending the Roskilde Festival. I guess it would be pretty lame of me to not put that on here.

9. Discovering some really wonderful stuff on albums/by bands I thought I hated. I’m thinking of two songs in particular: Heartbeats (video) (thanks Rasmus), from the 2006 album Deep Cuts, by the Knife (who I otherwise can’t stand), and The Twist, from Metric’s (still pretty blah) album Grow Up and Blow Away, originally recorded as their unreleased debut in 2001, and officially released for the first time early last year.

8. Becoming friends with Arya Imig. (I needed another one, and if that’s not music-related, I don’t know what is.)

7. Turning 21. (This would be higher on the list if I had actually utilized this even once.)

6. Seeing VEGA. All wood, all original (from, I believe, the 1950s), acoustics that I could tell -- even without a band in it -- would be beautiful. Possibly the most perfect venue in the world.

5. Rock camp kids. I worked briefly with two different groups this summer, doing sound, and as jealous as I am of these thirteen-year-old guitar virtuosos and shy seventeen-year-old singer-songwriters, I’m even more pleased by their talent. No matter how terrible they might sound (usually not so much so), any band whose members are visibly underage gets a plus in my book and a smile on my face.

4. Starting to like garage rock again. To explain this, I should explain my listening history, which is a bit weird. I’ll try to be brief: the first band I remember listening to, when I was VERY young, was the Beatles. The sixties and seventies have always been present. When I was a little older, I listened to mid-nineties sugary alternative pop, which gradually turned into alternative rock of the embarrassing sort by middle school. Midway through high school I convinced myself to like punk rock (PS Josh I never liked the Casualties) and this persisted through my first year of college. In my second year, I began studying Danish and listening to Danish streaming radio, which begat my current love of indie pop and twee.
With each new period, I suppressed the ones before it. Of course, there was always some overlap, both forward and backward -- I’ve liked Sigur Rós since I was about sixteen; I still occasionally listen to the Distillers -- but largely, previous tastes were eradicated. The sounds of the sixties, while still floating, annoyingly, around the peripherals, took the hardest hit. But in the past year or so I’ve been realizing more and more that many of the bands I like most are heavily influenced by music from that era, and I’ve been able to appreciate again the simultaneously jangling and fuzzy sound. Still, it’s only in the past few months that I’ve begun to really enjoy garage rock and psychadelia -- both new and old -- without feelings of derision and guilt, and I’m so glad for it.

3. These emails... Yeah, right. Like I am really going to let strangers read my mail.

2. Being in a position to take these photographs. It’s not actually the pictures that I care so much about -- it’s where I was standing. And what I was hearing.

1. Doing sound for bands whose singers run their vocal mics through guitar pedals. As far as I can recall, this has happened twice -- first with Andy Combs and the Moth (Let’s Ride – mp3) and more recently with Baby Birds Don’t Drink Milk (full set – mp3) -- and it sounds awesome. Both the bands and the way the vocals turned out are really different, but wow -- people should do this more often. It’s only rarely that I make my own copy of a live recording, but I did that in both these cases, and I’ve listened to them over and over and over.

Best (favorite) songs and albums will be here soon.

--DL--
Let's Ride (Andy Combs and the Moth)
Live on KPSU (Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk)

Ærefulde omtaler?

2008-12-13T10:12:00.000-08:00

While I wait for a couple mp3s to upload, here is yesterday’s playlist:

1. Warm Hands – An Horse
2. Tonite – Jarvis Cocker
3. Tell the King – the Libertines
4. Drama Queen – moi Caprice (DK)
5. Heartbeats – the Knife (SV)
6. The Squirrel and the Pine-Cone – Girls Love Rallie (DK)
7. Seconds Away – the Legends (SV)
8. Mom and Dad – the Bear Quartet (SV)
9. Relay Race – Billie the Vision and the Dancers (SV)
10. The Room, Tarzana – the Radio Dept. (SV)
11. Fish and Shark – Jonas Game (SV)
12. Love No (Delorean Remix) – the Teenagers
13. Soundwaves – Attention Now! (N)
14. Let’s Go Hunting – Blue Horns
15. Oh My God – Ida Maria (N)
16. Dance, Dance, Dance – Lykke Li (SV)

The past two shows (yesterdays and Wednesday’s) I tried to play songs I liked from 2008, but which for one reason or another probably won’t wind up on my forthcoming best-of lists.

The hour following mine (as well as Live Friday, to a lesser extent) also features a bunch of songs/albums which I had not previously heard (Lykke Li’s Dance, Dance, Dance should be included in that list) but that have been popping up on other people’s best-of lists this year -- including my personal favorite of those, the Walkmen’s In the New Year, as well as almost the entirety of No Age’s album Nouns.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (12. december)~~

Sluttet

2008-12-11T22:25:00.000-08:00

Ikke med radio, men med min slutprøver. Og måske også, for en gang, med skole. Jeg er så træt af, alt jeg læser, måtte jeg snart hoste op igen. Hvis skribenter tænker og mener halv af alle tinge vi skriver og siger om dem og deres historier, den hader jeg alle af dem. Det er kun for meget -- og det kan jeg mere...

Men, radioprogrammet fra i onsdags -- det var godt, og bedre fordi jeg havde endnu sluttet min sidst slutprøve. Her er min spilleliste:

1. And Sleep al Mar – Au Revoir Simone
2. La Strada nel Bosco – Jens Lekman (SV)
3. Exit Bag – Andy Love (SV)
4. The Sweetness of Air France – Taken by Trees (SV, SV)
5. English Music (Destroyer) – Cake on Cake (SV)
6. At Some Point – Bakers at Dawn (SV)
7. Junk Bond Trader – Elliott Smith
8. Mind Blindness – Dirty on Purpose
9. Explosions – the Mary Onettes (SV)
10. Black Pearl – Death Valley Sleepers (DK)
11. You Don’t Dance – Lupus (DK)
12. Den Støjende Tid – Lampshade (DK)
13. Going to Where the Tea Trees Are – Peter Von Poehl (SV)
14. Young Turks (Disco Pusher remix) – Au Revoir Simone
15. Stay (Just a Little Bit More) – the Dø (F)

Og næste onsdag (17. november) skal jeg have min “Bedst af 2008.” Jeg har ikke endnu bestemt, om jeg skal spille yndlinge sange eller et sang fra mine yndlinge albumer, eller hvad... men det skal altså være et meget godt program -- det skal jeg nyde, i det mindste.

Jeg elsker “bedst af” lister -- ikke kun mine eget. Men jeg er ikke særlig godt med at lytte til nye musik, da albumerne kommer først ud, og så mangler jeg meget af årets bedste plader -- men den, i december, men denne lister, kan jeg finde ud af, hvad jeg skal prøve for næste året...

Så skal jeg faktist skrive tre lister i år -- en for sange, en for albumer, og også en af den ti tinge som var, synes jeg, bedste musik-beslægtede tinge for mig i året. (Den sidste er kun fordi jeg vil gerne skrive den; den må du ikke gerne læse.) Jeg synes, albumlisten er meste vigtig, så skal jeg sætte den op her sidste, måske næste torsdag, efter radioprogrammet. Andre to lister skal kom før den, måske i morgen og sondag, men jeg ved ikke.

Og også, efter programmet næste onsdag -- 17. december -- skal jeg igen til hos min forældre, så skal der ikke være radioprogrammer igen før januar.

Du må download Jens Lekmans sang La Strada nel Bosco, som jeg kan godt fordi 1) han synger på italiensk, og 2) det kommer fra en EP hedder You Deserve Someone Better than a Bum Like Me. Fantastisk.

English (short version) -- Next Wednesday’s show (that’s 17 december) will be my “best of 2008” list. I haven’t decided whether I’ll play my favorite songs, try to represent my favorite albums, or what, but it will be good. Since it’s a Wednesday, I’ll be talking again in Danish (perhaps a little English, though, but perhaps not), but I will post in the next week or so three “best of” lists -- one for albums, one for songs, and one called “The ten best music-related things of 2008,” which may appear as soon as tomorrow.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (10. december 2008)~~
La Strada nel Bosco (Jens Lekman)

Overraskelser

2008-12-06T19:43:00.000-08:00

Taking a brief break to post playlists (sorry no links now) and -- here's the first surprise -- respond to my emails.

Here's Wednesday's:
1. Mother, I Wither Away - Paper Brain
2. Loco Tracks - Mono
3. Travel as I Wait - Tomas Halberstad (SV)
4. Chemical Girl - the Fine Arts Showcase (SV)
5. The Twist - Metric
6. Xmas on the Dancefloor - Sofia & Sophie (SV)
7. Moved Me - Tiger Baby (DK)
8. What I'm Dreaming of is Something I Could Have - Club 8 (SV)
9. Behind the Drapes - Mew (DK)
10. Run - Oliver North Boy Choir (DK)
11. Stars - Japan Air (SV)
12. Nicknames - Pelle Carlberg (SV)

And Friday's:
1. My Little One - Slumber Party
2. Mirror - Agata & Me (DK)
3. Canoe - Bakers at Dawn (SV)
4. Arena Song - Sugarboom
5. Starlett Johansson - the Teenagers
6. Here Comes that Feeling - El Perro del Mar (SV)
7. German Love - Starfucker
8. I Know You Sleep - Bang Gang (IS)
9. Grisslappan - epo-555 (DK)
10. Trying Something New - the Honeydrips (SV)
11. I Wonder Who is Like this One - Hello Saferide (SV)
12. Magic Man - Said the Shark (DK)
13. South of France - Harlem
14. Sex on Fire - Kings of Leon
15. Hospital Bed - Seabear (IS)

I may have played some other songs at the ends of both shows, but I really have been so out of sorts this week that I just can't remember what they were. You can listen to the podcasts, though, of course, and maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Many of the songs this week are pretty new (or, in one case, were recently re-released), and several mp3s are also available for download, via artists' websites, labels, and Gorilla vs. Bear's year-end list (which I recognize about two percent of). I would like to talk about these few songs I do recognize, but I have got too much stuff still to do, so I am going to keep it vague. But click on one, and, again, maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Next week, though I'll have just (and by just, I mean just -- it ends about an hour before the show) sat my first graduate-level final exam, I should be more organized and alert. There may be another blog post (maybe even in Danish) before then, too. I don't study well for exams.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (3. december 2008)~~
~~Ashtrays Podcast (5. december 2008)~~

Ekstra tid...

2008-12-02T11:57:00.000-08:00

Back in Portland again and ridiculously busy.

Last night -- two radio hours, covering for Sound Judgment. The playlist is on the KPSU website, as are podcasts for hours ~~one~~ and ~~two~~. Don’t expect a bonus Ashtrays, though; I played all of three Scandinavian artists. An okay program, though.

December’s upon us already, and I’m starting to think about my year-end lists (which will hopefully be completed a bit earlier than last year’s). Right now I’m listening to the new EP from the Fine Arts Showcase. It’s really good. And free.

More later.

Jeg savner hjemme

2008-11-23T20:53:00.000-08:00

Friday’s show went well. Lots of stuff I'd never played before -- or at least not played in a long while. Spillelisten:

1. Lost and Found (live) – the Radio Dept. (SV)
2. Girl Got Lost – Death Valley Sleepers (DK)
3. My Doorbell – the White Stripes
4. Liar – Valerian (F)
5. Janey Black (Tiger Baby remix) – Velour (DK, DK)
6. The Modern Age (live) – the Strokes
7. We Might as Well Have Stayed Young – the Enright House
8. I’m Still in the Grass – the Bear Quartet (SV)
9. Violent Skull – Girls Love Rallie (DK)
10. Mountaintops – What Can Skulls Tell Us?
11. Sky Phenomenon – Jens Lekman (SV)
12. Dudley – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
13. The Walk – the Honeydrips (SV)
14. You Know – Nomber 5s (N)
15. Hide and Seek – the Brian Jonestown Massacre
16. Wishing Well – Love is All (SV)

A couple of downloads: Wishing Well, from Love is All’s new album, is free at Pitchfork. (You can watch the video there also.) Most of what I’ve heard from this band is fairly annoying; fortunately Wishing Well takes that annoying and blends it with catchiness and stupid-dancing-around-ability. Something like that. It’s pretty alright.

Also -- the Radio Dept. has just (finally) launched a new website. It’s not quite done yet, but looks to be incredibly detailed and informative. The media page also has at least fifty songs (some are the same, but different versions) to download. Very cool. Unfortunately, there’s still no release date for the new album, but hopefully it’ll come soon.

Now, regarding next week -- I am now out of town, visiting family for Thanksgiving (which I note does not exist in Denmark, but my great grandmother wants to see me anyway) and I will not be back until Sunday. Zach from My Secret Crush will be hosting the Wednesday show; I don’t know what’s going on with Friday. I’ll be back Monday, 1. December, guest hosting Sound Judgment from 10 pm to midnight, and then Wednesday at 9 and Friday at 3 for the regular shows.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (21. november 2008)~~

Og nye navner

2008-11-20T11:29:00.000-08:00

Last night I found out that since I am now a graduate student (as opposed to an undergraduate student) the large paper I thought I had due is in fact not due for three more weeks. This means that I could have gone out of the apartment Tuesday (I did not) and that I could have taken the time to plan a good show yesterday (I did anyway, but I could have done better).

A note about the Wednesday show -- though I usually “narrate” the evening programs in Danish, yesterday was all English, due to the fact that I was joined by a non-Danish-speaking guest host, Becca. Even though she declined to share Mulan quotes on air -- we didn’t, in fact, talk much at all -- I found the program pretty enjoyable.

Spillelisten:
1. Apple Blossom – Emily Jane Powers
2. I Grunden er Afgrunden Grunden – Thunderbear (DK)
3. Lord Anthony – Belle & Sebastian
4. Är Du Fortfarande Arg? – Säkert! (SV)
5. Miles and Miles – Said the Shark (DK)
6. Mission to the Moon – Harmony Boys (DK) -- now called SMALL
7. Arrows – Einar Stray (N)
8. Byen Driver – Under Byen (DK)
9. Tonight – Oliver North Boy Choir (DK)
10. Farrah – Action Biker (SV)
11. Oh! You Pretty Things – Au Revoir Simone

If you haven’t heard that last one, especially, you owe it to yourself to do it. It’s on the podcast, of course, or you can stream it here.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (19. november 2008)~~

Bands med beklagelige navner

2008-11-17T11:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was going to write a blog, but instead I read a whole book -- cover to cover -- which I haven’t done in a long time. I enjoyed it. Here is the entry I was going to write:

I’ll start with the old. There’s this band from New York, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, who I’ve been listening to on and off for nearly a year. My hopes for having found the ultimate twee band were crushed when I learned, a while ago, that they are not (as their last.fm bio suggests) brothers and sister, but they are nevertheless a very good shoegaze-y twee band. I’ve seen them compared to My Bloody Valentine and Asobi Seksu -- neither of whom can really be called twee -- but all the descriptions seem apt. Another band I myself compare them to is Dirty On Purpose, especially the way they sounded on their second EP, Sleep Late for a Better Tomorrow, featuring vocals from Au Revoir Simone’s Erika Forster. If you like that, you will like this.

Anyway. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, the band (what a name, I mean). They have a saddeningly scant discography, and their debut LP, which includes several (okay, four) previously released songs, isn’t set for release until next February. Perhaps it’s because they have such a small catalog that the songs are so good. Many -- including a few of the as-yet-unreleased ones -- can be streamed at last.fm. They all share an immediately recognizable sound -- jangly and shoegaze-y at once; many also feature boy-girl vocals, and there’s just the right amount of mope and mock accents and minor chords.

All the songs have these traits, but I’m talking about one in particular here: ~~Stay Alive~~. It won’t officially be released until February, with the album, but right now it’s up for grabs on the band’s website (and here). From the opening bars, I knew it would be my favorite Pains of Being Pure at Heart song, and I was right. I still don’t understand a lot of what they’re saying (as happens fairly often with me) so while it’s possible I’m subconsciously imagining lyrics, it’s far more likely that the song, its sound, reminds me of something I’ve long since forgotten. I really don’t know how to describe it any better, except to say that for every person, there are perfect songs. They come along every so often, and what sounds perfect to the one person may be only good, or even mediocre, for another, but for that one… This is one of my perfect songs.

And now the new. Followers of this blog probably already know I’m a pretty big fan of Oliver North Boy Choir, even though I cringe every time I say their name. They’ve just finished their next single (they only do singles), Over/Out. It’ll be released 23. November, but the third and fourth tracks are available for download now. They’re both nice and soft and ONBC-sounding, though the third, ~~Farvel~~ (it means goodbye, farewell, etc.) is their first non-English song, done in both Danish and Swedish. It’s also a collaboration with Marcus of Bakers at Dawn, who I also really like.

Farvel is nice, but I like the bonus track, Tonight, even better -- especially the last two and a half minutes. I think it’s largely the lyrics I’m drawn to, so maybe if I went to the trouble of translating Farvel, I would be more fond of it. One of the lines -- tonight I’ll be on your wall -- really sticks with me, and I don’t know why. This is another of those unhappy love songs the band bio talks about, and they do them so well.

For more such songs, pretty much the entire ONBC catalog can be streamed right now on last.fm. (I’d start with Lovesong, the Weekender B-side.) And, again, the front half of Over/Out will be released Sunday. Looking forward to hearing the rest of it.

--DL--
~~Stay Alive (the Pains of Being Pure at Heart)~~
~~Farvel (Oliver North Boy Choir)~~
Tonight (Oliver North Boy Choir)

Forsømmelighed

2008-11-15T10:36:00.000-08:00

Spillelisten fra 12. november:
1. Hold Me Now - Elastica
2. Boneless - the Notwist
3. The Moss - Daníel Ágúst (IS)
4. What to Pass On/What to Keep - Jomi Massage (DK)
5. Keep It Down - the Worn-Out Virgins (DK)
6. Weekender - Oliver North Boy Choir (DK)
7. Words Enough to Tell You - the Mascots (SV)
8. Wayward Wind - The One A.M. Radio
9. Love Can Destroy Everything - the Raveonettes (DK)
10. Lester - Bakers at Dawn (SV)
11. Make it Pass - Jesper Norda (SV)
12. Boil in Bag - Children and Corpse Playing in the Streets (N)
13. Hospital Bed - Seabear (IS)
14. The Beauty of the Way We're Living - Club 8 (SV)
15. GBG 123 - Bonnie and Clyde (SV)
16. Lola - the Kinks

This show (Wednesday's) took a different than usual form (at least in terms of content) for a very specific reason. I thought it turned out quite well.

Og spillelisten fra 14. november:
1. Artboy Meets Artgirl - moi Caprice (DK)
2. 1981 - Cake on Cake (SV)
3. Pretending (Parts 1 and 2) - Tiger Baby (DK)
4. Trying Something New - the Honeydrips (SV)
5. Not Enough - Maria Timm (DK)
6. Butterfly in Paris - Anamia (DK)
7. A Year Before the Future - Typhoon
8. I Know You Sleep - Bang Gang (IS)
9. Black Fur - Fredrik (SV)
10. 7-11 - the Postmarks
11. Candy - El Perro del Mar (SV)
12. All You Want - Said the Shark (DK)
13. And Sleep Al Mar - Au Revoir Simone
14. I'm A Lady - Santogold

And one other radio thing: yesterday my frengers (can I call them frengers? I'm going to) Point Juncture WA played on Live Friday. I'm listening to their 2005 album Mama Auto Bass, which I admittedly and unfortunately have not played in at least a year. It's quite good, as is their new stuff -- the very soon to be released album Heart to Elk (a few tracks from which you can download through their website), as well as the Live Friday set, which is available ~~here~~.

I can't write much more today, because I have to leave for work in a few minutes, but tomorrow, thanks to the economic downturn, I only have to work for four and a half hours (instead of the usual eight). When I come home, even though I should be working on my Lorrie Moore report, I will write about old and new things, I promise, just for you.

And since this is an mp3 blog, but it has been at least twenty years since I posted anything (aside from podcasts) to download, here is something to tide you over. I've probably posted it before, since it was my favorite song for about a month this summer, but just in case I was negligent then, too, here is Trying Something New by the Honeydrips, with more mp3s on his media page.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (12. november 2008)~~
~~Ashtrays Podcast (14. november 2008)~~
Trying Something New (the Honeydrips)

To programmer; ikke mere

2008-11-08T10:35:00.000-08:00

Spillelister fra fredag, 7. november:
1. Please Please Please (Let Me Get What I Want) - ANT (SV)
2. Music on the Radio - Sissy Wish (N)
3. Danger! (Ice Cream Shout) - The Sound of Arrows (SV)
4. Teach Me Tiger - Speaker Bite Me (DK)
5. Her Voice is Beyond Her Years - Mew (DK)
6. Sing Bird - Oli Oli Oli (DK)
7. Amsterdam - Peter Björn and John (SV)
8. Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second - Starfucker
9. Candy Land - CocoRosie
10. Little Lovin - Irene (SV)
11. Over - Working for a Nuclear Free City
12. Goodbye - Asobi Seksu
13. 16 Ink - 18th Dye (DK)
14. Subtle Changes - Sambassadeur (SV)
15. Claustrophobia - Choir of Young Believers (DK)

Og eftervalgs højtideligholdelse, fra onsdag, 5. november:
1. The Times They Are A-Changin' - the Byrds
2. Blew Away - Smashing Pumpkins
3. 747 - Kent (SV)
4. X Telling Me About the Loss of Something Dear, at Age 16 - Hello Saferide (SV)
5. Iloitkaamme - Mikko Singh (SV)
6. Let Me Put it This Way - David & the Citizens (SV)
7. Take Me Home (Johan Agebjörn remix featuring Sally Shapiro) - Don Juan Dracula (SV, SV, N)
8. Friday Night at the Drive-In Bingo - Jens Lekman (SV)
9. Nicknames - Pelle Carlberg (SV)
10. Summer Sun - Batte (N)
11. Stay Alive - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
12. Prolusion - Tiger Baby (DK)
13. The Young Ones - Munich (DK)
14. Fake Empire - the National

Jeg skal snart skrive om the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, selv om de kommer ikke fra Skandinavien.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (7. november 2008)~~
~~Ashtrays Podcast (5. november 2008)~~

OBAMA!

2008-11-04T23:47:00.000-08:00

After this I promise I will return to music and stop going on about politics. But, to quote Bill Bradbury, Oregon’s current Secretary of State, “the world is different tonight.” Let’s hope that different means better.

Glem ikke at stemme

2008-11-03T10:10:00.000-08:00

This post probably doesn't apply to about half of you, but for those who, like me, live in the US of A -- please remember that tomorrow (Tuesday, November 4th) is election day, and you had better vote. If, also like me, you live in Oregon, where we vote by mail, please don't mail your ballot now; it won't arrive in time. Instead, take it to one of the drop boxes listed here.

This election cycle, I haven't really been very active or vocal with politics; I did a lot more in 2004, when I wasn't even old enough to vote. However, I feel that this may be an even more important election than the last one, and so, even though an mp3 blog probably isn't the most appropriate venue, it's my venue, and I can say whatever I like, so I'm going to talk about politics for a little while now.

I'll be brief, though. I'm only going to discuss the presidential race. Even if you don't cast a vote for anyone or anything else, please make the effort and vote for a new President of the United States. It is worth the effort of filling in a bubble, pressing a button, or punching out a chad (punch it all the way), so that the country will maybe not embark on a nuclear war or escalate in Iraq, so that I (and numerous others) can maybe afford to have and be able to acquire health insurance, so that the world's most militarily powerful nation can have a vice president whose most compelling political credential isn't the fact that she can see Russia from her house. (I mean, has anyone ever thought of this -- Sarah Palin's neighbors can probably see Russia from their houses, too. Does that make them qualified to be Vice President of the United States? No it does not.)

I shouldn't have to say which candidate I'm endorsing. It should be incredibly obvious who everyone's choice should be. But forty percent of the American public is still saying, in polls, that they plan on voting for John McCain, and a small segment of the population is still undecided. So I'll make an endorsement, but first I'll say this -- no one we elect is going to be perfect. No one is going to fix everything that is wrong with America. But, given a choice between working on digging out of the hole or miring further in, why, oh why, would anyone choose to get worse when there's the opportunity to do better?

Please, when you vote for President of the United States, make the better choice -- the intelligent choice -- the right choice. Vote Barack Obama.

Ikke mere kæledyr

2008-10-31T20:58:00.000-07:00

If one of the CD players hadn’t stopped functioning halfway through, this could have been my best show yet. Even so, it will, I think, go down in history due to my playing the Spot Magazine “Everything Pets” underwriting spot back to back with the community calendar advertising (unbeknownst to me) a Halloween showing of the film adaptation of Pet Sematary. Oh yes.

I also talked a bit about some interesting articles published in the most recent issue of a magazine I don’t usually (okay, ever) read, the American Conservative. (You, too, can join in doing something completely in contradiction with all previous political activity -- read the articles starting here.) Anyway, the editors asked eighteen contributors to write short essays on who they’re planning to vote for and why. If the results of this “survey” -- of people, remember, whose opinions are recognized by the readers of a nationally circulating magazine, and who are considered far enough to the right to be allowed to write for it -- are at all indicative of how the upcoming election will turn out, well, I’d say that’s very good.

A recap of what I said on the show: Of the eighteen, four were so displeased with their options that they plan to abstain from voting entirely. Two others, who plan on giving their votes to write-ins, might as well. Four more votes will go to third-party candidates. That leaves eight, and five of eight American conservatives support Obama. (PS -- the three who plan to vote for McCain are all reluctant.) Again -- oh yes.

Here is the playlist, which was mostly normal but with a vampire song and a mention of pagan holidays thrown in, just in case.
1. Hate to Say I Told You So – the Hives (SV)
2. Minua Ollaan Vastassa – Regina (F)
3. Blah Blah Blah – Say Hi to Your Mom
4. Current Acids – Shout Wellington Air Force (DK)
5. Piazza, New York Catcher – Belle & Sebastian
6. King Canute – the Kabeedies
7. Invisibility Trick – Stars in Coma (SV)
8. Le Beat’s on Fire – epo-555 (DK)
9. Mouth – No and the Maybes (DK)
10. I Wish You’d Stay – Club 8 (SV)
11. How Did We Forget? – El Perro del Mar (SV)
12. Leaving You Behind – Hello Saferide (SV)
13. Asleep – Juni Järvi (SV)
14. Locked in Tight – the Flaming Stars

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (31. oktober 2008)~~

En rigtig post!

2008-10-29T21:13:00.000-07:00

Spillelisten!
1. Yes this is My Broken Shield - the Deer Tracks (SV)
2. I Know You Sleep - Bang Gang (IS)
3. Something New - Bakers at Dawn (SV)
4. Romance on Drugs - Little Jimmy Reeves (DK)
5. Drown them Out - Viva Voce
6. Avec - Dazzle Ships (DK)
7. For Lovers - Wolfman featuring Peter Doherty
8. Icecold Kisses - Ostrich (SV)
9. Ways to Dance - Kite (SV)
10. The Magic Position - Patrick Wolf
11. Love Doesn't Last - Broder Daniel (SV)
12. Heartbeats - the Knife (SV)
13. Sovereign - the Duke Spirit
13. Bachelor Kisses - the Radio Dept. (SV)

Funny how one song can change the tone of the whole set, and you go from 'For Lovers' to 'Love Doesn't Last.' I'm talking, of course, about the new Bang Gang single, I Know You Sleep. It's from his third album, Ghosts from the Past, and admittedly the only track I've heard from the new album. But -- even though it sounded kind of flat and processed through the KPSU speakers when I played it on the show tonight -- I Know You Sleep pretty much puts the songs on the previous album (2003's Something Wrong) to bed.

The video was released about a week ago, I think, and I have to wonder if it was timed for Halloween. Even though I've never seen a B horror film, the I Know You Sleep video reminds me of a B horror film, complete with creepy sound effects, blue screen driving scenes, vicious dogs, and -- I don't want to give too much away, but -- a guy with too many sharp teeth, and the requisite heroic rescuer guy in the car, played, of course, by Bardi Johansson (the man behind Bang Gang) himself. What I won't give away is the ending, but it's... interesting.

At first, the song and the visuals seemed really incongruous, but upon further reflection, they go well together. Even the song's title begs for a creepy horror film to illustrate it. Otherwise, I mean, people might get confused and think it's a romantic song to be played at weddings (but seriously, Every Breath You Take?). It's got nice sentiment, though. I cannot breathe; I need you here... Hmm.

ALSO -- My Friday show falls on Halloween. A lot of other DJs this week have been doing themed shows; should I follow suit? I played a vampire show a couple months ago; I could do that again. Or I could just play the Knife for an hour. Or just do normal. Any requests? Suggestions?

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (29. oktober 2008)~~

Sidste tre programmer

2008-10-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

I dag, jeg har kun links. Du kan måske allerede se, men jeg har ikke tiden, og jeg er nu nok ligeglad. Undskyld.

Fredag, 17. oktober: playlist -- ~~podcast~~
Onsdag, 22. oktober: playlist -- ~~podcast~~
Freday, 24. oktober: playlist -- ~~podcast~~

I aften

2008-10-22T15:22:00.000-07:00

Distinct possibility that there may be no show tonight. The sewers have ruptured or something, and the bottom half of the building KPSU is in is roped off with caution tape. Even if they get the pipes put back together by this evening, sewage tends to flow downward -- you know, with gravity -- and since the station is located in the sub-basement, I'm kind of thinking... don't get your hopes up.

Jeg bekymre mig

2008-10-20T10:34:00.000-07:00

After several weeks of sleeping under all seven blankets in so cold it still felt like camping, the radiators in my building have finally been turned on. The noises they are making sound like my apartment is going to blow up. I'm really scared. If you don't hear from me after this, you'll know what happened.

For sent igen

2008-10-16T17:54:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to get everything all caught up, which will probably never happen. Here, though, are my missing playlists.

Fra i fredags (10. oktober):
1. Feelings. Getting Stronger in the Night - Moneybrother (SV)
2. Loaded Gun - the Charade (SV)
3. Where Birds Don't Fly - Club 8 (SV)
4. She Says It's Alright - the Rentals
5. The Gray - Daníel Ágúst (IS)
6. Two Skylights - Southern Belle
7. Lund - Hello Saferide (SV)
8. You're So Great - Dreamboy (SV)
9. Feels Like Drowning - the Lost Patrol Band (SV)
10. Wooden Heart - the Duke Spirit
11. I Know a Place - Jay Reatard
12. Exit Bag - Andy Love (SV)
13. ADHD - Jonas Game

This show was interrupted by a fire drill between tracks 4 and 5. I put the automix on, and I don't know what played then. It messed up my playlist. I think the show wound up okay, though. I didn't mind to play so exclusively Swedes.

Spillelisten fra i gårs (15. oktober):
1. I Grunden er Afgrunden Grunden - Thunderbear (DK)
2. Undefined - Bakers at Dawn (SV)
3. Looking at You is Like Looking at the Sun - Juni Järvi (SV)
4. Suffer for Fashion - of Montreal
5. Ex Lion Tamer - Wire
6. The Beat Dies - the Raveonettes (DK)
7. Lost in You - Tiger Baby (DK)
8. Today - Agata & Me (DK)
9. Summer Sun - Batte (NO)
10. The Sweetness of Air France - Taken by Trees (SV, SV)
11. Going to Where the Tea Trees Are - Peter von Poehl (SV)
12. Crooked Spine - Sambassadeur (SV)
13. Vinterbørn - Under Byen (DK)

Yesterday I also guest-hosted My Secret Crush (the 10 o'clock show) in Zach's absence. This show consisted mainly of me starting out by ridiculously embarrassing myself, followed by a redemption of sorts with 40 minutes of good Scottish pop. If either of those things sound interesting to you, you can find the playlist or ~~stream/download~~ the show via the KPSU site.

This reminds me, also -- today's featured artist over at It's A Trap! has members who are both Swedish and Scottish, or something like that. I haven't listened yet, but that kind of combination has got to be pretty alright.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (10. oktober 2008)~~
~~Ashtrays Podcast (15. oktober 2008)~~

Den her sang behøvede ikke at have et remiks

2008-10-09T11:08:00.000-07:00

I spent an hour this morning trying to get Firefox AK's myspace page to load, and once it did, I wished it hadn't.

Let me explain. I guess that when you have a great song like Anna, you're eventually going to have to let somebody remix it, and who better than a member of your own backing band? However, if I'd been Annika Norlin (otherwise known as Hello Saferide) I might have been tempted to kick Andrea Kellerman (otherwise known as the aforementioned Firefox AK) out of the band when I heard her remix of Anna.

To be fair, it's -- for a remix -- relatively (and blessedly) short, clocking in at 2:55, and I'll admit that it has improved a bit with repeated listens. But this -- the original -- was a song that couldn't have been improved on, and it's also not a song that anyone should ever dance to -- or at least not dance to in the remixed fashion, if you know what I mean. Occasionally, putting electro beats under sad songs works; here it does not. Despite what I said about the remix improving after a few listens, this is not something I want to hear. Ever again.

And it's not just the beat, it's the lyrics. The original Anna is beautiful and heartwrenching (and would be even without the music), but in the remix, half the lines are gone, and the lyrics are destroyed. I just don't know.

On her website, Hello Saferide writes that the remix breaks her heart -- I have to wonder if she really means that in a good way.

Usually, Firefox AK is an artist I can either take or leave. I enjoyed Once I Was Like You; wasn't too fond of Winter Rose. And, of course, she was the other voice on Hello Saferide's Long Lost Penpal -- no complaints there. There are very few artists who are so hit-or-miss for me -- usually I just give up. The Anna remix is definitely a miss, but hopefully whatever she comes out with next will be more along the hit side, because Firefox AK really is an artist I'd like to like.

Download the original version of Anna, or stream the remix ~~here~~.

--DL--
Anna (Hello Saferide)

Spillelisten!

2008-10-08T21:27:00.000-07:00

Typed this up last night during the show, then forgot to post it.

Spillelisten for 8. oktober:
1. Life's A Beach - Studio (SV)
2. Ball & Chain - Social Distortion
3. Something Nice - Stina Nordenstam (SV)
4. Europa - Entakt (DK)
5. White Noise - Death Valley Sleepers (DK)
6. Arrows - Einar Stray (N)
7. Heartbeats - the Knife (SV)
8. Skin of the Night - m83
9. Adrenaline (Darkboy/TAT200 Remix) - Oliver North Boy Choir (FN, DK)
10. Travel as I Wait - Tomas Halberstad (SV)

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (8. oktober 2008)~~

I dags ord er nedslået

2008-10-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

As if it couldn’t get any worse... Today, It’s A Trap! announced that Hello Saferide will play not just one but two shows in New York later this month -- one of which, to add insult to injury, will be free. As of now, I officially hate everyone who lives in New York.

Her website is down again, though. Perhaps that means she's adding west coast dates?

I uges' spillelister

2008-10-07T10:39:00.000-07:00

Onsdag, 1. oktober:
1. Bear Quartet International Airport - the Bear Quartet (SV)
2. You Make Me Weak at the Knees - Electrelane
3. Hands Remember - Seabear (IS)
4. Det Kommer Bara Leda Till Nåt - Säkert! (SV)
5. Shoreline - Broder Daniel (SV)
6. Paris 2004 - Peter Bjorn & John (SV)
7. Tonight I Have to Leave It - Shout Out Louds (SV)
8. Noisy Summer - the Raveonettes (DK)
9. Seconds Away - the Legends (SV)
10. Keep it Down - the Worn-Out Virgins (DK)

--

Fredag, 3. oktober:
1. Hoppipolla - Sigur Rós (IS)
2. Not Enough - Maria Timm (DK)
3. I'll Be Fine - Bertine Zetlitz (N)
4. I Love You, You Imbecile - Pelle Carlberg (SV)
5. Hej Då Karolin - the Honeydrips (SV)
6. Saintly Friend - Said the Shark (DK)
7. Lion Tamer vs Tigers - Echo is Your Love (FN)
8. Because Trees Can Fly - Lampshade (DK)
9. For Once In Your Life Try to Fight For Something You
Believe In - moi Caprice (DK)
10. Love and Nostalgia - Friday Bridge (SV)
11. Stop in the Name of Love - Bang Gang (IS)
12. Comforting Sounds - Mew (DK)

Næsten alle bands, fra begge dage (minus kun Friday Bridge, Maria Timm, moi Caprice, og the Worn-Out Virgins) har været spillede sammen med the Bear Quartet på mit program før nu. Interessant.

Også, i gårs, spillede Sigur Rós i Portland. Da jeg gik hjem fra mit dansk klasse, gik jeg forbi koncertpladsen, og set jeg ikke dem, men deres to meget storre busser, og også en hel semi af deres udrustning. Jeg vil hellere har set dem -- eller hørte dem -- men det kunne ikke være. Jeg håber -- og jeg er sikker -- koncerten var godt for dem som var der. Men jeg skulle har været der i stedet.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (1. oktober 2008)~~
~~Ashtrays Podcast (3. oktober 2008)~~

Undskyld

2008-09-29T22:50:00.000-07:00

First of all, I must apologize to everyone who has emailed me in the past few months, and whose messages I have not attended to. Secondly, I apologize for not keeping this blog regularly. There are reasons for these things, but they are vague and some are pathetic and others make sense only to me, and to make a long story short, I'll just say things have been a bit of a struggle of late. I'll never be the most prompt or reliable correspondent, but hopefully things will get better...

As to the playlists from last week's shows, due to both the amount of time elapsed since then and the lingering malaise, I'll refer you again to the KPSU archives for Wednesday and Friday. Both shows, I thought, were pretty good, although not without a few technical blunders caused by a new board which I am unfamiliar with and greatly dislike. I'm sure it was very expensive and, in the long run, I'm sure it will probably serve me well, but right now it reminds me of Barbie accessories.

On a radio-related note, denzions of PSU and the surrounding area may look for me in an upcoming issue of the Daily Vanguard, in which my photo may or may not appear; there was a photographer in during my show Friday. I'm very likely slouching, and it was time to do laundry, so I was dressed in -- for me -- rather an unusual way, and I probably look very, very much like a boy. Terrific. But perhaps they'll use a picture of someone else, or just run text.

Anyway, happier notes:

The new Hello Saferide is out; if you haven't heard it yet, do so. Mp3s are available from Klicktrack, CDs from Razzia (or, in the US, It's A Trap!), and vinyl will be out, in limited edition, 10 October from Hot Stuff.

Tomorrow the second half of Eardrums Music's four "CD" fall sampler will be released. The first half came out last Tuesday and is available for download. Check Eardrums tomorrow for part two. Should be good. Lots of Scandinavian music (although, to my estimation, not as much, or at least in as high a percentage, as on the summer sampler). Favorites from the first half included Slumber, by Norwegians Herostratos, and 7-11, a Shangri-Las-sounding Ramones cover performed by Floridians the Postmarks. Everything fits, I suppose, under the "pop" umbrella, but there's something for everybody, from shoegaze to bubblegum to almost hard rock to twee. Just don't let Volume 1's saccharine-sweet opening track scare you away.

Um... what else? I also haven't been reading much about or listening to new music lately. A few weeks ago, Oliver North Boy Choir released a cover of the Jesus and Mary Chain's Teenage Lust. I wish I'd written about this in a timely fashion... If you haven't heard this fine version already, it's available via the JAMC Covers Project. I think they did a very nice job with it -- Teenage Lust was always one of my favorite JAMC songs, and ONBC made it their own while still staying very true to the original. You can hear both bands clearly, which is cool. I often shy away from covers of songs I already like, and I've actually heard some bad covers of Teenage Lust before -- even the Mary Chain's own Desdemoana mix is absolutely awful -- but ONBC did real well. Now they're working on a new EP, Tonight, which will be released sometime in November.

And -- finally -- did I mention the new Hello Saferide album is out? I'm sure I did, but once more can't hurt. I am fully in love.

--DL--
Ashtrays Podcast (24. september 2008)
Ashtrays Podcast (26. september 2008)

Radio fra i fredags

2008-09-23T11:52:00.000-07:00

Today is my day off and I slept in until 9:30, then lay in bed with my eyes closed for another fifteen minutes because I was cold. Later I’ll do laundry and dig an extra blanket out of my closet to keep me warmer at night.

Right now I’m working on sorting all the songs in my iTunes according to whether they are radio-friendly or afflicted with curse words. This is a project that will probably never be done. So far, I’ve made it to the Acid House Kings.

Here is Friday’s playlist, as promised:

1. Young Love – Moto Boy (SV)
2. Look at the Sun – Bang Gang (IS)
3. Hey Indian – Nils Gröndahl and Oliver Hoiness (DK)
4. Godrevy – Patrick Wolf
5. Get Sick Soon – Hello Saferide (SV)
6. The Strawberry Festival – Oh No Ono (DK)
7. Mere af det Samme og Meget Mere af det Hele – Under Byen (DK)
8. Couleurs – M83
9. Glósóli – Sigur Rós (IS)
10. From the Valley to the Stars – El Perro del Mar (SV)
11. Maundy Thursday – Air France (SV)
12. Petite – Pierre (DK)
13. Calvi – Sambassadeur (SV)

Perhaps it’s not immediately obvious, but a lot of the songs were instrumentals. Later I had a dream in which another DJ told me that he’d listened and thought the set sounded like I was dead. I think it just sounded relaxed. Anyway.

If you missed Sound Judgment last night and want to hear more of me talking in English (and playing a lot of non-Scandinavian stuff, music I wouldn’t normally play on my own show) you can find the playlist here and download or stream the show (two hours' worth) ~~here~~.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (19. september 2008)~~

Sund dømmekraft

2008-09-22T19:18:00.000-07:00

Tonight from 10 pm to midnight (Pacific time), while Arya is out of the office, I will be hosting Sound Judgment. You can listen at 1450 am in Portland, or at kpsu.org.

I'll post Friday's playlist once I figure out what tonight's is going to be.

NEJ...

2008-09-19T11:06:00.002-07:00

Hello Saferide is coming to the United States in October but she is skipping the West Coast. I am so upset I could use swear words. Or shout.

Or cry. Which is probably what I'll do.

Please come to Portland, Annika. We love you here.

Ingen elskov

2008-09-19T11:06:00.001-07:00

This morning while perusing the Forkcast (to see how many of the artists’ names I actually recognized (not very many)) I found a really disturbing remix of the Teenagers’ song Love No. It was mixed by Delorean, whose name is very similar to that of a Portland band, and I didn’t realize until later that they weren’t. I think that if this confusion hadn’t been the case, I wouldn’t have bothered. Why? I like the song, and I didn’t really know if I wanted to see what a remix would do to it.

I said it was disturbing, and I guess I don’t really mean that in a bad way. I think what unsettled me the most was the fact in the remix, Delorean removed all the unkind, unhappy, not in love lyrics, retaining only the constant refrain “Are you in love?” I think you have to have heard the original version for the significance of this change to really sink in -- but even if you haven’t, five and a half minutes of this sad, isolated voice (because in the remix, that’s largely how it sounds) asking whether you’re in love, even over a dance beat, is just… I don’t know. I didn’t like it for the first minute or so, then -- quickly -- it grew on me. And I became even sadder than before. This is one remix I will never dance to.

The Teenagers’ original version of Love No is sarcastic to the core, and when lead Quentin Delafon asks “Are you in love?” it’s a joke. In the remix, it’s plaintive, almost a plea; he really wants you to say yes. The song is still called Love No, though -- maybe because he’s already been told no, and now he’s trying, again, to see if maybe he can get the right answer, even though he knows it’s futile, but maybe just once…

I’m listening to the original again now, and must say -- as much as I like the Teenagers’ unadulterated (had to say it) version, I think the remix is even better. At least it hits me more.

If you do the Pitchfork thing, you probably heard both of these ages ago, but if not, you can download the remix, and stream the original at myspace.

--DL--
Love No – Delorean Remix (the Teenagers)

Spillelisten

2008-09-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

Here’s Wednesday’s playlist, even though nobody cares.

1. The Tape – Working for a Nuclear Free City
2. Everything’s Gone – Bang Gang (IS)
3. I Want You – Mugison (IS)
4. Examinor – epo-555 (DK)
5. Norman Bleik – I Was A King (N)
6. Your Name Here – the Bear Quartet (SV)
7. Styrke – Lis Er Stille (DK)
8. Teenage Lust – Oliver North Boy Choir (DK)
9. Pet Grief – the Radio Dept. (SV)
10. Downfall – Resplandor
11. Get With the Program – I Am Bones (DK)
12. Watery (Drowning is Just Another Word for Being Buried Alive Under Water) – A Sunny Day in Glasgow
13. Springtime – Rumskib (DK)
14. Everything You Say – the Legends (SV)

I was going for kind of a shoegazey set -- or as much so as I could -- and today will most likely contain at least a fair amount of instrumental tracks. I’m in a weird mood lately.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (17. September 2008)~~

Ikke normalt

2008-09-18T12:34:00.000-07:00

I don’t usually write posts like this, but today (perhaps due in part to my annoyance with the weather) I wanted to. I’m sorry in advance. And I’ll put yesterday’s playlist up soon.

I will admit I’m guilty of it too: downloading mp3s which seem interesting, listening to them once, perhaps twice, and then abandoning them to the dark folds of my iTunes library.

But every once in a while, on a day like today, I go through said library and find things that I can’t remember but vaguely, and play them again, and am intrigued (probably again) -- and then I even go online to further investigate the band.

Today’s case in point: The Echoing Green, who are actually from New Mexico, which is probably partially accountable for my negligence of their music. I found a song of theirs called Seaside, in the iTunes comment box of which I’d written “sounds so familiar.” (I do things like this when something reminds me of something else but I can’t remember what.) With a repeat listen, I got a total M83 vibe -- and from not just the instruments but also the vocals. A beautiful blend of shoegazeyness (I’m sure that’s not a word) and pop and Cure-esque depression.

I was beating myself up for missing out on this, and then I went and found their myspace (don't do it), since their real website hasn’t been updated since 2004. While the myspace selection of songs is perhaps not representative of their whole catalog, it’s also generally true that bands put their best songs up on there, isn’t it? Here’s what I think of those six:

1) Sanctuary – Awful. And as soon as the girl starts singing, it sounds like Evanescence, which is even worse than… anything.

2) Blind – Sounds like a bad Nine Inch Nails song. Usually I (surprisingly enough) like Nine Inch Nails. But this is really bad.

3) Seaside – See the previous, laudatory, description. This sounds completely different than their other songs. If you told me it was secretly another band, I would believe you.

4) Here is the House – Not bad. Sounds a lot like Depeche Mode. A bit overlong -- getting overdone toward the end.

5) Flame – Most of it does not stand out. However, while I’m not saying she has a bad voice, it would sound a lot better if the girl did not sing. The further this song progresses, the more it sounds like something from the eighties, perhaps one of the ballads performed by a hair band. (Oh, but now it’s got a 90s-era Madonna beat.) And it ends poorly. Despite all this, Flame is my favorite of the previously unheard songs.

6) The Story of Our Lives – You know how some bands use really obvious drum machines and it sounds cool? This doesn’t. It sounds like Depeche Mode again, and while I don’t particularly like Depeche Mode, their heyday was nearly 20 years ago. You get what I mean? Move on.

Overall, it’s not horrible (except Sanctuary) and I know at least one person who would probably really like this. But to me, it sounds like a cross between early (by which I mean 80s) electro/mope rock and this dancey, female-dominated genre of the early 90s that I never listened to enough to be able to properly describe. Maybe it’s rave music. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that that’s probably what it is. If I listened to it for a long time, I would probably get to like -- or at least tolerate -- it more. But I don’t want to do that. Frankly, I'm embarrassed that if my neighbors walk by in the hallway, they might hear what I'm listening to and think I like it.

So -- great -- now Seaside is spoiled for me, and, if I’m particularly unfortunate, M83 will be for a while, too.

On the other hand, one less band to be upset about nobody having leaked their new album onto the internet yet. Only six days until Hello Saferide!

--DL--
Seaside (The Echoing Green)

Ekstra...

2008-09-12T19:23:00.000-07:00

Her er spillelisten fra i onsdags:

1. I’d Rather Dance With You – Kings of Convenience (NW)
2. Exit Bag – Andy Love (SV)
3. Hungry Heart – Sexton Blake
4. Who Let You Come Out? – Agata & Me (DK)
5. Fljótavik – Sigur Rós (IS)
6. Dancing Behind My Eyelids – Múm (IS)
7. Mr. Beerbourineman – Oceano da Cruz (DK)
8. Hotel Room – Richard Hawley
9. This Moment – Under Electric Light
10. Blue & Green – the Little Hands of Asphalt (NW)
11. Subtle Changes – Sambassadeur (SV)
12. Anna – Hello Saferide (SV)
13. Stick to You – Billie the Vision & the Dancers (SV)
14. Tomorrow – the Concretes (SV)

Og fra i dag:

1. Because Trees Can Fly – Lampshade (DK)
2. Disappearing Act – the Bear Quartet (SV)
3. The Man Who Came to Stay – Babyshambles
4. At Some Point – Bakers at Dawn (SV)
5. I Won’t Ever Let You Down – Jackson (DK)
6. At Least I’m Honest – Tiger Baby (DK)
7. Fallen Snow (the Teenagers remix) – Au Revoir Simone
8. Hold On to Me, Baby – Air France (SV)
9. Ilotikaamme – Mikko Singh (SV)
10. Saintly Friend – Said the Shark (DK)
11. Better Days – Club 8 (SV)
12. Little Dance – Jesper Norda (SE)
13. The Twist – Frightened Rabbit
14. Fish and Shark – Jonas Game (SV)
15. Vi Kommer att Dö Samtidgt – Säkert! (SV)

Download Andy Love’s Exit Bag and Jesper Norda’s Little Dance. Both very good and mellow, albeit in different ways. Podcasts will be up later -- sorry for the delay, but there's nothing I can do; the KPSU archive is down.

Uh, well... In other, better, news, Avi (It’s A Trap!) confirms that the new Hello Saferide album will be released on vinyl, possibly as early as the CD/digital release; no more than a few weeks after. Cross your fingers for sooner rather than later.

Arya informs me that (in especially good news for those who, like me, couldn’t get the MSN video thing to work with their browsers) the Anna video is now up on Pitchfork. Mark Hogan does a better job of describing it the second time around, but not by much. At least in my opinion. Maybe, I think, the problem is just that he doesn’t know what it’s like when your heart breaks…

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (10. september 2008)~~
~~Ashtrays Podcast (12. september 2008)~~
Exit Bag (Andy Love)
Little Dance (Jesper Norda)

Næsten ny (kun en uge gammel)

2008-09-10T11:50:00.000-07:00

Great. Now I have a Rod Stewart song stuck in my head.

It's actually not that bad, though. It occurred to me yesterday that I hadn’t heard anything from Au Revoir Simone, one of my favorite American bands, forever -- no tours, no new albums -- nothing. (Of course, to be fair, I hadn’t really been looking.) A quick myspace blog search revealed that they have been posing for magazine fashion spreads, running through a quick European mini-tour, and -- oh, yeah -- recording, in conjunction with fellow New Yorkers Disco Pusher, a cover of Rod Stewart’s Young Turks. You can’t download it, but there’s a stream over at myspace, and I’ve been playing it all day…

Another ARS thing I didn’t know: Heather (one of the girls) is studying astrophysics at Columbia University and has a blog about space/science. God I love this band.

Jeg elsker Anna.

2008-09-05T15:09:00.000-07:00

God, just couldn’t wait. Hello Saferide is all over the news lately. Of course, her new album, More Modern Short Stories from Hello Saferide, will be out 24. September. The first single, Anna, was released about a week ago, and is now available for free via myspace -- or, on second thought, why don’t I just make it easier, allow you to avoid myspace entirely, and put it up here?

The new single earned a nice write-up on Pitchfork (reinforcing my belief that Marc Hogan is actually the only person who writes for Pitchfork; seriously, at least 95 percent of everything I’ve read on there was written by him), and has also been featured on a bunch of blogs… And now there’s a wonderful video, the saddest video in the world.

For a less-sad video, there is also a live one of Arjeplog, available on PSL. The write-up there is in Swedish, and since I miss translations, I translated it all. I did the last paragraph myself, because it had the most words I already knew, and then I sort of cheated and used google translator for the first part. Of course, google translator, while very useful, is not very good at grammar and sentence structure and things, and it also misses compound words quite a lot, so I still had to go in and fix more than half of it anyway. Well, I pretty much re-translated the whole thing. But it was fun.

Anyway. The wording here is still at times a little awkward, but now it at least all makes sense. And so, for those non-Swedish-reading devotees of Hello Saferide, here is a translation of the PSL write-up, in the good English that you can read:

/ Music With: Hello Saferide

We are very proud; today this will premier on ‘Music With.’

It is wise to prepare to expect no handclaps and hardly any acoustic guitars on the upcoming record, Hello Saferide let be known a few weeks ago. And certainly ‘More Modern Short Stories from Hello Saferide’ sounds more subdued and bleak than her debut. The shape of the sound is harder and one can clearly hear that it is the master Andreas Mattsson as the producer.

Annika Norlin wanted us to see each other in a church or in a churchyard. It was the latter. Therefore, yesterday we met in the forest churchyard (Skogskyrkogården) outside Stockholm to play in a PSL version of the new album’s last song, Arjeplog, a tune she wrote after she lived in, er… Arjeplog [it’s a little town in northern Sweden] for two weeks last spring. What did she do there? Got her driver’s license, of course.

It’s cute, and, while it’s not quite Anna, I do like the song. I also like that at one point, you can hear birds chirping in the background.

Finally, you can pre-order the new CD via Bengan’s. (No word yet on whether there will be vinyl.) As I understand it, pre-ordering will ensure that the album arrives at your home on release day. Which is less than three weeks away. OH MY GOD.

After a bit of quiet, Sincerely Yours put out a few new things last week. I’m beginning to get their pattern -- nothing, and then a whole bunch. It works.

Anyway -- a new Air France video, to go with the song Collapsing at Your Doorstep, from their most recent album. I never thought I’d contentedly spend four and a half minutes watching windmills, but I did. Normally I’m not a video person, but this is strangely good, in, as SY writes, a mesmerizing way.

Also out is a new three-track single from Nordpolen. The actual single, Vem Har Sagt, can now be streamed on myspace. If you have the patience to do so in thirty-second clips, the other two tracks can also be streamed through artful manipulation of the preview function at Klicktrack. Of course, you can also buy them.

What I’ve heard sounds like other stuff I’ve heard by Nordpolen, and like other stuff that has come out on Sincerely Yours. (Except that he sings in Swedish.) Good sound.

There is also a Nordpolen T-shirt. I find the design (look at it) very attractive. If more things in the world looked like this, I would be very happy. Of course, I don’t really wear T-shirts any more, and even if I did, with the current exchange rate, while Warren Buffet might be able to afford to buy things from Sweden, I certainly can’t. You would think IKEA could afford to pay me more…

--DL--
Anna (Hello Saferide)

Jeg tænkte, dette vil ske

2008-09-05T10:49:00.000-07:00

To all radio listeners:

KPSU is currently in the process of installing a bunch of new (and, in my opinion, rather unnecessary) equipment. As of now, the signal is down -- so there will be no show today. Hopefully things will be back in order by Wednesday.

So that you're not too sad (don't be -- I didn't have anything planned anyway) here is Wednesday's playlist:

1. Smedby - Gentle Touch (SV)
2. Private Life of a Cat - the LK (SV)
3. Gloomy Planets - the Notwist
4. Summercat - Billie the Vision & the Dancers (SV)
5. Pretenders (featuring Hello Saferide) - Montt Mardié
6. Starman - David Bowie
7. Moonman - Rebecca Phinney
8. Far Apart - Oliver North Boy Choir (DK)
9. (Lack of) Love Will Tear Us Apart - the Honeydrips (SV)
10. 156 - Mew (DK)
11. Shake It Off - El Perro Del Mar (SV)
12. Salt - Mugison (IS)
13. Going to Where the Tea Trees Are - Peter von Poehl (SV)

And because I am so nice -- also because I realize I have not done so in several weeks -- there are two songs you can download, both of which come from the label Songs I Wish I Had Written, which I think is an excellent name. Anyway -- Gentle Touch's Smedby, which I discovered under the loved tracks on my last.fm, despite not remembering ever having heard it before -- who knows? -- and the LK's Private Life of a Cat, which starts out kind of strangely, at least in terms of sound, but still winds up being very good. Both are kind of electro, but not overly so. Smedby is more indie-pop-ish, albeit with an obvious drum machine. Private Life of a Cat has a very catchy chorus, and it is not really obviously about/told by a cat, which I also like.

Tomorrow -- or perhaps later today -- I will have another post about Hello Saferide and Sincerely Yours. And hopefully I'll soon be able to overcome my apathy toward writing (and, I guess, pretty much doing anything in general), because there's so much stuff going on right now, and I really should be out doing it, or writing about. Soon...

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (3. september 2008)~~
Smedby (Gentle Touch)
Private Life of a Cat (the LK)

Gamle og nye spillelister

2008-08-29T18:08:00.000-07:00

I just hit a wall, but I have nothing to do for an hour, with a computer that for some reason has no normal word processing capabilities, so here are the playlists.

I onsdagses:
1. Mengele y el amor - Klaus&Kinski
2. Lovely Allen - Holy Fuck
3. Migration - Sambassadeur (SV)
4. Godzilla vs. the Island of Manhattan - ballboy
5. Please Please Please (Let Me Get What I Want) - ANT (SV)
6. Lester - Bakers at Dawn (SV)
7. Dogs - Emily Frembgen
8. Sogne - 9 (DK)
9. Forsyn - Lis er Stille (DK)
10. Noisy Summer - the Raveonettes (DK)
11. No Excuses - Air France (SV)

The playlist is a little shorter than normal, and there is a bit of other random (automix) music between tracks 9 and 10, due to the fact that a fire alarm went off in the middle of the show and everyone had to evacuate. Sorry. Just skip that part or something.

I dagses spilleliste:
1. Lions & Tigers - Asobi Seksu
2. How Can I Love You If You Won't Lie Down - Silver Jews
3. Heartbeats - the Knife (SV)
4. The Air We Breathe - Figurines (DK)
5. Take Me Home (Eskimo-Esque Remix) - Club 8 (SV)
6. What to Pass On / What to Keep - Jomi Massage (DK)
7. So Long - Agata & Me (DK)
8. Telemarketing - Pelle Carlberg (SV)
9. Hyperschlieb - epo-555 (DK)
10. Havana Affair - the Ramones
11. Scene I - Just Like You Don't - Blue Swan (DK)
12. The Dog Boy - Outmen (SV)
13. Petite - Oliver North Boy Choir (DK)
14. Cat Piano - Seabear (IS)

Apparently I was tired earlier, too (or something like it) because I didn't feel like putting together a playlist. Instead, I picked a couple songs, and then stuck my iTunes on shuffle to get the rest. Turned out pretty well, I think.

--DL--
Ashtrays Podcast (27. august 2008)
Ashtrays Podcast (29. august 2008)

God og bedre

2008-08-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

I’m behind again. But I have equipped my apartment with internet, finally, so posts should be a bit more regular from here on out.

I fredagses spilleliste:
1. From Blown Speakers – the New Pornographers
2. Danger! (Ice Cream Shout) – The Sound of Arrows (SV)
3. Too Young (The Tough Alliance Remix) – Taken by Trees (SV, SV)
4. Lights – Memoplay (SV)
5. Blue Night – New Ghosts
6. Heavy Metal Drummer – Wilco
7. Love Song – Tiny Microphone
8. Hearts on Fire – Rumskib (DK)
9. This Heart’s On Fire – Wolf Parade
10. War is Over – Speaker Bite Me (DK)
11. Once I Was Like You – Firefox AK vs. Laid (SV, SV)
12. Straight Thin Line – Frida Hyvönen (SV)
13. Mica – Mew (DK)

Now I am going to celebrate the fact that I no longer have to walk clear to PSU to use the internet, by walking clear to PSU, to see Junkface playing at noon in the park blocks. Those shows are free, so you should come, too.

Speaking of shows, though I hardly ever do this, I’m also going to recommend that everyone listen to ~~Andy Combs and the Moth’s set on last week’s Live Friday~~. It was excellent -- one of the best Live Fridays I’ve ever done -- and I listened to very little else the entire weekend. Their sound is rather… unusual, but it’s definitely worth a listen.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (22. august 2008)~~

For meget engelsk!

2008-08-21T02:16:00.000-07:00

Yeah, a lot of talking in English yesterday. Fortunately, two songs with Swedish and one with Danish lyrics to (in part) make up for it.

Spillelisten:

1. Love Doesn’t Last – Broder Daniel (SV)
2. Anna – Hello Saferide (SV)
3. Albion – Babyshambles
4. The Quitter – Good Luck Casper (DK)
5. Magic Man – Said the Shark (DK)
6. Love No – the Teenagers
7. Trying Something New – the Honeydrips (SV)
8. I Know a Place – Jay Reatard
9. The Hunger – the Distillers
10. Today – Agata & Me (DK)
11. Hjärta. Instinkt. Principer – Johan Heltne (SV)
12. Kräm (Så Nära Får Ingen Gå) – Kent (SV)
13. Plantage – Under Byen (DK)
14. Anna – Hello Saferide (SV)

Yes, I played Anna twice. But I would have rather played it the whole time. You will understand, once you hear it. The album (More Modern Short Stories from Hello Saferide) is out 24. September.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (20. august 2008)~~

Hvem skriver vi for?

2008-08-20T19:31:00.000-07:00

This is a rant that happened because it rained and I didn't go outside at all yesterday. It has nothing to do with music whatsoever. Sorry.

Who are we writing for?

When I’m not working on this blog, there is something else I do. I am a writer, as Colin Meloy put it, a writer of fiction. I write short stories.

But earlier today, standing in my bathroom and attempting to flatten my bangs, wondering whether I look more like a high school English teacher or a high school student, it suddenly struck me: there is no audience for the work I do. Who am I writing for, really?

Well, let’s start with a simpler question -- who am I? I’m a college graduate in Portland, Oregon (a town with one of the nation’s highest percentages of people with degrees). I’ve read a good number more books than many people, but still far fewer than I ought to have read. My sole ambition, career-wise, is to work at Powell’s.

Everyone who’s ever become successful as a writer has probably, at some point in their career, said “write what you know.” But what I know is generally rather dull, and what I like isn’t necessarily much of what I know. So let’s look at what I know second-hand: what I read, when I read. Well, I like literature, but I also at times enjoy smut.

Herein lies the problem. Entertaining as it might be, I can’t write smut -- not, at least, without dragging it out into pages and pages during the course of which nothing happens, or, worse, making it into literature. But even if I could write smut, I wouldn’t do it -- I’d never want to see my name attached to anything that could even fleetingly be considered appropriate for ensconcement in a hot pink cover.

As for literature -- I can write it, to a degree, at least. (I like to think so, at least.) But when we read literature, largely the books we read are classics, those with famous names or authors ancient or long dead. (The last book I finished was Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which has both.) Unless I’m David Mitchell or Haruki Murakami -- which I clearly am not -- it’s kind of… out of luck.

There is only so much room on the bookstore shelf, and it’s a lot easier to break into the market by writing a two hundred page teenage fluff novel about a girl who finds out she’s a princess or a (considerably longer series about a) boy who finds out he’s a wizard (nothing against JK Rowling; however, readers have suggested that my version of the seventh year is better than hers) than by sending out stories with titles like Spring Summer Fall or The Boy with the Green Sweater to little lit mags whose circulations become even further from little and closer to zero every year. The mass market wants mass appeal, and the vast majority of the time, modern literature hasn’t got that.

But even if I -- or, for that matter, anyone else -- was to write something and have it published, who would read it? Once again, I’m lucky to live in Portland, the metropolitan area with the largest percentage of library card holders in the nation. However, even within Portland -- and even more so elsewhere -- many people don’t go to the library very much, if at all. (In the small town where I grew up, there are people who don’t even know where the library is. Flabbergasting. I mean, there aren’t even that many buildings.) There are so many other ways to spend our time, and reading -- despite being one of the only things that’s intellectually stimulating anymore -- isn’t, unfortunately, very stimulating in certain other ways. (I’m very old-fashioned, of course; maybe if I played more video games, I wouldn’t feel this way.) But what I’m really getting at is this: people don’t read. Not anymore.

I should have trouble getting books out of the library. Annoying as it is, it’s also reassuring when I’m not able to find any of the items on my list because they’re all checked out. But this hardly ever happens. And going through library catalogs, it’s quite common to see a larger number of copies of some new sensation than of a book we should all be reading, like, I don’t know, Aleksandar Hemon’s Nowhere Man (of which the Multnomah County Library system has only two copies). But there’s no audience.

That’s the trouble. There’s not an audience. Even I am guilty of it -- drifting toward the young adult section when I should be filling out hold forms for Atwood and Nabokov.

Who are we writing for? There aren’t many people who want to read slice-of-life vignettes where nothing really happens, no matter how skillful the prose might be. Sex sells. Sensation sells. The stories I write don’t contain much of those elements -- or at least they don’t contain much of those elements, not in the right combinations.

Whenever I try to write things that other people would like to read, I wind up growing bored, or disgusted, or some other negative emotion, and abandoning the manuscripts. But when I try to write the stories that I want to write, the stories that glow inside me and make me breathe, I become discouraged, knowing that although I’ve finally set the safe-kept little darlings (“kill your darlings,” said William Faulkner, talking about revising) on paper, no one will ever read much further than, perhaps, if I’m lucky, the first paragraph -- and I abandon them all the same.

My computer hard drive, as well as my own mind and countless notebooks floating around my apartment and my parents’ house, are filled with disembodied paragraphs, sentences, phrases even -- all waiting for the time when I work myself up to put them together. It’s not courage I need; it’s not inspiration or even motivation. I think it’s just a bit of a decrease in the feeling of utter hopelessness, the idea that maybe, somebody…

I don’t know. Occasionally I tell myself I’m going to write a popular young adult smut novel, to get myself a start, a name to go on, to engender some sort of financial stability. I’d use a pseudonym, perhaps. It wouldn’t be anything like the stories I normally write. It wouldn’t even be anything like any story I particularly wanted to write. I would just do it to finance my other, more legitimate activity. Like the kid who sells drugs to pay for college, only less illegal. Completely legal, in fact, but morally wrong. And, for me, morally impossible. Even if I could do it, I wouldn’t. That’s where the audience (what little audience for books remains) is -- but it’s not the audience I want.

I want the audience who went to college and took the classes they wanted, even though they knew sociology was useless. I want the audience who has more books than DVDs on their shelves. I want the audience who reads four books at once, except for all the books they finish in one sitting. I want the audience who buys a book and reads it (or maybe, like me, reads it, then buys it, then reads it again), then gives it to a friend, and the friend reads it, then gives it to another friend and that friend reads it, too. I want the audience who trades books like hugs. Or I want the audience who hoards the books they love, whether it’s multiple copies, special editions, or just general accumulation. I want the audience who isn’t pompous about what they’ve read, who has gaping holes in their reading history and feels bad about it, the audience who always has one more book to read -- not because they should but because they want to. I want the audience who wants to…

Who am I writing for? Every good story I write is targeted toward one specific person -- maybe, in a few rare cases, two or three. It doesn’t matter if they’ll ever read it. But if I write for just that one person, I write it so they’ll want it. Maybe no one else in the world will, but that one person will want it.

It’s not a very good way to achieve mass appeal. It’s kind of like this blog -- if I wrote about music other than just that which particularly interests me, maybe more people would read it. If I wrote things that were designed to appeal to more than one person, maybe I would be more motivated to share them. But the difference between one and the number of people who might actually read whatever it is is so small that… no, it isn’t really worth it.

A year ago I wrote an essay for class called Every Book is a Coffee Table Book. Largely, this is true. But a coffee table book (unless, perhaps, it was a gift and has sentimental value) doesn’t really mean anything. If I write something, I want it to be honest, to be meaningful -- not something that can be compared to novelty socks (to which I compared contemporary fiction in the essay). There’s nothing wrong with novelty socks. I even have a pair, and I like them enough that I took them with me to Denmark. But here -- a perfect analogy -- for the past month and a half, they’ve been wadded in a ball in a bag full of mostly dirty clothes in the back of my friend’s bathroom closet. (Yes, this is true. We are procrastinators, okay?) Despite the fact that they are decorated with stars, I haven’t missed them -- not even once. I don’t want my writing -- to be honest, I don’t want any writing -- to be like that.

So, who am I writing for? I don’t know. Is there an audience? I don’t know. But somewhere out there, somewhere in the world, there is a person who every opening paragraph rings true for. Somewhere is the person who wants to read the rest of the story that begins like this:

Last week Sammy informed me that I was going to lose my biking muscles if I did not stop walking so much. “Walking and riding a bike exercise completely different parts of your leg,” Sammy said. You would think that the two activities are compatible, but they are not.

This person probably isn’t you. It probably isn’t anyone you -- or even I -- know. Don’t feel bad. But next time you’re reading something and feel tempted to put it down, just -- try and keep reading.

Begyndning...

2008-08-16T08:34:00.000-07:00

I am about to graduate from college.

Tomorrow (I wrote this last night), I’ll receive my honors cord and walk in the commencement -- which I really feel is the wrong word -- ceremony; a few weeks later I’ll get my actual diploma. Some people are entirely uninterested in this (this being mostly the ceremony) while others are quite over-sentimental. For example: my sister called it a landmark.

Getting ready for this occasion is the reason why I do not have band links in the playlist down below. I will probably put them up later (but there’s always the chance I won’t). For the moment, though, I’m going to focus on commencement. I plan on taking a book and mostly being bored, but I’ll still be really happy to see people I know there…

I gårses spilleliste:

1. The Denial Twist – Damian
2. Lights Out – Santogold
3. Close to Me – Club 8 (SV)
4. Tragic Mirror – Sondre Lerche (NW)
5. On the Prowl – the Gossip
6. Summer Here Kids – Grandaddy
7. With Every New Day – David & the Citizens (SV)
8. L’Indifference – Radio LXMBRG (SV)
9. Start to Melt – Peter Bjorn & John (SV)
10. Time is of the Essence – Cold Mailman (NW)
11. On the Radio – the Concretes (SV)
12. Skimret – Nordpolen (SV)
13. Just Can’t Get Enough (Tiger Baby Remix) – CPH-Jet (DK, DK)
14. Romance on Drugs – Little Jimmy Reeves (DK?)

I will, of course, continue with the radio show even after graduation; never fear.

Samlejer med mikrofoner (PDX Pop Now! III)

2008-08-14T15:06:00.001-07:00

--This is Part III. Read Part I and Part II first.--

And Sunday. Due to another scheduling weirdness, World’s Greatest Ghosts were on at 12:40. (PM, not AM.) For the first time in recent memory, I managed to arrive to something early; I got there around 12:15 or 20, in time to see about half of Wooden Indian Burial Ground’s set.

And, oh my god, they are my new favorite band. They sat in chairs and played on the pavement rather than the stage, which is endearing enough. Maybe they sounded kind of like a folk or bluegrass band -- a banjo made an appearance -- but it was so much more than that. I’m having trouble remembering now… It was very weird -- Syd Barret would have loved it -- but whereas in many cases the weirdness takes away from the musicality and the enjoyability, in the case of Wooden Indian Burial Ground, it didn’t. I thought they were great, and I’m now absolutely obsessed with finding out how the singer makes his voice sound like that. If you’ve heard them, you’ll know what I mean. If you haven’t heard them, there are songs to be played on myspace. Go now.

Thinking back now, I realize that I could have easily missed this entire set. If I’d slept a little longer, or eaten a more complete lunch… or if I’d taken into consideration that even though it was overcast the entire morning, the clouds would probably blow off later (they did, and I got my only sunburn of the year), and put on sunblock… Or even if I’d just been slightly more self-conscious that morning and timed my walk to arrive exactly when the Ghosts’ set began, so as to minimize feelings of awkwardness. It’s really pure coincidence that I saw Wooden Indian Burial Ground at all. I’m very, very glad I did. It was just, like, standing there and wow. Arya described it as going back in time (by about 150 years) and, yeah, I’d say that was pretty accurate. But, as I said before, it was so much more that that, too.

World’s Greatest Ghosts played after that. Personally, they seem like a really nice, fun band. You can tell they’re having fun playing, and that makes it fun listening. More bands should be like them. Really.

I saw Meth Teeth, too, but I don’t really remember anything.

Poddington Bear, who was dressed in a white t-shirt, white pants, and a children’s bear hat (the kind that Velcros under your chin and has ears) started things indoors with an unexpected twist -- rather than a “normal” musical set, as would be played by a band or soloist, he delivered forty minutes of karaoke. He had programmed the backing tracks, as well as the video part that tells you what words to sing, in advance, and, after performing a cover of the Beatles’ (not Hello Saferide’s – more on that later) Anna, he brought a number of Portland musicians up onstage to show off their best -- or worst; you can never tell with karaoke. My favorite was the guy from I think Weinland, who did Rocket Man. Anyway, the whole thing was very bizarre. It was the first live Poddington Bear performance, and he said it wasn’t typical, so I can only wonder what sort of the thing the next one might be.

Grouper, also one person (this one female) was next. In terms of volume, it wasn’t quiet; in terms of sound, it was. I liked it, but it felt out of place. It’s not standing-up music, or even really festival music. Grouper is the kind of music you (or at least I would) listen to softly on the speakers while spacing out in your bathtub in the dark, not coming through enormous mains in a close, humid room filled with sweaty teenagers. I might like to see her again, but at the moment, I can’t think of any venue where such music would be appropriate. Maybe it’s more of a record thing…

I ended the festival mid-afternoon, with Mattress. This was several hours before the event’s actual conclusion, but it’s been pretty much established that I have neither the stamina nor the social skills/tolerance to remain in large groups -- even, unfortunately, large groups of music fans at music festivals -- for long periods of time.

Mattress was a good one for me to end on. He’s an interesting performer. Everything was pre-programmed, so all he actually did was sing. (I realize this sounds very similar to the Poddington Bear/karaoke description, but it was not at all.)

Normally I feel that machines have no place onstage, but in this case it worked. Everything sounded vaguely familiar -- but in the good way -- and I kept thinking this phrase: “making love to the microphone.” When he played El Dorado, I was seriously waiting for him to put the microphone inside his mouth. I do not know why, in any way; I guess to me, it’s just that kind of music. As it turned out, he did not put the microphone inside of his mouth -- but if he had done, it would have been perfect.

So, my second festival in a month. (Think about this: one month, two festivals, on two continents.) PDX Pop Now!, clearly, was different from Roskilde in many, many ways. Not complaining. Aside from the music of course, one of the things I enjoyed most was actually knowing people, like Darren and Joey, who, in between sets, took turns shaking up a two liter bottle of soda and trying to drink it before it fizzed out all over the place; or Brandon, who got ridiculously excited about the presence of Michael Ian Black, and who attempted to continue my education in sound teching every time we heard a bit of feedback; or Arya, who I think was there the entire time, and who kept appearing and disappearing, always grinning, like the Cheshire cat. And there were others… I was surprised by how many faces I recognized (and by how many seemed to recognize -- even if only vaguely -- me). Everything’s so much better when you know someone there. Thank you to everyone who kept me company and made me feel less awkward, even if for just the tiniest amount of time.

Anyway -- overall? Yeah, there were a few more bands I missed but would like to have seen -- a few for the first time, a few again -- but for the time I was there, it was generally pretty super. Or -- remember when I decided to bring back the word ‘keen’? It was pretty keen. I think it’s an amazing example of how great even (or especially) a free, all-ages festival can be, and I wish I’d known earlier that I’d have the weekend off work, so that I could have been more involved. Always next year, I suppose. Looking forward to it already.

(Real PS -- If you want to see pictures, go read Michael Mannheimer's Local Cut Reviews.)

PDX Pop Now! II

2008-08-14T15:05:00.000-07:00

--This is Part II. Read Part I first.--

Saturday I skipped the early afternoon, choosing instead to go to the Farmer’s Market and do some other things I can’t remember, and arrived at the festival a few minutes prior to the beginning of Bodhi’s set at 4:50. (I remember this time because I initially planned to come around five, but was told to arrive earlier so I wouldn’t miss them.) No regrets there; it was awesome.

But I’m going to be very blunt here and say that (perhaps as a caution to future concert-goers?), at first glance, Bodhi looks like three people who all wanted to play music, and couldn’t find anyone else, so even though they had nothing in common, they decided to form a band together. Or maybe you could guess they started as a random group of musicians thrown together in one of those crazy 48-hour band project things… That is what Bodhi looks like. But what they sound like is completely different. They sound like a real band. A real good band. The apparent mismatch is gone; the instruments fit together so well I had trouble telling them apart. It was really tight, really good, and I almost felt guilty, being there and hearing it.

Erin, the drummer… clearly having a really good time. Usually you don’t hear much from drummers, but she had a microphone (or else her voice really projects) and we got commentary in between every song, including, at one point, her urging everyone to “get drunk--” then, I guess in recognition of the fact that it was an all-ages event “--if you can. …Or if you can’t.” Kind of ridiculous, but also -- regardless of whether I did or didn’t follow her advice (I didn’t) -- the kind of thing that makes me love live music. You just don’t get that kind of stuff on a record.

After Bodhi was A Ghost’s Face Two Inches from Your Own Face, which, to be honest, is a bit too loud and fast for my liking. I’m so out of touch these days with that kind of stuff that I don’t even know in which genre to classify them, but technically I think they were probably pretty good. The crowd sure seemed to enjoy it.

Then, back inside for Eskimo & Sons, performing with their new horn section. Much more my kind of music -- lately I seem to be drawn more and more to strings and horns. To my sadness, I was annoyed through most of their set. I don’t know why this happened, and it doesn’t make any logical sense. I enjoyed it a great deal -- but at the same time, I kept wishing they would hurry up and finish. I wasn’t in a hurry to do anything else, and I wasn’t particularly excited for any of the upcoming bands (in fact, I entirely skipped the band immediately following Eskimo & Sons, instead walking to one of the produce row outlets and watching a friend engage in unsafe eating practices). My primary goal Saturday was actually to see Eskimo & Sons. I don’t know what went wrong with me; certainly there was nothing wrong with them.

Before leaving Saturday, I also saw Reporter. Maybe this isn’t a comparison I should make, because I’ve never heard their current incarnation on record and I never saw the previous one live. Regardless, I’m going to say it -- I may be the only person in Portland who liked them better as Wet Confetti. I think they’re probably pretty good, but, as with A Ghost’s Face, I don’t really like it. That’s all I’m going to say.

Værsgo, Arya (PDX Pop Now! I)

2008-08-14T14:50:00.000-07:00

I’m having a hard time remembering all the bands I saw at PDX Pop Now! and I keep wanting to add Mogwai to the list. I could hear Cower eleven blocks away (yes I counted) and I kept wishing for my earplugs with the indoor bands, but no one, thankfully, was that loud.

(Kind of PS -- Mogwai will actually play in Portland soon -- 3. September at the Roseland Theatre. It’s part of MusicFest NW, another Portland festival which, unfortunately, is neither free nor all-ages.)

This was my first year at the now five-year-old festival, and my favorite set of the weekend -- I’ll be honest -- is one that I nearly didn’t see. But more of that later. Now, for the sake of maintaining my sanity, I’ll go in chronological order.

I got to the festival late. At six o’clock, when the music started, I was wrapping up Live Friday, for which I’d supervised sound. Normally I love doing sound for Live Friday, but that week, I didn’t want to be there. However. Don’t Hurt Miles, one of the most energetic bands I’ve ever seen – they’re clearly having a fantastic time -- played, and that was a good thing. I remember being in kind of a dismal/exhausted mood earlier, and they definitely put me in the mood for listening to and enjoying music.

I arrived at Rotture, where the festival was held this year, in time for the last few songs of Love Menu’s opening set. I was disappointed not to have seen the whole thing, but not too disappointed, having just seen them the night before at the Top Down Festival. (Am I starting to sound like a huge scenester right now? I’m totally not a scenester.) However, as I later told several people, it was far more enjoyable the second night, without the band being pretty much drowned out by an enormous ventilation fan going off all the time. (The Top Down Festival, awesomely, takes place on top of a hotel, which, unfortunately, needs to be air conditioned.) I wish I’d gotten to hear more of it.

After Love Menu, the Rainy States played. Amazingly, it was only the second time I’d seen them, though it feels like it’s been far more than that. As before (here I want to type as always) Ben was very fun to watch; Betsy and the two Kevins were less visually entertaining but aurally very good as well.

I seem to have several misconceptions about the Rainy States. Another one is that they are a quiet band. I don’t know what would ever have caused me to believe this, or why I have not, by this point, gotten used to the fact that they are not really a quiet band, but every time one of their songs starts, I’m surprised by how loud it is. I have nothing against being loud, it just wasn’t what I expected. But I’m an idiot, and their set was great.

After that, I spent some time outside, waiting for a rap duo-ish (which, in reviews I read later, was proclaimed excellent) to finish so that the music would rotate to the outside stage.

Tu Fawning opened the outside stage. They were pretty good, although the mix was kind of off. (I’m sorry; I’m a sound tech; I have to.) Nothing the band could have done about that, though.

In a rather strange choice of scheduling, Tu Fawning was followed by Guidance Counselor. I’d seen Guidance Counselor a few weeks before, when he played Live Friday, so I had an idea of what to expect: somewhat insane electro-rock, the kind that you dance to. Surprisingly, even though there were kids to dance to it at the pop fest -- and plenty of them did -- I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as the previous set in the tiny, drab (I was going to say sterile but quickly realized that would definitely be the wrong word) basement lobby of the radio station. This is not to say it was bad. I just thought it could have been better.

Maybe it was my mood, though, because I felt essentially the same way about Dykeritz. Several months earlier, they played at the Modern Age, with a setup that included three people and hundreds and hundreds of machines. By the time of their pop fest set, band membership seemed to have swelled to nearly ten, and the majority of the keyboards and other electronic music machines were nowhere in sight. (To be fair, I couldn’t really see the stage most of the time.) Even the sound was different; without the name, I would have easily mistaken them for another band.

I think I went home after that -- it was getting insanely crowded already, and when the crowd started flowing back inside for Panther, the door counters were out -- electing not to stay and be smashed against a wall for three hours in the hopes of seeing Nick Jaina. Saw him Sunday, though. Kind of...

Ny albummer

2008-08-13T22:31:00.000-07:00

Onsdag spillelisten:

1. I Know My Owner – the Bear Quartet (SV)
2. Far Apart – Oliver North Boy Choir (DK)
3. Tåget – the Radio Dept. (SV)
4. Remember – the Raveonettes (DK)
5. Good Arms vs Bad Arms – Frightened Rabbit
6. Minua Ollaan Vastassa – Regina (FL)
7. The Zookeeper’s Boy – Mew (DK)
8. Norman Bleik – I Was A King (NW)
9. Great Expectations – the Ballet
10. My Best Friend – Hello Saferide (SV)
11. Donald in the Bushes with a Bag of Glue – ballboy
12. Darling – the Legends (SV)
13. There’s Nothing – Shout Out Louds (SV)
14. Science is Religion – the William Blakes (DK)

Some have been mentioned previously (albeit in Danish) but here are a few items relevant to the artists in the playlist:

1. It’s A Trap! reports that the Bear Quartet no longer plans on releasing a new album this year, but will maybe release one in 2009.

2. Oliver North Boy Choir released their sixth single/EP, Holy Wars, on Sunday. You can stream all the songs (and download a couple of bonus tracks) through the special Holy Wars page. Due to my lack of internet, I have still only heard the first three songs once each. (This will soon change.) I think I like Endeavour best.

3. Hello Saferide has a new album, More Modern Short Stories from Hello Saferide. It will be available both digitally and properly (by which I hope I mean on vinyl) 24. September. And if you just can’t wait, Anna, the first single, is available for download from It’s A Trap! right now. (Official release date is 27. August.) My discovery of this download 34 hours after it was initially posted has singlehandedly motivated me to get internet in my apartment. Soon.

4. ballboy will also release a new album, I Worked on the Ships, 25. august. You can stream two of the new songs on their myspace, and you can also listen to and download millions of songs from their back catalog (plus covers other people have done) on the media page of their website.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (13. august 2008)~~

Det skal jeg slutte senere

2008-08-13T12:15:00.001-07:00

Your attention first: Some of the kids from this summer’s Let's Rock: Rock n Roll Camp are playing on Ando’s show, Now I Am Trendy Too, this afternoon at one (Pacific). Tune in here and don’t miss it.

Now the regular part of the post:

Jeg har glemt igen. Jeg ved ikke hvorfor. Her er spilleliste fra i fredags (08.08.08!):

1. Monday Morning – the Charade (SV)
2. Not Enough – Maria Timm (DK)
3. Lisa Could Die for Elvis – Yellowish (DK)
4. Left Me High – Death Valley Sleepers (DK)
5. Everyone is Totally Insane – the Dandy Warhols
6. Algeria – JJ72
7. Soundwaves – Attention Now! (NW)
8. Norwegian Pop – Bedroom Eyes (SV)
9. You Don’t Dance – Lupus (DK)
10. Fake Empire – the National
11. Gobbledigook – Sigur Rós (IS)
12. The Wonder – Figurines (DK)
13. Who’s In Your Dreams – Strawberry Whiplash
14. Lucky – The Tough Alliance (SV)

Også, Oliver North Boy Choir har ud en ny EP/single, Holy Wars. Man kan finde det på deres Holy Wars side. Og du må høre et sang fra dette -- men jeg ved ikke endnu hvad skal det være -- i aften på programmet, og de skal være den første gang, at jeg har også hørte det, fordi jeg har ikke endnu internetet. Men det skal jeg have snart, og også et bord...

Jeg skal skrive mere om ny ONBC-musik, efter jeg har lyttet til det.

Også -- dette og næste måned -- et nyt album, med første singel ud 27. august, fra Hello Saferide, og et nyt album fra ballboy, ud 25. august, de begge om, skal jeg sikkert skrive om. Og jeg love, vil jeg skrive om PDX Pop Now! meget snart.

The PDX Pop Now! post is actually now under way. Expect it tomorrow.

--DL--
Ashtrays Podcast (8. august 2008)
Gobbledigook (Sigur Rós)

På radioen igen

2008-08-07T14:16:00.000-07:00

Programmet I går aftes var meget fint -- en af mine bedste, synes jeg. Selv om jeg kan ikke huske, hvis jeg spillede mit MM ad-ting en eller to gange. Men alt andre... Og jeg syntes, det vil være slet, fordi jeg var alt nedslået før programmet og ja...

Men – spillelisten:
1. Kelvinpolis – Princess Niko (N)
2. I Sing I Swim – Seabear (IS)
3. Shoreline – Broder Daniel (SV)
4. Tonight the Walls Are Closing In On You – David & the Citizens (SV)
5. Sometimes My Head Bleeds – Citizens Here and Abroad
6. Fallin’ in Love – Sambassadeur (SV)
7. Dayplanner – Free Loan Investments (SV)
8. Crazy – Northern Portrait (DK)
9. Tomorrow You’ll Be Forgiven But Tonight You Will Have Your Teeth Knocked Out – Jesper Norda (SV)
10. Kim & Jessie – M83
11. Afraid You Told Someone About Us – Air France (SV)
12. Satellite of Love – Lou Reed
13. Black Cab – Jens Lekman (SV)

Du må downloade ~~Tomorrow You’ll Be Forgiven But Tonight You Will Have Your Teeth Knocked Out~~, som er meget flink/smuk, selv om navnet lyder mere lige det skulle være fra et band med et navn lige Slagsmålsklubben (jeg var trist, at jeg kunne ikke se dem på Roskilde, men det er det). Du må også downloade hans helt EP, hedder Little Ones EP, fra hans arkiv webside. Hvis du kan lide piano med stærk vokaler, det er for dig.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (6 august 2008)~~
~~Tomorrow You’ll Be Forgiven But Tonight You Will Have Your Teeth Knocked Out (Jesper Norda)~~

Rock Camp Pendleton!

2008-08-06T14:04:00.000-07:00

I still have no internet, and strangely, that makes it really hard for me to motivate myself to write anything. But here is a recap of last week, which I spent as a counselor at the third annual Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp in Pendleton, Oregon.

Actually, I missed the first two days. I got there Wednesday, and was introduced to the kids as, by virtue of working at both a radio station and a venue, someone who had “seen a whole, whole lot of music in the past year.”

I spent the next three days being, in my opinion, mostly useless. I spent a lot of time with the rock journalism group and helped with the ‘zine, The Noise (they have a blog, too!). I also made stickers on a Gocco press (a machine which I really, really want) with Casey, the Willamette Week music editor, and to be honest, I think I learned far more from him and the other counselors -- and even the kids -- than I taught anyone.

Friday, all the kids who had formed bands finished the week off with a concert on Main Street. I didn’t mind missing the Modern Age (even though I’ve since heard it was very good) because I got to see this show. Okay, maybe the Modern Age performers were more technically skilled or something, but I think we had more fun.

Unlike nearly everyone else, I stayed off the stage -- because that’s not what I do. Another thing I don’t really do is set up whole sound systems -- but I guess there’s no better time to learn than half an hour before the show is supposed to start. I got to the point where everything mostly made sense, and I only wired one thing incorrectly, but that, coupled with the fact that a few other things just didn’t seem to work at all had me pretty much freaking out. Luckily, there were other people to help out (and by other people to help out, I really mean people who knew way more than me and fixed everything).

Once everything was set up and working, I did sound -- admittedly, really just vocals and acoustic instruments, plus an extremely entertaining horn section for a couple songs -- for ELEVEN bands. Overall, there were probably twice that many different vocalists, including at least eight people singing at one point (during the Sgt. Pepper’s sing-along). No sound checks. So -- a whole lot of on-the-spot gain and monitor and fade level and equalization adjusting going on. There were only a few very brief feedback moments (also during the Sgt. Pepper’s sing-along, during which I think one of the mics got moved directly in front of the monitor).

All things considered, I think it went very well. I could have probably done a better job -- and what I’d really have liked is to have been able to teach some of the kids -- even just one -- how to do at least some of the sound stuff. How awesome would that be? Maybe next year -- hopefully. I’d love to go back.

But even though I’ve kept it mostly un-technical, all the sound stuff is probably uninteresting for most readers. So the music:

Unfortunately I no longer remember what most of the bands were called, but the show kicked off with the only band I’d seen earlier in the week. Let me say this -- I, being unable to play any instrument well enough to say I can play it, am amazed enough that the kids could produce any kind of organized sound, much less play together. But know what’s even more amazing? How much they improved over the course of two and a half days. These kids are really talented and… wow.

I can’t write about everyone, so a couple highlights: the universal debut of the Pendleton Horns, composed of Peter, the camp organizer, and three other counselors in matching red jackets with gold stenciled logos made earlier in the day as, I think, an off-shoot from the promotions class; Paige, who I worked with in the rock journalism class, announcing that they were going to play a Miley Cyrus song (to a reaction of horror from the crowd), then belting Weezer’s I’m a Lot Like You instead; my somewhat friend, the absolutely phenomenal Jacki Penny, with a backing band; and, of course, Weston. I’d heard Weston was a hit last year; this time around, his two songs -- Bad News, which he wrote himself, and a cover of the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy in the UK, backed by the Kill Davids -- did not disappoint. Seriously -- this kid is going places. In fact, you can already see him on YouTube.

You can read/see/hear even more about the rock camp at all these places:
The Noise online
Local Cut
Pampelmoose
YouTube

Great way to spend three days (and next year, if I’m allowed back, hopefully five). I’m insanely jealous of the kids -- why couldn’t I have gone to a camp like that when I was younger? -- but I’m also very eager for the opportunity to be involved with anything like that, as a counselor, again soon. If anyone wants to learn live sound -- email me; I’ll totally do it. It’s really not that scary. It’ll be fun.

Now -- enough exclamatory words for one day. Meaning I’ll have to push the PDX Pop Now! write-up back again. Sigh. Show tonight, though…

--

Also, on an unrelated note, if anyone knows the person/people in charge of hiring at Powell’s Books, put in a good word for me, okay? Dream job, okay? Dream job.

Hvorfor der er ikke et program i dag

2008-07-30T14:46:00.000-07:00

I’m at a rock n roll camp for teenagers in Pendleton, the town where I grew up. I think I am supposed to be supervising students who are writing articles for a zine, but so far, I have done nothing useful. Perhaps that will change.

Since I’m gone, there will be no show tonight -- sorry. Dave is covering for me again, and Andrew will be covering the Friday show. I’ll be back next week.

Because I am kind of in a hurry to post this, I’m just going to link to the playlists on the KPSU site. If I have more time later on (somewhat unlikely) I’ll put them up properly. I apologize for the complete dearth of posts lately, too.

Here are playlists from last Wednesday and Friday.

By the way -- PDX Pop Now! was great. More to come.

--DL--
Ashtrays Podcast (23 july 2008)
Ashtrays Podcast (25 july 2008)

Skal vi sige… besked?

2008-07-22T15:21:00.000-07:00

So, a couple of things. Aside from the three long Roskilde posts yesterday (which should have been more than enough to satiate everybody) I haven’t really done much here lately.

Let me explain. When I got back from Denmark, I didn’t live anywhere. That’s a problem. Happily, I’ve now moved into a new apartment. However, the new apartment is not equipped with internet -- and it’s not likely to be for probably at least another month or so, if even then. That’s also a problem. Since I’m not one of those lucky people who does their mp3 blog stuff while at work -- problem -- and I’m currently faced with a 45-minute walk and then a wait in line at the school computer labs every time I need to go online -- problem -- I think it’s kind of a given that there won’t be as much activity (at least from my end) on here for a while. I’ll try my hardest, but do expect posts to be fewer and further between.

A more pleasant (I guess?) thing -- there’ve been two more radio shows since my return that I’ve failed to mention on here. The missing playlists:

16. juli (onsdag):

1. Vessel in Vain – Smog
2. Mondays are Like Tuesdays – Acid House Kings (SV)
3. Better Days – Club 8 (SV)
4. The Meatpackers – Whirlwind Heat
5. Chemicals – the Notwist
6. Drown them Out – Viva Voce
7. 33 1/3 – Jesus and Mary Chain
8. Sixteen Years – Josef K
9. Let’s Not Fall Apart – David & the Citizens (SV)
10. Needle in the Camel’s Eye – Brian Eno
11. Wildcat – Ratatat
12. Rock Me Now – Metric
13. If I Was Young – the Raveonettes (DK)
14. You Belong With Us – My Favorite

Despite the fact that I cause occasional confusion by incorporating stuff like DFA 1979, I would hope it is fairly obvious that Darren, not I, chose track 4 there. He's also responsible for track 1 -- although that's one I might consider playing again.

18. juli (fredag):

1. Examinor – epo-555 (DK)
2. Heartbeats – the Knife (SV)
3. Radio Edit – Studio (SV)
4. On My Shoulders – the Dø (F)
5. 1986 – Fredrik (SV)
6. 1983 (Pelle & Sebastian) – Pelle Carlberg (SV)
7. Fragile – Wire
8. Where Do You Go To – Peter Sarstedt
9. Quiet Houses – Fleet Foxes
10. Back to Black – Amy Winehouse
11. Explosions – the Mary Onettes (SV)
12. She’s Lost Control – Joy Division
13. The Bicycle Song – Remington Super 60 (N)

And the next show will be tomorrow, 9 pm Pacific.

Also -- I’ll start writing in Danish again as soon as I find my dictionary.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (16. juli 2008)~~
~~Ashtrays Podcast (18. juli 2008)~~

Roskilde Festival III

2008-07-21T17:02:00.000-07:00

--This is part three (Saturday). Make sure you read parts one (Thursday) and two (Friday) first.--

Saturday was my longest day. (I didn’t go Sunday, for those who are wondering -- there wasn’t anyone I particularly wanted to see, and I decided I’d rather go back to Sweden.)

Anyway. I arrived around three thirty and spent the next hour or so wedging my way into the Astoria tent for Efterklang’s show. Astoria was one of only two stages with walls, meaning you had to be inside to see the band. And a lot of people wanted to be inside for Efterklang. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so hot. It was stifling. The veins on my arms were so close they almost looked like they could have been outside the skin. At some points, I felt almost like I was standing inside other people, we were so close. Eventually I wound up inside the tent -- although certainly nowhere near close -- due to space opening up as other, closer people had to leave due to heat exhaustion.

They started late and I remember dozens of bands going through my head as I tried to think of who they reminded me of. The only ones I can think of right now are Typhoon and Patrick Wolf. And also -- after some thought -- of Montreal. They were all dressed in white suits, and for some reason, that made the of Montreal connection. But as for the others, I don’t remember what I thought was similar, and I don’t remember why. I liked them, though. They were more orchestral than I’d expected, but orchestral’s not the right word.

I just looked them up in my database, and found one of their songs -- Step Aside. In the comments box, I’d written, “you don’t really notice it.” I feel like that’s kind of true of their music in general. I mean that in an entirely good way, because I did like them. And a mega-packed house can’t be completely wrong. It’s a paradox, though. Because there was definitely energy, and it was definitely an experience, but it kind of faded fast. It’s there, but it’s not really… present.

I don’t know what I mean anymore.

After Efterklang finished, I had about two and a half hours before The Notwist, on the same stage, was due on at eight. I wandered around for a while, then headed back to Astoria for Nicole Atkins & the Sea, which, from my somewhat fragmented interpretation of the Danish program guide, sounded the most interesting of the bands playing at the hour. They were horrible. There’s no other word for it. At one point, Atkins described what they were playing as “make-out music;” I wouldn’t even give it that.

I left pretty quickly, vaguely wondering what had gone wrong, and wandered around some more. Having not drank anything in ages, and unwilling to pay for water, I bought a pint (the festival is sponsored by Tuborg; everything comes in pints) of something that was called lemonade but which I am absolutely, 100 percent sure was fruit punch. Normally I hate fruit punch, but -- especially after the veritable human straitjacket that was Efterklang -- it was absolutely awesome.

So, while drinking my lemonade/fruit punch/whatever (I saw what I think was the same thing advertised elsewhere as “red juice”) I worked my way over to Odeon and saw the last 45 minutes of Joan as Police Woman’s apparently very long set. It wasn’t bad -- and it was definitely better than Nicole Atkins & the Sea -- but it wasn’t that great, either. I liked the songs a lot better when she played guitar; unfortunately she spent most of the time on keyboards. I stayed for the whole set, but wasn’t interested enough to stay for an encore, so honestly, I don’t know if she played one.

Back over to Astoria for the Notwist. The tent was, blessedly, much less full than it had been for Efterklang; I wound up getting closer to the stage than I had been for any other band, save Säkert!. The Notwist was amazing. Sort of like really melodic shoegaze, or something. I don’t quite know how to describe them. They didn’t talk at all between songs, which in this case seemed incredibly appropriate. I really enjoyed it.

The only downside (and in this the band was in no way at fault) -- the Notwist started at 8 pm. My Bloody Valentine was scheduled -- on the far other side of the festival grounds -- at 9. I’d timed the walk, and figuring on how much time I’d need to work my way into a decent viewing spot at the other stage, planned on leaving at twenty ‘til. They were so good I kept giving myself five more minutes; I think I finally left at around 8:55, feeling sad the entire way across that I hadn’t been able to stay for the whole show.

I walked very quickly and was close enough to hear that roar of applause when the band comes onstage, so while I missed seeing the first few minutes of My Bloody Valentine’s set, I did hear it all. The Arena, where they played, wasn’t as full as I would have expected for a band which released its last album and stopped performing seventeen years ago (although, on the other hand, perhaps that had something to do with it). It took me a while to work my way under the tent, but -- especially for someone who arrived after the band had already begun -- I think I wound up fairly close. And once they started the 20 minutes of noise, I got even closer.

That morning, I’d talked to one of the boys staying in my room at the hostel. He was English, and had come in just for Roskilde. It was his seventh festival. He told me two things that I really remembered: firstly, that the previous year, it had rained so badly that one of the stages had to be evacuated so that festival workers could dig a moat around it (this is why I chose not to camp -- although of course it was amazingly and perfectly sunny this year) and secondly, that My Bloody Valentine was really, really loud -- their “20 minutes of noise” had been compared to a jet taking off.

I would not compare it to a jet taking off. Jets take off far more expediently, and they are far less noisy. I had earplugs in and my hands over my ears and it was still the loudest thing I’ve ever heard. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for the naked ears of all the people in front of me with their hands in the air. Nevertheless, watching the four members of My Bloody Valentine up onstage playing the same notes (or drumbeats) over and over was strangely fulfilling. And those of us who stuck out the twenty minutes -- as it really was; I thought they surely would have cut it off sooner; they didn’t -- were rewarded with about 90 seconds of deafening melody before the band, one at a time, hung up their instruments and headed off.

My Bloody Valentine is -- and, I think, will probably remain -- the loudest band I’ve ever seen. Noise aside, they were incredibly melodic, and while they, like the Notwist, refrained from any kind of onstage banter or even much of anything besides playing their instruments and singing straight into the microphones, it was very fitting. I think witty comments in between songs would have cheapened it, you know.

They didn’t play an encore, and I, along with a lot of others, were disappointed -- but I don’t think any of us could have argued that what we’d gotten wasn’t good enough. If I wasn’t so in love with Säkert!, My Bloody Valentine would have been the best band of the festival, hands down. I walked out of there with my ears ringing (and they continued to do so for at least thirty minutes afterward) and it was great.

I walked by the Orange stage on my way out. Neil Young was playing electric, but it was nothing next to My Bloody Valentine. The crowd was so thick, he switched to acoustic before I was even halfway by the stage and -- nothing against Neil Young, but it just wasn’t something I wanted to hear right then. I remember thinking that, while the music itself didn’t seem to suffer from it, he just seemed tired -- really tired. My walking pace allowed me to give him nearly three songs to play something I knew, but he didn’t, so I kept walking.

I could have stuck around for Lykke Li at 11, the Raveonettes at 12, or even Black Mountain at 2. I didn’t -- though I felt mildly guilty when I ran into Rasmus (ex-professor) as I was on my way out and he was just coming in -- because I’d had enough by then. And I mean that in the best possible way. Like: there is nothing more than this. Well, maybe one thing -- but really, realistically, there was nothing. If I think about it hard enough, I can still hear my ears ringing.

A few more photos here, too.

Roskilde Festival II

2008-07-21T15:19:00.000-07:00

--This is part two (Friday). Make sure you read part one (Thursday) first.--

Friday I didn’t get to the festival grounds until a little after seven o’clock. Let me explain. I don’t like crowds -- especially when I’m by myself. I couldn’t do it. Ultimately I decided I’d probably regret only going to the shortest day of a four-day event, and convinced myself to go back, but I also decided that I’d have a far better time if I limited my exposure. One of the things I like best about going to shows is being there with people I know, and without any of those available… well.

It’s a completely different thing when you’re sandwiched in front of a stage between a bunch of sweaty kids you don’t know, locked in tight, and surprisingly enough, I don’t mind that -- but what about the rest of the time? So, while I’d originally planned to start at noon with Kirsten Ketsjer (if only due to the highly interesting and somewhat comical fact that they must distinguish themselves as the rock band, not the lawyer) I scaled back. A lot.

I think I did mean to get there in time to see A Kid Hereafter at six, but apparently my sense of direction is not what it used to be. So I heard a bit of Kings of Leon’s Orange stage set (though I didn’t ever get close enough to see them) and thought it sounded good. I listened to them a little bit a long time ago, and may now have to resume. I think I remember one of the guys saying that the Roskilde show was their favorite of the summer.

There were two sets I definitely wanted to see Friday night. Both were on the same stage, Cosmopol. The first was Santogold, who I had never -- not even once -- listened to prior to Roskilde. (I think I may have done this on purpose. Don’t ask.) I was told to see her, and somehow this became an extremely important priority item. How was it? It was okay. I didn’t hate it, but I wasn’t terribly impressed. After her DJ or MC or whatever that guy is called played fifteen minutes worth of records (including, unless my memory fails me, Every Breath You Take by the Police and something by the Smiths or Morrissey) she came on late, played/sang an extremely short -- thirty-minute -- set, and skipped an encore. Some of the people in front of me seemed really into it, but in my opinion, it could have been a lot better. However, I did like the second song – which I have a sneaking suspicion may be the song that has been stuck in my head for the past two weeks. No, seriously. It has.

And now, after taking the initiative, going back, and finding that song, I am amending this entry. Yeah, it was L.E.S. Artistes, the first song from Santogold’s debut, that has been continually popping up repeatedly in my head after my having heard it only once, a long time ago. And going through the rest of the album, I recognize a lot of the songs, despite, again, having only heard them once. So she’s pretty catchy. I’m warming up to her. And I can also say this -- L.E.S. Artistes, especially, is about twenty-five times better live than it is on the album.

Moving on… Santogold finished at about 9:15, 9:20 maybe, and Robyn (the other must-see) wasn’t due on until 10, so I walked clear across the grounds to the Arena, where Mogwai was playing. I was there for about fifteen minutes, which for Mogwai was about a song and a half. That’s okay -- though I wish I could have been there longer. They don’t sing, so it’s harder to notice, but Mogwai is/are (?) Scottish. And they’re not really what one could call pop, either, but whatever. I love Scottish bands. Mogwai was awesome. And really loud.

Then back over to Robyn. I was so far back I could barely see her -- it really filled up in the time I was gone. People are really into Robyn. Everyone there seemed super excited. I’d barely even heard Robyn’s music before, and I was super excited.

A little story about Robyn. When I was really young -- eight or nine, maybe -- I was a girl scout. Part of our girl scout membership fee included subscription to this magazine called American Girl, which, when you reached a certain age, was replaced with a more mature magazine called Girls Life. I’m fairly sure I stopped being a girl scout long before reaching this age, but for some reason, my magazine subscription never got cancelled. I always read it, even though it was mostly ridiculous. And one of the only articles I remember -- and have always remembered -- was about (oddly enough) Robyn. It must have been ten years ago; I was that young. I don’t really remember the article, except that it was very positive, but I remember the picture -- she had what looked like thin strips of white athletic tape wrapped around her fingers like rings -- and the title: Robyn is Here. Same as the album -- although not why I remember it. To be honest, I don't know why I remember it, or even why it was significant, and I know it didn’t make me go out and buy her album (however unfortunately). I just thought it was strange that that was one of the things I remembered. Maybe, somehow, I knew...

Anyway. People were jumping around and going crazy and singing along and I was in the very back of the tent -- I can’t imagine what they were doing up close. Robyn seemed equally enthused. She played two encores, and I really believe that almost nobody left. Everybody’s hands were in the shape of hearts. It was excellent, and I wish I’d taken that stupid magazine more seriously way back then. I’m very much looking forward to the fall '08 date she promised Portland in exchange for the cancellation in May. Now I understand why people were SO upset.

Let’s see. Then I went over for Grinderman at the Orange stage. I saw three songs, the third of which was No Pussy Blues, the first and, I think, only song I’d ever heard by Grinderman. But Nick Cave is Nick Cave, and even from a quarter mile or however far I was away, he was Nick Cave. I saw him on both guitar and piano. Pretty interesting. Very unique. I don’t know what else to say.

I ended the night with Goldfrapp. I wasn’t really impressed; in fact, it was something of a letdown. Not that there’s anything wrong with Stevie Nicks, but she was very Stevie Nicks, and that’s not what I want to see from Alison Goldfrapp. Well, to be honest, I’m not quite sure what I wanted to see, but it wasn’t that. A little more energy, maybe? Her vocal range is impressive, but at a live show, you need a little more than that… I mean, really, she was just standing there singing, and looking like it was 1970, but in the bad way. I don’t know -- I think I wanted something slightly dirtier and less glittery. I left after a couple songs, and went home kind of disappointed. Maybe staying for Spleen United at 2 a.m. would have alleviated it, but I probably would have fallen asleep standing up in the meantime. I think I spent the rest of the night pretending Robyn was the last act I’d seen. Yesssss.

Roskilde Festival I

2008-07-21T12:18:00.000-07:00

I’ve been needing to write this post for… gosh, it’s been two weeks now. Things have been rough. But here it is, at last -- Roskilde. (Or rather, the first third of Roskilde. I’m going to post in sections; otherwise it would be unbearably long. Here’s Thursday, with more to come.)

Thursday morning I had my final. I think I passed it, although looking back, I have no idea what I wrote. I checked in at my hostel and left for the festival at three in the afternoon. The town of Roskilde is about a half-hour train ride west of Copenhagen. I arrived at the festival grounds at about five fifty, I think. I’ll leave it up to you to imagine how hopelessly lost -- on multiple occasions -- I became; suffice it to say I’m sure I paid a lot more, and walked a lot more, than I needed to.

I spent the first hour or so doing reconnaissance. I’d hoped to do that when my class visited the festival grounds a week earlier, but it rained so hard then that we’d had to cancel the tour. Once I had a general idea of where I was, I hung out in the vicinity of the Orange stage, where I heard bits of Teitur’s opening set. Not bad. After a while, I started wandering toward Odeon (another stage), where MGMT was supposed to be playing, but fifteen minutes before they were due on, I found the whole area -- not just the space under the canopy of the tent -- to be far too crowded for my comfort, and was forced to leave. For those of you not familiar with the festival, about 100,000 people attended this year, and 180 bands played on seven different stages.

After escaping the throng, I think I caught the tail end of Teitur’s set before staking out a spot on the left side, perhaps fifteen yards from Astoria’s stage, for The Dø’s show. I could have been closer, but I didn’t feel like it. The Dø started out sounding really unenergetic, and I was vastly disappointed. It’s hard to explain, since their songs are so high-energy, and they still sounded that way -- but to me, at least, Dan and Olivia (the band members) seemed to be really lacking enthusiasm, like they were just going through the motions. But after a few songs, things picked up, and both the audience and the people onstage got real excited. The floor never filled all the way, so there was still room for breathing, but it got all hot and sweaty like any good show. Some of the in-between-song banter was a bit annoying, but the music, overall, was great. They played a number of songs from A Mouthful (the album) as well as a few new tracks -- and my favorite was the second and closing song of the encore, for which Olivia played a sweet acoustic version of Stay (Just a Little Bit More). I’d wondered if they’d close with that. They did, and while I was initially disappointed at the acoustic-ness, it couldn’t have been done better.

Unless, of course, it had been performed by Säkert!. Säkert! is the Swedish-language project of Annika Norlin, better known perhaps in these parts for her English-language project, Hello Saferide (which has been described, accurately, as “the aural love of [my] life”). Säkert! had the misfortune of being scheduled at 10:30, essentially the same time as Radiohead (10:00), and while I don’t dislike Radiohead, it should be obvious who I picked.

The scheduling was additionally advantageous to me, because it meant that when I arrived at 9:15, there was nobody else there, and there continued to be pretty much nobody there through the sound check and up until after ten. I don’t mean to brag, but I was the fourth person there, and I stood in one very small place against the stage barricade for about two hours, even though this meant sore feet and lots of second-hand smoke. It was worth it.

Going into the festival, I didn’t know a lot of Säkert!’s (or, for that matter, almost any of the artists’) music, so I didn’t have many or high expectations. So it would be pointless to say I wasn’t disappointed. I don’t see how anyone who saw Säkert! could possibly have been. Despite all the other negative factors (which I won’t go into) it was the best time I’d had in a long time. It was an experience. It was just what I’d hoped it might be -- I mean, they even had little throw rugs and a floral backdrop. And she seemed like she was having a great time, and it was contagious. Sure, I didn’t understand more than maybe every tenth word she said, but still… when you get me grinning uncontrollably and singing along in another language to a song I only kind of know -- well, I’d say it’s pretty… well, it’s pretty phenomenal.

I was fully ready to go home after that, and if I had, even though it would have meant missing the festival’s other three days, I don’t think I would have regretted it. It was that good. I know it’s not a Säkert! reference, but damn, that girl makes me wish I was a lesbian.

I went home -- or rather, back to my hostel in Copenhagen -- after Säkert!’s brilliant hour-long set. I walked by the Orange stage, where Radiohead was finishing up, on my way out. They were playing one of the songs from OK Computer, which I recognized but am now unable to remember, to a huge crowd. From where I was -- pretty far away -- it sounded good, but I kept going. I think I was in shock for a large part of the walk back to the station. The good kind of shock. Oh. My. God.

Photos here.

Det første program (igen)

2008-07-14T11:04:00.000-07:00

Right now I’m in the process of listening to Friday’s show so I can remember what I played. I pulled all the CDs straight from the shelves (unusual for me), and since the KPSU website was down during my show time, there was no place for me to archive the playlist. All I remember are a Lykke Li song, a really nice Crystal Castles remix, and, of course, Oh, Yoko. I don’t think I’ve forgotten Oh, Yoko for a minute since Friday afternoon.

If you want to know the Roxy Music story: I’ll make it brief. The second-last week I was in Denmark, we spent a lot of time driving around in a bus -- but, fortunately, the nice kind of bus, with amenities. I would have been content to look out the window, which I mostly did, but during the longer stretches, other people watched movies. One of the movies (which I think was a really bad choice for a bus movie) they chose was Lost in Translation. I like Lost in Translation, and I really like (by really like, I mean am profoundly affected by) the part where Bill Murray sings More than This, by, of course, Roxy Music. Bill Murray also appears in Rushmore, which, oddly enough considering my musical upbringing, is the first place I ever heard Oh, Yoko. It’s not a very strong connection, but it made sense to me at the time.

Anyway, spillelisten:
1. Massive Nights – the Hold Steady
2. Everybody but Me – Lykke Li (SV)
3. Oh, Yoko – John Lennon
4. Split of a Second – Tiger Baby (DK)
5. Atlantis (Crystal Castles Remix) – Klaxons
6. I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times – the Beach Boys
7. Hands Up Baby – Camera Obscura
8. God Knows – El Perro del Mar (SV)
9. Don’t Want You to Wake Up – Teitur (Færo Islands)
10. Go Places – the New Pornographers
11. Forks and Knives – Beirut
12. Black Flowers – Yo La Tengo
13. I Guess I Was Daydreaming – Cake on Cake (SV)
14. Well Worn Hands – Editors

Not much Scandinavian music. Tune in Wednesday for that, hopefully. Things should be back in gear soon-ish.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (11. juli 2008)~~

Undskyld

2008-07-10T07:59:00.000-07:00

Anyone who tuned in last night in eager anticipation of my return to the radio already knows, and those of you waiting for the podcast are about to find out -- I didn't do my show last night. (Dave covered for me again, and I'm sure he did a fine job.) I was just too exhausted, and too confused, and too busy... Sorry.

I will be back tomorrow for the afternoon (3-4 pm) show, though I can't promise how great it will be, since I don't have any blank CDs (hence, no way to make music from my computer playable over the air) and am, in light of numerous other concerns, am unmotivated to get them. But there will be a show.

There will also be a long Roskilde post (or two, or three) very soon.

Stærkt post om Roskilde

2008-07-05T12:43:00.000-07:00

This afternoon/evening will be the third (and, for me, final) day of the Roskilde Festival. I wanted to put up a quick note before it all ends, and before I get home and do a mega write-up. (This post is short both because I don’t have a lot of time, and because I’m using a Danish keyboard, which I despise – I appreciate the fact that the extra Danish characters are more easily reached here, but their presence means that everything else is in the wrong place and suddenly I cannot type.)

In the past two days, I’ve seen several full sets and a whole bunch of partial ones (and heard a few of those, too). My favorite has undoubtedly been Säkert! (are you surprised?) who closed my Friday night, and last night Robyn, who had two encores, was pretty awesome, too -- the crowd was really into it. Today I’m heading back in about an hour to start with Efterklang at four o’clock.

More to come...

Mere musik

2008-06-28T23:11:00.000-07:00

Remember that long post I said I was going to write, uh, the day before yesterday? Obviously it didn’t happen. Initially, I decided I was probably never again going to be traveling by bus through the Danish countryside between Roskilde and Helsingør, and I’d rather look out the window. And later, by the time I’d written it, my internet connection was gone. But here it is now.

The past several days I’ve listened to several new albums. To be fair, two were compilations, and contained a lot of previously released tracks -- but also some new ones. In either case, I’d never heard most of them.

Let me start where I started: Tuesday. I finally listened to the new Sigur Rós album, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust. (No idea what it means, sorry.) It’s okay. I didn’t like the first four songs -- to me, it sounded like Sigur Rós on happy pills, and I’d rather listen to Takk. However, from track five on, things pick up (or perhaps I should say slow down) and the latter half of the album is really enjoyable, in the old way. I especially liked Ára bátur. You can stream the full album on last.fm.

A while after going through the album a few times, I watched the video for Gobbledigook, even though I hadn’t particularly liked the song. It’s interesting, I’ll say -- and I’ll leave it at that. However, it did make me like the song itself a lot more. And if I ever get a tattoo (I won’t) I now know where I’m putting it.

Anyway. Moving on. The other day in the (e)mail a special present arrived from Labrador: The Summer 2008 sampler. 30 tracks from 17 different artists, all current and/or former Labrador affiliates. Talk about good.

You can download the album in full (here, as a zip file) and a lot of the songs can be downloaded individually as well (check Labrador's sounds site). There are a couple I want to particularly draw attention to. One is Explosions, by the Mary Onettes. I’d listened to the band a bit before, and wasn’t impressed. But this time around, something about Explosions really clicked with me, and it’s one of my favorite songs on the comp. Sort of a Jesus and Mary Chain feel, I think.

Another nice track is Club 8’s You and Me. It’s older (from 2001's Summer Songs EP), but I’d never heard it before. Unfortunately, like many of Club 8’s songs seem to be, it’s rather short (exactly two minutes). It’s not my favorite Club 8 song, but let’s be honest -- it’s Club 8. I’m happy.

Also awesome is Her Breasts Were Still Small, by Tribeca, who I’d never even heard of before. It’s the kind of song I imagine would be played in a very small, very dark, very sweaty club where everyone is wearing black, at like four in the morning. It also reminds me of that Blue Swan song Scene I – Just Like You Don’t -- but for entirely different reasons. It isn’t a lot like what I usually listen to, but I really, really like it.

Okay, and then something which you’ve probably already seen, if not downloaded, if you’ve read any indie pop mp3 blogs at all in the past few days: the Eardrums Summer’s Here! 2008 compilation. (Download here, also as zips.) 48 songs in two volumes and... wow. About half the artists are from Sweden and Norway (with the rest mostly from Australia, the UK, and here and there). I got it about 36 hours after finishing downloading the Labrador comp, and it was kind of overload. (Of course, it probably would have been anyway, but, well…) What good overload, though.

My favorite song on the compilation actually comes from the US: Our Time to Fall, by Fireflies. I don’t know what it is about this guy. The song is pretty simple; very crisp and clean. Also, he sounds like he’s whispering, which is really hard to successfully do. The words themselves are very good too. But now it’s time to talk about Scandinavian pop, so…

There’s also a remix of the newest Club 8 song, Take Me Home, but it’s rather disappointing. I like the original version far, far better. If you’re not already aware, that can be streamed at last.fm, too.

Instead I’ll focus on two other songs, one by a Norwegian band -- or, actually, just one guy, called the Little Hands of Asphalt. The song, Blue & Green, is very lo-fi and low-key, and kind of weird (lyrically, not sonically). To be honest, it sounds pretty much like it could be Fireflies, which may be why I like it. I’ve never heard anything else by the band, unfortunately, so I can’t say what their other stuff sounds like or even if further listening is worthwhile. (I no longer have very regular internet access, and probably won’t until I return to the states about a week and a half from now. I also have no headphones, and, when in a public place, streaming stuff online with my speakers is not really an option.)

I also liked The Summer’s First Kiss, by Celestial (from Sweden), which nearly closes out the comp (second to last). It sounds a lot like the others -- not particularly summery, I guess -- or rather, more like a slow-motion summer. It makes sense to me. It sounds good to me.

Anyway, good albums; good -- and mostly free! -- songs. And since I feel bad about the lack of mp3s available to download the past few weeks, hopefully this will do a bit to make up for it.

--DL--
Explosions (the Mary Onettes)
You and Me (Club 8)
Her Breasts Were Still Small (Tribeca)
Blue & Green (Little Hands of Asphalt)
The Summer’s First Kiss (Celestial)

Er der nogen at gøre på en mandag aften i Göteborg?

2008-06-25T09:22:00.000-07:00

So for this class I’m taking, we go on a study tour the last week. I finally got the schedule yesterday. We’re in København til Friday. Then as follows:

27. june -- overnight in Odense, DK
28.-29. june -- overnight in Aalborg, DK
30. june -- overnight in Göteborg, SV
1. july -- overnight in Malmö, SV
2. july -- overnight in København, DK

I’ve listed this in slightly more detail over on the tour blog. You can also email me, and I’ll tell you (to the best of my knowledge) when and where. And if you live in or are familiar with any of these places where I’m staying, perhaps you would care to suggest anything for me to do after the school stuff is over for the day. The only thing I know about Aalborg is that Studenterhuset closes for the summer about two days before I get there -- and I know even less about the other cities…

I'm excited, though -- especially for the Roskilde pre-festival stuff (26. and 27.) and to be going to Sweden. I'd rather go to Stockholm, but it is a bit far away, and -- on second thought, it's probably good we're not going to Stockholm. I'd probably spend the entire time stalking Hello Saferide.

Anyway, expect a big post about new-ish music tomorrow. It might not be posted until late in the day, depending on when I have computer/internet access. But I will at least write it.

Now I have to go buy (of all things) socks. It occurred to me last night that it’s quite likely I won’t have access to a washing machine after we leave on Friday -- and seriously, who thought it would be a good idea to only bring four pair of socks? Sometimes I just don’t think.

Recordbutikker

2008-06-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

Kan nogen anbefale en eller to gode recordbutikker i København? Navner er fint, men adresse eller rejseplaner er endnu bedre. Jeg har set nogle få, men jeg er sikkert, at jeg har ikke fundet bedste af dem. Og jeg vil gerne besøge nogle, mens jeg er her. Tak tak tak.

Og jeg ved, ordning af ordene der er ikke rigtig, men det kan jeg ikke finde ud af. Undskyld.

Du er ikke overraskede.

2008-06-23T09:43:00.000-07:00

I lørdags, tog jeg ikke til koncerten. Det kunne jeg ikke. Jeg synes, jeg lide at være der med andre mennesker næsten mere end kun at se/høre musik. Og jeg vidste, jeg ville kende ingen, så derfor...

Jeg håber, jeg skal se Said the Shark og de andre på City Attack festivalen 28. juni, men det ved jeg endnu ikke. Det vil jeg tage alene, fordi det er udenfor og gratis, så kan jeg komme og gå, hvis jeg er nervøs. Problemet er at jeg skal måske ikke være i København, eller hvis jeg er her, jeg måtte være i en anden plads med min skolegruppe. Men det var det.

I aften er Sankthansaften, og jeg glæder mig for det. Vi har ikke noget lige det i USA, og jeg vil gerne se bål og alle af det. Jeg håber kun, det regner ikke.

Koncert i aften?

2008-06-21T11:10:00.000-07:00

I aften, skal jeg måske til en koncert i Rust, med No and the Maybes og Decorate. Decorate. og A Kid Herafter. Jeg skal se A Kid Hereafter på Roskilde Festivalen, men jeg kan også lide de andre to -- især No and the Maybes. (Her også er et sang fra dem: ~~Mouth~~. Men du skal hellere lytte til I Know a Girl, på deres myspace.)

Og også, der er dette: der er ikke så mange bands som spille i København som i Portland, så måske, hvis jeg tager mig ikke til denne, skal jeg ikke se ingen. Men det ved jeg ikke. Jeg måtte tænke mere om det. Er der nogle andre som skal også være der?

Hvis du har ikke endnu set det, spilleplanen for Roskilde Festivalen er nu op for at se. Brug det enten hvis du skal tage der -- eller hvis du skal ikke være der, men vil gerne at fortælle mig hvem jeg skal absolut se.

I am thinking about going to the evening (not night) show at Rust tonight. No and the Maybes, Decorate. Decorate., and A Kid Hereafter. I’ll most likely also see A Kid Hereafter at the Roskilde Festival, but not the other two, and I do like them as well -- especially No and the Maybes. (Download ~~Mouth~~, or stream I Know a Girl, which I like better, via myspace.)

Another reason to go: the fact that, compared to Portland, bands simply don’t play shows anywhere near as frequently here. If I don’t go see these guys tonight, well, I might not see anyone at all. I’m still thinking, though. I don’t like going to things by myself, and I think it should go without saying that I don’t know anyone else who’s going (unless you are?). So I’ll see…

Also, if you are not in the habit of checking several times each day, as I am, you may not yet have noticed that the finalized Roskilde Festival schedule is now up. This may come in handy for both those who are going, as well as for those who will not be in attendance, but would like to live vicariously through my experiences there.

--DL--
~~Mouth (No and the Maybes)~~

Uendelig uretfærdig

2008-06-19T14:23:00.000-07:00

I am incredibly… annoyed isn’t the right word -- upset, maybe? Tonight, while Josh back home gets to see Frightened Rabbit, the Scottish band of our dreams, I have to spend the evening observing some rap duo -- from the United States, no less. If I must see a rap group, at least give me a Danish one.

To be honest, I am excited to be going to Vega (the venue). And I did come here for music. With luck, this evening's deal’ll wind up very much like nearly ever other show I’ve ever attended, and I’ll pay far more attention to the rest of the audience than to the band. Unfortunately, watching the crowd at a hip-hop show (and yes, I’ve oddly enough been to one or two before, so I know) is just not as exciting as watching the crowd at a rock show, nor as engrossing and as emotionally meaningful as watching the (swooning) crowd at a morose Scottish indie pop show. Maybe I’ll just pretend I’m somewhere else...

You can download ~~Head Rolls Off~~, the first single from their most recent album, the Midnight Organ Fight, or stream pretty much everything Frightened Rabbit has ever released under the discography section of their label’s website. Where to start? Well, anyone who knows me should instantly recognize why I’m so attached to Old Old Fashioned; nonetheless, I won’t specifically recommend that, or any other track, because I actually recommend everything. Oh my god. If I got on a plane right now, I could make it back in time.

--DL--
~~Head Rolls Off (Frightened Rabbit)~~

En overraskelse

2008-06-17T22:09:00.000-07:00

I have two things to say, and I’ll say them very quickly, so I can attempt to read 47 pages of a business textbook (how did this happen?) and then go to sleep, since I’m still exhausted. In chronological order:

Yesterday I met Ivan of Oliver North Boy Choir (also writer of In a Cyclone of Stones) and Simon of Zvook Mescalin. Tried to listen while they spoke in Danish, and understood the numbers but not much else -- giving further credence to the idea that my written Danish is far better than my spoken. (Og mit skriftligt er heller ikke særligt godt.)

Nice meeting them both, and far more stimulating than the Little Mermaid, as evinced by the fact that it was nearing eleven o’clock and I still hadn’t fallen asleep… Anyway, though -- talked about music, and talking about music is always fun.

And secondly: Had my first classes (actually one class, two sessions) today. Seems kind of interesting-- but I have the feeling that, as usual, I’m going to enjoy the lectures but find the readings really dry. Because our instructor is nice and recognizes that there are people like me with extremely short attention spans (or something like that) we get to have a break midway through each day. The content of the break is relevant to the course, and today, we watched a music video by the Knife.

I do not like the Knife. But as the song started, it occurred to me that it wasn’t bad. A few minutes in, I decided that it was the best Knife song I’d ever heard. It’s called Heartbeats, and it’s an older song -- perhaps it came out before they got all weird? I haven’t listened to the words yet, but it sounds good, and the video is spectacular, resembling nothing more than an old home movie of slightly out-of-focus children skateboarding downhill in elaborate and rather dangerous-looking patterns. There are a few crow moments, but overall, I like it. Not the best song I’ve ever heard, but far superior -- in my mind -- to other Knife tracks, and certainly a decent study break.

I'd write more -- about both these things -- but my eyes simply will not stay open that long. I don't know what's wrong.

I København

2008-06-15T17:23:00.000-07:00

Earlier today, while I was waiting at a stoplight, it occurred to me that now that I’m in Scandinavia, I should only listen to American music. I had this thought for about three seconds. Then I thought, what a terrible idea. Back to Air France.

That’s what I’m listening to now, and I think the highlight of my plane trip was seeing an Air France plane at the Frankfurt airport.

The lowlight of the trip so far was finding this Copenhagen music guide last night at the restaurant where the school group ate. Thrilled as I am to now have all the shows in the city listed in one place, the calendar also told me something I did not want to know: namely, that Said the Shark had played at Gimle the night before. Yes, it’s in Roskilde. Yes, it’s unlikely that I would have gone, even if I had known. And yes, it’s extremely likely that I would have fallen asleep standing up, since I’d just gotten in earlier that afternoon. But all that is beside the point, which is that I could have gone…

According to myspace, Said the Shark is next playing the City Attack festival 28. june. I’m not sure where I’ll be then, but seeing as the 28. is right in the middle of my school study tour, I’m guessing I won’t be in Copenhagen. Sad.

Please, if you know of anything interesting, feel free to recommend events. I don’t have much on my schedule right now, and to be honest (hopefully no one from the university reads this) I didn’t come here for school. I came here for music.

I haven’t listened to anything new in a while, so no mp3s this time. Soon, I hope.

And OH ALSO: While I am in Denmark, I am keeping another blog, chronicling my daily activities, or at least attempting to do. It is mainly for my parents, but if you want to know more of what I’m up to, or see pictures (because I refuse to post photos here), well, here you go: Denmark Summer 2008. There’s a link in the sidebar, too.

Åh min gud

2008-06-11T07:51:00.000-07:00

I leave here in a few hours. At this point, all I can say is, oh, wow.

This is what the radio looks like for the next few weeks: Tonight, Tony will be covering my show, and the following three Wednesday evening shows will be hosted by Dave (who promises to play lots of Swedish music). Huge thanks to them. I’m not sure what’s going on with the Friday slots -- at this point, it looks like probably nothing. I plan to resume the show myself 9. July.

Feel free to email me if you’d like to meet up while I’m in Denmark -- or for any other purpose, as well.

Virkeligt sidst program (og fødselsdag)

2008-06-07T13:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday’s was the last show until I come back from

Denmark

in mid-July.

En meget god spilleliste:

1. Dance With Me – Adam Green
2. Your Arms Around Me – Jens Lekman (SV)
3. Hands Remember – Seabear (IS)
4. Pretenders – Montt Mardié featuring Hello Saferide (SV, SV)
5. I Know a Place – Jay Reatard
6. Cash 22 – the Flaming Stars
7. Trying Something New – the Honeydrips (SV)
8. Too Young (The Tough Alliance Remix) – Taken by Trees (SV, SV)
9. More than This – Electrelane
10. Missing – Doí (DK)
11. 156 – Mew (DK)
12. My Best Friend – Hello Saferide (SV)

Toward the end, you can also hear Arya and Ando singing ‘Happy Birthday.’ Even though I don’t really care for my birthday, that kind of made my day.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (6. juni 2008)~~

Sidst program

2008-06-05T15:26:00.000-07:00

Jeg er trist...

Spilleliste fra i gårs aften:

1. Jesus, Walk With Me (The Sound of Arrows remix) – Club 8 (SV, SV)
2. Icecold Kisses – Ostrich (SV)
3. Play it for Today – the Legends (SV)
4. Yes, nu skal vi ud i bilen og vi bestemmer selv hvad vi må – Frisk Frugt (DK)
5. Because Trees Can Fly – Lampshade (SV)
6. Ronan Keating – Free Loan Investments (SV)
7. Mengele y el Amor – Klaus&Kinski
8. Something New – Oliver North Boy Choir (DK)
9. This Moment – Under Electric Light
10. Blush – the Raveonettes (DK)
11. Black Magic – Jarvis Cocker
12. Bosphorus Bridge – Tiger Baby (DK)
13. Tindrer – Under Byen (DK)
14. Summercat – Billie the Vision & the Dancers (SV)

I’d like to reiterate: that was my last Wednesday show -- for a while, at least. Next Wednesday at 9 pm, I will be somewhere in the air between here (Portland) and Denmark. I will be back in time to resume my show 9. July; however, I may be moving to a different time slot. I don’t know details yet, nor do I know who (if anyone) will be covering the show. I will let you know as soon as I do.

I will still be around tomorrow (Friday), so there will be one last show then (6. June, 3-4 pm Pacific, KPSU). Tomorrow is also my birthday. In addition to wanting to listen to music I like such a day, I tend to play really good sets right before I leave a place… I thought yesterday’s was pretty good, and hope tomorrow’s will be as well. Tune in if you’d like.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (4. juni 2008)~~

Baglæns?

2008-06-03T15:19:00.000-07:00

Club 8 har en ny EP -- Jesus, Walk With Me. Titelsanget kommer fra deres september album The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Dreaming. Jeg troede, EP’er kommer ud før albummer, men jeg vil aldrig klage om en ny ting fra Club 8.

Hvis du er lige mig, du har måske allerede hørt flest af sange. Af fem sange, to er remixer af Jesus, Walk With Me. En, fra Jimahl, er gammel, men de andre, fra The Sound of Arrows, er ny. Det lyder mere interessant i sidst halv. Og, fordi Labrador er så meget gavmild, du må downloade The Sound of Arrowses remix af Jesus, Walk With Me. Du kan læse hvad jeg skrev om (og, tror jeg, downloade) Jimahls remix her.

Den anden sang, What I’m Dreaming of is Something I Could Have, kom første ud som et gratiale spor med The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Dreaming, men jeg tror, du må ny købe EP’en for at have det.

Og endelig -- Take Me Home, det andet nyt, lyder endnu mere lige en kirkesang end Jesus, Walk With Me. Mere og mere, deres ‘tema’ forekommer at være kirkesange med bittersød lyrik, hvor Karolinas stemme lyder lige et helt kor... Det passer sammen med resten af album og andre Club 8 sange. Og det er pragtfuldt, og pragtfuldt er det eneste rigtigt ord.

EP kommer ud ikke til 11. juni, men det kan man ny købe på internettet, og Labrador skal poste det i dag. Eller, du må også spille alle fem sange på last.fm.

And now, Josh, an English translation, since I know you will be desperate to know what this says. In short -- Club 8 has a new EP (Jesus, Walk With Me) with a new song (Take Me Home). Plus some remixes. The stream's already up at last.fm. I don't think it's really necessary for me to say how good it is.

--DL--
Jesus, Walk With Me – The Sound of Arrows Remix (Club 8)

Jeres.

2008-06-01T17:16:00.000-07:00

Sincerely Yours has been absolutely insane with new releases this month. The latest is Jonas Game’s new single, Fish and Shark. This is what I like best about Jonas Game: if you’re not really paying attention, it sounds like he’s singing in Swedish. (He’s not. It’s English.) Maybe that’s not the best explanation of his sound, so here’s the other thing I like best: he gasps all the time. When other singers do this, it often sounds kind of terrible; when Jonas Game does it, it sounds like just another part of the song. It’s very fitting.

Fish and Shark, like the previous single (ADHD) is poppy, but not in the unpleasant, saccharine way -- in the Sincerely Yours way. I have no idea why the song is called Fish and Shark, but I guess titles don’t matter compared to what the songs sound like.

Also released on Sincerely Yours this week was a 6-track album by Air France. You can listen to one of the songs (Collapsing At Your Doorstep) on the ~~podcast~~, along with Fish and Shark and some others.

Spillelisten:
1. I’d Rather Dance with You – Kings of Convenience (N)
2. Hounds of Love – the Futureheads
3. Long Lost Penpal – Hello Saferide (SV)
4. Crackdown – Kaspar Hauser
5. Stars – Port Friendly (DK)
6. Collapsing At Your Doorstep – Air France (SV)
7. Happy Healthy Lucky Month – Saint Jude’s Infirmary
8. Fish and Shark – Jonas Game (SV)
9. You Don’t Dance – Lupus (DK)
10. Hard to Realize – Anamia (DK)
11. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – the Pains of Being Pure at Heart
12. Am I Wry? No – Mew (DK)
13. Annie Laurie – the Radio Dept. (SV)

If you read Danish -- or even if you’d just like to listen to a few songs and/or watch a few videos -- Emodreng & Indiepige has a pretty nice post on the Sincerely Yours releases, too.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (30. maj 2008)~~
Fish and Shark (Jonas Game)

Travlt

2008-05-29T23:57:00.000-07:00

Incredibly busy.

Onsdagses spilleliste:

1. Always on my Mind – Pet Shop Boys
2. Music on the Radio – Sissy Wish (N)
3. The Accident – Cake on Cake (SV)
4. Where Birds Don’t Fly – Club 8 (SV)
5. Anything – David & the Citizens (SV)
6. Soft Evening Brilliant Morning – Trembling Blue Stars
7. Angelina Ballerina – epo-555 (DK)
8. Blue Corolla – Casiotone for the Painfully Alone
9. Sea Shell Mind – Oliver North Boy Choir (DK)
10. Paris 2004 – Peter Bjorn & John (SV)
11. Think About Talking – Attention Now! (N)
12. Young Love – Moto Boy (SV)
13. Saintly Friend – Said the Shark (DK)
14. Algeria – JJ72

I really don't have time to be doing this. I will, however, give you this -- in addition to the ~~podcast~~, you can also download Think About Talking. If you can get it to load, there are lots of other Attention Now! songs to download, too, on their (Norwegian-language; click the buttons that say 'last ned') website.

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone is playing a show in Portland on I think Tuesday. Anyone want to go?

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (28. maj 2008)~~
Think About Talking (Attention Now!)

Tre tinge fra her...

2008-05-28T14:43:00.000-07:00

I’ve just written a long paper about H.C. Andersen. I now know everything there is to know about H.C. Andersen. I also kind of hate him. He was insufferably insecure.

Now I have to start writing a paper about the role of the European Union in the World Trade Organization, something I know nothing about. Tips, anyone?

But before I embark on my journey down that unpleasant path, a few things (that you probably already know):

1. Air France has a new, 6-track CD out. It’s called No Way Down, and I can’t even find a stream anywhere. (So to listen, you'll have to buy it, here.) But this is what it says on their myspace (spaces and punctuation added) and that’s good enough for me:

No no no morals any more -- throw bottles at your door,
Sort of like a dream -- no better. What about not telling anybody about this? I’ve got a headless feeling -- this is not your first time; your past agrees with me -- no excuses left -- we are waiting to fail, but not quite yet.

There are also videos for the On Trade Winds EP. Four of them -- one for each song. All four of the videos feature an airplane (or at least a view from one). Can you guess what airline these planes belong to? Anyway -- somehow I missed these when they first came out… not even last year, but December of 2006. I’m not really into videos, and I’ll probably never watch them again; nonetheless they made me pretty happy.

2. You can now purchase the new Radio Dept. single, Freddie and the Trojan Horse. It includes three other songs, and very attractive cover art. CD only. It doesn’t come out officially until 4. june, but if you order it in advance, Labrador will ship it to you now. The full-length album, to be called Clinging to a Scheme, is slated for release 10. september. That’s only like a year after when it was originally supposed to be. Pretty happy.

3. Since it occurred to me that I have never yet publicly announced this in English: I am going to Denmark. I am leaving in two weeks. I’ll be there for about a month -- just long enough for Roskilde. I’m scared and nervous (and broke) and a bunch of other things, but I guess I’m also pretty happy.

--DL--
Freddie and the Trojan Horse (the Radio Dept.) if you haven’t already

Spilleliste

2008-05-23T20:02:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I don’t feel like writing anything on this tonight, so here’s the playlist and nothing more. (Sorry.)

1. Calculation Theme - Metric
2. Ex Lion Tamer – Wire
3. Lion Tamer versus Tigers – Echo is Your Love (FN)
4. Skimret – Nordpolen (SV)
5. Needle of Death – Yo La Tengo
6. Sogni – 9 (DK)
7. A Man of Happy Solutions – My Friend George (DK)
8. Mouth – No and the Maybes (DK)
9. Scene I – Just Like You Don’t – Blue Swan (DK)
10. Mount Wroclai (Idle Days) – Beirut
11. Cut Your Fingers Off – Electrojuice (DK)
12. Old Friends – the Bear Quartet (SV)
13. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea – Neutral Milk Hotel
14. Grey Days – the Concretes (SV)

--DL-
~~Ashtrays (23. maj 2008)~~

Elliott... levende i Sverige?

2008-05-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

Her er spillelisten fra i gårs aften:

1. A Vacant Heart – Wolfkin (DK)
2. Singing Arc – Seabear (IS)
3. 6 (Live, untitled) – Southern Belle
4. I Always Know I’m Right – Bakers at Dawn (SV)
5. Europewide Search for Love – ballboy
6. Great Expectations – the Ballet
7. On My Shoulders – the Dø (FN)
8. Glory to the World – El Perro del Mar (SV)
9. Hoppipolla – Sigur Rós (IS)
10. One Day It’s You – Tiger Baby (DK)
11. Lucky – the Tough Alliance (SV)
12. Cosmic Dancer – T. Rex
13. The Devil Behind Me – My Twin (DK)
14. Djuna – Frida Hyvönen (SV)

Første, hurtig -- hvis du har ikke set videoen for Hoppipolla, se det nu.

Anden (men ikke egentlig) -- Bakers at Dawn har et nyt album, ud på Series Two Records. Han har også mange andre sange, som du må downloade gratis, ~~her~~. Mit yndlingt er ~~Lester~~.

Hvad kan jeg siger om Bakers at Dawn? Jeg synes, han lyder meget lige Elliott Smith. Og man kan ikke slå fejl med nogen som lyder lige Elliott Smith.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (21. maj 2008)~~
~~Lester (Bakers at Dawn)~~

København!

2008-05-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

Jeg har endelig fortalt alle som jeg skal fortæller personlig (f.eks. mine bedsteforældre), så kan jeg nu skrive det her: Jeg skal rejse til Danmark i juni. Jeg er meget glad for det. Jeg bekymrer også mig over det, fordi jeg har aldrig været ud af USA, og andre tinge -- jeg savner allerede mine venner... men jeg synes, det vil være godt.

Jeg er der først og fremmest for skole, så skal jeg have klasse, men jeg håber, jeg kan også se og høre nogle musik. Jeg skal være i Roskilde Festivalen (og tilbagerejser hjem lige efter) men jeg ved ikke mere. Det skal jeg vist se.

Og turen skal være godt, selv om her i Portland, skal jeg gå glip af to Modern Age natter, og også en indbildt koncert med begge Starfucker og Southern Belle, som vil være meget godt. Jeg troede, det var 12. juni, men koncerten er ikke virkelig. (Trist, for alle some vil være i Portland.) Jeg aner ikke, hvor kommet ideen fra. Men jeg ville så gerne at se den, så det er vist godt, at den skal ikke virkelig ske, når alt kommer til alt -- fordi jeg afgår den 11.

Mm... alle kommer for snart. Det ved jeg ikke. Nå, København skal være fantastisk, ikke?

Og også, her er ~~Ride In Style~~, en sang af Southern Belle’s, fordi selv om de er ikke skandinav, de er rare unge, en af mine yndlinge bands i Portland, og du skal lytte til dem.

--DL--
~~Ride In Style (Southern Belle)~~

Sara elsker sommer

2008-05-17T13:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was great -- saw El Perro del Mar and Anna Ternheim play a short in-store set, then five nice bands at the Modern Age, and someone (obviously confused) said I was actually dancing. That, and the weather was magnificent. It still is, and that's why I'm not going to write anything more, or anything in Danish -- sitting inside with a hot computer in my lap when it's this nice outside just sort of offends my sensibilities. So does having to leave for work in an hour -- although I consider that more along the lines of cruel and unusual punishment...

I will say one more thing now, though, because it ties in. Something else that has been great this week: It's A Trap! Usually a lot of the music that appears there is a bit heavy for my tastes. However, the other day, the mp3 feature was Little Jimmy Reeves' awesome Romance on Drugs (which you can still download there.) It's an older song, but apparently didn't see official release until late March. This is what I wrote the first time I heard it, ages ago:

Oh. My. God. This is so good. A love song to drugs. Gorgeous.

Also on It's A Trap! this week, the announcement of a new Sincerely Yours release. It's Skimret by Nordpolen, and despite the arctic name (it means the North Pole) the music has a very summery sound. It reminds me a lot of labelfellows Air France -- the only difference is that the words are in Swedish and sung in a distinctly male voice. However, if you like the Air France, I can't see any way you wouldn't love this, too. Especially appropriate for now weather. Stream at myspace, or purchase through Sincerely Yours.

P.S. Ando hosted my Friday radio show. I haven't listened to it yet, but if you would like to, it's on my archive page, too.

Ingen tid

2008-05-14T23:01:00.000-07:00

I don’t have a lot of time -- or, rather, I have a lot of things to do and not enough time in which to do them -- but I’ll make time for this.

Her er i dags spilleliste:

1. Her Modest Mouth – And the Amazing Dancing Bear (DK)
2. Rocky Dennis’ Farewell Song – Jens Lekman (SV)
3. You’ve Gone Too Far – Slumber Party
4. If I Had A Film – Indurain (SV)
5. Grammisgalan – Johan Hedberg (SV)
6. 1983 (Pelle & Sebastian) – Pelle Carlberg (SV)
7. ADHD – Jonas Game (SV)
8. Stay (Just A Little Bit More) – The Dø (FL)
9. Guilty Rocks – Múm (IS)
10. Shoreline – Broder Daniel (SV)
11. Ud Af Mit Gode Skind – A.K. Hansn (DK)
12. With Fever – the Rainy States

I am going to try download links again and see what happens -- so here is the podcast. You may also download 1983 (Pelle & Sebastian), Pelle Carlberg’s new thing. It's one of his favorite tracks from the upcoming, as-yet-untitled album. The song is a “rough mix,” but I think it sounds pretty good. I also think the subtitle is really clever. Even though Pelle and Belle sound nothing alike spoken, they look very similar written. Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking, or association, but I think I hear a bit of a Belle & Sebastian-y tinge to the song. It’s got a spoken part, too, which for some reason I always really like. Anyway.

If you’re in Portland, you can also come to the Modern Age this week. Friday at seven -- five bands -- Southern Belle, Dykeritz, Sweeping Exits, the Rainy States, and Michael the Blind.

I will be at the Modern Age, but I will not be doing my Friday afternoon radio show, due to a very compelling engagement which you will probably hear about later. I will be back as usual next Wednesday, and Friday, Ando (formerly of the Pony Review) will be covering for me. I’m very excited to see what he’ll play, and expect the show will sound just as good, if not better than, it does when I’m there.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (14. maj 2008)~~
1983 (Pelle & Sebastian) -- rough mix (Pelle Carlberg)

Nogen dag (askebægere)

2008-05-13T18:09:00.000-07:00

First things first. David Fridlund (aka David and the Citizens) is now working days as a postman. In my head, there is something infinitely nice and twee about delivering letters for a living, and currently, I consider this to be the most desirable job in the world. Anyway, though. Despite having this fantastic new job, David is still finding time to make music. Recently he uploaded a new song -- it's a demo -- which can be streamed on the Citizens' myspace. It's called Someday. It's good. I like it.

In less exciting news, I have put the podcast links back in the sidebar. Also added is a link through which you can, theoretically, subscribe to the podcast. I don't have any idea how or even whether this works, but if you are into subscribing to things, it will probably make perfect sense to you.

That's all for now, as it's not even seven o'clock and I'm exhausted.

Dit ansigt høre på gulvet

2008-05-09T16:00:00.000-07:00

9. maj:

1. Earl Grey with Honey - Loveninjas (SV)
2. Wooden Heart - the Duke Spirit
3. Dogs - Emily Frembgen
4. Don't Let It Slip Away (Oliver North Boy Choir remix) - Attention Now! (DK, NW)
5. What to Pass On/What to Keep - Jomi Massage (DK)
6. An Envoy to the Open Field - Mew (DK)
7. Sad Transmission - The Raveonettes (DK)
8. The Strawberry Festival - Oh No Ono (DK)
9. Heartbreaking Sound - Death Valley Sleepers (DK)
10. The Best of Jill Hives - Guided by Voices
11. Wrap My Arms Around Him - Heavenly
12. Leave the North - Club 8 (SV)
13. I Want You - Mugison (IS)

Wow -- a nice Danish block there in the middle. I didn't realize I'd done that.

You may download the podcast via my page in the KPSU archives.

Mager

2008-05-08T23:06:00.000-07:00

Jeg glemte næsten -- men her er i gars:

1. A Track and a Train – Shout Out Louds (SV)
2. Like a Rolling Stone – Bob Dylan
3. Public Park – ballboy
4. Long Lost Penpal – Hello Saferide (SV)
5. Movies About Text – Bakers at Dawn (SV)
6. Thirteen – Elliott Smith
7. I’ll Be Your Mirror – the Velvet Underground
8. City – Billie the Vision & the Dancers (SV)
9. The Wrong Hands – Jens Lekman (SV)
10. Byen Driver – Under Byen (DK)
11. Camouflage – Agata & Me (DK)
12. Arms – Seabear (IS)
13. Mannen i Den Vita Hatten (16 Års Senare) – Kent (SV)

Jeg gik også min første rigtig telefonopringning -- det var VU sangen, som ville lyttede godt med Hello Saferide, men jeg kunne ikke finde det i nok tid. Jeg synes også, Movies About Text passer fantastisk sammen med Elliott Smith. Måske ikke dette Elliott Smith sang, men...

Siden jeg fjernede lette links, der har ikke været ingen mere ualmendelig downloader. Det skal jeg lade være for 3-4 dage mere, og hvis der er ingen mere, så skal jeg håbe det var et slumpetræf, og sætte altid tilbage igen. For nu, kan du finde podcasten på min arkivside med KPSU.

Alt for meget klikker

2008-05-07T15:53:00.000-07:00

This relates to the second half of yesterday's post. I find it extremely unlikely that, overnight, 3700 more people decided they needed to download and listen to all of my podcasts. I don't know what's going on, but as both my podcast and individual mp3 numbers are all messed up, there's obviously something not right.

In the future, as I attempt to isolate the source of the problem, I may be temporarily disabling links, changing file hosts, and generally making inconvenient modifications to the site. I apologize to everyone who is a legitimate reader and/or listener. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to voice them in a comment or email to me.

Hopefully this issue will be resolved expediently. For the moment, all of the aforementioned precautions/traps and monitoring is necessary, because 1) I keep running out of bandwidth, 2) my stats are messed up (and I really love stats), 3) I am both incredibly curious and incredibly annoyed -- but mostly because 4) I really do not want KPSU's server to go down because some jerk is effing things around, here.

I would issue a plea to whoever is doing this to stop, but from the scope of things, I no longer believe that it is possible for one person to have done this manually. However, if this is you, and you have decided, for whatever reason, to open a vendetta with me by compromising the functionality of this blog, please know that I consider your actions entirely inappropriate and would much rather be confronted head on. I will meet you in person to address your grievances, or, if this is somehow not possible for you, I refer you again to my email.

For the rest of us: I will continue updating this blog, but probably will not be putting up any mp3s for a while. Nor will you see any new podcast links. You can still download the podcasts (new and old) through my page in the KPSU archives; it just won't be as direct. Again, I apologize for the inconvenience, and hope to have everything back to normal as soon as possible.

Socialnetværkningsider = lige med pokker

2008-05-06T11:58:00.000-07:00

As if myspace was not enough -- Tiger Baby now has a facebook profile. It is the only facebook profile I have ever seen, and I aim to keep things that way. You can stream four songs there though, if you must.

I am having one of those days on which I feel an excessive and irrational hatred toward the internet, so I will not write any more.

However. While I’m here -- did 3,141 people really download my last show? I’d be elated if they had, but I really don’t think that’s the case. Obviously something must have gotten messed up -- although I can’t think what it would have been. But if you wish to download things from here: yes, that's what they're there for and yes, I am glad to have you listening to them, but please keep in mind that sometimes the load is slow... You really do only need to click once.

Spilleliste

2008-05-03T20:17:00.000-07:00

Spillelisten fra 2. maj:

1. I Cried Like a Silly Boy – Devotchka
2. Tropical Ice-Land – of Montreal
3. Feels Like Drowning – the Lost Patrol Band (SV) -- hedder nu Invasionen
4. Rudie Can’t Fail – the Clash
5. Took You – Said the Shark (DK)
6. From the Valley to the Stars – El Perro del Mar (SV)
7. Stop in the Name of Love – Bang Gang (IS)
8. Suddenly Electric – the Rainy States
9. Line (the Small Sleep and the Big One) – David & the Citizens (SV)
10. All Is Swell – DAMPFBAHN! (DK)
11. Straight Thin Line – Frida Hyvönen (SV)
12. Bluebells – Patrick Wolf
13. Hello to the Floor – the Duke Spirit

Der var nogle, jeg ville gerne sige, men jeg har glemt. Undskyld. Det skal måske være i morgen. Men -- åh -- her er DAMPFBAHN!'s remix-side, med deres eget og ni forskellige versioner af All Is Swell, som du måtte downloade. Fernando Daxtas er godt. Det lyder lidt lige et '80s løbning sang.

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (2. maj 2008)~~
~~All Is Swell - Fernando Daxta remix (DAMPFBAHN!)~~

Radio radio...

2008-05-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

Spillelisten fra i går aftes:

1. Weekender – Oliver North Boy Choir (DK)
2. Never Content – Air France (SV)
3. This Time – Bertine Zetlitz (NW)
4. The Air We Breathe – Figurines (DK)
5. Dayplanner – Free Loan Investments (SV)
6. Smother + Evil = Hurt – the Kissaway Trail (DK)
7. Caught in the Rain – Preston School of Industry
8. The Young Ones – Munich (DK)
9. Freddie and the Trojan Horse – the Radio Dept. (SV)
10. You Want the Candy – the Raveonettes (DK)
11. Red Tan – the Raveonettes (DK)
12. Pull Shapes – the Pipettes
13. Lions & Tigers – Asobi Seksu

Lige ONBC’s Weekender sidst weekend, Freddie and the Trojan Horse af the Radio Dept. er et nyt sang. Men det er en forpremiere, og skal officielt kom ud som titel sang af deres ny EP, 4. juni. Sang lyder meget lige andre Radio Dept. tinge -- men det er vist mere end det; Pitchfork (som første havde sanget) siger, det behandler Sveriges regering og tillidproblemer med statsministeren. Gudskelov, for de bor ikke i Tyrkiet...

--DL--
~~Ashtrays Podcast (30. april 2008)~~
Freddie and the Trojan Horse (the Radio Dept.)

Nye fra the Billies

2008-04-30T16:02:00.000-07:00

Nå, Billie the Vision & the Dancers, et stort, fint band fra Sverige, skal have et ny album -- deres fjerde -- ud 4. juni. Jeg syntes, det var meget snart -- men det er vist 14 måneder siden deres sidst album. Og jeg glæder mig til høre det nyt. Sit navnet er I Used to Wander These Streets. For et par (lidt mere) dage, de har haft tre for at spille på myspace. To af dem er (ligesom) om Lilly, som jeg foretrække over Pablo. Min yndling er Someday Somehow, og jeg synes, det lyder de fleste lige med deres ældre sange. Men de andre er også gode. Hvis du bor i Sverige, de skal spille fire releasekoncerter fra 5.-7. juni.

Der er ingen nye sange du måtte downloade, men alle af deres ældre er på musiksiden af deres webside. Der er mange, som have mig glad (eller deprimeret), men lige nu, jeg kan især lide Summercat, fra første albumet. Senere skal jeg måske sige hvorfor.

So -- Billie the Vision & the Dancers will release a new album -- their fourth -- on 4 June. At first I was surprised to learn this, as it seemed very soon after their last album, but I guess it’s been fourteen months. (Not that I’d be complaining if it were sooner.)

The new album title is I Used to Wander These Streets, and three of its tracks can be streamed on myspace. None of the new songs are downloadable; however, all of the songs from the previous three albums are available free on the music page of the Billies' website. I like almost all of them, but right now, I really like Summercat. Maybe later I’ll explain why…

--DL--
Summercat (Billie the Vision & the Dancers)

Nå, jeg køber ikke CDs

2008-04-30T15:47:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago, Stytzer over at Hits in the Car asked readers about their CD-buying habits (or lack thereof). I wrote a response, but decided it was too long to post as a comment; then, characteristically, in trying to condense it, I made it longer. But if anyone wants my take on the issue, well, first look at Stytzer’s original post, then come back and read my (essentially irrelevant) response:

Funny this should come up now. Less than a week ago, I finished ripping all my CDs onto my computer, then gave them all to my sister. They took up too much space, and I only ever listened to them on the computer anyway.

I’m not a fan of mp3s, and I’ve never bought a digital album. Overall, I don’t buy very much music. I stopped buying CDs primarily because I couldn’t afford to -- even buying used. Furthermore, many of the artists I like are young, unsigned, or (for whatever reason) don’t have physical releases on CD; downloading their mp3s is often the only option. I do still buy vinyl, and ideally, I’d own all the music I currently listen to on vinyl, but logically, this will never happen. If many of my favored artists don’t have CDs, even fewer have vinyl.

In my mind, the record, be it an LP or 7”, is a format far superior to the CD. Yes, vinyl is outdated; yes, it can take up an excessive amount of space; yes, I know it’s not transferable to digital (i.e. the computer). However, record album liner notes are nearly always more complex and well-done than CD liners, an oversized vinyl disc is more aesthetically pleasing than a shiny compact one, and vinyl has that intangible (or tangible, if we’re comparing to mp3s) quality… nothing beats the sound or sensation of a vinyl record.

As far as buying or not buying CDs, again, I stopped because I couldn’t afford it. I’ve actually never participated in online file sharing, although I’m sure I’ve acquired music in ways that are illegal (example: ripping radio promo CDs onto my personal computer). I know the record industry is in a downward spiral, and I feel bad, but -- even if I were to discontinue the aforementioned practice - there’s really nothing I can do to save it. The majority of the population seems not to care very much about sound quality or ethics, and downloads are through the roof.

If I were really dedicated, I would have kept my CDs -- and I would have more of them, because I would have kept buying them -- and I would probably also have a CD player to play them in. But I’ve never even had a proper CD player. Before my computer, I had a discman and a lot of wires. Then, it never seemed necessary to upgrade, and now, the possibility of (almost anyone) buying a CD player only seems foolish – just think how shocked you would be if you were out walking and saw someone listening to music on a discman instead of an ipod.

The record industry, musicians, listeners, everyone, need to face facts: the CD is a dying medium. Eventually, CDs will be phased out entirely, replaced with the even more versatile mp3s. I’m not looking forward to this, but it’s true. Working at a college radio station, I’m appalled by the number of people who are entirely reliant on their mp3 players to broadcast their shows -- because these, along with the increasingly rare indie record store clerks, are the people who are supposed to be arbiters of taste, musical experts. If even disc jockeys are giving up and switching to mp3s, I can’t see that the CD has much of a future.
Even burning CDs for external use is increasingly irrelevant -- mp3 players are becoming less and less expensive, are compatible with both speakers and headphones, incredibly portable, and, with a cheap adaptor, can be used in the car, too. Basically, the mp3 can do everything the CD can – but without the risk of becoming scratched or broken, or taking up (physical) space. To most people, the difference in sound quality is negligible. Did I say CDs were dying? Essentially, they’re already dead.

Vinyl, on the other hand, will despite its many 'flaws' nevertheless be around as long as there are hipsters with credit cards. Maybe half the novelty and desire is in having a bigger or better collection than next door -- but at least that means vinyl is something people really care about. CDs, sadly enough, aren’t. To be honest, I don’t know if they ever were.

Feel free to leave comments regarding your own CD/vinyl/mp3 ideas, too.

Hemmeligheden er ud

2008-04-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

I’ve been trying for the past hour to get these to download. My internet connection is really horrible.

The opposite of horrible: the new Oliver North Boy Choir single, Weekender, is at last out! Also available is the b-side (if it can properly be called that), Lovesong. The two sound very different from each other, but both can be described in quite positive terms. Weekender is somewhat guitar-driven (the first time I heard it, I thought of early Raveonettes), unlike other ONBC songs. It’s a bit different, but not so different that you won’t recognize the things you like about the band.

Weekender is really neat, and a step in a different direction that works well, but I’ll admit it -- I’ve always been one of those people who often winds up liking B-sides better than singles, and this case I do. Maybe I just hear what I want to hear, but Lovesong, in my opinion, sounds much more reminiscent of early ONBC -- think Cobra, or Something New… Ethereal pop with a bit of a shoegazey influence toward the end. I like it very, very much. It’s the right kind of love song -- one for the broken-hearted. I guess nearly all (good) love songs are somewhat broken-hearted, but this one seems even more so. It’s perhaps what happens when you’re still in love, but don’t want to be, kind of; the lie that you need to tell yourself, even though you know it’s not true. Again, maybe I just hear what I want to hear -- but maybe not. I guess you’ll have to listen to it to know what I mean.

Anyway. In addition to the main two, ONBC has also released a third bonus track, New Folder, and a new remix, by Danish electro-ist Limboasyoulikeit, of an old ONBC song (Cobra, actually). These last two are what I’ve been trying to download -- and you can download them as well. (Weekender and Lovesong are through iTunes.)

If your internet is better than mine, all six songs -- the aforementioned, as well as two previously released affiliated tracks, Bonnie and Clyde’s Serbia’s on Fire remix and Bakers at Dawn’s Something New cover -- can be streamed in full at the special little Weekender web page. This is also where you should go to download the latter four -- or to watch the Weekender video. A few words about that: it’s black and white, and features two men playing chess and somehow managing to lip-sync the song, despite having been filmed in fast motion. And there’s a cameo from a Rationell cutlery tray -- the medium-sized one -- from IKEA. (Isn’t it sad how well I know these things?)

I guess I should also talk about the song I’m putting up to download here -- New Folder. It’s a spacey pop song just like (maybe even more so than) the rest. But toward the middle, something about it makes me think of math. Perhaps it’s very measured or even or something. Perhaps I just wanted to think of math. Whatever the case, I like it. It’s got a lot of different instruments and a nice sonic buildup. Last night, when I initially wrote this, toward the end I thought it sounded kind of like a funnel looks -- you know, the kind water makes when going down a drain. That was probably more the influence of really needing to go to sleep -- but I still can't think of any better way to describe the song. Perhaps you'd just better listen to it, too.

--DL--
New Folder (Oliver North Boy Choir)