MORE NOISE PLEASE! September 2010 Mix
Download September 2010 mix here.
I’ve been working on this mix since the beginning of this month & I’ve changed it a million times and now I’m just sick of it, really. This whole month has been a blur; I hate that summer is over but there’s nothing I can do. Just Deal With It, I guess. Time To Grow Up.
Anyway, I don’t know how noticeable they are, but “There’s SHARKS in them there trees!” Oh yes, my mad photoshop skillz now include color changes.
Happy Fall, Motherfuckers.
1. Knives From Bavaria - Dean And Britta from 13 Most Beautiful: Songs For Andy Warhol’s Screen (2010)
“I dreamed you were riding a train to Astoria
I dreamed that you swallowed a pill called Euphoria”
I had no idea until now that Britta Phillips was A. the singing voice of the truly outrageous Jem or B. in the movie Satisfaction.
(With Trini Alvarado, who played “Mooch,” and whose love interest was “Nickie” [played by Scott Coffey, who was also in Some Kind of Wonderful as “Ray” and Shag as “Chip,” an impression of whom I can be seen doing on a VHS tape of the night of my 21st birthday in New Brunswick, NJ. An impression of him, Chip, doing an impression of Bullwinkle, from Rocky and. Or *could theoretically* be seen doing, if the tape weren’t too worn and old to still be viewable, which is probably better for everyone involved.]
[‘I’m orange, I’m orange, I’m orange, I’m blue”]
2. Just Enough - Julian Lynch from Mare (2010)
[his debut was titled Orange You Glad]
3. Sea Talk - Zola Jesus from Tsar Bomba (2009)
I like this older version better that the revamped one on Stridulum II. The original version, as described by Ryan Dombal at Pitchfork :
“Sea Talk” originally showed up as a tin-canned blister off 2009’s Tsar Bomba EP- - on it, she could’ve been screaming into a megaphone attached to a broken distortion pedal attached to a dog-chewed RadioShack mic. Still, there was beauty to be found for those willing to put in the effort.”
[It reminds me somehow of a Dead Can Dance song, but I can’t figure out which one. Maybe “Ulysses” off The Serpent’s Egg? Sort of?]
4. You Is My Hot Rabbit - No Age from Dead Plane (2007)
I love the new No Age album (Everything In Between) but since it wasn’t technically out when I was working on this mix (although it is now), I didn’t feel right adding any songs from it here. But I went to see them a few weeks ago with Justin, and I’ve been listening to them a lot in general. This song is great & sort of hollow-sounding and…what’s that drum called? It’s got a big echo-ey boom, but it still sounds quiet? And the title has “Rabbit” in it which is also the make of Colin’s new (to him) convertible, purchased at the end of this summer for everyone’s cruising pleasure.
[actually it’s a Cabriolet, but didn’t they used to be Rabbits? My best friend in college drove one.]
[and for my pleasure of yelling “WHITE RABBIT!” He insists the name of the car is White Lightning. Whatever, Tierney.]
5. I Get Nervous - Lower Dens from Twin-Hand Movement (2010)
I think this song sounds a bit like a sadder, slower version of “I Go Crazy” by Flesh For Lulu. But could be I’m just influenced by the title.
6. Free Translator - The Books from The Way Out (2010)
Here is a cool tumblr post about this song (by Nick Zammuto & Paul de Jong of The Books).
7. Some People Never Die - Hawkwind from Church of Hawkwind (1982)
WIkipedia has this to say:
Although credited to Dave Brock, the track “Some People Never Die” is in fact a direct copy of the track “They Call Me Gun” on an obscure lp “On The Seventh Day” (US Mercury Records 61248, 1970), right down to the famous President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald shooting commentary. An alternative edit of “Some People Never Die” is on “SpaceBrock” (2000).
8. Bad Attitude - Lisa Germano from Happiness (1993)
“You wish you were happy but you’re not..hahahaha
But if life was easy you wouldn’t learn anything, now would you?
But most of the lessons you learn you would rather forget
You wish you could laugh it away but it’s hard
A smoke or a drink makes the laughing part easier, haha
But now you are stuck with another addiction
You’re having another bad day and that’s all, you could change
You could change but your attitude, baby, doesn’t have to be so mad”
I listened to so much Lisa Germano in the mid to late 90s that my roommate Josh asked if he could be obsessed with her, too.
The guy I was dating at the time, MB, lived with his best friend/band member and I remember them telling me how they saw her play a show, I think at the Crocodile (in Seattle), and how it made them cry.
Also, just for the record - I don’t know how fashion people who say things like, “Fashion never moves backwards, it’s always about looking forward!” take themselves seriously, because, hello:
That poster is from like 1993 or 1994 and I just got off the phone with some old joke about somebody wanting something back and I took a message and it was from Urban Outfitters summer 2010.
9. Things Behind The Sun - Nick Drake from Pink Moon (1972)
I’ve been thinking about Nick Drake a lot the past couple months. I came across this list of “Songs Ruined (!) By Commercials,” which asks:
Who’s in charge of the late Nick Drake’s aural legacy? Whoever they are, they should be ashamed of themselves: two of the folk hero’s most beloved songs, “Pink Moon” and “From the Morning,” have been used in big brand adverts, Volkswagen and AT&T, respectively.
First of all, “Ruined”? Really? You’re *that* sensitive, that just being included along with a visual of a car driving at night ruins the song for you?
Second, “ashamed of themselves”? I hate you, whoever you are.
Third, the whole stupid list is…um…stupid -but this part especially made me so angry that I considered writing a blog post about it (angry writing…like angry dancing) but all I really want to say is something along the lines of “Stop being such a pretentious, self-righteous asshole” which might seem harsh, but…no. It’s true. And, actually, I still feel annoyed, even after saying that, so maybe there will be a blog post coming at some point, after all (but in all likelihood, probably not. Annoyance stored away.)
Anyway, this song - Things Behind The Sun - I found this article which says:
As for that exception mentioned above, there is a single flaw in Nick Drake’s catalog — not a Homeric nod like “Poor Boy” from “Bryter Layter,” but an actual error. It can be heard two minutes into “Things Behind the Sun,” almost exactly in the middle of “Pink Moon.” As he executes a typically elegant figure on his acoustic guitar, a finger on his singularly strong left hand slips. The note clunks instead of ringing. A friend once wrote me that her morning had been spoiled by that mistake. But it works like the flaw in a handmade Persian rug, as proof that Drake lived in our world, not another one, and that he had to fight for every moment of grace.
Sometimes I think I can hear the note, but then sometimes, even with headphones, I can’t. It doesn’t upset me, the way it does the friend of the Salon article’s author - I love it, when I can hear it, because it’s sad and human but not…defeated. I wonder if he obsessed about it. I wonder if it’s even really there, if it’s even an actual error.
10. Autopilot - Seam from The Problem With Me (1993)
Via Magnet Magazine:
Monumentally sad yet overwhelmingly triumphant, The Problem With Me was birthed in the short shadow of singer/guitarist Sooyoung Park’s old band (Bitch Magnet) and a semi-famous ex-drummer (Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan), but its indie-rock blueprint—would Death Cab For Cutie’s most resonant moments exist without it?—proved far more important than past associations. Nine blissfully hypnotic songs circled Park’s sadness and anger, building up tension and releasing it in a crash of restrained guitars and half-shouted vocals.
11. Baby Blue - 13th Floor Elevators from Easter Everywhere (1967)
The first time I heard this song, JA was playing along to it on his guitar in his bedroom at that apartment everyone lived at after Plum Street, I don’t remember the address. I think I was alone in the house, and I heard the guitar, and it was so pretty. And JA was (and still is) so cool, and so like 9 years older than me. So yes, of course I dated him. And when I moved to Seattle he sent me letters w/ photocopied clippings of news & interviews about Roky Erickson.
12. Fade - Calexico from Hot Rail (2000)
Ok, the first time I heard this song, I was driving in Seattle, and it was one of those situations where…the song was so good, that I had to wait until it ended so I could hear the KEXP dj say who it was, even if that meant sitting in a still-running parked car, and being late to work.
13. More Noise Please - Steven Jesse Bernstein from Prison (1992)MO
“It is the same every night. I love it. I need it. Without you I could not live!
14. Brain Storm (for Erin) - Mark McGuire from Living WIth Yourself (2010)
This album will be released Oct 1. It’s my favorite album of Fall so far. I fell asleep to it on a train to my parents’ house in NJ at the very end of August/beginning of July and woke to this song and…I just love this album. I want to crawl inside it and live there. I want to French kiss it, and I don’t even like kissing. I can’t get it loud enough on my headphones for it to pass through my ears, physically, and be inside me, inside my brain, or me inside it.
Hooray! Enjoy! Comments? Suggestions? Anyone? (crickets)
Download September 2010 mix here.
