What MUSIC are you listening to? ARCHIVE

Yabba dabba dabba do, man!

Aquabats....I can't get Red Sweater out of my head.

When I was 15 I had my first summer job working for the public school system as an "assistant janitor." There was some real, back breaking work involved, but it was also a whole lot of goofing off with my best friend and raiding the stuff the teachers confiscated from the kids and never returned the previous year. On my first paycheck, the very first paycheck I ever earned, I went out and bought a copy of 3rd edition Dungeon Master's Guide, "Clarity" by Jimmy Eat World (this was quite a bit before they became the go-to band if you were making a movie with teenagers in it and needed to play "The Middle" during the TV spots and trailers), and "Four Minute Mile" by The Get Up Kids. Something struck me in just the right way as I was leaving work today and threw it on for the ride home. I was into plenty of embarrassing shit all through high school but I still love 90s emo as today much as I did then.



Until tonight I'd been on a steady diet of Tera Melos, a band I just discovered in the last couple weeks. Cannot get enough of these guys. There's something very Blue Album about some of their stuff, but completely bizarre and mathy too. I struggled putting a video up since they are SO FUCKED UP, but this song rules.

I arbitrarily assert that this startling cover of Rock Lobster (The B-52s) is the F:AT song of the day:

My iPod Shuffle fell off my coat while walking home so now I'm listening to nothing

Good lord I've been on an album buying spree lately and have listened to tons of new stuff.

Indian: Really slow sludgy metal. Experimental, lots of the songs sound like they're using cliche endings as beginning and testing your patience. Very avant guarde and interesting. I like them enough to listen a bunch more times. These guys are loud and in your face extreme and despite the mild amount of pretension they seem to be having fun. I like that aspect.

Kvelertak: This is black metal married with party rock. Like if Ulver and AC/DC made a band together. It's a really fun unpretentious album. I enjoy this one a lot, it's nice to have big sing along moments interspersed with weird ass bullshit. It's not the most amazing album I've heard in years but it is one of the bands I've heard lately that seems to have a ton of potential. I will be following these guys from here on out.

Gojira: Another metal band, but not that great. I enjoyed it the first time but further listens made me think of the album as over produced and lifeless. They are a good band, no doubt, but I question their taste. The album is worth listening to but probably not worth owning. I like some of the ideas but I feel like they over did it.

Beck: His new album, it's all-right. My wife loves it and I can see why. It's non-confrontational, it's easy to listen to, there are some clever lines here and there and it never feels totally cliche. Just enough interesting things going on to save it from being bad pop but not so much that you're amazed. It's a good adult album... but that's not the best compliment I can think of.

Jonas Hellborg: Jonas Hellborg is a master bassist, one of the best that has ever lived and for years he's been living in India and learning how to incorporate microtonal music into his jazz fusion type thing. He's the ONLY jazz fusion composer worth listening to. Most are simply boring wankers. But after Shawn Lane died he did very little and hasn't released an album in seven years. Now along come this one; "Jazz Rag" which is an awful title (he is the master of shitty titles) but the album itself.. HOLY FUCK ALBUM OF THE YEAR ALREADY!!. For me. He has Mattias Eklundh on guitar who can be nauseating with all his pyrotechnics and normally I would agree with people on that line of thinking but for me Hellborg finds a way to make it work in his compositions. Love love love this album. Thing is.. he's almost jam band in a way (again the only artist who could even remotely be considered for that title that I actually like) so while I get that people like to ignore entire genre's... I think it's a really bad idea. Jonas rocks!!

Kendrick Lamar: Everyone was talking about this guy as the new Hip Hop king. Don't listen to them. He's ok, that's all. A few good tracks but it's just mildly progressive Pop Hip Hop, nothing mind blowing.

David Allen Coe: I had never really listened to David Allen Coe before but I like what I hear now that I have. I picked up one of those best of albums and it was really interesting. I was a little put off by an N Bomb that shows up out of the blue for no real reason I could think of. I mentioned it to my banjo player and he told me that Coe has a bunch of "racist" songs... possibly satirical but not obvious like Randy Newman's Redneck's song. It did put me off a little bit but still, I'm going to over look it for now and just enjoy his songs that don't go there.

Lefty Frizzell: I've always loved Lefty's songwriting skills. I've always thought of him as an equal to Hank Williams who never got as famous as he deserved. Listening to him again lately only confirms that belief. Sure, every loves "If got the money honey I've got the time" or "Always Late (with your kisses" but what about "Shine Shave Shower" or "Give me more more more"? Lefty is an incredible songwriter that everyone should know.

I'm going to stop here, this is getting stupid.

Royksöpp. "Junior". I win.

JonJacob wrote: Kvelertak: This is black metal married with party rock. Like if Ulver and AC/DC made a band together. It's a really fun unpretentious album. I enjoy this one a lot, it's nice to have big sing along moments interspersed with weird ass bullshit. It's not the most amazing album I've heard in years but it is one of the bands I've heard lately that seems to have a ton of potential. I will be following these guys from here on out.

Gojira: Another metal band, but not that great. I enjoyed it the first time but further listens made me think of the album as over produced and lifeless. They are a good band, no doubt, but I question their taste. The album is worth listening to but probably not worth owning. I like some of the ideas but I feel like they over did it.

Both these bands will be touring with Mastodon soon, my buddy really want us to go see them in TO in May (in fact he's already got the tickets, I'm just trying to convince my girlfriend it's a good idea to let me go).

Which Gojira did you listen to, was that L'enfant sauvage? I really preferred From Mars to Sirius, you can check out a lot of their music on Youtube.

Columbob wrote:

JonJacob wrote: Kvelertak: This is black metal married with party rock. Like if Ulver and AC/DC made a band together. It's a really fun unpretentious album. I enjoy this one a lot, it's nice to have big sing along moments interspersed with weird ass bullshit. It's not the most amazing album I've heard in years but it is one of the bands I've heard lately that seems to have a ton of potential. I will be following these guys from here on out.

Gojira: Another metal band, but not that great. I enjoyed it the first time but further listens made me think of the album as over produced and lifeless. They are a good band, no doubt, but I question their taste. The album is worth listening to but probably not worth owning. I like some of the ideas but I feel like they over did it.

Both these bands will be touring with Mastodon soon, my buddy really want us to go see them in TO in May (in fact he's already got the tickets, I'm just trying to convince my girlfriend it's a good idea to let me go).

Which Gojira did you listen to, was that L'enfant sauvage? I really preferred From Mars to Sirius, you can check out a lot of their music on Youtube.

That would be a great show I'm sure. I've seen Mastodon live before and they were great,.... BUT they sounded almost identical to the album and as good as that is for some people it's not my bag for live shows. I prefer when a band sounds totally different live. None the less I'd probably see them again, it was a blast.

... and yes, The Savage Children is the Gojira album I have. It doesn't really sound that savage or that child like funny enough. I wouldn't be adverse to checking out another album though, I think the last straw for me was when some guy started singing through a vocorder or some kind of robotic vocal effect. It reminded me of Cynic... a similar band with similar problems.

Lots of White Buffalo.

Can't tell if this video is ironic or not, but great tune.






A little bit of Shovels and Rope




Some Caroline Chocolate Drops




And pretty much still grooving on that Divided and United Compilation from last fall. Contemporary artists covering Civil War era songs.

Not many sports fans around here I'm guessing, even less Hockey fans, and even smaller still, the Maple Leaf fans... of which I am one. Our sadness is something no other hockey fan can understand, our sorrow is herculean. This little ditty has kept me warm during the hard times these last few weeks as the Leafs fucked up their good season with a bad stretch of eight games and fell out of play off position.



The poster of Salming made me sad.

I'm digging the new Phantogram album. In heavy rotation. Also got St. Vincent but just not liking it.

Been putting alot of Modest Mouse on to listen to at work. Something about the nihilism and zen-like lyrics really scratch some itch in my brain.

Nas - Illmatic is one of the few perfect albums.

At the Drive-In and The Mars Volta this week.

Started things off with "De-Loused in the Comatourium," which is one those records I always have to wonder, "Why don't I listen to this more often?" I _LOVE_ it. Those first two songs might be my favorite opening to a record.

Went on to "Frances the Mute," which reminded me why I don't listen to it more often. When there's something actually going on on it, it's pretty great, but there's just so much ambient sound. I'm listening to crickets for 5 fucking minutes. C'mon. Like I said though, where there are songs happening, it's great, but it's a struggle to put on and leave on.

Which brings me to going back to "Relationship of Command." This record kicked the asses of my brother and I when we were in high school. We hadn't heard anything like it before. I remember flipping the TV on one morning while getting ready to go to school, flipping by MTV just in time for the video for "One Armed Scissor." We couldn't believe what we were hearing, we were both left saying, "We NEED this album!" I know it got some shit from the older AtDI fans when it came out, but fuck those people, this record still rules.

That is a PHENOMENAL record. I was managing a Wherehouse Music when it came out, we got a promo from Grand Royal in. I dismissed it and put it in the "here employees, free CDs box". My buddy Jamie took him and came back the next day saying "you have got to listen to this record". Then we started playing it pretty much non-stop over the in-store play system.

I didn't like Sparta or Mars Volta...