Britney at the VMA’S – I’m so sorry

“Oh God, where are you now?” once sang Detroit’s folk hero Sufjan Stevens, and I thought something very similar this morning when I caught the youtube recap of Britney Spear’s “return to the stage” at the VMA’s. As you know I don’t post about pop culture or things like this on a normal day. If you’re into that, Stereogum would likely be your best friend. But this, this is an important event. My heart broke a little when I saw it. I wanted Britney to have an awesome and highly talked-about performance. I wanted it to be the be-all end-all of award show gigs, I wanted her return to fame to overthrow even less deserving recent heiresses….but nothing anywhere remotely close to that would happen.

Britney was horrible, looked horrible, danced horrible, and couldn’t even lip-synch. I guess the days of the boy and girl bands are officially over. At least they were memorable.

EDIT: Looks like Viacom got to Dailymotiwon pretty quick. For now, head over to Buzznet to watch the “performance”

[mp3] Youth Group – Sorry
[mp3] The Dirtbombs – Trainwreck
[mp3] Damien Jurado – Bad Dreams

Sunday night chill – completely random

It’s an especially gray September day here in Nashville and from inside I can pretend that it’s actually feeling like September outside rather than being 90 degrees. Below is the completely random mix of songs that just came on in shuffle of my 500 song chillout playlist. They’re very random but I think they worked well together.

The earth seems tired today: the breeze is lazy, the sky is blank, and things are moving slowly. The world is a strange place sometimes, and it’s strange when you realize it. Constant and never-ceasing commerce, people moving everywhere or anywhere and anyway. The urban sprawl is an interesting thing and if you slow down to watch you can almost see it, when you’re the only one not moving perspective shifts in a cool way.

[mp3] Simon and Garfunkel – Overs (Thanks Matt)
[mp3] Ryan Adams – Oh My Sweet Carolina
[mp3] Okkervil River – Girl in Port
[mp3] Songs: Ohia – Didn’t it Rain?
[mp3] Stan Getz – Stella By Starlight

Damien Jurado @ The Doug Fir – Portland Oregon – 9/8/2007

Few People write better folk songs than Damien Jurado. Sadder than you are, and armed with a voice soaked in disenfranchised down-and-outness and a guitar, Jurado is the guy in high school who was writing Nick Drake songs when your buddies were trying to figure out the melody to Lithium on their Japanese Strats.

The wonderful people at KEXP are broadcasting shows from Musicfest NW – which has now come to a close – for completely free (as always, please support). Jurado plays 4 new songs, and quite frankly I am giddy about them, they might be his best batch yet.

The lineup:
Damien Jurado – Guitar, Vocals
Jenna Conrad – Vocals

[mp3] Damien Jurado – Seams (New Song)
[mp3] Damien Jurado – When I Light Your Door (J. Tilman)
[mp3] Damien Jurado – Abilene
[mp3] Damien Jurado – Put Your Best Dress On (New Song)
[mp3] Damien Jurado – Black Kite (New Song)
[mp3] Damien Jurado – Sheets (New Song)
[mp3] Damien Jurado – Denton, TX

Buy Damien Jurado records
Damien Jurado Tour Dates

Help Wanted Nights

There hasn’t been a Saddle Creek release in a while that I’ve loved, not since Oberst’s ’05 folk masterpiece I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning. Not until now that is: Help Wanted Nights is the soundtrack to a screenplay Cursive and Good Life singer/songwriter Tim Kasher wrote last year. He describes it as: “A guy [who] breaks down in a small town and spends a week at a bar fraternizing with the regulars, or something like that.” Don’t let Kasher’s apparent indifference fool you, though; this record is completely committed, and pretty excellent too.

Kasher has a knack for writing great folk-pop songs: loose and sometimes even a little simple, but always relatable. The songs become more like friends after a few listens to Help Wanted Nights; it’s jangly picked guitars, brushed drums, and tender harmonies mix well with Kasher’s signature weary bouts with shout-singing. Gone is the over-done drama of some of Tim’s past work, here to stay is the grown-up songwriting of tracks like Heartbroke, which would be at home on a Simon and Garfunkle record, or Picket Fence, a neo-country number with sparely picked guitar melodies and trotting drums.

[mp3] The Good Life – Picket Fence
[mp3] The Good Life – You Don’t Feel Like Home to Me

Pre-order Help Wanted Nights from insound. It’s released this Tuesday, and each pre-order comes with a bottle opener and a key to download a b-side.

I almost forgot

The other day when I made that post about Ben Gibbard’s early side-project, All-Time Quarterback, I completely forgot to post the completely awesome video for that record’s “single,” Plans Get Complex, which was shot in London, on a camcorder, with a $6 budget. My how times have changed.

A note to all you young professionals: This is probably not safe for work.

Why I don’t get Animal Collective

Yeah, I know you’re so disappointed, you lost so much respect for me, yadda, yadda, yadda. But look: it’s not that I don’t think they’re fun or that I don’t ‘get’ them or anything; it’s just that they remind me of Wolf Parade, Devandra, and The Zoo thrown in a blender, only I prefer all of the above (Except maybe The Zoo) to them.

[mp3] Animal Collective – Grass

The only thing I can think of: it’s because I don’t do drugs … it is, isn’t it? I can understand how this would be “totally-freakin’-me-out amazing” if I were in some sort of narcotically altered state, but I’m not, and it just kinda feels a little boring to these ears.

I’m sorry if you hate me … also I don’t like Of Montreal, so there’s that (honesty is important in our relationship, right?).

Buy Animal Collective’s new record Strawberry Jam at insound, if you’d like, right HERE.

I couldn’t tell you how the house burnt down

I had an interesting conversation with a comrade a day ago about Zach Condon’s band Beirut. We had reached the same conclusion: depending on the day Beirut is either the most genius thing you’ve ever heard or the most boring. It’s hard not to be a one-trick pony when you’re an indie band who plays gypsy-tinged Baltic folk music, so I can’t blame the band of young lads.

Either way, today is one of those days where it’s genius to my ears: the timbre of ukulele, the sun-kissed trumpets, Condon’s wavering and world-worn vibrato it’s just all clicking right now.

[mp3] Beirut – Transatlantique
[mp3] Beirut – Mount Wroclai (Idle Days)

[mp3] Get Him Eat Him – 2 x 2 feat. Zach Condon

Beirut’s newest offering, The Flying Cup Club hits stores on October 2nd.
Pre-order it and buy The Gulag Orkestrar at insound.

But I thought she said maple leaves…

Jens Lekman writes better pop songs than just about anyone else currently making music. That, my friend, is not opinion but a simple fact. Swimming with orchestral samples, pianos, glockenspiels, bouncy guitars, and Jens’ crooner-esque Swedish the songs are almost immediately disarming. Jens’ probably wasn’t made for our time, he’d certainly be more fit among the retro-sampled bands he so frequently includes in his work, but man am I glad he’s here.

Opposite of Hallelujah is the first single from his new record Night Falls Over Kortedala which is out on Secretly Canadian on October 9. Maple Leaves is from the wonderfully titled Oh, You’re so Silent Jens EP, along with being one of the first songs I ever gushed about on this blog.
[mp3] Jens Lekman – Opposite of Hallelujah
[mp3] Jens Lekman – Maple Leaves

You can pre-order Night Falls Over Kortedala from Secretly Canadian on CD or LP here, and recieve bonus material for doing so. I’m not sure what it is but according to Jens it’s “some very exclusive content. Not exactly sure what will be on it but I can tell you it won’t be horseshit.” And there ya go….

I’ve got a couple of books on tape and a fresh pack of cigarettes

Few albums have gone as criminally under-appreciated as Ben Gibbard’s 1999 pseudonym-ed side project All-Time Quarterback. Right around the same time his other little band was gaining regional notoriety Gibbard holed himself up with a tape recorder, a toy guitar, a broken bass, and other various toys (or so the story goes). I especially enjoy this image and methodology because out of it rose a batch of amazing pop songs. An exercise in true songwriting to be sure: the extremely lo-fi nature of the recordings themselves only add charm to the tired bedroom pop that makes this cassette (and re-issued cd) such a keeper.

The songs in question here are from the original cassette release, but Barsuk’s CD re-issue contains 4 songs that didn’t appear on that release. These songs alone are worth the price of admission.

[mp3] All-time Quarterback – Untitled | Buy from Barsuk
[mp3] All-time Quarterback – Empire State | Buy from Barsuk

You used to love alot of things

I was thinking today on my way into work: If I were to keep driving and not stop, drive to the nearest train station and decide to go somewhere and not look back I could. I guess that’s one of the beauties of free will, I mean sure I would have to find another job or settle in another town eventually, but if I decided I had enough of Nashville and wanted to leave….I could.

I’m not going to, not today at least, because frankly I don’t have much of anything to run from. But it’s nice to know that it’s an option. “It’s good to have options,” sang Mr. Bazan just as I was thinking this thought, irony I guess, but it is. Having that thought in the back of your head will likely give you a much more carefree view on life. See it for what it really is I guess: disposable and yours to do whatever you please with.

[mp3] Andrew Bird – Darkmatter | Buy at insound
[mp3] Bedhead – Extramundane | Buy at insound
[mp3] Jason Molina – Desert Train | Buy at insound