Neutral Milk Hotel/Music Tapes’ Koster’s Christmas in July

Well, folks. You all know I REALLY love Christmas music, so you can imagine how excited I was when Neutral Milk Hotel member and the man behind Music Tapes, Mr. Julian Koster announced a Christmas album ridiculously early (Today). The Singing Saw at Christmastime is basically exactly what it sounds like, and Stereogum has a preview. I can’t wait until August/September/October when people start announcing their Indie-centric Xmas albums, compilations, etc….

Listen at Stereogum.

My Week Continues To Be Ridiculously Bad

I was supposed to have web hosting worked out today for mp3’s. I don’t.

I was supposed to have my car back today from the shop. I don’t.

I was supposed to have all the glass out of my foot (I ironically stepped on glass moments after making my post about my bad week last week)…At 8 last night I was digging in my foot with a boiled thumbtack trying to pry glass out of it. (It worked after lots of blood and lightheadedness)

I also saw two centipedes in my bedroom last night. Have you ever seen a house centipede? They’re completely terrifying in appearance and have compound eyes so they can actually SEE you when you try to attack them. A third got away under my bed where I emptied an entire can of bug spray in hopes to poison it to death.

On top of all this, I was awake until 5:30 AM.

What’s the deal?

[mp3] Grizzly Bear – Lullabye
[mp3] Arcade Fire – No Cars Go
[mp3] Beulah – Sunday Under Glass

Getting our hosting worked out

See you tommorow hopefully

In all the Radiohead excitement, don’t forget about

I am seeing Radiohead in five days. Five freaking days. But, I’m also seeing Grizzly Bear and that brings me no small amount of joy in itself. This will be the first time I’ve seen the Brooklyn harmony experts, and I’m psyched to say the least. There new record is shaping up to be pretty wonderful if the Letterman appearances are any indication, and let’s not forget about Daniel’s Jo Jo covering skills.

Has anyone seen the Grizz live? What should I expect? Do they play Lullabye? What about Deep Blue Sea? Is Ed as perfect vocally as he seems to be?

[mp3] Daniel Rossen – Too Little, Too Late (Jo Jo)
[mp3] Grizzly Bear – Deep Blue Sea

Buy Grizzly Bear records at insound.

She & Him : Even More Beautiful and Heartbreaking When Unplugged

Sometimes songs, great songs, can be far more effective when performed with voice and minimal instrumental accompaniment. That’s the test of a truly great song, does it sound as good with one guitar in your bedroom as it does through the studio monitors?

This song passes with flying colors: actually, it never even caught my ear on the record, but man is this version of it amazing. Zooey’s voice is such a nice throwback, and Matt is great as always.

[mp3] She & Him – You Really Got a Hold On Me (Live – Acoustic on Mtv Canada)

Brian Eno & David Byrne Announce New Record

That’s right, Byrne & Eno will release the follow up to 1981’s My Life in The Bush Of Ghosts on August 18th via the album’s website – the lead “single” Strange Overtones will be available for free on August 4th. Everything That Happens Will Happen Today is described as an “Electronic Gospel” album. Other than that I know nothing, other than I am beside myself with joy.

Conor Oberst Announces In-Stores

In what will undoubtedly be the largest gathering of teenage girls who have no interest in music in a record store since that one time N-Sync performed in a Tower Records, Bright Eyes frontperson, and newly turned solo artist, Mr. Conor Mullen Oberst will take his mystic valley band to record stores across the lower 48 in between tour dates supporting his Merge released solo LP.

Go crazy, go nuts, kids.

Don’t forget Conor Oberst is out on 8/5 – Via Merge, and while I’m not a huge fan of the album’s early singles, I figured I’d celebrate with a few Oberst b-sides and rarities below.

[mp3] Conor Oberst – No Prayer
[mp3] Conor Oberst – I’ve Been Eating For You
[mp3] Conor Oberst – I’ll Be Your Friend

Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band – Special In-store performances:
07/30/08 Seattle, WA @ Easy Street Records @ 6 PM
08/02/08 San Francisco, CA @ Amoeba Records @ 3 PM
08/04/08 Los Angeles, Amoeba Records @ 6 PM
08/08/08 Nashville, Grimey’s @ 6 PM
08/12/08 New York, NY @ Other Music @ 1 PM

The Small Stakes / Insound Present: Insound 20

This is super cool, Jason Munn of The Small Stakes, arguably Indie Rock’s foremost thing-maker, has teamed up with O.G. web-order site Insound to bring you Insound 20. Insound 20 is basically a bunch of super limited, super awesome looking shirts and hoodies being sold by Insound. Apparently, the poster benefits chrity, while the rest of it benefits insound and presumably the artists (Thanks to commenter Ned for clarification).

So, are these from like…crappy artists I don’t care about? Why, hardly good reader! To be precise the artists whose stuff you’ll be able to purchase are:

The Constantines, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Calexico, Department of Eagles, Grizzly Bear, The Thermals, She & Him, The National, Spoon, Black Heart Procession, Peter Bjorn & John, The Decemberists, Magnolia Electric Co., Built to Spill, The Hold Steady, Beirut, Jose Gonzalez, Okkervil River, New Pornographers, Death Cab for Cutie, 826NYC charity design.

Pretty sweet, yes? I know! What’s better is i have a little secret for you: if you use the coupon code “insoundtwenty10” you’ll receive 10 percent off yr order. (Hey-oh!)

Buy the stuff from Insound here.

[mp3] The Thermals – God & Country
[mp3] The Hold Steady – You Can Make Him Like You

The Worst Week Ever! (MP3 Issues, Car issues, Health issues)

You may be wondering why none of the mp3’s are working here on HTFAF today. Through a mixup involving one file I wasn’t even sharing, that was being stored on my webspace my Dreamhost account was canceled (Donate to the new hosting fund by clicking that button to the right if you feel like it). We’re working on finding a new and more dependable host for mp3’s and should have it resolved in the next few days, in the meantime you’ll have to live with lame fileden downloads. Sorry!

Additionally I came down with a seriously nasty sinus infection yesterday which caused me to be really dizzy and unable to do much, and in addition to that my car broke down on the Interstate on monday! Whoever is poking their voodoo doll of me, please have mercy.

[mp3] M. Ward & Jim James – Sad, Sad, Song (Live @ SXSW ’08)
[mp3] Ryan Adams – To Be Young (Is to be sad, is to be high – Live @ Word Cafe)

Rain, Rain, Please stay as long as you’d like

This is going to strike a chord of concern for my mental well-being with a lot of you, but i really love rain and inclimate weather. Sure, sunny and seventy-five is great and I love it as much as the next guy, but it gets boring, hot, and terribly unexciting. For this reason, I love storms, which is why I was overjoyed to see that every single day in the 10 day forecast for here in Nashville includes rain and thunderstorms! And so that, along with the very mixtape mood I’ve been in this week, leads us here, dear reader. The rainy day mix.

[mp3] Ryan Adams – Blue Sky Blues
[mp3] Camera Obscura – Books Written For Girls
[mp3] The City on Film – Portland Maine & The Pouring Rain
[mp3] Rufus Wainwright – Stormy Weather
[mp3] Bob Dylan – Buckets of Rain
[mp3] Death Cab for Cutie – Underwater
[mp3] Bishop Allen – Rain
[mp3] Feist – The Water