Human Television is a band that came from nowhere, quite literally -- a folder of their music showed up, unbidden, on my computer last fall. Turns out a friend of mine on soulseek took it upon himself to upload a batch of the band's demos to me.

I'm glad he did! Human Television's jangly rock songs are like little bombs that explode melody shrapnel into your brain. Their music harkens back to 80's college rock in the same way that Elephant 6 stuff harkened back to the 60's. Like Guided By Voices' best work, the songs end too soon.

An interesting quality of this band is that no single element within their songs stands out over anything else. The lyrics seem unimportant taken alone, but the music and words conspire to evoke a feeling. There are no build-ups and no lulls, and the songs embrace that static quality and harness it to great effect. Case in point:

Saw You Walking By
I Forgot

These songs seem somehow related, as if they are both random 2 minute sections removed from a half hour long jam session. Both are propelled by chiming, circular guitar melodies and vocals that sound rushed to keep up with the song. Hear them once and you'll be singing them all day long.

They only have an EP and a single out so far, and a full-length album is on the way.

http://www.wearethehumantelevision.com/
http://www.myspace.com/humantelevision

i like girl music

apparently this song was a hit in the 90's. i never heard it. wish i had, though -- it's damn near perfect, in a 90's sort of way.

juliana hatfield - spin the bottle

*japanese lyrics*

was in border's the other day when i witnessed a fascinating exchange between a young boy (7-8) and his mother. basically the kid wanted some new green day live cd/dvd, and his mom didn't want to pay $20 for such a package (i don't blame her). she suggested getting a soundtrack instead, since he could be exposed to many different bands, instead of just green day (not a bad suggestion for a young lad, i think). i started thinking to myself what cd i'd suggest for a young green day fan. the weird part is, i couldn't think of anything that would be suitable. nothing i listen to kicks enough ass or is catchy enough to pry someone with a short attention span away from green day. maybe modest mouse? i thought of new pornographers, but their name alone would make me hesitant to give it to a kid. perhaps the best thing to do, if i were in such a situation, would be buy the kid crooked rain, crooked rain. that's no fuckin' around right there.

unrelatedly, here's a song i randomly download from someone on soulseek who had a HUGE directory devoted to a band called advantage lucy. it's a 5.5 minute long upbeat rock song with female vocals. catchy. there's something strangely appealing about it. the file info tells me it's from their 2005 hello again EP.

advantage lucky - «°«é«¤«À£­

music i sold, vol. 1

half.com is a blessing for getting rid of those pesky cds that have overstayed their welcome, but it's not always easy for me to eliminate cds from my life. to make it easier for me to part with them, some will be eulogized in my Music I Sold column. you see, many of the CDs i am parting with are subpar albums whose subparness is marred by a few fantastic, utterly keepable songs. only by ripping these songs can i free myself up enough to sell the CD, and it is these songs that i will be sharing with you.

miighty flashlight - ballet skool

yes, that's spelled right. miighty flashlight is mike fellows, a guy who was in a band i've never heard called rites of spring (pre-fugazi ian mackaye band, i hear), has worked with smog, and played on the last three silver jews albums (including co-writing "k-hole" on tanglewood numbers). the smog and silver jews connections are good to make, because fellows sings oddball country-ish songs in a deep voice only slightly more nuanced than david berman's.

his self-titled album consists of many layers of laconically picked acoustic and electric guitars and various computer noises such as sampled piano, drum machines, handclaps, whooshing sounds and beeping things. still, the album is as far removed from a "folktronica" album as a folk album can get, the computery effects somehow coming off as quaint and rustic, as if they were recorded in my grandma's house by the balding man on the cover (a grainy photograph that's almost certainly a jandek homage).

somehow, awesome production, cool song titles ("go on. die. it's easy," and the pollardian "vehicular dome," to name two) and excellent musicianship add up to an album that's merely pleasant and lacks any real spunk. the melodies are afterthoughts and the lyrics are weird -- and good -- but not integral parts of the songs.

"ballet skool" stands out by delivering the album's only memorable hook, a pretty guitar melody that also serves as the chorus, which is: "on top of ballet school / don't let me be misdiagnosed." play this song ten times in a row (which i've just done without getting sick of it!) and you'll get a pretty clear idea of what the whole album is like, with a slightly more enjoyable twist.

No one gets fired!

Though I severely hope Jess contributes something. She is a damn good writer. (Arthur apparently has something in the works.)

I did a year-end dealie on LiveJournal that Dan likes and I don't. That can be found at this link.

In conclusion, "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath." Seriously, holy monkeys. "Supernaut," too.

when you walk into the room all the wallpaper comes into bloom

extemporaneous post

i currently don't have access to the hard drive i keep most of my music on, so some posts i had in store for myself will have to wait. so, i'm gonna shift through the scattered debris on my desktop and pull out something great. let's see what i get...

(10 minutes later...)

the childballads - white chocolate tea (aka the onion domes of tallahassee)

i think i got this song from another music blog but since that was back in a different year, i'm gonna not worry about the repost. it's been sitting on my desktop for what seems like ages, but it keeps popping up, unlike the countless one-timers that fail to grab me and proceed clutter my poor C drive. it accomapnied me during a particularly long bus ride from philadelphia to erie, and now i should repay it.

this song is good: damn good. i'm in love with the band's name, but until now i had no idea what the title of this song is. now that i do i like them even more. i know nothing about the band, so the following information is what i can glean from the song itself:

-- the band has a guy with a sloppy singing voice but a keen sense of phrasing and melody (a perfect combo).

-- the band has a girl who does sweetly melodic backing vocals. (always nice)

-- they have an awesome shuffly drum sound.

that's about it. i don't know if they have an album or what, so i'm gonna look for them after i type this up. i may even buy it. this song is an all-timer.

dan

Your DOGE?!!?!

Yeah, yeah, I'll work on the Top Arbitrary Chosen Power of Five Releases of the Year soon enough. I just have a few things I promised myself I'd listen to, then I have to listen to all the good stuff over and over again until I'm sick of it and I abandon my list altogether.

No, seriously. I'm this close to just completing my list by putting everything in a bag and things out randomly, except for the top two, which will probably be I Am a Bird Now and The Sunset Tree in either order. Or maybe Radiance or something, I'unno. Hell, things are getting so confusing, With Teeth might even make the list.

I'm already thinking about next year's releases, though, and these two in particular:

Elvis Costello, My Flame Burns Blue (Deutsche Grammophon)

Yep. Our old pal Declan is trying out another genre (big band, in case anyone read past the label). Recorded live with the Metropole Orkest (yes, I read that off the cover), the record features Costello standards ("Watching the Detectives"), songs he wrote for other people ("Upon a Veil of Midnight Blue), and two jazz classics with new Costellified lyrics (Charles Mingus' "Hora Decubitus" [apparently commissioned by Mingus' widow Sue] and the title track, based on Billy Strayhorn's "Blood Count"). Neat.

Sparks, Hello Young Lovers (In the Red)
You never know what you'll get out of the Mael brothers nowadays. Yeah, they had a brilliant glam-rock period and a wonderful collaboration with Giorgio Moroder, but afterward, they fell into a poppy slump, followed by a discoey mire. Then they put out Lil' Beethoven, which confused everyone into applause. If I hadn't heard "Perfume" and "Dick Around" on Tom Robinson's show on Radio 6 (God bless BBC webcasts), I'd be just as in the dark as most of you.

And yes, Tom Robinson is that Tom Robinson.

I end with a NOTICE TO DAN, ARTHUR AND JESS: If you don't write anything in the next couple of weeks, you're all fired and I'm shutting this thing down. As Colbert would say, you're on notice.

Oh, no... here comes Tokyo

First of all, I officially declare Cl*p Y**r H*nds S*y Y**h to be BANNED. I'm sorry, but there's too much clamor and not enough payoff or motivation. It's like the Arcade Fire all over again, except without a record label and with more comparisons to Talking Heads. No Clappy-Clap for a few months, at least, until the hype dies down.

So there's that.

Now then. Seeing as though Dan has posted twice, both times offering something to actually listen to, whereas all I offer is a random picture, I have decided to give you the best of both worlds:

stevie wonder- intro- contusion (musikladen).mp3

Ah, yes. Musikladen (formerly Beat Club). Home of German people, bad graphics, and kick-ass live performances. Okay, there were a few lip-syncs (the Village People, obviously, and 10cc's "I'm Not in Love" even started with a tape slip). When the bands were live, however, they were splendid.

Case in point: Stevie Wonder's performance, apparently taped on July 16, 1975.

Now, VH1 Classic has a few Beat Club chestnuts they air all the time, but for each clip in their library, there are two that aren't (more when you factor in the German bands... be sure to seek out Can's performance of "Paperhouse," which I believe is on their DVD). So it goes with Stevie Wonder: "Living in the City" and "Superstition" (complete with end credits!) are in the channel's rotation, but "Intro/Contusion" is not.

Shame, too. I would've liked to have seen the visual component of this.

"Intro" is just that: a slow, soulful jam that doesn't show up anywhere on his albums. Oh, and Stevie quotes "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours."

Yeah, not too much to say there.

At about 4:30, he shouts, "CONTUSION! RIGHT NOW!" This is the kind of moment that makes me wonder (nopuntendo) what kind of a bandleader Stevie is. Note also the last couple minutes of "Do I Do" and the shouts of "Earl's playing by himself, MAN!" kinda lead me to believe he's kind of an asshole, but if so, why doesn't anyone ever bring it up?

Anyway, what follows is a raw, furious version of "Contusion," Stevie's requisite incredible, ignored instrumental (see also "Journey of the Sorcerer"). Keeping in mind that the Beat Club session was taped more than a year before Songs in the Key of Life was released, it's amazing to see how "there" it is, how much it sounds like a live version of what wound up on the album. (I wonder if he wrote this before or after the famed "We're Almost Finished" shirt.)

VH1 Classic's failure to show this is a hideous example of cherry-picking, showing only the songs they think general audiences would know and want to see. Result: twenty-four hours of the same damn thing over and over, the only counterexample being King Crimson's amazing performance of "Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part 1."

In conclusion: if you want something that sounds so much like Talking Heads, just buy the Brick. If that doesn't work, try buying an actual brick and bashing your skull in.

it feels like years since a new shins record came out. time was, pre-chutes too narrow, that the prospect of another (and another and another) in the same vein as their debut would hit the spot -- i never wanted that band to change. oh, inverted world was an album i bought as pure candy but which ended up being a wholesome as portabella sandwich with fresh spinach on a kaiser roll. it was that good.

their follow-up soured that deal. i really really liked it, but it didn't feel like the work of a man possessed by song anymore. it felt like an collection of shins songs, not an album. it hasn't aged well, and i'm curious to see how it's aged for my friend arthur who proclaimed it better than inverted in his year-end round up.

that having been said, here's the shins doing a magnetic fields cover from an in-studio radio performance. i like it! i still like the shins, you know. but have you heard the nature bears a vacuum ep? it's gold.

the shins - strange powers

Achievement in Reissues 2005

So last year, when I had planned to write a year-end review piece, I included a section called "Achievement in Reissues," spotlighting a relatively new record label that had already been resurrecting a bunch of classic albums. It was pretty much created for Hip-O Select, because come on, Super Ape, Richie Havens, the Jam, and every Motown single (and hey, I had no idea Too Much Too Soon was out of print).

This year, the honor goes to ESP-DISK'.

For those who don't know about ESP-DISK', it was one of the great independent labels of the 1960s. Its first release was a record of folk songs in Esperanto (hence the name), but its second release was Albert Ayler's classic Spiritual Unity. They wound up recording some of jazz's greatest innovators, like Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, and even a young Bob James before he went on to fill rap DJs' milk crates. They also put out some archival records of concert recordings and radio broadcasts by the likes of Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, and Ornette Coleman (whose Town Hall Concert 1962 was his last release for three years). Oh, and it wasn't all jazz, it was also hippies (the Fugs, Pearls Before Swine, the Godz).

ESP didn't make its artists sign long-term contracts, so they were free to move to the major leagues if such an opportunity presented itself (and they often did; Impulse, for instance, nabbed Ayler, Sanders, and Sun Ra). The label didn't do as well as its artists, however; after being ruined by bootlegging, the label drastically reduced operations in 1968 and finally shut down in 1974.

So what became of this priceless back catalogue? Well, beginning in 1992, three different European labels licensed ESP's records for CD reissues (German ZYX, Dutch Calibre, and Italian Abraxas). However, at the beginning of this year, ESP itself began domestically pressing CDs (after apparently producing CD-Rs for a couple years).

ESP's current output began modestly with two straight reissues (Spiritual Unity, The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra 1 and 2), a version of Pharoah's First with added interviews, and two new products (a live Albert Ayler set and unreleased Sun Ra recordings, titled Heliocentric Worlds Vol. 3), but since then... well, three examples:

• Pearls Before Swine: The Complete ESP-DISK' Recordings, remastered from the best sources available (which, apparently, included original vinyl pressings, due to missing masters) and sounding spectacular.
• Sun Ra's Nothing Is..., restored to the original running order and including some bonus tracks.
• Ed Askew's first album (a/k/a Ask the Unicorn), with three bonus tracks, one of which is a brand new recording from 2005.

Sadly, some things never change; according to the main page, ESP still has to deal with bootlegs (good thing they pointed it out; I saw that complete Albert Ayler set on Amazon), but I believe their commitment to superior product will put them ahead of the competition this time around.

I was going to post "Ghosts" from Spiritual Unity, but then I figured that might not be a good idea, seeing as though Bernard Stollman, the man who founded ESP, was a lawyer (and besides, haven't they had enough problems with piracy?). However, on the official website, you can find audio clips from every single ESP release (except for a few to which they no longer own the rights, like the first two Fugs records). I'd recommend going there to learn more.

Components of "I'm the Man" by Anthrax

"I'm the Man" is one of my current audio obsessions. It is often blamed for creating rap-metal, but whereas most of those bands seem to take themselves too seriously, Anthrax was rather silly.

The track consists of:

--Random samples, including Sam Kinison's trademark scream and the word "not"
--A metal version of "Hava Nagila"
--Ridiculous lyrics which are basically about themselves and the song itself
--Someone always getting the last word of the verse wrong
--Someone saying "watch the beat," followed by the chorus, which is faster than the rest of the song
--Said chorus features someone saying "I'm so bad I should be in detention" in a silly high-pitched voice
--Which, in turn, is followed by a sample of some people (the band?) shouting "SHUT! UP!"
--Whoever is running the sampler seems to be quite taken with the thing, because he keeps pressing the same button over and over, resulting in "SHUTSHUTSHUT! UP!"

Unfortunately, due to it being owned by Universal Music, I cannot post it here. Find it yourself.

OH AND. This is one of three songs I know that use the exact phrase "smell my anal vapors." The original is "Golden Showers" by shock-rock band the Mentors, and the third is Frank Zappa's "Porn Wars," which includes samples of the PMRC record labeling hearings (which of course included Zappa's testimony). Someone read the offending lyrics there, which must have been a surreal moment (especially in the context of Zappa's collage).

Composer you are!

The other day, I was on The Napster* looking for Let's Active's "Every Word Means No." All I found was a cover by Smash Mouth (from the second "Friends" soundtrack, apparently). I reluctantly played it. To my surprise, it didn't make me want to strangle someone, which their version of "Why Can't We Be Friends?" certainly did. They did a pretty good version of "Can't Get Enough of You Baby" by the Four Seasons (via ? and the Mysterians). Actually, they were a pretty fun band overall, but "All Star" was the very definition of overkill. That song is more worn out than "Hey Ya" will ever be, and that's saying something. Though whenever I think about "All Star," I get the image of my father dressed up in a PA Dutch (or PA German, more accurately) outfit.

Let's Active was a band fronted by Mitch Easter, who is probably better known for producing all of R.E.M.'s early stuff (Reckoning was his last). They were part of the arbitrary genre of "jangle-pop" along with the dB's, the Feelies, and Guadalcanal Diary (more about them later). "Every Word Means No" is probably their best-known song, and certainly one of the catchiest tunes ever. The band also gets a prize for being one of the few bands named after Engrish, at least of which I am aware (and this was in the early '80s, before it was all collected on one website).

(*I use the term "The Napster" to indicate the current, corporate form of Napster, which Penn State students receive for [mostly] free.)

i was just listening to a 24-hour long rendition of beethoven's ninth symphony. that was long! for my first addition to the world of mp3 blogging, i'm gonna post something fairly atypical, for me: an instrumental. the oranges band are a nice little rock combo with spoon connections, and they had an album back in 2003 called all around that i liked more than whatever spoon album was out at the time. this is the final track, a long instrumental that manages to be droney and surfy at the same time. the first minute and a half is simply a keyboard riff that always reminds me of "auld lang syne." then, as a nice, "nagging" guitar riff and drums slowly fade in, the song finally blossoms into something that was probably in the soundtrack to a lost pete and pete episode. it's a trifle, sure, but it's so dang pleasant.


the oranges band - the trees on my street

What's a minx? It's two minks.

It seems like people need to be cattle prodded into getting anything done. So while the idea and the name of this blog are Dan's, I have taken it upon myself to set the thing up and write the first post, dammit.

As it is 5:30a, I will not put too much thought into this. I will go into iTunes, click "shuffle," click "play," and write about the first five songs that come up.

Gorillaz, "New Genious (Brother)"
Aren't the Tom Tom Club supposed to be "members" of this "band?"

::looks it up::

Well, Tina Weymouth is, anyway. This would explain why "Genious" is spelled the same way as "Genious of Love." Wait.

::looks it up::

Okay, I definitely saw someone spell "Genious of Love" like that. Please tell me I'm not going crazy.

Anyway, yeah, the song belongs on Ultra Chill 3002 or whatever.

The Flaming Lips, "Sunship Balloons"
I have no concept of any of the songs on the "Ego Tripping" EP existing as a separate entity. I just know there's "Assassination of the Sun," then a bunch of other sunshine crap, remixes (grr), and another Christmas song at the end. It's a good EP, though, at least to the best of my memory, which is shot.

I wonder what the next Lips album sounds like.

Beastie Boys, "Flute Loop"
It is indeed a flute loop with the Beastie Boys. There's not really much else involved. Must be why they didn't bother to give it a better name. The Beasties themselves have doomed this one to the part of Hell reserved for filler. Pity, it's a nice loop.

Steve Winwood, "Back in the High Life"
I was three or four when this song came out, so I first knew Steve Winwood from this harmless crap. Thankfully, a two-disc (two-tape, actually) compilation by Island taught me about Traffic and the Spencer Davis Group (among many, many others... Island is one of those "seal of quality" labels).

I seriously think I remember this being used in a beer commercial (High Life, get it) a year or two after the song came out.

Pearl Jam, "Bugs"
I've never actually listened to Vitalogy in full. This track makes me think I should. It consists of accordion, maracas, and Vedder ranting about bugs, the various places they can be found, and what he can do with them. It's ridiculous on every level, and I bet no one expected this. To wit:

Bugs in my pockets
bugs in my shoes
bugs in the way
I feel
about you.

Dan, you'd better get in here soon...