eff. you. see. kay.

track 168 was "anticipation," from blonde redhead, a band with the same gender ratio as yo la tengo (fmm). slightly different ethnic makeup, however. track 169 was "modern girls and old-fashioned men" from another new york band, the strokings, featuring regina spektor. we saw the strokes a couple of weeks ago and they were much more friendly than i anticipated. the difference between the stuff from the new album and the first two was very apparent. tracks 170 and 171 are supposedly ryan adams covering the strokes, but I have my doubts, especially about the first one. anybody that can verify one way or the other, give me a ring. a call from ryan adams himself would be ideal, we'll see if we can put that together.
track 172 was "come pick me up," also from mr. adams. which begins a series of songs in which the f-word is sweetly sung:
track 173, "the trapeze swinger," from iron and wine. that song is like a 9 minute parade, especially with headphones on. listen for the elephants to come in at just before the 7 minute mark.
track 174, "another sunny day," from belle and sebastian. i don't know anything about this song. other than the facts that they say "fook-all" and it's on pitchfork's infinite mixtape.
track 175, "don't call me whitney, bobby," from the islands. coming back to slc in november. i will be present.
track 176, "willie deadwilder," from cat power and guest guitarist m.ward. there's a (much) shorter version of this song on the greatest, but it doesn't say eff, so disqualified. i like the 18-minute monster version better anyway; listening to the whole song is almost as good as taking a nap. i think that you can hear chan stop to take a drink every now and then.
and so ends our foray into pg-13 territory. i like these songs because they take almost all of the power away from "fuck." if you were offended by its use in any of the preceding songs, you should probably spend some time considering your fear of mortality and how it's polluting your present life experiences.

track 177
track 178
track 179
track 180
track 181
track 182
track 183
track 184

forkin' pitches

what's better than ezra (see track 152)? another old testament-named band! natch! track 153 was "invisible touch," from genesis. as a little kid i thought that "invisible touch" was a naughty song, because it sounded like phil collins was saying "and give you no tough shit," instead of "have an invisibile touch. yeah."

track 154 was "don't give up;" kate bush with an ex-genesis feller, peter gabriel. it's not a very good song. such are the sacrifices we all make in the name of linking.

track 155 was kate bush on her own, with the original version of "hounds of love," which is a very good song. i can't believe how good it is when the futureheads get their hands on it (track 156). i really can't believe that i haven't posted that track before now. if that was the first time that anyone heard that song, i can die satisfied with my accomplishments as a blogger. that futureheads album developed in a weird way for me. at first, i just skipped to "danger of the water"(track 157). then i realized that "meantime" was pretty kick-ass (track 158). then all of the other songs on the first-half of the album. i probably heard "hounds of love" twenty times before i actually listened to it and then, for a time, stopped listening to almost anything else. "manray" is a pretty good song too.

anyway futureheads. yeah, saw 'em at the pitchfork music festival in chicago this summer. they invited me to sing along with the intro to "hounds of love," and then, because they're nice guys, let everybody else sing along too. i didn't mind; it was clear that i was favorite. wife and i saw many bands over those two days, and tracks 159-167 are all from from bands that either played the festival itself or the pre-party show at the metro.

track 159 = art brut "emily kane"
track 160 = the national (best band at the festival) "secret meeting"
track 161 = spoon "sister jack"
track 162 = the mountain goats "no children"
track 163 = silver jews "tennessee"
track 164 = ted leo (broke his head on the mic, see above photo) and the pharmacists "parallel
or together"
track 165 = jens lekman "black cab"
track 166 = joggers "era prison"
track 167 = yo la tengo "i feel like going home"

which is what i said during yo la tengo's set (rimshot). they didn't do anything but stuff from the new album, which is a good album, but c'mon. throw us a cherry chapstick bone, ira.

so, good times at the pmf. cheap tickets, great merchandise, good food, reasonably priced beverages. many, many, many ironic t-shirts. and a good number of ironic tattoos. i hope they were ironic.

track 168
track 169
track 170
track 171
track 172
track 173
track 174
track 175
track 176