London trio Hong Kong in the 60s just posted a new track on their myspace. It’s called Footsteps and it’s delightful, in the sort of Broadcast-y twee way I haven’t really been exposed to since I took part in tape trades on the Sinister list.
I first heard about the group a few months ago, when they left a comment on somebody’s Myspace and I clicked because I liked their name. Hopefully they’ll have an album sometime soon.
And speaking of Myspace, a look at their top friends list reminded me of the existence of Hideki Kaji, who had a song on another great mixtape I listened to circa 2000, back when I was posting on Art of the Mix. Anyway, Kaji’s got a goofy and fun new song called Typical Me Typical You that’s on a split 7″ with Roses Kings Castles.
My 20 favorite songs of 2008 thusfar. Some songs I’ve listened to a lot since January, some I just heard for the first time this week… I’m kinda tired and drank too much moonshine tonight (honest to God!) so forgive me if I don’t comment, except to say Jesus Christ, #2 and #5, you could be doing so much better with your press photos!
Filed under: lists, music | Tags: 2k8, al green, alec empire, gruff rhys, midyears
I’ve always made mid-year song/album lists for a couple of reasons. One is that it gives me an excuse to pick up albums (like, say, Clinic’s Do It!) that I bought but only listened to once or twice; another is that in December, when I make my Big And Important Favorite Songs Of The Year List That You Will Undoubtedly Study And Care About A Lot, it’ll be easier for me to remember songs from the earlier months that my emptyish head might forget by then.
That said, this list doesn’t mean a whole lot, even to me, because this has been a pretty excellent year for music. I mean, I haven’t actually had a chance to get into certain albums because I’ve been too busy listening to other ones. And I know that sounds dopey, but I think you know what I mean..
Also, some of these songs are on albums I only heard for the first time this week. So it’s hard to judge the value of that against, say, the Magnetic Fields, that I’ve been listening to regularly since January.
Lots of these songs have been posted on this site already in various forms, so I’ll skip commenting for now, although feel free to start discussing it in the comments (ha!)
After the jump, the first half of the top 40 (with pictures and links to videos, because I don’t feel like working today and would much rather look at press photos on last.fm.) I’ll post the second half tonight or tomorrow, just to keep you on your toesies.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: art, art fag city, charlie chaplin, the guys we would fuck, Uncategorized
I’m heading out for the night now, but I just thought I’d post a quick link to Paddy Johnson’s interview with Nayland Blake over at Art Fag City. Blake’s show, The Guys We Would Fuck, sounds like it’s right up my alley. It’s at the Monya Rowe Gallery until August 1, with images being added daily, including this one, which is for some reason dated tomorrow.
Today: Krysta-Lynn Lovely Manager, Irish Grinstead Obituary, “Toss My Salad 7,” Big Dick, David Garrard, Big Fuck Cock Hot, Rainbow Flag Knit Providence, Gay Big Dick.
Yesterday: Kissy Kamikaze, Creepy Mixtapes, Dave Garrard, Peyton Manning Fag
It’s always silly when you find out that a song you like is actually a cover. Like A Cause Des Garcons, the Yelle song that’s been on my playlist pretty regularly for the past few months. Turns out it’s a cover of a song by a group that, judging from this video, might have been sorta like the French Bananarama.
Filed under: music | Tags: eric himan, lady kier, pride, sam doores, the gays
So, today’s the Pride Festival in Rhode Island, which I’ve already mentioned is being headlined by Tiffany, who was dreaful twenty years ago and probably more so now that she’s knocking on forty. While it’s nice to see that the Pride people are breaking away from the tradition of only hiring large wailing black women to headline (I guess), I don’t think Tiffany’s a step in the right direction at all.
So I poked around on the internet to see who was performing at some other Pride events. Aside from large wailing black women and American Idol runners-up, there’s a few interesting shows happening. A sampling after the jump:
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: knitting nation, liz collins, rainbow flags, Uncategorized
Today, as part of the Providence Pride festival, Liz Collins will be presenting the fourth part of her Knitting Nation series. Eight uniformed knitters will spend the whole afternoon knitting a giant reproduction of the original, eight-color Pride flag. To go along with it, she circulated a poll on the internet asking people how they felt about the flag, and a bunch of people are going to read the collected responses at the event, which is from 12-6 today in downtown Providence. I doubt I’ll be there, since I’ve also converted by apartment into a gallery for the weekend, but I’ve also been up since four this morning so I may get restless and feel the need to walk down there, as long as I don’t have to hear Tiffany while I’m there. Anyway, here’s my response, which is overly wordy and probably sounds insane:
Filed under: mixtape, music | Tags: fuzz, mixtapes for people that hate tangible objects, oliver north boy choir
So, I joined Fuzz today for NO REASON WHATSOEVER. Seriously, with the social networking and my inability to not sign up for every single freaking website out there.
I only decided to do it because my cousin mentioned it in a blog entry that he wrote about not liking Google (and amen to that).
But anyway, they have a feature where they let you make mixtapes, but only of songs that I guess they have the rights to use. Which means that I’ve heard of (I think) a total of three artists on their site. I also found another band that sounded pretty good, that call their sound Dickensian Mod. I don’t know what Dickensian Mod is, but I’m sure it sounds nothing like this band–however, poorly-mixed vocals aside they sounded pretty neat.
Here’s my mixtape, which involves kind of a silly amount of Flash to play. In addition to the Dickensian Mod stylings of Luxury Stranger, I also included tracks by Luxxury (no relation), Karen Dalton, and, in a happy coincidence, the Oliver North Boy Choir who I won’t shut up about. It’s their cover of Baccara’s classic Yes Sir, I Can Boogie.
Making the mixtape was slightly more satisfying than making a Muxtape, but only barely.
Filed under: music | Tags: marci washington, the scots, tiny showcase, wild beasts
I just got my weekly e-mail from Tiny Showcase, the local folks who release really awesome prints every Tuesday evening on their website, and this week they’re putting out a print by Scottish artist David Galletly. It goes on sale tonight at 7:30 eastern time, so if you like houses with long legs you might want to stay in tonight. (Personally, I’m kind of annoyed that I missed last week’s Marci Washington two-fer. Washington, in addition to being a great illustrator in her own right, did the super-awesome cover of last year’s super-awesome Rosebuds album. (The cover of that album, it probably doesn’t have to be said, was infinitely better than the cover for Kala, which was probably the only CD I liked more last year.)
Anyhow, I checked out Galletly’s blog and saw he recently posted this video by Glasgewians Wild Beasts:
I like it, and not just because they’re Scottish and have a nice-looking video. I’m not totally sure I could handle a whole album of singer-man’s Tiny Tim voice, but I think it’s got a good beat and I’d surely be dancing to it if I weren’t too busy wishing the damn work day would end.
