Another Genius Move

Took a couple days off. Dunno, maybe its just the emotional toll of learning that, based on where I live and how I vote, I not only don't live in "Real America," but I'm "Anti-American." Does this parade of morons never end?

So, for now, just gonna go ahead an post my latest auto-generated iTunes Genius playlist, which got me through yesterday's commute. Felt like hearing Beulah's "Gravity's Bringing Us Down" (best crib of the Stones' "Happy" riff ever), and here's what we got:

1. Beulah, Gravity's Bringing Us Down
2. Neutral Milk Hotel, Communist Daughter
3. Built To Spill, Distopian Dream Girl
4. Essex Green, Don't Know Why (You Stay)
5. Yo La Tengo, From A Motel 6
6. Matt Pond PA, Last Light
7. Pernice Brothers, Clear Spot
8. Ambulance LTD, Stay Tuned
9. Cat Power, Werewolf
10. Rilo Kiley, Capturing Moods
11. Guided By Voices, Everybody Thinks I'm A Raincloud
12. The Thrills, Don't Steal Our Sun

And so on. Not bad. Still hoping that for Genius 2.0 they come up with a way to base a playlist on 2 or more songs, so you get more of a mixed-genre mix.

Now, for us "fake" Americans, here's 10 minutes of sheer, unadulterated bliss:

New Mix -- "It's Angular!"

"Angular" is one of those terms that rock critics like to throw around, though it shows up in so many reviews that at some point you have to ask yourself whether it has any real meaning at all. I think, as a general matter, it tends to describe music with staccato guitar sounds, more clean than distorted, with a minimum of sustain or reverb. It also tends to be used to describe music which, rather than sticking to a standard blues-based riff or a simple, reconizable rock & roll chord progression, strays into more jarring chord changes. Sometimes it can be used to describe music which is simply minimalistic, with stark, crisp drums, bass & guitar but little smoothing around the edges. Anyway, this is my attempt to wrap all of that in a nice little 80-minute package.

Gang of Four is typically the band most associated with the term, and by some measure you can decide whether or not a song is sufficiently "angular" by deciding how much it sounds like Gang or Four. But, as the mix illustrates, a fair amount of punk and early post-punk was decidedly angular, the bare, jagged simplicity of the music a rebellion against the bloated, stadium-filling density of mis-70s hard rock and prog. The 80s and 90s indie scene had a few purveyors of the form, though bands like the Pixies and Pavement weren't exactly angular -- the guitar sound was a bit too rich, though the chord changes were suitably off-kilter and there were enough slashing guitar sounds swirling around to merit inclusion. And, of course, the 2000s have offered up a large number of bands with a retro-angular feel, perhaps most notably Franz Ferdinand, though acts like Modest Mouse and Interpol mine this territory as well.

Naturally, I had to include a stray Beatles track, for those of us who like to think the Beatles did everything first; yes, "Everybody Has Something To Hide (Except Me & My Monkey" is a fairly straightforward rock song, but those guitars...

Incidentally, I should add that I generally don't like my music all that angular -- I'm a bit of a traditionalist that way. But sometimes it's a nice break from more, er, rounded music.

Hey, here's an excerpt of that Gang of Four song, with Legos...

Save Marriage (For Everyone)

I try to keep politics out of this blog. After all, it's much more fun and uplifting to share my love of music and pass along album recommendations than it is to remind you just how dangerous it would be to have a corrupt moron a heartbeat away from the presidency. Still, I did want to take a moment to urge, to beg, my music-loving friends, whether in California or otherwise, to do what they can to help shut down Proposition 8, the hate-mongering initiative that would eliminate the Constitutional right of gay couples to marry. It is a campaign based on hate, on fear, on ignorance, on bigotry; there is simply no rational reason -- none -- why the gay couple living next door to me should be denied the hundreds or even thousands of rights that my wife and I enjoy simply by virtue of the fact that we were able to go to city hall and get a piece of paper that says we're legally married.

And that's all this is about. Denying rights to some couples based on their sexual orientation. It has nothing to do with religion -- religious groups remain free to decide what form of relationships to bless. The religious concept of marriage is wholly unrelated to civil marriage; religious marriage is a fine thing, but the state can no more convey rights on people based on a religious ceremony than it can extend special privileges to individuals based on whether or not they were baptized or bar mitzvahed. Civil marriage, in contrast, is simply a license that says the state will give certain privileges to a couple -- the right to visit your loved one in the hospital; the right to miss work to take care of your sick spouse without losing your job; the right to enjoy employment-offered health benefits extended to family members; and so on. And, of course, whether the couple in question is straight or gay is utterly, wholly irrelevant to whether those benefits (and, conversely, legal liabilities) should be extended to the couple.

Now, for those bigoted morons ... er, Prop 8 proponents who claim that allowing gays to marry somehow "threatens" marriage, let me just note that my wife and I have gay friends, gay neighbors (as noted above), gay coworkers, some in long-term committed relationships, some of whom have documented civil marriages as they're presently entitled to under the California Constitution, and, while we thank you for your concern, we want to ensure you that our own marriage is doing just fine. That's right -- astoundingly, while gay marriage is viewed by some as destroying the very fabric of marriage, my own non-gay marriage somehow, mysteriously, has survived. And our stright friends? Also doing quite well. No sudden need to all run out and get divorced now that those dang gays are getting married. Perhapts the narrow-minded nutjobs worried about the threat to the insitution of marriage might want to focus instead on what's so wrong with their own marriage that they see it being threatened by what their neighbors are doing.

And then there's the kids. Contrary to what the Yes on 8 idiots argue, my two children, despite the daily exposure to "teh gay," have inexplicably not yet turned gay themselves. I know, I know, it's shocking... but having raised them to believe in equality, and having exposed them to our gay friends, and having them go to school with children of gay couples, we have nonetheless utterly failed in our secret mission to turn our kids into a pair of raging homos. Darn, what went wrong?

So, please, please, send some cash to the No on 8 campaign. Today, before it's too late.

Evil Urges... And Other Thoughts On My Morning Jacket

Here's one I've tried to give some time, hoping it would grow on me a bit more, but... nope. Overrated. Whatchagonnado?

Of course, that said, "Aluminum Park," the standout track from My Morning Jacket's Evil Urges, may be one of the 2 or 3 best songs of 2008. More than any song out there, it makes me feel like listening to some hot shit classic rock song on a booming old-fashioned hi-fi that takes up half the living room circa 1976. Think "Born To Run," think Zeppelin, think early 70s Who. Yet it still sounds contemporary, dense but not bloated. If there's a song out this year more deserving of playing at the highest volume you can manage without blowing out your speakers, I haven't heard it. Oh, and "I'm Amazed"? Pretty great, too.

But, beyond that, pretty inconsistent album. Personally, while I love (or at least strongly like) this band), none of their albums are totally consistent, and even their strongest studio output -- 2003's It Still Moves and 2005 follow-up Z -- have some dead spots, while even at their heights rarely rising to the bone-chilling power of their live shows. Which is why 2006's obligatory double-live Okonokos (also on DVD) is probably their closest thing to an essential release.

Of course, if the right person were to come along and compile their best studio work onto a single-cdr mix, it would blow your face right fucking off. Something like this:


(Alas, I only have the five proper albums and not the myriad ep's, demo collections, etc. that they've released over the years, so this may be missing a key track or two.)

Yeah, so, the video...


That one's incomplete and not perfect sound, so here's the studio video for "I'm Amazed":

Accelerating With R.E.M.

As I’ve done with pretty much every R.E.M. album from the past decade, I bought this year’s Accelerate promptly upon its release, listened to it half-heartedly once or twice, and then put it aside. (Disclaimer: As someone who traces his musical development in large part to the mid-80s college radio scene, I am a sworn devotee of R.E.M.’s IRS years [1980-1987], and while I’ve enjoyed various post-Document albums and continue to listen to a lot of them, or at least parts of them, they could record the greatest album in the history of the universe tomorrow and it would still never hold a candle to Murmur and Reckoning. Just saying.) Anyway, Accelerate was hailed as a glorious return to form by many fans and critics, most of whom – and I strongly agree – found the preceding three albums, all recorded since the 1997 departure of drummer Bill Berry, to be somewhat underwhelming. And though there’s no question that the harder-rocking, distortion-drenched, mid-fi Accelerate adds a welcome dose of energy after the increasingly dull and unengaging music of the post-Berry era, on first listen I wasn’t quite sold. Yes, the crunchy riffs and catchy two-minute songs get your attention in a way that, say, 2004’s blase Around the Sun never managed, but sheer immediacy doesn’t necessarily equate to durability.

Fortunately, this has grown on me over time. (After putting it aside for awhile, having ripped it to my iPod but never listening to it, I was randomly reintroduced to it through the new iTunes Genius playlist-generating program. So hooray for Steve Jobs!) The closest parallel is obviously 1994’s Monster, their last turbocharged distortion-fest. But in some ways Accelerate is the fresher album. Monster, though underrated, is dragged down a bit by the dense, glam-like production, while Accelerate is crisper and more straight-ahead rocking (though a couple tracks at the end, most notably the highly annoying “I’m Gonna DJ,” are reminiscent of Monster). Of course, some of the distinction may just be a matter of context. Monster, following on the heels of 1992’s mega-selling beautifully-written-and-produced AOR-friendly hit Automatic For The People, was a ballsy move but perhaps an unnecessarily jarring and somewhat forced genre-shift (which is why it is one of the most frequently-found albums in used record store cut-out bins). In contrast, Accelerate, following on the heels of the lackluster, bloated, AOR-friendly disappointments Around the Sun and Reveal, is a much-needed and far more palatable genre-shift. (Of course, I should note that there appear to be a billion used copies of this selling dirt cheap on Amazon.com, so the parallels continue...)

The album starts strong, with five solid pop-rockers (interrupted by the more dirge-like "Houston,” which reminds me of an amped up “Swan Swan H”), any of which is equally suited for lead-off single status. Notably, while the poppier tracks are fine, my two favorites break a bit from the mold. The slightly slower and moodier “Mr. Richards,” rather than coming across like a basic latter-day R.E.M. song with some distorted guitars added to the mix, works a much more organic groove, with the fuzzed-out distortion sounding far more like part of the overall vibe rather than a tacked-on afterthought; plus, more than any of the other songs, Stipe’s vocals remind me of the old days, where the lyrics are chosen more for how they’ll sound in the mix than for what they may actually mean. (Oddly enough, the band doesn’t seem to share my love of this song; I downloaded multiple shows from their summer tour, and this is one of the few new songs that wasn’t on the setlist.) The other noteworthy track is the lone throwback, “Until the Day Is Done,” which would sound just fine on 1987’s Document. I can’t say I would respect the band much if they released an entire album trying to recapture the old IRS sound, but for a one-off it’s a nice contrast with the rest of the album.

All told, while it's hardly the return to the glory years hailed by some reviewers, it's certainly a more entertaining listen than the last three studio outings, and at least as good as the two before that (Monster and New Adventures In Hi Fi). Plus, like I said, you can get it used pretty damn cheap.

Official video for "Hollow Man":


Official video for "Supernatural Superserious":

Cleanin' The Debris: Another Day, Another Mix

Took a brief break from mixing, partially time constraints, partially the absence of Art of the Mix (the excellent mix sharing site which, unfortunately, was hijacked earlier this year and is only intermittently cleared of trojan horses these days -- follow the link at your own peril), partially the fact that, as noted elsewhere, I tend to listen primarily via the iPod these days, so burning an old-fashioned mix seems a little silly when all I'm going to do is rip the mix cdr to my Pod and toss it aside. Still, I'm an old-fashioned (or maybe just plain old) guy, and I like the exercise of burning a mix and designing the artwork and having the ol' piece of aluminum perched on a shelf.

So, hey, got caught up this weekend with a couple new mixes. This one, the third volume of my It Came From The Comp series (see also here and here), like its predecessors, is an attempt to cull the highlights from the large box of compilation cd's I have stashed in a closet. Most the tracks come from free samplers jabbed into music magazines (primarily UK publications like Mojo and Uncut), not to mention dodgy tribute albums I'll occasionally indulge in, as well as the occasional soundtrack. As these comps are typically on the sucky side, with the occasional gem, they're particularly ripe for ripping to mixes and then casting the original into the abyss.

This time around I focused solely on cover versions (and thus relied heavily on those dang tribute albums). Tried to shoot for an assortment of styles (though attempted to avoid slavishly loyal covers in deference to some which tweaked the original somewhat), including both established artists as well as no-name bands which seem to have little existence aside from tribute album appearances.

Came out pretty nicely. For those who don't recognize the covers, the originals are by (in order): Blondie, Kinks, R.E.M., Paul McCartney, Teenage Fanclub, the Clash, Beach Boys, the Who, Wire, David Bowie, Husker Du, Big Star, Dylan, Byrds, John Lennon, Velvet Underground, Television, Roky Erickson, Bowie again, the Carpenters [sorry, great tribute album], Neil Young (the subject of multiple decent tribute albums), Sweet, Grateful Dead, and the Beatles.

Here's Sonic Youth doing "Superstar" off that Carpenters tribute album (not on the mix):

Latest British Psych-Pop Mix

Among other things, I'm a sucker for late 60s British psychedelia, including its wimpier sunshine-pop variations. So I cobbled together another mix of light British psych pop, titled Acid & Scones: More Of That Quaint British Psych-Pop (a sequel of sorts to one of my favorite mixes, Fanciful Tales of Whimsy & Mirth). I've got a dozen or so Nuggets-like compilations of UK Psychedelia and sunshine pop, so this gives me a chance to cull some of the highlights (or lowlights, depending on one's view of the sub-genre) of those comps, plus selected tracks from assorted albums. This will be followed by a companion piece of heavier, trippier British acid rock & all-out psychedelia.

Here's some video accompaniment:

Status Quo, "Ice In The Sun"


Pink Floyd, "Paint Box"


Keith West, "Grocer Jack"

Genius Testing

My iPod has been growing more into a full-time device, moving beyond a portable Walkman-equivalent and serving as my primary music source whenever I'm outside the house. (At home, I still swear by my Yamaha MusicCast audio server for all my music needs.) I've essentially given up on bringing cd's into the car, opting to plug the iPod into the audio jack. One thing I haven't spent much time doing, though, is creating playlists; for the most part, I tend to listen either to complete albums or Rachel Maddow podcasts. I'll occasionally go for shuffle mode, but with 90 gb of music & growing, the contrast between tunes can be too jarring to make shuffle mode really work (i.e. transitioning from a short Pixies track to a 20-minute Dead jam to the Pretty Things to King Crimson to Liz Phair). The down side is I end up often relying on old fallbacks and not always exploring the nether reaches of my collection (the one real advantage of shuffle, which can force you to listen to tracks you might otherwise have forgotten or passed over in favor of familiar favorites).

So, anyway, I finally gotting around to downloading last month's iTunes update with the new Genius program, which ostensibly creates automatic playlists built around a song of your choosing. Gave it a shot for the first time yesterday, and it was actually kinda cool. For the debut playlist, I selected a song off Death Cab For Cutie's latest album, which I haven't listened to much (because, again, when scrolling around while driving, it's usually more comfortable just to go with old faves like Transatlanticism or Plans). From that pick, Genius pulled together a 50-song playlist from my collection that I believe one would characterize as "Relatively Safe Semi-Recent College Radio Artists." It was fairly predictable -- the Shins, Vampire Weekend, Interpol, Wilco, Decemberists, Fleet Foxes, Bright Eyes, My Morning Jacket, Matt Pond PA, Sufjan Stevens. But a couple slightly off-track tunes made it a bit more interesting -- some Apples in Stereo, Iron & Wine, Yo La Tengo, Built to Spill, Neutral Milk Hotel. As with shuffle play, it was kinda enjoyable to hear a few songs I rarely play and might otherwise have totally forgotten (i.e. a fine track off R.E.M.'s new album that I think I listened to once when I bought it and haven't heard since).

So, hey, cool new toy, think I'll try it more often. I'm interested to see if there are ways to goose it so the playlist is a little less predictable (i.e. you'd think that by picking a downbeat Death Cab song, I'd get some obvious influences like, say, the Cure, but with the exception of the NMH track, everything else selected was from the same three-year time span). While, as a fanatic of the mix tape, I like to do my mixing myself, having a machine pull together a quickie playlist for the commute to work is a nifty convenience.

And a little video while we're at it...*

*NOTE: The song I plugged into Genius was actually "Your New Twin Sized Bed," one of my favorites from Narrow Stairs, but "Cath" has an official video.

Still Neutral After All These Years

Since buying it over a decade ago, I've gone through regular periods, maybe once or twice a year, where I'll take Neutral Milk Hotel's 1998 masterpiece In The Aeroplane Over The Sea and listen to it repeatedly, from start-to-finish, for 2 straight days. (Which essentially translates into 4 complete run-throughs during my daily commute to & from work [though I'll tyipcally have to skip "Oh Comely," always my least favorite part of the album, to squeeze it all in.) Today was one of those days, and, sure enough, I haven't tired of it one bit. Oh, sure, it can lag a bit by the end of the final strains of "Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2" -- that's usually when I'm busy parking, anyway, so no big deal -- but the rest of it (most notably "King of Carrot Flowers," "Communist Daughter," and "Ghost/Unitled") lays me away every single time. And, of course, the stunning "Holland 1945," with its allegorical Holocaust/Anne Frank-inspired lyrics, remains one of the finest pieces of songwriting in the frickin' universe. See below:


But you know what really scared me? In looking for a YouTube video to post, I realized that there is this hidden army of 10,000 haunted young emo-girls who post videos of themselves playing solo acoustic covers of nearly every song on this album. I'm really not sure what to make of this phenomenon. On the one hand, I'm really, really delighted to discover this, as I tend to assume most of the more arcane music I like is the unique province of rock nerds like myself, so if high school and college-aged girls are hooked by Neutral Milk Hotel, maybe there's hope for the world after all. On the other hand... well, c'mon. I just want to buy these girls a smoothie and sit out in the sunshine and tell them it's not so bad.

Here's a few:

"King of Carrot Flowers":







"In The Aeroplane Over The Sea":







"Two-Headed Boy":





"Holland 1945":





"Communist Daughter":





"Two-Headed Boy, Pt. 2":





Yeah, I know. No "Ghost." I don't get it. One of the best songs on the album, too. Get to work, sad girls of the world!

The Soundtrack of Your Visit (Updated)

FYI, updated the Pop Kulcher Radio playlist (click that little icon on the right border); got most of the music name-checked on the most recent posts, and another dozen for the hell of it tunes as well.

Vampire Weekend

Another over-hyped next big thing, I steadfastly refused to bite, just on general principles. I finally relented when my brother (whose taste I tend to share) jumped on the bandwagon. But even then, after listening to a few songs, I wasn't convinced, and put it aside. But I accidentally stumbled upon it again during a rare use of the iPod shuffle feature, and whatever had evaded my attention on first listen managed to catch up with me. So count me in, at least for now. (No promises that I'll be listening to this a year ago; it's got that idiosyncratic novelty ambience about it that suggests a fleeting passion.)

In case you managed to miss the hype, Vampire Weekend are another in a long line of clever, cerebral collegiate bands just a bit too musically and lyrically playful for their own good (think the Shins or Sufjan Stevens). But where most indie rock bands draw from the well of the Velvet Underground or Big Star (or R.E.M. or Wire), these guys sound like they spent an awful lot of time with Paul Simon's Graceland or the Police's Regatta de Blanc (with a healthy dose of They Might Be Giants or maybe early Talking Heads). Angular hipster rock with a reggae/afro-beat, at times conjuring up thoughts of Interpol if they'd tried ripping off Bob Marley instead of Joy Division. All of which sounds like the makings of a very, very bad record. Yet their self-titled 2008 debut is a load of engaging fun. Maybe not worthy of the hype (or, for that matter, the anticipated backlash), but definitely an enjoyable and somewhat fresh-sounding way to spend a half hour or so.

Incidentally, the video for "A-Punk" serves as a pretty definitive litmus test -- love this, you'll like the band; hate this, best to just move on.


This one for "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" isn't nearly as good -- much more MTV 80s style than anything else -- but great song."

One More Update: Greatest Album Playlist!

Got a bit obsessive now, but I've now embedded a new playlist on my Greatest Rock & Roll Albums of All Time page, with one track from each album. (Well, I came up a couple short on the Project Playlist search engine, so a couple albums are either unrepresented or represented by a track from a different album.)

Or try it here...

More Updates

Managed to update the "5 Albums That Changed My Life" page on the Pop Kulcher website this afternoon. Same 5 albums, new look. Samples all work.

Enough for now. Need some sunshine.

Meanwhile, here's a taste.

Website Updates: Guilty Pleasures

I've updated the Guilty Pleasures page of the Pop Kulcher website. Now guiltier than ever!

Could take awhile before I get around to some of the other stray pages (5 Albums That Changed My Life, Worst Albums Ever, etc.), but I'm getting there.

Here's a little guilty pleasure to get you started: The Moody Blues, "The Voice" (original 1981 video). Great song, and, no, don't ask me to justify this claim.

Web Site Updates

I'm in the process of updating the Pop Kulcher website (as I try to do every couple years, though it seems like it happens less and less frequently). New layout to the front page (not pretty, but simpler, primarily because the old entry page had a prominent link to my cdr trading pages, and I'm not really doing much of that these days). Added a couple more albums to my Greatest Albums of All Time List, bringing it to a nice round 75 (Amy Rigby's Diary of a Mod Housewife and Television's Marquee Moon, favorites that I've never gotten around to writing up until this weekend). Also reordered the Top 75 to make it more accurately reflect my current listening habits -- once again, the classic rock faves from my childhood continue to climb, while stuff I discovered later in life continues to slip. Guess it's part of the aging process or something.

Will probably continue to revise over the next week or two to bring everything up to date and clear out some old (and heinously dated) layouts & color schemes. Plus need to update some dead links and add more audio samples where possible.

Little Dude On Drums

Pop Kulcher Jr. filmed a drum solo. Here you go.

Testing Embedded Radio

Ok, still trying to find a better way to embed playlists on the Blog. The Project Playlist approach (see top right margin) is ok, though they have a pretty limited selection of music (dependent on what .mp3's are uploaded online and found through their search engine). Plus, some bugs in the coding prevent it from showing up as an embedded playlist, so it has to open up a new window. Rather have something with a better selection and less quirky features. Read about the MySpace approach today, which apparently has one of the better song selections (albeit one that, naturally, slights the indie labels); but apparently the playlist can only be embedded in a MySpace page, not in another blog. And I'd sooner rip out my own eyeballs than deal with the visual atrocity that is MySpace.

So I'm givin a shot to imeem.com. The selection is still fairly lame -- fine if you're selecting officially-licensed major label artists, not so much for indie artists. (Apparently you can upload your own tracks, as with MySpace, but I don't have time for that... if I wanted to upload my own songs, I wouldn't bother with the playlist in the first place!)

So I'll try this out, and if I like it maybe I'll post it as a permanent feature in the margin in place of the Project Playlist thingie. Or not. Anyway, picked a few tunes that were name-checked below for inclusion.