I just hit a wall, but I have nothing to do for an hour, with a computer that for some reason has no normal word processing capabilities, so here are the playlists.
I onsdagses:
1. Mengele y el amor - Klaus&Kinski
2. Lovely Allen - Holy Fuck
3. Migration - Sambassadeur (SV)
4. Godzilla vs. the Island of Manhattan - ballboy
5. Please Please Please (Let Me Get What I Want) - ANT (SV)
6. Lester - Bakers at Dawn (SV)
7. Dogs - Emily Frembgen
8. Sogne - 9 (DK)
9. Forsyn - Lis er Stille (DK)
10. Noisy Summer - the Raveonettes (DK)
11. No Excuses - Air France (SV)
The playlist is a little shorter than normal, and there is a bit of other random (automix) music between tracks 9 and 10, due to the fact that a fire alarm went off in the middle of the show and everyone had to evacuate. Sorry. Just skip that part or something.
I dagses spilleliste:
1. Lions & Tigers - Asobi Seksu
2. How Can I Love You If You Won't Lie Down - Silver Jews
3. Heartbeats - the Knife (SV)
4. The Air We Breathe - Figurines (DK)
5. Take Me Home (Eskimo-Esque Remix) - Club 8 (SV)
6. What to Pass On / What to Keep - Jomi Massage (DK)
7. So Long - Agata & Me (DK)
8. Telemarketing - Pelle Carlberg (SV)
9. Hyperschlieb - epo-555 (DK)
10. Havana Affair - the Ramones
11. Scene I - Just Like You Don't - Blue Swan (DK)
12. The Dog Boy - Outmen (SV)
13. Petite - Oliver North Boy Choir (DK)
14. Cat Piano - Seabear (IS)
Apparently I was tired earlier, too (or something like it) because I didn't feel like putting together a playlist. Instead, I picked a couple songs, and then stuck my iTunes on shuffle to get the rest. Turned out pretty well, I think.
--DL--Ashtrays Podcast (27. august 2008)
Ashtrays Podcast (29. august 2008)
29 August 2008
Gamle og nye spillelister
27 August 2008
God og bedre
I’m behind again. But I have equipped my apartment with internet, finally, so posts should be a bit more regular from here on out.
I fredagses spilleliste:
1. From Blown Speakers – the New Pornographers
2. Danger! (Ice Cream Shout) – The Sound of Arrows (SV)
3. Too Young (The Tough Alliance Remix) – Taken by Trees (SV, SV)
4. Lights – Memoplay (SV)
5. Blue Night – New Ghosts
6. Heavy Metal Drummer – Wilco
7. Love Song – Tiny Microphone
8. Hearts on Fire – Rumskib (DK)
9. This Heart’s On Fire – Wolf Parade
10. War is Over – Speaker Bite Me (DK)
11. Once I Was Like You – Firefox AK vs. Laid (SV, SV)
12. Straight Thin Line – Frida Hyvönen (SV)
13. Mica – Mew (DK)
Now I am going to celebrate the fact that I no longer have to walk clear to PSU to use the internet, by walking clear to PSU, to see Junkface playing at noon in the park blocks. Those shows are free, so you should come, too.
Speaking of shows, though I hardly ever do this, I’m also going to recommend that everyone listen to Andy Combs and the Moth’s set on last week’s Live Friday. It was excellent -- one of the best Live Fridays I’ve ever done -- and I listened to very little else the entire weekend. Their sound is rather… unusual, but it’s definitely worth a listen.
--DL--Ashtrays Podcast (22. august 2008)
21 August 2008
For meget engelsk!
Yeah, a lot of talking in English yesterday. Fortunately, two songs with Swedish and one with Danish lyrics to (in part) make up for it.
Spillelisten:
1. Love Doesn’t Last – Broder Daniel (SV)
2. Anna – Hello Saferide (SV)
3. Albion – Babyshambles
4. The Quitter – Good Luck Casper (DK)
5. Magic Man – Said the Shark (DK)
6. Love No – the Teenagers
7. Trying Something New – the Honeydrips (SV)
8. I Know a Place – Jay Reatard
9. The Hunger – the Distillers
10. Today – Agata & Me (DK)
11. Hjärta. Instinkt. Principer – Johan Heltne (SV)
12. Kräm (Så Nära Får Ingen Gå) – Kent (SV)
13. Plantage – Under Byen (DK)
14. Anna – Hello Saferide (SV)
Yes, I played Anna twice. But I would have rather played it the whole time. You will understand, once you hear it. The album (More Modern Short Stories from Hello Saferide) is out 24. September.
--DL--Ashtrays Podcast (20. august 2008)
20 August 2008
Hvem skriver vi for?
This is a rant that happened because it rained and I didn't go outside at all yesterday. It has nothing to do with music whatsoever. Sorry.
Who are we writing for?
When I’m not working on this blog, there is something else I do. I am a writer, as Colin Meloy put it, a writer of fiction. I write short stories.
But earlier today, standing in my bathroom and attempting to flatten my bangs, wondering whether I look more like a high school English teacher or a high school student, it suddenly struck me: there is no audience for the work I do. Who am I writing for, really?
Well, let’s start with a simpler question -- who am I? I’m a college graduate in
Everyone who’s ever become successful as a writer has probably, at some point in their career, said “write what you know.” But what I know is generally rather dull, and what I like isn’t necessarily much of what I know. So let’s look at what I know second-hand: what I read, when I read. Well, I like literature, but I also at times enjoy smut.
Herein lies the problem. Entertaining as it might be, I can’t write smut -- not, at least, without dragging it out into pages and pages during the course of which nothing happens, or, worse, making it into literature. But even if I could write smut, I wouldn’t do it -- I’d never want to see my name attached to anything that could even fleetingly be considered appropriate for ensconcement in a hot pink cover.
As for literature -- I can write it, to a degree, at least. (I like to think so, at least.) But when we read literature, largely the books we read are classics, those with famous names or authors ancient or long dead. (The last book I finished was Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which has both.) Unless I’m David Mitchell or Haruki Murakami -- which I clearly am not -- it’s kind of… out of luck.
There is only so much room on the bookstore shelf, and it’s a lot easier to break into the market by writing a two hundred page teenage fluff novel about a girl who finds out she’s a princess or a (considerably longer series about a) boy who finds out he’s a wizard (nothing against JK Rowling; however, readers have suggested that my version of the seventh year is better than hers) than by sending out stories with titles like Spring Summer Fall or The Boy with the Green Sweater to little lit mags whose circulations become even further from little and closer to zero every year. The mass market wants mass appeal, and the vast majority of the time, modern literature hasn’t got that.
But even if I -- or, for that matter, anyone else -- was to write something and have it published, who would read it? Once again, I’m lucky to live in
I should have trouble getting books out of the library. Annoying as it is, it’s also reassuring when I’m not able to find any of the items on my list because they’re all checked out. But this hardly ever happens. And going through library catalogs, it’s quite common to see a larger number of copies of some new sensation than of a book we should all be reading, like, I don’t know, Aleksandar Hemon’s Nowhere Man (of which the Multnomah County Library system has only two copies). But there’s no audience.
That’s the trouble. There’s not an audience. Even I am guilty of it -- drifting toward the young adult section when I should be filling out hold forms for Atwood and Nabokov.
Who are we writing for? There aren’t many people who want to read slice-of-life vignettes where nothing really happens, no matter how skillful the prose might be. Sex sells. Sensation sells. The stories I write don’t contain much of those elements -- or at least they don’t contain much of those elements, not in the right combinations.
Whenever I try to write things that other people would like to read, I wind up growing bored, or disgusted, or some other negative emotion, and abandoning the manuscripts. But when I try to write the stories that I want to write, the stories that glow inside me and make me breathe, I become discouraged, knowing that although I’ve finally set the safe-kept little darlings (“kill your darlings,” said William Faulkner, talking about revising) on paper, no one will ever read much further than, perhaps, if I’m lucky, the first paragraph -- and I abandon them all the same.
My computer hard drive, as well as my own mind and countless notebooks floating around my apartment and my parents’ house, are filled with disembodied paragraphs, sentences, phrases even -- all waiting for the time when I work myself up to put them together. It’s not courage I need; it’s not inspiration or even motivation. I think it’s just a bit of a decrease in the feeling of utter hopelessness, the idea that maybe, somebody…
I don’t know. Occasionally I tell myself I’m going to write a popular young adult smut novel, to get myself a start, a name to go on, to engender some sort of financial stability. I’d use a pseudonym, perhaps. It wouldn’t be anything like the stories I normally write. It wouldn’t even be anything like any story I particularly wanted to write. I would just do it to finance my other, more legitimate activity. Like the kid who sells drugs to pay for college, only less illegal. Completely legal, in fact, but morally wrong. And, for me, morally impossible. Even if I could do it, I wouldn’t. That’s where the audience (what little audience for books remains) is -- but it’s not the audience I want.
I want the audience who went to college and took the classes they wanted, even though they knew sociology was useless. I want the audience who has more books than DVDs on their shelves. I want the audience who reads four books at once, except for all the books they finish in one sitting. I want the audience who buys a book and reads it (or maybe, like me, reads it, then buys it, then reads it again), then gives it to a friend, and the friend reads it, then gives it to another friend and that friend reads it, too. I want the audience who trades books like hugs. Or I want the audience who hoards the books they love, whether it’s multiple copies, special editions, or just general accumulation. I want the audience who isn’t pompous about what they’ve read, who has gaping holes in their reading history and feels bad about it, the audience who always has one more book to read -- not because they should but because they want to. I want the audience who wants to…
Who am I writing for? Every good story I write is targeted toward one specific person -- maybe, in a few rare cases, two or three. It doesn’t matter if they’ll ever read it. But if I write for just that one person, I write it so they’ll want it. Maybe no one else in the world will, but that one person will want it.
It’s not a very good way to achieve mass appeal. It’s kind of like this blog -- if I wrote about music other than just that which particularly interests me, maybe more people would read it. If I wrote things that were designed to appeal to more than one person, maybe I would be more motivated to share them. But the difference between one and the number of people who might actually read whatever it is is so small that… no, it isn’t really worth it.
A year ago I wrote an essay for class called Every Book is a Coffee Table Book. Largely, this is true. But a coffee table book (unless, perhaps, it was a gift and has sentimental value) doesn’t really mean anything. If I write something, I want it to be honest, to be meaningful -- not something that can be compared to novelty socks (to which I compared contemporary fiction in the essay). There’s nothing wrong with novelty socks. I even have a pair, and I like them enough that I took them with me to
So, who am I writing for? I don’t know. Is there an audience? I don’t know. But somewhere out there, somewhere in the world, there is a person who every opening paragraph rings true for. Somewhere is the person who wants to read the rest of the story that begins like this:
Last week Sammy informed me that I was going to lose my biking muscles if I did not stop walking so much. “Walking and riding a bike exercise completely different parts of your leg,” Sammy said. You would think that the two activities are compatible, but they are not.
This person probably isn’t you. It probably isn’t anyone you -- or even I -- know. Don’t feel bad. But next time you’re reading something and feel tempted to put it down, just -- try and keep reading.
16 August 2008
Begyndning...
Tomorrow (I wrote this last night), I’ll receive my honors cord and walk in the commencement -- which I really feel is the wrong word -- ceremony; a few weeks later I’ll get my actual diploma. Some people are entirely uninterested in this (this being mostly the ceremony) while others are quite over-sentimental. For example: my sister called it a landmark.
Getting ready for this occasion is the reason why I do not have band links in the playlist down below. I will probably put them up later (but there’s always the chance I won’t). For the moment, though, I’m going to focus on commencement. I plan on taking a book and mostly being bored, but I’ll still be really happy to see people I know there…
I gårses spilleliste:
1. The Denial Twist – Damian
2. Lights Out – Santogold
3. Close to Me – Club 8 (SV)
4. Tragic Mirror – Sondre Lerche (NW)
5. On the Prowl – the Gossip
6. Summer Here Kids – Grandaddy
7. With Every New Day – David & the Citizens (SV)
8. L’Indifference – Radio LXMBRG (SV)
9. Start to Melt – Peter Bjorn & John (SV)
10. Time is of the Essence – Cold Mailman (NW)
11. On the Radio – the Concretes (SV)
12. Skimret – Nordpolen (SV)
13. Just Can’t Get Enough (Tiger Baby Remix) – CPH-Jet (DK, DK)
14. Romance on Drugs – Little Jimmy Reeves (DK?)
I will, of course, continue with the radio show even after graduation; never fear.
14 August 2008
Samlejer med mikrofoner (PDX Pop Now! III)
--This is Part III. Read Part I and Part II first.--
And Sunday. Due to another scheduling weirdness, World’s Greatest Ghosts were on at 12:40. (PM, not AM.) For the first time in recent memory, I managed to arrive to something early; I got there around 12:15 or 20, in time to see about half of Wooden Indian Burial Ground’s set.
And, oh my god, they are my new favorite band. They sat in chairs and played on the pavement rather than the stage, which is endearing enough. Maybe they sounded kind of like a folk or bluegrass band -- a banjo made an appearance -- but it was so much more than that. I’m having trouble remembering now… It was very weird -- Syd Barret would have loved it -- but whereas in many cases the weirdness takes away from the musicality and the enjoyability, in the case of Wooden Indian Burial Ground, it didn’t. I thought they were great, and I’m now absolutely obsessed with finding out how the singer makes his voice sound like that. If you’ve heard them, you’ll know what I mean. If you haven’t heard them, there are songs to be played on myspace. Go now.
Thinking back now, I realize that I could have easily missed this entire set. If I’d slept a little longer, or eaten a more complete lunch… or if I’d taken into consideration that even though it was overcast the entire morning, the clouds would probably blow off later (they did, and I got my only sunburn of the year), and put on sunblock… Or even if I’d just been slightly more self-conscious that morning and timed my walk to arrive exactly when the Ghosts’ set began, so as to minimize feelings of awkwardness. It’s really pure coincidence that I saw Wooden Indian Burial Ground at all. I’m very, very glad I did. It was just, like, standing there and wow. Arya described it as going back in time (by about 150 years) and, yeah, I’d say that was pretty accurate. But, as I said before, it was so much more that that, too.
World’s Greatest Ghosts played after that. Personally, they seem like a really nice, fun band. You can tell they’re having fun playing, and that makes it fun listening. More bands should be like them. Really.
I saw Meth Teeth, too, but I don’t really remember anything.
Poddington Bear, who was dressed in a white t-shirt, white pants, and a children’s bear hat (the kind that Velcros under your chin and has ears) started things indoors with an unexpected twist -- rather than a “normal” musical set, as would be played by a band or soloist, he delivered forty minutes of karaoke. He had programmed the backing tracks, as well as the video part that tells you what words to sing, in advance, and, after performing a cover of the Beatles’ (not Hello Saferide’s – more on that later) Anna, he brought a number of Portland musicians up onstage to show off their best -- or worst; you can never tell with karaoke. My favorite was the guy from I think Weinland, who did
Grouper, also one person (this one female) was next. In terms of volume, it wasn’t quiet; in terms of sound, it was. I liked it, but it felt out of place. It’s not standing-up music, or even really festival music. Grouper is the kind of music you (or at least I would) listen to softly on the speakers while spacing out in your bathtub in the dark, not coming through enormous mains in a close, humid room filled with sweaty teenagers. I might like to see her again, but at the moment, I can’t think of any venue where such music would be appropriate. Maybe it’s more of a record thing…
I ended the festival mid-afternoon, with Mattress. This was several hours before the event’s actual conclusion, but it’s been pretty much established that I have neither the stamina nor the social skills/tolerance to remain in large groups -- even, unfortunately, large groups of music fans at music festivals -- for long periods of time.
Mattress was a good one for me to end on. He’s an interesting performer. Everything was pre-programmed, so all he actually did was sing. (I realize this sounds very similar to the Poddington Bear/karaoke description, but it was not at all.)
Normally I feel that machines have no place onstage, but in this case it worked. Everything sounded vaguely familiar -- but in the good way -- and I kept thinking this phrase: “making love to the microphone.” When he played
So, my second festival in a month. (Think about this: one month, two festivals, on two continents.) PDX Pop Now!, clearly, was different from
Anyway -- overall? Yeah, there were a few more bands I missed but would like to have seen -- a few for the first time, a few again -- but for the time I was there, it was generally pretty super. Or -- remember when I decided to bring back the word ‘keen’? It was pretty keen. I think it’s an amazing example of how great even (or especially) a free, all-ages festival can be, and I wish I’d known earlier that I’d have the weekend off work, so that I could have been more involved. Always next year, I suppose. Looking forward to it already.
(Real PS -- If you want to see pictures, go read Michael Mannheimer's Local Cut Reviews.)PDX Pop Now! II
--This is Part II. Read Part I first.--
Saturday I skipped the early afternoon, choosing instead to go to the Farmer’s Market and do some other things I can’t remember, and arrived at the festival a few minutes prior to the beginning of Bodhi’s set at 4:50. (I remember this time because I initially planned to come around five, but was told to arrive earlier so I wouldn’t miss them.) No regrets there; it was awesome.
But I’m going to be very blunt here and say that (perhaps as a caution to future concert-goers?), at first glance, Bodhi looks like three people who all wanted to play music, and couldn’t find anyone else, so even though they had nothing in common, they decided to form a band together. Or maybe you could guess they started as a random group of musicians thrown together in one of those crazy 48-hour band project things… That is what Bodhi looks like. But what they sound like is completely different. They sound like a real band. A real good band. The apparent mismatch is gone; the instruments fit together so well I had trouble telling them apart. It was really tight, really good, and I almost felt guilty, being there and hearing it.
Erin, the drummer… clearly having a really good time. Usually you don’t hear much from drummers, but she had a microphone (or else her voice really projects) and we got commentary in between every song, including, at one point, her urging everyone to “get drunk--” then, I guess in recognition of the fact that it was an all-ages event “--if you can. …Or if you can’t.” Kind of ridiculous, but also -- regardless of whether I did or didn’t follow her advice (I didn’t) -- the kind of thing that makes me love live music. You just don’t get that kind of stuff on a record.
After Bodhi was A Ghost’s Face Two Inches from Your Own Face, which, to be honest, is a bit too loud and fast for my liking. I’m so out of touch these days with that kind of stuff that I don’t even know in which genre to classify them, but technically I think they were probably pretty good. The crowd sure seemed to enjoy it.
Then, back inside for Eskimo & Sons, performing with their new horn section. Much more my kind of music -- lately I seem to be drawn more and more to strings and horns. To my sadness, I was annoyed through most of their set. I don’t know why this happened, and it doesn’t make any logical sense. I enjoyed it a great deal -- but at the same time, I kept wishing they would hurry up and finish. I wasn’t in a hurry to do anything else, and I wasn’t particularly excited for any of the upcoming bands (in fact, I entirely skipped the band immediately following Eskimo & Sons, instead walking to one of the produce row outlets and watching a friend engage in unsafe eating practices). My primary goal Saturday was actually to see Eskimo & Sons. I don’t know what went wrong with me; certainly there was nothing wrong with them.
Before leaving Saturday, I also saw Reporter. Maybe this isn’t a comparison I should make, because I’ve never heard their current incarnation on record and I never saw the previous one live. Regardless, I’m going to say it -- I may be the only person in
Værsgo, Arya (PDX Pop Now! I)
(Kind of PS -- Mogwai will actually play in
This was my first year at the now five-year-old festival, and my favorite set of the weekend -- I’ll be honest -- is one that I nearly didn’t see. But more of that later. Now, for the sake of maintaining my sanity, I’ll go in chronological order.
I got to the festival late. At six o’clock, when the music started, I was wrapping up Live Friday, for which I’d supervised sound. Normally I love doing sound for Live Friday, but that week, I didn’t want to be there. However. Don’t Hurt Miles, one of the most energetic bands I’ve ever seen – they’re clearly having a fantastic time -- played, and that was a good thing. I remember being in kind of a dismal/exhausted mood earlier, and they definitely put me in the mood for listening to and enjoying music.
I arrived at Rotture, where the festival was held this year, in time for the last few songs of Love Menu’s opening set. I was disappointed not to have seen the whole thing, but not too disappointed, having just seen them the night before at the Top Down Festival. (Am I starting to sound like a huge scenester right now? I’m totally not a scenester.) However, as I later told several people, it was far more enjoyable the second night, without the band being pretty much drowned out by an enormous ventilation fan going off all the time. (The Top Down Festival, awesomely, takes place on top of a hotel, which, unfortunately, needs to be air conditioned.) I wish I’d gotten to hear more of it.
After Love Menu, the Rainy States played. Amazingly, it was only the second time I’d seen them, though it feels like it’s been far more than that. As before (here I want to type as always) Ben was very fun to watch; Betsy and the two Kevins were less visually entertaining but aurally very good as well.
I seem to have several misconceptions about the Rainy States. Another one is that they are a quiet band. I don’t know what would ever have caused me to believe this, or why I have not, by this point, gotten used to the fact that they are not really a quiet band, but every time one of their songs starts, I’m surprised by how loud it is. I have nothing against being loud, it just wasn’t what I expected. But I’m an idiot, and their set was great.
After that, I spent some time outside, waiting for a rap duo-ish (which, in reviews I read later, was proclaimed excellent) to finish so that the music would rotate to the outside stage.
Tu Fawning opened the outside stage. They were pretty good, although the mix was kind of off. (I’m sorry; I’m a sound tech; I have to.) Nothing the band could have done about that, though.
In a rather strange choice of scheduling, Tu Fawning was followed by Guidance Counselor. I’d seen Guidance Counselor a few weeks before, when he played Live Friday, so I had an idea of what to expect: somewhat insane electro-rock, the kind that you dance to. Surprisingly, even though there were kids to dance to it at the pop fest -- and plenty of them did -- I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as the previous set in the tiny, drab (I was going to say sterile but quickly realized that would definitely be the wrong word) basement lobby of the radio station. This is not to say it was bad. I just thought it could have been better.
Maybe it was my mood, though, because I felt essentially the same way about Dykeritz. Several months earlier, they played at the Modern Age, with a setup that included three people and hundreds and hundreds of machines. By the time of their pop fest set, band membership seemed to have swelled to nearly ten, and the majority of the keyboards and other electronic music machines were nowhere in sight. (To be fair, I couldn’t really see the stage most of the time.) Even the sound was different; without the name, I would have easily mistaken them for another band.
I think I went home after that -- it was getting insanely crowded already, and when the crowd started flowing back inside for Panther, the door counters were out -- electing not to stay and be smashed against a wall for three hours in the hopes of seeing Nick Jaina. Saw him Sunday, though. Kind of...
13 August 2008
Ny albummer
Onsdag spillelisten:
1. I Know My Owner – the Bear Quartet (SV)
2. Far Apart – Oliver North Boy Choir (DK)
3. Tåget – the Radio Dept. (SV)
4. Remember – the Raveonettes (DK)
5. Good Arms vs Bad Arms – Frightened Rabbit
6. Minua Ollaan Vastassa –
7. The Zookeeper’s Boy – Mew (DK)
8. Norman Bleik – I Was A King (NW)
9. Great Expectations – the Ballet
10. My Best Friend – Hello Saferide (SV)
11. Donald in the Bushes with a Bag of Glue – ballboy
12. Darling – the Legends (SV)
13. There’s Nothing – Shout Out Louds (SV)
14. Science is Religion – the William Blakes (DK)
Some have been mentioned previously (albeit in Danish) but here are a few items relevant to the artists in the playlist:
1. It’s A Trap! reports that the Bear Quartet no longer plans on releasing a new album this year, but will maybe release one in 2009.
2. Oliver North Boy Choir released their sixth single/EP, Holy Wars, on Sunday. You can stream all the songs (and download a couple of bonus tracks) through the special Holy Wars page. Due to my lack of internet, I have still only heard the first three songs once each. (This will soon change.) I think I like Endeavour best.
3. Hello Saferide has a new album, More Modern Short Stories from Hello Saferide. It will be available both digitally and properly (by which I hope I mean on vinyl) 24. September. And if you just can’t wait, Anna, the first single, is available for download from It’s A Trap! right now. (Official release date is 27. August.) My discovery of this download 34 hours after it was initially posted has singlehandedly motivated me to get internet in my apartment. Soon.
4. ballboy will also release a new album, I Worked on the Ships, 25. august. You can stream two of the new songs on their myspace, and you can also listen to and download millions of songs from their back catalog (plus covers other people have done) on the media page of their website.
--DL--Ashtrays Podcast (13. august 2008)
Det skal jeg slutte senere
Your attention first: Some of the kids from this summer’s Let's Rock: Rock n Roll Camp are playing on Ando’s show, Now I Am Trendy Too, this afternoon at one (Pacific). Tune in here and don’t miss it.
Now the regular part of the post:
Jeg har glemt igen. Jeg ved ikke hvorfor. Her er spilleliste fra i fredags (08.08.08!):
1. Monday Morning – the Charade (SV)
2. Not Enough – Maria Timm (DK)
3. Lisa Could Die for Elvis – Yellowish (DK)
4. Left Me High – Death Valley Sleepers (DK)
5. Everyone is Totally Insane – the Dandy Warhols
6. Algeria – JJ72
7. Soundwaves – Attention Now! (NW)
8. Norwegian Pop – Bedroom Eyes (SV)
9. You Don’t Dance – Lupus (DK)
10. Fake Empire – the National
11. Gobbledigook – Sigur Rós (IS)
12. The Wonder – Figurines (DK)
13. Who’s In Your Dreams – Strawberry Whiplash
14. Lucky – The Tough Alliance (SV)
Også, Oliver North Boy Choir har ud en ny EP/single, Holy Wars. Man kan finde det på deres Holy Wars side. Og du må høre et sang fra dette -- men jeg ved ikke endnu hvad skal det være -- i aften på programmet, og de skal være den første gang, at jeg har også hørte det, fordi jeg har ikke endnu internetet. Men det skal jeg have snart, og også et bord...
Jeg skal skrive mere om ny ONBC-musik, efter jeg har lyttet til det.
Også -- dette og næste måned -- et nyt album, med første singel ud 27. august, fra Hello Saferide, og et nyt album fra ballboy, ud 25. august, de begge om, skal jeg sikkert skrive om. Og jeg love, vil jeg skrive om PDX Pop Now! meget snart.
The PDX Pop Now! post is actually now under way. Expect it tomorrow.
--DL--Ashtrays Podcast (8. august 2008)
Gobbledigook (Sigur Rós)
07 August 2008
På radioen igen
Programmet I går aftes var meget fint -- en af mine bedste, synes jeg. Selv om jeg kan ikke huske, hvis jeg spillede mit MM ad-ting en eller to gange. Men alt andre... Og jeg syntes, det vil være slet, fordi jeg var alt nedslået før programmet og ja...
Men – spillelisten:
1. Kelvinpolis – Princess Niko (N)
2. I Sing I Swim – Seabear (IS)
3. Shoreline – Broder Daniel (SV)
4. Tonight the Walls Are Closing In On You – David & the Citizens (SV)
5. Sometimes My Head Bleeds – Citizens Here and Abroad
6. Fallin’ in Love – Sambassadeur (SV)
7. Dayplanner – Free Loan Investments (SV)
8. Crazy – Northern Portrait (DK)
9. Tomorrow You’ll Be Forgiven But Tonight You Will Have Your Teeth Knocked Out – Jesper Norda (SV)
10. Kim & Jessie – M83
11. Afraid You Told Someone About Us – Air France (SV)
12. Satellite of Love – Lou Reed
13. Black Cab – Jens Lekman (SV)
Du må downloade Tomorrow You’ll Be Forgiven But Tonight You Will Have Your Teeth Knocked Out, som er meget flink/smuk, selv om navnet lyder mere lige det skulle være fra et band med et navn lige Slagsmålsklubben (jeg var trist, at jeg kunne ikke se dem på Roskilde, men det er det). Du må også downloade hans helt EP, hedder Little Ones EP, fra hans arkiv webside. Hvis du kan lide piano med stærk vokaler, det er for dig.
--DL--Ashtrays Podcast (6 august 2008)Tomorrow You’ll Be Forgiven But Tonight You Will Have Your Teeth Knocked Out (Jesper Norda)
06 August 2008
Rock Camp Pendleton!
I still have no internet, and strangely, that makes it really hard for me to motivate myself to write anything. But here is a recap of last week, which I spent as a counselor at the third annual Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp in Pendleton, Oregon.
Actually, I missed the first two days. I got there Wednesday, and was introduced to the kids as, by virtue of working at both a radio station and a venue, someone who had “seen a whole, whole lot of music in the past year.”
I spent the next three days being, in my opinion, mostly useless. I spent a lot of time with the rock journalism group and helped with the ‘zine, The Noise (they have a blog, too!). I also made stickers on a Gocco press (a machine which I really, really want) with Casey, the Willamette Week music editor, and to be honest, I think I learned far more from him and the other counselors -- and even the kids -- than I taught anyone.
Friday, all the kids who had formed bands finished the week off with a concert on Main Street. I didn’t mind missing the Modern Age (even though I’ve since heard it was very good) because I got to see this show. Okay, maybe the Modern Age performers were more technically skilled or something, but I think we had more fun.
Unlike nearly everyone else, I stayed off the stage -- because that’s not what I do. Another thing I don’t really do is set up whole sound systems -- but I guess there’s no better time to learn than half an hour before the show is supposed to start. I got to the point where everything mostly made sense, and I only wired one thing incorrectly, but that, coupled with the fact that a few other things just didn’t seem to work at all had me pretty much freaking out. Luckily, there were other people to help out (and by other people to help out, I really mean people who knew way more than me and fixed everything).
Once everything was set up and working, I did sound -- admittedly, really just vocals and acoustic instruments, plus an extremely entertaining horn section for a couple songs -- for ELEVEN bands. Overall, there were probably twice that many different vocalists, including at least eight people singing at one point (during the Sgt. Pepper’s sing-along). No sound checks. So -- a whole lot of on-the-spot gain and monitor and fade level and equalization adjusting going on. There were only a few very brief feedback moments (also during the Sgt. Pepper’s sing-along, during which I think one of the mics got moved directly in front of the monitor).
All things considered, I think it went very well. I could have probably done a better job -- and what I’d really have liked is to have been able to teach some of the kids -- even just one -- how to do at least some of the sound stuff. How awesome would that be? Maybe next year -- hopefully. I’d love to go back.
But even though I’ve kept it mostly un-technical, all the sound stuff is probably uninteresting for most readers. So the music:
Unfortunately I no longer remember what most of the bands were called, but the show kicked off with the only band I’d seen earlier in the week. Let me say this -- I, being unable to play any instrument well enough to say I can play it, am amazed enough that the kids could produce any kind of organized sound, much less play together. But know what’s even more amazing? How much they improved over the course of two and a half days. These kids are really talented and… wow.
I can’t write about everyone, so a couple highlights: the universal debut of the Pendleton Horns, composed of Peter, the camp organizer, and three other counselors in matching red jackets with gold stenciled logos made earlier in the day as, I think, an off-shoot from the promotions class; Paige, who I worked with in the rock journalism class, announcing that they were going to play a Miley Cyrus song (to a reaction of horror from the crowd), then belting Weezer’s I’m a Lot Like You instead; my somewhat friend, the absolutely phenomenal Jacki Penny, with a backing band; and, of course, Weston. I’d heard Weston was a hit last year; this time around, his two songs -- Bad News, which he wrote himself, and a cover of the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy in the UK, backed by the Kill Davids -- did not disappoint. Seriously -- this kid is going places. In fact, you can already see him on YouTube.
You can read/see/hear even more about the rock camp at all these places:
The Noise online
Local Cut
Pampelmoose
YouTube
Great way to spend three days (and next year, if I’m allowed back, hopefully five). I’m insanely jealous of the kids -- why couldn’t I have gone to a camp like that when I was younger? -- but I’m also very eager for the opportunity to be involved with anything like that, as a counselor, again soon. If anyone wants to learn live sound -- email me; I’ll totally do it. It’s really not that scary. It’ll be fun.
Now -- enough exclamatory words for one day. Meaning I’ll have to push the PDX Pop Now! write-up back again. Sigh. Show tonight, though…
--
Also, on an unrelated note, if anyone knows the person/people in charge of hiring at Powell’s Books, put in a good word for me, okay? Dream job, okay? Dream job.