And the World That You've Shown Me is Dead Beneath the Ice
Blood Warrior - Winter's Day (Demo)(mp3)
Blood Warrior (myspace) is a side project from Greg Jamie of O'Death, and if that band can best be considered a reckless, moonshine-soaked back porch end-times bonfire blow-out, this one -- for good and ill -- might serve as aftermath. The friends and strangers who haven't staggered away or paired up and fucked off sit circle-round, nursing empties and poking embers, and slap together songs to shield themselves from the dread of daybreak.
The strongest moments, among the demos I've heard, are the ones where voices unite and lift some rich melody away from aimlessness, then send it off before it becomes unwelcome. I've loved "Winter's Day" -- a song written and led by Jamie's wife, Kristen Kellas -- since I heard it last Spring. A single incomplete phrase, considered for two minutes; the repetition works because the meaning and mood are unclear. The choir clings to the tune, granting it... desperation? Affirmation? It echoes on beyond its running time.
Blood Warrior currently has a 7-inch available for purchase. My Old Kentucky Blog ran an interview a little while back, NYC Taper has a recording of the band's first live performance.
Emmy the Great - Winchester (mp3)
Way long back in 2007, Emmy the Great made available a holiday-themed EP for free download through her/their myspace for the exact twenty-four hours no one should have found themselves on the internet. Come Christmas it was gone like a fat man's cookies.
Had you taken a break from staring for Santa or being bothered by loved ones or plying yrself with nog, though, you might have gotten your mitts on -- along with a previously released cover of John Prine's "Christmas in Prison" and a Wave Pictures cover -- a pair of originals well up to Ms. Moss' usual high standards. Dark stuff served with tenderness and concern. "Three Men and a Little Lady" was blessedly Guttenberg-free, came with a muffled sleigh bell buzz; the song had maybe something to do with a drowning and maybe something about how death demands both reverence and pragmatism. I've regifted the ghostly goodness of "Winchester" above. Your carol book can never feature enough bodily fluids.
'Tis also the season for Best-Ofs and such, and Emmy's First Love -- though not officially released in the U.S. -- was named one of the Top Ten Albums of 2009 by one of the New York Times' pop critics. An import is available domestically through Amazon, or you can import it yourself through Rough Trade.
Below, she supports Ash's Tim Wheeler in a performance of that band's recent (but non-seasonal) single.
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"I, their sovereign lord, would walk among them, clothed in mortal rags. Who among us could turn down such power, and the nineteen dollars an hour that came with it? 'Out there with these natives it must be a temptation to be God,' is how it was put in Apocalypse Now."
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" A grumbling, sweating, depressing version of Santa (could have been any number of my uncles in a Santa suit) becomes stranded on a beach in Florida. Luckily his old buddy The Ice Cream Bunny (apparently there is such a creature) is still sober enough to lend him a hand. [Note: This is a real movie, and that is its real plot.]"
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Rudolph, NO! (via Vegan)
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Eli "Paperboy" Reed and His True Loves and The Obits, New Year's Eve, Bell House.
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As Adventureland shoved my face in its aggressively COOL soundtrack, I realized that -- though we'll always have Larry Kasdan to blame -- it's only going to get worse. All these bullshit pandertastic playlists that try to cop cred while cheating around on a lame creative crutch, it's all just Everyone's a DJ: The Movie. The clever ones are just going to find more obscure ways to insult/indulge/distract their audience.
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"What says, 'I care about you' more than a link to your favorite Web site? Why give a book when it will likely be resold for grocery money or thrown into the fireplace in order to heat the house? Plus, unlike books, Web sites change and people reread them, so every time the person revisits the site to check for new content, it's like you just gave him or her that present, again. Here's a great Web site: thirdanddelaware.com It chronicles fashion highlights from every single episode of Roseanne! I can't even begin to tell you, that is so many gifts wrapped up in one."
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"Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was the most disappointing thing since my son. I mean, how much more could you possibly fuck up the entire backstory to Star Wars? And while my son eventually hanged himself in bathroom of the gas station, the unfortunate reality of the Star Wars prequels is that they'll be around forever. They will never go away. They can never be undone."
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"His greatest achievement is harnessing a giant bird of prey (a Turok) that no one else can, thus inspiring reverential bowing amongst the Na'vi when he shows up on the back of it. At this point, he hasn't just assimilated into these people, he's won the videogame of their culture."
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"The closest thing so far-while an unlikely candidate for next pop timekeeper-may be Brooklyn's Dirty Projectors, given the scope of their interests and the scale of their ambitions, all reined in by a cool, bemused control ... Remind you of anyone? Hell, there could have been a banner flying over the White House, during the deliberations over Afghanistan, that read 'Stillness Is the Move.'"
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"I think I've made in my entire professional musical [writing] career, I've made... $170. In six years."
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"It's worth remembering that, as of four years ago, nobody in the UK had a fucking clue who Journey were. Their biggest hit was 'Who's Crying Now,' which charted at a triumphant #46, and they were usually filed alongside yr Rick Springfields, yr Stxes, yr Hootie and the Blowfishes and your Lifehouses in that 'Oh yeah, those guys are pretty big in America, right? No, me neither' category."
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" You forgot to use the MORRISSEY tag."
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"My friend Vin (Soft Black) and I are gonna start a band called Naked Parents, he's gonna play a vacuum cleaner through a My First Sony, I'm gonna play weird, and the drummer's gonna write the songs. I know Don Henley's gonna want in on this but I'm gunning for Levon Helm."
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"We just worked really hard. We learned how to put out our own records and we learned how to book our own tours. We learned how to fly on an airplane together. We learned how to drive a car, I almost learned stick-shift, but I didn't. We learned how to make burritos while we're driving. What else did we learn? To make our own T-shirts. We taught ourselves how to do everything."
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Free: Afro-punk Volume 2: FUCK ROCK STARS. Saul Williams, Earl Greyhound, fourteen others. (via)
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"UPDATE: Author Confirms Nightcrawler Turned Wolverine on to This American Life"
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"BIG STAR LEAST LIKELY TO INSPIRE SCHOLARSHIP IN 30 YEARS:
3.) Jennifer Garner
2.5) Matt Damon [Sorry, Shakira - J.]
2.) Vince Vaughn
1.) Jennifer Aniston"
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Oh, and this is the best Police song ever. I have decided.
i killed about three hours watching not only the Phantom Menace review, but
also all his Star Trek TNG movie review, which are also great. Merry xmas!