2007, new year
December 28th, 2007I’m traveling and hanging out with some old friends right now, so I’ll see you in the new year. Happy new year!
I’m traveling and hanging out with some old friends right now, so I’ll see you in the new year. Happy new year!
Posted every Thursday On Sale Soon is a weekly series of the tickets going on sale that weekend.
Where to get tickets: The Independent, Great American Music Hall, Slim’s, Fillmore, Warfield, and other Livenation venues. Another Planet booked venues like Greek Theatre @ Berkeley, Palace of Fine Arts, etc. Bimbo’s.
Not much going on sale this week.
On sale Sunday Dec 30:
1/14 Eek-A-Mouse, Pato Banton & The Mystic Roots Band @ the Independent
1/30 Grace Potter and the Nocturnals @ the Independent
Double check all information as venues and promoters often change on-sale times and days up until the last minute.
These are hilarious. Buffalax has taken some Indian music videos and “subtitled” them, not with the translations of what the lyrics are, but with Buffalax thinks the Hindi (or Urdu?) sounds like.
Another one after the jump.
This is the songs I’ve been most obsessed with in 2007. I have been doing the song obsessions weekly series since nearly the beginning of this blog, giving me a good record of what I’ve been obsessed with this year. Most of them (click to see full list) were among mentioned previously in the song obsessions series but some were before that time and some were other peoples obsessions that I then became obsessed with or some were just slow-burning obsessions (if there can be such a thing).
I’m not picking these songs; they picked me, getting jammed in some little nook of my brain that made me need to hear them many times, often on repeat. This list isn’t simply my most played songs this year, though that does factor in–obsession requires a need to hear it again. I also take into account the urgency of that need initially and the urgency over the longer term. The level of my music evangelism of each song–that is, how much I wanted to tell others about it–also was taken into account.
In a way this is the third of my best of series of year-end “best of” 2007 pieces, after concerts and releases (albums, EPs, box sets).
The songs that I’ve been most obsessed with in 2007 in order of approximate level of obsession:
Jenda Wight – Luxury of Time (mp3) (available at artist’s myspace)
Beatbeat Whisper – Lulu (mp3) (buy)
Or, the Whale – Call and Response (mp3) (buy)
The Lightning Bug Situation – Message To Myself After Franny was Born (mp3) (buy)
Port O’Brien – I Woke Up Today (mp3) (buy)
Mobius Band – Friends Like These (mp3) (buy)
Coconut Records – West Coast (mp3) (buy)
Octopus Band – Queen (mp3) (buy)
Dr. Dog – Heart It Races (mp3) (buy)
Andy Samberg and Adam Levine (and Richard James) – Iran so Far (mp3) (buy the original Aphex Twin tune)
Listening back through this list I feel like I could get obsessed with each all over again.
Honorable mentions:
I think I’m out of lists for a few days now…
As I mentioned I would, I returned to KZSU this week to do two shows, my best-of show and my Christmas special.
I had a lot of fun. I was a bit rusty and made a couple technical gaffs–I thought most of those were behind me after 5 years on the air, but I guess not.
Anyway, if you want to list to them or check out the playlists, here you go:
I once was Canadian Best of 2007 (playlist)
12/19/07 I Once was Canadian Best of 2007 (mp3, starts during Vanderslice’s “White Dove” and runs long)
3rd Annual I once was Canadian Christmas Extravaganza! (playlist)
12/21/07 3rd Annual I Once was Canadian Christmas Extravaganza! (mp3, starts during Darlene Love)
I’ll return to the air Jan 3 and 10 in the late evening before (probably) resuming a regular show the third week in January.
No need to rely on my unofficial schedule (though you may still) as the official Noise Pop 2008 schedule is up on their site (though it’s still partial).
Song obsessions are those songs that we listen to on repeat. I noticed that my obsessions are often a week long. I also thought that other people might have similar obsessions. I’ve collected a panel of a few like-minded individuals and gotten their “song obsessions of the week.” Quite often it’s easy to explain why the song is good; it’s much hard to explain why we’re obsessed. Maybe you’ll become obsessed with one of these.
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Adrian (me):
Oh No! Oh My! – the Party Punch (mp3) (buy)
In preparing my best of 2007 list I was listening through some releases last minute and this one really stuck out. It’ really good, quirky pop. I’ve been listening to the whole EP (all 5 songs, 15 songs) pretty obsessively with this song and “Oh Be One” being the leaders in obsession by a slight margin.
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Keith:
Hello Saferide – Long Lost Penpal (mp3) (buy)
My obsession with Swedish pop both current and past knows few limits, and when you add a female singer relating past teenaged angst through a darkly humorous filter … we’ll just say multiple buttons have been pushed. This song takes its time setting up the listener but the reveal is certainly well earned.
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Natalie K:
Okkervil River – Listening to Otis Redding At Home During Christmas (live) (mp3) (live, buy the studio version)
The version off of the Golden Opportunities Mixtape. I’m not one of those people that gets depressed during Christmas time, but there is something strange about going home when that’s not really where your life is anymore. Fewer and fewer friends from high school make it back each year, or if they do, it’s only for a few days and it’s hard to get in touch. It’s even weirder for me, because my parents moved into a new house when I was in college, so it’s not even the place I grew up. But thankfully, I have three siblings that I’ve gotten closer to as I’ve grown up, which more than makes up for the lack of old friends coming home. I think this song perfectly encapsulates that strange feeling of calling someplace home when you’re only there a week or two out of each year.
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Rob:
mewithoutYou – Messes of Men (mp3) (buy)
I realized a while ago that every time this song comes up on my shuffled iPod I play it back again at least two or three times. This happened again this week (only this time it turned into a dozen or so listens) and in the process I was reminded how much I love Aaron Weiss’ vocals and lyrics. Though Brother, Sister isn’t anywhere near as good as Catch For Us The Foxes [CFUTF is to my listening habits as Light Poles and Pines is to Adrian's-- nothing can touch it on Last.fm], they really haven’t ever put out anything that isn’t solid. I don’t know why this song in particular grabs me so much, though, only that for some reason just about every line in the song has jumped out at me
at one point or another… And then of course there’s the chimes. I’m such a sucker for chimes.
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Posted every Thursday On Sale Soon is a weekly series of the tickets going on sale that weekend.
Where to get tickets: The Independent, Great American Music Hall, Slim’s, Fillmore, Warfield, and other Livenation venues. Another Planet booked venues like Greek Theatre @ Berkeley, Palace of Fine Arts, etc. Bimbo’s.
On sale now:
1/12 Zion I @ The Independent
2/13 Drive-By Truckers @ Mezzanine
On sale Sunday Dec 23:
1/27 Poison the Well / The Locust / Dance Gavin Dance / A Girl A Gun A Ghost @ Slim’s
1/31 Grace Potter and the Nocturnals / Brandi Shearer @ Slim’s
2/1 Mary Gauthier / Mark Olson (co-headlining) @ Great American
2/3 Lyfe Jennings @ The Independent
2/14, 2/15 Buckethead / Kid Beyond @ Great American
2/15 Tab Benoit @ Slim’s?
2/21 Perpetual Groove @ The Independent
2/27 @ Jay Farrar @ Great American
3/26 k.d. lang with Dustin O’Halloran @ Palace of Fine Arts
Double check all information as venues and promoters often change on-sale times and days up until the last minute.
I’m back. I drove my car for the first time in four months and got a neat peek into what I was listening to on rotation in August 2007 from the car’s six disc CD changer that I had left stocked with CDs and hadn’t changed since.
Six CDs I was listening to a lot in August 2007:
Hmm. A number of those look familiar…
I’m on my way back to the Bay Area.
I’ll be back to blogging soon enough, but make sure to listen to me on the radio later this week. Why don’t you also peruse my lists?
This is my second in a series of “best of” lists for 2007. You can see my picks for best concerts. I also made “best of” lists for the following years: 2006, 2005, 2004.
For more “best of” lists, check out largeheartedboy’s master list of 2007 lists (meta!).
I call this my best releases of 2007 but that’s not quite true for a number of reasons [1] including that it’s a bit ridiculous to define my rather arbitrary taste as the one that matters. See below for a full explanation. In short, I try to balance how good I think it is (which is swayed by my expectations), an “objective” rating of goodness, and how much I wanted to listen to it (translating into how many plays it got).
If you want to see what albums I seriously considered for this list, look here.
Best dozen releases of 2007
(There are more releases that I wanted to include here. I might need to do an “honorable mentions” post later in the week!)
Four releases that would have made the list but were included in previous lists (in alphabetical order):
Voted most likely to have me kicking myself for not putting it on this best list once I have enough time to sit down and really listen to it:
the Lightning Bug Situation – Message to Myself After Franny was Born (mp3)
[1] This list isn’t the best albums on a global level, just on my personal level. I say “of 2007″ but really it’s “of 2007 when considered in mid-December” and I’m sure if I’d made the same list a month (or even a week) ago or a month (/week) from now, it’d be different. While I try to consider albums fairly subjectively, “best” is also not really on an absolute scale as my expectations of an album effect how I rank them. If I thought an album would be amazing and it’s merely really good it might rank much lower than an album that I thought would be mediocre or bad or didn’t have any expectations of at all and is equivalently really good.
[2] Let’s be honest with ourselves, two new songs doesn’t really make it that much different. And, while we’re really being honest with ourselves, the Month recordings are as good or better than the Broken String ones.
My canuck KZSU radio DJing alter-ego will be returning later this week. It’s been a few months since I’ve been on the air. I have two specials in store for all the listeners.
Wednesday Dec 19 5:00-7:15pm PST will be my Best of 2007 show, playing a couple selections from each of my favorite albums of the year. I always enjoy doing this show because it’s often like a mix of my favorite songs of the year.
Thursday Dec 20 10:30pm-midnight PST will be my 3rd Annual Christmas Extravaganza show featuring the best indie, Motown, classic soul, classic country and other good Christmas songs. If you want to get a feel for the sort of stuff I’ll play, check out my playlists for extraveganza 1 and extraveganza 2.
You can listen at 90.1 MHz FM in the Bay Area or online.
I see Mark Kozelek (unofficial site) of Sun Kil Moon and Red House Painters just about every chance I get. He’s a great guitarist and singer and puts on good shows.
I didn’t rush out to buy ticket to his show at the Palace of Fine arts in April as soon as it was announced though. As soon as I heard that David Bazan was opening, though, I bought tickets. Now that’s a good bill:
4/26 Mark Kozelek, David Bazan @ Palace of Fine Arts, 8pm, $30, a/a
Tickets are available now.
In other Kozelek news, Sun Kil Moon will be releasing a new album April on April 1 on his own Caldo Verde Records. I’m looking forward to it, though I’m hoping it veers (veirs?) more towards Ghost of Great Highway than Tiny Cities.
Kozelek has more tour dates announced for Chapel Hill, Portland and Seattle with the last two also being opened by Bazan. For Bazan’s part he’s got more tour dates in the UK, Norway and Sweden in February.
I missed this the first time around, but I’m glad I found it now–I’m a big time Fionn fan and this is a lovely version of “Hunter’s Map.”
Song obsessions are those songs that we listen to on repeat. I noticed that my obsessions are often a week long. I also thought that other people might have similar obsessions. I’ve collected a panel of a few like-minded individuals and gotten their “song obsessions of the week.” Quite often it’s easy to explain why the song is good; it’s much hard to explain why we’re obsessed. Maybe you’ll become obsessed with one of these.
–
Adrian (me):
J Tillman – Crooked Roof (mp3) (buy)
This is a slow-burner of an obsession for me. No one song got a ton of plays for me this week but this one has gotten as many as any this week plus many more over the last month or so. Like I said this song just destroys me. It’s so beautiful and well-orchestrated that I just want to do nothing else but sit and listen–and I often do as I’ll forget whatever else I’m doing.
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Keith:
Chromeo – You’re so Gangsta (mp3) (buy)
After a lovely evening of snow-shoveling the brain deserves some candy in the form of a funky instrumental. Chromeo’s latest showed how the kitsch meets 80’s retro-funk can become tiresome quick, it trades in the good karma earned from the first full-length. Perhaps they should have held back on the lame lyrics and left some of their choicer beats alone, like they did on this early tune.
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Natalie K:
Two Gallants – The Deader (mp3) (buy)
I think a lot of good songs start off with some version of “So, now let me tell you/’bout this girl of mine.” The emotion in this song is tangible, and it’s still hard for me to believe that there are only two people in this band, given the bigness of their sound.
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Rob:
Over the Rhine – Whatever You Say (mp3) (buy)
Over The Rhine can make some incredibly beautiful music. This song isn’t that, but it’s been stuck in my head regardless due to the fact that it has an interesting melody that is actually pretty easy to sing along with (a surefire way to have me annoying my officemates all week long.) The twangy guitar gives a nice, none-too-serious touch as well.
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Dave:
The Editors – Munich (mp3) (buy)
I know I’ve chosen an Editors song previously, but Munich really snagged me this week. It just puts me in a good mood and gives a boost when I get really tired, in the way only a brit-new-wave-post-punk-dance-rock song can.
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