largehearted boy: a music and literature blog

August 28, 2008

Book Notes - Mathew Honan ("Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle")

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that is in some way relevant to their recently published books.

With Senator Barack Obama set to accept the Democratic party's presidential nomination tonight in Denver, my morning reading today consisted of Mathew Honan's Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle: 366 Ways He Really Cares. Though the book is a humorous list of simple fictional kindnesses the Illinois senator has performed for us, it can be seen to embody the vast opportunity for both change and hope his candidacy entails.

In his own words, here is Mathew Honan's Book Notes essay for his book, Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle: 366 Ways He Really Cares:

When I wrote Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle, I was nearly constantly listening to music, in the sunlit garden behind Mojo Bicycle Cafe in San Francisco. For the most part, I just hit shuffle on my iPod and let it do all the DJing for me. But I also sought out certain songs to listen to again and again for inspiration during the time I worked on the book. Moreover, the book itself is riddled with musical references--some direct nods to artists and others to more generic themes--tuning guitars, mixtapes, mp3s, and the like. And I think that's because the book is obviously a reflection of the author, and music has always played a very large role in my life, from my early childhood when I used to sit on the floor of my bedroom listening to my parents' Beatles cassettes in my little red Panasonic tape player, through piano and then guitar lessons as a boy and teenager, and on into bands and concerts and an endless procession of pop that's marked my adulthood. While it would be impossible for me to re-create the playlist I was listening to when I wrote the book, I think the ten tracks below might at least re-create that mood.

Immortal Technique feat. Mos Def - Bin Laden

While I don't think this is a sentiment that Barack Obama would likely share, I'm kicking things off with a track that speaks to the frustrations, fears and resentments many Americans have felt since the onset of the war in Iraq. While I don't share the stronger opinions expressed in this song, the pure rage -- calculated or not -- is a real and potent political force today. What I think Obama has done is help those people feeling this kind of rage and frustration to find a positive and constructive path to victory, rather than wallow in the dark vision this song expresses. I doubt, however, that it would be included when "Barack Obama put a thought-provoking mix of obscure hip hop on his Muxtape."

Sweetie - Saturdays

Not only did Sweetie's lead singer, Omar Lee, illustrate Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle, but it was a conversation I had with Sweetie's bassist Andre Torrez that was directly responsible for launching the site in the first place. Andre was the first person--aside from my wife--who I made the "new bicycle" joke to, and and of course his site c-o-l-o-r.net served as the inspiration for much of the functionality of barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com.

Talib Kweli - Say Something

I was listening to a lot of Talib Kweli when I wrote the book. As a writer, I've always found his use of language inspirational. As a listener, I find myself moved by his delivery. While this isn't my favorite Talib track, it scores with the line "Speak to the people like Barak Obama." Oh, and Jean Grae makes an appearance too. How can you top that?

Pink Floyd - Bike

Perhaps no other song is more apt when talking about the site or book or the entire meme than Pink Floyd's classic "Bike." It's non-sequiter city, happily goofy, and in the end utterly optimistic and full of hope. This has been one of my favorite songs since I was in high school, and even now 20 years after I first heard it, it still makes me smile. I'd give it to you if I could, but I borrowed it.

The Clash - London Calling

Another track that makes an appearance in the book, I think Barack Obama is a candidate Joe Strummer would have approved of. (And I likewise wouldn't be surprised to find out Obama is a fan of The Clash.)

David Bowie - Panic in Detroit

My favorite piece of art in the book--and all of them are great, Omar Lee did a real bang-up job--is one illustrating how Obama turned you on to Bowie's work in the 70s. And if you haven't actually ever been into the stuff between Ziggy and, say, China Doll, Panic in Detroit is a good introduction.

Vampire Weekend - The Kids Don't Stand a Chance

One of the things I tried to do with the Website and book was to drop in a lot of contemporary references--hence the namechecks of Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed and the like. But I also tried to include pop culture references. One of these was to Vampire Weekend. At the time of writing the book, there was something of a critical kerfuffle over the band. They were one of those bands that had a reactionary backlash before their album even dropped. But since the Barack Obama featured in my book (though not the actual candidate himself) is all things to all people, "Barack Obama shares your opinion of Vampire Weekend."

Nas - Black President (video)

I don't think it matters that Barack Obama is black. He transcends race, seeming to rise above it, as if the color of his skin were no more of an issue than the, well, the color of his eyes. But on the other hand, it's completely unavoidable, and to not recognize that is foolish. It will be a reason many people don't vote for Obama, and a reason for many others to do so. And at the end of this long campaign, if we do pay attention to it, and he does succeed, maybe, finally, race will cease to be an issue. "Yes we can, change the world."

The Smiths - How Soon is Now?
The Smiths make a cameo appearance in the book--or rather, Barack Obama makes an appearance wearing a Meat is Murder T-shirt in the book. Though "How Soon is Now" was only on a UK edition of Meat is Murder, it seemed an apt choice for this playlist, both because of the lyrics below, and the somewhat famous poster.

When you say it's gonna happen now,
Well, when exactly do you mean?
See I've already waited too long
And all my hope is gone

Yes We Can - will.i.am
Yeah, you got tired of this. But it's been a while. Go back and check it out again. The speech itself is just beautiful, revealing much about the man who delivered it. Yes we can.

Mathew Honan and Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle links:

Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle website
the author's website

Boston Phoenix profile of the author
Internet Superstar interview with the author
Mother Jones interview with the author

also at Largehearted Boy:

Previous Book Notes submissions (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Why Obama (musician and author essays in favor of Barack Obama's bid for the US presidency)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
directors and actors discuss their film's soundtracks
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2008 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2007 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2006 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2005 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2004 Edition)

tags: books music literature nonfiction barackobama obama

Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)

August 28, 2008

Shorties

Liz Phair talks to the Washington Post's Express about her seminal album, Exile in Guyville.

It used to be that "when I listened to 'Guyville,' I got angry — it reminded me of things I'd done I wished I hadn't or the person I was I wish I hadn't been. Much the same way a drunk in recovery faces up to the person that they've been." And now? "Part of what the re-release does is allow me to celebrate it along with everyone else. And to reclaim it, to some extent."

The Los Angeles Times' Jacket Copy blog collects stories (and photos) of favorite autographed books.

Carl Newman of the New Pornographers talks to the Georgia Straight.

On recent rock fantasies come true: “When we played New York last October, Gord Gano came up and we did a Violent Femmes song with him, which was just as good [as playing with Ray Davies of the Kinks], because they’re both very iconic musicians in my head. In fact, as much as I love the Kinks, I don’t think anything they did ever hit me as hard as the first Violent Femmes album. It’s one of the best rock ’n’ roll albums ever made.”

The Washington Post's Express profiles Chapel Hill's Bellafea.

Much of the intensity radiates from guitarist, singer and tiny whirlwind Heather McEntire. Her coiled ferocity evokes old-school Polly Harvey — minus the theater, heavy on American indie directness. She's well matched by drummer Nathan Buchanan and bassist Eddie Sanchez.

Locus Magazine interviews author Michael Chabon.

“A standard view of literary critics is that plot is an inherent weakness. That's a vestigial holdover from the Modernist movement in the early part of the 20th century, where painting abandoned figuration, music abandoned harmony, poetry abandoned meter, and to a certain degree fiction abandoned plot. Plot in fiction had become fairly conventionalized, and it probably did feel like something that needed to be loosened up, reexamined, questioned, challenged. I think plot, unchecked, does weaken the power of a work of fiction. If a novel is overly in service to its plot, there's always a diminishment of character and psychology. Plot and character are in an inverse proportional relationship to each other, for the most part. In my own work, I try to find a balance point. Some of Henry James' work is finely plotted. I think Turn of the Screw is his most perfect book, and it does find that balance: character is illuminated by the plot in an ideal way that we could all aspire to.”

The Wall Street Journal profiles Inara George and Van Dyke Parks and their exquisite musical collaboration, The Invitation.

As pleasurable as "An Invitation" is on a first listen, it's an album that gets better in time as the interplay between Ms. George's voice and Mr. Parks's work continues to reveal itself. The orchestra neither distracts nor intrudes, but it is undeniably present -- not so much as pillowy clouds under her voice, but as soap bubbles that dart and dance around her.

Music Think Tank examines the "futility of flogging music."

SEE Magazine reviews Blake Bell's biography and career retrospective of cartoonist Steve Ditko, Strange and Stranger (one of the most fascinating books I have read all year).

In Strange and Stranger, Bell takes an objective long view of an influential comic artist who was determined to define right and wrong for us whether we liked it or not. Lavishly illustrated with images created by Ditko (as well as several illustrators who were influenced by him), Strange and Stranger deserves a place alongside such other must-have history books as Arlen Schumer’s The Silver Age of Comics and Marvel’s typically self-hyping Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics — and, of course, the comics themselves. Throw in Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay for good measure and you’re set.

Radiohead Not For Profit is sharing mp3s of Radiohead's August 4th Cuyahoga Falls performance.

New York Magazine's Vulture blog features an exclusive excerpt from Stephen Davis's new book, Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N'Roses.

IGN lists the top 10 hair metal guitar gods.

RIP Steve Foley, drummer on the Replacements' last tours.

The Frisky lists 15 female empowerment breakup songs.

The Scotsman lists unlikely musical collaborations.

Michael Bolton and Bob Dylan

Truly a collaboration of the sublime and the ridiculous, as Bob Dylan teamed up with Michael Bolton to write the song Steel Bars which appeared on Bolton's 1991 album Time, Love, and Tenderness. Bolton said he was "awed" by Dylan's decision to work with him. The rest of us were simply stunned.

Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft talks to USA Today about the band's new album, Forth.

"I called the band back together simply for the joy of making music," says lead singer Richard Ashcroft, speaking over the sound of a rooster crowing from his home in Gloucestershire, England. "I don't think The Verve should be something we just kill off. Let's breathe some life into it."

The Seattle Times previews the literary lineup at this weekend's Bumbershoot music and arts festival.

Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever lists ten truly underrated sci-fi movies.

The Miami New Times profiles My Moring Jacket.

So maybe Jim James is a new kind of rock star, one blessed with a postmodern self-awareness and the sense of humor you'd expect from a guy who lists Rushmore as his favorite film, Dave Eggers and Haruki Murakami as his favorite contemporary writers, and The Muppet Show as one of his earliest musical inspirations. It's this amiable goofiness that shines live, in the form of nonsensical asides about "Careless Whisper" really being about bananas. It's the band's weird wardrobe. It's the nearly childlike thrill James seems to get from performing.

At Conversational Reading, Josh Henkin lists "ten terrific novels about writers, writing, and the writing life."

Educhoices.org lists 25 places to read free books online.

SongBlitz is an online game that etsts your music memory.

NPR's Karen Grigsby Bates lists books to read as summer winds down.

The Electric Politics podcast offers an audio interview with cartoonist R. Crumb.

also at Largehearted Boy:

daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
this week's CD releases

tags: music books popculture indie news

Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)

Daily Downloads (Land of Talk, Grampall Jookabox Free EP, and more)

Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:

The Antlers: "Two" [mp3] from Hospice
other Antlers posts at Largehearted Boy

The Born Again Floozies: "We Got The Power (Love Letter From America)" [mp3] from Street Music (out September 2nd)
other Born Again Floozies posts at Largehearted Boy

Colourmusic: "Put in a Little Gas" [mp3] from
other Colourmusic posts at Largehearted Boy

Grampall Jookabox: free and legal Rill Bruh EP download [mp3]
"Peace Attack" [mp3]
other Grampall Jookabox posts at Largehearted Boy

I Heart Lungs: free and legal Interoceans Remixed album [mp3]
other I Heart Lungs posts at Largehearted Boy

Koushik: "Bright and Shining" [mp3] from Out My Window (out September 30th)
other Koushik posts at Largehearted Boy

Land of Talk: "Some Are Lakes" [mp3] from Some Are Lakes (out October 7th)
other Land of Talk posts at Largehearted Boy

Spinto Band: "Summer Grof" [mp3] from Moonwink (out October 7th)
other Spinto Band posts at Largehearted Boy

The Strange Boys: "Now They're Building the Death Camps (live at KVRX)" [mp3]
other Strange Boys posts at Largehearted Boy

Today's free and legal recordings of live shows, rarities, and demos available via bittorrent:

Bob Dylan: 2008-08-23, Elizabeth [flac]*
Bob Dylan: 1991-04-23, Atlanta [flac]*
other Bob Dylan posts at Largehearted Boy

Bruce Springsteen: 2008-08-24, Kansas City [flac]*
other Bruce Springsteen posts at Largehearted Boy

The Hold Steady: 2008-08-13, Norfolk [flac]
other Hold Steady posts at Largehearted Boy

Jeff Tweedy: 2003-01-03, Chicago [flac]*
other Jeff Tweedy posts at Largehearted Boy

Jim James: 2008-08-02, Newport [flac]
other Jim James posts at Largehearted Boy

Liars: 2008-08-25, Hollywood [flac]*
other Liars posts at Largehearted Boy

Radiohead: 2008-08-20, Auburn [flac]
other Radiohead posts at Largehearted Boy

Saudi Arabia: free and legal $200,000 album download [mp3]
other Steve Earle posts at Largehearted Boy

*registration required

also at Largehearted Boy:

previous mp3 and bittorrent downloads

2008 Lollapalooza downloads
2008 Bonnaroo downloads
2008 Coachella music downloads
2008 SXSW music downloads and streams
2007 Austin City Limits Music Festival downloads
other music festival downloads

Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and album streams from weekly CD releases)
weekly CD release lists

tags: music download indie mp3 bittorrent

Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)

August 27, 2008

Book Notes - Susannah Felts ("This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record")

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that is in some way relevant to their recently published books.

Of all the books I have recommended to friends and family over the past year, none has been as universally enjoyed as Susannah Felts' debut novel, This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record. From young teens to grandparents, the readers' responses have been unanimously positive. Though published as a young adult novel, This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record can be appreciated by adults as well. The coming of age story is told through Felts' always sharp prose, and examines the true meaning of friendship through the rollercoaster of high school life.

Author Joe Meno wrote of the book:

"This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record is an incredibly intimate, thoughtfully written novel, a kind of snapshot album rendered in glimmering prose, one perfect record of the daydreams and nightmares of everyone’s years in high school."

In her own words, here is Susannah Felts' Book Notes essay for her debut novel, This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record:

Two facts about this book, to start. Fact one: One of the cover designs considered for This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record featured a cassette with the tape spooling out to form the title, much as the film does on the cover we chose. Fact two: The title is snipped from the Violent Femmes’ lyrics for “Kiss Off.”

So you might deduce from these facts that music is significant in this book, and you would be correct. I’m not sure I could write anything about teenagers without music being significant. I still feel pretty teen-age sometimes, and I still cling to music the way I did when I was in high school, although I don’t go around wearing headphones nearly as much (back then, one schoolmate started calling me “naked” when he saw me without them). I still get the urge to make mixes for people so they will know who I am and so I can maybe make them like me or at least think I’m cool. God help me, I sometimes still think about life in terms of categories like “lame” and “cool.” I want to know which bands the people whose opinions I respect are listening to. I occasionally judge people for liking music I think is lame. I liked a lot of music in high school that I now dislike and think of as decidedly lame, and I started liking music then that I still think is not lame. I also like music that I know is lame.

All of which may be something to get over, sure. Forgive me, I grew up in the boondocks outside Nashville, Tennessee, with my alarm clock set to the classic rock station; I have baggage. Case in point: Recently I downloaded “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” by Elvin Bishop and proceeded to listen to it repeatedly for days. It’s on my iTunes now, waiting for one of my many sappy and regressive moments. I listen to it and I picture drunk, lonely men and women pawing at each other at last call in small dank bars across America, while some other drunk, lonely men swagger through another game of pool, and everyone smokes. This image satisfies me. Is that because I am it makes me feel cooler, better than one of those sad men and women? Or because I feel a secret kinship with them? I am not sure.

I digress. (Classic rock will do that to you. Beware.) Despite all the truth-talk above about my own adolescence, TWGDOYPR is not the thinly veiled autobiography that some reviewers and readers have taken it for. With that in mind, here’s my real experience some twenty-plus years ago (yikes) of these songs versus their use in the book.

“On the Beach,” “Summertime Rolls,” and “Ocean Size,” Jane’s Addiction

When I visualize the cover of Jane’s Addiction’s Nothing Shocking, one of those albums that definitely Changed My Life, I see myself staring it while seated in my mom’s gray (with faux wood detailing) Dodge Caravan. Mom was driving and I think we were near Rivergate Mall. To reiterate: Me, age 15, in my mom’s minivan outside the mall, staring at that pic of the naked Siamese twin chicks with heads on fire, alone and absorbed in my fascination, with mom in the next seat over. Pretty much says it all. I must have stared at that tape insert for untold cumulative hours, but this is the moment that stuck. Sometimes you wonder why certain moments in time inexplicably stick while so much else is lost. In this case, it makes perfect sense.

In TWGDOYPR, Vaughn—our timid, camera-wielding, good-girl-dabbling-in-bad narrator—gives a CD of Nothing’s Shocking to her wild friend Sophie, to replace Sophie’s old cassette copy. The girls listen to “Summertime Rolls” on Sophie’s new boombox at, you guessed it, the start of a summer night. Naturally, transgression lurks in the hours to come.

“Ocean Size” is pure rage. They cannot move you, man, no one tries. Is there any more fitting quote for an angst-addled teen locked in her bedroom with the stereo cranked and nowhere else to escape to? There is not. And “On the Beach”? This song is either what you want to hear when you smoke pot, or when you lay on your bedroom floor with your ear next to the stereo speaker and wish you knew how it felt to smoke pot.

“No New Tale to Tell,” Love and Rockets

My first serious boyfriend had a very hot best friend who had a long string of girlfriends. One lasted a little longer than the others—she really had him snared. I can’t remember her name, I only met her a few times, but she had huge sexy eyes and heavy bangs; maybe she looked like Cat Power. Maybe she was Cat Power. She fascinated me, which meant that I was nearly mute in her presence. The four of us went out one night and she drove us in her little white Datsun. Love and Rockets was in the tape deck. I associate this song with barreling around an interstate clover exchange, the centrifugal force pushing me against the car door, and as the little car trembled and hurled forth I was more afraid of and awed by that girl than ever.

In TWGDOYPR, Vaughn does something naughty while this song is playing at a house party. Something naughtier than I ever would’ve done in high school. I think I chose this song for the scene because, ever since that night in the little white car, the song has held a trace of incipient danger for me, crystallized in the looping, cascading violin notes at the end. The lyrics—People like to hear their names / I’m no exception / Please call my name—resonate with Vaughn’s attraction to photography and her difficult friendship with Sophie, too.

“Where Eagles Dare,” Misfits

One of my best friends in high school was obsessed with the Misfits. He had hundreds of dollars’ worth of Misfits singles and other paraphernalia, a sum that very much impressed me, as I didn’t have hundreds of dollars’ worth of anything that I’d bought for myself. He didn’t drink and he didn’t smoke; he was a sweet Jewish kid who drove a sweet little standard-shift red Jetta (the super-boxy ones they used to make back before Jettas became sorority girl cars), and I can still hear him singing: Mommy, can I go out and kill tonight. “Wait—just listen to this part!” he’d say, grinning enormously at you while you dutifully listened a little closer to whatever five seconds of a given song really got him going. Eventually he sold all the Misfits stuff, and in college he found a new obsession: Phish, and Phish concert bootlegs. The objects of affection may change; the impulse remains.

In TWGDOYPR, several characters are into the Misfits—but they’re the recognizable type, the ones who, even today, might pin trademark skull patches on their black hoodies. It occurs to me now that my old friend, the most unlikely Misfits fan, is really the more interesting character. I should have put him in the book. What can I say? Fiction indeed. Maybe I’ll put him in the next book. Anyway, Sophie sings along with this song—I ain’t no goddamn son of a bitch! You better think about it, baby!—while she and Vaughn are waiting for Sophie’s friend Jotham, who wears an honest-to-goodness devil-lock, to buy cigarettes at the Mapco.

Anything from Reckoning, Life’s Rich Pageant, Murmur or Fables of the Reconstruction, REM

OK, here’s some common ground between me and Vaughn. She’s an REM fanatic, I was an REM fanatic. Against my better judgment, I will tell you that there exists, buried in the files, a black-and-white self-portrait of yours truly sitting underneath an REM poster in her bedroom, eyes tilted lovingly upward at Michael Stipe. Dramatic lighting and all. Can I change the subject? REM was such a perfect band back then. I always hated that I didn’t catch on to them sooner; like, I missed my chance to see them play the Exit/In in Nashville in the mid-80s (by the time I caught on, they were well into arena shows). Still, they were there when I needed them. I may often feel teen-age, but I don’t think I can feel that way about a band again.

“Add It Up” and “Kiss Off,” Violent Femmes

I wish I could remember how young me found out about the Femmes. I want someone to thank, because I could thank him or her now. I had no idea what that little girl on the cover of the self-titled album was doing there, but I knew this music was like nothing else I’d listened to before, and it paved the way for many more horizon-stretching finds in the cassette aisles at Tower Records, where I idled away no small tally of hours during high school. Now the Violent Femmes are featured in a Wendy’s commercial, where their lyrics seem a great deal less logical than they do as repurposed for the title of this book. I guess that’s how the kids like it now: all that crazy random juxtaposition and shit, and who cares if it’s all to sell burgers, because everything is selling something, right? I wonder what the Violent Femmes think about their music—the infamous celebration of masturbation, no less—ending up as the soundtrack for burger-hawking more than twenty years after its release. I wonder if they’ve made a boatload of money from said use, and if they have, more power to them. I have nothing to offer but a sincere merci, dearest Violent Femmes: your lyric fits snugly with my story on no less than three levels of meaning. Please do not come after me and demand money, because, unlike that perpetually youthful Wendy, I have none.

While “Kiss Off” gave me my title but never appears in the narrative, “Add it Up” was there from the first draft. Sophie dances around Vaughn’s kitchen to it when they are just beginning to be friends. I would love to tell you that I had a friend who delivered the Femmes, and herself, to me in just this way. I did not. Unless I’ve forgotten entirely. Which is a possibility.

Susannah Felts and This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record links:

the author's website
the author's MySpace page
the book's page at the publisher
excerpt from the book

Birmingham Magazine review
The Book Muncher review
Enfuse review
Everyday Yeah review
Nashville Scene review
Switchback Books review
The Ya Ya Yas review
Young Adult Books Central review

carp(e) libris interview with the author
Timetable interview with the author
Venus Zine interview with the author
What to Wear During an Orange Alert? interview with the author

also at Largehearted Boy:

Previous Book Notes submissions (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
directors and actors discuss their film's soundtracks
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2008 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2007 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2006 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2005 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2004 Edition)

tags: books music fiction ya youngadult

Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)

Shorties

Aimee Mann talks to Greg Kot's Turn It Up blog.

“I spend a lot of time on computers, but I’m not a huge fan of what they provide,” she says. “They have taken away from us, in a way. It has made available so much entertainment that people are constantly distracted. MySpace and Facebook gave hope to everyone who ever owned a guitar and some kind of recording device. Their music is now available and fighting to get noticed along with everybody else’s. There are millions of singers and songwriters and bands, and when there is too much choice my reaction is I don’t know what to listen to. So my choice is not to listen to anything.”

The Guardian's music blog notes the importance of a good bass player to a band.

Liz Phair talks to the Boston Herald about her early success.

“You’ve got to remember I went from zero to famous and I had no experience,” she said. “All of a sudden I was the (expletive) queen across the nation. I was not prepared for that.”

Paste interviews John Convertino of Calexico about the band's new album, Carried To Dust.

Pattern Is Movement lists some of its favorite things at Pitchfork.

ReadWriteWeb discusses the future of online music.

PopMatters interviews author Owen King about superhero fiction.

As superhero texts are becoming more mainstream (see: The Dark Knight), how do you think that superhero fiction will respond?

The people who love those genres are getting tougher and tougher to please. If something is cheesy, they will call it out. They are coming to expect more and more. The technical expertise, the cinematic expertise you will see in the new Batman, it’s going to raise the bar all over the place.

Pitchfork reviews James Lavino's soundtrack to the film, Woodpecker.

The record conjures the magical feeling of the forest, the coolness of stream-cooled tree shade, the peaceful sensation of walking on pine needles. The music more resembles a hummingbird than a woodpecker: It lightly hovers and flits. The tone is established from the start-- "The Thing With Feathers", a synthesized dirge that evokes woodwinds, with dreamy acoustic guitar chords rolling through-- and remains unbroken through the twittering chimes, house backbeat, and Spanish guitar of closing track "The Bird Suit".

The Associated Press profiles Vincent Moon and his indie rock video series, the Take-Away Shows.

The New Yorker features new short fiction by Janet Frame.

The Guardian profiles Bandstocks, a service that will let individuals invest in musicians' careers.

Investors will get a copy of the album, a credit on the CD sleeve and a percentage of the profits from its sale and licensing. They will also get priority ticket booking and the opportunity to buy limited edition releases. For the artist, founder Andrew Lewis claimed that Bandstocks would offer a better return than a major-label deal, as well as more freedom and control over copyright.

Wired's Listening Post offers options for sharing online mixtapes now that Muxtape has been shut down.

New Raleigh notes that Ryan Adams will publish a book of prose through Akashic Books.

Chris Chu of the Morning Benders talks about the band's surprising success with the San Jose Mercury News.

Wired's Listening Post interviews the founder of the online mixtape streamer, 8tracks.

The Village Voice reviews Paul Auster's new novel, Man in the Dark.

Tenderness yoked to violence, literary experiment without irony—Paul Auster has outdone himself, perhaps precisely by not trying to outdo anything.

John Cook's Venture Blog examines Amazon's recent purchase of Shelfari.

Drowned in Sound gets reactions to the Leeds and Reading festivals from the participating bands.

TuneFad.com predicts music you will like and dislike based on your input.

Drowned in Sound interviews Foals' Yannis Philippakis.

NPR's Morning Edition interviews Beck.

also at Largehearted Boy:

daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
this week's CD releases

tags: music books popculture indie news

Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)

Daily Downloads (Anni Rossi, Woodhands, and more)

Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:

Alan Cohen Experience: "Elephant" [mp3] from Alan Cohen Experience (out November 4th)
Alan Cohen Experience: "Space Watch" [mp3] from Alan Cohen Experience (out November 4th)
other Alan Cohen Experienc posts at Largehearted Boy

Anni Rossi: "Wheelpusher" [mp3] from Afton (out October 21st)
other Anni Rossi posts at Largehearted Boy

The Peth: "Let's Go F*cking Mental" [mp3] from The Golden Mile
other Peth posts at Largehearted Boy

Sonya Kitchell: "For Every Drop" [mp3] from This Storm (out September 2nd)
other Sonya Kitchell posts at Largehearted Boy

The Stolen Minks: "Viola Desmond" [mp3] from High Kicks (out September 16th)
The Stolen Minks: "Consecutives" [mp3] from High Kicks (out September 16th)
The Stolen Minks: "Reflexes" [mp3] from High Kicks (out September 16th)
other Stolen Minks posts at Largehearted Boy

War Tapes: "Always Falling" [mp3] from War Tapes (out September 16th)
other War Tapes posts at Largehearted Boy

Woodhands: "I Wasn't Made for Fighting" [mp3] from Heart Attack
other Woodhands posts at Largehearted Boy

Today's free and legal recordings of live shows, rarities, and demos available via bittorrent:

Bob Hund: 2008-07-06, Roskilde Festival [flac]*
other Bob Hund posts at Largehearted Boy

Bruce Springsteen: 2008-08-23, St. Louis [flac]*
Bruce Springsteen: 2008-08-19, Hershey [flac]*
other Bruce Springsteen posts at Largehearted Boy

Leonard Cohen: 2008-07-06, Aarhus [flac]*
other Leonard Cohen posts at Largehearted Boy

Patti Smith: 2008-08-24, New York [flac]*
other Patti Smith posts at Largehearted Boy

Radiohead: 2008-08-25, Los Angeles [flac]*
Radiohead: 2008-08-24, Los Angeles [flac]*
other Radiohead posts at Largehearted Boy

REM: 2008-08-19, Stuttgart [flac]*
other REM posts at Largehearted Boy

Richard Thompson: 2008-08-24, Shrewsbury [flac]*
other Richard Thompson posts at Largehearted Boy

Steve Earle: 2008-08-17, Saratoga [flac]*
other Steve Earle posts at Largehearted Boy

*registration required

also at Largehearted Boy:

previous mp3 and bittorrent downloads

Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and album streams from weekly CD releases)
weekly CD release lists

tags: music download indie mp3 bittorrent

Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)

August 26, 2008

Try It Before You Buy It (August 26th Music Releases)

Try It Before You Buy It features free and legal music downloads and full album streams from the week's music releases.

MP3 downloads and full album streams from music released this week:

Backyard Tire Fire: The Places We Lived
full album stream
"The Places We Lived" [mp3]

Cordero: De Donde Eres
"Guardasecretos" [mp3]
"Ruleta Rusa" [mp3]

Delta Spirit: Ode to Sunshine
full album stream

Electric Touch: Electric Touch
"Who Put the Fire Out" [mp3]

The Gabe Dixon Band: The Gabe Dixon Band
full album stream

Jonatha Brooke: The Works
full album stream
"There's More True Lovers Than One" [mp3]

Matthew Sweet: Sunshine Lies
full album stream

The Silent Years: The Globe
full album stream
"The Black Hole" [mp3]

System and Station: A Nation of Actors
full album stream

Valencia: We All Need a Reason
full album stream

The Verve: Forth
full album stream

Woven: Designer Codes
"She Blows My Amplifier" [mp3]
"Prickly Pear" [mp3]

also at Largehearted Boy:

previous Try It Before You Buy It lists
CD & DVD release lists

tags: music cd list indie album releases mp3 download

Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)

Shorties

The Guardian reports that Led Zeppelin is working on new material.

Den of Geek lists 10 geek books that have yet to be a decent film.

The Omaha World-Herald wonders if Omaha is losing its cool.

Losing its reputation as an indie capital would hurt more than Omaha's cool factor, said Kirsten Case-Penrod of the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce. A Saddle Creek demise, Case-Penrod said, would likely weaken the arts community as a whole. That would in turn weaken the recruitment and retention of young professionals, many of whom tell chamber officials that the arts and music scene is one of the Omaha's most appealing features.

The World-Herald also examines the signature sounds of American cities.

Elbow's Guy Garvey talks to The Seldom Seen Kid.

In the Jungle lists 16 websites where you can promote your music.

Opentape is open source software to easily upload and share mixtapes.

All Music, All Blogs lists many music blogs of assorted genres.

The Bay Bridged interviews singer-songwriter Goh Nakamura.

BB: How important has the internet been to your career?

GN: It’s been crucial. Around 2002 I started posting the songs from my first album to a totally ghetto webpage I threw together, just hoping someone would find it by accident and download it and dig it. I wasn’t even thinking of selling it, or releasing it on a mass scale. It was more of a message in a bottle in hopes of connecting with someone, any kindred spirit just surfing around who might be doing the same thing. Luckily, I started to meet some bloggers through mutual friends, and they started to link and blog about me, which was really nice of them. Then, last year I had a music video featured on the Youtube homepage directed and conceived by my friend Dino Ignacio. The response was incredible, I was getting messages from all over the world… it was like a virtual tour.

The Los Angeles Times' Soundboard blog interviews Fox News correspondent (and music blogger) Howard Wolfson.

How has the traffic and feedback been so far for Gotham Acme?

Traffic has been decent, and I've had good feedback. It’s funny, I’ve gotten a number of e-mails from people who say, "I saw you on TV during the campaign. I’m a big Obama supporter and didn’t appreciate what you were saying, but I like your taste in music and I’m going to read your blog.”

Threadless is holding a "2 Cool 4 School" sale, all t-shirts are on sale for $12.

Drowned in Sound profiles Bowerbirds.

On paper, Bowerbirds may be one of the most picture-perfect twee-as-folk indie bands around. They’re made up of Phil Moore (guitar and vocals), Beth Tacular (accordion and vocals) and Mark Paulson (violin, piano and vocals). They’re named after an Australian species of which the male lures females by building a spectacularly decorated nest adorned with blue flowers, shells and stones.

Pitchfork has news of a new tour EP from the Mountain Goats.

also at Largehearted Boy:

daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
this week's CD releases

tags: music books popculture indie news

Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)