A Waffle Baker's Dozen
I like the idea of end-of-the-year song lists not because I'm tremendously fond of lists -- I'm not really. It is because I like the idea of sharing notes, and lists accomplish that in a easy and offhand kind of way. Admittedly I no longer consume music the way I used too, the way younger people do: voraciously, competitively encyclopedically. I listen to one or two radio stations while at work and occasionally on weekends, with some ambient tunage leaking in from other media. The radio stations are WFMU from Jersey City New Jersey, and WZBC, Boston College's station, which I've been listening to since high school. Internet listening. The ambient? That would account for Mumford and Sons which I saw on television and heard in grocery stories, but never heard on WFMU (I admit I bought the two hits on iTunes). Or stuff like the Hyundai girl Jessica Frech. Who's ok, but she's no Miranda July. I checked WFMU's firefox artist search tool to see if they play any of Miranda July's things, they do.
My methodology is to try to write down one song per day that interests me in some way, that I don't believe I've heard before or that didn't make an impression on me any previous time. That would be a lot of songs even on just work days of around 220, but I'm getting half that at best. Against these I place a host of asterisks, checks and other mysterious somewhat runic markings, which are a great puzzle to me at the end of the year. Work used to be more seditiously monotonous allowing me to devote myself to listening to the radio and metadata compliant annotation regimes. It is now getting getting thinner, pricklier (the least outsourcable), and by that process distracting and dividing me from music.
In no discernible order:
- This firsrt one is really in the grey area between ambient and intential listening: Ed Schrader's Music Beat Rats (YT) which I had written down in my list, but came to mind most when I heard its refrain wafting across the parking lot one day from the direction of one of U. Maryland's smaller varsity fields.
- Soft Tags Appeal of Alice to the specter of water (Blue House) 2009. They have at least three lps out. They also do a song called Tesla on the Beach which is some sort of Philip Glass reference I think. Plus one called Tamerlane.
- Fireballs. This one is tricky because there are a couple of bands called the Fireballs. One from Melbourne Austrailia in the 1990's; a psychobilly outfit Fireballs (band) - Wikipedia. But it is the original Jimmie Gilmer and the fireballs from Raton New Mexico in the 1960's The Fireballs - Wikipedia, I applaude here for their cover of Codine (Bottle of Wine) 1968, a Buffy St. Marie song. Never heard a bad cover of codine, either you feel it or you don't.
- Bing Ji Ling - Wikipedia
Hold Tight (Shadow to Shine) 2011. Bing Ji Ling is really one Quinn Luke. His stuff is retro-psych R&B. He records for Tommy Touch records
- Birds of Avalon - Wikipedia Shadowy End (Birds of Avalon) 2010.
- Quintron - Wikipedia Mysterious Rangers also Facedown in the Gutter (Sucre du Savage) 2011 reminded me of "Of Montreal" liked it one Guy Robert Rolston aka Mr. Quintron.
- Apache Dropout | Apache Dropout Teenager (Apache Dropout) 2011. Eternal Return of the Garage band. Not a bad song in their bunch. The website is Bandcamp, the Etsy of indie rock, which seems to be moving up on the attraction myspace has traditionally held in the Mu-sphere.
- Bill Callahan (musician) - Wikipedia Lapse (Stroke - Songs for Chris Knox) 2009. I wrote this one down as "I Remember" a repeated line in the song, but its actually called Lapse. Chris Knox is a well known indie rock figure from New Zealand. Callahan grew up mostly in Britain, but is from Silver Spring Md (where I reside). Also does a song called Faith/Void which doesn't sound anything like the Faith/Void Lp from Dischord, more in a Nick Drake/Go Betweens mode. He records for Drag City and lives in Austin Texas.
- Roky Erickson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Unforced Peace (You're gonna miss me) 2007. Accoustic, recorded in a mental hospital when his mother brought in a guitar and tape recorder. Not released officially until a few years ago. It is a transcendent song.
- I hear your heart singing (live) - YouTube: (Larger than Live) 2008 This is part of of an extensive set of recordings discoverable on YouTube I had never heard from my favorite band of the 80's, the Gun Club. Like Roky Gun club singer/writer is from Texas orginally. Outside of the early ep Death Party which I could never find, the songs I've been listening to are the Lps Pastoral Hide and Seek, Divinity, and Lucky Jim. These were recorded in the nineties when they moved to europe and I lost track of the band. I picked this song becase it contains the line
Moonfish casts it's eye on you, while you oversleep. My top dozen or so listens of the year."Sorrow Knows" off of "Divinity is another song which is simply in its own sublime category.
- Cobra Killer | Free Music, Tour Dates, Photos, Videos
-- Cobra Killer - Wikipedia Helicopter 666 Despite having looked over both their myspace and wikipedia page I'm not sure when Helicopter 666 dates from, presumably the early oughts. The band is/was two wacky Germans Gina V. D'Orio and Annika Trost.
- Lykke Li - Silent My Song on the Late Show with David Letterman 11-17-11 - YouTube (Wounded Rhymes) 2011. This one gets on the list because of the great difference between hearing of Lykke Li and hearing/seeing Lykke Li
- Asobi Seksu | Free Music, Tour Dates, Photos, Videos
-- Asobi Seksu - Wikipedia I'm Happy but you don't like me (Asobi Seksu) 2004. Band consists of Yuki Chikudate
and James Hanna with Larry Gorman on drums when they need him. Early stuff like this song was power pop in an 80's indie kind of way. Their newer stuff is dream pop (as they call it), often fairly hypno-trancey for that.
- Last not least Art Interface Secretaries from Heaven Someone played this song this year, which I don't think i've heard since 1984. It's not on YouTube but seemingly is on LastFM. Nothing like an early eighties synth-alt earworm to zombify your day.
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