I know I recently included “Shankill Butchers” in my Halloween song list, but November (and December, of course) are the time of year I like to listen to The Decemberists. I saw them in concert in November last year and it was a most excellent show. I love the dark fairytale like quality to their songs. I love how the lyrics are timeless… or at least not necessarily of this day and age. I love that they tell stories or bits of stories in each song, capturing the emotion of the situation.
I know many of the die hard fans argued that The Crane Wife is not as good as previous albums, but I’ve listened over and over, and I’d have to say if you get only one, The Crane Wife is the one to get. It has a nice blend of all The Decemberists have to offer too. “Accessible” and radio friendly songs like “Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)” (featuring Laura Veirs), and “O Valencia!”, the dark storytelling of “Shankill Butchers”, and then lighter, quirkier, tales wrought with emotions of a time without electronics and computers in “The Crane Wife 1 & 2 & 3″ and “Sons & Daughters”. If after one listen you do not fall in love with at least one of the songs, then The Decemberists are not for you. If they do tickle your fancy then I implore that you explore!
Here are my 5 favorites from the album, with “O Valencia!” being my favorite.
A couple of you may have noticed I did not write this post in the morning as usual, but rather at night. My corporate overlords have decided to “help me” by providing my team with “resources from India”. Part of my job now is to teach them my job, which also means I will be less productive in my job. I am of the belief this is the beginning of the end for my current job but I have no choice. To facilitate this change I will be going to work in the early morning. I am excited about the prospect of seeing sunlight during the winter months by getting to leave work early but it is bittersweet. Perhaps if I am really successful in the transition of knowledge I will be laid off and then be able to see sunlight all day! Or perhaps because of this post I will be laid off much like Dooce and my blog will sustain me. However, given I have earned about $0.24 in referrals to Amazon after 7 months, perhaps I should fill out that application for food stamps now. I am tempted to simply refer to my Indian counter parts as “my replacements” at work in front of my boss and my boss’ boss. Spiteful? Perhaps. Funny. Definitely!
Yum! Food stamps here I come! I do like a plate of beans and rice!
Anyway, you can expect my songs of the day to be coming to you at night instead of during the day for the foreseeable future. I know all my regular readers may be put out by this… all one of you… but be strong, you and I, we will survive! On the plus side I am far more verbose and hopefully quippy in the evenings when I’m all awake fat and happy. (In the mornings I am just fat.) I can’t tell you how many times in the morning I have spent 15 minutes writing 2 sentences and literally said “crap” out loud. As I reread all I have written tonight it does all still have a “blah blah blah” quality to it. I am just not a writer I guess. Perhaps I should quit this blogging thing and go be a real DJ. Would you be sad? Would I be sad? Would my future radio listeners be sad when they hear be blabbing? Inquiring minds want to know!!!
Moving on…
So I’ve been listening to the Fleet Foxes’ album, also named “Fleet Foxes”, over and over this week. At first it just seemed like some nice chill background music, but now I am hooked. I want more, like zombies want more brains to eat. I am saddened that it is the only album, and yet overjoyed that there are additional songs by them I have yet to hear from the extended versions and the singles. The Fleet Foxes are good and I must share them with you. This song is one of the better ones I think, but the album is very solid and likely to appear on my “Must Own Albums” list in the not so distant future. Recent obsessions though… right now!
I rarely watch late night shows, but I just happened to be up and watching Craig Ferguson’s “The Late Late Show”after going to see Eisely in concert on 10/28. Rodrigo y Gabriela played “Buster Voodoo” and it was one of those performances where I just could not take my eyes off of them because it was so different and so impressive. I don’t care how long you’ve been playing guitar, they are doing things on their acoustic guitars you probably could only dream of. So fast. So unique.
I believe this second video is of the album version and if you listen to both, note the energy and speed of the live performance:
…in the 1970s, there was a group of Protestants in Belfast who targeted the Catholics in the city, actually chose to use, as weapons, butcher knives and cleavers. Really, they weren’t necessarily, you know, obviously, political or religious activists. They were really, you know, cold-blooded murders, really. And they would go out at night killing Catholics essentially and, you know, gruesomely filet them alive and things like that.
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The parents at the time would actually use it as a cautionary tale and would tell children, you know, if they didn’t do what they were told, the Shankill butchers would come and get them. And it just seemed so bizarre and so horrific to me that it almost – it’s one of those moments in history when, you know, human events actually take on the scope of fairytale, and I thought it would – so the song is essentially me imagining what sort of dialogue that would be, the mother telling the child to go to sleep or the Shankill butchers would come and get them.
A gruesome tale indeed, wrought with horror and perhaps one to many “you know”s (Oh I kid Colin… I only noticed it when I saw it in writing. Also, for the record, I love The Decemberists or else I would not have driven hours to see them in concert last year!). Seriously though, an excellent song for the Halloween song list. I wonder if my Catholic Irish mother knows the tale and if perhaps she might have had more control over my siblings and me if she had told the tale.
October Project is hard to describe. I like to think of October Project as being somewhere between Gothic Rock, Baroque Pop, and Enya. The regular inclusion of a cello also appeals to me, being a fellow cellist. The bellowing vocals of Mary Fahl and Marina Belica seem almost operatic, and so different from the grunge and hip hop that were taking over the airwaves at the time this album hit the local alternative radio station in 1993. October Project was truly something different to me and I still lament that after two albums the group disbanded, reformed later sans album, and then fell into limbo. Though not technically broken up since reforming, they have release only a handful of songs. They are a staple for me in the month of October and probably always will be, ad infinitum.
Here are my 5 favorites from the album, with “Eyes of Mercy” being my favorite. I should add there is not a single song I do not like on the album. If you like one, you’ll probably like the whole album!
I’ve been meaning to post some Beth Orton for a while. Today being a grey autumn day in my town it feels about right. Beth Orton has a grey kind of feel to her songs and lyrics.
I get so tired sometimes. I try to do so much and yet accomplish so little. Today for example I worked from 6 AM until 3 PM, only to rush home, paint the front porch, cut the lawn, shower, eat dinner, and poof, it was already 8:30 PM. A full day of work and yet the lawn will need cutting in a week, and my day job is an endless list of inane tasks most of the time. Painting the front porch was fun I suppose. If only I could cut out the things I really do not want to do. Oh the time I would have.
Fortunately this blog barely takes any time each day, but I do wonder where I am going to go with it next. How do I make it more enticing? Do I care? Should I quit and seek out being a DJ of some sort? What am I doing? I have these questions and more and no answers other than I enjoy it as it is for now, so it will continue as is for now. Aside from a few friends who are too kind, I doubt I have many “readers” per se. I provide very little to read anyway and it is never as funny as I wish it could be. I’m just not that funny. If anything the day to day topics are schizophrenic, jumping all over the place. No theme, just whatever the hell I feel like blabbing. I might was well just write *squawk squawk squawk* most days.
That is ok. This blog is mostly about the music anyway. That was the point of this blog. To share music. To say “hey, I like this song, you should check it out”. Let’s face it. Any blathering I do is really for me. You reading it is just icing on my cake. If anything I should write more about what is making me happy or sad… what is really pissing me off. Perhaps another day. For now I am just sleepy and will be going to bed shortly. This fun and catchy song by Grey Eye Glances will be my anthem as I march to bed.
It is a shame Elliot Smith is not still around to be making songs like this one. “Son of Sam” is from his last album released before his untimely death via knife wound in October of 2003. I suppose though it makes this song and his others all the more precious.
I heard this song the other day and it is very much an autumn song for me. I think it is just a coincidence though. I am excited about the arrival of fall, and October in particular, my favorite month of the year. Also a coincidence.
I liked this song before playing Guitar Hero 2, but after listening to it a gazillion times, I now love it. Familiarity makes music more endearing and I think Guitar Hero and Rock Band are perfect for that. So if you do not want to like a particular song, do not listen to it over and over.
It has been a long weekend. Lots of work. Lots of fun. Not enough sleep. Life passing by so quickly I can barely grasp anything. Tiring. I need a pause button.
“Hello Sunshine, Please Don’t Fade Away”
I know I do it to myself. Always torn between what I want to do and what I feel I need to do. Squeezing in as much as I can every day, and to what end? To live the life I want to lead and yet fulfill everyone’s expectations? Impossible it seems. Only to be worn down in the end, eventually fading away.
This is another great climax builder my siblings use to play on the record player when I was young. The slow rolling march of the snare drum in the beginning draws me in too. It always felt a little short though. Like there was room for more. I love it, and yet feel a bit unsatisfied at the end.
Listen on Blip.fm!