she*had*a*thirst*for*knowledge

Tell me where it all went wrong
Maybe I can make it better
Tell me where it all went wrong
Don’t you know that you really upset her?
When you act like a man who is cross
With every woman he’s never had
If it’s true looks could kill
And you will be the first to make me mad
Then you’ll have to go

Is it true looks can kill?
Is it true looks can kill?
Is it true looks can kill?

Camera Obscura - “If Looks Could Kill”

I haven’t listened to the Smiths in years, it seems, and now a sudden urge to listen late this afternoon has found me practically in tears and wanting to throw up.

Take me out tonight
Take me anywhere, I don’t care
I don’t care, I don’t care
And in the darkened underpass
I thought Oh God, my chance has come at last
(But then a strange fear gripped me and I
Just couldn’t ask)

…in other words, the songs I can’t stop listening to, this May of 2007.
…or, what happens when a van occupanther meets a bewilderbeast.

Spin Me ‘Round, I’m Falling
May 2007, a music mix from Robin
98 MB - download from sendspace

1. I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) / the Electric Prunes
2. Single Life / Pink Mountaintops
3. Je ne te connais pas / Prototypes
4. Bewilderbeast / Badly Drawn Boy
5. And Then She Flung Me the Truth / Edson
6. Make Me Mad / Schooner
7. Branches / Midlake
8. Ears Like Golden Bats / My Teenage Stride
9. Hooplas Involving Circus Tricks / Say Hi To Your Mom
10. Satan Said Dance / Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
11. Her Breasts Were Still Small / Tribeca
12. It Goes Like This / Black Affair
13. Lions and Tigers / Asobi Seksu
14. No Satisfaction / Black Mountain
15. Dear Friend / Leslies
16. Kneebending / Cowboy
17. Isn’t Life Strange / the Clientele
18. Liar / Built To Spill
19. I Have No Sister / Oh No! Oh My!
20. In My Head / the Ballet
21. I’ve Got Pictures of You In Your Underwear / Ballboy

My sister took this video when we were driving to our cousin’s wedding in Missouri last March. I love how Matilda at the very end says “stop!”

Yeah, it’s been a while. I’ve been hiding under a rock for a few months, what can I say. Some older songs, some songs from last year, some not-yet-released songs, and so on. Here ya go:

C’mon Chemicals
April 2007 mix from Robin
Download here (100 MB), available till 4/27/07

1. Tame Me Tiger / Violet Vector and the Lovely Lovelies
2. Northern Whale / The Good, The Bad & The Queen
3. Shade and Honey / Sparklehorse
4. There Is An End / The Greenhornes feat. Holly Golightly
5. Let’s Build A Fire / +/-
6. 10 Gallon Ascots / Tapes ‘n’ Tapes
7. Grizzly Bear / All Girl Summer Fun Band
8. Suzy Jones / The Manhattan Love Suicides
9. And She Would Darken the Memory / The Twilight Sad
10. Treehouse / I’m From Barcelona
11. Young Bride / Midlake
12. In A Dream / Corduroy Utd.
13. Jamcolas / Sister Vanilla
14. El Camino / The Rosebuds
15. Penny Waits / The Gerbils
16. Really Now / The Dreamlets
17. Sober / Katie the Pest
18. Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse / Of Montreal
19. Bookshop Casanova / The Clientele
20. Amsterdam / Peter Bjorn and John
21. The Tide Is High / The Paragons

(Crossposted to the usual spots)

Recently my favorite song to end the workday, to carry me through those last 5 minutes or so before shutting down my section has been Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s “Enola Gay.” It’s a great song to help let out some last minute tension after everyone else has gone home - and when no one can see me dancing in my library carrel-cum-office.

“Enola Gay” might be soon eclipsed by the Electric Prunes’ “I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night).” God! That’s some serious crunchy guitar that just sticks in the gut. Exactly what I love about what little garage rock I know about. Perhaps listen to it yourself?

the Electric Prunes - “I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)” (download via sendspace)

Oh my God, wow. I can’t afford this, but wow:

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME RECORDS IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE:

THE HHBTM SINGLES CLUB 2007

13 singles to be distributed in 3 shipments over the next year. The first and second shipments will have 4 singles each, while the third shipment will have 5.

THE LINEUP FOR THE SINGLES IS AS FOLLOWS: (A SIDE/B SIDE)

Apples in Stereo / Poison Control Center
Of Montreal / James Husband
M Coast / the Minders
Tullycraft / the Smittens
Boyracer / the Faintest Ideas
Casper & the Cookies / the Marbles
Bunnygrunt / Phil Wilson (June Brides)
All Girl Summer Fun Band / Cars Can Be Blue
the Love Letter Band / Tender Forever
Circulatory System / New Sound of Numbers
Fishboy / Baby Calendar
Keith John Adams / Velcro Stars
Ideal Free Distribution / Red Pony Clock

The Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records 2007 Singles Club is limited to 450 copies. There will not be a second pressing, so once these are gone……they are gone for good. The first HHBTM singles club back in 2000 went out of print almost as soon as it was announced….so get in line. We start taking orders Thursday night, March 22, 2007 at midnight. Ordering the club will work in this way: There will be a button on the Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records order page. You will
click this button and leave your ordering info (name, address, email, how you plan to pay, and how many clubs you want, yes i said how many. we are letting people order multiple clubs if they want.). HHBTM will then email you letting you know a paypal total, and you will have 72 hours to pay via paypal. If you don’t send payment within 72 hours your club will go to the next person in line. If you plan to pay with check or money order, you will have 2 weeks to get your check or money order in. If after 2 weeks your payment has not been received, then your club will be given to the next person in line.

The singles club will run $60.00 in the USA, $65.00 in Canada, and $80.00 the rest of the world. The first 150 subscribers will get a special version of the singles club with lots of extras and special packaging. Each single will be split between two bands with each single being on a different color vinyl and in a different color silkscreen sleeve.

WWW.HHBTM.COM

(title from lyrics from the song “Mathilda” by Cookie and The Cupcakes)

As part of my job I occasionally do radio shows on WXYC, the local college station. This Sunday I will be playing a show consisting entirely of…..

SWAMP POP!!!

Eh? You say? Wikipedia says Swamp pop is a musical genre indigenous to the Acadiana region of south Louisiana and an adjoining section of southeast Texas. Created in the 1950s and early 1960s by teenaged Cajuns and black Creoles, it combines New Orleans-style rhythm and blues, country and western, and traditional French Louisiana musical influences.

But I think it’s more like rockabilly with a Louisiana flavor.

I had a lot of fun putting this show together, especially messing with the sweet 45s my library has got in our collection and dancing in the studio while digitizing tracks.

So listen, y’all. If you’re in the area, you know how to find WXYC on the dial, and if you’re not in the area, you can stream the show live over the internet from http://www.wxyc.org

I’ll be on this Sunday, from 1-2 pm Eastern time. The show is officially called Hell or High Water. This is my third ever radio show, so I’m still nervous, folks, but this is gonna be a good one, I swear.

I am desirous of the following albums:

Sparklehorse Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain
CSS Cansei de Ser Sexy
The Legends Facts and Figures
The Manhattan Love Suicides The Manhattan Love Suicides
Lily Allen Alright, Still
The Knife Silent Shout
Peter Bjorn and John Writer’s Block

Which are not available via my usual music purchasing outlet these days, emusic. (Speaking of which, if anyone was considering subscribing to emusic, could you list me as a referrer….I get 50 free downloads if you do, which is always nice.)

If anyone could send me digital files of any of those albums I would be eternally grateful and would offer you whatever you might be interested in from my own catalog (58 GB and counting) in return.

Well, yeah, things have been busy, and it took me a lot of time to really allow my list of favorite songs of 2006 to coalesce, but I have given it some thought, and I have to say, I really liked the following tracks:

(in no order whatsoever)

1. Pelle Carlberg - “Clever Girls Like Clever Boys Much More Than Clever Boys Like Clever Girls”
2. the Starlight Mints - “Seventeen Devils”
3. Casiotone For the Painfully Alone - “When You Were Mine” (yes, it’s a cover of the Prince song, but sooooo good, so deadpan)
4. Band of Horses - “The Funeral”
5. the Strokes - “On the Other Side”
6. Beirut - “Postcards From Italy”
7. Headlights - “TV”
8. Camera Obscura - “If Looks Could Kill”
9. M. Ward - “Poison Cup”
10. the Foundry Field Records - “Buried Beneath the Winter Frames”
11. Islands - “Rough Gem”
12. Califone - “3Legged Animals”
13. the Gossip - “Standing in the Way of Control”
14. Arab Strap - “[If There's] No Hope For Us”
15. Belle and Sebastian - “Another Sunny Day”
16. Tapes ‘n Tapes - “Insistor”
17. Still Flyin’ - “M’stery Tent”
18. the Pipettes - “Pull Shapes”
19. Peter Bjorn and John - “Young Folks”
20. Lily Allen - “LDN”

And one more, for a not so even 21:

21. Yo La Tengo - “Tighten Up” (it’s a novelty song but cracks me up every single time I hear it)

I wanted to include a Destroyer song, because I loved the album so much, but that 9 minute song that I loved just became annoying as a stand-alone track after a while. The whole album, though, is definitely in my top 3 favorite albums of last year, with Camera Obscura’s album, and…um, something else.

I have to say, I feel like 2005 was a much more exciting year for music than 2006.