Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Random Acts of Quesionable Music Taste.

Regularly in The Onion's AV Club, they get famous people to hit random on their iPod and comment on the first 5 tracks that come up. Since no other hugely popular web magazine is going to ask me to do that, I decided that this one could. So, here you go, 5 random tracks on my iPod.

1. A Good Man is Easy to Kill
ARTIST: Beulah
ALBUM: The Coast is Never Clear.

Despite the negative song and album title, this is a really fun, unpretentious band, with lots of trumpets and normal guys singing songs. I prefer the their album When the Heartstrings Break, but this one's good, too.

2.Dead
ARTIST: The Pixies
ALBUM:Doolittle.

Weird, got a death thing going on here. This is a weird song from the classic Pixies album. The Pixies were my favorite band all through high school. Even then, I was puzzled as to why they would write a songs about the Old Testament story of David killing Bathsheba's husband Uriah. I guess because ol' Frank's dad was a minister, and he seems to like writing about dark tragedies in an oddly comic way.

3. Kamera
ARTIST: Wilco
ALBUM: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

Well, this is proving to be a pretty safe random test. Who can complain about Wilco? "Which apples belong and which ones don't" is a really nice line.

4. Olde Tyme Waves
ARTIST: Elf Power
ALBUM: A Dream in Sound.

Elf Power is a great old Athens band, who seem to like the Velvet Underground, like myself... but maybe they don't like the same things about VU that I do. Meaning, sometimes they get into artsy weird territory that's a little boring to me. This is a fun song though, and there's some great tracks on this album.

5. Ezekiel Bread
ARTIST: Half-Handed Cloud
ALBUM: Thy is a Word and Feet Need Lamps

This is a great band, mostly one guy who plays a lot of the instruments. He kind of falls in between Danielson Famile's intentional playful ugliness and Sufjan Steven's intricate, pretty songwriting. This album is pretty good, if you're just listening to them for the first time I would go with Halos & Lassos.

Well, that was pretty painless. But kind of fun. Try it yourself in the comments section!

5 comments:

holly said...

wes, i have half handed cloud as a myspace friend thanks to your page. i like them. of course i also like sufjan and danielson very much. and so anything inbetween is welcome!

Grant Blankenship said...

Hello, Wes. Grant here. How are things?

I will take up this challenge. A disclaimer; I did this on the computer and not the iPod. The iPod shuffle feature apparently hates me, since every time I use it, some Led Zeppelin thing I stole from a coworker plays first. Almost 3,000 songs and I promise a good, oh, 60% of the time I'm rockin' out to some Led Zep. So, to the computer.

1. Chain of Circumstance by Camper Van Beethoven. Eh, not so good. Not so much of a Camper song.

2.The World May Never Know by Dr. Dog. Laid back kind of tune, slow.I have no idea where or why I found or kept this, but it is a nice palate cleanser after Whole Lotta Love.

3. Olive Drab by Thingy. A Rob Crow band. One half of Pinback? This band was between Heavy Vegetable and Pinback. Short songs, kind of heavy and punchy.

4. Grindstone by Uncle Tupelo. Wasn't Wilco your fourth song? The Apple logic conspiracy continues.

5. Fall on My Knees by Old Crow Medicine Show. Not living in a "city" with a "scene", I don't have many opportunities to see live "music". I also have a "child", and am predisposed to going to bed at "9pm", so the night life thing doesn't happen much. That being said, I actually made a point to see these guys when they came to town here a while back, and I'm glad I did. Imagine members of our age cohort enamored with American music circa 1930. That souped up proto-bluegrass. Good times.

A little verbose. Oops.

Wes W. said...

Grant! Good to hear from you. You seemed to survive the iPod challenge nicely. I have never heard of Thingy, but I like Pinback so I will have to check them out. Did you ever get the Glands CD while in Athens? They were really good, now defunct, but they sound a lot like Pinback. Favorite American, I think, is the album I'm talking about. Whichever one has Work it Out on it.

I'm with you on not seeing shows, babies make it hard. The last time I saw bands was at the last SXSW, which is nice because there's a ton of free shows right outside my door, during work hours, so I can skip out during lunch and see a few bands. Last year I saw Daniel Johnston, Lily Allen acoustic, and Sparklehorse. Pretty fun.

holly said...

i just thought today that i didn't answer the challenge, but i don't have an ipod, just a "boombox"...here are some hits i've been enjoying:

-"Treasure" by Sarah McMillan, Under Your Bright Wings. this girl has a very sweet and chanticlearish voice, she's an emmylou fan and it's evident.
-"Sleeping Winter Fool" by Kat Jones, don't know album name off hand. heard of her because of the violet burning. nice indie heartfelt songstress songs. rich voice.
-"Senor" by Bob Dylan, Street Legal. this song is so great and i dont know why i've been a dylan fan for so many years without realizing it. "senor, senor, can you tell me where we're headed,Lincoln co. road or armageddon?"
-"Someone Else's Tomorrow"-Patti Griffin, Children Running Through. this song is haunting and somehow exhilirating at the same time. somber but beautiful piano sounds.
-first song off mark mathis's "Warship": imagine tom petty praising the lord. pretty song!!

Angela said...

So, I hesitated to do this, one for lack of time, the other because I simply have NO idea what is going to pop up on my iPod when it's on shuffle. It could be anything from Steve Green's Sing-Along Bible Songs to Uncle Don Brady's Elvis Karaoke (from a benefit that my husband helps with every year). Also, I have many songs that I don't even know exist on my iPod. Usually from church stuff. Anyway, this should be fun...

1. Passive Manipulation by The White Stripes--Score! This one features Meg White on vocals. It's short (34 seconds long) and slightly creepy. But I like it nonetheless. She gives us good advice in this song.

2. In Two (The Lament) by Jennifer Knapp. This is a great album. And a great song. What the heck ever happened to her?

3. Something About the Name of Jesus by Kirk Franklin. I've honestly never heard this song before until just now. I blame this one on my husband.

4. Paralytic Man by Soul Junk. Good one.

5. Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby by Gillian Welch, Allison Krause, and Emmylou Harris. A creepy lullaby from the movie O Brother Where Art Thou. Not one you'd want to sing to your children at bed time, but a great song nonetheless.

Well that wasn't so bad.