tuesday tomorrow

just a reminder: don't believe all the news stories you read tomorrow. because it's april fool's day. i probably shouldn't put that out there. after all, what if i want to put something on here? i'd ruin the whole foolin'!

but not only that, it's also:::

tuesday tomorrow.

the worlds of music and watchin' stuff present us with some more material on this april 1st.

music

*R.E.M. - Accelerate. I don't think this will be all that big. Probably just another forgettable post-90s REM album. But I could be wrong...
*Moby - Last Night. What? TWO famous baldies in one day?
*Van Morrison - Keep It Simple. Sweet...
*Black Keys - Attack and Release. I wish they put a decay and sustain in there.
*Kylie Minogue - X. At last, it gets an American release!
*My Blueberry Nights Soundtrack. Looks fantastic, with songs by Cat Power, Otis Redding, and much much more. I don't think there's anything exclusive though, so you might as well pick up the original albums these songs appear on.
*Outlaw Country. Compilation of a bunch of great songs and not-so-great ones. Good for an introduction to the genre, but again, nothing really exclusive, far as I can tell.
*Dino 5 - Baby Loves Hip Hop. As I talked about before. Unless it's a very elaborate april fool's joke.

and other stuff by birdman & lil wayne, trina, and whatnot that i don't really even have a passing interest in. unless i'm missing something, there's nothing too terribly essential in my eyes.

watchin' stuff
*Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. I enjoyed this movie, and wouldn't mind adding it to my "Tim Burton" section of my DVD library.
*The Lascivious World of AC Stephen & Ed Wood Jr. So awesomely trashy. Big fan of the title of this collection.

Ain't nothin essential here, oh no no no.

Also, Happy Birthday to one of my favorite actors ever, Mr. Christopher Walken.

from jurassic 5 to...

DINO 5!

pitchfork just posted a story about what chali 2na has been doing since the breakup of jurassic 5.

he has been recording with dino 5!

chali is joined in dino 5 by prince paul, scratch (the roots), ladybug mecca (digable planets), and wordsworth (eMC) now, i wouldn't call it a j5 ripoff.  mostly because it's for babies.

baby loves hip hop will be in stores april 1st.  unless it's an april fool's joke.

there's an mp3 and video here: babyloveshiphop.com

what to get tomorrow

because it's tuesday tomorrow!

new audio experiences:

-raconteurs & gnarls barkley of course!

-not that i really care, but there's a new b-52's album??

-ghostface has a rarities collection called The Wallabee Champ

newish visual experiences:

-the upright citizens brigade: asssscat!  OMG.

-lost highway - FINALLY out legit in the states, in a widescreen version.  

-bonnie & clyde - "ultimate collector's edition"

-the kite runner

-walk the line - extended cut

so how about that!  not a lot but some real notables.  especially raconteurs and gnarls barkley and UCB.

the wunder years

time to write about another old band i used to dig, and it turns out i still do.

personal experience of this band:
so this band was opening for the lawrence arms at the arms' first fort collins show, at the starlight lounge. this was back when the starlight was THE place to see a punk rock show in fort collins. before the back alley lounge, before the allegations of misconduct on the part of the owner. it was the second home of all and all the o&o bands of the time. to this day, even though the starlight is closed and i live in denver, i've been to more shows at the starlight than any other venue. probably more than all the other venues combined.

anyway, the wunder years were playing there, so i went to rocks off (back when fort collins had a respectable record store, it was called rocks off) and looked to see what i could find. there was an ep for real cheap, like 6 bucks or something. a split with a band called sorry about the fire. at the time i thought "sorry about the fire" was the name of the album. still, it was worth it for these 5 wunder years songs. especially the first one:

the wunder years - you know who you are

you can get this ep at the official springman records website. it's cheap. do it.

anyway, i went and saw them. the frontman was named brian moss. between the wunder years' set and that of the lawrence arms' i went and spoke with brian moss. see, instead of selling generic band t-shirts, they had thrift store shirts with a wunder years logo ironed on. quite clever. he dug through the pile with me to find the perfect shirt. i ended up with a sweatshirt in fact.

after that show, i picked up their full length cd, one of my favorites ever, pitstops on the road less traveled. i friggin love every song on this album. but my favorite is maybe this one, which closes the album:

the wunder years - the electric shoes

i don't think you can find this album anywhere anymore. i think the label is out of business. sucks to be you.

and then they recorded one final release, an ep that is also out of print, called fashion over function. a couple days after the release date, they played at the back alley, which i think is one of my favorite venues ever (but it did get closed down). but it was a 21+ club and at the time, i was not yet 21. i was like 18. so i actually emailed brian moss asking if it was really 21+ and stuff. i never got word back. but i went to the show early, i think i got in with an x on my hand. i was all by myself at the show. anyway, i sat at a table, and was just sitting there by myself waiting for some rock & roll, and brian came up to me. now, he had only met me once, to help me look through the shirts. but he somehow put 2 & 2 together and figured i had written the email. and somehow remembered little old me. because he came up to me and asked if i had any problems getting in etc. seriously nice guy.

they played the show and it was awesome the end. they broke up a couple days later.

brian went on to form the ghost, and pitchfork even liked the album!

and then the ghost broke up. now he's performing solo under the name hanalei.

but the wunder years, that's the real deal (not that his other projects are fake), and will always hold a special place with me.

the sound of this band:
people call them "emo" but i really don't see it. i call them heartfelt rock and roll music. not whiny, just hearty.


holy crap, i am just about done with the w's in my music listening project! only a few random x's and some xiu xiu, some random y's and some yo la tengo, youngblood brass band, you am i, random z's, and zzzz and i'm DONE!

elvis costello hates cds!

i don't really like them much either.

vinyl is much better, and when it comes to portability, digital is kinda the way to go.  i concede that cds sound much better than compressed formats, but really, cds are no vinyl.  the only time you can listen to a CD where you can't listen to vinyl (other than the archaic notion of the discman, and i definitely don't have skip protection) is in the car.

ok, where was i going with this?

my favorite record label, touch & go, was the first that i knew of to offer free digital downloads with the purchase of vinyl.  i don't know if they were actually the first.  but now it seems ALL the indie labels are doing it, and my vinyl collection has benefitted greatly from this trend.

my favorite artist of all time, elvis costello, seems to see things the same way.  a few years ago, he released an album, the clarksdale sessions, exclusively on 10" vinyl.  and now he's my hero, because he will be releasing his new album, Momofuku, on vinyl only, with a free digital download.  the other interesting fact to note here is that he had said he wasn't planning on releasing any more music until the music industry figured itself out.  i guess he figured it out himself, with a little help from the indies.

so this means elvis costello does respect the modern music fan!  this current round of bs reissues kinda had me worried for a second there.

the other thing: the album is due out april 22nd.  as in about one month from now.

what a great news item to read after being sad that LOST won't be back until april 24.  the new EC album comes out BEFORE lost comes back!!

kinda curious what direction he'll take with this one.  his last 5 albums or so have been completely different from one another. "rowdy rhythm," "whiskey soaked southern rock," "classical," "jazz," and "new orleans soul" are some words to describe his most recent albums.  any speculation on the new one, given the title MOMOFUKU?  maybe paul simon-style world music?  hip hop? actually the title seems like it could be japanese.  maybe he's embracing japanese culture.  what if he releases his inner polysic on this album?!

more free musics

i think i might have to make a list of "best free music releases of 2008" rather than the general one that everybody does.

the war on drugs are a band that just signed to secretly canadian.  you can download their ep here.

i have not yet heard it, but how can i not recommend free music, especially on SC?

christmas comes early this year

well, not christmas, but music.

TWO high profile albums have just been announced to have release dates pushed FORWARD to next week, march 25.

Raconteurs and Gnarls Barkley.

the only difference is that the Gnarls Barkley album is available NOW on itunes.  starting today.  i guess it was announced yesterday.  but f itunes and its DRM bs and its 128 kbps bs.

anyway, two big albums next week that we weren't expecting quite yet.  from two "super groups."

sweet.

tuesday tomorry

hey guess what!

today may be st patrick's day, but it's

TUESDAY TOMORROW

lots of music. i'm low on time so this will mostly be a list.

-She & Him - Volume One (M. Ward & Zooey Deschanel!)

-DeVotchKa - A Mad and Faithful Telling (one of the best Denver bands to hit the big time!)

-Destroyer - Trouble in Dreams (Will Sheff wrote the product description on the amazon page!)

-Be Your Own Pet - Get Awkward

-Neon Neon - Stainless Style

-Lyrics Born - Everywhere at Once

-Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing

and dvds, can't forget the dvds.

-Southland Tales (this movie was so amazingly ridiculous!  a MUST OWN DVD.  i want it to play all the time at my apartment.)

-Revolver (I didn't even know about this Guy Ritchie movie, but it's probably fun like Snatch & Lock Stock)

AND SOME CRITERION RELEASES:

-Mafioso

-Antonio Gaudí

-The Ice Storm

yeah, good stuff.  did i miss anything pressing? also, any comment on any of these releases? the only ones i know i REALLY REALLY want are devotchka and southland tales.

free talib kweli mixtape

talib kweli, over the past 15 months or so, has fast become one of my favorite MCs.  i used to not like his voice; i actually left his performance at bumbershoot during the first song a couple years ago (although the sound quality was horrible, which had a lot to do with it).

but since i got into him, i've been way into him.  i'm talking really about his free download album Liberation with Madlib, and also Eardrum.  Admittedly, I need to poke my head into his past some more for his best stuff (Black Star, anyone?)

but anyhow.  he's done it again.  delivering MORE free music.

go to his myspace blog for a free download of a new mixtape with DJ Mick Boogie.  it's called Talib Kweli & Mick Boogie Present: The MCEO Mixtape

I haven't heard it yet (the download is being pretty slow, and i just started it) but I don't have to tell you I am very excited.  you should be too.

Talib Kweli & Mick Boogie present: MCEO Mixtape: FREE DOWNLOAD!

tuesday tomorry

maybe i'll just start calling it tuesday tomorry.

tuesday march 11.  that's 311!

AUDIO

*Presidents of the United States of America - These Are The Good Times People - people kinda forgot about them after the first album, but they really haven't put out a bad album.  The last one had a couple lame songs but also some fantastic pop tunes that just make you feel good.

*Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - Eleventh Hour - Super stoked on this one.  lots of people are.  I might just have to get it despite not having any cash flow.  I've heard "Bubble Pop" and despite its kinda silly hook, it's a joy to listen to.  of course, this is all just something to help tide us over for that Deltron album, whenever that's coming.  Starting to look like 2009, I'd guess?

*Why? - Alopecia - A case of an opening band that impressed me and converted me.  Doesn't happen often to me.  But they opened for Yo La Tengo in '06 or so, and I quite dug them.  Seems they've re-emerged on general blogger consciousness for their Cure cover, but this album doesn't have it.  I still recommend it.  Something for the birthday wish list or to note for later when I have money.

*Junkie XL - Booming Back at You - sweet.

*The Mighty Underdogs - The Prelude EP - it is available in stores now, but you coulda gotten it from giftstribution.com long ago, like I did!  anyway, this is a hip hop supergroup consisting of Gift of Gab, Lateef, and Headnodic.  Very good.  Looking forward to the full length.

*Alkaline Trio - Goddamnit (10th Anniversary Edition) - shoulda pre-ordered it.  Still, if you want it, you should get it from asianmanrecords.com because it'll be much cheaper than anywhere else.  this album holds a special place in my heart.  this is a remastered version and it includes a DVD with a 2 hour documentary about the band with interviews with all the major players.  I want this.

VISUAL

*No Country For Old Men - I'm surprised this is already out on DVD.  Probably coulda milked the theater market a little more with all the oscars.  The only thing is, it seems to be a pretty bare-bones DVD so there will probably be a better one out later on.

*Georges Melies: First Wizard of Cinema (1896-1913) - This dude was a magician that went into film...and basically invented special effects.  One cannot claim to have a very complete film knowledge if they don't know Melies.  And this DVD set can probably just be called the essential Melies DVD.  

*Dangerous Crossing -and- Black Widow - These are two different films.  But Fox Film Noir is putting them out.  I don't really know anything about them, but they are probably classics of noir, and should probably be put on Netflix.

did I miss anything?

perfect timing

man, did that early daylight savings time thing confuse the hell out of me this morning.  but the good news is, now if i get a 9-5 job, i can still take the dog out after work and it won't be dark yet.  so that's good.

i think the main purpose of this blog, other than posting free association fiction and babbling about what cds i want to get, is to talk about some of the criminally underexposed musical artists that i love.

which brings us to what i think is my first post about that.  because i happened to reach this artist today in my "alphabetical musical listening project" i've been doing for the past over-a-year.

i can't remember what exactly first got me interested in tom daily.  i know it was related to him being in the smoking popes.  and probably him being on double zero records, which was run by mike felumlee, awesome drummer and message board poster.  that must have helped.  and i know it had something to do with a trip to secondspin, a local used cd shop.  i don't remember if i sought him out or just kinda remembered his name upon seeing it.  but it was pretty cheap, so i picked up one of his albums, The Burlington Northern.

i re-discovered tom daily today.  not that i had totally forgotten about him.  i just wasn't sure what to think as i saw his name come closer and closer on my music listening project.  sure, i had been enjoying the toasters on a nostalgia trip.

but this TD experience was more than nostalgia.  sure, i knew every song and would have likely sung along, had my girlfriend not been in the next room, ready to judge me.  

ooh, maybe it was his smoking popes cover.  one of the finest covers i have ever heard.  even though the popes song ("The First Time") is like a b side or something.  but he makes it brilliant.  but maybe that's where i discovered him.

he's an artist i remember pimping out to friends back then.  back when we all listened to faux-emo bullshit.  tom daily was such a refreshing change from that.  is this where i talk about the music?

people kinda compare him to the elephant 6 collective a lot.  at least from what i read today.  what i will say about him...he sounds midwestern.  his voice is VERY midwestern.  but the musicianship is so fresh.  it's experimental--not unlike the elephant 6 collective--with layers and distortion and sounds that sound so strange yet familiar (especially at this point for me.  now that The Burlington Northern is so comforting, like the gravy my dad makes every thanksgiving, you don't know what's in it but it's delicious and makes you feel all nostalgic), but it's also driving and there are even straight up pop songs.

ok, the reason i called this post "perfect timing" is because his myspace has a free song to download called "Daylight Savings Time."  however, it's a live recording and really not indicative of his greatness.  just know that i planned on posting that song (but you can still get it on his myspace).

but instead, here's perhaps my favorite song of his.

What's It Like - from The Burlington Northern - pick up the cd for $10 at thick records.

more at myspace.com/tomdaily (he actually has quite a few tracks available for free download here)

i think i may have found a purpose for this blog.

ok, how i got here.

today i decided to update myself on what happens when i google myself.  here are some results:

-the surfer king credits.  cool, i should look up some of my old co-workers or something.  maybe they can help my employment search.

-a profile on peekyou.com.  now, in college i did a lot of experiments with putting myself out there on social networking sites.  friendster, myspace, orkut, audioscrobbler (which became last.fm) and other random ones that never went anywhere.  but i have no idea wtf peekyou.com is.  i may have drunkenly signed up, but i don't remember any such thing.

-a search on intelius.com.  kind of disturbing, it apparently knows my age, previous cities of residence, date of birth, phone number, address, income, home value, and some of my family members.  i'm happy to report they missed at least one family member.  so i still have some info they don't have.  so they won't want to kill me.

-a profile on campushook.com!  this is the most entertaining link here.  i wasn't exactly trying to "hook up" on this social networking site, but i do recall getting in the top 8 hotties list or something of that sort.  because that pic on there is HOT STUFF.  but i think this time was around my peak of creativity.  because i took what they gave me, random questions, and just took them OUT THERE.  small random paragraph here, random story there.  

i used to do a lot of free association/stream of consciousness writing and drawing in high school and college.  i'm not saying it was super great, but it was still entertaining, and it probably revealed something about something deep in my psyche that i don't understand.  there seems to be a lot of random violence in these stories, as well as unexplained disappearances.  i dig the ambiguous ending thing.  anyway, i think i might start just doing that for posts.  random pieces of fiction.  

so without further adieu, here is one of the stories i came up with from the question "why my picture looks pretty gay" (editor's note: no i am not gay)

hey now i ain't no homosexual but i can appreciate a good ass when i see one and when i hump one. that's all he said. and then he walked away. out of my life. what had lead to this? why did he feel the need to explain his sexuality? i aint no homophobe, i replied. to the back of his head. he didn't turn around. he just kept walking. i wish i could have told him. i wish i could have told him that my ass was available for him. but he turned away too quickly. and all i could think about was his ass, which was quite skinny and bony for his body. not usually my preference. but it would do. or should i say, it would have done. but now he was gone, and i would never see him again. five minutes earlier, we had been discussing politics. this lead to discussions around gay marriage and all that. from a purely political standpoint. but that's not where it ended up. he ended up making some comments that gave me the idea that he could be gay. and i hoped. i was good at masking it in myself, but i was also good at seeing through the masks of others. and i saw right through this man. behind the broken face of a hard man, he hid it so fiercely that i could see right through it. i have always thought that you should look past what people choose to portray, especially in our oppressive society. and this is just what i did. finally i asked him, and you know what happened next. 10 minutes prior to that i had just met the man. but i like to work fast. he bumped into me, i dropped my books (on purpose, of course), and in the stereotypical hollywood scene, he helped me pick them up and i felt some sort of bond to him immediately. his voice was gentle. but i was forceful and i guess he didn't feel it. he just didn't feel it. i tried to back down, be more polite, but that just pushed him further away until he felt uneasy with the conversation and i never saw him again. ever. i went on to develop the habit of searching all around campus for him, but i never saw him. not once. i couldn't ask about him. i didn't even know his name. and my descriptions of him would raise suspicions. just last week i was reading the obituaries and came upon a story of a man, about my age, who took his life for unexplained reasons. i like to believe it isn't him. i like to believe that he just moved. even if i never see him again i like to think that he is okay.

don't you hate getting overshadowed by trent reznor?

just found out about this via the denver3 email list...maybe everybody knew, maybe many (like myself) did not...

(by the way, denver--i know you make up most of my readership--trundle has broken his ankle and has no health insurance, so if you go to lipgloss this week even though nobody goes to lipgloss anymore, your cover will help pay medical costs.  so ya know, it might be a good idea to go this week.)

anyway, a couple days before NIN released that album on the internet "Radiohead style," as the media likes to call it, the Charlatans released an album on the internet...for free!  I haven't listened to it yet, but I just downloaded it.  it's available at xfm.co.uk or more specifically here.

long live free (legal) music!  especially when i can't afford to actually buy it.

on my birthday, even!

this year, on my birthday, what i'd really like is a job at pitchfork!

see, on my birthday, april 7, pitchfork is launching pitchfork.tv.  it's gonna have music videos, interviews, performances, and mini documentaries.  all for our beloved indie music.

i wonder if they need employees experienced in online video production.  i wonder if they need a producer or an editor or a DP.  seriously.  i could totally do that, and i'd even work for cheap, as long as i got lots of free music.

they probably already have a crew working on the stuff before launch, but it'd be a pretty sweet birthday present to get a phone call that says "we want to fly you out and hire you to help document independent music."

so starting now, let's work on making that happen.

tuesday tomorry

i think the main reason i do this is to have a record for myself, so i remember what albums came out so once i start getting paid i can start picking them up.

ok now.  it's tuesday tomorrow!

MUSIC:

*Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - Real Emotional Trash - their first with Janet Weiss.  not much to say about this, because i haven't heard anything off it except one track.  but that one was good, so i'm sure the album is wonderful.

*Bauhaus - Go Away White - their final album

*Murder by Death - Red of Tooth and Claw - i personally don't really get into them, but my girlfriend and a bunch of my friends are all about them, putting theirs on the top tier and such.

*Miss Kittin - Batbox - I just found out about this while just looking through to see what was coming out.  meaning I didn't know she even had a new album coming in the near future.  so that's quite the pleasant surprise.  I know people say electroclash is soooo over and I agree, but good music is good music.  and I can still listen to--and LOVE--her first solo album.  so I'm excited.

VIDEO:

*Into The Wild - might be a good time to finally see it.

*12 Angry Men - 50th anniversary edition

and that's it.  or is it? let me know if i missed something grand.

shout outs

i have very modest traffic on this blog thing.  i think it's a combination of it being very new and me not really writing compelling content.  i'll work on the latter.

but despite all of that, i manage to get hits from lots of random countries around the world.  and i think that is awesome.  so here's a shoutout to some of these locations:

*Tokyo, Japan - 7 visits

*London, UK - 3 visits

*Montreal, Canada - 2 visits

*"unknown," UK - 2 visits

*"unknown," Brazil - 2 visits

*Barcelona, Spain - 2 visits

*Lausanne, Switzerland - 2 visits

*Stuttgart, Germany - 2 visits (how big is Stuttgart? that's the city the "hott knights" were from, so it's kinda interesting)

the rest have just 1 visit each...c'mon people, come back!

*Bremen, Germany

*Ljubljana, Slovenia

*"unknown," Spain

*Bayreuth, Germany

*Cairo, Egypt

*Vancouver, Canada

*Toronto, Canada

*Barnaul, Russian Federation

*"unknown," India

*Bristol, UK

*"unknown," Greee

*Malmö, Sweden

*Turku, Finland (yay, I've got ancestors from Finland.  roots.)

*Stavanger, Norway (Stig!!)

*Riga, Latvia

*Vienna, Austria

*Rochester, UK

*Salzburg, Austria

*"unknown," Japan

*Vigo, Spain

*Osaka, Japan

*Ashdod, Israel

*Lincoln, UK

*Auckland, New Zealand.

ok, some of those are more "random" than others.  not that any of them are "random" nations, but i just think it's cool that people from a country i know virtually nothing about are reading my blog.  or clicking on it and finding out it's not what they were looking for, and hitting the back button.  it seems most of my search engine hits come from people looking for free mp3s.  although i got a lot when i talked about Obama speaking in Denver.  so maybe the key to my success is to post lots of free mp3s and talk politics.

random music alerts

thing ONE: you can get the brand new nine inch nails album for $5 at nin.com.  or a portion for free.  or physically (on cd) for $10.  or a deluxe edition with a dvd and blu-ray disc for $75.  or all the above plus vinyl signed by trent reznor for $300.  $300?  i thought radiohead was really testing fan loyalty with their discbox price.  damn.  i encourage you to pay, but i'm getting the free version to decide if i like it first.  then maybe i'll shell out $5.  i can't go spending more though because i've got no job and higher priority albums.  did you know miss kittin's got a new one coming out this week?  neither did i until today!  more details coming tomorrow on "tuesday tomorrow."

thing TWO: karin ström is back!  there is a brand new song on absolut noise!  if you have not followed karin ström's career, here is a quick retrospective.  she's swedish.  awhile back she put out an ep in the states that was really good, fun indie rock in english.  but it didn't do well.  then last year she put out something completely different.  kind of electro.  all in swedish.  i don't think it came out physically here because i ended up just getting it on itunes.  but i had enough love from her that i featured her on that show i used to do.  and now she has a new song.  i guess she wrote it for absolut vodka.  but it's in english!  good track, i must say.  she needs way more love than she's gotten outside of sweden.

thing THREE: i think there are only two things today.