Mp3s: Headphones, Pilot To Gunner, The Burdocks, A Northern Chorus
Posted on January 2, 2006 at 12:13 pm | No Comments
I’ll kick off ’06 by sharing up some of the last live songs I recorded during the final couple months of ’05. A little clearing of the decks, if you will. Some great stuff to be had in here…
On November 16th, Headphones warmed up for American Analog Set at TT the Bear’s in Cambridge. It was the first of a few dates that David Bazan’s no-guitar project would join AmAnSet on, and I was glad to get an opener that I dug. While I was surprised to not find either Frank Lenz or TW Walsh behind the drum kit (TW’s absence would be explained later), Western States drummer Nick Peterson did a fine job providing Bazan’s backbeat. Here are five songs from the set…
live at TT the Bears
Cambridge, MA
November 16th, 2005
“Pick out a good note, and play it a loud as you can…”
Major Cities
Shit Talker
The Five Chord
Pink and Brown
Hot Girls
The studio version of (the amusingly aborted and restarted) ‘The Five Chord‘ is a non-album track that can be found on iTunes. The other four songs come from their self-titled debut disc.
Brooklyn’s Pilot to Gunner had a fairly quiet ’05, but they snuck in one last show at Allston’s Great Scott on November 17th. The set included a couple pretty stellar new songs that I haven’t shared up, and they’ll likely find their way onto their next full length. Here’s hoping anyway…
live at Great Scott
Allston, MA
November 17th, 2005
The studio recording of ‘All The Lights‘ is an eMusic exclusive, and the other tracks can be found on PtG’s latest disc, ‘Get Saved’.
I hadn’t ever heard of Halifax, Nova Scotia’s The Burdocks before we ended up sharing a bill with them and their touring partners, A Northern Chorus, at the Lizard Lounge last month. Being a big ANC fan, I figured they’d likely be bringing along someone well worth hearing. I was most certainly not mistaken…
live at the Lizard Lounge
Cambridge, MA
December 3rd, 2005
1. Made In The World
2. Pop Cult
3. Ok Ok
4. Room Temperature
5. Let’s Cut Each Other Up
6. Icicle Knife
7. Werewolves
If you’re aware of the titles of those two unknown songs, let me know in the comments (thanks for the song titles, seth). Studio versions of most of the other tracks can be heard on their latest release, ‘What We Do Is Secret‘.
I was entirely blown away by Ontario’s A Northern Chorus the first time I saw them back in August, and I’ll be damned if they didn’t do it again. An absolutely beautiful set, layers of guitar, cello, and striking harmonies. Their fantastic new drummer fit in perfectly, and you really can’t beat a bass player who uses a broken string to make well-timed cymbal hits. Well played, sir. They were kind enough to play a bunch of songs we didn’t hear them do here few months back…
live at the Lizard Lounge
Cambridge, MA
December 3rd, 2005
1. Subjects and Matter
2. Let The Parrots Speak For Themselves
3. Red Carpet Blues
4. Don’t Think of Collapse
5. Until These Seams Are Sewn Again
6. Winterize
7. Louder Than Love
8. The Shepherd and the Chauffeur
You’ll find most of those songs on their third full-length, the excellent ‘Bitter Hands Resign’.
I’ll be officially closing the book on ’05 later on, when I finally get around to sharing up mp3s from the Jewcy party in NYC last month, and when I eventually post my personal best-of-year. Like most of you, I’m entirely listed-out, but I’m not gonna start ’06 by breaking a five year tradition…
Mp3s: Sharing Some Seasonal Songs
Posted on December 22, 2005 at 9:31 am | No Comments
In the spirit of, well, whatever the heck it is you choose to believe in, I’ve pulled some random holiday songs together for your varying degrees of enjoyment. I tried to pick tracks that I haven’t seen elsewhere so far this season…
(be forewarned: extreme candy-cane flavored sugar-coated sweetness lies ahead. if your heart is three sizes too small, you might wanna just surf along.)
(note: files removed on 2/4/2006)
First, a couple of festive numbers from my pal Colin Clary, who I had the pleasure of seeing at PA’s Lounge this past Friday. I’d planned on recording and sharing the snow-themed set he played with one of his fellow Magogs (usually a full backing band, this time simply Steve), but forgot my freakin’ microphone. Smoooooth. Fortunately, Colin’s cool with my sharing up a song from his solo disc on Asaurus, ‘Sweater Weather Or Not, These Are The Songs I Got‘, and the crew at Total Gaylord records gave the ok to share up the lead-off track from their ‘Cwistmas Twee‘ compilation. The first song is for our Jewish friends, the second goes out to all the kitties…
Colin Clary – ‘8 Kisses’ – from ‘Sweater Weather Or Not…’
Colin Clary – ‘Meow Meow’ – from ‘Cwistmas Twee’
Next, a new holiday song from The Sea Navy, the Seattle-based project of former Bostonian (and former Ivory Coast frontman) Jay Cox…
The Sea Navy – ‘The Truth About Christmas‘
(links to the Sea Navy site, where you can grab the song)
Here’s something pretty special: A song from Jeremy Quist, an Almanac reader who recorded it for friends and family, and sent it to me as a little thank-you for doing the ‘Nac. I definitely feel like I came out ahead in that exchange. Here he is, with his fiancee Suzanne Stradley on backing vocals…
Quasi will have a new album out on Touch & Go in March, but the label figured ‘why wait?’ to share a preview track, especially when it’s called ‘Merry X-mas‘. Here’s an mp3 of it…
Quasi – ‘Merry X-Mas’ – from ‘When The Going Gets Dark’
Finally, a few rare ones that I always like to bring back at Christmastime for those who’ve never heard ’em. A couple of them are pretty crackly, as they come from well-worn wax…
Tsunami – ‘Could Have Been Christmas’
Velocity Girl – ‘Merry X-Mas, I Love You’
Tsunami & Velocity Girl – ‘Deck The Halls’
all three from the ‘Seasons Greetings’ 7″
Cocteau Twins – ‘Winter Wonderland’
Cocteau Twins – ‘Frosty the Snowman’
both from the out-of-print ‘Snow’ EP
If you make it all the way through the minor mess that is the ‘Deck the Halls‘ rendition, congratulations, you’ve got far more holiday spirit than most.
And if you’ve been curious to hear that super-good (and, apparantly, last) new Pedro The Lion Christmas 7″, keep an eye on this thread at the Undertow messageboard. When and if the limited edition single sells out over at Suicide Squeeze, Undertow will be sharing up mp3s for those who missed out. But don’t wait for it, order up the sucker yourself if you’ve got a turntable… it’s well worth it. You can also find the lyrics that David Bazan added to the traditional tunes in that same thread.
Updated to add… Matt Pond PA has posted a new demo over at their MySpace page called ‘NJ Holiday‘. It’s a little “non-denominational winter holiday festive time gift to you and yours”, so go give it a listen.
Hope your holidays are filled with close family, good friends, and if you’re a drinker, some alcohol-fueled festivities. Me, I’ll be back up in Vermont for a few days, so look for me wandering Church Street in a nostalgic stupor…