Palpable and Mute
It's true. In my ongoing aesthetic experiment here -- that this blog not mean but be -- there's been quite a content vacuum here. But perhaps you weren't aware that what I was doing was an aesthetic experiment. Consider yourself corrected, then.
The vacuum, and blog, will keep sucking, though, as we're off to Colorado tomorrow to go camping for a week or so. And even though I've got a ton of packing and sorting to do, I've spent the last few hours futzing around with music mixes for the road trip. I've gone with two themes: "Mountains!!!" and "Robots!!!" Tracks are listed below. "Robots!!!" is "in the style of robots." A line from a Broadcast song sums up my approach there nicely: "My feet are dancing so much. / And I hate that. / My feet are dancing so much." "Mountains!!!" on the other hand, is basically just me trying really hard to not put every Will Oldham/Palace/Bonnie "Prince" Billy song in the entire world on it. As you'll see, I only vaguely succeeded.
"Mountains!!!" is definitely for listening pleasure, jangly guitars and all that. "Robots!!!" is perhaps more challenging, but with some surprise picks. Obviously, I start out with Battles, the gold standard of robot music right now. (And, even back in the day, when Dave Konopka lived in Chicago and I had a huge crush on him and cornered him at parties a lot...he was a robot then, too). So obviously: Battles. And, obviously David Bowie. But, listening to, for example, Brenda Lee (a track off the Girl Group Sounds compilation some very fine folks -- here's one!-- gave me) through the "Robots!!!" frame is really kind of exciting and fresh. OH MY GOD I have to get packing. Love!
Mountains!!!
Summer Wine Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood
Lay and Love Bonnie "Prince" Billy
Women Of The World Jim O'Rourke
Elvis Cadillac Rickie Lee Jones
A Man Needs A Woman Or A Man To Be A Man Bill Callahan
Little Eyes Yo La Tengo
25 Minutes To Go Johnny Cash
Work Hard/Play Hard Palace Music
Sent You Up Knife In The Water
Poison Cup M. Ward
Yellow Sun The Raconteurs
Summer Days Phoenix
What Are You ? Matt Sweeny & Bonnie "Prince" Billy
My Darling Wilco
Gideon My Morning Jacket
Dirty Knife Neko Case
A King and a Queen Okkervil River
sending the photographs Julie Doiron
Buick City Complex Old 97's
The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack Liars
What I'm Looking For Brendan Benson
Density Sam Prekop
The Big Country Talking Heads
Manitoba Tapes 'n Tapes
The River Bruce Springsteen
You've Got Her In Your Pocket The White Stripes
Robots!!!
HI / LO Battles
Can You Do That Dance? The Pink Mountaintops
Raising the Sparks Akron/Family & Angels Of Light
The Good Thing Talking Heads
Life on Mars? David Bowie
Cryptograms Deerhunter
Coffee And Tv Blur
Mass Romantic The New Pornographers
Only Shallow My Bloody Valentine
Black Swan Thom Yorke
Totally Wired The Fall
When Doves Cry Prince
Song Against Sex Neutral Milk Hotel
Good Girl-Carrots Panda Bear
Is It True Brenda Lee
North American Scum LCD Soundsystem
i came as a rat Modest Mouse
choo choo Arctic Monkeys
Nance Music The Prima Donnas
Michael A Grammar Broadcast
Save Your City Radio 4
Paco Shellac
Staring at the Sun TV On The Radio
The Rat The Walkmen
Maps Yeah Yeah Yeahs
