Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By

The Watson Twins, "How Am I To Be"

The Watson Twins have decisively stepped out from behind the shadow of an album called Rabbit Coat Fur, on which they sang back-up for Jenny Lewis, a.k.a. the female indie force of 2006. They've proven that they're equals, musically and vocally, with the best of the indie world. The voice is rich, expressive and clear--perfect for a song such as this: modern, but very remiscent of the girl group songs of the 60s (songs I loved). A love-lorn message, background "ooh ooh"s and bright, sparse music put to mind that time when a beautiful voice was gold and a message could be simple but applicable across humanity.

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Only one of the Watson Twins knows it's not raining

Bon Iver, "Re: Stacks" (Not a direct link--live from Daytrotter)

Oh, melancholy. I invite you in, yet I always feel the urge to take a million B vitamins once you're here. This song has a wintery, melancholic thread to it, familiar to someone such as myself who dreams whole days away and certainly engaging to those of us who occasionally like to (for fun; never profit) rumenate on sad subjects. I can't tell you what the lyrics are about, but I can point out some of the more isolating phrases. Early on, he says "All my love was down in a frozen ground". Still later he's taunted by a bird and he asks "Whatever could it be that has brought me to this loss?" I'm not sure of the inspiration for this song: I can only imagine part of it came from the expansive Northwestern Wisconsin scenery. In a location such as that it's natural to look inward to try to find a match for the poetry and beauty you see outside. Or maybe the wistful brush to the song was a product of too many days alone in a remote cabin, a la Walden, Or Life In The Woods (but luckily less like Into The Wild). I've always been drawn to songs that take me close to the frozen lake but don't take me close enough to fall in.

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Bon Iver's Blogotheque Take-away show


Bon Iver reminds us that the best horror movies take place in remote, beautiful locations

Au, "RR Vs. D"

I count at least three distinct parts to this song. There's the roiling, tinkling, classically-inclined piano. There are odd, ghostly female vocals that slide up and down an invisible scale, later slipping into the most catchy refrain: "Get it, one, two, three" and finally the especially odd carnivalesque break inserted into the middle. The only part that seems like it should be part of different song is the carnival portion, but in a tapestry like this, there's always going to be one part that the listener doesn't think fits as well as the others (and since I'm not the composer, it doesn't matter what I think). Otherwise, the piano, handclaps and tipping vocals belong together, complementing each other while retaining very different identities.

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Au are as happy as a van (isn't that the expression>)

Podcast, Episode 50, Fifty Episodes...Longevity: It's The Secret To Life

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Theme Music! American Princes, "Watch As They Go" (Downloadable from their Myspace)
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The Heys, "Pressure" (Thanks to Planetery Group, a new media company, for the mp3).
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Everything All The Time, "Lazy Days" (The band asked me not to post the .mp3)
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Music available through iTunes and Zunior

We Barbarians, "Spun Out" (live via Daytrotter)
Myspace (Their website redirects to Myspace)

American Princes, "Watch As They Go" (Downloadable from their Myspace)
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State Bird, "The Golden Glowing Mask"
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Noa Babayof, "Indian Queen"
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The Little Ones, "Boracay"
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Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By

Tanya Davis, "Art"

When the guitar and light drums start off this song, you're not sure what kind of song this is going to be. A light pop song? R & B? Well, definitely not thrash metal--you can be sure of that. But it starts off with such a clean template that you could see the song going many directions--a blank slate. Perfect for an artist. Tanya Davis is a poet and musician from Halifax, Nova Scotia, and her poetry is well-served and well-offered in this song. She overlays the music with her rhythmic poetry--more talking-in-rhythm than singing, though the choruses are more traditionally rendered. The chorus and verse are not mismatched, however. The two styles are different but complimentary--the singing and speak-singing wax and wane fluidly, both part of the cohesive whole. Like the musical poets of the 60's and 70's, Tanya hasn't narrowed her concept of what a song is or what a poem is. Instead she's made her poems musical and her songs poetic--a very poetic gesture.

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Tanya Davis offers the world art, in many forms

Pomegranates, "The Children's Progress" (Not a direct link. Recorded live from Daytrotter)

This starts out sounding like a pretty straight-forward alt-country song--almost Patsy Cline-era country, but it soon shows aspects of more modern alt-country. I'm reminded a little bit of The Elected--the plaintive, fervent, yet still slightly distant male vocals. The alt-country tinge. The visual, descriptive lyrics: "Well, you can beg and you can cry, gonna eat you alive, just as sure as you've two eyes, they're gonna eat you alive". Perhaps what they most have in common is being young and feeling burdened. Whereas in the Elected song "Greetings in Braille", the burden was having an alcoholic father, in The Pomegranate's "The Children's Progress", the singer seems to be fearful of more abstract threats. He "[falls] asleep with fearful eyes", waiting for something terrible to sneak up from behind the hills in his view. His parents ask him when he's going to learn, that "no one deserves the funeral that [he] has to rehearse". Why he feels he's so close to tragedy, he doesn't say. It's an apt analogy for how I felt when I was younger. No one had told me what to expect when I moved out on my own; I didn't have the least bit of an idea how to maneuver through each day, how to control my life. Therefore I did feel like fear was breathing down on me, ready to snatch me to some morbid other side. Life did sometimes resemble a less charming Tim Burton film.

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The Pomegranates gather inspiration from the ceiling, and from each other.

The Lovely Sparrows, "Year of the Dog"

This is a song of contrasting instruments, contrasting parts and contrasting styles. A beautiful composition that won't be pinned down. We hear the soft rumblings of a Spanish-style guitar, a flute whispers in, rising slightly as the vocals enter, indicating the first hints of melody. The guitar continues to strum and pluck underneath the singer as he pulls the melody into cohesion. A thumping drum beat introduces the transition from the looser elements of the first part of the song to a more energetic, rollicking song, complete with hand claps. The denouement harkens to the beginning, with the instruments devolving to seemingly random expressions. This song is not unlike my fashion taste: eclectic, with pieces that individually seem to have no business together, but when put together form something fascinating, daring and thoroughly original (though if you saw what I was wearing today, you might form your own opinion).

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The Lovely Sparrows

Oh Craptastical

I wrote all pretty-like about this song "Zero" by Mark Northfield this past weekend, and then I just found out today that the link doesn't work. Here's the correct link. It's a beautiful song--give it a listen.

I always check the links when I'm done--I don't know what happened this time. Eh.

Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By

**Podcast show notes are in an earlier post**

Elizabeth Harper, "Let Me Take You Out"

I'm going to try to close my eyes and type. I should be ablet o do it. I'm doing thiws because I'm watching the kaleidoscopic images that are bursting in front of my colosed eyes. I'm rememberinghow I felt when I first heeard The Coctaue Twins. The most wonderful sensation is sneaking up and around me. Oh--it's the guitar! It seems to be bouncingoff my nervous system and ricocheting inside my senses, like a pinball machine. I had to break the spell a little to ask my boyfriend what those old arcade games were called because I couldn't remember. Let me get back in the trance. Even the bass is sneaking under my skin. It' sone of those songs that become part of your consciousness and maybe sub-consciuslness. Her voice is the angelic overture to the other slightly, more grounded, tenser constituents of the song. I think her voice is altering my DNA. I remember this one time I took this herbal supplement for anti-anxiety and I felt like someone had infused my blood with peppermint. That's kind of how I feel now. I never found that supplement again. I'll just listen to her voice anytime I need to cdalm down.

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Well, that's just a pretty picture of Elizabeth Harper. I love the sly look on her face.


Mark Northfield, "Zero" (Thanks to Fingertips to pointing me to the song)

Okay, I'm opening my eyes, but it doesn't mean the spell is any less broken. Much like the previous song, this song has a calming effect, making me want to shush anyone who dares speak while it's playing. If I saw him live, I would probably attempt to hush the entire audience. For a lesser musician, the term "composer" would seem pretentious and wishful. For Mark Northfield, though, it's truthful--he has created a beautiful interplay between his instruments. The piano and guitar gently guide the composition; they are the backbone of the song, the consistency. The violins sweep in, stealing the song momentarily, then swell to a tense crescendo. The song breaks and the violins dispell to an almost nothing, allowing the piano to reassert the calmer focus of the song. The singer's voice deftly navigates both these softer moments and the tenser, grander sections. He wraps his voice around the themes of the song with assured command, embodying the feeling of timelessness reflected in the lyrics. He has a detachment in his voice that isn't cold, but rather exhibits a distancing from emotion--emotion being a symptom of the awareness of time. The song is about the relativity of time: if you allow yourself to step away from the pressing concept of "now", you'll see that your misunderstood concept of "now" is only relative to your preconceptions. "Now" is actually many things. It is the future, it is many futures. "Now is almost, now is always, now is gone...now is high-time, now is high-tide". Now is not something that can be measured--it's everything. That is a wonderful concept for someone like me, who has to dream of a long-lost anti-anxiety supplement in order to bring on a sense of calm.

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More audio files available on here.


Mark Northfield and cat: a study in contrasts

Jay Brannan, "At First Sight"

Awesome--a love song for the modern age. Boy meets other boy*, other boy teaches boy not to be psycho (always a welcome lesson), boy says other boy only wants the guy he knows through his iPod (it's tough when you meet your iDols), they break up, he realizes he's in love with him (his "text messages were like no-calorie food for [his] soul"), he thinks the other boy might feel the same way because he's "still answering [the singer's] Craigslist ad". This reminds me of the great James Figurine song "55566688833", about a couple who fight through text-messaging. I don't have a phone with Qwerty keyboard yet (oh Gods of employment, please smile upon me soon--I want an iPhone), so I hate text-messaging--perhaps my relationship is safe for the time-being. Or perhaps not--in the James Figurine song, he gets in trouble for not text-messaging quickly enough, and for taking short-cuts in the "love you" sign-off. "At First Sight" has a similar theme: love amongst the internet generation. Even in this age of a thousand Myspace friends and Facebooks applications-as-conversation, it's still heartbreaking when Jay Brennan says that he's perceptive enough to know that the boy he loves hates him. Someone text him a smiley face or a hug.

*As I've said before, I don't assume gender, but after watching a few of his videos, yeah... If that boy ain't gay then I don't know what gay is :)

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Jay Brannan is a fellow Blogspot blogger


Jay Bannan and cat. I'm a sucker for cat pictures.

Oh, yeah. Remember how I always try to warn people if there's anything in my blog or podcast that's not safe for work? Oh, and remember how I've been putting a lot of songs on Zshare.net? Yeah, well I have this thing where I never notice ads on websites. I look at so many web pages that the advertisements are invisible to me (unless they involve cute animals or cute clothes). Okay, so yeah, my friend Clauderains gently let me know that the advertisements on Zshare are NOT safe for work.

Sorry about that. I won't use Zshare anymore.

Podcast Episode 49, One Day Lola Shall Have The Word "Uh" Surgically Removed From Her Memory

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Theme Music! Girl In A Coma, "Clumsy Sky"
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The Saturday Knights, "Dog Park" (This link isn't working currently--I'm including a yousendit link also)
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Buy at
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Chairlift, "Make Your Mind Up"
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This Frontier Needs Heroes, "Imaginary Friend" (Downloadable from their Myspace)
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Orouni, " A Greased and Golden Palm"
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Amy Ray, "Covered For You" (Downloadable from Paste Online. This song is #45--just right click on the song and hit download)
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Jonathan Rundman, "Librarian (demo)"
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Jeffrey Lewis, "End Result"
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Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By

The Rural Alberta Advantage, "In The Summertime"

This song is as sweet as it is short: 2 minutes and 37 seconds--it's over before you've registered it. You're left feeling a little dazed, like you stared way too long at the sun; everything you look at for the next few minutes has a yellow aura around it. Also, you may get that feeling of content from when you've laughed alot and you suddenly feel really happy and balanced. Now, before you start posturing about how happiness is unattainable/overrated/stupid/uncool, I'm not talking about pill-induced happiness. I'm talking about the happiness you get from connecting with someone. I don't get that feeling every day--maybe even just a few times a year-- but I remember the times I've had it, and the circumstances behind it. They all involved people who are very close to me telling funny stories, some of which probably feature me falling down or saying something very inappropriate.

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Thanks to Hero Hill for pointing me to the link


Unfortunately, chairs are not a Rural Alberta Advantage


Jessie Baylin, "Leave Your Mark" (Click the link to get to the download page) Recorded live at Daytrotter

One of the best things I did several years ago was to turn off my radio. If I hadn't turned off the radio, I might've thought that all female vocals were still that same processed, synthesized, over electronized, reed-thin, manipulated-beyond-human tripe I kept hearing. I turned off my radio and switched on my resourcefulness, and I've found some of the most fantastic music I've ever heard. Jessie Baylin knows how to finely wrap her voice around the words she's singing. She pushes and prods the lyrics, injecting a coyness into the song that isn't manipulative or flashy, but gives evidence to a soul that's confident, knowing and seems way beyond her 24 years. The music is perfectly wrought, also. The guitar finely wraps itself around the vocals, lightly following the singer's lead, only asserting itself when it strengthens the song. Both the vocals and the guitar work together to bring a delicate balance to the song that could easily be dismantled by more aggressive or showboaty performers.

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There are several stories in Jessie Baylin's eyes

Zachary James Dodds, "My New Friends" (Zshare link--the artist gave me permission to post it, and it's also available on his Myspace page).

I've heard a lot of love songs: tortured love songs, passionate love songs and a few hopeful love songs. This is a hopeful love song, told from the point of view of an outside observer. It's a love song about a family--not just lovers, but lovers who have pledged themselves to each other and to the life that they have brought in to the world ("now there's three, not two"). He wonders about their decision to unite--were they "brave" just "wild in love", or both? Why wasn't the man "afraid to give his name" to her? What makes her stay by his side throughout the night? What makes this trinity hold? His friend is different from him now, but he thinks still the same. Even though his friend is a father now, he still feels like they're the "kids in town"-running around with little thought of responsibility or what tomorrow will bring. He asks a lot of questions that anyone, young or old, who sees love as a mystery, would ask. Even those who think they know love ask these questions. He just asks them with the aid of a xylophone, some really nice guitar strumming, and a really good tune.

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No, he's not Amish. He's Zachary James Dodds of Arizona (photo by David Blakeman)