Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By

Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By

This is going to be another shortened post. Yes, I suck. The kitty's been acting funky today, and I realize that may be partly my fault (I realized that I made a bad mistake because I was tired). Also, for other reasons I'm not going to get in to, I have to start waking up at 5 instead of 5:30. Bear with me, folks. The Lola needs to take care of herself and her almost 15 year-old cat.

Parts and Labor, "Nowheres Nigh"

Being so tired, I would choose a band with the word "labor" in its name. Luckily the song is much more upbeat than how I feel. The energy in this song is enough to fuel ten Red Bulls, several vitamin supplements and one of those yappy dogs that never stop jumping up and down. The bass solidly underlies the song, grounding the music. The guitar rips through, putting any dead air to rest and the vocals intensify the already taut movement by injecting an urgency and raw emotion. This is the kind of song where even if you can't understand the words enough to tell what the song is about (hey--it happens. I googled and could not find), you can tell that something important is at stake. Someone is fighting for something.

Website
Myspace
Call and leave a message and they may use it in their live show.


Parts and Labor win the staring contest. I'm not even going to try to best them.


Made in China, "How Everything Works"

Could this be...a song for Sylar? Afterall, he says "I know how everything works, but I can't explain it". Sounds like the perfect theme song for Sylar from Heroes. Or, it could be a song about confusion, uncertainty and the attempts one makes to connect with others. He says "no one's getting his drift"...he knows "how everyone feels", but he "can't seem to tell them". He feels like he could fix a lot of problems, repeal a lot of sorrows, if only the world would give him a chance. He "knows the evil that lurks". He knows "how everything works", and as he says, he "barely survives it". Unfortunately, no one will turn to him for his help. It's the curse of being able to see inside people but not at them--being aware of so much that he scares people because some people don't want to look in a mirror. Some people don't want to look inside.

Website *You have no idea how hard it was to google this
Myspace


Is it any surprise these dudes can see inside us?

Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By

Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By

(Podcast show notes are in the post before this one)

This is going to be another shortened post. I'm trying to go a little easy on myself; I'm frikkin' exhausted. I started work this week, and because of my cat's illness, I have to get up at 5:30 each morning to feed her and give her her medicine. It takes half an hour or more just to get her to eat all of her food, then we have to wrangle her to get her to take her pill (the pill pocket treats aren't working anymore). Then when I get home I have to do the same thing. Also, I made some tea for her called essiac. It's more than a 12-hour process to make it and I had to get up at 5 this morning to reboil the tea and bottle it. That took an hour. So I'm letting myself off slightly easy this weekend with the post.

The Annuals, "Hot Night Hounds" (Scroll to the bottom of the page and left click on "download" or "stream" to stream the song).

I believe music is often influenced by its surroundings. You'll find out that a song you love was recorded in a beautiful old wooden cabin, by a lake, for example. When I hear this song, I think it must have been recorded in the clearing of a huge forest. Everywhere you look there are huge, strong, ancient trees stretching towards the clouds. The sky is clean and the clouds are lazy. The water in the shallow lake is still, not disturbed by anything; not by bugs, reptiles, fish or a child's disruptive play. The birds swoop in modestly, conscious that too much noise will alter the quiet. The song starts and you realize the entire scene had been holding its breath, waiting for this music to start--almost as if the music were formed from the surroundings themselves. Guitar harvested from the trees? Piano played from the earth? The composition of the music is as sophisticated as that found in seasoned musicans'. The varied ways the instruments sneak in, forming intricate, subtle and at times bold and bombastic sensations show evidence of a group of polished, natural musicians. Young musicians, though. These folks are barely old enough to drink in public. I could barely remember my way home at that age. This is an unexpected sound from a surprisingly young source.

Website
Myspace


Them Annuals are sly, they are


Dawn Landes, "Kids in a Play (Not a direct link)

I remember as a kid there was very little difference between what I imagined and what was really happening. My imagination was mapped onto everything I did. I was an only child, too, so I processed everything through the lens of play pretend. The pediatrician became the Mad Hatter (but I was never Alice 'cause that girl was foolish). The restaurant my parents and I went to that had the weird, dark hallway--that became a dungeon and each time we drudged down the hallway I never knew if I would emerge safely at the end, macaroni and cheese in hand. Sometimes there would be jello, too. If I'd had a brother or a sister, I imagine I would have shared my pretend life with that person. We would have sat together on the bus and made up our pretend lives. We would have composed our entire lives on that bus: who we are, where we came from (the moon? Mars? Wilmington Island?) and we would probably devise our own language just to befuddle the other, nosy children. We would have "practiced at home, or rehearsed on the bus, next to kids just like us, who couldn't help but think we were weird". We wouldn't have been concerned with those other children, though. We would have turned our noses right up at them. We would just keep giggling and exchanging stories in the back of the school bus.

Website
Myspace


Dawn Landes, mid-composition

Episode 56, In Which Lola Stumbles Over Every Word

Podcast Page
Direct Link
RSS Feed

Theme Music! Eux Autres, "Ecoutez-bien" (Downloaded from their website. Click to the right of the song where it says 3 MB, and then click download)
Myspace

The Secret Machines, "Atomic Heels"
Website
Myspace

Wax Fang, "World War II (Part 2)"
Website
Myspace

North Atlantic Explorers, "I Will Not Leave You Alone"
Website
Myspace

Sharon Little, "Follow That Sound" (The label sent me the mp3 and I don't know if I'm supposed to post it)
Website
Myspace

Mikal Evans, "Virgin Wind" (I think I spelled it wrong when I spelled it out in the podcast)
Website
Myspace

Film School, "Lectric"
Website
Myspace

Kinetic Stereokids, "Have A Nice Day"
Website
Myspace

Song That Might Otherwise Pass You By

This is going to be a very truncated version of the blog post. I'm not in the happiest of moods--I found out today that my oldest cat has cancer again. Whereas the doctor was optimistic when she had it two years ago (and she did go into remission), this time he was not at all optimistic and thinks she might only have a few weeks. So, since she's my baby (my almost 15 year old baby), my mind is a little mushy and I don't want to have to work much this weekend. So, I'm putting this out a little early, but this'll be the post for the weekend of Oct. 10th-Oct. 12th.

The Loom, "Song For The Winter Sun" (Look for the "download mp3" button at the bottom of the page)

I would never sleep through a whole winter, though I am in constant danger of sleeping through an entire winter afternoon. Perhaps morning, also. Night, definitely. But not all three consistently. However, since I love the marching vibe of this song--it's rhythmic enough to shatter the freeze on any landscape--I'm looking beyond any differences. So, I'm not a bear. It doesn't mean I can't enjoy this song. Of course the song also has the type of lyrics I won't understand until the band tells me what the song's about. Besides the aforementioned "we will not sleep our way through the winter", leading me to believe the song may be about a band of snowmen, meaning is still difficult to determine by the rest of the lyrics. Is he an unfortunate boxer, "going down quickly in the early rounds"? Is he Frankenstein, "dragging [his] feet through the sturdy towns?" If I don't figure out the meaning of the words, though, I'll still enjoy the song for the handclaps, the instruments (is that a mandolin?) and the record player crackling. Man, I love the sound of a record player crackling.

Rcrdlbl Site
Myspace


Quick! Look down-up-to-the-right-to-the-left-slightly-down!

Cerulean's Love of Music, Special Episode #6, Tarzan, Get Back To Your Tree

Podcast Page
Direct Link
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The Broken West, "Auctioneer"
Label Site
Myspace

Team Genius, "Take Me Home"
Website
Myspace

Happy Hollows, "Lieutenant"
Website
Myspace

Leatherbag, "It's Over (I Ain't Young Anymore)" (Downloaded from their Myspace. Just click on the word "free" in the music box next to the song)
Website

Great Northern, "Telling Lies" (Thanks to Filter for the link)
Website
Myspace

Eulogies, "Two Can Play" (The label sent me the song and I can't remember if they gave me permission to post it, so I'm going to err on the side of not getting sued and not post it)
Website
Myspace

Matthew Ryan, "Jane I Feel The Same"
Website
Myspace

Sonya Kitchell, "For Every Drop"
Website
Myspace

Promo

I have made my first ever promo. Yay for me! Thanks to Brad Sucks for letting me use his song. I'm sure I will use more of his songs, provided I have not embarrassed him too much because of this promo.

Cerulean's Love of Music, Promo #1, Music by Brad Sucks (Via Sendspace)

The podcaster/novelist (and a new hero of mine), J.C. Hutchins, has agreed to include my promo at the end of one of his upcoming 7th Son: Obsidian podcasts. He regularly promotes other podcasters, which is damn awesome and generous of him. I'm halfway through the second book of his trilogy, 7th Son. It is a very well-written, very gripping book. So gripping, that it may be the reason the volume on my iPod dock won't go down.

Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By

Frightened Rabbit, "Square Nine"* (Live from Daytrotter)

I am totally in love with the drumming at the end of this song. Frenetic doesn't begin to describe it. Barely hinged? Threatening to beat the surface of the earth until nothing's left but the hard stone underneath the dirt? I'm quite enamored with the guitar, also: It rips through whatever is in its way, leaving no molecule of air unshredded. The bass supports the song with a steady rumble, less noticed by the ear, but integral to the integrity. The singer toils, his voice both soaring and wretching, struggling to articulate the stages of a relationship: "Like square one where we fell in love...by square two, that's not me and you...square five, we were only half alive." As he says, "stages are just stages for us to pass". Living those stages is what we all must do; giving a voice to those stages is what music was made for.

*This is a bit of an older song, but they have songs from their newer album, Midnight Organ Fight, on the Daytrotter page, too.

Label Site (Their website is under construction)
Myspace


The members of Frightened Rabbit look up towards their mentor for guidance.

Brightblack Morning Light, "Oppressions Each"


This is one soulful song. The piano is rhythmic and jazz-inspired. The music is infused with a smoky, opaqueness harkening back to the deliberate haze of the speakeasies--a cloudiness that served to disorient and confuse unknowns who happened to wander in. If you're not open to what they're saying, you'll walk away thinking this is just a nice, smooth neo-jazz song. Listen carefully, though--let your mind wander through the obfuscation-- and you'll find a message. As the title suggests, the song is about the oppression running rampant throughout our lives. "No one wants oppression, no one needs oppression", but as the singer sings, "You can't tell me you're free". Perhaps if we start paying attention, and try to see beyond the haze, we'll be able to live by our guidelines, and not someone else's.

Website
Myspace


The members of Brightblack Morning Light eat food made of rainbows. Nice. (Photo by Magic Andy McLeod)

Colour Revolt, "Moses of the South" (Live from Daytrotter)

If the spirit of Arcade Fire had an equivalent down here in the south, I'd say it was definitely Colour Revolt. This song may not be accompanied with a thousand instruments and as many vocals, but I hear a similar wroughtness and plaintiveness to the singer's delivery. I also hear a glee in the performance usually reserved for a huge collective such as Arcade Fire or Broken Social Scene. Lyrically, I haven't heard sentences as strangely and cleverly constructed since I first heard AF's Funeral. The lyrics to "Moses of the South" are awesome and confounding: "Pure and fearful children flee north at the sound of the kings horn". What a picture that brings up! "Cause prophets here linger in lightening, they're giddy and livid in love". I want to live in this vivid town. I want to be "weeping and laughing with pleasure, biding [my] happy time, cause the sky one day must eat the earth". Even dismay is "beautiful" and "wondered". What do I have to do to paint my life with these words? I just have to lie back, close my eyes and imagine this scene? Alright, sounds like a good deal.

Website (Site doesn't come up for me. Is it just me?)
Myspace
Check their band page on their label's site for the best band bio ever.


Colour Revolt revolt against all colours that are not orange, black or green. (Photo by Jitin Chatlani)

Ep 55, In Which Lola Forgets Again to Adjust the Volume During Her Vocal Performance

Podcast page
Direct mp3
RSS Feed

Marnie Stern, "Transformer"
Toolshed media page
Myspace

Okkervil river, "Lost Coastlines" (Not a direct link)
Website
Myspace

Rachel Sage, "Vertigo"
Website
Myspace

So Called, "You Are Never Alone"
Website
Myspace

Listing Ship - "Depression"
Website
Myspace

Another Black Season, "We're in the Fire" (The label sent me the song and they asked me not to post the mp3)
Myspace
(No individual website listed)

Tall Firs, "Hairdo"
Website
Myspace

Clair, "Christine" (Not a direct link)
Myspace
(No website listed)

Public Service Announcement

I've been using Adobe Audition demo software to record the podcast the last two episodes. I really like it. The files are very easy to move around, unlike Audacity. It has a lot of sound effects that I have yet to try to use. I probably won't use them much for this podcast, but if I do ever start podcasting my fiction, then I would like to have access to those effects.

As far as ease of use, it's no more easier than my old software Propaganda, but seeing as Propaganda closes as soon as I open it up, I've decided I want to move past trying to get Propaganda to work. Plus Adobe can do a lot more neat tricks than Propaganda ever dreamed of. I tried a free program called Audacity multiple times, I had nothing but headaches when I used it. Audacity may be free, but it's clunky and difficult to maneuver.

So the reason I'm mentioning this is, as most of you know, I've never made a cent off this podcast. I've also been out of work for 8 months (though I finally got a job. Yay!) Anyhoo, yeah, Adobe Audition 3 costs $349 plus tax. I have a job now, so in a few months I could probably save enough money. However, if anyone so desired to kick in a dollar, 5 dollars, 10 dollars, it would be greatly appreciated. I don't think I've ever paid this much for software, and I'm looking to assuage the shock ;)

Any of my friends who normally get me a birthday present (my birthday's at the end of the month), I would actually rather have a donation to the Adobe fund this year than a material gift. While I love material gifts, I like having money in my bank account too ;) Here's the donate link. The link is also on the main page.

Star Wars Cantina

Richard Cheese's website