Early cold snap. + Angst/introspection about turning 40 earlier this month. + Sleep deprivation the week before Christmas = Northwind.
NW017
01. White Winter Hymnal/FLEET FOXES 02. Continental Divide/907BRITT 03. A Bientot Nous Deux (live)/FRANCE GALL 04. Higher Than The Sun/PRIMAL SCREAM 05. Dear Prudence/THE BEATLES 06. Movin' On/JOSH ROUSE 07. Once Around/AUTUMN DEFENSE 08. Revolutionary Kind (live)/GOMEZ 09. Enjoy The Silence (live)/THE POSIES 10. As Sure As The Sun/BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB 11. He'll Come Back To Me/MARIANNE FAITHFULL 12. I Want The World To Stop/BELLE & SEBASTIAN 13. Caroline/ESPERS 14. Three-Two/CLOGS 15. Two Silver Trees/CALEXICO 16. Slipped Dissolved And Loosed/LAMBCHOP 17. Fan Dance/SAM PHILLIPS 18. Doorways/RADICAL FACE 19. Angel/KIRSTY MacCOLL 20. New Year's Prayer/JEFF BUCKLEY
Third installment of my intended-to-be annual mix of Christmas/Holiday fare, the firsttwo were posted at AOTM under my “Mesh” nom de guerre.
Lots of fun to make, more fun to listen: twenty-four widely varying artists and songs with a handful of Easter Eggs Stocking Stuffers thrown in for good measure. And even though I’ve been swamped with things other than mixing for the past few months, I consider this a good and proper way for me to cap off a year in which I did complete TWELVE mixes (a number I hadn’t reached since pre-kid days).
NW016
01. Secret Santa/HERE COME THE MUMMIES 02. Monster's Holiday/BOBBY "BORIS" PICKETT & THE CRYPT-KICKERS 03. The Story Of Snoopy's Christmas/THE ROYAL GUARDSMEN 04. Twelve Days Of Christmas/JOHN DENVER & THE MUPPETS 05. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town/THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY 06. Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindeer/ELLA FITZGERALD 07. Tiny Tree Christmas/GUSTER 08. Happy Christmas (war is over)/THE ALARM 09. Blue Christmas/JOHNNY CASH 10. Santa Bring My Baby Back (to me)/REV. HORTON HEAT 11. Merry Christmas Baby/SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS 12. Shimmy Down The Chimney (fill up my stocking)/ALISON KRAUSS 13. Pretty Paper/ROY ORBISON 14. That Was The Worst Christmas Ever/SUFJAN STEVENS 15. O Holy Night/THE GREAT TRANSPARACY 16. Merry Xmas/GRAHAM MASSEY 17. Christmas Lights/LAST NIGHT'S TV 18. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas/JUDY GARLAND 19. One Christmas Catalogue/CAPTAIN SENSIBLE 20. Toy Packaging/SARA GROVES 21. Here Comes Santa Claus (right down santa claus lane)/ELVIS PRESLEY 22. Christmas Must Be Tonight/THE BAND 23. Christmas For Cowboys/JOHN DENVER 24. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear/SAM PHILLIPS
My submission for the ZeRO October mixathon, which revolves around this challenge, floated around on facebook: "Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen albums you've heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Tag fifteen friends (or more) , including me, because I'm interested in seeing what albums my friends choose." From this, a secondary challenge to pick one song from each of these albums that sticks out for one reason or another. So without further ado....
01. XTC/English Settlement/"Jason And The Argonauts": I was properly introduced to XTC by a friend of mine in college via their appearance on some mixtapes he made for me (though, in retrospect I had previously heard “Dear God” which was popular/infamous at the time). After telling him how much I liked what I heard, he dubbed me a copy of English Settlement and I was truly enamored. It’s still one of those multi-functional albums for me: I can dance around to it, chill on the couch to it, clean the house to it, one that I pull out for a listen on any given whim. “Jason And The Argonauts” is an early album highlight….
02. JANE’S ADDICTION/Nothing’s Shocking/"Ocean Size": The first time I heard this album was the first time I really, really partook of the green. Blew me away. In youth-based arrogance, I had all but dismissed all-things metal. This album urged me not only to take a look at some bands in that genre, but also to give Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and others another listen. Perry Farrell’s greatest moment, hands down. “Ocean Size” is the first full assault from the album.
03. BEASTIE BOYS/Paul’s Boutique/"High Plains Drifter": My sophomore year of college, Beastie Boys released a single called “Hey Ladies.” I didn’t know what to think of it. It didn’t sound anything like Licensed To Ill, and didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard. A guy living in my dorm offered me a listen (on a red cassette, no less) and I was floored. Intriguing. Amazing. Ten years ahead of its time. To this day, one of the best hip hop albums of all time. “High Plains Drifter” gets the nod, in no small part, for the Ramones sample at the end….
04. NINE INCH NAILS/The Downward Spiral/"The Becoming": One of those albums that hit just at the right time. I was still dealing with the emotional wreckage from a bad break-up and this album struck immediately struck a chord, with “The Becoming” really summing up how I felt (at the time) towards my ex-girlfriend….
05. GORILLAZ/Demon Days/"All Alone": How is it that a “side project” ends up putting together (now three) albums of such brilliance that they could all easily rank in the “best of the decade”? I really liked Gorillaz and was really excited about the release of Demon Days, especially after hearing “Feel Good Inc.” Rarely does an album live up to the hype I’ve built up for it. Demon Days was one such album. To me, “All Alone” nails the essence of Gorillaz….
06. BLUR/Blur/"Strange News From Another Star: I was a little late to the Blur bandwagon, but was up to speed after the release of The Great Escape: a fantastic album, by any measure, and a worthy successor to the brilliance of Parklife. Blur, however, went off in a totally different direction than either of those (or Leisure or Modern Life Is Rubbish, for that matter). I remember buying this album during Lent of 1996 and waiting until Easter to it (a semi-tradition I maintained through my 20’s and early 30’s). I put the disc in my player as I headed back from Louisville to Lexington and turned up the volume. From the first guitar notes of “Beetlebum” I was in awe. Then “Song 2.” Wow. “Strange News From Another Star,” though, sticks out for some reason. I just really like this song….
07. MY BLOODY VALENTINE/Loveless/"Soon": I confess, this album was woefully absent from my record collection for far too long. I knew I’d probably really like it, but my disc dollars never seemed to go toward its purchase. My first exposure to MBV were their appearances on Sire’s Just Say Yes series (one of the greatest sampler series of the late 80’s-early 90’s). “Soon” was one of those songs. A song I love, and a song I love even more after finally hearing it in its proper album context….
08. UNCLE TUPELO/Anodyne/"New Madrid": I met a girl not long after my trainwreck break-up (as described in the Nine Inch Nails entry) who introduced me to Uncle Tupelo. While they were miles away from what I was listening to at the time, I was really drawn to them (greatly assisted that I was quite smitten with this woman). I studied the back catalog, was fortunate enough to see them on (what would become) their farewell tour, and really, really dug them. Anodyne is a flat-out fantastic album. "New Madrid" is a flat-out fantastic song….
09. THE ENGLISH BEAT/I Just Can’t Stop It/"Hands Off, She's Mine": Unfortunately, The English Beat didn’t ever seem to make the airwaves in Louisville when they were out and about. A friend of mine put “Save It For Later” on a mix he made for me in about ’87 (over four years since the band broke up) and I came across General Public’s “Tenderness” on a sampler I’d bought. I liked both songs a lot, and when I found out that the two bands were linked (don’t knock me, this was pre-Internet) I was really intrigued. So, I went out and found a copy of I Just Can’t Stop It (seemed like a good place to start) and in an instant, The Police were usurped as my favorite band. I used to think that “Hands Off She’s Mine” would have been cool to write on the bottom of my shoes when I got married. Ultimately didn’t have the guts, but still a crackin’ good tune….
10. NEW ORDER/Technique/"Round & Round": In my opinion, the best New Order album. One of my favorite album covers of all time. One of the best videos ever. “Round & Round.” Love it.
11. THE SMITHS/The Queen Is Dead/"Bigmouth Strikes Again": I knew a girl in high school was in love with Morrissey. Yeah, so did everybody else in the mid-80’s. After telling me over and over how great The Smiths were and how Morrissey was god, I finally submitted to her insistence and had a listen to this album. Not bad, I thought. Some songs were better than others (or bigger than others, as the case may be), but I politely filed it away and went along my merry way. For one reason or another, I pulled it out later and listened. Hmmm. And again. And again. It took a while, but for me The Queen Is Dead became the ultimate grower. Now as I listen (surprisingly frequently), I see it as every bit a classic, and The Smiths, one of my all-time favorite bands. Morrissey in great form and Johnny Marr…Johnny Marr: absolutely brilliant. “Bigmouth Strikes Again” has been one of the songs that I have liked, now love, since that first high school listen….
12. TALKING HEADS/Little Creatures/"Television Man": My older brother, whose musical tastes (as I’ve mentioned before) often involved geographically named outfits, introduced me to this album. He suggested, almost insisted, that I use a few of the dollars from my first-ever paycheck to buy it (so he could later nick it from me). The lead off “And She Was” was his favorite song, and while I admittedly love that song, I continued to dig deeper into the album. And while I still don’t care for “Road To Nowhere” (its appearance in Reality Bites sealed that deal), I’m still drawn to Little Creatures. A pop album. From Talking Heads. “Television Man” is one of my favorites from the disc (brilliantly covered by Man Or Astro-Man?, by the way)….
13. GOMEZ/Bring It On/"78 Stone Wobble": I proudly admit it. I really like Gomez. I’ve gotten into them quite a bit over the past few years and, overall, really enjoy their music. I also had the pleasure of seeing them live last year in Covington, KY: the first concert I’d been to in more than a couple years, and the most recent I’ve been to. Any of their albums could have made this list, especially when constrained to “fifteen minutes,” so I settled on their debut. “78 Stone Wobble” is a groovy little number, but much like singling out only one of their albums, this just as soon could have been a half-dozen others….
14. PINK FLOYD/Animals/"Pigs (three different ones)": Another album I discovered through my older brother. This seemed to be his favorite album to blare through his quite large speakers in the basement of our parents’ house (as the basement, strangely, smelled of burnt rope). It’s also an album that’s stuck with me throughout the years, with Pigs (three different ones) being my favorite of the albums five tracks….
15. RADIOHEAD/OK Computer/"Paranoid Android": I suspect my experience with Radiohead is not unique. I first heard them via “Creep”: an absolutely brilliant single that left me begging for more. Unfortunately, I ended up being let down by Pablo Honey. Some really good songs, but some that seemed clunky, and some just not good. By the time The Bends came around, I had moved on to other musical pastures and didn’t give it a look. Then came the video for “Karma Police.” Whoa…. I decided that maybe, just maybe, I should give Radiohead another chance. I am thankful I did. OK Computer…. Well, let’s just say the best analysis of this album was when someone wrote “there’s no way this was made by humans.” “Paranoid Android” is some of the finest six and a half minutes ever committed to tape....
I ended up sitting in a hotel room north of Baltimore last week as the remnants of a tropical depression poured down upon the region. After being awakened by (and continually hearing through the morning) police and ambulance sirens heading to respond to accidents on I-83, I sighed. Summer is over. Winter is coming. Ugh....
Regaining my composure, I used the opportunity to pull out my laptop and begin to assemble this mix: a mostly fun, slightly trippy little jaunt to bring a little sunshine to the cloudy, cold days ahead: some popular, some obscure, some infamous.... The rough draft was put together that afternoon, although I was reminded that I'd forgotten to rip some key CD's onto my new computer after the old one died. Some of those songs were added after I returned home late last week, and I did a great deal of re-ordering and re-tooling over the weekend (a beautiful few days of Indian Summer).
This week's forecast? Much cooler with chances of (much needed) rain. Looks like I'll be closing my eyes and putting on my headphones....
01. Mrs. Green/THE POSIES 02. Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow/STRAWBERRY ALARM CLOCK 03. Baby Lee/TEENAGE FANCLUB 04. The Universal/BLUR 05. Renaissance Fair/THE BYRDS 06. Motorcycle Daydream/BEDROOM EYES 07. Ruby Tuesday/THE ROLLING STONES 08. Girlshapedlovedrug/GOMEZ 09. She's Not There/THE ZOMBIES 10. Lion Face Boy/SEABEAR 11. French Navy/CAMERA OBSCURA 12. Write About Love/BELLE AND SEBASTIAN 13. Our Lips Are Sealed/FUN BOY THREE 14. Ticket To Ride/THE BEATLES 15. Lost And Found/TAKEN BY TREES 16. 59th Street Bridge Song/HARPERS BIZARRE 17. ....Sudden Stars/STEREOLAB 18. See Emily Play/PINK FLOYD 19. Sunshine Superman/DONOVAN 20. Blue-Green Eyes/THE SUNDOWNERS 21. In The Dreamlife You Need A Rubber Soul/THE CLEAN 22. Have You Heard The Word/THE FUT 23. My Love Explodes/THE DUKES OF STRATOSPHEAR
My best friend Mike is forty today. A milestone, a celebration, a reminder that I'm hitting forty before the year is out....
Although I decided a while ago I wanted to make a CD to commemorate/celebrate the event, I had a really hard time deciding which direction to go with it. I've made several discs for him over the years from several different genres, and I really wanted to do something without resorting to sentimentality. My first thought was to pick one song from every year, 1970-2010, but that was going to be too herculean a task, especially in light of my end of summer getting extraordinarily chaotic. After a lot of rummaging through my hard drive and my CD collection (as well as some assistance from the public library), I decided on this humble approach: a back and forth between the years 1970 and 2010. An underrated, perhaps, year in music, and one that, through the first half, has been extraordinary.... NW013.
01. Junk/PAUL McCARTNEY 02. Dragon's Song/BLITZEN TRAPPER 03. The Man Who Sold The World/DAVID BOWIE 04. Bloodbuzz Ohio/THE NATIONAL 05. Tobacco Road/ERIC BURDON & WAR 06. Horchata/VAMPIRE WEEKEND 07. Bron-Y-Aur Stomp/LED ZEPPELIN 08. Your Hands (together)/THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS 09. Diamond Day/VASHTI BUNYAN 10. Horses Warriors/RADAR BROS 11. One Of These Things First/NICK DRAKE 12. I Hate The 80's/THE VASELINES 13. One After 909/THE BEATLES 14. What Did My Lover Say? (it always had to go this way)/WOLF PARADE 15. I Had A Talk With My Woman/TIM BUCKLEY 16. Remember Last Time/AVI BUFFALO 17. Ride A White Swan/T. REX 18. Fool's Day/BLUR 19. Cool It Down/THE VELVET UNDERGROUND 20. Some Kind Of Nature/GORILLAZ
July 21, 2010. A team of astronomers led by Paul Crowther, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Sheffield, has used ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), as well as archival data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, to study two young clusters of stars, NGC 3603 and RMC 136a in detail. NGC 3603 is a cosmic factory where stars form frantically from the nebula’s extended clouds of gas and dust, located 22,000 light-years away from the Sun. RMC 136a (more often known as R136) is another cluster of young, massive and hot stars, which is located inside the Tarantula Nebula, in one of our neighbouring galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud, 165,000 light-years away.
The team found several stars with surface temperatures over 40,000 degrees, more than seven times hotter than our Sun, and a few tens of times larger and several million times brighter. Comparisons with models imply that several of these stars were born with masses in excess of 150 solar masses. The star R136a1, found in the R136 cluster, is the most massive star ever found, with a current mass of about 265 solar masses and with a birthweight of as much as 320 times that of the Sun.
In NGC 3603, the astronomers could also directly measure the masses of two stars that belong to a double star system, as a validation of the models used. The stars A1, B and C in this cluster have estimated masses at birth above or close to 150 solar masses.
Very massive stars produce very powerful outflows. “Unlike humans, these stars are born heavy and lose weight as they age,” says Paul Crowther. “Being a little over a million years old, the most extreme star R136a1 is already ‘middle-aged’ and has undergone an intense weight loss programme, shedding a fifth of its initial mass over that time, or more than fifty solar masses.”
If R136a1 replaced the Sun in our Solar System, it would outshine the Sun by as much as the Sun currently outshines the full Moon. “Its high mass would reduce the length of the Earth's year to three weeks, and it would bathe the Earth in incredibly intense ultraviolet radiation, rendering life on our planet impossible,” says Raphael Hirschi from Keele University, who belongs to the team.
These super heavyweight stars are extremely rare, forming solely within the densest star clusters. Distinguishing the individual stars — which has now been achieved for the first time — requires the exquisite resolving power of the VLT’s infrared instruments.
The team also estimated the maximum possible mass for the stars within these clusters and the relative number of the most massive ones. “The smallest stars are limited to more than about eighty times more than Jupiter, below which they are ‘failed stars’ or brown dwarfs,” says team member Olivier Schnurr from the Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam. “Our new finding supports the previous view that there is also an upper limit to how big stars can get, although it raises the limit by a factor of two, to about 300 solar masses.”
Within R136, only four stars weighed more than 150 solar masses at birth, yet they account for nearly half of the wind and radiation power of the entire cluster, comprising approximately 100 000 stars in total. R136a1 alone energises its surroundings by more than a factor of fifty compared to the Orion Nebula cluster, the closest region of massive star formation to Earth.
Understanding how high mass stars form is puzzling enough, due to their very short lives and powerful winds, so that the identification of such extreme cases as R136a1 raises the challenge to theorists still further. “Either they were born so big or smaller stars merged together to produce them,” explains Crowther.
Stars between about 8 and 150 solar masses explode at the end of their short lives as supernovae, leaving behind exotic remnants, either neutron stars or black holes. Having now established the existence of stars weighing between 150 and 300 solar masses, the astronomers’ findings raise the prospect of the existence of exceptionally bright, “pair instability supernovae” that completely blow themselves apart, failing to leave behind any remnant and dispersing up to ten solar masses of iron into their surroundings. A few candidates for such explosions have already been proposed in recent years.
Not only is R136a1 the most massive star ever found, but it also has the highest luminosity too, close to 10 million times greater than the Sun. “Owing to the rarity of these monsters, I think it is unlikely that this new record will be broken any time soon,” concludes Crowther.
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It was twenty years ago next month that I met Shawn. I was all of nineteen at the time, he was twelve. We were assigned together for a summer camp held at Nolin Lake in Kentucky. It was, actually, a serendipitous meeting as I was a last-minute staff addition (thanks to an out of the blue wrangling in by a friend of mine), and he was a last-minute camper (thanks to a last minute application by his parents and opening that became available). The thing I was immediately struck with about Shawn was his wise-beyond-his-years and dry sense of humor, which fit in really well with my cynical wit (which was completely unrestrained at the time). He was preparing for seventh grade and he lived, surprisingly, only a few blocks from us in Louisville. He told me that he wanted to join the Navy when he got older, so he could learn to be a pilot, and eventually an astronaut. Shawn Shawn and I hit it off right away and had a great time that week: hiking, swimming, crafts, repelling, a hot air balloon ride. More than enough to tire the hardiest of 12-year olds, and Shawn braved it all out. But Shawn was no ordinary twelve year old. And this was no ordinary summer camp. This was a camp for kids with terminal illnesses.
Early in that summer of 1990, Shawn had been diagnosed with cancer of the liver. He was scared. Shawn, unlike many of the kids at the camp, was old enough to know the gravity of his condition. He knew about his own mortality. When the opportunity for him to attend camp came about, there were a lot of questions and fear from his parents and family, especially (and understandably) from his mother. Somehow, and for some reason, though, she was intuitively comforted by me and the fact that I would be the companion for her son, less than two months after his diagnosis and less than two weeks after his initial release from the hospital.
I, on the other hand, had entered that summer as a typical, invincible nineteen year old. My entire existence was one of selfishness. Yet, that summer signaled the beginning of a sea change in my attitudes toward life and the world. A friend from high school had suffered a ruptured aneurysm while on a camping trip and was now re-learning how to walk and talk. Another friend suffered a drug-induced nervous breakdown, a situation aggravated by his mother casting sole blame on my best friend. I was struggling with slack and indecisiveness in almost every aspect of my life.
Shawn and I, as I mentioned, had a great time at camp. He wrote me at school once or twice that Fall, and we saw each other at a camp reunion over Christmas (a reunion he almost missed because of his deteriorating health). He regained his strength and eventually made it to high school, attending my alma mater (and becoming a classmate of my youngest brother). He even got well enough to ride his bike to our house one summer afternoon. Although not in remission, he still talked about his goal of becoming an astronaut (he had even been granted the opportunity to meet with the Navy’s Blue Angels). A goal, a dream, a hope, to keep him going.
Shawn called me one evening in 1993. From the hospital. His cancer had spread throughout his body. He was dying. Weakly, he asked me to come visit him. Weakly, I said I’d try. A lie, an escape, a selfish decision, a regret.
Shawn died in November 1993. He was fifteen.
I still think about Shawn sometimes. I know I meant a lot to him and his family. He means a lot to me, too. It just took a long time, and in little pieces, for me to comprehend how much meeting him, knowing him, missing him, means. Whenever some big astronomical discovery is made, I think about him. He’d be thirty-two now, and well on his way to attaining his dream of becoming an astronaut, and I’m pretty sure he’d be completely geeked about the discovery of R136a1.…
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This mix began as a collection of some things I’ve been listening to lately, as some songs I’ve re-come across since transferring my library to my new computer. What it has become, with the coincidence of the discovery of a new giant star, the forty-first anniversary of the first moon landing, and the spurred memories of a very dear friend, is, at least to me, more than the sum of its parts. NW012.
01. Magnetic Fields, Different Voice/from THE CONET PROJECT 02. 1969/BOARDS OF CANADA 03. Reefer Spin In The Galaxy/THE ORB 04. Involution/PATRICK VAN DE VEN 05. The Private Psychedelic Reel/THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS 06. Lanx 3/AUTECHRE 07. Ecstasy Symphony/SPACEMEN 3 08. Blue Milk/STEREOLAB 09. Laughing Gas/JUNO REACTOR 10. Foster (deep space dub)/BREAKS THE BLANK DAY 11. The Beautiful Unknown/NUNC STANS 12. Deep Blue Day/BRIAN ENO
1. (of fluids and gels) having a viscosity that decreases when a stress is applied, as when stirred.
2. A mix that defies easy categorization but creates a cohesive and enjoyable flow, as when listened to.
Music from all around this rock....and outer space (and under the sea).
NW011.
01. All Out To Get You/THE ENGLISH BEAT 02. African System No. 1/AFRICAN SYSTEM ORCHESTRA 03. Dramatica Mujer/JASON MRAZ featuring ALEX CUBA BAND 04. Ghost Town/THE SPECIALS 05. Punky Reggae Party/BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS 06. I Will Live On Islands/JOSH ROUSE 07. Beto/ALI FARKA TOURE 08. To Binge/GORILLAZ featuring YUKIMI NAGANO 09. Din Ya Sugri/CHRISTY AZUMA & UPPERS INTERNATIONAL 10. Help Us Somebody/BRIAN ENO & DAVID BYRNE 11. Brian Eno/MGMT 12. Suboceana/TOM TOM CLUB 13. Barracuda/MIHO HATORI 14. Akampanye/THE SWEET TALKS 15. My Affair/KIRSTY MacCOLL 16. (nothing but) Flowers/TALKING HEADS
In 1996, an un-named band debuted at the Hyde Park Social Club in Leeds. To alert a friend of theirs to the location of their show, the band members posted a sign out front which read, “GOMEZ, THE GIG’S IN HERE.” A band name was born….
WHO ARE GOMEZ? Ian Ball, Paul Blackburn, Tom Gray, Ben Ottewell, and Ollie Peacock. Ian, Tom, and Ben take turns singing lead.
WHAT ARE GOMEZ? "Rock/Indie/Alternative/Blues/Folk/Experimental" is a good place to start.
WHEN ARE GOMEZ? Gomez have released six full-length albums: Bring It On (1998), Liquid Skin (1999), In Our Gun (2002), Split The Difference (2004), How We Operate (2006), and A New Tide (2009). The band also released a live album, Out West (2005) and two compilations, Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline (which includes Machismo, an EP, as a bonus disc) and Five Men In A Hut (2006). Ball released a solo album, Who Goes There? (2007) and various members have been involved in some other projects.
WHERE ARE GOMEZ? Although the bandmates are from Southport and Matlock in England, Ball now resides in Los Angeles, Blackburn lives in Detroit, Peacock lives in Brooklyn, and Gray and Ottewell live in Brighton. The band recently performed at Glastonbury and Hard Rock Calling in London.
WHY ARE GOMEZ? My first conscious exposure to Gomez came via the song "Silence," which was included on a sampler from the short-lived Tracks magazine. I was really impressed with the song, but didn’t do any exploratory follow-up, in large part because I wasn’t really exploring any music at the time. A few years later, I re-stumbled upon them while tooling around the Internet Archive in search of, among other things, a file of the one Grateful Dead concert I went to (1994, Deer Creek, IN). I saw "Gomez" listed among the hundreds of artists in the Live Music Archive and decided to have a listen to a show of theirs from Boulder, CO. The reasons I picked that show in particular? It included "Silence" (the only song I knew of theirs) as well as covers of "Not Fade Away"and "Don’t Bring Me Down." I listened. I was floored. I was hooked. Over the past couple years, I’ve gathered up the band’s catalog, getting A New Tide on its release date, and acquired several other concerts from the Internet Archive. I also learned along the way that they were the band that covered "Getting Better" for the Philips commercials several years back and they won the Mercury Prize (like that means anything to me) for Bring It On. Last June, I received an early Fathers’ Day present in getting to see the band live in Covington, KY. Best Fathers’ Day present ever.
HOW ARE GOMEZ? I made this CD primarily for my brother, whose curiosity for the band I piqued through my inclusion of their songs on some of my mixes he’s gotten. My purpose was to present a broad overview, skipping over most of their better known songs, as well as ones I’ve used before on other mixes. The only real conceit here is the inclusion of the hometown-name dropping "Charley Patton Songs." "Sweet Virginia" and "Get Miles" are from that very first concert in Boulder I heard, "Breakfast In America" is from a solo gig Ball played in Sydney, Australia, and "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" was recorded at last year’s Bonnaroo (although the band debuted this Led Zeppelin cover at the show I saw). NW010.
01. These 3 Sins 02. If I Ask You Nicely 03. Rhythm And Blues Alibi 04. Girlshapedlovedrug 05. Hangover 06. Ruff Stuff 07. Love Is Better Than A Warm Trombone 08. Detroit Swing 66 09. Charley Patton Songs 10. Here Comes The Breeze 11. Chasing Ghosts With Alcohol 12. Drench 13. Blue Moon Rising 14. Win Park Slope 15. Bone Tired 16. We Don't Know Where We're Going 17. Sweet Virginia (live) 18. Get Miles (live) 19. Breakfast In America (live) 20. Bron-Y-Aur Stomp (live)
A mix put together to celebrate (most of) my family getting together for a long weekend on Kentucky Lake. Four days and three nights of kicking back, swimming, fishing, playing cards, and sipping on icy-cold beer. Lots of cover versions, including a barely recognizable "Ramblin' Man" and a rare appearance on one of my mixes by Mr. Zimmerman....
Credit goes to my younger brother for hooking me up with the Old Crow Medicine Show, Garcia/Grisman/Rice, and John Prine (and others who didn't make the cut, but gave me some direction), as well as suggesting "Ophelia." NW009.
01. WILCO/Kingpin
02. OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW/ Down Home Girl
03. THE BAND/Ophelia
04. ISOBEL CAMPBELL & MARK LANEGAN/Ramblin' Man
05. THE MEKONS/Hole In The Ground
06. DANIEL LANOIS/Jolie Louise
07. SHOW OF HANDS/If I Needed Someone
08. JERRY GARCIA, DAVID GRISMAN, & TONY RICE/Shady Grove
09. THE STANDS/Lay Lady Lay
10. THE BAND OF HEATHENS/L.A. County Blues
11. CRACKER/Mr. Wrong
12. JOHN PRINE/Illegal Smile
13. SON VOLT/Looking At The World Through A Windshield
14. CREDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL/Long As I Can See The Light
Hitting a creative streak for myself lately.... A fun mix to put together, that actually began quite differently from how it eventually turned out. This was supposed to be me finishing up a mix that I've been trying to get worked out for about three years now (which has become something of an albatross). About two weeks in to tweaking that mix, I scrapped those plans and went in this direction instead. Kind of like working with different ingredients in the kitchen, seeing what flavors work well with others, trying to hone the flavor profile with a variety of tastes, trying to avoid elements that would stand out too far on their own, and, most importantly, watching the stove so nothing burns. I've obviously been watching way too much Food Network in my all-too-brief spare time....
Some of these songs (XTC, Belle & Sebastian, Squeeze, Popguns, Slowdive), I've wanted to use for a while, in some cases, several years. Others (Clientele, Caribou, Emma Pollock, El Perro Del Mar) were discovered via recent web hopping. Still others (notably Ride and Morrissey) were songs that have been stuck in my head at various times of late that I needed to get laid down on disc. NW008.
01. English Roundabout/XTC
02. Hide + Seek/THE EIGHTEENTH DAY OF MAY
03. LDN/LILY ALLEN
04. Tracy Jacks/BLUR
05. Twisterella/RIDE
06. I Wonder Who We Are/THE CLIENTELE
07. Lose That Girl/SAINT ETIENNE
08. We Are The Sleepyheads/BELLE & SEBASTIAN
09. Melody Day/CARIBOU
10. King Leer/MORRISSEY
11. My Maudlin Career/CAMERA OBSCURA
12. Hug The Harbour/EMMA POLLOCK
13. God Knows (you've got to give to get)/EL PERRO DEL MAR
14. If It's Love/SQUEEZE
15. No Time/FRENTE!
16. Fables/THE DODOS
17. Going Under/THE POPGUNS
18. Some Velvet Morning/SLOWDIVE
19. Closet Romantic/DAMON ALBARN
20. The Salvador Dali Murder Mystery/DEATH BY CHOCOLATE
Assembled as a means to participate in Zen Running Order's May Mixathon in which users were challenged to create a "Frankenstein" mix. I first learned about the "Frankenstein" mix through Art Of The Mix several years ago, and at least one other variant has developed. This version, though, was created via direct input from ZeRO users: which song challenge would you like to issue? My inclusion, by the way, was "A song from the year of your birth." Necessarily chaotic, I think mine actually develops some flow at several points throughout. Anyway, a fun mix to put together, and somewhat challenging (especially when trying to pick from several songs for a single spot on the playlist). NW007.
01. Song that gives you the chills/heebie jeebies: KATE BUSH/Under Ice. For my money, one of the scariest songs ever written.
02. Favorite use of song in a film: LOU REED/Perfect Day. In which Renton OD's in Trainspotting.
03. Favorite instrumental: KRONOS QUARTET/Marquee Moon. Desert island or otherwise, this Kronos Quartet version of the Television classic is brilliant.
04. Favorite song by someone principally known as an actor: EWAN McGREGOR/Your Song. Props also go to Nicole Kidman for belting it out in Moulin Rouge.
05. Favorite song about fire or burning: MC 900 FT JESUS/The City Sleeps. In which we get inside the head of a pyromaniac.
06. A song from the year of your birth: SMOKEY ROBINSON & THE MIRACLES/The Tears Of A Clown. 1970.
07. A song you wish you had written: MY BLOODY VALENTINE/Soon. A song ahead of it's time from an album ahead of it's time by a band ahead of it's time. I envy the vision it took to come up with this masterpiece.
08. Favorite non-love related song you would undoubtedly put on a mixtape for a crush/loved one: THE SMITHS/Cemetry Gates. Witty lyrics from Morrissey and a great guitar line from Marr, I actually used this as a way to introduce The Smiths to my wife many moons ago.
09. In space: BLUR/Far Out. "I spy in the night sky, don't I...." And Alex gets the lead vocal credit.
10. A song with a really clever title: PHISH/Frankie Says. The chorus beginning with "Relax."
11. A song that uses elements of another song without directly sampling the piece of music: TALKING HEADS/Stay Up Late. Features the opening line of "Ain't Too Proud To Beg." The story I was told (way back when) is that David Byrne included it as a dig against the Rolling Stones' version of the song. Anybody else heard that?
12. A song that makes no sense to you: STEVEN JESSE BERNSTEIN/This Clouded Heart. Still scratching my head.
13. A track from an artist you learned about from another ZeRO mixer: THE LUCKSMITHS/There Is A Boy Who Never Goes Out. From sammyg123's AOTM-era Art Of The Moz. A phenomenal mix from a phenomenal mixer.
14. A song with a color in the title: MISS SHIRLEY BASSEY/Goldfinger. "Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die." Flawless.
15. A song with a country or city in the title: MORCHEEBA/Sao Paulo. I'd say this qualifies.
16. A song about a political figure: THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS/Tippecanoe And Tyler Too. This qualifies as well.
17. A favorite song from a past mix which you've posted: SUGARCUBES/Hit. In which our hero fell in love with Bjork. I've used this song at least three times on AOTM/Mesh-era mixes, and may just have to use it again....
18. A song for your funeral:THE ENGLISH BEAT/Ackee 1-2-3. Special Beat Service, and this song, in particular, were rainy day blues cure for a friend and me during college. I'd like to think it could cheer people up when I shake off this mortal coil.
19. A song you wish was written for/about you: CRACKER/Don't F*** Me Up (with peace and love). "I am the game warden of love/ 'til someone took away my gin and tonic." Truer words were never written....
20. A WTF moment, a song that stopped you in your tracks and made you really listen: WILCO/Sunken Treasure. I saw Wilco in '96 in Louisville, before the release of Being There. The band opened with this song and I realized that Jeff Tweedy and Co. were leaving Uncle Tupelo far, far behind....
21. GENE WILDER & PETER BOYLE/Puttin' On The Ritz. Just because.
D'you know, all that time I was dotty I had the most awful dreams. I thought we were all driving round and round in a motor race and none of us could stop, and there was an enormous audience composed entirely of gossip writers and gate crashers and Archie Schwert and people like that, all shouting at us at once to go faster and faster, and car after car kept crashing until I was left alone driving and driving--and then I used to crash and wake up.
—Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies
Another one of those mixes which bears very little resemblance to the early drafts. Of the twenty songs included, only the Oysterhead, Jeff Buckley, and Gomez survived from the outset (although I actually debated between a few other Jeff Buckley songs, as well as which version of "Nightmares" to use). The good fortune of this is that the final mix turned out really well (in my opinion) and I've got a bounty of songs that "didn't make the cut" to use for a follow-up sometime. As for some of the songs which did make the cut....
"Girlfriend" is an all-time favorite that I've been wanting to use again for a long time. Even though Gomez's "Airstream Driver" has been in the mix from the beginning, I couldn't resist adding the Red Red Meat track as well after I got my hands on it (thank you, eMusic free trial). The Gomez song isn't a cover, rather it uses elements of another song without directly sampling the piece of music (e.g. riffs, vocal phrases, drum beats), if someone from ZeRO were so inclined to need something of that sort around the end of this month. Yes, it's that Steve Burns: being a Dad may mean I miss out on a lot of music, but it also lets me in on some that I wouldn't have searched out otherwise. Actually, the Wilco song fits in that category, as well, as it's featured in the closing credits of the Spongebob movie. The Posies' Dear 23 is a tremendously under-rated album from the early 90's that deserves a re-listen (IMHO, of course). Hula Hoop were active in and around Louisville (and elsewhere) in the early 90's and feature Rachel Grimes (of Rachel's) on bass. I heard the GBV song used on the TV show Samantha Who? last year and have been aching to use it since. And, despite it being eight years old, I just heard The Notwist song while putting this together and I was immediately hooked. The title, by the way, is from the Red Red Meat/Gomez songs and, in regards to a recent forum discussion about whether the title or playlist came first, the title came first.... NW006.
01. Girlfriend/MATTHEW SWEET 02. Pseudo Suicide/OYSTERHEAD 03. Damaged Goods/GANG OF FOUR 04. Airstream Driver/RED RED MEAT 05. Pictures Of Matchstick Men/CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN 06. Superstrings/STEVE BURNS 07. Feeling No Pain/JOSH ROUSE 08. Just A Kid/WILCO 09. Here To Fall/YO LA TENGO 10. The New Face Of Zero And One/THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS 11. Fire It Up/MODEST MOUSE 12. Nightmares By The Sea/JEFF BUCKLEY 13. From A Balance Beam/BRIGHT EYES 14. 14 Shades Of Green/CHRIS STAMEY 15. Help Yourself/THE POSIES 16. 16 Horses/SOUL COUGHING 17. Spider/HULA HOOP 18. I Am A Scientist/GUIDED BY VOICES 19. One With The Freaks/THE NOTWIST 20. Airstream Driver/GOMEZ
Remember that one cartoon of The Far Side where a pair of aliens were buzzing over a panicked city in their flying saucer cheering "Yeeeeeeeeeeeha!"? I think they very possibly could have been listening to this mix during that interstellar romp....
This is a mix that was started, stopped, gutted, abandoned, revived, and nearly forgotten throughout the past year. I stumbled back upon the rough-draft playlist in early March and decided it was time to finish it. That playlist was right around 100 minutes, but paring it down to under 80 went pretty smoothly. There weren't any "painful omissions" that stick out, and I actually ended up adding a few songs, notably "Planet Of Sound" (one of my favorite Pixies songs and one I've wanted to use for a while) and "King Of The Monsters" (which seemed necessary after the joy of introducing my sons to their first Godzilla movie while I was working on this). A good portion of these songs, also, were discovered via free and legal means from various sources around this Internet thingy. So hop into your spaceship, turn the volume to eleven, and enjoy. NW005.
01. Voodoo Train/THE BELLRAYS 02. Super Ted/DEATH VALLEY SURFERS 03. Her Love Rubbed Off/THE TREMORS 04. Clara Bow/50 FOOT WAVE 05. Baby Boom/BABYLON DANCE BAND 06. Asphalt Mother/MIND GARAGE 07. Graverobbers/COMETS ON FIRE 08. Cruisin' For A Bruisin'/REV. HORTON HEAT 09. Astor Place Riot/CRYPT KICKER FIVE 10. Start/LOS INFERNOS 11. Eyeballin' Torpedoes Theme Song/EYEBALLIN' TORPEDOES 12. Flying Saucer Attack/THE REZILLOS 13. Planet From Outer Space/ATOMIC MOSQUITOES 14. Planet Of Sound/PIXIES 15. Mississippi/HALF JAPANESE 16. Zombie Love/THE KILLBILLIES 17. Modern Love's A Killer/THE GRAVES 18. The Ostrich/THE PRIMITIVES 19. Maneaters (get off the road)/JOSIE COTTON 20. Return Of Hotrod Nissan/LUXURIOUS PANTHERS 21. The Hearse/THE ASTRONAUTS 22. ChronoSurf/THE TOMORROWMEN 23. I Am The Walrus/THE THURSTON LAVA TUBE 24. Pabst Blue Ribbon/THE UNTAMED YOUTH 25. Chicken Scratch/ZEN GUERILLA 26. Jet Star 19/ZOLAR X 27. Human Fly/THE CRAMPS 28. King Of The Monsters/MAN OR ASTRO-MAN?
Amazing that it's been fifteen months since I've completed and posted a mix-CD that I've made. Way back when, I'd crank out a new tape (that was the medium then) sometimes every fifteen days, and now I went the entire year of 2009 without sending one of my creations out the door to the mailbox (or into my own stereo). This one has been in the works for a while, hampered by A) not having the time to sit and work on it and B) my CD burner totally crapping out (meaning I had to organize and edit at home and then re-create it on my in-laws' computer). My, things weren't so difficult when you just had to deal with a stack of CD's and a Maxell XLII....
About The Title: My Aunt Stella was somewhat a renaissance woman. She was a painter, writer, and family historian. My grandfather's only sister, she lived alone in a one bedroom apartment in Old Louisville until her death in 1979. She wrote and had published a series of books about "Chalk Talks," a method of catechesis involving illustrating lessons on a blackboard. She documented how my Dad's family moved from the family farm in western Kentucky to Louisville in the early twentieth century and how her father took a job as an elevator operator. And she painted. Oils. Mostly still life and landscape scenes. I, fortunately have two of her works hanging in my home now. We only visited her, as much as I recall, a few times a year, and the better part of my memories from those visits are nothing more than sketchy images. I do recall, however, that we always got to draw and paint at her apartment. Paper, pencils, crayons, and paint were always in bountiful supply, and I'm sure she enjoyed her little way of encouraging each of us in our artistic pursuits. This is something she started doing, I'm sure, from the first time that my older brothers and sisters came to visit and could pick up a crayon. The cover of this CD is a detail from a watercolor my brother David made when he was five years old, the title is from the title Aunt Stella gave to his painting. Somehow, it ended up in a box of my things that I unpacked after we moved a few years ago. He's getting it back, along with this CD inspired by it, for his birthday.
About The Music: My brother's musical tastes, when we were growing up, leaned heavily toward the geographically named bands. He wasn't the brother that had Velvet Underground And Nico or Rocket To Russia, but his LP collection included a healthy dose of some music that, perhaps, have a more lasting impression on me than Never Mind The Bollocks. He played records for me and wanted me to hear what he heard, to encourage me to feel the music. And even though he didn't share my infatuation with The Police, The English Beat, and countless new wave and punk bands I discovered through high school, he understood how important music is to the teenage, now adult, soul. The music I chose for this disc tries to reflect both the music he taught me about and the music I learned on my own. Some of these songs, that he's heard of, I've tried to put a spin around: instead of George Harrison and Eric Clapton on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," we get ex-members of Galaxie 500; "Across The Universe" is the stripped down version from Let It Be: Naked (very possibly the only reason to buy that version of the album); Simon & Garfunkel's "Sound Of Silence" is the original version from Wednesday Morning, 3AM and seems, to me at least, to be a more honest take than the more familiar version from their second album. Of the "newer" songs, some were ones I've wanted to use for a while (eg. "Ring The Bells" and "Shiny"). Others, like "Naked As We Came," I've discovered along the way of putting this together and they just seemed to fit. "How We Operate" from Gomez, is just a fantastic song that really seems to tie the whole mix together. The closing pairing of "Stare And Stare" and "Voodoo Child (slight return)" has been used before by me on a mix (way back in 1995), but I figure, if you can't plagiarize yourself, who can you plagiarize?
01. Amazing Grace/DANIEL LANOIS with AARON NEVILLE 02. Bad/U2 03. First Girl I Loved/JACKSON BROWNE 04. Ring The Bells/JAMES 05. Naked As We Came/IRON AND WINE 06. Across The Universe/THE BEATLES 07. While My Guitar Gently Weeps/DAMON & NAOMI 08. How We Operate/GOMEZ 09. You Are The Everything/R.E.M. 10. Shiny/THE DECEMBERISTS 11. Pigs On The Wing (part one)/PINK FLOYD 12. Trouble/ISOBEL CAMPBELL and MARK LANEGAN 13. Walk On The Wild Side/LOU REED 14. Poor Places/WILCO 15. The Sound Of Silence/SIMON & GARFUNKEL 16. This Is The Night/THE THE 17. Stare And Stare/MC 900 FT JESUS 18. Voodoo Child (slight return)/JIMI HENDRIX
A little teaser from a new "live series" that the band is beginning to release. Sounds exciting, especially since they aren't coming anywhere near me on their new tour....
ear X-tacy is the store. I spent many days and nights and dollars searching through the racks from the time I first discovered it, shortly after it opened, in the mid-eighties until I moved away from Louisville (for good) in '96, still popping in when time and finances permitted. I envied the people who were lucky enough to work there (although I admit now I never had the guts to ask for, yet alone fill out, a job application). I remember special ordering cassettes back at the original, shoebox sized store (Klark Kent comes to mind) as well as buying The Joshua Tree on the day of it's release in 1987 (St. Patrick's Day). It was the store to go to in order to find anything remotely off the wall, and before the mid-90's melting pot that consumed "alternative music" into the top 40, there was a lot of it about.
I even remember how when owner John Timmons began his own record label, X-static, I went and bought release #1 in no small part to a genuine sense of obligation to John and the store for helping turn me on to music. I can't name how many hours I spent in that store or how many tapes and CD's (and occasionally vinyl) I bought from there. Though the location of the store moved a few times and other independent record stores have been about, there's just something about ear X-tacy. Plus, they've got one of the coolest bumper stickers around. It's one of the things I truly miss most about Louisville, and one of the things, I hope, will be able to endure.
I know that the economy is a mess and the music industry is a trainwreck on its own, but there is one, and only one, hope that ear X-tacy can survive: people must spend money there. I'll admit that I didn't know anything about the troubles the store is facing were it not for a Facebook page, and the fact that there are over 20,000 fans to it is testament to how many people are concerned, but really, how many of these 20,000 have been supporting the store lately? I don't live in Louisville anymore, so I can't go there multiple times a week (that ,and my discretionary spending is now spent on clothes and food for my family). But could I pop in sometime when I do get to Louisville? Probably. Could I buy one of the few CD's I buy per year now (gee, that's depressing) at earX-tacy.com? Sure. At the same time, though, it's got to be the people of Louisville that save ear X-tacy. Not with benefits, not with Facebook pages, not with blog posts, but with cold hard cash....
(In my old man voice) When I was young, it was the kids who shopped there. Punks and preppies alike. It was those kids with their first jobs and first paychecks and money burning holes in their pockets. It was the kids who were looking for (and finding) the music that inspired them, spoke to them, empathized with them, and pissed off their parents.
Yo, people of Louisville, get off yer iPod asses and buy some music....
Don't think I'm ready to turn in the asics yet, but I've got to give credit for an ace musical selection, a song whose inspirational powers I've known about for a while....
