My Maudlin Career, which came out about a year ago, as a whole is great to fall asleep to. My favorite tracks off that cd are probably this and “French Navy”
Two things happened this month. The first had to do with Ammunition Radio on IsGoodRadio.com. I, along with my guest co-host for January Ms. Amanda Jones (and our special guests Mista John Montgomery and Sarah Longueieul) decided to revisit the music that we grew up with. Recalling the stories associated with different bands and songs and at what points we were in our lives was fun. The second thing which you won’t really see reflected in this list since I figured you were probably sick of those artists and songs since most are getting pretty frequent airplay, was that I decided to finally listen to most of the albums that were released in 2009 in their entirety, or as much of their entirety as I could tolerate (from bands including Atlas Sound, Beach House, Brakes, Camera Obscura, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Slow Club, Wilco, We Were Promised Jet Packs, The French Semester, Letting Up Despite Great Faults, The Dodos, Fanfarlo, Girls, Happy Hollows, etc. etc.).
Once again, I listened to way too much music to list, but here’s some of what I fell asleep to and some songs that there was no way I was going to fall asleep to.
Ok, this all started with me dog-sitting for Lady Di’s new adorable puppy. I got home kind of late from the Pu$$y Cow double cd release party/show (congratulations guys!) and found the doggy watching a horror movie (True story. No wonder the puppy ate that lamp shade earlier…although I’m still convinced the puppy thought the lamp was Lady GaGa, and was trying to rid the world of it/her/him). So, I took the puppy out to do her business (btw if any of you live near Lady Di and you were the guy tapping on your window from inside your apartment trying to get my attention, here’s some advice: don’t do that to girls at 1 or 2 am, it’s a little scary…UNLESS there’s a really good reason like an axe murderer is standing behind her and she has no clue.). Alright, so less about the puppy and more about Jason London, err uhmm I mean The Cranberries…but first Jason London, so when we got back inside I alternated watching the Chris Isaak hour and one of those made for TV movies from the 90’s starring Shannon Doherty and Jason London who are in a band together and a crazy girl tries to become Shannon Doherty, I think it was called Friends ‘Til the End (but I’m not going to look it up). I’ve had a crush on Jason London since I was little from The Man in the Moon and Dazed and Confused movies (funny enough, even though they are twin brothers I never had a crush on Jeremy London, despite the fact that he was in Mallrats one of my favorite movies). Ok, ok back to The Cranberries, well this song by The Cranberries played during the opening scenes of that Friends ‘Til The End movie and I hadn’t heard it in so long, so the next day I had to pull out my Cranberries cd’s to revisit songs like “Zombie,” “Linger,” “Salvation,” and “Dreams.” When I was young I imagined Dolores O’Riordan must have been really cool.
I just saw this local LA band last week for the first time when they shared the stage with our friend’s bands (The Shakers and Underwater City People). I found them to be a nice change of pace. It took me forever to remember the name of the band, but this song stayed in my head. It actually reminded me of some of the bands from the early 90’s. If you have a chance to catch them, you should.
Since I skipped providing a playlist for November, I figured I’d let you in on some of the more mellow stuff
(not really so mellow) I listened to in the past couple of months. The following list includes a sampling of songs since I obviously couldn’t include every single song. However, these are all songs that I CHOSE to fall asleep to, not that MADE me fall sleep. BIG difference.
AA Bondy – “I Can See the Pines Are Dancing”
The performance in this video reminds me of the Firelight and Unlit house parties that IsGood Music puts on (definitely something you should check out at least once, it’ll allow you to see the LA independent music scene in a different more positive light)
The French Semester – “Backwards Rolling”
Great local band that I’ve played on Ammunition a few times, their latest effort Forces Afield was released in December where they shared the stage with friends (and Notes from Vivace favorites) The Monthlies during their EP Release Party a few weeks ago. This song is off of Good Friends Only I Could See. Their full length release Open Letter to the Disappeared, I also play fairly often.
Ryan Larkin and Avalon Peacock (Can You Duet?) – “Tennessee Waltz”
When I went home for Thanksgiving, I caught a re-run of this CMT American Idol type show where this performance took place. As a little girl I remember hearing the original by Patti Page and thinking how sad a song it was. This time around hearing the song and seeing the performance, I thought to myself gosh I wish I could just once look as demure as that girl performing in a simple button down dress. Thanks a lot mom and dad for all the t&a that I received from your combined gene pools that thus prevents me from ever achieving that look.
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – “Stay Alive”
Here’s the video to “Come Saturday” (I actually like this song better although my favorite song of theirs would be “Teenager in Love”) (more…)
