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- So Much for the Afterglow, Everclear
- Yeah, so I was in the mood for pure poppy stuff. And here it is,
Everclear. Some good phrases, though, like "she's perfect in that
fucked up way", but in general, it's not deep. Still, sometimes ya just
gotta suck on a popsicle, and this is one of 'em.
- Greatest Funkin' Hits, George Clinton
- Reminds me of Redbones and Tufts grad students. Specially
"Mothership Connection Starchild." Which reminds me further, boy do I
miss the Modern Brewer Fat Cat ESB. Cap City brewery (nearby me) is no
substitute for atmosphere - it's like Brew Moon in Boston -
high-ceilinged and sterile. No funk, no grit, nothing. Good beer,
though. (To add to the comparison in an inappropriate page, the
Brickseller here is no Sunset Bar and Grill either. Food is better, and
the beer is more extensive, but again - atmosphere atmosphere
atmosphere! I guess I just like Loud. But Leyla the waitress at
Brickseller makes up for it a bit. She was kinda cool.)
- Yeah, It's That Easy, G. Love & Special Sauce
- Fun groovy funky album with (hey!) harmonica as well. I admit
personal suckage to Fonda for not going to their concert with her when
she asked me to a long time ago.
- When I Was Born for the 7th Time, Cornershop
- Fronted by Tjinder Singh, Cornershop is super-trippy and swirly.
Sitar and sampling. Weird mixy stuff. All to an energetic funk beat.
Yum.
- More Joy, Less Shame, Ani Difranco
- Ani's single album for Joyful Girl, as well as Shameless and Both
Hands, two of my her favorite songs. The orchestral Joyful Girl is
beautiful, and, of course, her songs are insightful, witty, and wise.
- Klezmania: Klezmer for a New Millenium
- Superfun-ness, though completely inauthentic, I'm sure. Still,
there's some great hybrids in there, there's this surf-rock freylakh, a
soul freylakh, and, wonderfully, some music by Don Byron (one of the many
things I thank Dan for introducing me to.)
- Shack-man, Medeski, Martin, and Wood
- Trippy trippy funk. Mmm... Though a friend of mine was like,"How
can you study to that?" I dunno. It works.
- Southern All Stars, Southern All Stars
- What a wacky album! Southern rock, with a little bit of Texas-loungey
stuff thrown in, some barbershop, some eighties groove-rock, all by a
Japanese band. You can almost hear the drawl ooze out of the Japanese
lyrics! Fun. Total menage of styles.
- Memories of Love, Future Bible Heroes
- I got this before all
the coverage in Boston about "hey! local boys and girls!" (one's a DJ at
Manray) and "hey! a *family* album!" (they're all gay/lesbian) came out.
It's all right. Eighties-ish pop stuff, a la Dream Factory. Sometimes
you just need an injection of something like this.
- Living in Clip, Ani Difranco
- ani, her live album. Wow. Two sides of her amazing music. I feel
lucky to have seen her in concert (and in the bathroom at someone else's
concert, too, ooh). Most of the songs I've heard before, never heard
"Hide and Seek" before, the "little zygote of a song", as she describes
it, which is incredible. That phrase, "little zygote of a song" was stuck
in my head for quite awhile. She has the most incredible voice, the most
incredible music, and yeah, wow, that's enough gushing here.
- Peppermint Tea House, Shoukichi Kina
- I bought this a long time ago and recently re-listened to it. (I love
coincidences: my friend Rob I. and I bought this album at the same time
without knowing it.) It's very cool - it's this Japanese folk poppy jazzy
reggae stuff, with boogie, but there are weird bits that make it sound
almost surf rock (Shoukichi Kina was in Hawaii for quite awhile) Anyway,
the name of the album suits it quite well. I can't comment on the lyrics,
I know no Japanese.
- Possessed, The Klezmatics
- I have a weird thing for Klezmer (the same way I have a weird thing
for gefilte fish and matzo balls, I really should explore this on another
web page, but I have a feeling it'll come out sounding like Mona In The
Promised Land or something), but the Klezmatics are really why I got into
it. I'd bought some generic world music mix CD awhile ago which had a
freylekh on there performed by the Klezmatics and it totally hooked me on
klezmer. Anyway, I have absolutely no basis to judge
authenticity/sincerity/etc, but this album's all right. I don't think I
like it quite as much as Shvaygn=Toyt, though, maybe Possessed is mellower
or something.
- A New Frontier, Moxy Fruvous
- Finally got around to getting this album (meant to get it months ago)
after seeing Moxy Fruvous in concert (they were great, Jian was cute with
his hair and big nose, the improvisation was wonderful, the crowd was fun
and made me miss MIT) and now this album is on mega-repeat here. It's got
the usual ultra-left Moxy sentiments, buried in humorous songs like
"Michigan Militia" and "Your New Boyfriend" and "Kick in the Ass", with
their usual yummy close harmonies, even though they don't want to get
typecast with us awful a cappella types.
- Do You Like My Tight Sweater?, Moloko
- I love the album's name! And I love this album! The guy at Disk
Diggers . . . (the used CD store that I go to a lot. Wait, there's a
story
here,
let me relay it.)
- I seem to have gotten stuck bringing coffee to the people
there. Like one time I brought coffee into the store, and one of the guys
was like "Hey, where's my cup?" and I said I'd bring him one next time.
Well, next time came along, but he wasn't there, so I gave the coffee I'd
bought to another guy instead (this second guy being very cute, by the
way.
Blonde with dreadlocks and wide-eyed and a nice nose, me and noses,
yeah.)
I did manage to bring coffee to the first guy. But now, *now* both of
them
*expect* coffee from me when I go there. Argh. They gave me shit about
it
last night. Humph.
- Oh yeah, so. Moloko. They warned me that the album would be boring,
but I don't think it is. Like I like _Fun for me_ quite a lot; it has a
rambly weirdo dream narrative going on. And _Party Weirdo_ is just great
to
dance to. It's like all that techno weird shit with an actual
surrealistic
thinking slant to it.
- Bizarre Gardening Accident, Angry Salad
- Here's my Angry Salad story. One Thursday, I go to The Middle East
with
some friends of mine to hear some live bands. One of them was Angry
Salad,
who I wanted to hear live. But no. My friends decide to leave early
because
they have to wake up early the next morning, and so I lamely go along with
them because, well, I needed the ride. On Saturday, I wandered with my
boyfriend through MIT; we discover that it's Steer Roast weekend, and both
of us cry "Free beer!" To my glee, one of the bands playing is Angry
Salad,
at midnight. Cool, a second chance, I think. So we go over to the party,
hang out a bit, run into a friend who invites us back to his
apartment, and my boyfriend, who's from out of town, drags us to the
friend's place because he hadn't seen him in awhile. Thwarted again. So
on
Sunday, I buy the CD. It was fun. Like listening to Counting Crows, but
to songs that haven't been overplayed on the radio. So I overplayed them
on
my CD player instead, until I got tired.
- Turn the Radio Off, Reel Big Fish
- Okay, I'm a ska neophyte. But what I've heard, I like (don't laugh at
me Manda, just give me some recommendations. :) and I like this album.
(Notice I tend to gravitate towards "fun" things. Through experience, I
know how easily my mood is influenced by music, and I try to avoid things
that bring me down.) Horns! Yeah, it's all over ska, so this is not
unique. There's a ton of self-referential lyrics, too, which in my GenX
way, I like. A song about selling out, a song about being just like every
other band, whoo. Oh yeah, and a song about lesbians. This seems to be
the new thing to do, hunh.
- Off Yonder Wall, Jelly Roll Kings
- I can't recommend this album more. I could sing along to "have mercy
baby" over and over again. (and I do!) And the grooves in "frank frost
blues" are amazing. I was listening to this while watching some kids
Easter
Egg hunting on a lazy Sunday afternoon and man I felt splayed.
- Fountains of Wayne, Fountains of Wayne
- What a fun album! Zippy poppy stuff. I got it originally so I could
listen to "sink to the bottom" over and over because I thought it was
the sweetest love song. And "survival car" just zooms along, even
though I don't like cars. Anyway, thanks Dan for the recommendation.
- Hot, Squirrel Nut Zippers
- Here I reveal my swinging-X-gen preferences. Yeah, I like Hot a lot.
If I could sing like Katherine Whalen, I would be in heaven. "It Ain't
You"
has got to be one of my favorite tracks on there, closely followed by "Put
a
Lid on it" and then "Prince Nez" and then "Bad Businessman." I'm so happy
they have a ukelele (two!) and a banjo in the band.
- Hah! I've gotten Greg and John to also buy this album!
- Ruby Vroom, Soul Coughing
- I was listening to this on eternal repeat for awhile, until the
concert
came and went and I didn't get tickets because I missed the selling dates
and so I was bummed and disappointed. But man, I love almost every single
track on this album! Okay, so "blueeyed devil" and "true dreams of
wichita"
were not up there, but "bus to beelzebub" tears me up inside, like Bugs
Bunny on acid, and of course there's the ever so fun to shout to
"casiotone
nation" and "down to this". And the lyrics of "screenwriter's blues"!
"And
the radioman laughs because the radioman fucks a model too." I love it.
Sampling city.
no
- pj harvey
- I just don't get her. Sorry. Call me a non-feminist hick.
- L7
- Same as above.
- Sublime
- I have no idea why I bought the album. Maybe because I got swept up
in that song that was on the radio all the time (I am a swiss cheesehead,
and yes, songs get stuck in the holes quite easily) - "what I got".
Didn't like the album, though. Santeria really annoys me. I've since
sold it.