Episode 26

Lately I have been sort of busy sorting out my life. As I mentioned earlier (Episode 25) I have had a change in my work schedule. When I get home I am dead tired. I am working on figuring out my new sleep schedule. When I get that figured out and where I can fit in my writing there will be more updates.

I listened to the latest First Listen from NPR. It was for the new album from She and Him called, quite simply, Volume 2. I listened to the whole album and found it better than the first album. It was more cohesive than the first album, Volume 1. I only listened to the album once but, like with Plastic Beach, it sounded fantastic on first listen. Hence the name of the preview page that NPR has created.

I haven’t listened to it yet but NPR has also offered up a SXSW preview of 11 songs. They have also recorded the shows that were played at their booth in SXSW. So, not only to you get a 11 track sampler but you also get a live concert show of each of those bands on the sampler through their podcast. This is all a very cool way to get a lot of free music. I am especially excited to listen to the Broken Bells and the Spoon concerts.

Speaking of Spoon, The new album Spoon - Transference is really good. I was not sure that I would like it considering all of the iffy reviews that I had read. It turns out that they did a very simple demo style recording of the album. In my listening there is only 1 track with a bad hissing sound, as if from a 4 track recorder. There are also some super fantastic sounds that are created not just through the pedals that are used with the guitars but with the acoustics in the rooms that they used to record some of the music. I thought this was cool because the room that is used to record becomes its own effect or instrument in some ways. It just seems that this technique is not implemented very often anymore in music recording.

I have also listened to Vampire Weekend – Contra a bit lately. It is good but I think that the swearing actually detracts from the music on this album. It is so light and fun and the way that they use the swearing just doesn’t work for me. In my opinion there are ways to use swearing and make it not so obvious and they just did not do it. The music is still fun and I am sure that I will get into it later but I am not into it right now.

I have listened to the new Hot Chip – One Life Stand. It is good but I am just not feeling it. There are some really cool melodies that the group created with this album but I love The Warning so much and they haven’t created anything like that here. I do love the fact that they used Prince & The Revolution – Parade as an influence on some of the album but I am just not into it at this point. Maybe I will get at it later like I intend to with the Vampire Weekend album.

I finally got my copy of The Twilight Saga: New Moon. I have had a downloaded copy of the album since it was released (no there was no download code to get the album). It is so much nicer to have a copy of the vinyl than a not so legal copy from the internets. I love the sound of vinyl over any digital copy that I have the ability to replay. I understand that SACD and DSD formats are supposed to be superior to any format but I just don’t have the funds or the desire to invest in a format that seems to be dead. These formats have been around for a long time but they have not caught on in any market at this point. You can find some DVD players that are reasonable in price that will play SACD but nobody even cares.

I was supposed to get a copy of the new Switchfoot album with my copy of the New Moon soundtrack. I found out that because there was not enough preorders through Soundstage direct for them to send me a copy. They apparently needed 100 preorders to make a purchase of “a lot” of them. Since they did not get enough preorders I did not get a copy. Instead, I replaced that item with a repressing of The strokes – This Is It. This is one of my favorite indie albums and it came out around the time that I started getting interested in the genre.

I will get a copy of that Switchfoot album but probably not on vinyl since the only way that I know of to get it now is to order it online from their web site and it would cost $20 plus $10 for shipping. I am not willing to spend 30 bucks on an album that is really only worth 10 bucks to me. This is also the same with the last album that Family Force 5 put out. It is just so annoying that shipping costs 10 bucks.

I recently purchased The Jam – Direction Reaction Creation. I purchased it because it was listed as a vinyl box set for 40 bucks. I was so disappointed that what I received was a book with 5 CDs. I complained to the company and gave them a poor review as an Amazon 3rd party seller. As I did further research I found that nobody is selling this box set in a vinyl format and that the box set that I purchased is usually sold for between 60 and 100 bucks. I quickly realized that I got a very good deal. I decided to keep the box instead of sending it back. The book is basically a picture book with a few pages of information about the band and what they did as a group. The CDs have every song that the band has created and recorded. There are over 100 songs through all of the discs. I was quite amazed since I only knew 1 song from the band, Beat Surrender.

My Father-in-law gave us his copy of “Weird Al” Yankovic – Dare To Be Stupid. I had never listened to this album in a whole sitting but I defiantly knew the singles from it. The title track is a fantastic track in the vein of Devo. I knew most of the tracks on this album but I did not know the album, if that makes any sense at all. I am actually very excited to have this album to listen to now.

I am very excited to say that we now have the 89.3 The Current/Live Current 5-Year Anniversary disc. It is a culmination of live tracks from bands that have visited the studios over the past 5 years that were not on the annual live discs. I have not listened to it yet but I am looking forward to a few of the tracks from it.

I did some research on the new White Stripes - Under The Great White Lights and found that it is just a live album. It is recordings from their Canadian tour (not sure what year this was from). There is also a video that accompanies this release. I am not a fan of their live music. I also found that there are 2 songs on this album that are difficult to find. One is a cover of Dolly Parton – Jolene and can only be found on this album. The other is Lets Shake Hands found as a studio track only on one of their first singles. I have not heard the whole album yet but I have heard these 2 tracks. I do like them but still not a fan of the live experience with The White Stripes.

I am very excited about the first release of Jonsi – Go. It comes out at the beginning of next month (April 2010). I found a preview copy of the album on line. I have not had a chance to listen to the entire preview but I intend to buy both the limited edition CD and a copy on vinyl. I may give the CD to my Father-in-law. It depends on what the packaging for the limited edition is set up.

I just want to say sorry for the delay in posts. I will be working on it, but slowly.

Signing off