Thursday, September 24, 2009

Chill bros. It's just autumn.

With this week's chilly weather came the apocalypse of the Year of the Summer Jams. Tuesday morning, all 7 inches and cassette tapes and free (or $250) sunglasses produced, bought, and stolen this year were shelved in exchange for stocking caps, mittens, and, I don't know, Björk or Skinny Love or whatever it is that people listen to when it's cold out.

Or not. I never understood/bought into the Summer Jams concept (which doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy a ton of the summer jams themselves). Obviously, unless 'winter' is in the title or something, music can be enjoyed in all seasons. Most has nothing to do with any particular season. Some of the 'Summer Jams' this year didn't explicitly market itself as such, but certainly most of them did.
Real Estate
Beach Fossils
Best Coast
Pearl Harbour
Tanlines
Beachniks
WAVVES
Rainbow Bridge
Washed Out
'deadbeat summer'
Memory/Weird Cassette/Tapes
all of underwater peoples' stuff
lefse records comp
crocodiles' 'summer of hate'
etc etc etc

In mid-July, Patrick emailed me the pitchfork track review of Rainbow Bridge's 'big wave rider' along with part of that list of bands and other musings on the ridiculous nature of this seemingly created-by-blog niche that so many new bands were so eager to create music for. Seems like no one gets it. I wonder what No Age Guy would say about it.

My question is, now that summer's over, what's gonna happen to these bands? Are they going to go into hibernation (serious question)? Is anyone actually going to care less about them now that it's fall? How important was the summery aspect of their music, really? Sure, people are going to listen to Beach Boys more in the summer, but will the same hold true for Neon Indian? When these bands put out new singles this winter, are they going to still be 'summer songs' if they sound the same as ones from June?

Sunday, September 13, 2009

What's good, world?

I'm listening to this bootleg from Panda Bear's ATP show on Friday. It is excellent so far- I love the inclusion of Animal Collective tracks that they seem to be done with (live, at least) as a band.





I'm really looking forward to this weekend. Andrew Bird, Wavves+Zach Hill, Low, Collections of Colonies of Bees, Megafaun, Antlers, Atlas Sound, Ganglians, and a whole day to do homework and recover from Ghetto Division. Should be a good time.

I just listened to Ganglians for the first time a few days ago--I thought I had listened to them before but I guess I hadn't. I recommend checking them out. A lot more listenable then most of their psychedelic lo-fi brethren.

I'm also enjoying Kurt Vile. And the Volcano Choir album. Lately I've also been really into making sandwiches and picking up things in my room and putting them in another spot.


Wish HEALTH could have played Club 770.

After the excellently-attended Music Committee kick-off meeting on Thursday, Danielle and I walked to the High Noon to see Ramona Falls. Twas an excellent show. There was a remarkably small crowd (about 25 people tops) but it was an early show, a Thursday, and unfortunately I guess a lot of concert-going folk don't even know the band's frontman's main band Menomena. I didn't myself until prepping for their Chicago show (with White Rabbits, Hollywood Holt, and Mt St Helens Vietnam Band, all for 5 bucks!) that I went to this summer with John, Brigid, Danielle, Will, and Sam. Well, they're both pretty fantastic bands so I recommend checking them out.

bonus traxxx

Fatboy Slim - Praise You (figure rave edit)
Smith Westerns - Imagine, Pt. 3
Fever Ray - Seven (Crookers Remix)