don't forget to breathe

So when I was at Preview Ethan asked if I listened to Beulah. I told him I didn't, but I had heard of them. So he told me to play a track on his laptop which conveniently hooked up to the car, and it sounded pretty good. The song was "A Good Man Is Easy To Kill", which is a reference to Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man Is Hard To Find". Apparently the lead singer Miles Kurosky enjoys the works of Flannery O'Connor, and the song is about a car accident his father was in. Beulah is now disbanded but was part of the illustrious Elephant 6 Recording Company, which included Neutral Milk Hotel, Of Montreal, and The Apples in Stereo.

Anyways I'm listening to the album Yoko, which is their last and supposedly best work. A lot of the songs are bittersweet, because Beulah had already announced their breakup. It's less poppy than the other album The Coast Is Never Clear, which contains the song Ethan played. Some classic indie pop is always worth a listen, and it's a shame that they disbanded. Ethan said that the lead singer is doing some solo work, so hopefully we'll see some of that in the future.

so tired

Sort of a change in the routine cause I'm not going to be talking exclusively about music this post. I just got back from Preview (college orientation), and while the actual Preview sucked, the rest of the time was pretty good. Driving was pretty boring, but I listened to Modest Mouse there and back in the car. When I got there I hung out with Ethan and toured the town for a bit. We got some coffee at Maude's and I listened to people talk about bicycles, which seem to be pretty fucking intense.

Theeeeen I went with Ethan to the 2nd Street Bakery I think it was called, and chilled there for a bit. Then off to dinner at the Buddha Belly, which had pretty amazing curry in huge portions. Apparently their spicy isn't really all that spicy. After that we went to a bicycle repair place Ethan volunteers at called The Kickstand, in some sketchy part of town. While I didn't know much terminology about bicycles, the process of watching them fix bikes was pretty cool. I'm pretty sure I'm going to spend some time there in the Fall.

Blaaaaah blah blah (stuff about preview) wasn't really exciting. Our staff member was from Sarajevo and was pretty funny and helpful, so it wasn't absolutely terrible, and I knew some people (I hung out mostly with Allan and Binita). Ethan gave a lot of advice about classes and scholarships and stuff, as he's also majoring in Biochem. So I'm pretty set with scheduling and I've got lots of opportunities, though I want to get out of the humanities class I'm in right now. If not it's not a big deal, but it seems sorta boring.

The next night I was going to sneak out and go to a concert with Ethan, but it ended up that he hurt himself and couldn't go. Which was probably for the better because I had to drive back today after the final Preview day, and I was already really tired.

Anyways now I'm really looking forward to both academics and ...nonacademics at college, since the culture around UF seems pretty cool. There's a lot of organic/vegan stuff and neat sketchy places around, places worth exploring, and really cool people. It's pretty awesome because I'll be hanging out with all sorts of people, like friends in Hume, Lauren, Ethan, and a lot of decent people I met the last few days. And I'll be dividing my time between studying, partying, bikes, and who knows what else (I mean that in a completely clean way, meaning there are lots of cool things to do besides partying). As I discussed with Allan, going from high school to college is probably the most important and liberating step in your life. In no other time will you gain more freedom. No parents and curfew (take that as you will, and please be responsible), no 7 hour blocks of school, and you'll have lots of time to do new things. So I think people should really have as many memorable experiences as possible. I'm sure I will.

the window is the door

Sometimes you just need something for when you're in a slump, and Maritime seems to work perfectly for dark days. Brand New is also pretty good for misery, but I think Maritime makes you feel better. While the later albums are faster paced and more aggressive, I think Glass Floor is an excellently built album for when you're lying in bed. And the album artwork is great!
I don't think Maritime is very well known (even in indie circles), though they definitely deserve to be. The new album (Heresy and the Hotel Choir) is also more popular, and has twice the Pitchfork rating as Glass Floor, but I'm still partial to the latter because it is more coherent and has better songs, in my opinion. The new album does have good songs, though I think Be Unhappy should be in Glass Floor because it's more similar to that material. Anyways if you're depressed about something I do recommend listening to Maritime.

handsome furs

Yes, uncreative title this time. I'll make up for it by posting pictures. But yeah, this post is about Handsome Furs, which is great. The act is associated with Wolf Parade, connected by Dan Boeckner, guitarist/vocalist in Wolf Parade and basically the same in Handsome Furs, though supported by his wife. Boeckner is the one with the lower and grittier (I think) voice in Wolf Parade, doing the vocals about half the time.

I think Handsome Furs is a good associated act for Boeckner, since he can sing for the whole album instead of just half, and he has quite a distinct voice. The general feeling of Plague Park (the album) is similar to Wolf Parade material, though I think there are a bit less vocals in Plague Park. It's also possibly a bit more sparse and electronic, though that's definitely up for interpretation.

well...

I listened to some stuff that isn't exactly regular fare for me. Crystal Castles is definitely more Electronica and it's not really indie, though it IS on Last Gang Records, which also includes Metric and some other indie bands. So it is indie in the sense that it's on an indie label, but... not exactly? They released a self-titled album and I recently got around to listening.

Anyways it's pretty good. Not that I really know much about Electronica. But it's not the generic repetetive stuff. The vocals are blurred and hard to understand, but I guess that's not really the point in this genre. Regardless (IRREGARDLESS is not a word!), it sounds neat, so I like it.

And then there was some band called HEALTH associated with a song (Crimewave), I'm not exactly sure how, but it's also a self-titled album, and it also has a track called Crimewave, though it's a LOT different. HEALTH is a lot more... noisy? It's described as noise rock per the Wikipedia, so it works, but I was expecting something a lot more like Crystal Castles. Didn't really like HEALTH first time through, haven't listened since.

oh dears...

Well I've been listening to a rather strange combination. Namely, The Dears and Sigur Rós.

Sigur Rós came out with a new album, which is probably the best new album I've heard in a while. Which is saying something, since they're always singing in Icelandic or their own Hopelandic. Oh shit apparently the last track is in English, and I haven't even noticed. I don't even know how to start to pronounce the new album's name, so... Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust. Listen. Even though it's un...understandable, it's still pretty amazing. It starts off with a few lively tracks, which is a new thing for Sigur Rós, since they describe themselves as slow motion rock. In any case, it's definitely a good progression. Then it slows down into the characteristic Sigur Rós style, minimalistic and beautiful. The last four tracks are my personal favorites, lonely and sort of bleak. They evoke empty and cold landscapes. Beautiful ones though. Either the music or the AC had me shivering last night.


The Dears are supposed to have a new album in the works, but I've been listening to Gang of Losers again. I never did listen to a lot of The Dears, even though I liked them, so now I'm listening to a lot more. It's pretty hard to describe The Dears, except that they're pretty unique. A good example is Bandwagoneers. Creative name, great track. Take a listen.

more thoughts

I remembered something else. What a fucking surprise right?
Anyways. Calvin told me that my musical tastes were pretentious once, so I've been evaluating myself a bit since then. Yes, I may br a bit pretentious about music, but that's mainly because mainstream music does, in fact, suck. A lot. The umbrella song comes to mind. A perfect example of bad music.

But there's a difference between differentiating between music and differentiating between "indie" and "mainstream". A lot of people are really just into the indie scene and care less about the music, so they can act cool and show off to friends. For me I think it's the other way around. Yes, I may still be a music snob, but I enjoy the music and that's pretty much what I care about. It's not so much about the scene. There are people who walk around decked out like scenesters who couldn't tell you the first thing about the music they supposedly listen to, and I think the trend is growing among middle schoolers, cause there have definitely been more kids like that around Chiles.

So what I'm saying is, if you want to be indie, fine, but make sure you actually listen to the music. And you actually like it. Don't go around waving the Garden State soundtrack if you're just trying to get laid. Haha I think this is making me sound more pretentious. Now I'm distinguishing between real and fake indie.

I think I'll write a how-to guide for spotting fakers. They dress pretty badly (bad, the mechanism which allows you to...) , they listen to REALLY generic indie/emo stuff, and they can't actually name an album past the most recently popular one. They also name-drop like crazy and act snobbishly because people don't recognize a band. Whereas people who actually like the music encourage others to listen to it. They also do not always follow the current trend, instead exploring based on suggestions from friends and musical quality.

k just thought some things should be cleared up.

shit

It's been more than a month since my last post, since I guess I just totally forgot about this.
anyways I've been listening to a lot, though the number of artists is limited.

My last.fm pretty much illustrates that. I listened to quite a bit of Okkervil River for a week or two (about 700 plays, just on itunes), then waaaay too much (about 1000 plays) Modest Mouse. Not the new stuff, mind. At the expense of sounding pretentious, the old stuff (Lonesome Crowded West, and Building Nothing Out Of Something) is much better.

Recently I've been listening to some more ambient/instrumental stuff, like 65daysofstatic. I was a bit skeptical about instrumental music at first, cause by definition there aren't really words... But after listening to this I've realized it's really good. While it may not be as good when you're just listening to music (debatable), it's still very good in the background when you're working.

Uhhh right now I'm listening to Yeasayer, and I've got a Deerhunter album in the queue (is that how it's fucking spelled?). Yeasayer is described as experimental, and I guess that's the general direction I've sorta been headed. There have definitely been a lot of instruments in my recent musical selections. I also listened to Sigur Rós, Múm, and Oceansize along with the 65dos.

Ehh Lauren's been to a lot of concerts that I'm pretty jealous of. The National, Modest Mouse, 65dos, SSLYBY, and probably other stuff that I can't remember right now. There's nothing playing in Tallahassee that I'm interested in, except Portugal. The Man, but they're coming when I'm going to be out of town.

Also I've decided that Stars is good drunk music. Don't ask me why, because I don't really know myself, but it just sounds like it would be excellent while drunk. Same with Brand New. Stars has some magical quality that's hard to describe. I'd say it invokes a wistful feeling, but that's not the whole picture. Just listen to it yourselves and maybe you can relate. Brand New basically encourages you to get drunk. No need to analyze much deeper.

I'm sure there are more musical adventures I've been on in the past month, but that's about it for now. I'll try to write more often.