I crafted a Welcome Home (from European adventures) mix for my folks. Mom isn’t home yet, but I was hanging out with Dad yesterday. I’d like to share the mix with you too. :)
Other than the Sufjan Stevens tracks, this is music I discovered in 2006 which didn’t fit on my Look up! Get Down! mix, slower tempos, more guitar and vocal oriented, less electronics.
01 - Amy Winehouse - Rehab 02 - Kym Tuvim - Fly Away 03 - Jamie Lidell - Multiply (In a Minor Key) 04 - Sufjan Stevens - Chicago 05 - Cat Power - The Greatest 06 - Marissa Nadler - Yellow Lights 07 - Alice Smith - Woodstock 08 - Jenny Lewis With The Watson Twins - Handle With Care (Acoustic Mashup?) 09 - Mark Kozelek - You Ain’t Got a Hold on Me 10 - The Be Good Tanyas - When Doves Cry (Prince Cover) 11 - The Blow - Parantheses 12 - First Coat - George 13 - First Floor Power - Scissors, Bag or a Stone 14 - Piers Faccini - If I 15 - Marisaa Nadler - Famous Blue Raincoat (L. Cohen Cover) 16 - Sufjan Stevens - The Transfuguration 17 - M83 - Let Men Burn Stars
This is part one of three best-of-2006 mixes; an homage to sweaty parties, energizing beats, and the tangled interaction of musician and dancer. Arms flail. Feet shuffle. We resonate.
I’ve included some links to music videos and live performances below.
00:00Busdriver- New Aquarium (57sec) 00:57 Bouga Akhenaton - Belsunce breakdown (3min 53sec) 04:50Tom Waits - Big In Japan (13sec) 05:03Buck 65 - Devil’s Eyes (2min 48sec) 07:51Ken Nordine - Nutria (5sec) 07:56Broken Social Scene - Cause = Time (5min 20sec) 13:16Constantines - Lizaveta (3min 28sec) 16:44The New Pornographers - The Bones Of An Idol (2min 43sec) 19:27Feist - Mushaboom (3min 33sec) 23:00Spoon - I Summon You (demo) (3min 49 sec)
TrackList Side B
00:00Cal Tjader - Bye Bye Blues (8sec) 00:08Stars - Calendar Girl (3min 53sec) 04:01Spoon - I Turn My Camera On (3min 36sec) 07:37The New Pornographers - These Are The Fables (3min 20sec) 10:57Constantines - Soon Enough (3min sec) 14:43The Books - if not now whenever (3min 20sec) 18:03My Morning Jacker - Wordless Chorus (3min 59sec) 22:02Soso - loss (3min 55sec) 25:57Fermented Reptile - Intro (1min 17sec) 27:14Buck 65 - Drunk Without Drinking (4min 10sec) 31:24Camille - 1 2 3 (2min 32sec)
The quality of tracks on these discs is varied, and you have to be fairly geeky to understand the inside-jokes that most of the tracks are built around. I guess that was the point: *nerd*core.
A quick run-down of Scientology doctrine from Wikipedia:
75 million years ago, [an alien ruler of the “Galactic Confederacy” named Xenu], brought billions of people to Earth in DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Their souls then clustered together and stuck to the bodies of the living, and continue to wreak chaos and havoc today.
These evil alien souls can be removed from us if we pay to be audited. Auditing can also free us of Engrams, painful memories which are the single source of all human illness.
Eventually, if we pay enough, we get super-powers.
L. Ron Hubbard, wrote Sci-Fi pulp-fiction before he founded Scientology. ;)
The Kamkars […] fuse elements from their Kurdish folk music heritage with conventions from Persian classical music, using instruments from both. [They are a] family ensemble, consisting of seven brothers, one sister, and her son from Samandaj, in northwest Iran.
Stars kicked off their latest North American tour last night, here in Winnipeg.
They performed to a sold out crowd at the newly renovated Ramada conference centre. Their set heavily favoured their latest album, and was well received by the all ages crowd.
Some adjectives for description: honest, theatrical, emotional, humorous, raw, rock’n.
Stars are from Montreal. Their music is unapologetically poppy, and proves that pop isn’t always a synonym for crap.
Last Saturday we went to an Electro party at the 301 Overtoom squat (or ex-squat?).
"Squatting is the act of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building that the squatter does not own, rent, or otherwise have permission to use. Squatters often claim rights over the spaces they have squatted by virtue of occupation, rather than ownership; in this sense, squatting is similar to (and potentially a necessary condition of) adverse possession, by which a possessor of real property without title may eventually gain legal title to the real property. [...]
Besides places to live squats are often socially interesting places, hosting give-away shops, pirate radio stations, (often vegetarian or vegan) restaurants."
There is a long history of squatting in The Netherlands, and throughout the rest of Europe. In Amsterdam their are squatted restaurants, bars, internet cafes, and of course apartments.
Despite political pressure and police evictions, there are a few remaining squats in Canada and the US.
I heard a knocking at my window, just now. I discovered a woodpecker, climbing the wooden-edged frame, of the opened window, across the hall.
Music:
"I have, for many years now, been pulling the sticks out of my butt that I let my composition teachers, colleagues studying composition, and influential composers that I admired, stick up there when I was a student."