June 2009 Mix CD

So it’s a little late, but I swear I wrote the tracklist and burned it in June…

1. Los Campesinos! – Death to Los Campesinos! >> Peppy boy/girl vocals with baroquely poppy bells and drums. Fun times.
2. Matt and Kim – Daylight >> Turned onto this track by a post on Keith Law’s blog.  The clicking drums, affected vocals, and growling synths are the perfect ingredients for lo-fi electropop hit.  See MGMT – Time to Pretend.
3. The Ting Tings – Shut Up and Let Me Go >> This song has slowly grown on me.  Whereas “Great DJ” happened for me almost immediately, it look me a few listens to warm up to the neo-disco guitars and synths.  The vocals definitely have that repetitive, chanty quality that I can hook into.
4. Asobi Seksu – Mizu Asobi >> Every time I listen to their album Citrus, I seem to find a new great song.  Hush is probably a bit too dream-pop, not enough shoegaze.
5. Ida Maria – I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked
6. Green Day – Know Your Enemy >> I’m not really a punk fan (perhaps that’s evident by including a Green Day track on this mix?  I don’t know).  Despite the oversaturation of their recent album, “Know Your Enemy” is quality pop-punk.  I even like the extremely simple guitar solo bit in the middle.
7. The Presets – My People >>   “My People” throbs, dominates, and devastates.  With that kind of energy though, it probably overstays its welcome at 4.5 minutes.  I definitely regret missing these guys live in March.
8. The Smashing Pumpkins – G.L.O.W. >> I probably regret putting this song on here already.  It’s not particularly remarkable and definitely not a lyrical masterpiece.  Also, what’s with the abbreviated song names, Billy?  Who are you, W.A.S.P.?
9. The Bug feat. Flowdan – Jah War (Loefah Mix) >> Ok, yeah, I have no idea what this is about, but Flowdan has a great voice and Loefah creates a grinding bassline that surpasses Kevin Martin’s original mix.
10. Gnarls Barkley – Surprise
11. Beastie Boys – Pass the Mic >> Why do rappers like to rap about their own names so much?  Anyway, the rhyming of “commercial” with “commercial” freaks me out every time.
12. Beck – Que Ondo Guero >> The car horn-like synths and scattered vocal clips make me think of an LA traffic jam.  Beck can really sound like anything, but I think a lot of it is due to which producer(s) he employs for a given album.  For example, Guero with the Dust Brothers or Modern Guilt with Danger Mouse.
13. Asobi Seksu – Strings
14. Ben Folds – Jesusland
15. Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal >> It’s still nowhere near as good as “Blue Ridge Mountains”.
16. Editors – When Anger Shows >> Just an epic song by Editors.  Most of their work stays in the 3.5-4.5 minute range, but this one is almost six minutes.  It’s almost like two separate songs, which works well due to Editors’ big melodies and repetitive lyrics.
17. Silversun Pickups – Lazy Eye >> I see a lot of comparisons to The Smashing Pumpkins with Silversun Pickups (I assume to Gish/Siamese Dream era work; specifically, “Lazy Eye” sounds most like “1979″ and “Drown”).  I’d also throw Pavement and The Breeders out there as comparables.
18. Papercuts – Future Primitive >> “Future Primitive” brings to mind a modern black and white Western film with its distant backup vocals, clompy rhythms, and OK Corral guitar.
19. Badly Drawn Boy – The Shining >> What a delicate and bold work.  Each instrument and note is vivid and necessary.  The warm brass shines and interplays with the strings and guitar beautifully.  I don’t think I could recommend this enough.
20. Passion Pit – Moth’s Wings >> It was entirely intentional, but the acoustic guitar of “The Shining” transitions into the synthetic plucking of “Moth’s Wings”.  Passion Pit is quickly becoming one of my favorite artists.

Arbitrary song of the day: Das Racist & Wallpaper. – Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wallpaper. Remix) – What an insane song, but the remix is slick and energetic.  You owe it to yourself to listen to it once.

Quick Film Reviews: Towelhead, Bottle Shock, Star Trek, Crank: High Voltage

Towelhead

Towelhead is almost a female version of Running with Scissors.  Both deal with themes of homosexuality, abuse, and bizarre, unaware family members.  While the title of the film (and if I recall correctly, the preview I saw) suggests more of a theme of racism whereas the film centers around protagonist Jasira’s sexual discovery and abuse.  The characters surrounding Jasira are pretty interesting, including her father, who, when is he isn’t being racist or cruel to Jasira, is actually funny (as in we are laughing at him, not with).  Aaron Eckhart plays a difficult role as the scummy neighbor with a Texas accent that isn’t entirely there.  There’s her awkward black boyfriend Thomas, who while a bit of a sex-obsessed high school student, ultimately seems to be a decent person.  However, the real hero of the film is Jasira’s neighbor Melina and her husband Gil who shelter Jasira.  Overall, Towelhead is an interesting combination of family problems and abuse with some scattered bits of humor to lighten it up.

Bottle Shock

First off, I like Alan Rickman.  He has a great voice and is just perfect as a British wine connoisseur Steven Spurrier.  I was most interested in his story along with California vinter Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman).  However, much of the film is derailed with Chris Pine and Freddy Rodriguez’s love triangle with their wineyard’s intern.  This subplot is not new, interesting, and not entirely resolved even though it takes up a good chunk of the film.  The story of the Judgment of Paris though is a solid interpretation of theme of snooty Europeans being knocked down a peg by the down-to-earth Americans.  Judging by Chris Pine’s role in this and the following movie, he seems predisposed to playing arrogant douchebags who get beat up in bars.

Star Trek

Just in case you don't believe me that there are explosions, there is one on the poster.

When I first heard that JJ Abrams was going to be directing the new Star Trek movie, I was excited.  I love his work on Lost and Cloverfield, but after seeing the trailer, I wasn’t so sure.  Luckily, the trailer lowered my expectations enough to make the film somewhat enjoyable.  I know we don’t need another person on the internet complaining about Star Trek, but there was a lot of dumb stuff in the movie.  There are sword fights (why?  you realize you have phasers, right?), a villain with ridiculous intentions and motivations (along with an evil space ship that has an interior like something out of Galaxy Quest), and enough deux ex machina to have its own gravitational field.  And speaking of which, I don’t rightly understand the confusion about singularities that sometimes makes them destroy planets and sometimes allows people to travel through time.

The cast is decent, though it’s hard to tell through the explosions.  Chris Pine is clearly doing his own thing with Kirk, which is fine in itself, but I’m not sure his characterization gave him much more personality than “kind-of-a-dick”.  Karl Urban does a good impression of Bones and Sylar is spot-on with Spock.  Anton Yelchin and Simon Pegg are enjoyable comic relief as Chekov and Scotty respectively.  But why is Tyler Perry in this film?  Was he doing research for Tyler Perry’s Madea Joins Star Fleet? (Cracked has a good take-down of Tyler Perry here.)

Ideally, what I wanted in a new Star Trek film was a film taking place further in the future with a transitional cast from ST:TNG, with a series spinoff.  Obviously, that film doesn’t make nearly as much money as this one and I couldn’t guarantee that the plot would have been much better, but I would have liked it more.  Anyway, the plot to Star Trek basically undoes all Star Trek canon.  Since so much of the Federation beating back the Borg in ST:TNG and First Contact was so dependent on very specific set of extenuating circumstances which would not have happened due to all the changes in the timeline, I’m going to assume that a hundred years or so after Star Trek, the Borg came along and assimilated everyone.  The End.

Crank: High Voltage

I can’t begin to describe this film.  The plot is as enjoyably absurd as one could hope with a group of Chinese medics rescuing Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) who just fell out of a helicopter, stealing his heart, and plotting to steal his penis (yes, that happens and in the first five minutes no less).  As much as I joked about needing to see the first film for this to make sense, it actually did help to know some of the characters and events of the original Crank.  As over-the-top violent and misogynystic the first one was, this one was even more so – a not unimpressive feat.  Though the plot is (intentionally) ridiculous, the humor, effects, and tongue-in-cheek dialog are whip-smart.  I love that they kept the Google Maps transitions, too.

Crank is clearly setup now for a third entry, though I’m not quite sure what can be done to top Chev Chelios having to keep his adrenaline up and having to stay electrically charged.  Is he going to be on fire throughout Crank 3?  Does he have to kill someone every 10 seconds to stay alive?

Arbitrary song of the day: Nine Inch Nails – La Mer

May 2009 Mix CD

I missed the April mix disc due to my main PC being down with hard drive issues.  Thanks go to Western Digital for their useful customer service, even though it did take a month to get a good one in return (the first arrived DOA).  Anyway, let’s kick it in a manner befitting of an elderly school…

1. The Prodigy – Invaders Must Die >> Before reading Paul Shirley’s writeup on The Prodigy, I was unaware that The Prodigy even had a new album.  I wasn’t into their previous album, which was too much of that awkward electronic-rock crossover with too many guest stars, a type of an album which occurs more often than it should.  In short, The Prodigy is back with an evil, growling big beat that shows off what they’ve always done best.
2. Mindless Self Indulgence – Straight to Video
3. The Smashing Pumpkins – FOL >> I broke my rule of not including Pumpkins songs on mix albums, as the quality obviously isn’t as consistent as their 90s work and it’s not entirely certain that Billy Corgan will keep putting out full albums.  Also, he should probably drop “The Smashing Pumpkins” moniker now that it’s just him…
4. Phoenix – 1901 >> The track has a dance-punk vibe, despite minimal synthesizer intervention.  And isn’t this one of the most unexpected SNL music acts?
5. Bloc Party – One Month Off >> I guess this song occurs one month after Underworld’s “Two Months Off”?
6. Liars – It Fit When I Was a Kid (Crystal Castles Remix)
7. Hot Chip – Ready for the Floor >> I’ve listened to this song so many times now, but I still don’t know if I have anything interesting to say about.  Let’s try… it’s… a good… synthpop?  No, I guess I don’t.
8. The Ting Tings – Great DJ >> I’ve just been clicking through their singles on Youtube and so far this is the only one I like.  Am I doing it wrong?
9. Moloko – Fun for Me >> As I previously mentioned, I’m glad I learned of this song.
10. Andrew Bird – Imitosis >> Andrew Bird looks to be one of the more interesting musicians to see live – great multi-instrumentalist.
11. Editors – Open Up >> It seems like Editors’ B-sides are hit-or-miss.  Along with “Colours”, these are a couple of Editors best songs.  Enjoyably repetetive and singable.
12. Interpol – NYC >> Conveys a sense of space, a quality which I think is present only in Interpol’s best.
13. Aceyalone with RJD2 – A Beautiful Mine (edit) >> Also known as the theme to Mad Men, I edited this down to remove the extra noodling at the end.
14. Dan Deacon – Okie Dokie >> Aside from the plain insanity of this track I enjoy two particular things about this song.  One is the refrain of “I’ve got a rattlesnake gun” (is it a gun that is for shooting rattlesnakes?  is it a gun that shoots out rattlesnakes?  THESE ARE THE THINGS I NEED TO KNOW!).  Second is that it’s on the album Spiderman of the Rings, one of the better album names you’ll see.  Anyay, I still need to hear Deacon’s most recent album.
15. Passion Pit – Sleepy Head >> Reminds me of “Alice” by Pogo.  I absolutely adore the wipey synth that comes in around 1:13.
16. Hot Chip – One Pure Thought
17. Asobi Seksu – Transparence >> I hadn’t really noticed until now, but I didn’t really like their first album.  They didn’t figure out until Citrus (2006).
18. Third Eye Blind – Jumper >> This is still a good song; I refuse to believe otherwise.
19. Supergrass – In It For the Money >> What’s with the sudden ending?  It makes it a little hard on people making mix CDs, but it does provide good contrast with…
20. Michael Andrews – Slipping Away >> A short creepy track you’ll probably recognize as being out of the Donnie Darko soundtrack.
21. The Prodigy – Stand Up >> Big bold brass.  I like it.

Also, you owe it to yourself to watch/listen to Steve Porter’s remixes of the Slap Chop and Sham Wow commercials.

Arbitrary song of the day: Thom Yorke – The Clock

5 Ways to Improve the MLB Draft

The Rule 4 Major League Baseball draft is coming up in about a month (June 9).  Unlike the NBA and NFL drafts which are surrounded by so much hoopla, the MLB draft is a relatively lowkey affair.  It wasn’t televised live until 2007.  I would absolutely like to see the draft made into a bigger deal, though I understand that it simply can’t be as important an event as the NBA and NFL drafts, where players can often make a large impact the first year after signing.  But here are some ideas that I think would improve the draft for the purpose of increased entertainment, strategy, and fairer player signing bonuses for lower selections.

No graduation requirement/age limit

It doesn’t make sense to me that players in places like the Dominican Republic or Venezuela can accept contracts at whatever age, such as Michel Ynoa who signed a multi-million dollar contract at age 16. Why should a player have to graduate from high school in order to get a job playing baseball?

I’m also tempted to say that the draft should apply to more than to just the United States and Canada, but I recognize that there are important differences in the way that US players are developed versus the way that Dominican talent is developed.  I would imagine that if the draft applied to international players, teams would have less incentive to develop baseball academies and contributing to the athletes’ communities.

Reduce the number of rounds

Currently, the draft runs 50 rounds (or until all teams pass), which is a comically long time.  For sake of comparison, the NBA and NFL drafts last two and seven rounds respectively.  The amateur draft used to be even longer, essentially lasting until everyone got sick of it and went home.  Future first-ballot Hall of Famer Mike Piazza was famously picked in the 62nd round.  If Mel Kiper did baseball, his mock draft board would need one of those sweet sliding ladders that large libraries use.  You could probably cut the draft to 25 or 20 rounds.  Let the players after that become free agents and sign where they want.  That would give them at least a little leverage in negotiations or allow them to sign close to their hometown or something.  It’s extremely unlikely that any one guy is going to make it to the big leagues, so the least you could do is let him work where he wants.  Keep in mind that players in these later rounds only get a couple thousand dollar signing bonuses and aren’t paid that well when playing in the minors.

Get rid of compensatory draft picks

Compensatory picks have almost the opposite effect of what they are supposed to be for.  Instead of compensating small-market teams who lose big-name players to free agency, it is rewarding the big-market teams who are signing these stars and later letting them go.  They can afford to risk offering arbitration (a necessary step in order to get compensatory picks) whereas teams with more limited budgets can’t do this.  Another side-effect (perhaps intentionally on the owners’ parts), is that teams aren’t willing to sign a Type-A or Type-B player for as much as they normally would because they would have to give up a draft pick.  We saw that this past offseason with Juan Cruz and Orlando Cabrera.

Allow trading of picks

This is a no-brainer.  I don’t see how anyone could be opposed to this.  It makes draft day more fun and it allows teams to be more flexible with the kinds of deals they make.

Implement hard-slotting for salaries for the first 5 rounds

This is probably my most controversial suggestion.  Some, such as Keith Law, have argued strongly against this, saying that hard-slotting and indeed the entire draft’s purpose is to drive down player signing bonuses and salaries by limiting player leverage.  But as a fan, I want to be entertained and, frankly, seeing teams pass up superior players in exchange for players with better “signability” is not entertaining.  I really don’t want to limit prospect’s salaries like this, as only a few of them will have long big league careers and I have no desire to see the owner’s pocket the extra cash, so I would suggest a very generous bonus slotting system whose values were proportional to the average Major League salary.  The top talents, like Stephen Strasburg, probably wouldn’t receive as much as they otherwise would, but some lesser players could potentially receive more money.  This would prevent ugly situations like the Nationals’ Aaron Crow debacle, the mess that was Pedro Alvarez’s contract negotiation, and more unfortunate outcomes like that of Matt Harrington, who was drafted five times but never signed a contract.  Anyway, the current slotting suggestions from the commissioner’s office are a joke and the only teams that follow them are the teams that are willing to draft poorly.

Arbitrary song of the day: Shakespear’s Sister – Black Sky (Dub Extravaganza part 2)

Duck

AFLAC!

Duck (Nic Bettauer, 2005) is a simple little film starring Philip Baker Hall, one of my favorite actors.  As someone whose face seems worn and weary by time, Hall is a perfect fit as a lonely widower who has one of the saddest back-stories you’ll hear.  The premise is rather basic: Hall as Arthur Pratt is lonely to the point of suicide until he comes upon a new friend, a duckling who he names Joe.

Arthur speaks to Joe like a crazy lady speaks to the child she kidnapped.  He talks almost non-stop to Joe with overly descriptive language of what he is doing – pretty redundant and a bit inane.  It probably would have been better served without any, which would have given it a more striking effect.  Joe is a unrelenting quacker, too, meaning that our two main characters both talk a lot, even though one really doesn’t understand the other.  Gradually we learn how the world the two live in is being torn apart.  Arthur is broke and getting evicted from his apartment; the ponds that Joe would call home are being drained to make way for malls by construction workers so evil they probably burn down FernGully in their spare time.  In this dystopian future of 2009 in which Duck takes place, we learn that Jeb Bush has become president, trash is now strewn everywhere, and the average dickishness quotient among the general population has become exceedingly high.

Joe grows up rapidly, giving us some nebulous sense of time passing.  Over this time, the duo head west from Los Angeles to the ocean encountering various people who they help or get helped by.  This includes a suicidal French Stewart (!), who is probably the easiest to help suicidal person ever.  The encounters are vignette-like, fleeting as quickly as they arrive.  My favorite was their visit at a nail parlor with an Asian pedicurist who gives Joe a bath.  She’s played by actress Amy Hill, who you’ll almost certainly recognize from something.  The scene is expressed with simple character-building dialog that’s the film’s strong point.  Of course, it’s entirely possible that this was just longest Aflac commercial ever.

Arbitrary song of the day: The Offspring – Pay the Man

Sit Down, Shut Up pilot

This past Sunday, Fox premiered its new animated series Sit Down, Shut Shut Up.  Born in Australia and reinterpreted through Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz, the series has arrived with little fanfare but a quality timeslot.  I’m not sure if Fox is trying to kill it yet or not.

Sit Down, Shut Up is surprisingly visually striking, utilizing animation over top of set photographs.  It’s really interesting, but not distracting.  This type of animation gives the frames greater detail with little additional effort (I assume we can expect to see the same backdrops reused).  There are little jokes caught in the background, such as what teachers should if a student is choking (hint: drag him off school grounds).

The cast is extremely overqualified.  We have Arrested Development alums Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Henry Winkler along with current/former SNL members Will Forte, Cheri Oteri, and Kenan Thompson* as well as voice acting mainstay Tom Kenny**.  The characters are cast as you would expect them: Jason Bateman plays a nice guy who is in love with someone but can’t tell her, Will Arnett plays an over-the-top obnoxious jock, Henry Winkler a sad-sack teacher with a penchant for pornography, and Kenan Thompson is a large black woman.

Character design was done by Mo Willems, who did the character design for Sheep in the Big City, a short-lived but favorite cartoon of mine.  Like Sheep, Sit Down delivers plenty of fourth wall-breaking laughs and clever quips.  This show doesn’t have infinite potential, but I think it’ll be solid.  I’m really hoping this series is given a fair chance by Fox, but unfortunately, I wouldn’t surprised if it ends up with only a Clone High-like run.

*I love that Kenan Thompson started on All That in the Good Burger sketches and ended up on SNL.  I feel kind of bad for Kel though.

**That Tom Kenny and Jill Talley are the couple in the “Tonight, Tonight” video is one my favorite bits of Smashing Pumpkins trivia.

Arbitrary song of the day: Hot Chip – Ready for the Floor

Nick Warren – GU35: Lima

Nick Warren has been associated with the Global Underground series for over a decade.  GU35, his eighth release in the iconic DJ series is unlike any of his previous albums.  This is, of course, has been true for each of his mixes since I started listening to him via an imported copy of his Brazil compilation about ten years ago.  It’s the reason why he’s been able to maintain his relevance in the ever-changing dance music landscape.  His previous compilation, GU30 – Paris, explored more of Warren’s alternative moody side, with tracks like Cates & Dpl – “Living in a” (a favorite of mine which still doesn’t seem to have been released anywhere in full form).  Disc 1 immediately puts that in the past.

After a dreamy intro, Warren establishes the clean, almost sterile, template that wil be used for the next 70 minutes.  Each of the tracks is deliberate, yet direct.  They share a common “sound”, as tracks from good mix albums often do.  Tunes like Kruse & Nürnberg’s “An Why E” and Ormatie’s “Twisted Turns” bring forward a pulsating bassline over a crisp rhythm section, where you can’t help but hear each percussive element.  The melodies are simple and repetitive, but all seem to work over a background sweeping synthetic swooshes.  There’s just enough variation to keep it interesting while holding onto an extremely unified vibe.

During my first listen through, I was struck as I heard the intro to “Surface”.  I apparently hadn’t noticed the Michael Burns/Panoptic name on the back of the case (limited edition wide box, of course).  “Surface” was never a favorite of mine*, but on an album full of unfamiliar tracks, you can’t help but feel a little bit of happy recognition.  I’m a little curious as to why Nick Warren chose this track in particular, considering it was released over five years ago and is one of the more distinctive tracks on the entire compilation.

*I was always a fan of Michael Burns’ work done under the Blue Haze moniker, such as “Absorb” and his remix of Echofalls’ “Shiver”.  Dave Preston and Habersham also did a might fine job of remixing the Blue Haze track “A Time to Reflect” with their “Dirtydoodoofunk Straight Outta Strongbadia Mix” (its actual name!).  That particular remix uses a clip from the “Techno” sbemail (well, technically from the Strong Bad Sings album).  However, the North EP is still his best work.

My first reaction was to call the second disc more experimental, but I think that’s inaccurate.  It’s much more electro, which may have been experimental five years ago, but now electro is a pretty standard direction to take a progressive house mix.  The low-fi, electro edge becomes apparent somewhere between Etiket – “Revelation” and Yvel & Tristan – “Panama”, which sounds like it could be off the Border Community label.  We’re even treated to a little bit of fun in this otherwise serious set of sounds with “Castillian”, a Spanish guitar-influenced track that’s gone even faster than it came.

Towards the final half-disc of GU35 we get into some harsh bass grooves with tracks like “Siberian Transit” and Robert Babicz’s remix of Warren’s own Way Out West track “Spaceman”.  Perhaps its my late 90s/early 00s dramatic progressive trance side, but I like my epic compilations to have a bit of an ending than GU35, which seems to just fade out with the breathy “Bosworth”.  But, maybe doing things a little bit differently disrupts what Warren was trying to do here.  Rather than providing a creative mish-mash of genres like he did with disc 1 of GU24: Reykjavik, he seems to want to create an incredibly even and well-polished set of respectable electronic dance music.  And I think it’s difficult to argue that he didn’t.

Arbitrary song of the day: Silversun Pickups – Lazy Eye

The best 18 Adult Swim shows – Part 5: 6-4

This is taking me many months apparently…

6. Home Movies

From the people who brought you Dr. Katz, you’ve got Home Movies.  It features a lot of the improvisational feeling of the Dr. Katz segments with H. Jon Benjamin and Jonathan Katz. The main character, Brendon, is a kid movie director partially based on the actor who plays him, Brendon Small (who also co-created the series). Like Dr. Katz, it uses the techniques of retroscripting and, originally at least, Squigglevision. After the first season, they switched over to normal animation techniques (Adobe Flash I believe), which was just fine with me. Squigglevision is freaky…

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Laaaaaaaaw

5. Robot Chicken

Robot Chicken is probably the most popular original Adult Swim program. The sheer number of celebrities who have appeared on Robot Chicken is staggering, especially for a semi-obscure cable show shown after midnight. The Star Wars episode is must-see and includes what is probably my favorite Robot Chicken sketch, which features Emperor Palpatine speaking to Darth Vader over the phone after the Battle of Yavin. I think everyone who has watched Robot Chicken since the beginning felt a little pride when the show was given a shout-out on Family Guy’s Star Wars special.

4. Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law

There’s so much to love about this series, whether it is the poking fun at Hanna-Barbera characters, over-the-top theme song, or Stephen Colbert as insane, eye-patch wearing boss Phil Ken Sebben. Despite all the bizarre sight gags and non sequiturs, the most strange thing about the series may be that there was a video game based on the show for the Wii.

Radio Places

No matter what city you live in, there are always corners you’ve never explored.  Maybe you’ve heard of them, but don’t even know where they are on a map.  Maybe they have a car dealership or mall there.  Maybe you have a friend who once went to an Olive Garden there.  These are radio places.

Also, I'm pretty sure no one has ever actually been inside one of these.

Why are they called radio places?  The primary reason behind this is that you hear about these places an inordinate amount on the radio.  There could be annoying commercials for an “automile” in that area or mentions of a festival there which will feature an appearance from a former local sports hero who played back when the team was good.  People on call-in shows will often be from one of these places.  Multiple traffic light delays are reported daily from this place, making you wonder why anyone is there in the first place.*  And for some reason, schools in these districts are always the first and sometimes only schools that will close on days when it snows.

* No one has ever heard a traffic report that was relevant to their driving route.  I don’t know how they do this.  Maybe they always just report about traffic in the same (possibly fictional) place.  On a related note, I am never driving near the Doubletree Hotel.

Your interaction with this small city/township/locality consists entirely of hearing about it on the radio and possibly passing the exit for it on the highway about 30 minutes from where you live.  Do not visit it, you will get lost somewhere between the Bed Bath & Beyond and the Big Lots.

A couple of my radio places:

• Mentor, OH
• Bedford, OH
• Parma, OH
• Castle Shannon, PA
• All of Beaver County, PA

What are some of yours?

Arbitrary song of the day: The Orb – Pomme Fritz

Forgotten Songs

Over on Keith Law’s The dish, he has an enjoyable post up where he describes “Forgotten songs“:

…songs I really like and never stopped liking but that, for one reason or another, were never huge hits in their times and have since been gathering dust on the music world’s shelves… [nothing] too obscure – I think everything here received radio airplay in the U.S.

This is a fun idea, similar to one I had before but was too lazy to write up at the time.  Among Klaw’s songs, the only one I remember hearing is Lo Fidelity Allstars’ “Battleflag”, which is one of those songs to me that you don’t know anything about, but you’ve heard a million times.  Included on the list is the song “Fun For Me” by Moloko, which will now almost certainly be on my next mix CD.  The video isn’t anything groundbreaking, but singer Róisín Murphy brings the over-the-top sass perfectly.  There seem to be a lot of these scruffy/dorky male producer and gorgeous female singer pop-electronic duos (Moloko, Miss Kittin and The Hacker, Lamb, and let’s say Ladytron is essentially made up of two of these).

As far as my own list…

Supergrass – Pumping on Your Stereo

I had completely forgotten about this song until a couple months ago when I happened across the video on Youtube.  I think I had searched for it before some years ago, but I don’t think a search for “music video with muppety things and its awesome” turned up many results.

Fastball – The Way

I remember this from back when I used to watch VH1 after coming home from school.  Amazingly, Fastball is still making music, with another album coming in April.  Other songs I particularly associate with this period of time are from a couple of Shawns: Shawn Colvin (”Sunny Came Home“) and Shawn Mullins (”Lullaby“).

The Orb – Little Fluffy Clouds

This is very not forgotten by me, but most people would probably know it as that song that was on a VW Beetle back when those cars started to become trendy again.  The Orb has always had terrible videos that should have no interest to anyone this side of an LSD trip, but the song is one of the most catchy pieces of 90s electronic music.

Mr. Oizo – Flat Beat

“Flat Beat” apparently got to #1 in the UK, but I’d be surprised if anyone stateside remembers this track.  Really, the only reason I know it is because it was in MTV’s alternative videos playlist for a couple weeks.  The album it’s from, Analog Worms Attack, has grown on me more and more over the years.  The unfiltered, dirty, analog squelches mixed with bits of tongue-in-cheek humor are class.

New Radicals – You Get What You Give

Everyone around my age knows this song and will remember it, even though they haven’t heard it for years.  It’s not really surprising that everyone has forgotten this song considering the band only wrote one album.  Frontman Gregg Alexander kind of looks like Billy Corgan, only if Corgan was tall and dressed like a douchebag.  Not that I’m blaming Alexander, as I’m pretty sure everyone dressed like that in the late 90s.

The Breeders – Cannonball

I honestly know almost nothing about The Breeders or how I originally heard this song, but aren’t these supposed to be forgotten songs after all?

Are any of these songs not forgotten at all?  Clearly I didn’t forget about them, but maybe other people didn’t either.  Let me know!

Also of note is Paul Shirley’s most recent column for ESPN about The Prodigy’s most recent album.  He’s a good writer and has respectable musical tastes, especially for an athlete – his love of Kings of Leon not withstanding.

EDIT (3/19):

Guster – Fa Fa

“Fa Fa” could be the most forgotten song on my list, since I completely forgot about it until coming across it today on Youtube.  And I even own the CD.  By no means is this a lyrical masterpiece, but lets go ahead and add it for purposes of nostalgia even if nothing else.  When I first saw this video, I thought the guitarist in the cowboy hat looked like a jackass.  This has not changed.

Arbitrary song of the day: Underworld – Mmm… Skyscraper I Love You