Lightning DOES Strike Twice!

Prepare yourself for PURE GENIUS as you click on this link.
The master does it again!

READY.......GO!

Midlkake Report

"Give me a day full of honest work
And a roof that never leaks.
I'll be satisfied."

Great show. A band of multi-instrumentalists. Nicely honed set. Beautiful and polished. I heard that these guys fall apart live (like sloppy or something), but I experienced the opposite. My only complaint is that maybe it was TOO perfect. They looked like they were at work. Like musicians in the pit, doing they're job. But hey, it's beautiful music. Beautiful songs that put me into a dreamworld.

The best part is, they had some cool 1.5" pins that were probably home-made. Xeroxed so each one is slightly different and on different color paper and such. I bought three (each with a different design) because that's what I do.

Midlake tonight!!!

Pretty excited about seeing Midlake tonight. I think they made they best record of 2006 and I'm anticipating a great live set. And I'm gonna be super disappointed if they don't have any good merch like buttons and stickers and rare EPs, rather than just expensive Tshirts.

Battles

Check this out. I'm not even sure if I like it, but it's super interesting and innovative. Undeniably.



This is like a math rock supergroup. Don Caballero. Helmet. Etc.
It almost sounds like that song they put on during a football game, but then not.
And they can pull it off live.

Must have Son Volt in every 5th Post...

Feist w/ Mates of State in the Background

Bike Rides with Bob

9/13/07

Dearest Bob,

I wanted you to know that I've missed our bike rides together. When my bike broke down in June I knew we'd be spending some time appart. But now that I'm back at work and my bike is repaired, we've been able to spend our mornings and afternoons catching up. Your thoughts on music are so insightful and honest- like when you made that comment about not really being impressed with the new Rilo Kiley album- I thought that was really bold. And I've always felt they were overrated and faddish. I know that I've got some catching up to do with Ira, but for now I'm really enjoying hearing about what you've been up to this summer.

Your buddy,
Pete

WWKFD?

What Would K-Fed Do?

Gourd Update

Here are a couple of my gourd plants. I think both are bilobal bottle gourds. One is just sprouting (L). The two in the other picture are climbing up Jill's sunflowers (R).










Below is a picture of a newly sprouting "Job's Tears" plant, which is an ornamental grass that yields gourd-like seeds often used to make rosaries. They are commonly refered to as nature's beads because they cure themselves and hollow themselves out (with a hole at either end). I'm raising the Job's Tears to bead my Shekeres with.

Imagine

I watched a John Lennon documentary last night that was heavy on his solo career, which (in my opinion) sucked. The doc was OK. But I was thinking- the best John Lennon solo record that John Lennon never made is "Let it Come Down" by James Iha.

What a gem. That record changed my world. Sounds like John Lennon solo, only good. The song, "Lover, Lover" sounds like "Imagine" without the nihilism. Check it out. Great record.

If you build it, they will come.

Nothing Feels Good

Seems crazy, but 2007 marks the 10th anniversary of one of the BEST RECORDS EVER MADE.

"Nothing Feels Good" by the Promise Ring, 1997

Feels like yesterday. This record blew my mind and was extremely formative as a creative person and just as a human also. I remember reading about it in some straightedge zines and indierock zines (in print) that a friend gave me. And I bought the CD and I gobbled it up. Paul even had the limmited edition red vinyl version. I don't know that I had a friend in the late 90s who didn't own this record. It was special to us. I was 19 years old and we were indestructable and totally fragile at once.

Still a great record today. Was blasting it on my way to work when I realized it has been 10 years and I felt old.

"Spent afternoons

Spent afternoons
Measuring time in spoons."

Beep- Beep!

Hello Goodbye

Also, Son Volt's version of the Beatles'es "Hello Goodbye" is up on iTunes now.
Sounds great! They did it for a Bend it Like Beckham commercial.
Like a little Son Volt snack!

DON'T MAKE ME A TARGIT ! (spoon review)

Several friends have exposed me to SPOON lately. Their new record just dropped and it's all over the trade rags. People love this band and they've been around forever. So I thought I'd pick it up- see what the fuss was about.

I ended up really enjoying "GaGaGaGaGa", Spoon's 5th full-length release.

Jill and I tried for a long while to come up with the category Spoon would fit into. Not that Spoon is super original or breaking any new ground here..... it's just fun American indie rock. That's all we could come up with.

But here's the main quality that makes Spoon stand out- If they've got one thing, it's this: Frontman Britt Daniel just says words cool. That's it. He says words in such a cool way, nothing else matters. He says "evah". He says "Targit". Bottom line is that you get taken with the way he says words. Forget everything else.

There are 3 real hits on the album: "Underdog" "You Got Yr.Cherry Bomb" and "Don't Make Me a Target" that are worth the price of the album by themselves. Or great iTunes single-purchases. They would be all over the radio if Coke or Clearchannel or McDonalds didn't own everyone's souls.

The rest of the tracks are still super fun. It's just that Daniel rarely puts a lyrical hook with a melodic hook. In other words, a tune might be catchy, but the words aren't. Or the words are catchy, but the tune doesn't get stuck in your head and sounds awkward. Take "Don't You Evah", for example. It's full of melodic hooks, but what the heck is he saying? We hear what he's saying, but it's just that he chose to say something specific for art's sake rather than just coming up with something sweet and stupid for me to easily digest. And while, usually, I like that approach, I don't think it works here. I walk around humming the melody to the lines "Petals getting picked by the love-yous and the love-you-nots" and "Five years going by everyone is still on their side" but I never sing the words, because they're awkward and forgettable.

Don't get me wrong. Love the album. Especially the 3 songs mentioned above. It was the smash of the summer. And check out the vid(s) below.

Here's the smash hit, "THE UNDERDOG"!



Oh, and you might recognize this from that car commercial:

MEE-MEEP!

The Best Show on TV!

I call do-overs on my last post called "Best Show on TV". Because, actually, The Singing Bee is the best show on TV. It's got everything that's great about American TV (the whole classic gameshow vibe) and, at the same time, cleverly pokes fun at everything wrong w/ TV (extravegance, excess, the illusion of instant stardom).

Nobody gets a million dollars. Nobody has to "lock in" their "final answer". America doesn't "vote". And there is no ominous lighting or intense mood music. Just good fun.

It had Jill and I laughing uncontrolably, yelling "Hey! That's not fair!", and singing along to Tiffany's "I Think We're Alone Now" all in the same 30 minutes.

Can't wait to Netflix season 1 !

Your top 5 albums?

OK, so me, Jill, and LoRizzle were talking last night about our picks for top 5 favorite albums and I thought that would be an interesting post.

Mine are (in no particular order):
"Trace" by Son Volt
"Rust Never Sleeps" by Neil Young and Crazy Horse
"The Aeroplane Over the Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel
One of the Starflyer59 albums- probably "Americana" (a.k.a. the red album)
"Graceland" by Paul Simon

So.... What are your top 5?
Please comment.....

note: Keep in mind, this is not the famous "5 albums you would take on a desert island" scenario, because usually, for that, people don't pick their faves, they pick stuff they wouldn't get sick of. This is strictly your favorites.

Best show on TV.

THE WIRE is definately the best show on TV. I've never been sucked into a show the way I have with the Wire. Jill and I tore through the first season, since I've been off summer school and with as much time as we spent glued to it, I didn't come away feeling like I was "sitting around watching TV". Props to Bora for the recommendation

Favorite Character: Omar. How can someone be so scary and so loveable at once?

Laughed: Whenever Bubbles said "McNutty". (click here for a funny pic of Mc Nulty)

Music: Eclectic and informed. Steve Earle even plays Waylon, Bubbles'es N.A. mentor.

Favorite scene: When Omar aquire's all of Barksdale's stash by simply walking through the courtyard saying, "Eh-yo. Eh-yo."

My Gourden

A gourden is what weird gourd crafter people call a garden full of gourds. Yes, I've become one of those weirdos.

It all started with a rattle, called a shekere, that I salvaged and repaired. I love this rattle and use it for lots of different types of music. I decided, since my house is officially "done", that I needed a thing. And I got really into the idea of making percussion instruments from gourds.I've since done a lot of gourd research. I also went a little overboard and planted about 20+ gourd seeds around our property. Some in our vegatable garden, some in Jill's cutting garden, and some in different flower beds in the front. Some are bilobal bottle gourds, some are short-neck dippers, some are birdhouse gourds, and some are corsican flats. I'm not going to make a birdhouse with the birdhouse gourds, but I'm hoping to use them to make the body of a stringed instrument. I plan to make shekeres from the bottle gourds. And djabarras and shakers with the dippers.

I plan to blog about my progress as time goes on, but for now, they're aren't even flowers on the plants.