Last night while watching AI, my daughter tugged at my pantleg, looked up with puppy dog eyes and asked ever so sweetly, "If John Lennon was murdered already, why did that sad little boy just try to kill him again?". Ok, that didn't happen at all, but Kris did take a dump all over "Come Together". All in all, I thought everyone blew last night, especially Adam's take on Zep (despite everyone else on the shows opinon). Yeah, yeah, yeah he can hit the high notes just like Robert Plant, but if you are going to drop the Hammer of the Gods you need to come out rocking a shirtless vest and Plant's frightening, skin tight, veins and all jeans from "The Schlong Remains the Same", not mascara and hair jizz. This guy does have the pipes, but in 25 years you are much more likely to find him in a Rum Tum Tugger costume than in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Also, I really respect Slash for coming on and lending a hand to these rookie rock stars by saying, "I will hang out with you for 10 minutes, but will not license any of my songs for you to sing".
My guess is that Kris goes home tonight, Allison next week and thus setting up the showdown between Adam and Danny, in which Danny wins. No, he is not as gifted a singer as Adam, and to be fair he comes off a little bland at times, but he is extremely likeable. I could be wrong, but it just seems like even though Adam's performances never falter, he really comes off quite smug. Plus if voting comes down to what I would consider the Ohio of American Idol, voters my mom's age - yes she actively hits the phone, they are going for the nice guy with glasses over the "weird guy". Plus Danny's wife died.
So here is this week's mix. A fair amount of new tracks, coupled with a few nuggets from bygone days. And by bygone days I mean the glory years of 2004 and 05. There is no overarching theme here, but when I listened to it in its entirety this morning while running ahem...walking, I couldn't help but notice that most of the tracks have a My Bloody Valentine/Kevin Shields sound. So if you were ever into shoegaze music, this might be your lucky day.
Standout tracks: The opener is from the previously mentioned heyday and is an excellent cover of Magnetic Fields done by !!!, quickly followed by The Langley School Project's take on Space Oddity. If you ever need something to restore your faith in music, google The Langley School Project and check out their entire cd. Where I once found this to be more of a novelty, as I daily force feed my daughter her harmonica and maracas, now I find it inspirational. Ok, enough with the sappy shit...
There are two tracks from the San Diego band Crocodiles, and both seem to recall the early work of Jesus Mary Chain and Suicide. Suicide is also included deep down in the mix. On a local note (semi-local, I guess Atlanta would be considered more regional...) there is a great lo-fi track from The Black Lips featuring a guest rap from GZA, and a track from the latest Fischerspooner disc. I highly recommend anyone that is a fan of techno, electroclash, performance art, wigs, 4am in Ibiza and Christ Church of Greenville check out any of their works. Always total fucking brilliance from Greenville, SC to NY ex-pat Casey Spooner and his partner Warren Fischer.
Two last notes, make sure to stick it out to the end for the 9 minute reggae/soul/folk/wtf blast of Devendra Banhart's "White Reggae Troll". Hearing him start chanting at the midway point "that he believes in Africa" gives hope that he is finally back to where he was going with Cripple Crow, before his disappointing turn on Smokey.
And in closing, I have a remix of Adele's "My Hometown" by High Concept. I don't care if she might be struck with the Grammy curse, or is now all over the place in the media, 19 is one of my favorite albums of the past decade or so and could probably include a track from it every week. But likely I won't.
Artwork this week by Kelly Haigh.
Enjoy and comments are welcomed!
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