shiny toy guns

another stab at shameless fun and dance with my current song obsession. synth pop band shiny toy guns says they can welcome the machine as long as its for musical purposes. 'we are pilots' came in '05, and 'le disko' is a testament to their claim to be "weaspons of sharpness." strange addition: rebecca romijn was a guest singer on 'darling nicki' for a series of ode to prince covers. enjoy the ruckus.

shiny toy guns - le disko

i won my wings! i got all A's! we bought fresh fruit! the toilet broke!
from 27 by jim harrison

say hi (formerly to your mom)

in a couple weeks, say hi comes out with the wishes and the glitches, leaving behind their old name, say hi to your mom, for good. eric elbogen has been with a few different band members since he started out in 02. you can hear the new girl addition on the single "northwestern girls." "your mom" was a good indicator of the charming, geek factor of say hi. "but she beat my high score?" genius. all the quirkiness and lyrical talent of modest mouse, and the innocent fun of the black kids. "northwestern girls" seems like a preview for something a bit more serious. or an anthem for all the kids running to portland/seattle.

say hi - northwestern girls

do we ever wish
for words and say the opposite? syntax
has never eaten from my hand. one night,
i gnawed bone long after the wine was gone
and you picked the cork down to nothing. from sonnet - adam clay

santogold

i do a radio show at our college station. my one wish, should my fairy g'ma ever grant it, is that i could get folkish to sound good back to back with partyish. i fear it always just ends up sounding obnoxious. as much as i appreciate seriousness and sincerity, i can't resist anything that sounds like "lasergun cheerleaders marching next to a hand-clap assault." so i'm putting up some santogold. she's sounds just like MIA and I read she's working with similar people, and is best spandex friends with MIA. i have no problem with someone co-opting that sound a bit. i would say there's even a bit more of that famous Brooklyn roots-reggae-dub influence in santogold. (the lingering roots of the influence that supposedly jump started dj cool herc and hip hop.)

i also threw up some broadcast 2000. (not to be confused with just broadcast) he (aka joe steer) records and plays his own little gypsy folk symphony out of his own studio in north london. it's beirut with a little bit more raw popsugar crunchiness. and glockenspiels! i like it. particularly the ones with a bit more kick as far as the tempo goes. "get up and go" is the other track i debated putting up.

santogold- shove it (switch remix)

broadcast 2000 - don't weigh me down

we clutch our bellies and roll on the floor/when I say this, it should mean laughter,not poison/i want more applesauce/i want more seats reserved for heroes/dear forgiveness, I saved a plate for you./quit milling around the yard and come inside. -litany in which certain things are crossed out, from crush by richard siken

le loup

another point for the wolf in the battle for most indie-rific animal of the north woods. le loup is a bit more discreet about it, since le loup is french for the wolf. they band has only been together since about last january, but they sound pretty fantastic. sam simkoff, a former paralegal, brought 8 musicians together with craigslist and whatever instruments he could get a hold of in respectable condition. (there's an ethereal banjo! holla.) the cd's title seems ridiculous, and obnoxiously long: the the throne of the third heaven of the nation's millennium assembly. the is drawn from a magnum opus constructed by a lowly d.c. janitor named jesse hampton. he had several religious visions which inspired him to make a series of thrones out of tin foil and gold paper. (which severely impaired his chances of ever finding, he admits, a 'holy woman.' le sigh) dante's inferno is also referenced as highly influential in the cd's construction. consequently, the obscure name of the cd is also the name of denis johnson's recently released book of collected poems. not enough pretentious art references to go around? but simkoff's story fits into hampton's perfectly. like the janitorial prophet, simkoff dedicated all of his free time to piecing together his demo with what he could dig up and rework. and it's beautiful. the patience and the thought is apparent in the music. he deserves all the attention he's gotten.

also: bjork ripped a photographer's shirt in half when he tried to take her picture. what she lacks in size, she racks up in shit kicking capability. awesome.

"the woman whose face has just finished breaking/with a joy so infinite/and heavy that it might be grief has won/a car on a giveaway show" from victory - denis johnson

le loup - we are gods! we are wolves!

le loup - outside of this car, the end of the world

ask forgiveness ep

will oldham was in and out of the studio pretty quickly at the end of 2007 with a covers record, ask forgiveness, as bonnie 'prince' billy. the choice of songs (bjork, frank sinatra) doesn't perpetuate any kind of theme, but advocates the enjoyment of sparse, but intense back porch guitar picking. it's very possibly a tongue in cheek way of bringing attention to the power of interpretation. oldham's deadpan, serious reading of r. kelly's "the greatest" makes the song sound like a wise old song of appalachia. the one original is wonderful. "i am loving the street," is an upbeat, warm melody that reveals a lovely, well-worn spot of tenderness in oldham. the whole cd seems like a momentary pause for oldham, a bit of whittling done to pass the time, but the lack of his trademark dark drama makes it no less compelling.

also: will oldham in a kayne west video. showing off tractors. clubbing with milk maids. http://www.youtube.com/watch?PpwgYsWwdc%feature=related

"inside here is a castle/the dampness is practical" - from heated passions - tomaz salamun

bonnie 'prince' billy - i'm loving the street

banging on the table with an old tin cup

there's a lot of creation myth when it comes to music bloggery. i think we all want to believe we can tap into a real rich vein of readers and watchers right away. the big bang and all the prophets (gorilla vs. bear, said the gramophone, etc.) that followed came out in 2005 as far as i can tell from an extensive sweep of archives. but really, it looks like too much fun to pass up. even if my knowledge of blog cosmetics is a work in progress. bare bones appearance aside, introductions and icebreakers will ensue.

i'm carrie, i'm 21, and i go to the university of wisconsin. i study english and history, and my senior thesis on contemporary british poetry is in medias res. which means i spend a lot of time on my computer and a lot time researching and trying to make my playlists better. which of course, is conducive for better critical writing.

i named the blog after this tom waits song. because the girl sounds like a bad ass. and because tom waits is really hard. tons of work, really undeniably impressive blues-death-folk-american music. i don't listen to him a lot. but it's worth it to scour and to find a song/band that is going to be perfect for driving and writing and cooking and walking now and when you're 40. but in this case, someone just gave me the song. and sometimes music is just that easy, too. and all this work everyone does trying to figure it out doesn't always matter. it's a damn good pleasure, though, and it's probably going to be worth giving it a shot.

interview with philip larkin and the paris review, 1982.
interviewer: you mention auden, thomas, yeats, and hardy...what in particular did you learn from your study of those four?

larkin: oh, for christ's sake, one doesn't study poets! you read them, and think, that's marvelous, how is it done, could i do it? and that's how you learn.

tom waits - gun street girl