therobots.org - Music

Flashback to The Year In Music 1998

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:27:27 -0500

Stealing an idea from my friend Holly and Tripwire.com, I thought it would be good to take a look back at the albums released 10 years ago. This was a pretty pivotal time in my auditory life. It spanned my first and second years of college, a time when I devoured new music and discovered that there was so much other music out there instead of what they play on Top 40 radio. I'd known this for years but had yet to take that plunge. I tried out for my campus' free-format radio station and failed the interview process twice before finally being accepted. Some of the stuff on this list was actually still on the new rack when I started at the radio station, some of it I discovered a few months later, and some I didn't listen to for years. So yeah, 1998 was a pretty good year in music overall I think. My favorites are near the top. Feel free to comment any of your favorites...

Poradova

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 11:21:15 -0400

Check out my friend Sarah's band Poradova. She also has some audio samples up on her myspace page.

-ick!

Best Album of 2006

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 20:08:17 -0400

Three months late for 2006 but I've finally completed my annual Top Albums list. 2006 was a bit of an off year for music overall but I really enjoyed most of these albums. My finds of the year made number six and seven on the list. In the Pines are a folk / country string band from Kansas City. I attended their CD release party and was pretty well blown away. Ten Kens I found through MySpace and I love their debut CD. Good job guys. Feel free to comment on this list as I always enjoy hearing what others are listening to...

*****Top 100 Albums of 2006*****

1)	Beirut	The Gulag Orkestar
2)	Islands	Return to the Sea
3)	Joanna Newsom	Ys
4)	Belle & Sebastian	The Life Pursuit
5)	Man Man	Six Demon Bag
6)	In the Pines	In the Pines
7)	Ten Kens	Ten Kens
8)	Hot Chip	The Warning
9)	Yeah Yeah Yeah's	Show Your Bones
10)	Peter Bjorn and John	Writer's Block

Hidden Pregap Audio Tracks

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 10:39:39 -0500

It's a rare occasion that you get to completely blow the mind of a record store worker about something music related. I managed this last night as I picked up a couple new CDs at the last remaining record store in midtown. Stumbling in, I was surprised to hear Lamb's Fear of Four playing, which I happen to own and is at least 5 years old. I mentioned to the clerk that this CD has a hidden track before the first track that you have to rewind to get to. He blinked for a few minutes then proceeded to finish bagging my purchases. A few seconds later, after giving it some time to process, he retorted "Really?", then "I'll have to check that out at home tonight".

Prison Wine

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 21:11:50 -0500

This last week was pretty fun. I finally escaped the doldrums of winter and made it out to several fun events around the city. I don't have too much to say about the last several months, just know that lots of movies were watched, many books were read, and the number of mostly-completed crosswords littering my house is innumerable.

Tuesday, I saw old favorites Of Montreal play at The Granada in Lawrence. They'd just played in Larryville a year before and I'd attended that much more sparcely attended show. Their popularity seems to have expanded exponentially in one year and I can't figure out why. You'd think after ten years and almost as many full-length albums that the masses would have recognized their great talent for writing great pop songs. Maybe it's the recent Outback Steakhouse commercials that feature the reworking of "Wraith Pinned to the Mist" that are bringing out all the kids. At any rate, the show was pretty good but not quite as good as last year's performance (which still rates in my top 5 of all time), even with the new video backdrop and stage props. A Japanese sextet called Elekibass opened for them. They fit right in with their bubblegum pop over thick Japanese accents. I left thinking that I probably won't see anything like this ever again.

Cities

Sat, 24 Feb 2007 20:56:57 -0500

I just finished up a great new compilation CD for a CD group that just started up again. We pick 10 songs and a bonus track but I usually burn a whole disc's worth just to have extras in case somebody else also picked one of my songs. The theme of this one was my idea, "cities". The requirements I set up for myself were that every song had to have the city in the title, I could only use a city or artist once, and the song had to be about the city or repeat the city name at some point in the song. Here's my list...

Tapes 'n Tapes - In Houston

Peter Bjorn and John - Amsterdam

Sufjan Stevens - Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head...

Beirut - Bratislava

Of Montreal - Oslo In the Summertime

Poni Hoax - Budapest

Seelenluft - Manila (Headman Remix)

Spoon - Chicago At Night

Regina Spektor - Dusseldorf

The Thrills - Santa Cruz (You're Not That Far)

The Walkmen - Lost In Boston

X - Los Angeles

The Clash - London's Burning

Rancid - Arrested in Shanghai

Tom Waits - Singapore

The Magnetic Fields - Tokyo A-Go-Go

The Books - Venice

Why? - Next Atlanta

Ben Folds - Adelaide

They Might Be Giants - New York City

The Extra Glenns - Going to Marrakesh

Loretta Lynn - Portland Oregon

Neko Case - Train From Kansas City

-ick!

Pumpkin and Gravy

Thu, 23 Nov 2006 11:32:55 -0500

I've had a really good last month or so. The weather hasn't been too bad. There have been a handful of decent local rock shows around the city. Halloween is always a blast and this November also marked a very surprising and momentous midterm election. Top this off with my trivia team's domination over the last few month and things are looking on the up.

I stayed at the recordBar late after a big first place trivia win one week and watched up-and-coming Detroit indie rockers Thunderbirds Are Now!. TAN! showed up early and competed against fellow bar patrons in skills of the mind. They held their own and I think they had a pretty good time. About two years ago, I was quite impressed with them as an unknown opener touring with Enon (who produced their new album). Once again, they didn't disappoint . I was also a big fan of the local opening band. I didn't catch their name but I'm sure I'll see them again somewhere around town. They were a bit of a Yeah Yeah Yeah's ripoff - but who gets tired of that. The female lead singer was just as much a spaz as Karen O.

Hotel Living

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 21:13:01 -0400

This must be the year for traveling. I'd already been in six states this year and just added three more with a couple of weeklong mini-vacations along the I-35 corridor of Kansas City, Austin, and Minneapolis / St. Paul. These trips were nice but not entirely leisurely in nature and at times even stressful. More than ever now, I'm just looking forward to some downtime in my home city as fall rolls across the midwest.

I finished out August with a surprise visit from my out-of-town friend Rick. He'd heard that a few other high school chums were playing a special show at McCoy's that weekend and decided to make the drive up from Springfield for the event. We caught some great pizza and beers at Waldo Pizza and I won $20 from him in a bowling bet before we went to the show. My friends' band Golden City, Mars were the opening noise band / performance art installation. Most of the band members wore masks and their only song was 10 minutes of drony gloom-and-doom chords. I can't do them any justice retelling the mythical tale of how they came to earth from Golden City, Mars - just know that it happened. McCoy's own 30-Minute Recess headlined and were solid as usual. The highlight for me was the Brokeback Mountain theme played as an intro to one of their own country numbers. Hilarious.

The Pleasure Principle

Sun, 20 Aug 2006 08:45:25 -0400

This Tuesday I had the opportunity to see the legendary synthpop android Gary Numan at the recordBar in Kansas City. I've been a fan of Gary Numan's music since my friend Daniel first popped in the Pleasure Principle CD as I was cutting my teeth on electronic music. His early stuff is absolutely fantastic and he's been consistently releasing music and redefining his sound...

As the date of this show approached, I became increasingly apprehensive that it may be cancelled. I looked up some of the other dates on the tour and every show was booked in rather large concert halls or House of Blues venues. One such bar was Bogart's in Cincinnatti that I have been to and holds at least 2000 people. The recordBar holds maybe 300 tops and the stage hovers but only a few feet above the floor with little room for maneuvering about. I felt cramped on there just hosting trivia one night and that was with hardly any equipment. Also, I had heard that he had a ridiculous list of audio equipment demands that would be tough for the relatively new bar to provide. Luckily, I pulled up to the club to see his enormous touring bus parked outside. I guess I'm just one of the lucky ones that gets to see a true music icon in a most cozy setting. Kudos to Billy for booking this show...

Sasquatch Music Festival 2006

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 21:20:55 -0400

As part of my vacation to the great northwest,I reserved tickets to the Sasquatch Music Festival in George, Washington (that's the city not the man, perv). Washington was a long haul in a cramped rental van of 5 dudes. We finally made it to George in the late afternoon and set up the tent and campsite. This was only my second camping music festival so I had an idea of what to expect. It has been years since the last one and I most often prefer the confines of a nice cool hotel or house after a sweaty multi-day festival. The Sasquatch Music Festival is held at an amphitheater situated on the bluffs overlooking the Columbia River. It's very beautiful and I understandd why it is consistently voted one of the top musical venues in the U.S. We skipped the shows Friday night (didn't want to spend $$$ to see a bunch of goth / industrial bands). Instead we sat around and had some beer and made friends with the neighboring campgrounds...

Marinating

Fri, 19 May 2006 09:00:43 -0400

It seems as though there have been a lot of changes around me here lately. Some of these changes are good and welcome, some of them I could do without, and some of them don't effect me at all - they're just around me. Such is life I suppose. I go through my days optimistic and just hope to grow from each one of these experiences... and sometimes you just have to wait for everything to marinate. I guess I'm marinating right about now...

Concerts, Parties, and Voting

Wed, 05 Apr 2006 20:04:38 -0400

It must be nearing concert season again because the list of good concerts in the area continues to grow. I'm batting .600 in that category this week, making it to three and only missing two. Not to mention the weather is getting to be pretty nice out. Every day when I get home from work, I'm greeted by a new colorful plant that I didn't know was planted in my yard. This has been a busy week, full of concerts and parties. Heh, I even voted this week...

Bread Crumbs

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:31:59 -0500

So today is the first day in about a month that I've actually felt well. After a nasty sinus infection, some unwanted side-effects from a new antibiotic, and some alone time - it's been a slow-going month. This was pretty much bound to happen. You know that feeling when you are so busy that you nearly lose your bearings, as though you need to leave a trail of bread crumbs just to find your way back home? That's how it was for me for so long before I caught the sinus infection. I can't count how many days I would get home from work just to change into my play clothes (and/or bar coat) and head right back out the door for the evening. I suppose this schedule caught up with me in some ways. Here's a quick summary of some of the stuff I've done over the last couple of months. I really apologize for not updating more, I've just been in a strange place - finding myself in the process I suppose...

Best Albums of 2005

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 19:53:21 -0500

Two and a half months late, I've finally completed my Top Albums list of 2005. Overall, 2005 seemed to be a decent year for new music. It wasn't filled with all of the new music trends that made 2004 so great but there were still a number of really solid albums released. I found myself listening to a lot more pop-oriented music this year. I also listened to a lot more folk / acoustic stuff then I have in the past. I didn't bite on the New Weird America folk movement last year but found myself listening to that stuff more and more this year. My find of the year is #7 The Prayers & Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers. It's something different altogether and I have heard virtually nothing about the band. Check it out if you get the chance. This makes my second straight year with Sufjan Stevens in the top spot. That boy must be on to something. Feel free to comment on this list as I always enjoy hearing what others are listening to...

*****Top 100 Albums of 2005*****

1)	Sufjan Stevens	Illinois
2)	Architecture In Helsinki	In Case We Die
3)	Caribou	The Milk of Human Kindness
4)	Spoon	Gimme Fiction
5)	Kaiser Chiefs	Employment
6)	Crooked Fingers	Dignity and Shame
7)	The Prayers & Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers	The Mother of Love Emulates the Shapes of Cynthia
8)	Bell Orchestre	Recording a Tape the Colour of the Light
9)	The Decemberists	Picaresque
10)	13 & God	13 & God

2005 in Music

Mon, 06 Feb 2006 16:11:18 -0500

2005 was a hell of a year for music. In the past I've tried to do a traditional top ten or top twenty list, but I don't think that's going to happen. Since it's already February, it's alphabetical or nothing.

Animal Collective - Feels
Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock and Roll
No other album was this much fun.

Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
I wanted to dislike this album, but I kept coming back to it, and it kept riling me up. I couldn't fight it.

Broadcast - Tender Buttons
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - s/t
Danger Doom - The Mouse and the Mask
This should not have been good, but it was great.