Bob Nanna

I discussed two of Bob Nanna's acoustic covers at thepunkguy.com today:

http://www.thepunkguy.com/2007/08/01/bob-nanna/

Apples OTE on Indie MP3! I join thepunkguy.com!

After a new low of reviewing my own music, I have become the first other contributor to one of my favorite blogs, New York City's Thepunkguy.com

I posted one review so far: of NYC's punks, Gloryhole. Check it out.

Also, my band Apples of the Earth was reviewed on one of my other favorite blogs, Indie-Mp3.co.uk

Also the other day I found an Eames chair on the sidewalk with a free sign. I have been wanting one of these chairs for a while and now I have one!

The Music of Michael Morrissey.

The Music of Michael Morrissey

Currently, I am involved with a project called Apples of the Earth. This began out of my friend Brads’ band Rocket Punch. Rocket Punch was a one person band, but Jessica was recruited through a Craigslist ad. Jessica had previously played in a garage rock band called The Flank. Rocket Punch played one show and wrote one song as a band and then reverted to a one man band. Apples of the Earth was formed directly thereafter and played one show and began recording. Here are two songs we’ve done.

“Pearl Jam is not a very good band.” This song is a response song to local radio station KNRK playing Pearl Jam so often, claiming they are an alternative station but still playing singles from nearly fifteen years ago. It is a joke in the sense that music can never really be qualified as “good” despite people constantly doing so. This song also displays my affinity for songs without choruses. I play guitar, sing, and play Hammond organ. Jessica plays drums. It was recorded in June 2007 on an Apple notebook computer using GarageBand and the internal microphone.

Link: Apples of the Earth - "Pearl Jam is not a very good band."

“One Fine Day” is Jessica’s favorite song to play. This song has choruses, albeit non-repeating ones. In an interview with the group Jawbreaker, I heard them describe parts of their songs as “grace notes.” This referred to the section near the end of the song that gave the listener and the band time to reflect upon the song, while not actually repeating it. It would normally be the part for the guitar solo, except the whole band plays equally. I tried to do that in the end of this song.

Link: Apples of the Earth - "One Fine Day"

“Smile, Come with me and” was originally a Castawaves song. The Castawaves were a band comprised of me on drums and my friend Jason on guitar. I borrowed a drum set and brought it to college during my sophomore year. No one else who wanted to start a band had a drum kit, so even though I didn't know how to play I decided it would be best to just start. This song is the first song on our EP, which was both entitled and released during the "Summer of 2003." TheCastawaves version of this song is slower and sounds like the Red House Painters, despite Jason, having never heard Red House Painters. For Apples of the Earth, we sped up the song a bit and played the guitar with a little more attack and bite. The result is an aggressive love song with passive lyrics. Jason wrote most of this song, but I wrote the drum parts and contributed the line “I’m with friends and I’ll ditch them for you.”

To hear the Apples of the Earth version click: http://www.myspace.com/applesoftheearth

To hear the Castawaves version click: Castawaves - "Smile, come with me and"

Like my childhood introduction to music, Phil Collins, I saw no problem with singing and playing drums at the same time. In Castawaves, I did just that. One of my favorite songs was the one that I took for the name of this weblog. “The Day We Never Went Home” is a semi-imaginary tale of running away from an undefined school. I have always loved runaway songs and consider them to often be more fulfilling to listen to than love songs. In the end of this song, I quoted lines from other artists I listened to a lot at the time, Elliott Smith and Pretty Girls Make Graves. All music is quotes from some other music, so why not just state it?

This recording comes from a live performance on April 26, 2003 that was captured quite well on minidisk. I think my drumming was at its peak then.

Castawaves - "The Day We Never Went Home"

The Tennies. In the summer of 2003 my friend Colleen and I had the great idea to secretly write and record an album that was entirely biographical. We chose our mutual friend and my roommate Joe M as the source of the stories for these. Songs are always so great when they are specific and local, and this really captured that feeling. After the album was complete we cornered Joe and sat him down to listen to it. Confrontation in art is always great and Joe was shocked at first, then flattered, and is now nostalgic that the songs captured his life in college for all time.

Two of the Tennies songs are available on my friend’s website at http://www.glassanimalindex.com/ in the “media” section.

“Kickback” was the story of Joe befriending a middle aged, NASCAR-loving, redneck co-worker named Dennis while working on the maintenance/moving crew at college. This song is another example of my affinity for songs without choruses. This song throws statements about Joe (“he knew how to operate a screwdriver and wanted to make ten dollars an hour”) and Dennis (“he has aspirations to buy a plasma big screen TV”) that tell the story and basically sets a high-water mark for fun. The name of the song comes from Joe’s on-the-job nickname due to his willingness to relax and take breaks.

The Tennies - "Kickback"

“A Secret Secret” is another song from the album, which we called “Oh! Poor Joe.” This one is meant to taunt Joe a bit, but then appeases him with a spoken word bit about how to gain infinite lives on Super Mario Brothers II. I don’t even like video games, but Joe said once that he’d pay me ten dollars to record me playing guitar and singing video game cheats because he thought it was so funny. We figured by track three Joe might hate us for making sport of him and his life, so we did this to cheer him up.

The Tennies - "A Secret Secret"

Michael Mahoney, owner of GlassAnimalIndex.com, remixed the songs, and you can listen to those on the site too. These songs were originally recorded on a Sony notebook computer with a standard computer microphone plugged in. I used a program called MultiTrack Recorder and sang and played guitar. Colleen played Casio keyboard and also sang.

When I first learned guitar and multi-track recording, I recorded four songs for a CD called “Fun Deficit,” but those songs are too old and embarrassing to show here.

Thank you for listening.

Weakerthans return to USA!

My favorite band from Canada, The Weakerthans, are coming to the USA again!

Yes! They are supporting their new album, Reunion Tour, which should be good!

Click here for more information.

(picture: our friend Joe with John K. Samson of the Weakerthans)

Lucksmiths return to USA!

The Lucksmiths are coming back to the USA this September to play shows. Though no tour is confirmed, my sources have these shows listed so far:

Seattle's Crocodile Cafe on September 24, 2007. LINK
Washington DC at DC 9 - September 30, 2007. LINK

That's not all! The Lucksmiths have a new double CD coming out entitled "Spring a leak" which, like "Where were we?" collects b-sides and rare tracks from the last few years. Reportedly, this is going to be 45 songs. After that they are going to do a new single and a new album. All these will be released in the United States on Matinee Records and elsewhere on Mark from the Lucksmiths own Lost and Lonesome Recording Company.

One track from "Spring a leak" is up for RA streaming on Matinee's site. It's a cover of their fellow Australians' band The Sugargliders' track "Dolly." I highly reccomend this track!!!

How to live in a van.

http://www.rockinvan.com/slummin_it.html

THE HOLD STEADY

For Joe Mar:

NPR explains three songs by The Hold Steady.

I recently visited California and the entire place struck me as not that sweet, except for San Francisco, which really turned on the charm toward me. The soundtrack to my trip was this song:



i can't believe i was worried about hurting you.
i should have kicked it with your cousin when i had the opportunity.
i was at some party and she said she had to talk to me
and then she didn't say anything.
i can't believe i worried about hurting you
while you were banging around the bars trying to scratch up something new.
you left me fifty bucks and nothing much to do
but think about getting back at you.

i heard that you've been back around the neighborhood.
you might be still strung out but you still look pretty good.
i heard that kid from california turned out to be an asshole.
i think i could have told you.
you left with burning bridges but you never saw the beach.
you had stars in your eyes but modesto's not that sweet.
when you only know one guy and he disappears for days at time.

i can't believe i was worried about hurting you.
i should have kicked it with your cousin when i had the opportunity.
i was at some party and she said she had to talk to me.
she didn't say much of anything.

Apples OTE mentioned on Indie MP3

Apples of the Earth received an approving nod on indie-mp3.co.uk

http://www.indie-mp3.co.uk/2007/07/my-space-has-talent.html

(Photo: rain on the sunroof of my VW.)

Now in the carport.

1971 Volvo 164! 3 Liters of Swedish brickness!

Wiki entry

Sarah 100

I stumbled upon a great find. This blog has posted two Sarah Records compilations in their entirety: the last one, Sarah 100: There and Back Again Lane, and the first one, Sarah 587: Shadow Factory. Sarah Records is perhaps the greatest record label in music history. A boy/girl combination named Matt and Clare decided to do a label of all their favorite pop bands, releasing mostly seven inches. They had a zine called "Are you scared to get happy?" and included poems, mostly about being in love near some river in England, with each release. They decided to break up the label after 100 releases, noting their art was theirs to make and theirs to destroy, and it was perfect while it lasted.

Both compilations include the fantastic track "Pristine Christine" by the Sea Urchins, proving it as a true superhit. Shadow Factory also includes The Orchids great song "Apologies."

Here are bands featured:
The Field Mice, The Orchids, The Poppyheads, Northern Picture Library, The Springfields, Another Sunny Day, 14 Iced Bears, Boyracer, Brighter, Action Painting! and more!

Please do yourself a favor and download these if you have ever wondered what "pop" music would sound like on the radio in a perfect world, or in the future as imagined in 1966.

Sarah 100: There and Back Again Lane

Sarah 587: Shadow Factory

Sarah Records on Wikipedia

Stylus guide to Sarah's first fifty releases

Apples of the Earth - "Pearl Jam is not a very good band."

I'm not going to give you an mp3 of this yet. It's not finished. But some recording is better than no recording. This is my band's song "Pearl Jam is not a very good band." You can hear it on our Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/applesoftheearth

This song is a response song to the local 94.7FM KNRK radio station playing Pearl Jam all the time. I should also mention that we are available to play shows in the greater Portland, Oregon area. So book us a show at your house or at your favorite club! Here are the lyrics. Enjoy.

Pearl Jam is all you ever wanted in a band. You bought all their record company issued live bootlegs from their old tour. Did you buy them for the Who covers, or because you wanted to hear "Daughter" as performed in Milan, Italy in the summer of 1998? Would you like me
any better if I were Eddie Vedder. Yeah you would, and truthfully I would too. What's the song about the lonely woman behind the counter in the small town? I've not heard that one in years or if I did, neither I nor Jessica could remember it. What's the guitarists name anyway? Was it Mike? Did you like Yield, Versus, the new album with the avocado on the cover? Did you buy it the first week it was out? I tried to get you in to Pavement and Built to Spill. I made you a
CD-R of "There's nothing wrong with love," but I don't think you listened to it. So hey I give up, yeah I quit.

Boys Life - "Sleeping off summer"

I'm going to rip off this blog and post a follow up to my Christie Front Drive post, which had encouraging comments from people I don't know!

Christie Front Drive did a split, one that I still don't have, with one of my favorite emo bands ever. The band released one of my favorite emo albums entitled Departures and Landfalls. This album I like so much because you can't even understand most of the lyrics and it has field recordings of rainfall and crickets and trains mixed in. I love it. It's one of my favorite true albums ever, in the sense that all the songs compliment each other for one artistic whole statement. I even bought a poster of the album cover for my room.

The band is Boys Life and here is track five from it, entitled "Sleeping off Summer." The picture above is a really cool treehouse I walked by this afternoon.

LINK

Christie Front Drive

I have been meaning to post about Christie Front Drive for a while now.

I can't think of any good bands from Colorado except for Christie Front Drive. I bought their self-titled "Stereo" album last year for $5 at one of my favorite record stores.

Their songs are epic and actually sound like Colorado.

Here is a link to some of their tracks as well as an interview with the singer:

http://www.liepaper.com/eric.htm

Here is a link to a few more of their tracks from a fan site:

http://www.christiefrontdrive.com/

Low quality photography of bands: Part One.

Of course, while I promise a series of compelling "greatest hits" and "best ofs" posts, it's only natural to start another series.

I used to be very opposed to concertgoers taking pictures of bands during their shows. In my old age, it's one of those things I guess I just don't care about, like boycotting Old Navy and The Gap.

I am not a very good photographer and I take pictures only with my cell phone. Here is !!! from a thursday night show a few weeks ago at the Someday Lounge:

THE VERY BEST OF...

A lot of bands that I love are never going to be big. They're on the decline, they've broken up, no one knew them to begin with. It goes like this. But, in my mind they're huge. They're fantastic. And anyone who saw them years ago or even heard of them is rad. They've had superhits stuck in my head for years.

And it's better if this happened for my friends, too. This was the magic of college radio - there were secret superhits that only we knew about. Tons of bands like this: The Dismemberment Plan, The Weakerthans, The Wrens, Ted Leo. Bands that were sort of pop, sort of punk, all indie.

Now, it's been years since I first heard these bands. I feel I should be stopping by Best Buy picking up their "Gold" collections, their best ofs and box sets. But these bands will probably never have best ofs.

That's where I come in. I'm going to put together some best ofs for my favorite bands that will never have their own.

First on the list is Jawbreaker. I'm trying to get Dan into Jawbreaker, so I'm going to pick out my ten favorite songs and see if it works. Wish me luck.