UGH I AM SO ANGRY WITH BLIPMEDIA! yes they are very nice to be hosting this junk for free, but free sites that don't work are no fun either. hopefully this week will actually work. i hate how i have to apologize in every single post! agh.
(happy birthday, morgan dear)
00:00-02:16...Richard Cheese - CloserI was considering playing a REAL Nine Inch Nails song, rather than this ridiculous lounge cover, but I don't really know anything about them. Brandon and I saw them live on Sunday night at VooDoo (more like DooDoo, it was the worst festival in the history of the world) so I wanted to honor them here in some way for putting on one of the only decent performances of the whole day. If you enjoy this you should definitely listen to some more Cheese because he does lots of pop/rock/rap covers that are equally amazing. Brandon and I want to commission him to do a whole NIN cover album.
02:17-05:51...Mindless Self-Indulgence - I Hate Jimmy PageHonestly, my favorite performance of VooDoo Memphis. This band is insanely fun live, and I definitely recommend that you see them! I think a lot of the time people take bands like this too serious before they really listen. The lead singer's name is Jimmy Page, so you can get an idea of what this song is about. I definitely saw his ass on Sunday. He's totally got his live moves down, he was climbing the stage frame and riding trunks around and just being generally nutty. I've heard that things can get pretty heated between him and the male lead guitarist... But we didn't get to see any of that. "Get those faggots off the stage!"
05:52-09:42...Cake - No PhoneCake was the most disappointing show at VooDoo, although it definitely was not their fault. Sound crew consisted entirely of fuck-ups, or just anti-Cake people, or something. Anyway, you could barely hear half the instruments and it was just awful and the band was really mad too. Lead singer/guitarist John McCrea expressed his intense frustration with the situation by walking offstage. However, Vince DiFiore saved the day (I guess? not really) by starting up a beat on the keyboard, so John came back out and sang this song. He tried to get the audience really roused up but we were all frustrated and unhappy, and nobody wanted to sing. The sound situation did not get fixed.
09:43-12:20...Holly Golightly - Wherever You WereI think it's unfortunate, at times, how nonchalant Holly Golightly ALWAYS sounds, because it really works on some songs. But I get bored with it after a while. Who wants to listen to someone who always sounds bored with herself? But aside from that, I think this is a really great, powerful song. She really hits the early 60's garage rock tone dead on in this song. It's from her debut solo album
The Good Times, which was released in 1995 in between records with the band Thee Headcotees, who are also fun but don't get talked up as much as Holly's solo stuff.
12:21-16:29...Ani DiFranco - CompanyI can't put my finger exactly on why, but I've been stuck on this song ever since it came out on
Educated Guess in 2003. The album itself was really unique: the first time Ani did everything completely and entirely by herself, every voice, instrument, and production process. She recorded it in her house in New Orleans, and I've heard that her latest album got stuck there after Katrina. (That is a rumor I heard from Ada, so who knows if it's true.) Anyway, I think Ani catches a quality in this song that I'd never heard from her before. I know it's got to be partly due to the weeping lyrics, the lovely harmonies, and the sparse, echo-y guitar, but also I think there's a different quality in her voice (especially near the end of the song) that she hasn't replicated anywhere else. Anyway, this song is fucking gorgeous no matter how you look at it.
16:30-18:22...Holy Modal Rounders - Mr. SpacemanI don't know what possessed me to put this song on here. All I know about it is that it's from the Brain in a Box sci-fi music collection. And that allmusic.com calls their music "acid folk." I should probably listen to some more of their songs, laugh laugh. They were around from 1963 to 1979. But basically, this song just makes me happy.
18:23-21:16...Cheese on Bread - Modern Art GalleryAlthough this sounds totally different from the messy, five-person live show they put on, I can't emphasize how much I still want you to fall in love with Cheese on Bread. It's technically just two kids, Sara and Dan, but they take friends on tour with them and act like lunatics. SV played a show with them this summer at the Buccaneer, and they were the best band we have ever shared a stage with. What a proud evening. They are the sweetest people! But they are also really good songwriters and I really recommend their whole album along with this. "Talking to you is like walking through a modern art gallery, and I don't want to sit on the art!" Their lyrics are smart, funny, and totally perfect.
21:17-25:32...Diane Izzo - FireFor some reason, Diane Izzo really gets to me as one of the great tragedies of rock and roll. She made a brilliant first album,
One, in 1999, and has completely fallen off the musical map. Sugar Free Records, her label, has disappeared as well. I have no idea how to find out what happened to the label and her music, or what she is doing now. You can still order the album from Amazon, but that seems to be the only indicator that it wasn't just a handful of people falling into her Brigadoon some year. Anyway, I hope to hear from her again one day, although I'm guessing she doesn't really have the money to make another album. I read that she started writing songs while travelling across the country, working odd jobs, and selling blood just to make a living. So I encourage all of you to look into this one album, because it's really beautifully written. Izzo has a lovely voice and a great talent for lyrics.
MP3 version
