Mp3 Reviews

Feed My iPod - iPod Downloads!

2007-01-15T17:07:00.000-05:00

#1 ranked iPod Downloads site is www.FeedMyiPods.com ... if you need more information about feed my ipods go to the top Feed My iPods Information Page.

no longer johnny damon now johnny demon

2006-05-20T16:15:00.000-04:00

when he wore the face of christ he brought happiness to children.

now he has a face like every other undercover demon out there. clean shaven and pretty. that's right like every other demon. like a penquin or a donkey burrito or anybody else that tries to convey meaning on their existance.

Radiohead - Live @ Amsterdam. May 2006.

2006-05-17T19:55:00.000-04:00

DOWNLOAD THE SHOW. GREAT SOUND QUALITY.

1. Intro
2. Everything In Its Right Place
3. National Anthem
4. 15 Step
5. Lucky
6. 2+2=5
7. Bangers 'n Mash
8. Nude
9. Pyramid Song
10. Open Pick
11. I Might Be Wrong
12. Paranoid Android
13. How to Disappear Completely
14. Karma Police
15. Bodysnatchers
16. Idioteque
17. No Surprises
18. There There

Encore

19. Spooks
20. House of Cards
21. Just
22. You and Whose Army?
23. Street Spirit (Fade Out)

myspace band reviews

2006-05-13T20:45:00.000-04:00

check this site out - tiz pretty funny.

Brian Eno - Needles In The Camel's Eye

2006-05-13T20:42:00.000-04:00

first track off of Here Comes The Warm Jets.

yeah man, this is some good shit, bro. how about you put this in the player, yo. i recommend smokin' some reefer joints first. there's some crazy shit goin' on within the confines of this here crazy song of rockin' pop corns.

Curtis Mayfield - "Pusherman"

2006-05-13T20:34:00.000-04:00

Eminem based a track off this one. Didcha know. So anyhoozanatti. This is a pretty damn sweet track. It's track #2 off of Mayfield's SUPERFLY album. Some fresh funky percussion throughout the track. And a jammin' guitar which echoes the vocal melody throughout. Hot bass. I would say this song rates atleast 7 marijuana leaves.

WANT SOME COKE NEED SOME WEED>

?
!

i'm your pusherman.

Copyright Your Music!

2006-05-09T00:45:00.000-04:00

Neil Young "Living With War"

2006-04-28T14:54:00.000-04:00

Purchase Neil Young's New Album @ Amazon.Com

High As Hell Reviews : The Flaming Lips "At War With The Mystics"

2006-02-22T01:07:00.001-05:00

I've heard this album 7 or 8 times now and so I feel it's time to give it it's chance for a wonderful HIGH AS HELL review here at mp3reviews. that's right. the album of course isn't officially released till April but was leaked last week. My estimation of the album is quite high - while not being quite the "masterpiece" that The Soft Bulletin is - it is a lot of fun. I'm not really sure I can compare it to any other Lips album and that's a good thing - it's got it's own feeling. It's got a lot of energy and a lot of sort of ridiculous songs but it's also got a few really beautiful moments. Anyhoo that's it with the setup. Let's get going here! I need some more of the marijuana though, really, now, don't I?

PREORDER THE ALBUM TODAY FROM AMAZON TODAY !

1. yeah yeah yeah -

i'm not sure what to think of this at the very moment. the verses are almost ridiculously cheesey in a way. i do love the line "with all your power" - the way he sings power is great. the over the top flange actually works here - usually i dont like it when you can so obviously hear what effect is being used. ahh-ahh-ah-ahhh. those crazy frank zappa-ish indian chants do my head in. those are well cool. really a weird song - it sort of thumps along but... i don't know hard to explain really brothers. i dont find it much of a close your eyes and chill type song though - its too upbeat and over the top silly for that. i enjoy the song though, much fun.

2. free radicals -

i love the ahh-ahh-ahh harmonies. reminds me of the beatles. mmm delicious. i also love the way the drums are just slammin' away and it just feels very much like the song takes of then. really cool. theres a ton of weird sounds going on here. and you think you're radical but you're not so radical, in fact you're fanatical.

3. the sound of failure -

this has been one of the real growers of the album for me, at first i didnt like this one at all, i was put off by the overly precise/clean sound of the guitars and overall production during the verses and the sort of AM Gold cheesed out guitars on the chorus and i thought the whole thing just sort of went on forever... but now i sort of just get it and it works for me - really beautiful song - great backing vocals - i hadnt really noticed till just now just how great some of the backing vocals are. those "ooh ooh" on the second verse are just killer. love that. so go tell britney, and go tell gwen... she's not trying to go against all them. i think it's sort of part of this songs charm that it's so radio friendly sounding (especially compared to most of the other stuff on the album) being that it's theme is about this girl not wanting to hear sickly sweet pop music like britney spears when she's dealing with real things in her life. sort of all works. could be a single i think - although it's not as immediate or as catchy as say.. do you realize - it's still a pretty lovely song and i quite like this spaced out ending. great flute sound. i think they actually were using a demo on a plugin because theres a sound in there that happens when you're exporting a demo in this one plugin... and i think they just left it in there on purpose with a wink to see if anyone would notice. good stuff. i could pinpoint the exact sound i'm talking about but... hey it's next song and it's one of my favorites...

#4 - Cosmic ....

This song just tickles my nipples. It's prettier than a wombat. the guitar solo just destroys me. possibly my favorite moment of the whole album this guitar solo. to me it's like a little bit of zaireeka just thrown in this album. the just insane layers of noise that just destroy your mind made all the more perfect by the fact that it comes out of it to this just beautiful second verse. just a great song. sorry i didnt say more but i was listening, man.

#5 - vein of stars

WHO KNOWS?! maybe there isn't a vein of stars calling out my name. man again im not saying anything. i'm really being drawn into these songs now. this is a bit of a highlight on the album i think this little stretch here. its strange the way the album goes from being over the top silly on the first 2 tracks to sort of very pretty but very strangely radio friendly on the 3rd track before getting a bit more serious and beautiful on tracks 4 & 5. atleast that's how i'm seeing the album as of the moment. more just great backing vocals. there's really a lot of great layers of vocals on this album.

#6 - the wizard turns on -

one of the more just totally crazy moments in the labum the way this song starts out. start of pink floyd welcome to the machine-ish with the insane sounds here. i love the way the drums in come in and just crash all over the place. this song reminds me a lot of darkside of the moon actually for more pink floyd references... but a bit more warped somehow. darkside could already get pretty warped but this song just has a really sort of wild funk sound to it. i've never been a real huge fan of yoshimi part 2. and the soft bulletin instrumentals while being nice are definitly not high points of the album - but to me this song just kicks ass - one of my favorite tracks on the album. oh uh.. its an instrumetnal. i was assuming you knew that man.

#7 - it overtakes me...

this is a suite and the second part of it was my favorite part of the album on my initial listening - it just killed me. but anyways i'm jumping ahead of me. the beginning of the song is wayne doing his best gwen stefani hollaback girl. not really one of my favorite parts of the album BUT i do LOVE the "you know that it isnt real" part that comes in. that's awesome. theres some insane munchking voices in this piece. and then its like its floating out of wherever it was... sort of just disingrating in darkness... really nicely done there... if i had to pick just one moment in this album this would probably be it. i just love the way it transitions to this. i dont undersand anything at all. goosebump moment for me. just beautiful . and the acoustic guitar... its like going back in front of the fireplace after an interstellar trip... warming your bones by the fire in a cabin or some shit. in otherwords - goddamn brilliant. another bit in this album that sort of reminds me of pink floyd.

#8 mr ambulance driver -

this is a very subtle song but theres a lot of neat little things going on - i like all the ilttle details in the drums and in the guitars and in the backing vocals. it's really a nice song. the guitar on the chorus is very cool. i love the line "oh we cant trade places, our lives are strangely our own" --- my favorite part of the song may be the outro vocals "waiting for the ambulance to come, ooh ooh"

#9 havent got a clue -

just a totally out there song sonically. pretty ridiculous lyrically and sort of hard to take seriously as a song - but the sounds are pretty outrageous. theres just a ton going on in this song - perhaps OTT! hyperactive and great for the ADD set. i like those sudden shifts into the "ahh ahhh ahhh" sort of choir vocals. possibly a synth or heavily effected vocals

#10 the wand -

another hyperactive track this one. this one has grown on me a ton from when i first heard it. it's got a quite strange structure which i think makes it a bit hard to dig at first but the more you hear it - the more it gets into you i think. i love the phased out QUEEN type vocal bits. just great. i love the drums on this track. at first those cutting back and forth bits that happen i thought were too much - but i get 'em now and they work rock n roll type biz on my brainpatterns. awesome HIGH harmonies. and i love the melody on "why cant they see..." and then the next bit when it goes high. ah, just great. AND WE KNOW WHY WE FIGHT!

#11 pompeii -

one of my favorites from the get go. and another track that reminds me of pink floyd. i just love the sound of it. the vocals coming out of the top of your head. the sounds all flying all around your brains. the great pulsating bass. and then when it really gets going and the flute comes in and the sounds start crashing all around - its just killer. "one of these days" by pink floyd is definitly recalled by this one. i think a lot of people who otherwise cant get into the lips might love this song. just a sort of a different thing from what the lips have done before and they do it just awesome. great song. ALL MY SENSES. the flute mmm! the guitar part that comes in during the last minute is great - really like taking the song and somehow taking it even higher into outer space or something. really great stuff.

#12 goin' on -

this song was one of the last ones to grow on me. but i love it now.. inspite of the "uh huh" on the prechorus which just drove me crazy at first. they also used the "watch beep" sound again from the soft bulletin - probably as a reference to that. maybe an interesting reference being as the name of the song is goin' on... maybe sayin yo this is a biscuit from the past of the dolphin and now we're rockin this biz. this song really starts being great to me starting around 1:50 --- i just love the vocal parts starting there... really pretty. and again like throughout the album just great backing vocals. this is not a hit and definitly i think takes awhile to sink into the head - but its got some really pretty moments and some beautiful backing vocals - at first i didnt like that this came on after pompeii but it works for me now.

anyways - pretty great album - i wasnt really able to get myself fully into high as hell close my eyes and trip out mode. i dont think this is a really great album for that in a way because its so hyperkinectic and is so silly at times that it sort of takes you out of that place - but that being said - its a lot of fun and another great album by the flaming lips. i dont think the songs are as catchy as yoshimi's and it's nowhere near the overall STATEMENT that the soft bulletin was or as experimental and mad crazy as zaireeka or as rockin' as priest driven ambulance. it's not like any of their previous albums really - i think in a lot of ways it may be their most fun & upbeat album although of course with some pretty nice detours into some groovy spacy biz.

High As Hell Reviews : The Flaming Lips "At War With The Mystics"

2006-02-22T01:07:00.000-05:00

Full Album Review Of : The Flaming Lips AT WAR WITH THE MYSTICS

2006-02-17T14:14:00.000-05:00

not yet... but will be coming.

also coming up : a review of the new grandaddy album : just like the fambly cat.

nicotine, caffeine, cocaine, a lord of troubles, ephedra, a lord of troubles. no fish oil to help, no dreams left to be dreamed.

Annie "Chewing Gum"

2006-02-17T14:03:00.000-05:00

This is a pop song. A dance pop song. But it's fun as hell. I don't usually listen to this type of music as you can see from the rest of my reviews but if you are at all interested in hearing some fun upbeat pop music this is some of the best I've heard in the new century. It's just completely infectious (like herpes) and just a very lovely time. The production on this song and really throughout the album is just a ton of fun to listen to.

ANNIE - CHEWING GUM.

ANNIE - ANNIEMAL.

John Vanderslice "If I Live Or If I Die"

2006-02-17T13:47:00.000-05:00

This track is #9 on Vanderslice's 2001 album Time Travel Is Lonely. It's a lovely album and all of the tracks are good but this particular song has really been standing out for me. The words are from a poem by William Blake called "the fly" :

Little Fly,
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance,
And drink, and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life
And strength and breath,
And the want
Of thought is death;

Then am I
A happy fly.
If I live,
Or if I die.
---

The song is based around a very cute piano riff and handclaps. The vocals are smooth and pretty. There's some strange electronic bleeps and bloops that really add to the atmosphere. The attention to detail on this song and really on the whole album is great. If you are the type that really enjoys thoughtful production with lots of interesting things going on - this album is for you. I've also got Pixel Revolt - Vanderslice's latest album but I'd get this one first if I was you. Time Travel Is Lonely.

wayne coyne's track by track for the new flaming lips album.

2006-02-11T23:20:00.000-05:00

Wayne's Track-By-Track of At War With The Mystics

THE YEAH YEAH YEAH SONG (WITH ALL YOUR POWER)

Steven had been recording in a separate vocal booth on his computer and I walked by and heard the crazy grouped vocals doing the "yeah yeah yeah" part and I was immediately hooked. This is one of those songs that points the finger at the pettiness of those in power but also points the finger back at ourselves - what would YOU do? Power in the hands of the inexperienced (which is what we would be) is very dangerous...

FREE RADICALS (A HALLUCINATION OF THE CHRISTMAS SKELETON PLEADING WITH A SUICIDE BOMBER)

I had a dream in which Devendra Banhart (the weird singer/songwriter) is pleading with a suicide bomber (who is about to go blow up something or somebody) to change his mind. And once he changes the deranged zealot's point of view, he (Devendra) immediately sympathizes with the frustration (mostly aimed at George W. Bush) that could make someone long for such exaggerated revenge...(Keep in mind that this is just a funny dream - these suicide bombers are clearly brainwashed religious fanaticals that are insane with their own agenda...they are beyond any pleads of reason and are not worthy of any sympathy.)

THE SOUND OF FAILURE

We have some friends whose father was dying of cancer - I say "was" because it (the cancer and his death) dragged on agonizingly for over a year - and they (our friends) were becoming, understandably, weary of being forced to be upbeat...

And I remember hearing a comment once about how annoying it was, to them, to have to hear this gratingly jubilant fake enthusiasm (usually hokey hyped-up pop groups like Black Eyed Peas, Destiny's Child, Ashlee Simpson, Hillary Duff, etc.) blasting out of the "Muzak" systems virtually everywhere they went. To them this cheerleader-type assault was really only effective if you didn't actually have any real psychic stress...And they felt that it was, surprisingly, helpful to them to try to understand their fears and their sadness - as opposed to pretending that it's "all good." And, you see, this is true insight... finally we know it's okay to have a troubled mind, it's okay to fail...

And so this song (which was written in the car on the way up to New York from Oklahoma while I drove and Steven played battery powered keyboard and computer) is about a young girl whose best friend has died, and everywhere she goes (like the friends I mentioned earlier) she must endure the empty optimism of the inexperienced. She wants to know, since it has arrived, what is despair, what is hope, what is failure...And what is in the darkness??

The line in the song, "so go tell Britney and go tell Gwen" is obviously a reference back to my friends and their Muzak incident...meaning, "Yeah, go tell Britney Spears and Gwen Stefani that their energy and their Prom Queen smiles only go to prove that they don't empathize with my sadness." I believe, in the song, that Britney and Gwen could be thought of as this grieving girl's less mature friends...and that she's not trying to go against them, she just doesn't want to pretend that she understands what she doesn't really understand - what death is...what despair is...what existential fear is... She doesn't know, but she's starting to find out...

IT'S DARK... IS IT ALWAYS THIS DARK?

A strange sort of afterword to the previous song. The voice and the strange blippy trail is actually my voice run through a computer plug-in effect called "Squirrel Parade"...Pretty cool... Anyway, it sounds like I'm saying "It's Dark", but I didn't say "It's Dark". I don't remember what it was exactly - just me talking before a song, but it gives the illusion of a young girl finding her way through a mystery...yes?

MY COSMIC AUTUMN REBELLION (THE INNER LIFE AS BLAZING SHIELD OF DEFIANCE AND OPTIMISM AS CELESTIAL SPEAR OF ACTION)

We had been using the musical elements of this song (it wasn't a song then) as an intro for our live shows, as I rolled around on top of the crowd in the now famous "Space Bubble." The power of the chord structure and arrangement kept inspiring me and I eventually pieced together this manifesto of defiance and optimism. It is my response to the naysaying know-it-alls who see life leading only to death and see nature as a cruel prankster designed to defeat the human spirit. And the truth (which I get to proclaim as if standing on the top of a holy mountain shooting lazer beams out of my hands - thanks to Steven's epic orchestration) is that no circumstance can ever defeat us unless we let it... Resilience in the face of failure is a manifestation of the mind...

VEIN OF STARS

I picked up a guitar that Steven had tuned to an odd open chord (F 6/9) and, without thinking, strummed it a couple of times and immediately sang (off the top of my head) the first line into the tape recorder, "Who knows, maybe there isn't a vein of stars calling out my name." My intention was to sing something cosmic about how humans have (as science reveals more and more about the nature of time and space) been abandoned by the stars...But I believe, once we finished it (the song and its production), it seemed to convey just the opposite...That almost despite science we are connected to the stars...Because we love to look at them, we hope maybe they love to look at us...

THE WIZARD TURNS ON...THE GIANT SILVER FLASHLIGHT AND PUTS ON HIS WEREWOLF MOCCASINS

A kind of space jam where the initial performance had Michael playing the CD player (in it was a CD with a recording of the drums), Steven playing the Rhodes and me playing electric bass. Mr. Fridmann ran the whole thing through a series of space echoes. flangers, filters and distortion boxes... The entire mix lays in the bed of a program called Metaphysical Function...Neat, huh?

IT OVERTAKES ME

I sometimes will do a silly songwriter's trick - I'll act like I'm writing a song for someone else and on this track I was imagining Gwen Stefani... I pictured her singing it and imagined what kind of production would happen. Initially I called the song, when it was intended for Ms. Stefani, "I Like To Masturbate and Think Of Outer Space"...and I still think that if she was doing the song it's a great title....But to think of me, a 45 year old man with a graying beard, umm, masturbating....is... well...(I'm uncomfortable even typing this)...unpleasant...so anyway...The song ends up being more about my occasional bouts of panic when accidentally contemplating the "Cosmic Reality", that is....that we (the Earth) are floating perilously adrift in a vast and endless sea of black infinity (outer space) and it is, when analyzed, a mindfuck...and yes I feel horribly insignificant....So anyway, what we ended up with, I believe, still sounds like a mashing of "Hollaback Girl" and "1969" by The Stooges...take some drugs and turn it up real loud...

THE STARS ARE SO BIG AND I AM SO SMALL...DO I STAND A CHANCE?

This section of the song captures, I think, the vulnerability and awe of this same scenario (the Cosmic Reality) within a cathedralesque womb-cloud of angelic voices... but instead of panic it is solemn and comforting...

MR. AMBULANCE DRIVER

The entire song, its key and chord structure, is built around the ambulance siren sample. When we first did it there was an eerie death coloring (probably due to the siren and the lyric about the girl being dead) that was very satisfying... But we found, with repeated listening, that the siren, somehow, subliminally disappeared and, to our surprise, it revealed a kind of Eddie Rabbitt (70's pop-country singer-songwriter) at the roller rink, easy listening teenager car crash ballad.

HAVEN'T GOT A CLUE

A friend of ours, Greg Kurstin (he played with us on the Beck tour and was nicknamed "Firefingers" by Steven due to his sublime playing of the keyboard) is an accomplished musician and has a great ear for pop sounds and structure...He's written songs with artists ranging from Enrique Iglesias to Karen O and he, upon my insistence, sent this unfinished track for us to build on. It was great fun and again (like the Gwen Stefani trick) it allowed us to create inside a different identity. The song is about a type of person that everybody knows and endures (we won't mention names). They blame everyone but themselves for all of their problems which they seem to have in endless supply. If they suffer, you suffer more... You know what I'm talking about.

THE W.A.N.D. (THE WILL ALWAYS NEGATES DEFEAT)

I was playing electric guitar, Michael was on fuzzwah bass and Steven was on the drumkit and we stumbled upon this druggy prog-rock riff and stuttery, funky beat. It was like Black Sabbath getting mashed up with Sly and the Family Stone or Stevie Wonder, and it sent us off in a wonderful new direction. The idea of a magic wand and magic powers occurred to me while watching a homeless guy in Oklahoma City. He was, I believe, Vietnamese, and had a cool looking wizardly beard and mustache and he carried a long stick, which he used as a kind of cane-weapon. And one day I saw him fighting an "imagined" enemy and the long stick became (as best I could tell) a kind of magic wand that made his invisible foe retreat. I mean... it seemed to give him a confidence that allowed him to defeat his hallucinations...and at first I thought "how sad...he believes this old stick is saving him"... but the more I thought about it, the more I envied him in a way...for the evil manifestations of his mind he invented a sparkling sorcerer's baton to lead his psychic revolution...yes!!...

And so we delved into a kind of radical protest rock mentality...We sing, "We got the power now, motherfuckers, that's where it belongs", but I believe it's cosmically empowering - not actually empowering. In the song, we rail against the greedy, corrupt evil beings who are in control and trying to enslave us... But our rebellion is simply to fight back - we have no solutions.

POMPEII AM GTTERDMMERUNG

A galloping Godhead melody (reminiscent of the German National Anthem) telling a vague story of a young couple planning their suicide. They live in a place where there are volcanoes erupting and they are going to take the train up the mountain and jump into the flowing lava as a symbolic sacrifice of their restricted love.The triumphant quality of the arrangement suggests that, just before they obliterate themselves, they realize that to make such a decision, to destroy yourself, is really just a point of internal motivation leading to outward action. And, if they could do something as extreme as annihilating themselves, why couldn't they just try to change the circumstances that have limited them?....Action is all we have....Worth mentioning is that this is Steven's first lead vocal on a Flaming Lips track...

GOIN' ON

The core of the chorus melody has a melancholy resolution evoking, abstractly, sections of Mahler's 9th Symphony...We are, subconsciously I guess, drawn to "the answer"... maybe that is why people have the urge to pray or sing or create...We long for this thing called "closure", but I believe that "closure" is, maybe, an illusion. This song takes a long stare at coping and the secret healing powers of slipping through time and space...How suffering, somehow, is relieved by simple...acceptance...

Video To Come.

2006-02-09T18:41:00.000-05:00

soon in a move that will delight millions : video of the mp3 reviews. that's right. you heard it here first. it doesn't make any sense. believe it anyways. you will love it. you do love it. you can't wait for it. mmm.

the 10 best of 2005 (that i've heard.)

2005-12-19T18:15:00.000-05:00

Akron/Family - Akron/Family
M. Ward - Transistor Radio
Sigur Ros - Takk
Beck - Guero
The Decemberists - Picaresque
Paul McCartney - Chaos & Creation In The Backyard
Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine
Andrew Bird - Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production Of Eggs
Oasis - Don't Believe The Truth
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

i've bolded akron/family - akron/family ... if i had to choose just one - i think it'd be the one. i'm planning on a detailed run through of each of these albums.

honorable mention : the white stripes, the magic numbers, boards of canada, stephen malkmus, the chemical brothers, ben folds...

Song Of The Day : Suite Judy Blue Eyes

2005-12-19T01:40:00.000-05:00

"Suite Judy Blue Eyes" by Crosby, Stills, & Nash. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD IT.

just a beautiful tightly woven epic. great track. man i love the way the voices sound. good stuff. delicious even. well just download it there - if you havent heard it before. yeah.

in other news : Andrew Bird's "Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production Of Eggs" will be in consideration for the top 10 list.

recommended chillout/fall to sleep (while a tad stoned) music

2005-12-18T04:22:00.000-05:00

Brian Eno - Ambient 1 "music for airports"

really beautifully simple music. when you want a totally relaxed feeling it works very nicely. manages to be subtley interesting while sort of massaging your mind at the same time. i love how the minimalism of it makes me start to think that the fuzz is being manipulated to go in and out as part of the song... and well ... at the moment i believe it is. but usually i would just hear it as being a white fuzzy noise indicative of some warm analog equipment but not any sort of purposeful manipulation. well if you were to hear something like this on a record made in 2005 it'd probably be purposeful manipulation. actually... the way it just jumped left to right definitly makes me think its being done on purpose. fuck thats sly. anyways i was just going to say that you would only hear fuzz like this on current time recorded record if it was wanted to be there. but back in the day you'd get a bit of fuzz but now thinking about it - this level of fuzz is clearly on purpose too. hey man, i am tired. give me a break. i'll just sit back and listen to the rest of this. pick it up if you want to hear something gentle without being mindless.

assorted high as hell biz.

2005-12-16T03:21:00.000-05:00

Animal Collective - Feels. I'm giving this one another chance. Properly stoned.
I think I'll make this a more free form situation. I am enjoying the first track a bit although I'm finding myself still sort of annoyed by some of the more insane vocal parts. But I'm enjoying the sounds and the music.
some possible time expansion. nah. this song Grass I just find very annoying - the vocal part - it's like it's aim is annoying me? I just dont get anything out of it. the music is nice though. eh... I've made it to track before till I just feel like moving along. I just don't like the songs very much. i feel more like doing some random selected tracks rather than listening to a whole album.

1. broken social scene - "ibi dreams of pavement a better half" --- im getting sort of a classic rock vibe or somethign fof the start. well until that rather insane backwards sucking thing starts happening. that's pretty tripped out. usually i
dont think i hear really whats going on with this. but now to hear that huge reverse reverb effect - its really insane it feels like all of the words are being sucked out of my brain. yeah like this song is so much better than the 3 i just heard by animal collective - sometimes i just don't get why people get so into biz. but that's the way the world works. i must say i havent really loved this BSS album as a whole but i have found myself really enjoying some of the tracks from time to time. overall i'm sort of moving away from this sort of really full crazy sounding production and have been enjoying more things with seperation ... the muddy factor was definitly coming into play - but the style really seems to fit this song, at this at the moment it does. the horn section in the middle is quite cool too. well it starts in the middle and goes to the end. overall a very cool song. 9 marijuana leaves.!

2. cornershop - butter the soul (from when i was born for the 7th time) - i've loved this album for a long time. people mostly remember them for brimful of asha ... but the album isn't really like that track. there's only 4 or 5 actual _songs_ in the 15 tracks - most of the tracks are sort of crazy sound experiment biz. like this one. those are the things i really like - but the more songy tracks are excellent too. for whatever reason i havent ever really been able to get into their other stuff i've heard - but i love this album.... anyways on to the track.. #3 butter the soul. _>>> mostly some crazy record scratching ... then it goes into some serious indian biz rockin the sitar like a bowl of clam chowder.

3. let's listen to track #13 "candy man" . yes. i love the bassline from this track. theres this crazy sound of what sounds like someone just rubbing his hand on a table on the left side. its drivign me a bit mad as i've never heard that before but its so .. perfect. although it sounds almost like something random. but no, its not. stuff like that makes me eat my own taco. now my shadow is getting a bit strange. i have not many lights. yes. but a lamp on over there creates sort of a shadow of my ... me. on the wall. so then let's talk about how this is officially track #3 (note. in retrospect i guess its track #4. or #5.) i should place that now at the beginning. but please know, and try to imagine that for a long time, up until this time right now >>>>>>>> (I just placed it.) there was no "3." at the beginning. but now it's there. I just didn't want to misrepresent the truth man.

4. circulatory system - self titled album - track #12 "A Peek" - i dont know this album that well although i've had it for awhile now. it's the project of olivia tremor control DUDE will hart which is why i got interested to hear these guys.
being a huge otc fan. but this album hasnt won me over like the OTC stuff has. but that being said i'm far from giving up on it - i like what i've heard it's just a lot to take in. but now seems like a good time to hear a track. i dont really remember what this one sounds like - i just picked it by the name. heres we go.strings. cello ... weird. um.. yes. theres now like 4 cellos playing along with some percussion. this is pretty creepy music. yes. oh yeah um.. the vocals fell in over top of this. a bass is playing. pretty just psychotic cello playing along with insistant bass and percussion. woah. this is pretty goddamn creepy. started escaping the headphones at about 2:30 in. ,,, track definitly creeped me out. ok then 9 marijuana leaves.

5. the beta band - hot shots II - track #7 "quiet" --- weird boxed sound so far... hm.. i see.... when the chorus come sin that one sound enters the spectrum as a snake of light... sort of outside of the curently accepted reality. i see that now.
some nice into space stuff there. i've always loved how this song makes it back around to the front. and how it goes into the weird crazy thing again the same way the second time. could be seen as a fault but it works on this song. i've always
loved this guitar thing at the end. i like the subtle change as that thing loops on out - with the percussion - thats really nice.

6. m. ward - transistor radio - i've been loving this album. its still quite new to me - i've had it for about 1 week and listened to it about 5 times so far. i'm going to listen to um... the first 5 tracks of the album. i love the whole album but it's those first 5 that really kill me it seems. and a couple of the later ones have stood out too. "i'll be yr bird" and "radio campaign" ...

A. you still believe in me... cover of the beach boys song. and it sounds just beautiful here. acoustic guitar. it makes it sound like sort of timeless classical song - which is a testament to ol brian wilson. just a beautiful song and this is a
great cover because it unveals another side of a beautiful song you know. this is a cover - actually turning a song around and showing you it's other side. that's beautiful. i don't really get it when people try and do exact replicas of a song.
just listen to the original then? you know, what's the point of that biz? i mean if you're a cover band or whatever sure. i guess that's your deal. but otherwise. oh yes then.

B. one life away --- i love the sound on this song. great old radio sound without sounding bad. this really just captures a timeless feeling. great thing. second time i've used that word timeless - i think thats what i love about this album so
much. it's just music you know. something pure about it and its not trying to be like... listen we recorded this all some other time - theres some little tricks ... some delays and things - theres some lovely production trickies but they are all
done so subtly ... gives them extra warmth.

C. sweethearts on parade --- another classic track. man i love this guys voice. just great. see that little ssssssss sound on the left there. thats one of those little tricks i was talking about. sounds like a little bit of vocal snipped and
played on the beat .. the type of thing you can do easily with protools - and see thats cool you know - thats what i mean by it not trying to be something from another time - there are little bits of modern bizzes but they are used so tastefully so
that it still fits the style of music.

D. Hi Fi --- His voice sounds great on this one again. great clean guitars. theres even a little synth in this track. and there's a little delay on his voice. i guess not surprising that there'd be a few more sorta high techish production tricks in a song called "hi fi" - but it's still done very tastefully. and it's such a nice bright clean space. even when quite a few things are going on everything feels quite nicely seperated ...with plenty of warmth and delicious pancakes. perhaps some sausage links. even some backwards guitars at the end. i had forgotten about that.

E. fuel for fire --- talk about a classic song. this thing just sounds like willie nelson or some biz. just great. the willie nelson thing is a compliment btw. i read it back and it sounded bad for a second. but no, what i mean is. this is
just one of those songs where you feel like you've heard it all your life even though its the first time you ever heard it. and not because it is another song or it sounds like another song - just because it's a song. MAN!. and again his voice sounds great on this. right now this album is seriously being considered for the #1 spot on my best of the year list. definitly a lot more subtle and straightforward than most of my favorite music but... it's just so good. so well done. beautiful music. m. ward is one of the indie flavors of the week that actually deserves the praise imo. although i must say if there's any track on the album i dont like it's #6 .. that one kind of annoys me (so far.) so its no coincidence i decided to go 1 through 5. anyways i want to move on and hear some other things now.

11. the mars volta --- from deloused in the // yeah. big change from m.ward. yeah let's go the other way yo. this is track #7 which i think is the one that really melts my mind but i cant remember for sure. its 12 minutes long though. so lets see
how it works out. "cicatriz"

this song has a total futuristic vibe right from the start. but sort of a weird 80s future . er.. i see these guys with skin tight pants... just rocking out on a guitar wearing crazy outfits. like in some sort of cartoon world. in outerspace. ... yeah... now theres just a helicpoters.. wow..... that was crazy.. i had forgotten about how that happens... the song just blows your brain out right there. man thats some nice saugs. . sausage. ok lets get clear here. i love the vocal on "all"
.. thats such a great little touch. .. woah man.. when this breaks into an instrumental section its just insane its like the guitars create this tunnel of ight... and then things start getting quiet.. yeah im quite sure this is the mind melter of my memory. things aer sort of like a space jazzz club now.. um.. now the guitar is is just the delay ... for a gi. sort of like a gun shooting rubber pellets. if the goat the flying goat was to enter the cornweb. definitly flating in outerspace now with chcunks chucnks chunks not chucks. chunks of just sharp black crystals flaoting some bright ilghts way off... in outer space or in the chair... watching the city from across the lake. that spacy bit is just insane with the way you hear the white noise type sound coming in and around the brain after all of that... when the song busts back in its some sort of like latin thing. doesnt make much sense to me at the moment but i'm trying to make it make some sense. pretty nuts when the vocal part comes back in. you definitly get that feeling of "what the fuck, we're still in this song?" i've always enjoyed that effect.

Top 10 for 2005 on rateyourmusic.com

2005-12-14T20:04:00.000-05:00

rateyourmusic.com is one of my favorite sites. check it out. in buildup to my own top 10 list which will be coming together soon here's the top 10 albums from 2005 on rateyourmusic.com (these are by listener ratings.) i'm removing the re-issues and the live albums from this list because... well i just don't think they should really be counted. ! and that's that.

1. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois: This one will probably be on my top 10 as well. A real nice album, although I feel it's a bit too long. 22 tracks? Personally I think I prefer 2004's Seven Swans because it has a bit more of a concise sort of purposeful feel to it, and that's despite the very overt christian references in the lyrics... usually something that would put me off but Stevens can pull it off. Seven Swans is #9 for 2004 btw on rateyourmusic.com

2. Opeth - Ghost Reveries : I've never heard this album.. or this band. from the descriptions of it as "death metal" i'd be surprised if it's up my alley but maybe I'll give it a spin just to be open minded and all.

3. Animal Collective - Feels : I've talked about Animal Collective a bit in this blog... I've not been able to get into them and as of now this album is definitly not going to be in my top 10. But they are intriguing enough that I'm going to be giving them further listens. Some of my favorite bands I took awhile to get into. I do give them credit for being pretty original, I haven't heard anything quite like them before. I just find them so off putting & annoying at times. So far my favorite track I've heard by them is less than a minute long. "College" off of 2004's Sung Tongs.

4. Sigur Ros - Takk : Sigur Ros doing their thing - good as always. Will be in my top 10. Although I have to really be in the mood to listen to Sigur Ros and it's a mood I'm not in that often. They do what they do though, incredibly well. Brilliant live.

5. Paul McCartney - Chaos & Creation In The Back Yard : will be in my top 10. Really great songs. Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich was a great move too. The album has a lot more weight than most (actually probably all) of Mccartney's other solo albums.

6. Andrew Bird - Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production Of Eggs : I haven't heard this yet. I'll try to get on that. Some of the reviews made it sound like something I'd like.

7. Nevermore - This Godless Endeavor : I've never heard of this band before. Described as "metal" in the reviews - not really a genre I'm too interested in. If I get around to giving Opeth a listen, I'll give this one a listen too, I suppose.

8. Deadwing - Porcupine Tree : Haven't heard it.

9. Kate Bush - Aerial : Haven't heard it. Hm. I suppose I should give some of this a listen before making my top 10 list. But from the descriptions they don't really sound like things I would like.

10. The Mars Volta - Frances The Mute : I gave a bit of a listen to this awhile ago - but I believe it was a pre-release version - I've never heard the final release. I liked their last album although it grew a bit stale for me.

...
let's look back at some of the rate your music top albums from the past.

2004 : Arcade Fire - Funeral. I'm sort of determined to hear what everyone else likes about these guys so much. So i'm listening to them again now - and I am enjoying it more than I have in the past. I do like the music - it's just a matter of not being annoyed by the singer I think.

2003 : Explosions In The Sky - The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place. Haven't heard this. hm. Another thing to put on my to listen to list!

2002 : Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - now we're talking. absolutely great album.

2001 : Opeth - Blackwater Park - well here's this Opeth again. I should give them a listen I do suppose.

2000 : Godspeed You Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven : GYBE is good and everything but there's no way this should be ahead of the #2 album which is Kid A by Radiohead.

1999 : Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun : yes, probably my favorite Sigur Ros album. Although I'm a firm believer that the #8 album on this list The Flaming Lip's The Soft Bulletin should be top ranked.

my internet is sucking too bad to go back any farther. fuck you verizon.

keep your eager eyes peeled for the magic goblin's top 10 list for 2005.

Akron/Family

2005-12-14T13:38:00.000-05:00

New band I'm listening to called Akron/Family. I'm listening to their self titled debut album right now. Sort of lo-fi but in that Olivia Tremor Control way where they are trying to do a lot with it as far the sonic space. Lots of interesting little sounds and some quite insane things happen. Very psychedelic and spacy music while still being sort of down home at the same time. Nice mix. Akron/Family seems to sound like what I was _hoping_ Animal Collective would sound like from all of the talk about them before I listened. Animal Collective has been a bit of a dissapointment for me (although I havent given up on getting into them.) they seem to want to push the listener away with their annoyance. Akron/Family wants to take you into their place - a very strange and wonderous place. That I can get into. Unfortunatly I am almost out of marijuana.

this album is looking to gain itself a position in my top 10 of the year and i'm pretty sure it will even though this only my second time listening to it. it's got some really great stuff going on in it and a few really memorable tracks already.

one of these is track #5 - "i'll be on the water" - which is a really sweet little song. it includes some really nice ambient sounds. and it goes into some cool places in a quite tight way. i'm going to make this one downloadable. (this will only be up for 7 days.)

I'm quite sure this won't be my last post about these fellers. Good stuff.

Live Journal

2005-12-13T20:16:00.000-05:00

Live Journal Site for me, The Magic Goblin

why?

last.fm is a great site

2005-12-12T12:55:00.000-05:00

Really try and use the radio player. really amazing. a great way to check out and hear new music.

last.fm

marijuana. album. day.

2005-12-11T04:08:00.000-05:00

The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin.

Click here to download the track (#6) "What Is The Light?" from this album. One of my favorites on the album.

really beautiful album. track 6 into 7 is one of my favorite moments on the album. you should really buy the whole album, but if you haven't heard it yet - hopefully you'll download that track and you'll get a taste for the album.

downloadable mp3s

2005-12-08T04:35:00.000-05:00

now why didn't i think of this before? maybe this will get some of you ungrateful bastards here reading my amazing spewings! from now on whenever i talk about a song you'll be able to download it and listen to it yourself if you don't already have it. that should liven things up a bit, eh?

we're going to start off with Jim O'Rourke - I'm Happy.

I'm going to be testing out some different services. This is megaupload - i'm considering using it because I don't think they delete the files as quick. YouSendIt deletes after a week, but it's so much cleaner and easier to use too.

The track is "I'm Happy" by Jim ORourke. It's the first track from his 2001 album "I'm Happy, and I'm Singing, and a 1,2,3,4."

I'm not quite sure how to describe it. Very atmospheric electronic music. Trippy mad scientist type biz. I enjoy it. Download it and tell me what you think of it.

NOTE : when using megaupload you have to wait some amount of time (45 seconds - 1 minute?) before you can actually download the file. When you click on the link you'll see the thing telling you to wait for however long - when that time is up you''ll be able to download the file there.

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buy rolling papers, nice pipes, bongs, and even SALVIA at this site.