Mixtape Songs

Diamonds Aren’t Forever

Curtis — Wed, 28 May 2008 11:54:06 +0000

There was a short lived band Diamonds that was born in Kelowna last fall and called it quits in January of this year. I missed all of Diamonds’ existence because I had left to Berlin in September before they started and I’m still not back and now they don’t play anymore.
It was all Kelowna kids with the front-man being Jay Douillard who fled to Vancouver for work (no guilt Jay, sincere congratulations on your opportunity).
Jay has made music before with the now defunkt label Deer and Bird (who also released some Jon-Rae Fletcher stuff and, I think, some stuff from Duffy Driediger (Ladyhawk) too) and Jay’s solo work is now more or less lost forever. I was worried that Diamonds would go the way of his Deer and Bird releases but then I read this article from the UBC-O campus newspaper The Phoenix which teased of a Creative Commons album to be released.
Then I read a post at popsheep.com (a great mp3 blog (which Jay (among others) writes for)) and they’ve got a link to the whole she-bang.

An excellent mixtape via an excellent service.

Dustin — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 01:02:04 +0000

For those of you who haven’t come across it yet, there’s a new website called muxtape.com. It’s a very simple solution to hosting playlists online. Take a listen to one of my favorites I’ve come across thus far: http://hiphop.muxtape.com/

Have a muxtape you’d like to share? add it in the comments.

From the Greatest with Love.

Mack — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 02:41:02 +0000

For the half a dozen people who ever knew we existed, consider this a gift. a gift from us to you. A poorly recorded, slightly mixed “bootleg” of the last show we ever played. Now, like Ray Liota, we’ll disappear off the map that we were hardly ever on. The short lived genre of “slumber party pop” is over at its inception. This is the sound of the playing of the smallest violin in the world.

Dark Desert Highway, Margaritaville
Lancelot
Shadows
Bridge
Satellites

Let Me Be Fictional: A Documentary about Ladyhawk

Dustin — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:39:32 +0000

Below is a trailer for a documentary called Let me be fictional which was filmed during the recording of Ladyhawk’s new album “Shots”

Up On Your Leopard,/ Upon The End Of Your Feral Days

Curtis — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 18:00:56 +0000

2007! This year I couldn’t, well I didn’t want to, limit myself to a top 10 or 15 list of my favorite albums. Those lists are great, and don’t get me wrong, I love lists. But there’s always an album you want on that list that doesn’t make it. I was worried, especially in the case of 2007, to have to exclude a lot more than just one valid album from a “top10 list”.
So, this is a tape I made of songs from albums made in 2007. It’s not a countdown of my favorite albums though; they’re just in chronological order of release. It’s just a tape collecting songs from albums that were released in 2007.
I can remember dancing to Of Montreal in January on the cold gray campus of UBCO, trying to get anyone who came into HMV to buy Arcade Fire in the spring, listening to Miracle Fortress when the sun was coming up after a long night of partying, dancing to Justice with a strobe light topless in 446’s living room, and waiting and waiting and waiting for Beirut to come out in the fall.
It’s sorta like reliving the year through music. ooooh!

That being said, my favorite album was probably The Flying Club Cup or Neon Bible (how the latter didn’t win this year’s Polaris Prize is beyond me)

I named the tape after my favorite song of this year.

Side A Up on Your Leopard

01. Menomena – “The Pelican” from Friend and Foe – 3:39
[barsuk – jan 23 2007]
“take it when I’m enjoying/ take it from my mouth while I’m still chewing”
02. Julie Doiron – “Me and My Friend” from Woke Myself Up - 2:46
[jagjaguwar – january 23 2007]
03. Of Montreal – “Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse” from Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? – 3:18
[polyvinyl – january 23 2007]
“… she gets me straight/cause my own inner cosmology has become too dense to navigate”
04. Arcade Fire – “Intervention” from Neon Bible – 4:19
[merge records – march 5 2007]
“Who’s gonna throw the very first stone?/oh, who’s gonna reset the bone?/walking with your head in a sling/ wanna hear the soldiers sing”
05. Andrew Bird – “Heretics” from Armchair Apocrypha – 3:33
[fat possum – march 20 2007]
“and then I hear you say ‘thank God its fatal thank God its fatal’”
06. Panda Bear – “Bros” from Person Pitch – 12:30
[paw tracks – march 20 2007]
“I mean no offense to you but grow up/can’t you just grow up ?/When are you going to
give it your own go?/give it your own go/I know I’m being way too hard/but I know that I’m trying”
07. Feist – “1234” from The Reminder – 3:06
[cherry tree/interscope – may 1 2007]
“sweetheart, bitter heart now I can’t tell you apart/cozy and cold put the horse before the cart
08. Wilco – “What Light” from Sky Blue Sky – 3:35
[nonesuch – may 15 2007]
“and if the whole worlds singing your songs/ and all of your paintings have been hung/ just remember what was yours is everyone’s from now on”
09. Miracle Fortress – “Next Train” from Five Roses – 4:17
[rough trade - may 22 2007]
“I’ve been had by the girls of Wisconsin/telling their boyfriends about me”
10. Ladyhawk - “War” from the Fight For Anarchy EP – 2:55
[jagjaguwar – may 22 2007]
“Men of the world see the city walls crumble/ run for the cover of bunkers in basements”
11. The Choir Practice – “I See Things” from The Choir Practice – 3:02
[mint – june 12 2007]
“There is a place/ a place to go/ where snow and sand/ go hand in hand”

Side B Upon the End of Your Feral Days

01. Justice – “D.A.N.C.E.” from cross – 4:02
[ed banger/vice – june 11 2007]
“stick to the b-e-a-t /get ready to ignite”
02. St. Vincent - “Marry Me” from Marry Me – 4:41
[beggars banquet - july 10 2007]
“Let’s do what Mary and Joseph did…without the kid”
03. Okkervil River – “Unless it’s Kicks” from The Stage Names – 4:39
[jagajaguwar – august 7 2007]
“what breaks this heart the most is the ghost of some rock and roll fan/ exploding up from the stands/ with her heart opened up/ I want to tell her your love isn’t lost/ say my heart is still crossed”
04. Animal Collective – “Fireworks” from Strawberry Jam – 4:32
[domino – september 11 2007]
“It the trees of this day/ that I do battle with for the light/then I start to feel tragic/ people greet me, I’m polite”
05. Les Savy Fav – “Patty Lee” from Let’s Stay Friends – 3:51
[frenchkiss – september 18 2007]
“back before Babylon shit was cool/not we’ve all got our cells on,we drive to school”
06. Prairie Cat – “Better Friends Than Lovers” from Attacks! – 2:34
[fuzzy logic – september 2007]
“The times I prayed you would’ve stayed again, again/ the times I’ve prayed outweighed the gain again”
07. Iron & Wine – “Innocent Bones” from The Shepherd’s Dog – 3:43
[subpop – september 25 2007]
“Cain bought a blade from some witch at the window/ Abel bought a bag of weed”
08. Sunset Rubdown - “Up on Your Leopard, Upon the End of Your Feral Days” from Random Spirit Lover - 4:47
[ jagajaguwar – october 9 2007]
“Well, shit, I know were all growing old/where there’s a will there’s a way, so way to go”
09. Jens Lekman – “Opposite of Hallelujah” from Nights Falls over Kortedala – 4:22
[ secretly canadian – october 9 2007]
“I picked up a seashell to illustrate my homelessness/But a crab crawled out of it making it useless”
10. Beirut – “Forks and Knives (La Fete)” from The Flying Club Cup – 2:22
[bada bing! – October 9 2007]
“your family may not wait, sir, keep on believing/our parents rue the day, they find us kneeling”

Ninth Annual Boxing Day Show

Curtis — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:58:02 +0000

Sometimes it’s hard to get excited in Kelowna in the winter; No more sunshine. No more riding your bikes and no more barbecues. Social interaction seems to dissolve.
you may find yourself asking yourself,”where are my friends?”…
Maybe they’re studying out by the airport.
Maybe they’re stranded at big white drinking Jagermeister and hitting and/or shredding and/or carving(?).
Maybe they’re laser bowling to remixed Beatles and Glam rock.
Maybe they’re renting a movie and watching it with two friends and then going home at 1130.

I’ll tell you where your friends are…they’re at the O.K. Mission Hall.
And so are Small Fame, Ladyhawk, Sports, Jon-Rae Fletcher, Brides, Prairie Cat.

I won’t be there though, I’ll be in North Germany(the cost of international travel bums me out)
But, as a Christmas present to me, anyone with any recording equipment, please record the show for me. I think we could post the recording here (Dustin, can we do that?) and then I, and others missing the boxing day show, would be able to listen to the yearend extravaganza. It’s a huge line-up, which I usually hate, but with these bands it’s worth it.
Finish your leftovers, kiss grandma and/or mother-in-law and then speed down lakeshore and/or gordon to be on time. It’ll probably start pretty soon after 7 to fit in room for all the bands and still have time to party after. I missed Adventures last year because of post-prandial chit chat. Don’t make the same mistake.

Get excited and come find your friends,
O.K. Mission Hall @ 7 10$: Small Fame, Ladyhawk, Sports, Jon-Rae Fletcher, Brides, Prairie Cat.

Sufjan Stevens - The Lakes of Canada

Dustin — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 02:06:36 +0000

A comment by a fellow reader Sven made me realize we haven’t talked about La Blogotheque yet. La Blogotheque is a mp3 blog from France. Aside from quality content and reviews they have a section that really makes them stand out called Take Away Shows. Live performances by excellent musicians in natural environments. Walking down the street, sitting in a school gym and as featured below, standing on a roof. The cinematography and audio is spot on and really captures the moment. Below I have embedded (a first for mixtape songs… do you like it embedded?) a video of Sufjan Stevens performing The Lakes of Canada.

TW Walsh - A interview

Dustin — Sun, 27 May 2007 09:01:23 +0000

First off, tell us a bit about yourself. Who you are, where you’ve been,
and where your going.
I grew up in the Northern suburbs of Boston. I started playing drums
when I was 12, and I picked up more instruments as the years went by.
I put a couple solo records out between 1999-2002. I stayed in Boston
until I was 28, at which point I moved to Seattle to join a band.
That didn’t work out, so I came back here when I was 32.

(more…)

Brett Dennen - So Much More

Benson — Thu, 03 May 2007 20:02:32 +0000

I can’t and don’t claim to be a musician, I can’t and don’t claim to be a music connoisseur, I can’t play music and I don’t know what’s cool in music (until Dustin tells me about it, that is). What I can claim is Brett Dennen’s album, So Much More, really is so much more better than any other album I have heard in a so much longer while than ever!

I must add, that being cut off from music, also means I’m cut off from the radio and “music TV” with all those flashy, noisy, fast moving pictures. The reason I’m telling you this is, Brett Dennen; I couldn’t tell you if he is on the radio or MTV or Much Music, or if he is some singer-songwriter that is well known in the singer-songwriter crowd…I just don’t know.

(more…)

Do yourself a favor, go buy a Stones Throw album.

Dustin — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 05:55:22 +0000

The latest Madlib podcast made me realize I can’t get enough of Stones Throw. I thought the joy would come and go, but they continuously surprise and keep me hooked. From the amazing line-up of artists, to the free albums, and the amazing podcast these guys offer everything (they even have a damn mac desktop widget). In my mind Stones Throw is one of the forefront labels out there right now. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I haven’t come across another record label that gives away as much music or podcasts as regularly as Stones Throw. If you want to support where labels are surely going, go to your local record shop and pick up a Stones Throw record.