I Miss It

I was so in love with The Strokes in high school.  I had a shirt made of one of the many Julian Casablancas collages I had made.  I threw my bra onstage.  I cried when I touched Julian at the first concert.  My teachers even knew how obsessed I was.  I waited in line in the snow without a jacket for hours to buy tickets and got really sick in the process.  Julian came down off the stage and was standing next to me.  I touched his hair, but it wasn't the same.  I didn't actually know them and I knew it.  Last night I realized I only have one Strokes song on my computer, something that I would have considered unforgivable in the past.  Now when I hear their songs I feel a mixture of nostalgia and sexiness, but sometimes just sadness.  Listening to Albert Hammond Jr. will never make me feel like I did listening to him and Julian and Nick and Nico and Fabrizio together, but there is a glimmer of something really special and I appreciate it more than nothing.

New York City Cops - The Strokes

 - Lyra

Hang Them All

Last time we saw Tapes n' Tapes, they were tearing apart the Lollapalooza stage, outshining artists who had better time slots than 11 am on Saturday morning.  Their hit song, "Insistor," was the stand-out tune of the show, boasting a scream-a-long chorus and a very jumpable guitar chord progression.

Tapes n' Tapes return with their newest promotional single: "Hang Them All."  The song might be called a "grower," as it hits you quickly, yet takes over two minutes to build to the bombastic three-word chorus.  So without further ado:

Download:

Hang Them All - Tapes n' Tapes

Enjoy.

- Geoff

Fell In Love With a Girl

Happy Valentines Day:

Download:

I Luv U - Dizzee Rascal

No Love Lost - LCD Soundsystem

True Love Waits - Radiohead

Fell In Love With a Girl - The White Stripes

The One You Really Love - The Magnetic Fields

Love ya, Lyra.

- Geoff

You'd Look Good In Somebody's Arms

Destroyer's last album "Destoyer's Rubies" might have been the best thing to happen to me in 2006.  And Bejar is back at it again in 2008, this time with the newly toted full-length disc "Trouble in Dreams."

"Dreams" has, like most music these days, almost entirely leaked onto the web already.  "Foam Hands" (my pick for #19 song of the year) is a psychedelic journey that is made with a comfortable amount of space for organs and reverb to sink in, yet lacks the characteristic lyrics that adds endless depth to Bejar's work.  It feels like a lot more studio work went into the production of the song, and Destroyer (for the first time) sounds more like a full band instead of a one-man tour de force.  I envision a diametric result:  This is good!  The music sounds poppy, more fun to listen to through speakers...  And this is bad! I like Destroyer as a "headphones" artist, and some aspects of "Foam Hands" leads me to believe the album will be less irksomely dark than "This Night,"  less abstractly unique than "Your Blues," and less openly charismatic than "Rubies."

But predictions aside, I don't think that Bejar can put out something that I won't give a good, solid try.  The second track on his latest effort, titled "Dark Leaves Form a Thread," is too fantastic to put down right now.  And it's too good not to share with you.  So I'll nibble on these two tracks and ponder endlessly the following: 1) whether the new album will live up to my infinitely high standards, 2) whether I will wait to buy the whole album or will slowly give in to downloading it, 3) whether or not I'll ever be able to get into Dan's brain (and pants).

Download:

Dark Leaves Form a Thread - Destroyer

This Night - Destroyer (from which this post got it's title)

- Geoff

Ooooh, Lez Zeppelin

So the rumors weren't true,  I guess real life is more like high school than we were promised.  And Pearl Jam?  I think the people in charge want the music to be like their high school years, too.  Sorry, Arcade Fire, I guess you'll have to wait until we grow up and get our way.

Some highlights:

Kanye West - Homecoming

Sigur Ros - Von

M.I.A. - Bamboo Banga

Broken Social Scene - Windsurfing Nation

Battles - Atlas

Black Kids - I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You

and...

 - Lyra

Yes We Can - Super Tuesday

In honor of Super Tuesday, I give you a bunch of celebrities / athletes / musicians singing / talking / staring blankly at the camera along to an Obama speech from a month ago.

I guess we will see if "we can" later tonight.  But for now, enjoy these:

Download:
A Change Is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke

They Took A Vote And Said No - Sunset Rubdown

The President's Dead - Okkervil River

- Geoff

And What Better Way To Spend Your Weekend?

There are many trademarks that make a traditional college band a college band.  The wardrobe: American Apparel matching sweater-vests, coupled with Oxford-esque white button-downs.  The sound: innocent, preppy, and bouncy.  The hype: many, from the "blog push" to the Columbia smarts to the ubiquitous presence of their video for "A-Punk" on MTV-U.  

But Vampire Weekend, the latest indie-rock band spawned from New York City, is more than your average college band.  They fuze exciting drum beats straight out of Africa and poppy guitar chords straight out of "The Unicorns" to create one hell of a sound.  Randall Poster elaborated on their unique sound, when he says, "imagine New Order sitting down with Paul Simon and talking about the first Talking Heads record, while Pavement plays over the cafeteria loudspeakers."  Talk about hype.  Maybe the hype will wear off in the coming weeks - although the release of their self-titled freshman LP has racked up great reviews - and maybe we will forget about them.  But hey:  this is a blog, and as far as I'm concerned, let's hype away while we still can.

Download:
Oxford Comma - Vampire Weekend

Mansard Roof - Vampire Weekend

A-Punk - Vampire Weekend

- Geoff