Themed Mix Saturday: What Are You On?

I make a lot of themed playlists; I like the challenge, and it’s about the only thing left that the “Genius” button can’t do by itself. The rules I give myself are fairly simple:

• Every song has to fit the theme.
• The mix shouldn’t exceed what you can fit onto a CD (i.e. roughly 80 minutes max).
• Most importantly, but perhaps most esoterically, the mix should work as a musical mix. Don’t just throw a song in there that fits the theme if there’s no place for it amongst the others, musically speaking.

So here’s the first one, a perhaps somewhat prevalent theme in music but surprisingly difficult to find songs with appropriate titles.

Add comment March 27th, 2010

Xiu-Xiu, tUnE-yArDs, Pearly Gate Music, Operative: March 24th @ The Holocene

So I didn’t catch the names of the first two acts. I’m guessing it was Operative who played first? I went down there a bit early and hung out at the Morrison Hotel bar for a bit; I’d never been, but it’s a nice enough place (sporting, of course, a picture of Jim Morrison behind the bar; it’s on Morrison Street, of course, but the name of the bar is a clear enough homage). But I met up with my friends inside The Holocene shortly before the show. I hadn’t set foot in the place in over a year, but it hasn’t changed much.

Operative: Ben called it “heart massaging”, not in the metaphorical sense but in the low-frequency physical sense. It was. It was loud, bass-heavy, repetitive, fun, elctronic whitewash by two guys who looked like they were having fun geeking out over their gear and a third dude on a cool electronic drumkit setup. It was lung-rupturing, ease-inspiring over-equipped goodness.

But then Pearly Gate Music came on, assuming I’m getting the names right, and my mood shifted to anxiousness; I really wanted to see Tune-Yards, and how. That may have tempered my experience, along with what seemed like an overly long stage setup time. To my ears, it was music for fans of Grizzly Bear and Coldplay; I scribbled an angry note to myself about it, but it was dark and I don’t know quite what it said, but I refrained from heckling or throwing anything at them, so there’s that.

Tune-Yards was a quick setup– there was a bassist, and then the lead singer with her loop pedal, sparse drumkit, and ukulele. Based on the sampled and found sound feel of the album (Bird-Brains), I wasn’t sure quite what to expect from a live show, but what happened on that stage exceeded anything I could have guessed.

The rhythmic foundations for songs were built up piece by piece through the loop pedal, by laying down any combination of drum kit/rimshot hits and vocal wails, and then they played through and sang the crazy songs proper on top of those, stopping and starting the loops as needed, sometimes adding a little more to them, and combined with the inherent off-kilter awesomeness of her songs and her unabashed singing and playing, the effect was absolutely enthralling. A few songs not on that album proper (but possibly available elsewhere) were a nice bonus, new material to enjoy.

I’ve nothing against Xiu-Xiu, but I’m not a big fan and had to work the next day. Tune-Yards would have been hard to top anyway, so after it wound down so did we, and home I went.

Add comment March 26th, 2010

Non-Secular Sampling

Songs playing during this morning’s commute:

• Cotton Jones – Mary
• P.S. Eliot – Hail Mary
• The Muslims The Soft Pack – Religion

Add comment March 1st, 2010