The Laun Mix-Tape

Chris Laun came at me with this idea a long-long time ago. And I promised him a spot when there was some down time. Little did he know that he was getting a prime-time Friday morning spotlight. This is good stuff, and a good idea. I haven't even listened to these songs yet but I know that this is a good idea. I've recently finished reading The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, which came highly recommended by a couple of our listers. This book was as good as promised. Tune in Monday for a full report. This one is worth a damn, that's for sure. Anyway, from here on out is Laun. Listen to these songs at work. What else do you have to do?

This is another music-based recommend but it's got a bit of a twist to it. It'll hopefully be sort of a collaborative recommend if it works the way I'm intending.

Last year when the best-of lists started popping up on Google Reader I came across a couple blogs that had their top songs of the year. In checking out a lot of the music on there I found that there were a lot of great songs that were by people I had never heard of and had never heard friend's mention. Since then I've had a policy of making a point to listen to every mp3 that is shared on any of these blogs especially if it's by someone I've never heard of before and haven't formed an opinion about. If it was something I liked, I would save it to my computer. I wound up with a playlist of great songs by artists I know very little about.

So I've made a playlist of some of my favorites from the past few months. I don't know exactly when these songs were released. I believe they're all fairly recent but they could be from albums that are a few years old or ones that haven't come out yet. I tried to pick a mix of different kinds of songs so hopefully there is something here that will appeal to you.

Obviously the main goal here is to share music that I am really digging with you guys. The second goal is that if any of this is familiar to you that you can make recommendations or anti-recommendations back to me. Or if you don't know any of it but are inspired to explore further that you can report back with what you find. In that sense it could sort of be like we're discovering new music as a group.

You can listen to the whole thing at drop.io/launmix01. You can comment on each song there if you want but make sure you sign your name as it doesn't have any other way to keep track of who says what.

And here's the track listing:

Forest Fire - Slow Motion
Meursault - The Furnace
St. Vincent - The Strangers
Phoenix - 1901
Malajube - Porte Disparu
Nneka - Heartbeat
Jumbling Towers - The Kanestown City Rips
Bodies of Water - Under the Pines
Mystery Jets - Flakes
Laura Gibson - Spirited
Zu - Ostia
We/Or/Me - Tell Sarah
The Bird and the Bee - My Love
Parlovr - Pen to the Paper
Emperor X - Go-Captain and Pinlighter

The Chris Laun Top 5

First I'd like to start this by saying talking about something related to these top 5 lists. Mike Ward issued a challenge to some of his friends a few months ago to create their favorite 60 minutes of music. The best definition that someone came up with was "songs you wouldn't skip when they came up on your Ipod." So far I think only Ward, Myers, and Colmus have participated in this project and they've each exchanged their CD's. I've been laboring over mine off and on for a few months now but this blog spurred me to finish it up this weekend. I also found a website that can help take this to the next level. Drop.io is free and you can create your own private playlist without having to signup for anything. So if you're interested in hearing mine the link is drop.io/laun60min. Only catch is you need the password and the only way to get it is by sending me your own 60 minute playlist. If you decide to do your own, make sure you rename the songs so that we don't see the song titles cause part of the experience is not knowing what's coming next. Here's a sneak preview of mine:

(Note: Not sure if these are exactly my top 5 but it's close and I thought these would be more interesting to read about than me explaining why I like a Beach Boys song)

Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen



Last week I thought it might be neat to do a spinoff series on these lists and discuss our favorite moments in music that didn't make the cut for our top 5 or even the top 60 minutes. Looking back on Eric's first list, the end of "Only In Dreams" is one of these cases where the ending might be my favorite Weezer moment but it's not my favorite Weezer song. "Born to Run" has the luxury of meeting both requirements. This whole song gets me amped up but especially so on that last verse, after the bridge is finished building up and falling down and Bruce counts it back in and the strings come up playing along with the main riff. "The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive..." I could listen to that part over and over and I've done it before. I'm a fan of epic and triumphant songs and "Born to Run" is that in spades. There are some classic songs that you know so well that they've lost their power to excite you when you hear to them but, for me, this is not one. My favorite rock song ever.

Ana Ng - They Might Be Giants



TMBG can be a pretty polarizing band. Their fans tend to be among the nerdier types and some could say they're too goofy/quirky/weird. Some might even say that they hate the way the two John's sing. I love it all. I came pretty late to the popular music game. In middle school I listened to a lot of Weird Al and Dr. Demento and through them I stumbled across TMBG so that makes them the band that I've been actively and consistently listening to the longest. Myers and Ward had their memories of listening to their mom's music that took them back to their childhood. TMBG remind me of staying over my friend Matt's house and listening to them all night or debating with my brother which of us got to buy "Apollo 18" so we didn't have duplicate copies. So definitely there's some "comfort food"iness to them but there is one thing that I think is too often overlooked: John Linnell just might be the most infectious songwriter ever. And he does it without ever sounding like anyone other than John Linnell which is perhaps even more impressive. I think most people would name "Birdhouse In Your Soul" as their clear #1 song but "Ana Ng" is my favorite. Here's some things that I love about it: 1) How the verses start on a minor chord and then two lines in switches to major which instantly changes the feeling, 2) The two-chord accordion bit that comes in halfway through the second verse which you expect to keep repeating but disappears as ominously as it came, 3) How the lyrics seem nonsensical on the surface but it's about the person on the exact opposite side of the world from you who you'll never meet 4) "And it sticks like a broken record/Everything sticks like a broken record/Everything sticks until it goes away." I still think that's as clever as I did in middle school.

Let Down - Radiohead



It was difficult for me to single out a Radiohead song but eventually I realized that this one has always been my favorite. I can remember the moment in college when I was listening to this in my car and I noticed for the first time that the vocal track that starts the last verse doesn't continue singing the lyrics on the second half of the verse. Another track comes in to do that. But the first vocal keeps going in the background and winds up with this beautiful falsetto counter-melody repeating "You'll know where you are" and it carries on even into the chorus. This is another one of those favorite musical moments. When I heard it I rewound the CD over and over and I felt like I had unlocked some sort of secret. This is one of those songs that I could listen to repeatedly and never hear it the same way twice. So many twinkling guitars and keyboards that aren't even playing in the same time signatures but somehow it all works together to create this big sonic blanket that surrounds what is otherwise an acoustic pop song.

Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush



I don't think this one will be for everyone. What happened was one day I surfing the internet and found someone's list of some of the best music videos ever so I was watching the ones I had never seen and I came across this. When it first came on I was like "WTF???" It's just Kate Bush doing some ridiculous dancing with lots of smoke and video/lighting effects. But as the video progressed I became mesmerized and then I had to watch it again. And then I had to watch it every day. And then I got the mp3 and listened to it at work and in the car. And then I found 3 different versions of the song so I could listen to them in a row and pretend I wasn't quite as obsessed. It's hard to predict what will cause me to go nuts over a song and before now I've never thought deeply about why this one strikes such a chord with me. I love how the great the chorus melody is and yet how the chords don't change exactly when you expect they will. It made me want to learn the song so I could figure out what was going on. Another thing this is I have a soft spot for female singers that sing with quirky vocalizations (Regina Spektor's "Us" is another example of a song that was met with a similarly strong obsession). I think this probably stems from my siblings and I listening to the soundtrack to Les Miserables all the time when we were younger. Eponine was one of the most tragic characters as she suffered from loving a man who didn't think of her that way and then later she dies. I related to that (first part anyways) and always had a soft spot for her. She had a high squeaky voice that might have irritated some but I thought was adorable. The same can be said about Kate Bush.

Tired of Sex - Weezer



One thing I realized in creating my top 60 minutes CD is that I'm a big fan of first tracks on CDs. 6 of the 15 songs are album openers and there were more that were on my short list that didn't make the final cut. Not sure if it's purely coincidence or if there's something about the opening of my favorite CDs that I gravitate towards. Part of this is because a lot of artists put one of their stronger songs first to pull you in. I think I read that Weezer sequenced Pinkerton in more or less chronological order of when the songs were written and "Tired of Sex" was written after the success of the blue album led Rivers Cuomo to have a lot of anonymous sex. I can't say that I relate to the lyrics personally but what has always appealed to me about this song is the production and arrangement. The drums sound HUGE. There's a lot of unpleasant feedback and reedy keyboards. The whole thing is rowdy as shit. The song starts out brimming with tension and you can tell it just wants to kick into high gear at any moment. Then the first chorus ends and it does. Then the second chorus hits takes it up to rowdy mach III. Then somewhere between the noisy solo and when the vocals come back for the third chorus it's reached mach V. And then it climaxes and everything drops out. When the band comes back in, the drums are playing half-time. The band is still rocking but they're bringing it back down to earth. It's like the arrangement itself is a metaphor for sex. Those first two Weezer albums are two of my all time favorites but of all those songs "Tired of Sex" sounds like it was the most fun to play.

There's more songs that I would love to write about so maybe I'll but some descriptions in the comments of my 60 minute mix. I know Myers has his online now too. So if you get yours together you'll have at least two at your at your fingertips immediately.

Tom Waits

This post is actually specifically about Rain Dogs. The reason for the title just being Tom Waits is because a number of people have recommended him as a general artist (George mentioned Tom Waits, and Jessica Tom Waits early(ier) years, whatever time period that means). Chris Laun recommended Rain Dogs specifically, so I am going to chalk this up as an 80% Laun recommends with 10% George and 10% JeskA thrown in. OK?

I've been meaning to post about Rain Dogs for some time now. My problem was that even though a number of people have told me how great of an album it is, it never really hit me as a Tom Waits favorite. Before two weeks ago my favorite Tom Waits album was without question Mule Variations. I would have nothing of anyone ever telling me that there was a better Tom Waits album, because Mule Variations is near perfect. It has goofy tracks, painful heart-wrenching ballads, Primusy tracks, creepy tracks about creepy neighbors, and everything in between. I was pretty much set with my favorite Tom Waits album for the rest of my life. About two weeks ago I decided to do a post on the Chris Laun Rain Dogs recommendation. After listening to Rain Dogs a couple times through I can now only say that Mule Variations is probably my favorite Tom Waits album, it is no longer definite. P.S. before I completely move on from Mule Variations. I recommend the whole album, that is for sure. It works well in it's entirety, and I think from start to finish it is extremely well crafted. A lot of variety from song to song, but that gives the album a great overall arch. Also, there are some top notch musicians on it, including bassist Greg Cohen (Masada, Ornette Coleman), Les Claypool (Primus), Marc Ribot (to be discussed further), and others. While I love all the tracks, some standouts for me are Big In Japan, Hold On, House Where Nobody Lives, Black Markey Baby, Chocolate Jesus, and maybe you should just buy the album.

After all of this praise for Mule Variations I can honestly say that I highly recommend Rain Dogs as well. Where the mood of Mule Variations is overall that of a rainy day and leans towards the depressing side, Rain Dogs sounds like a circus of pirates and muppets overall. It is pretty far to the outer edges of pop music in terms of accessibility, and actually took me a couple listens before I even decided that I liked it. And now I am listening as I type this post and realize that I love this album. Clap Hands just came on and I feel myself almost singing along. Anyway, one of my favorite parts of Rain Dogs is the wide range of instruments Waits used to get the sound. A quick visit to the Rain Dogs Wikipedia entry and a quick scroll down to personell will give you the rundown of exactly which instruments are on the album, but some strange highlights are the use of percussion instruments (most standout being marimba), organ, accordian, banjo, and a variety of horn, string and woodwind instruments. This wide scope of instruments paired with Waits' voice gives us an album that is completely unlike any other. It is also notable for being the first time that Waits hired jazz-based guitar wizard Marc Ribot, and Keith Richards of some famous rock band contributes additional guitar. Check out this one for sure. If you don't like it at first, I suggest you keep listening and it might grow. It did for me.

I have to make a special note of the sequence of the last three songs on the album, Downtown Train, Bride of Rain Dog, and Anywhere I Lay My Head. This might be the best concluding sequence of any album I've ever heard. It really ties the whole thing together. I don't have a link to Bride of Rain Dog, but here is a great video for Downtown Train followed by a live recording of Anywhere I Lay My Head from 2008. It is really great to listen to the Rain Dogs version and then listen to the 2008 version and hear how much lower his voice is now. Amazing! Enjoy. Also, I am too tired to go back and edit this post (which I normally do). You can just deal with it!

The Arcade Fire--Funeral

Some may blame me for this being another easy post, because I am already very aware of this record, and already very in love with it. I would go as far as to say that it is among my favorite rock albums I've heard in the past three years. I don't know why I picked three years, but that is the number that came to me and I stand strong behind it. I find Funeral to be at it's very best during the first days of Spring, when everyone is happy that it is warm again, and you are driving (or riding) in a car with the windows down, and that for me is the perfect situation for this album to be heard, loudly. If you already have the album, I suggest putting it away and taking it out on the first real day of Spring and try this method of listening after not having heard it for a while. If you don't have it, I suggest buying it and burying it in the yard like a squirrel with a nut, and dig it up come spring time, and enjoy it while riding in your car with the windows down. Perfect.

Funeral was released in September 2004 by a bunch of Canadians. I also really enjoy multi award-winning 2008 release Neon Bible, but it falls a little bit short of Funeral quality. Still good though, and still recommended. There is a lot going on within the sounds of Funeral. It is best described as indie-rock, whatever that means to you, but what really sticks out to me are the thick instrumental textures. There are a lot more instruments than your typical guitar, bass, drums, vocals rock album. I am currently listening to Neighborhood #3 (perhaps the most well knows song from the album) and bells/glockenspiel (looking at the liner notes it is probably xylophone, actually) and string parts really stand out to me. Perhaps the bells on this album are what drew Chris Laun to it? Also played on the album are a variety of synthesizers, accordian, recorder, multiple percussionists, violin, viola, cello, horn, harp, double bass (woot!), and last but not least male and female lead vocals. That is a lot of additional instruments not often heard on rock records, and the thick instrumentation really makes the album. Great, great songwriting too. Solid all around...Adam wholeheartedly recommends. Some clips:

A great animated video for the previously mentioned Neighborhood #3:



And a special bonus live version of Wake Up from Funeral, with guest David Bowie!:

They Might Be Giants--Flood

After not having thought about They Might Be Giants since the Egg Babies covered Birdhouse In Your Soul (when was this, Chris'?), I had two reasons to revisit them this past Friday. The first being the obvious nod to them in the Chris Laun list. The second was a little more unexpected. Lady and I decided to go out to dinner at Tapa's Teatro and see Coraline at the Charles. Little did we know that They Might Be Giants did the music for the film. When the following song came on screen Heather leaned over and asked who that voice was. At the end of the movie we both concluded with certainty that it had to be without question John Linnell of They Might Be Giants. Really, after hearing the clip there is no way that it could be anyone else. It is only 30 seconds, and I think it is great so take the time to watch it. Please?



So in two ways on Friday They Might Be Giants came charging back into my life, after having only heard them on the theme to Malcolm in the Middle for a bunch of years. That being said, I still to this day think Flood is a fantastic album. This is the TMBG album that I know more than any other by a lot, and it is pretty flawless from start to finish. Really great song writing, with some goofy twists in most cases, but they always seem to tell interesting stories even if the songs are full of nonsense syllables. The obvious highlights of the album are well known songs Particle Man, Istanbul, and Birdhouse in Your Soul, but for me equally as good as them are Whistling in the Dark, Your Racist Friend, Road Movie to Berlin, and Letterbox. I could have picked more, but we'll leave it at that. If you've heard of TMBG but don't have any albums and want to investigate further this is without a doubt that first album you should get ahold of.

Strangely (maybe not so strangely) my introduction to They Might Be Giants came via Tiny Toon Adventures when I was over Jeff Amrein's house in elementary school. Particle Man was the first clip we saw, and thought it was hilarious. Jeff's older brother Mike bought the album, and after hearing the whole thing I bought it as well (maybe with a gift certificate to Waxi Maxies?). This had to have been one of the first CD's I owned, coming shortly after M.C. Hammer's Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em (I even had a t-shirt of that one). Anyway, They Might Be Giants were a perfect fit for Tiny Toons, as their style really lent itself to cartoons. Did anyone else discover them through Tiny Toons or was that just me? Regardless, here are a couple of the clips, one for Particle Man (I love that Punch Out opening), one for Istanbul:

Requiem for a Dream

This movie is simultaneously one of the greatest and most terrible movies I have ever seen. From the director of Pi and previously mentioned on Friends Recommend The Wrestler, Darren Aronofsky. I had heard that it was a depressing movie, but good friend Aaron Gause insisted that I watch it during my senior year of JMU. I agreed, and he said if we watch it in the daytime and hang out and maybe have a beer then it isn't so bad. So I went over to his house to watch Requiem, we put it on, and 15 minutes into it he gets up to go hang out with his roomates and leaves me sitting there for the remainder of the movie. By the time it ended it was dark out, and I was severly depressed. It was a Friday night of my senior year in college, and I remember going back to my apartment and just sitting in my room sulking.

Requiem for a Dream follows the lives of four people who begin the movie as (relatively) mild drug users but over the course of the movie turn into full-fledged addicts. I won't tell you where they all end up, but I'll just tell you that they start in a low but hopeful place and steadily decline over the course of the whole movie. Ellen Burstyn (not Laura Palmer's mother) plays an amazing older woman who gets addicted to caffine pills and it is terrifying. Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans, and Jared Leto also play great parts in the film. As upsetting and terrible as the message of the movie is, it is very well done and overall one of the better movies I have seen in my life. It sucks that I swore I would never watch it again. I think it should be shown in all high schools. I really can't imagine anyone wanting to do drugs after watching this movie, and I'm sure it would stop a couple teenagers from considering it. It is dark. Real dark. The music is also fantastic. World-renowned string quartet the Kronos Quartet plays Clint Mansell's score and it is amazing. Really modern string quartet writing with the use of some electronics. It is so good that it was also used in the trailors for the Da Vinci Code and Lord of the Rings 2, I Am Legend, Babylon A.D. and video game Assassin's Creed. I highly recommend anyone who hasn't seen this movie once to see it. You may hate it because of how it makes you feel, but there is no denying that it is a great film. Here is one clip of the soundtrack from youtube:

Chris Laun

So I think Chris Laun was actually the first person to send me a list. Even before TJ and Cory participated I got a Laun list. He told me he didn't know what I was up to, but that he'd participate anyway. Then there was a lot of confusion on my part, and his list (now updated!) is just getting published. I am sorry for the delay, but now is better than ever.

The past three people who have posted lists were current Egg Babies. Chris Laun makes it the fourth Egg Baby in a row. Also, four of the past five have been members of Team Orange, our 0-19 fall-league softball team. I don't know if this is of any significance. I think it probably isn't. But next week we'll have the now exiled coach of Team Orange, and former Egg Baby Mike Gittings. I don't know if that is significant either. Regardless, I like this Chris Laun. I like his list, and I look forward to diving deeper into this stuff. If he ever gets on first base on Team Orange and I'm batting behind him, there is no way that I can't hit him into a fielder's choice and take his place on first base. I'm not sure why this happens every time without fail. I want to make this up to him somehow, but I don't know how to do that. Maybe next time he's on first I'll hit a dinger. That'll show 'em. Enjoy!!!!:

Books:

Alan Moore--Watchmen - I'm pretty damned excited for this movie. The graphic novel is fantastic. There's even a great way to check it out now with these new motion comics. They scanned the original artwork and animated it and have someone reading the dialogue like an audiobook. It's only $2 an episode and they run around 30 min a piece so you can check out the first one and see if it's up your alley. They're great though!

Williams Goldman--The Princess Bride - I had never read the book until last year and it is awesome even if you already know the movie. It's written as though William Goldman is editing a story he knew from his childhood and is only keeping the good parts so he breaks the 4th wall a lot. Clever and fun.

Joseph Heller--Catch 22 - It's been awhile since I read it but I enjoyed it a lot.
Dave Eggers--Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Harry Potter books - If you haven't read them they're a lot of fun. For real.

TV:

Firefly - Borrowed this from Myers and loved it.
Lost - If you can put in the time to catch up, it's my favorite thing on TV.

Arrested Development - I hope you've already seen this but if not, it's awesome

Music:

Prince - Purple Rain

Elvis Costello - This Year's Model

They Might Be Giants - Flood

New Pornographers - Mass Romantic

Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun
Arcade Fire - Funeral

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs

Springsteen - The Wild, The Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle

Movies: (Most of my favorites have already been covered but here's a few others)

The Truman Show
Dr Strangelove
Annie Hall
28 Days Later
Miller's Crossing
The Muppet Movie
Requiem for a Dream
UHF

Video Game:

Bioshock: Don't know if you would have the ability to play this but Mike Ward recommended it to me and the story was really smart and fascinating. This video gives you an idea of the story, mood, and look of the game though you don't really beat up little girls like it implies you do. Really creative game though.