Real Palindrones: The Narniales of the The BIRD

Hugh Dam Wright. Andrew Bird is coming to Oxford Monday, February 13 at Proud Larry's. After cancelling this past summer, he is coming back to O'town.

Live Shows for Download

My Old Kentucky Blog

has a Sufjan Stevens show from this year.


Also, John Vanderslice has posted a live show of his on his

website.

How Many Bands do you See? and Live Arcade FIire

How many bands can you find? I am on 32 so far. There are bands from old school to new indie etc.

Also check out: So Much Silence for a live Arcade Fire show.

Top 25 Albums of 2005

25. Son Volt - A Retrospective; best song: "Windfall" (of course)

24. The Magic Numbers - The Magic Numbers; best song: "Mornings Eleven"

23. Bonnie Prince Billy/Matt Sweeney - Superwolf; best song: "My Home is the Sea"

22. Son Volt - Okemah and the Melody of Riot; best song:"6 String Belief"

21. John Vanderslice - Pixel Revolt; best song: "Exodus Damage"

20. Stephen Malkmus - Face the Truth; best song: "Freeze the Saints"

19. Sun Kil Moon - Tiny Cities; best song: "Never Ending Math Equation"

18. The Decemberists - Picaresque; best song: "On a Bus Mall"

17. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm; best song: "Like Eating Glass"

16. Andrew Bird - The Mysterious Production of Eggs; best song: "Fake Palindrones"

15. Clem Snide - End of Love; best song: "End of Love"

14. Death Cab For Cutie - Plans; best song: "Your Heart is an Empty Room"

13. Stars - Set Yourself on Fire; best song: "Set Yourself On Fire"

12. Kings of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak; best song: "The Bucket"

11. Sigur Ros' - Takk'; best song: "Milano'"


10. The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike (Remastered for US) best songs (tie): "Everybody's a VIP" and "Ladyflash"

9. Bright Eyes - Digital Ash in a Digital Urn; best song: "Hit the Switch"

8. Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary; best song: "Shine a Light"

7. Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene; best song: "7/4 Shoreline"

6. The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema; best song: "The Bleeding Heart Show"


5. Spoon - Gimme Fiction; best song: "The Beast and Dragon, Adored"

4. Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake Its Morning; best song: "Road to Joy"

3. My Morning Jacket - Z; best song: "Wordless Chorus"

2. Sufjan Stevens - Come and Feel the Illinoise; best song: "Chicago"

1. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!;
best songs: (tie) "In this Home on Ice" and "Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth"

Great MP3's

Muzzle of Bees has My Morning jacket B sides.
My Old Kentucky Blog and
You Ain't No Picasso both have unrealeased Neutral Milk mp3's.
Also check out
Indie Connection for a Sufjan Christmas.
Think Tank has new Belle and Sebastian tracks from their new album.

When Pitchfork Stabs Itself

Sometimes the experts are just wrong.
Pitchforkmedia is sometimes just flat out wrong. I am not sure if they do it for dramatic effect or what. To start off, it gave Belle and Sebastian's The Boy With the Arab Strap a 0.8 Review. I mean come on. This album is actually very good. The fact that they could give this a 0.8 and give, for instance, the new Sinead O'Connor album a 6.8 is baffling. I don't care if they are doing it for emphasis this is ridiculous. The song "Sleep the Clock Around" should in and of itself give it over a three. This album has many other songs such as "The Boy with the Arab Strap," "Rollercoaster Ride" and many others that are amazing.


Another mishap is their problem with Kings of Leon. For some random reason, they do not really like any sort of Southern music. They gave both albums terrible reviews. Reviews They gave each albums 4.2 and 4.9 respectively. Both of these albums are very different from any other albums. They poke fun at the song "Soft" calling it basically GRODY. This song is a very clever song and very good. Hey pitchfork, get over the Southern rock thing. It's much better than rap.











Another stabber comes with Bright Eyes Lifted. This is one of the best albums I have ever heard. They give it a mediocre 7.7. Review. I think Conor pissed them off with his line "I do not read the reviews, I am not singing for you." This album deserves a 10.0. It is very creative and completely different. The lyrics are amazingly written.




Pitchfork hates Death Cab. Transatlantacism is their masterpiece. Pitchfork gives it a terrible 6.4. Review. This is yet another very creative very different albums that is groundbreaking. Pitchfork has a hatred for Ben Gibbard because they are too cool for him. Although he did sell out by going major label, this album was before that.




Then we come to an undeserved pitchfork 10.0. Review.Bonnie Prince Billy - I See a Darkness. I mean come on. The album starts off with a bang with "Minor Place". Soon after this song end, break out the sleeping bags and teddy bear. The rest of the album is very boring. Although he is a lyricist, he needs to speed it up a bit. Don't get me wrong it is a good album, but not even close to a 10.0.

Next, we come to the My Morning Jacket Z. Here we go again with Southern rock. This album is a daring different album by one of the most underrated bands out there. Exactly what Pitchfork usually loves. They love a different follow up album. Well they give it a whopping 7.4. Review. "Wordless Chorus" should be enough to push it over eight just by that one song. The whole album is incredible.



Lastly, the clever Sun Kil Moon's Tiny Cities. This album consists of Modest Mouse covers sung by Mark Koselek's Sun Kil Moon. This is a great album. Pitchfork gave it a 3.0. ReviewAre you kidding? Every song on the album is solid. Modest Mouse without the lisp. Can you beat it?

The Sweet Sound of Humility: Bright Eyes in Nashville at the Ryman Auditorium November 14, 2005

The Opening Acts: I accidentally missed The Magic Numbers but I caught most of Feist. She put on an amazing show. She sounded amazing and really captured the audience. I thought it was going to be too slow, but it was far from that. She put on a great show.

The Venue: Obviously the Ryman is an amazing venue. Conor kept talking about how much he could not believe he was playing on that stage (it is where the Grand Ole Opry used to be). Also, the place was packed.
Bright Eyes: Conor was a little drunk but nonetheless put on a hell of a show. He sounded great and was really into the crowd. He communicated the whole time with the crowd. I started out on the balcony and then noticed two empty seats on the front row. I spent the second half of the show about 3 feet from him. Aside from his spitting everywhere, he has great stage presence. He did not meat out about anything which was good and was very very appreciative about everything: the crowd, Nashville, the opening bands etc.
The Setlist: The Setlist was pretty solid. It was very diverse. He played stuff of almost all of the albums with a little lean towards the greatest album Lifted. Gillian Welch and her sidekick David Rawlings came out for the encore which was Long Black Veil it was truly amazing. When Conor said this is the last song I yelled out, "Let's Not Shit Ourselves" and he pointed at me and set let's play that and yelled for a timpany roll. I was very excited. Then we got a copy of the setlist, and I realized he was already going to play it so it wasn't as cool but oh well. At the very end he jumped up on the bass drum and then jumped off of it and fell down. It was pretty cool. All in all the show was amazing.
Sunrise, Sunset
You Will You Will
Calender Hung Itself
False Advertisements
Hit the Switch
Napoleon's Hat
I Won't Ever Be Happy Again
Old Soul Song
No-one Would Riot for Less
Falling Out of Love at This Volume
True Blue
Encore:
Long Black Veil*
Lua*
Revelator (Gillian Welch Song)*
Let's Not Shit Ourselves$
*With Gillian Welch and David Rawlings on Vocals and Guitar
$With Gillian Welch on tambourine and David Rawlings on guitar

The make out mix.

Mcphail's make out mix. For they shall chant his name.
1. Sigur Ros' - Staralfur
2. Chris Isaac - Wicked Game
3. Ben Harper - Sexual Healing
4. Mazzy Star - Fade into You
5. My Morning Jacket -Steam Engine
6. The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
7. Im0gen Heap - Hide and Seek
8. Coldplay - Fix You
9. My Morning Jacket - I Will Be There When You Die
10.My Morning Jacket - Wordless Chorus
11. Beck - Lost Cause
12. Sufjan Stevens - Casmir Pulaski Day
13. The Jayhawks - All the Right Reasons
14. My Morning Jacket - Just One Thing
15. Pete Yorn - Simonize 

Death Star: Death Cab for Cutie and Stars in Nashville, TN 10-28-05

Stars in Top Left. Death Cab in Others. Bottom Right is when Stars came out for Trans- atlantacism.

The Venue:
First of all War Memorial Auditorium was great. The sound was perfect and anywhere you were was a good spot. They had three bars set up, so no big lines. Also, we were probably the oldest people there. The place is like an old courthouse with huge columns in the front. Very nice place.
The Crowd:
I thought the crowd was going to be a let down. During Stars, they were dead. Nobody knew much of it. Most of the people were under 21(not that that is bad just weird). Indie kids are not very good fans. However, when Death Cab came out the crowd went crazy. They were very loud and singing.(probably because of the OC)

Stars:
I did not realize that Stars is a seven piece band. They sounded excellent. They played probably like the first 6 or seven off of Set Yourself on Fire. They also played some off of Heart. Afterwards, we met the band who were just hanging out in the side of the auditorium. They were very nice. All in all they put on an amazing show.

Death Cab For Cutie:
Death Cab exceeded my expectations ten folds. Luckily, this time Ben did not meat out about politics and what not. They played many songs off Plans but failed to play my favorite song: “Your Heart is an Empty Room.” Oh well. Transatlantacism made up for it. Stars came out and sang, “Come On” at the end. It was amazing.

Setlist:
Marching Bands of Manhattan
New Year
Why You’d Want to Live Here
Title and Registration
Photobooth
Soul Meets Body
Summer Skin
For What Reason
Company Calls
Crooked Teeth
Different Names for the Same Thing
Amputations
Movie Script Ending
What Sarah Said
Brothers on a Hotel Bed
Expo 86’
Sound of Settling
Encore:
I Will Follow You into the Dark
Tiny Vessels
Transatlantacism*
*with Stars

Spoon with Super Diamond at New Daisy Theater at Memphis, TN

Super Diamond is on the top left picture. Spoon is in the remaining ones.
















The Venue:
As always the New Daisy Theater was perfect. The place was decorated with Sin City theme which was obviously done by Spoon's agent or record company. All in all it was pretty funny though. They had pole dancers and casino tables everywhere with a Las Vegas backdrop. I think it was sponsored by Camel cigarettes.

The Opening band:
The opening band was hilarious: A Neil Diamond Coverband called Super Diamond. Many of us were singing along to all of the cheesy favorites such as: Coming To America, Love on the Rocks, Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon, Sweet Caroline. One cool part was at the end of Sweet Caroline they broke into "Sweet Child O' Mine." and sang the lyrics to Sweet Caroline. All in all they were amazing.

Spoon:
Spoon satisfied every need I had. They played every single song I wanted to hear. Off of
Girls Can Tell they played
"Me and the Bean,"
"Beleiving is art,"
"Lines in the Suit,"
"The Fitted Shirt" and
for encore my favorite "Anything You Want." and possibly others.
Gimme Fiction:
They started of with "The Beast and Dragon, adored," others they played on
"Sister Jack,"
"I Summon You,"
"Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine,"
"I Turn My Camera On" and
my favorite "Mathematical Mind" which they absolutely rocked out.
On Kill the Moonlight, they played,
"The Way We Get By."
"Two Stakes"
"Jonathon Fisk" among others.

The Crowd:

We decided that "Indie" kids are not very cool. They are too afraid to have fun at concerts. I miss the hippie crowd in my hippie phase. My friends and I were probably some of the oldest there and probably dancing the most. Indie kids just stare at the band.....More on this later with the Death Cab in Nashville review.