Gimmie Some Vinyl

I went to Longman & Eagle last night for the opening of a little art exhibit featuring the works that Jonas Torvestig did for Peter Bjorn & John's latest album, Gimmie Some. He designed the three thumb cover art, but on display were twelve separate acrylic tiles with different variations on the theme--one for each track on the album.

I even got to meet the guys in the band since they were on hand hosting the opening. I always feel like a total heel whenever I actually talk to celebrities or musicians that I like...folks that I admire I guess...but they were really nice and they signed the 7" box set that I bought there. It's super cool, it has all Torvestig's corresponding prints on the sleeves inside. Oh, and it's numbered. I'm pretty sure I heard it was a limited run of 300. Pretty cool. Now we just gotta get that record player fixed...

The band will be in town through the weekend playing small shows as part of their All You Can Eat Tour. I'm super stoked to see them again tonight in the place that I first saw them back in '07 after the whole Young Folksplosion--The Empty Bottle.

It's Friday!

of Montreal @ the Vic last night*...

Peter, Bjorn & John @ Lincoln Hall tomorrow night**...

I don’t want this weekend to end...


*the second tier tour truly is more fun.
**I may not totally dig the new album, but I still love me some PB&J.

The Obligatory "Best Of" Posting

These are my favorite albums of 2009. The ones that were on repeat nonstop for sometime throughout the year, the ones I came back to when I wanted to be in a good mood or sing along. I started this list in January in a simple Google Doc where I noted when I could tell an album was beginning to pull on me in some way or another. Is it like I couldn’t remember later which ones supposedly stood out to me throughout the year? Frankly, yes. It’s like when someone comes up and asks you what’s good that’s new, or what they should be listening to right now, or what’s my favorite album right now… my mind goes completely blank.

This sort of list requires some thought, and this list is important enough to me that I didn’t want to accidentally leave out a single one (you know how when you’re packing for a trip and you get there and you realize you left out something really important like your underwear…), hence the Google Doc. I almost didn’t even do a year end list, though. When all the magazine, blog, radio best of lists started coming out, I get tired of reading slightly different versions basically the same lists, but it’s nice to reference back to the year as a whole, and be able to start anew in 2010.

So here it is… and when any of you ask me what my favorite albums/songs of ’09 were (or any of the above questions) I’m going to tell you to read my blog.

I decided to just list them here, in no particular order, without descriptions or reasoning of why I loved them so much—I’m fairly sure I did a pretty good job gushing about each one at some point on my blog in the past year, so if you need backup, click on through to the other side.


Andrew Bird - Noble Beast


Neko Case - Middle Cyclone


Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix


Bad Veins - Bad Veins


The Flaming Lips - Embryonic


Amazing Baby - Rewild


Peter Bjorn & John - Living Thing


Metric - Fantasies


White Rabbits - It's Frightening


Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures


*PS* I'm thinking of putting up a Favorite Songs of '09 list as well (since I just realized I started a best songs Google Doc, too, and there were some good ones!).

Song of the Summer

Every summer there is a song that gets constantly remixed, played in dj sets, covered all over the place by other bands, earns the top spot on "Top 25 Most Played" playlist on your iPod, and just downright seeps into your brain.

There has been some talk that this year's song was "Kids" by MGMT, but if you ask me, that song didn't get hot until the end of summer/beginning of fall. For me, 2008's song of summer was definitely "Cold Dust Girl" by Hey Champ. They're local, so this one didn’t dominate across the country, but in my world, it was huge. First of all, they're my friends, so I was going to all their shows anyway, but then they filmed a video for "Cold Dust Girl" starring a bunch of friends (yours truly making an appearance) and it started popping up in DJ sets around town and all over local blogs. And now they're signed to a label and touring with Lupe Fiasco. On top of all the hooplah, the song is incredibly catchy and fun to listen to. The perfect summer soundtrack. What was your song of summer?


Past year's “songs of summer":

2007: "Young Folks" - Peter, Bjorn & John
2006: "Crazy" - Gnarls Barkley
2005: "Mr. Brightside" - The Killers
2004: "Toxic" - Britney Spears (ok, guilty pleasure, but I was guiltlessly into pop.)
2003: "SexyBack" "Rock Your Body" - (alright, another guilty pleasure*, but this song rocked my summer on the boat at Party Cove.)

Geez, I had great taste in music for a while there...



*When I bought this cd I actually put it under another cd so no one would see I was buying it--yeah, thats back when we still bought cds, so instead of being on an iPod playlist, the cd was probably in the little holder on the visor in my car.

New PBJ Out, oM Release Pushed Back

The new Peter Bjorn and John album Seaside Rock came out yesterday, and while it is a unique collection of instrumental songs and monologues, as a whole it doesn’t blow me away quite as much as the first single did. Still worth a listen though.

In other album release news, of Montreal has pushed back their Skeletal Lamping release date from October 7 to October 21. Guess all those "different iterations" turned out to be a little more to handle than they anticipated! They have been busy though, find them this fall in a Spin feature and gracing the cover of Paste Magazine. Oh, and then there's this...

Holy Wow.

I just heard the new single from Peter, Bjorn and John and it is awesome. It’s a lot darker and a huge departure from their old stuff (well, maybe not if you get really into the end of Writers Block). Apparently this new album, Seaside Rock, is all instrumental and its only coming out on vinyl and mp3. It comes out September 23. Sign me up.

"Inland Empire"