Well, it's that time of year again. A new Poor-Ass Christmas! Hooray!
This year, as a year, was kind of a bust. A whole useless year. I'm afraid some of that shows in the music i listened to over the past 12 months, from last November through this October. This year was all about self-deconstruction. If you're put off by that, all it means is that next year is about reconstruction. Starting now.
So, the music.
1. Ellie Goulding - Only You
elliegoulding.com
Last year i fell in love with the song Lights, as evidenced by its prominent post as track 11 on the PAC. If i haven't mentioned before (and i'm not going back to check now), i tend to put my favorite song of the album at track 11 any time i sequence anything. This year, that adoration spread throughout the rest of her discography, which is not as easy a feat as it seems. Sure, she's only got two albums and an EP at first glance, but start digging through her compilation appearances and guest spots, and you'll find that she's as prolific as she is gifted.
This song in particular just feels so heavy to me. Even though the lyrics are pretty sparse, the emotion she conveys rips right through me. This song is the #1 most played song in my iTunes right now. It'll probably stay there for a while.
2. Lorde - Glory and Gore
lorde.co.nz
Here's some more pop music for you.
I wasn't fond of Royals while it was tearing up the airwaves early last year. But as time wore on and more and more people that i knew, people who don't even like pop music, started posting links on Facebook to interviews and TV appearances and such with Lorde, i started to get curious. And i watched some of them. And then began to realize how awesome she was as a person. The fact that she's from New Zealand is just icing on the cake. I mentioned to Christina, my pop music confidante, that i had decided to like Lorde, even if i had not yet officially started.
Too late to include it on last year's comp, i checked out the album on Spotify, and then ended up buying it. With each successive listen, it grew on me a little more, and i decided that i really liked Team. If i'd bought the album when i was supposed to, like a good music consumer, Team would have definitely been on the 2013 Poor-Ass Christmas. But, as it hit the radio shortly after, i got a little weary of it.
And, truthfully, this song is better anyway.
Amanda's rollerderby team, the Reservoir Dolls, do a compilation every year, where each skater picks one song to represent themselves. This was her contribution this year.
3. Dead Apples - Jose
facebook.com/deadapples1
One of my favorite local bands. They recorded this album, Pie, early last year (or was it 2012, even?) but were unhappy with the way it turned out and decided not to release it. I finally convinced them to at least leak me a copy toward the end of the year, and i think it's phenomenal. In fact, some of their complaints about the album were some of my favorite parts about it.
They finally released it as a download after i got my CD.
Since Mighty Myrtle was sadly written after the Pie recording sessions, this is my favorite song on the album. I thought it was the perfect follow-up to Lorde.
4. Veruca Salt - I'm Taking Europe With Me
verucasalt.com
I've been really weird about Veruca Salt on the Poor-Ass Christmas compilations.
When i first had the opportunity to see them live (well, when i got to see Veruca Starship live, anyway)(...and have an awkward, embarrassing fanboy moment with Louise Post afterward), they were promoting a new album, their first in six years, and on the PAC that year i included...an obscure old B-side cover. The year that the original members started talking to each other again, i put a hard to find old demo in. So this year, when they're finally out on their reunion tour and i finally got to go see them as the band they were always meant to be, which was FUCKING AMAZING, i offer you a track from the stopgap EP that came between their first two albums.
Take. That.
5. Klaxons - Two Receivers
klaxons.net
That New Zealand trip from six years ago just hasn't stopped rippling through my compilations. If you don't already know the background, we were stuck with a very limited number of CDs for driving around a country with almost no radio stations for three weeks. One of the more important compilations i picked up on that trip included the Kaiser Chiefs covering Golden Skans, which i enjoyed enough to grab two Klaxons discs off of the dollar rack at Half-Price this year. Interestingly, i also picked up two Kaiser Chiefs albums this year, and briefly couldn't stop listening to Ruby, also. But the Klaxons album Myths of the Near Future stayed in the car for months, including making two road trips to Indianapolis with us. This stuff is so good, you guys. So good.
6. Denali - Normal Days
myspace.com/denaliband
One of the really nice things about finally having all 5,000 of my CDs ripped into my iTunes is building smart playlists with specific criteria, and then listening to them on shuffle. This is how i found Denali. I've only got a couple of tracks by them, from some of the (arguably) punk compilations that i'm fond of collecting. This one comes to us from the Rock Against Bush series. The other songs of theirs i have are pretty great too. Now i'm on the lookout for their albums.
7. The Cooper Temple Clause - A.I.M.
Lots of British bands on the comp this year. Just noticed that. Hmm.
I'm not really sure what to say about this one. I bought one of their albums pretty recently at Half-Price Books for a buck because i thought i had maybe heard of them once - a type of indiscretion i've mostly put a lid on, because it often leads to me buying garbage i don't want. When i got home, i discovered i already had another album by them. Can't figure out why. But i listened to them both and they're pretty great. I've been listening to both of those albums pretty heavily ever since. This is easily their best song.
8. Oasis - D'You Know What I Mean?
oasisnet.com
Do you know how hard i have to want it to include a 7+ minute song on the Christmas CD?
I've been hitting the bottle that is 90s nostalgia pretty hard this year. With all of my music in the aforementioned iTunes library, i've spent hours upon hours meticulously building playlists, many themed on the 90s, including broadly 90s rock playlists and most specifically 90s alternative music. This is what brought me to this song, and remembering that Oasis was actually pretty fucking great in their heyday. In the UK they were practically hailed as the second coming of the Beatles; over here, not so much. I posted on Facebook that i was suddenly going through an Oasis phase, and wouldn't i have had to be ten years younger twenty years ago for this to happen? The comments on that got pretty good. I'd say this is probably a controversial choice for the PAC. But i don't care. This song more or less defined the second half of the year for me. I listened to it just soooooo much.
9. Samiam - Dull
samiamfancy.com
This damn song was stuck in my head for months. More specifically, just the line "I know why he put that bullet in his skull," just randomly, every so often, for months, and i didn't know what it was. I kept trying to think where that line was coming from, why i knew it, who sang it, anything, but couldn't come up with it. I had a vague idea of what the singer's voice was kind of like, a little rough and gravelly, and i kept coming up with Against Me! or O Pioneers!!!, but listening to those bands yielded no results. Then one day i was just browsing through the Mobyfort and stopped suddenly at Samiam, that lyric suddenly recurring in my head again. I listened through three of their albums before i found it. This is that song. This is the one. Success!
And it really fits the mood of the year for me. See, i told you this year's disc had some downers on it.
10. Screaming Females - Starving Dog
screamingfemales.com
I LOVE THIS BAND.
Jesus, i cannot describe how much i love this band.
Odds are good that Screaming Females will be appearing on every volume of Trevor's Poor-Ass Christmas for the forseeable future. Marissa Paternoster is my guitar hero.
11. Damsel Trash - More Drunk, Less Pregnant
damseltrash.com
This is my favorite Madison band right now. Their live show is truly a spectacular thing to behold. And with songs about roller derby sex, pugs, and what an asshole Daniel Tosh is (which is great, because i feel like nobody else is holding him accountable for being a homophobic rape apologist dickbag, and that bothers me), the appeal should be obvious. Plus, did you see the title of this song?!
12. damidol - Mighty Myrtle
facebook.com/damidol
I really didn't want to put any damidol on the PAC this year, but i really had to. After 12 years, we called it quits this June, so what you have here is the very last damidol recording ever. The astute among you may have noticed, either from last year's CD or from the third entry in these very liner notes, that it's a Dead Apples cover. This was our contribution to the 2014 Local Love Fest compilation. When Cyrus from Dead Apples first heard it, his reaction was, "Oh my god, they are fucking this up so perfectly." I think he liked it.
13. Andy D Presents the Weekend - Angels on the Dance Floor
andydlovesyou.com
I was first introduced to Andy D - literally, with handshaking and everything - in 2012 at the Melody Inn in Indianapolis. We were both there to see the final Beta Male show, a sad event for sure, made sadder by the fact that it was the first Beta Male show i'd ever been able to attend. I didn't get to an Andy D show until the following year, which is when i picked up his albums, but i don't think i really got it until just recently. I was having a discussion with Shayne and Christina comparing and contrasting Andy D's art with that of Die Antwoord, who i think are dicks. I'm not sure how that association first came up. But that was when i realized that Andy D's performance, his appearance, and his music are just so...earnest. Like Rick Astley. What you see is what you get with Andy D. This is really who he is, it's not just a persona that he straps on with his fanny pack when he's trying to impress some fans, like Marilyn Manson. The guy really just wants to do what he wants, have a good time, and make sure everybody else does. If you stuck Andy in the same room with Andrew WK, the whole world would probably just smile and pee a little bit and never know why.
Plus, when i first caught the line "I overflow with confidence, like i've got three dicks," i knew i was sold.
14. Broken Bells - Holding On for Life
brokenbells.com
Well, here's something that i waited four years for. Such a long wait, in fact, that i had forgotten all about it by the time it came out. The first couple times i heard this song on the radio, i said to myself, "What is this? It's lovely." Finally i was able to catch it with my phone out and Shazam it, and when its identity was revealed, i was like, "Oh yeah! I've been waiting for this!"
Cool story, bro.
15. Pet - Lil' Boots
Turns out they are one of my things.
16. Droids Attack - Stick 'Em Up
droidsattack.com
Another one from this year's Local Love Fest compilation, and one of the four (!) songs that i got to contribute vocals to. I'm in the background gang vocals, which were a lot of fun to sing. I got a knife, you motherfucker! Stick 'em up!
This is a cover of a Masked Intruder song, who are fast becoming one of Madison's biggest claims to fame, musically.
17. Sir!NoSir! - A Means to an End
sirnosir.bandcamp.com
Another of my local favorites; i've been following these guys around since their inception. In fact they appeared on the very first episode of Wisconscene a couple years ago, and were later one of the first bands to let me experiment on them when i got myself a studio to work in. They've definitely come a long way in the last few years and they only keep getting better. This is a great song, i know it's deeply personal to Nate, their frontman, and i feel like he really funnels that into it every time i see them perform.
18. Old Buffalo Money - The World's News
facebook.com/oldbuffalomoney
Another one of my favorite local bands. These guys contacted me out of the blue last year to be on Wisconscene, and i'm really glad they did. I wandered out to the Wisco recently to see them play with Damsel Trash and Red Tape Diaries, and they slipped me copies of both of their albums and a beer. The beer didn't last long, but the music did - both albums have been in my iPod since and they've frequently helped carry me through those long, cold days of entering data.
19. Cage the Elephant - It's Just Forever (f/Alison Mosshart)
cagetheelephant.com
Here's another one that i was surprised and happy to hear on the radio - not this particular song this time, but new material from Cage the Elephant. Here's a band whose every album is completely different from the others, yet still feels like it has the same source, which is something that i love finding in a band. I listened to their first one pretty relentlessly, but their second didn't really do it for me (even though that was the one that had the critics all pooping in their pants). This third album, though, really hit the spot, a logical progression from where they started, pushing into deeper and more interesting territory. It's pretty great, is what i'm saying.
This particular song features Alison Mosshart on guest vocals, which is important to me not because she was in The Kills and The Dead Weather (although...yeah, that's cool), but because i fucking love Discount, because of course i do.
20. Veruca Salt - The Museum of Broken Relationships
verucasalt.com
Oh, here's that new Veruca Salt song.
Did i mention i got to see them this year?
21. Sleater-Kinney - Bury Our Friends
sleater-kinney.com
Oh my god. This is happening.
Sleater-Kinney is my favorite band of all time, which was always unfortunate, because i discovered them literally just after they broke up. Like, months after. Corin's solo albums did nothing for me, and Wild Flag had a few good songs but always felt like something was missing.
When discussing overinflated concert tickets, i've long said that the only band i would ever consider paying $100 to see would be a reunited Sleater-Kinney, but i never thought it would actually happen.
Then, i go and take a week to go film a documentary Up Nort' where internet signal is spotty at best, and suddenly people who ordered the career-spanning retrospective vinyl boxed set of Sleater-Kinney's albums start discovering an extra 7" inexplicably shoved into the box, with a BRAND NEW FUCKING SONG ON IT. This song. This one. Bury Our Friends.
AND THEN SUDDENLY TICKETS FOR A SHOW IN MILWAUKEE GO ON PREORDER.
THERE'S A TOUR.
OH MY GOD THIS IS HAPPENING.
Fortunately my bandmates (in Cats On Leashes) were prescient enough to snag me a ticket. The show sold out.
And the tickets were only $35! So it's fortunate for me that i didn't get stuck in the awkward position of deciding whether i would actually have shelled out the hundo.
...
(I totally would have)
Songs that got cut
Just in case you wanted to put together your own deluxe edition or something, here's what else was considered:
Go Van Go - How Come Everybody's Got a Gun? (Something that came up on shuffle once that i kind of liked, but not enough)
Lorde - Team (Previously discussed)
Five Knives - All Fall Down (Another thing that came up on shuffle that i really liked, but didn't feel like it fit into the CD)
Veruca Salt - It's Holy (The other of the two new Veruca Salt songs they released this year, it was really a one-or-the-other situation between this and Museum of Broken Relationships)
7 Year Bitch - 24,900 Miles Per Hour (One of the last ones i cut. Another 90s nostalgia song)
Klaxons - Isle of Her (chose Two Receivers instead)
John Statz - Useless (This was hard to lose, but it's really long, and there are a lot of long songs already this year. Plus i think it's the only one of his songs i like, so whatever)
that dog. - Lip Gloss (Something Cats On Leashes has been covering. Cool song, but didn't really need to be on here.)
Screeching Weasel - Soap Opera (This actually made the first cut, but after listening to the whole comp a few times i decided that i just wasn't that enthusiastic about it. So i replaced it with the Droids Attack track. Here's what i had written: "Screeching Weasel has always been a compilation band to me. I knew them only from their appearances on punk compilations, which are numerous. But i did come into possession of one of their albums - interestingly enough, a compilation itself - and listened through it a few times. They're still not a band that i'm really into, but this song in particular just feels right. Probably because that long breakdown in the middle was unexpected and really sticks out from the remaining body of their work. Fun song anyway.")
All things considered, you fuckers are lucky i didn't force Turn Down For What on you.
This year, as a year, was kind of a bust. A whole useless year. I'm afraid some of that shows in the music i listened to over the past 12 months, from last November through this October. This year was all about self-deconstruction. If you're put off by that, all it means is that next year is about reconstruction. Starting now.
So, the music.
1. Ellie Goulding - Only You
elliegoulding.com
Last year i fell in love with the song Lights, as evidenced by its prominent post as track 11 on the PAC. If i haven't mentioned before (and i'm not going back to check now), i tend to put my favorite song of the album at track 11 any time i sequence anything. This year, that adoration spread throughout the rest of her discography, which is not as easy a feat as it seems. Sure, she's only got two albums and an EP at first glance, but start digging through her compilation appearances and guest spots, and you'll find that she's as prolific as she is gifted.
This song in particular just feels so heavy to me. Even though the lyrics are pretty sparse, the emotion she conveys rips right through me. This song is the #1 most played song in my iTunes right now. It'll probably stay there for a while.
2. Lorde - Glory and Gore
lorde.co.nz
Here's some more pop music for you.
I wasn't fond of Royals while it was tearing up the airwaves early last year. But as time wore on and more and more people that i knew, people who don't even like pop music, started posting links on Facebook to interviews and TV appearances and such with Lorde, i started to get curious. And i watched some of them. And then began to realize how awesome she was as a person. The fact that she's from New Zealand is just icing on the cake. I mentioned to Christina, my pop music confidante, that i had decided to like Lorde, even if i had not yet officially started.
Too late to include it on last year's comp, i checked out the album on Spotify, and then ended up buying it. With each successive listen, it grew on me a little more, and i decided that i really liked Team. If i'd bought the album when i was supposed to, like a good music consumer, Team would have definitely been on the 2013 Poor-Ass Christmas. But, as it hit the radio shortly after, i got a little weary of it.
And, truthfully, this song is better anyway.
Amanda's rollerderby team, the Reservoir Dolls, do a compilation every year, where each skater picks one song to represent themselves. This was her contribution this year.
3. Dead Apples - Jose
facebook.com/deadapples1
One of my favorite local bands. They recorded this album, Pie, early last year (or was it 2012, even?) but were unhappy with the way it turned out and decided not to release it. I finally convinced them to at least leak me a copy toward the end of the year, and i think it's phenomenal. In fact, some of their complaints about the album were some of my favorite parts about it.
They finally released it as a download after i got my CD.
Since Mighty Myrtle was sadly written after the Pie recording sessions, this is my favorite song on the album. I thought it was the perfect follow-up to Lorde.
4. Veruca Salt - I'm Taking Europe With Me
verucasalt.com
I've been really weird about Veruca Salt on the Poor-Ass Christmas compilations.
When i first had the opportunity to see them live (well, when i got to see Veruca Starship live, anyway)(...and have an awkward, embarrassing fanboy moment with Louise Post afterward), they were promoting a new album, their first in six years, and on the PAC that year i included...an obscure old B-side cover. The year that the original members started talking to each other again, i put a hard to find old demo in. So this year, when they're finally out on their reunion tour and i finally got to go see them as the band they were always meant to be, which was FUCKING AMAZING, i offer you a track from the stopgap EP that came between their first two albums.
Take. That.
5. Klaxons - Two Receivers
klaxons.net
That New Zealand trip from six years ago just hasn't stopped rippling through my compilations. If you don't already know the background, we were stuck with a very limited number of CDs for driving around a country with almost no radio stations for three weeks. One of the more important compilations i picked up on that trip included the Kaiser Chiefs covering Golden Skans, which i enjoyed enough to grab two Klaxons discs off of the dollar rack at Half-Price this year. Interestingly, i also picked up two Kaiser Chiefs albums this year, and briefly couldn't stop listening to Ruby, also. But the Klaxons album Myths of the Near Future stayed in the car for months, including making two road trips to Indianapolis with us. This stuff is so good, you guys. So good.
6. Denali - Normal Days
myspace.com/denaliband
One of the really nice things about finally having all 5,000 of my CDs ripped into my iTunes is building smart playlists with specific criteria, and then listening to them on shuffle. This is how i found Denali. I've only got a couple of tracks by them, from some of the (arguably) punk compilations that i'm fond of collecting. This one comes to us from the Rock Against Bush series. The other songs of theirs i have are pretty great too. Now i'm on the lookout for their albums.
7. The Cooper Temple Clause - A.I.M.
Lots of British bands on the comp this year. Just noticed that. Hmm.
I'm not really sure what to say about this one. I bought one of their albums pretty recently at Half-Price Books for a buck because i thought i had maybe heard of them once - a type of indiscretion i've mostly put a lid on, because it often leads to me buying garbage i don't want. When i got home, i discovered i already had another album by them. Can't figure out why. But i listened to them both and they're pretty great. I've been listening to both of those albums pretty heavily ever since. This is easily their best song.
8. Oasis - D'You Know What I Mean?
oasisnet.com
Do you know how hard i have to want it to include a 7+ minute song on the Christmas CD?
I've been hitting the bottle that is 90s nostalgia pretty hard this year. With all of my music in the aforementioned iTunes library, i've spent hours upon hours meticulously building playlists, many themed on the 90s, including broadly 90s rock playlists and most specifically 90s alternative music. This is what brought me to this song, and remembering that Oasis was actually pretty fucking great in their heyday. In the UK they were practically hailed as the second coming of the Beatles; over here, not so much. I posted on Facebook that i was suddenly going through an Oasis phase, and wouldn't i have had to be ten years younger twenty years ago for this to happen? The comments on that got pretty good. I'd say this is probably a controversial choice for the PAC. But i don't care. This song more or less defined the second half of the year for me. I listened to it just soooooo much.
9. Samiam - Dull
samiamfancy.com
This damn song was stuck in my head for months. More specifically, just the line "I know why he put that bullet in his skull," just randomly, every so often, for months, and i didn't know what it was. I kept trying to think where that line was coming from, why i knew it, who sang it, anything, but couldn't come up with it. I had a vague idea of what the singer's voice was kind of like, a little rough and gravelly, and i kept coming up with Against Me! or O Pioneers!!!, but listening to those bands yielded no results. Then one day i was just browsing through the Mobyfort and stopped suddenly at Samiam, that lyric suddenly recurring in my head again. I listened through three of their albums before i found it. This is that song. This is the one. Success!
And it really fits the mood of the year for me. See, i told you this year's disc had some downers on it.
10. Screaming Females - Starving Dog
screamingfemales.com
I LOVE THIS BAND.
Jesus, i cannot describe how much i love this band.
Odds are good that Screaming Females will be appearing on every volume of Trevor's Poor-Ass Christmas for the forseeable future. Marissa Paternoster is my guitar hero.
11. Damsel Trash - More Drunk, Less Pregnant
damseltrash.com
This is my favorite Madison band right now. Their live show is truly a spectacular thing to behold. And with songs about roller derby sex, pugs, and what an asshole Daniel Tosh is (which is great, because i feel like nobody else is holding him accountable for being a homophobic rape apologist dickbag, and that bothers me), the appeal should be obvious. Plus, did you see the title of this song?!
12. damidol - Mighty Myrtle
facebook.com/damidol
I really didn't want to put any damidol on the PAC this year, but i really had to. After 12 years, we called it quits this June, so what you have here is the very last damidol recording ever. The astute among you may have noticed, either from last year's CD or from the third entry in these very liner notes, that it's a Dead Apples cover. This was our contribution to the 2014 Local Love Fest compilation. When Cyrus from Dead Apples first heard it, his reaction was, "Oh my god, they are fucking this up so perfectly." I think he liked it.
13. Andy D Presents the Weekend - Angels on the Dance Floor
andydlovesyou.com
I was first introduced to Andy D - literally, with handshaking and everything - in 2012 at the Melody Inn in Indianapolis. We were both there to see the final Beta Male show, a sad event for sure, made sadder by the fact that it was the first Beta Male show i'd ever been able to attend. I didn't get to an Andy D show until the following year, which is when i picked up his albums, but i don't think i really got it until just recently. I was having a discussion with Shayne and Christina comparing and contrasting Andy D's art with that of Die Antwoord, who i think are dicks. I'm not sure how that association first came up. But that was when i realized that Andy D's performance, his appearance, and his music are just so...earnest. Like Rick Astley. What you see is what you get with Andy D. This is really who he is, it's not just a persona that he straps on with his fanny pack when he's trying to impress some fans, like Marilyn Manson. The guy really just wants to do what he wants, have a good time, and make sure everybody else does. If you stuck Andy in the same room with Andrew WK, the whole world would probably just smile and pee a little bit and never know why.
Plus, when i first caught the line "I overflow with confidence, like i've got three dicks," i knew i was sold.
14. Broken Bells - Holding On for Life
brokenbells.com
Well, here's something that i waited four years for. Such a long wait, in fact, that i had forgotten all about it by the time it came out. The first couple times i heard this song on the radio, i said to myself, "What is this? It's lovely." Finally i was able to catch it with my phone out and Shazam it, and when its identity was revealed, i was like, "Oh yeah! I've been waiting for this!"
Cool story, bro.
15. Pet - Lil' Boots
16. Droids Attack - Stick 'Em Up
droidsattack.com
Another one from this year's Local Love Fest compilation, and one of the four (!) songs that i got to contribute vocals to. I'm in the background gang vocals, which were a lot of fun to sing. I got a knife, you motherfucker! Stick 'em up!
This is a cover of a Masked Intruder song, who are fast becoming one of Madison's biggest claims to fame, musically.
17. Sir!NoSir! - A Means to an End
sirnosir.bandcamp.com
Another of my local favorites; i've been following these guys around since their inception. In fact they appeared on the very first episode of Wisconscene a couple years ago, and were later one of the first bands to let me experiment on them when i got myself a studio to work in. They've definitely come a long way in the last few years and they only keep getting better. This is a great song, i know it's deeply personal to Nate, their frontman, and i feel like he really funnels that into it every time i see them perform.
18. Old Buffalo Money - The World's News
facebook.com/oldbuffalomoney
Another one of my favorite local bands. These guys contacted me out of the blue last year to be on Wisconscene, and i'm really glad they did. I wandered out to the Wisco recently to see them play with Damsel Trash and Red Tape Diaries, and they slipped me copies of both of their albums and a beer. The beer didn't last long, but the music did - both albums have been in my iPod since and they've frequently helped carry me through those long, cold days of entering data.
19. Cage the Elephant - It's Just Forever (f/Alison Mosshart)
cagetheelephant.com
Here's another one that i was surprised and happy to hear on the radio - not this particular song this time, but new material from Cage the Elephant. Here's a band whose every album is completely different from the others, yet still feels like it has the same source, which is something that i love finding in a band. I listened to their first one pretty relentlessly, but their second didn't really do it for me (even though that was the one that had the critics all pooping in their pants). This third album, though, really hit the spot, a logical progression from where they started, pushing into deeper and more interesting territory. It's pretty great, is what i'm saying.
This particular song features Alison Mosshart on guest vocals, which is important to me not because she was in The Kills and The Dead Weather (although...yeah, that's cool), but because i fucking love Discount, because of course i do.
20. Veruca Salt - The Museum of Broken Relationships
verucasalt.com
Oh, here's that new Veruca Salt song.
Did i mention i got to see them this year?
21. Sleater-Kinney - Bury Our Friends
sleater-kinney.com
Oh my god. This is happening.
Sleater-Kinney is my favorite band of all time, which was always unfortunate, because i discovered them literally just after they broke up. Like, months after. Corin's solo albums did nothing for me, and Wild Flag had a few good songs but always felt like something was missing.
When discussing overinflated concert tickets, i've long said that the only band i would ever consider paying $100 to see would be a reunited Sleater-Kinney, but i never thought it would actually happen.
Then, i go and take a week to go film a documentary Up Nort' where internet signal is spotty at best, and suddenly people who ordered the career-spanning retrospective vinyl boxed set of Sleater-Kinney's albums start discovering an extra 7" inexplicably shoved into the box, with a BRAND NEW FUCKING SONG ON IT. This song. This one. Bury Our Friends.
AND THEN SUDDENLY TICKETS FOR A SHOW IN MILWAUKEE GO ON PREORDER.
THERE'S A TOUR.
OH MY GOD THIS IS HAPPENING.
Fortunately my bandmates (in Cats On Leashes) were prescient enough to snag me a ticket. The show sold out.
And the tickets were only $35! So it's fortunate for me that i didn't get stuck in the awkward position of deciding whether i would actually have shelled out the hundo.
...
(I totally would have)
Songs that got cut
Just in case you wanted to put together your own deluxe edition or something, here's what else was considered:
Go Van Go - How Come Everybody's Got a Gun? (Something that came up on shuffle once that i kind of liked, but not enough)
Lorde - Team (Previously discussed)
Five Knives - All Fall Down (Another thing that came up on shuffle that i really liked, but didn't feel like it fit into the CD)
Veruca Salt - It's Holy (The other of the two new Veruca Salt songs they released this year, it was really a one-or-the-other situation between this and Museum of Broken Relationships)
7 Year Bitch - 24,900 Miles Per Hour (One of the last ones i cut. Another 90s nostalgia song)
Klaxons - Isle of Her (chose Two Receivers instead)
John Statz - Useless (This was hard to lose, but it's really long, and there are a lot of long songs already this year. Plus i think it's the only one of his songs i like, so whatever)
that dog. - Lip Gloss (Something Cats On Leashes has been covering. Cool song, but didn't really need to be on here.)
Screeching Weasel - Soap Opera (This actually made the first cut, but after listening to the whole comp a few times i decided that i just wasn't that enthusiastic about it. So i replaced it with the Droids Attack track. Here's what i had written: "Screeching Weasel has always been a compilation band to me. I knew them only from their appearances on punk compilations, which are numerous. But i did come into possession of one of their albums - interestingly enough, a compilation itself - and listened through it a few times. They're still not a band that i'm really into, but this song in particular just feels right. Probably because that long breakdown in the middle was unexpected and really sticks out from the remaining body of their work. Fun song anyway.")
All things considered, you fuckers are lucky i didn't force Turn Down For What on you.
No comments:
Post a Comment