The Quirky Protagonist

Been working on this mix for about a week now.

Just a summer indie rock mix.



1. Givers - "Up Up Up"
2. Deep Sea Diver - "New Caves"
3. The Oh Wells - "I Hate The Sun"
4. FM Belfast - "Par Avion"
5. Rubblebucket - "Came Out of a Lady"
6. The Vaccines - "Post Break-Up Sex"
7. Pink Nasty - "The Pink Album"
8. Miniature Tigers - "Cannibal Queen"
9. Bess Rogers - "See Me See You"
10. The Front Bottoms - "Maps"
11. Jesse Matheson - "Make Out"
12. Grouplove - "Colours"
13. The Lovemakers - "Lets Be Friends"
14. One For The Team - "Hard For You"
15. We Have Band - "Divisive"
16. Treefight for Sunlight - "What Became of You and I"
17. The Tunics - "Radio"
18. Moto Boy - "The Heart Is a Rebel"
19. Natureboy - "Pariah"
20. Ms Mr - "Bones"

[ZIP FILE]

(x-posted)

So, you may have already heard about the It Gets Better Project which is aimed towards LBGT youth who might be considering hurting themselves in the wake of the recent suicides across the nation. Basically, there's a ton of YouTube videos posted from both gay and straight people encouraging these kids that it DOES get better, that high school is NOT the prime of your life as some have said, and that the bullying and hate and despair they're feeling isn't something that they're always going to have to deal with and that they aren't alone in feeling the way they do, and that there is support.

I felt inspired by this movement, as well as by my recent watching of the series Freaks & Geeks for the first time, to make a mix about how you might get picked on and things might not be easy growing up, but that doesn't mean you're not going to grow up to have an awesome life and be way cooler than those kids who are talking smack about you now.




( tracklisting, links and lyrics behind the cut... )

[ Mix Zip ]

I'm going to do something blasphemous.
I am going to devote an entry to Canadians on the Fourth of July. *gasp*

It just happened that way.

So, tonight I was working on my review of Melissa McClelland's new album "Victoria Day" for The Feminist Review website I sometime contribute to. I was making a comparison between her and fellow Canadian (well, McClelland was raised there at least) singer-songwriter Sarah Harmer since her previous work most reminded me of her than any other artist, and I started to think about how much they compared physically as well.

Then I thought of other Canadian songwriters, and a lot of the ones I listen to have wavy brown hair and gorgeous blue eyes, WTF, Canada?! The suspects in question: Tara MacLean, Melissa McClelland, Sarah Harmer, Sarah Slean, and Chantal Kreviazuk.
And Sarah McLachlan and Holly McNarland might not have the combo nailed down, but they are honorable mentions.

But the 3 that really strike me are Harmer, Slean and McClelland, whom look like they could easily be sisters. They should start a sisters trio, I'd buy that album in a heartbeat! Harmer has covered a Slean song before, so she obviously admires her work already. Harmer is like the older mature sister, Melissa is the girl next door type, maybe a middle sister despite her actually being the youngest, and Slean is the more glam and dramatic younger sister.

( proof )

And my favorite songs by the 3 for good measure.
Sarah Harmer - "Basement Apartment"
Melissa McClelland - "Factory (Springsteen cover)"
Sarah Slean - "Sweet Ones"

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
2009 is going to be a good one, I can feel it. Of course, 2008 seems to have been a downer for almost everyone I know, so how can 2009 NOT be better?

2008 may have generally sucked as far as life goes, but it gave us some pretty great tunes.

Some of the most notable from 2008: (Sendspace)

Duffy - "Mercy"

The Ting Tings - "That's Not My Name"

Lykke Li - "I'm Good, I'm Gone"

Adele - "Chasing Pavements"

Lisa Hannigan - "Lille"

Fleet Foxes - "White Winter Hymnal"

Jaymay - "Gray or Blue"

Jenny Lewis - "Acid Tongue"

KaiserCartel - "Oh No"

Laura Marling - "Cross Your Fingers"

Juliana Hatfield - "This Lonely Love"

Ida Maria - "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked"

Robyn - "Konichiwa Bitches"

Earlier today I was so obsessed with Adele I was ready to go out specifically to purchase said album. I decided that was silly though, so I settled for purchasing one of my favorites from iTunes instead. Ahh, impulses. A few months back I discovered my copy of Juliana Hatfield's "Only Everything" was scratched and was ready to run right out and get a new one and had to fight that impulse too.

This time of year I like to go to a number of my favorite artist's websites to see if they have any free Christmas songs available, as often some do. Instead of finding Christmas songs this year, when I went to The Innocence Mission's site I found that they had a new EP out that had all new songs on it. They're one of the bands I get things from right away generally, so I was pretty excited and ordered it right away. It arrived today and I listened to it. It's nice, but 3 of the 8 tracks are instrumentals which don't do much for me. One of the other songs I was sure I knew as I recognized the tune and the lyrics. It wasn't a cover as the CD specifically said that it was written by them, so that wasn't it. I looked at the tracklisting of all their CDs and it wasn't on them, I thought maybe the name had been changed, so I listened to some of songs I hadn't in a while to see if they were them...no dice. Finally, I dug through my old storage CDs, namely, CDs filled with MP3s I have taken off my hard drive at one time or another, as I specifically remembered having a folder somewhere called "Rare Innocence Mission". Voila! I found it. It must be from back when they had a free song a month on their website back in 2002 or so. It sounds exactly the same too, kinda weird. I am surprised I recognized it considering how long it had been since I had heard it!

There was also a bunch of other stuff on there I was happy to find again. My hard drive used to be much smaller so I had to clean out my iTunes once every few months to make space, but now there's plenty of room to welcome them back, woo!

The Innocence Mission - "A Thousand Miles"

Today's Theme: Little Black Book
From what I remember of this theme (I was reading SMM at this point but not participating) is that this was just songs that were women's names. I am not sure what other constraints there may have been, but I gave myself some. Namely, they have to be songs by men singing about women.

Leonard Cohen - "Suzanne"
I think this song is sort of magical. Leonard Cohen is one of the all time great songwriters, and for once I actually agree with people who say it, not like some other artists that people say that about. This song in particular is my favorite of his. The truthfulness of his songwriting is what I love. Like Nick Cave, he writes things that some might find distastful, and includes the good and the bad of a story. It's not all roses and sunshine. This is a song about a girl who isn't perfect, but there's just something about her that makes her irresistible.

Ben Folds - "Kate"
Ben Folds is always fun, and this is one of his more fun tracks. I love it just because it's just all about how cool a girl he barely knows is and how he wants to be like her. He says "Her mix tape's a masterpiece", that makes me want to be like Kate too. Kate was one of Ben's wives, they're no longer together, I was sorta pissed off at Ben for not making it work with someone as cool as the girl this song was worthy of.

Elvis Costello - "Veronica"
There was a time that I didn't like Elvis Costello. I knew some people who adored him and I didn't understand why. Admittedly, I am not his #1 fan now or something, but I've heard enough to know that he's a hellova songwriter. I actually first heard this particular song of his when the lead singer of Spoon sang it on Veronica Mars. It's very catchy.

Low Millions - "Eleanor"
This band is pop-rock, and this song has gotten airplay all over places. It's just a generally reallt catchy fun song. And to bring things full circle, the singer of the band is Leonard Cohen's son. They're quite different.

Jens Lekman - "Julie"
Since I keep going on about Swedish stuff in these posts, I thought I might as well keep it up! Jens is a Swedish indie folk-pop singer-songwriter. He writes unconventionally, not unlike Stephen Merritt of The Magnetic Fields, but the way he writes is often touching and generally catchy and he makes me happy.

Theme for today is My First:

My first favorite song: Madonna - "Lucky Star"
My first music memory is of crawling over the seats of our old station wagon at age 3 or 4 to get to the volume knob, proclaiming loudly to my mom that "I LOVE this song". Soon after my mom got me the single on 45" and I listened to it all the time. I couldn't read yet and so I never knew what side of the record the song was on and kept having to bug my mom to tell me. She finally got sick of it and drew a star on the side that had "Lucky Star" on it. Whenever I go through my old records and see the star drawn on it I smile because I remember that I couldn't read yet, but man did I love that song. Kinda funny.

The First Album I Purchased With My Own Money: Debbie Gibson - "Foolish Beat"
When I was little I had a few albums that my parents got for me because they knew I liked some songs from them, but I rarely listened to full albums. But I remember distinctly going into the Wall to Wall (they're now FYE) and having to sing the chorus of "Foolish Beat" to the clerk because I didn't know who sang it but I loved the song. I remember it was kind of a big deal since it stuck in my mind til now, so even then I knew I'd remember that it was "my first". I think it's pretty lame now, but at least I was showing interest in female singer-songwriters at an early age!

My First CD: "Theme to Green Acres"
I was one of those people who hated changes in technology when I was growing up. I didn't want my cassettes to be useless anymore and I railed against changing to CDs. But I had no choice, as my brother was a technology junkie and he suggested my parents get me a boom box that had a CD player in it for Christmas one year. With it, my parents gave me a gift certificate to, again, Wall to Wall (by that time just called "The Wall"). I should also mention, that this happened in early high school, before I "discovered" how good music can be and therefore had no major passion towards it. Thus, when I bought my first CD I bought a replacement for a tape I had had and lent to someone and they never gave it back...it was "Television's Greatest Hits", a compilation of TV show themes from the 40s-60s. I went on in the years to come to buy 3 or 4 other versions of the same thing, so I am your go-to girl if you need TV show theme songs, oye.

My First Concert: The Monkees - "(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone"
As I mentioned above, I was a late bloomer as far as music goes. So come 1996 I hadn't been to a concert of my choosing before. I had been to a few country shows to see my uncle play bass before, but I was there to see him and not the music, and I had been to musicals and some local symphony things, but never a rock show. Then we saw in the entertainment section of the newspaper that The Monkees were playing about 30min from where we live for their 30th Anniversary Tour. I had been a fan of Oldies growing up, as my parents had the Oldies station on in the car usually, and I watched reruns of The Monkees TV show when I was little and always loved them, though I didn't own any of their records. I chose this song in particular because my earliest memory of liking The Monkees is of a vacation our family took when I was 6 and we had a hotel room that had a patio out into a courtyard garden area at our hotel. In the garden there were (what I thought at the time were) really cool stepping stones crossing a small stream/fish pond and I remember singing this song as I jumped from stone to stone.

The show last night was really great. It would have been better had I got to share it with friends, but I can't complain. Unfortunately for me, though, it was really hot in the club and there was barely room to move an arm up to scratch your head had you wanted to...this led to me feeling light headed and since I have a history of fainting I got really worried, especially since I was there alone...and ended up having to lose my place in the crowd to go towards the back of the venue RIGHT before they came on stage...but it beats fainting.

I ended up 3/4 the way back for most of the show, but the area was cooler and there was actually room to breathe and the people back there weren't quite as obnoxious/drunk...so in some ways I am sure I enjoyed it more because I was back there. They were attempting to do their new thing where they play a song from every album, but they fell short...they at least missed Factory Showroom from my calculations. But it was all worth it considering they played a Monopuff song and a song from Linnell's "State Songs". I was also really excited that they played "Dinner Bell" considering I had been singing it around the house all day yesterday...it's one of my favorites.

Here's the setlist, which I took from setlist.com because I couldn't remember all of them or the order they were in, but alas, I am not sure this setlist is right either since I know they played "Why Does The Sun Shine?" and that's not listed. They also followed WDTSS with their new version of it since they now know the facts in the song are wrong...the new version is called "The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma".

( setlist )
Today I was googling TMBG and happened to stumble upon this foreign blog that had a bunch of TMBG songs downloadable. A number of the songs aren't even TMBG but were probably listed as such on whatever program they downloaded them from, but there was one song I hadn't heard before but definitely is Linnell singing...so for those of you reading who are TMBG fans, where is the song below from?

-Welcome To The Jungle

I finally received my Juliana Hatfield album yesterday. I listened to it last night and I can't say I was too impressed. There were a few stand out tracks, but overall I'd say not even as many as on her last album, Made In China. The one really great thing about it is that I pre-ordered the version that came with a disc of demos from the sessions of making this album. The studio album only has 10 tracks, and not even all of them are on the demo CD, and the demo CD has 20 tracks. I like most of the demo versions of the tracks from the new album SO much better. I think it's mostly because I really enjoy the crunchy, laid back, casual Juliana, and the gloss of having some fancy producer just doesn't seem to suit her. I've heard some critics are saying it's her best work yet, but I can't say I agree in the least. It's not awful, but it's not the Juliana I love.

Then today I was listening to my iTunes on random and Ben Folds Five's "Song For the Dumped" came on...and I should note, the version I keep on my iTunes is a demo version, and not the album version, and I thought "damn, this demo is way better than the album version too"...so then, of course I started to think "what other songs I like are like that?" I came up with a few, and yes, I realize my affinity for folk, acoustic and simple music is probably why I generally like demos better, but not always. So here are a few I came up with...

Demos I like better than album-versions:

Juliana Hatfield - "Shining On"
The album version just sounds like "adult contemporary" blah to me, really. It's ok, but is a bit of a yawn. The demo is just much more light-hearted and simple, it reminds me a lot more of the Juliana I love.
(album version)
(demo version)

Ben Folds Five - "Song For the Dumped"
The demo is so much better for this song because the song is a song by a bitter boyfriend who's just been dumped, and as one would expect him to be, he's irate and throwing all kinds of things in her face...but the album version is too clean, too nice, too poppy somehow, the demo version definitely fills the bill better and makes you cheer the guy on more. The difference might only be one line, but the line packs the punch I think the song really needs somehow. My guess is the record label told them to clean it up a bit for the album. Lame.
(album version)
(demo version)

Lisa Loeb - "Dance With The Angels"
I was a huge fan of Lisa Loeb back in the day...obsessed with Tails, and I still love the album, but Lisa has been hit or miss since then unfortunately. BUT, her demo tape "The Purple Tape" was recently just released on CD and it's really great. Before her demo tape though, she was in a band in college with her roommate Liz Mitchell (now of the band Ida) and they recorded two demo albums together as Liz & Lisa. A number of the songs Lisa wrote with Liz she has since re-recorded for albums, including about half of Tails. But I was really disappointed when she put a new version of "Dance With the Angels" on "Firecracker", because it just can't hold a candle to the one she did in college.
(album version)
(demo version)

Brandi Carlile - "Throw It All Away"
Before Brandi released her self-titled album, she released an EP featuring some of the songs that would later appear on her first album. The EP was simply called "Acoustic" as it was recorded live and was all acoustic and very stripped down. For a while her song "Throw it all Away" from that EP was available for free on her website and that was my first taste of her. I was sorely disappointed when the album version wasn't nearly as powerful or beautiful as the heart-wrenching acoustic version, which I had loved so much that I played it repeatedly after I discovered it.
(album version)
(demo version)

Jewel - "Love Me, Just Leave Me Alone"
When Jewel's first album came out she was a breath of fresh air for most people. But a bunch of that first album was recorded live, and since then her albums have gotten more and more produced and taken away the charm of what that first album was. I liked her so much at the time that I bought bootleg CDs of live performances, TV performances or whatever the local store had (yes, this was before the internet). For a lot of the songs, the live versions were a lot better than her album ones, if only because they felt more real, and like she wasn't trying so hard...not to mention she did a lot more fun and/or goofy songs live too to get the crowd going. On one of these old bootlegs (from a 1996 performance) she performed a "new song" called "Love Me, Just Leave Me Alone" and I thought it was great, really fun. Then on her 2001 album "This Way" she did a studio recording of the same song and I really didn't care for it at all. Somehow when she played it live it lost it's charm and what was fun then just seemed contrived and awkward. It's not really a "demo" since it was live, but it WAS a version that pre-dated the album one, and therefore I think it counts.
(album version)
(live/demo version)

No, I didn't forget about my usual Sunday music share, but as it was, I thought I'd wait a day so I could do it at home and not take time away from Travis to do it at his place.

Last week was the sun, this week...the moon.

The Swell Season - "The Moon"
(This song is so beautiful it gives me chills sometimes. But then again, so do most of their songs. The Swell Season is Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, this past year's Oscar winners for best song, in case you weren't aware.)

Neko Case - "I Wish I Was The Moon"
(This is probably my favorite Neko song, probably because it's one of her most melancholy and I am a sucker for a melancholy song.)

Belly - "Full Moon, Empty Heart"
(I am not sure what to say about this one. I love Belly, and this song shows off a lot of the best things about them. The first half of the song starts a bit mysteriously, and slowly they work into a more rockin tune. I love how out there and unexplainable the things happening in their songs tend to be.)

The Mountain Goats - "Moon Over Goldsboro"
(This is my favorite song from their "Get Lonely" album. Their music is great because of the storytelling qualities. You get a whole memory, or feeling, or event in a song. I am so glad he made the list of 100 Best Living Songwriters Paste put out a few years ago...well deserved.)

Nina Gordon - "Lighter On The Moon"
(This is a song from her unreleased album "Even The Sunbeams" that she later posted some tracks from on her site for free for a while. This is probably my favorite track from that album. Pretty, mellow, and melodic.)