your heart swells and rains blood

This Week: 
Chris Walla – Field Manual (2008)
 
Thoughts:  I’m listening to it now – It just came out today.

Last Week: 
The National – Boxer (2007)
 
Thoughts:  After hearing snippets of the National for the first time I thought they sounded a bit like Interpol but after listening to this album a couple of times I think they have an element similar to Interpol but they are just more laid back.  The lead singer’s voice reminds me of the singer from the Magnetic Fields a little.  The album isn’t bad, its just pretty mellow.  Pitchfork gives it an 8.6 rating and describes this album as “a grower”.  The two songs that stand out on this album for me are “Fake Empire” and “Slow Show”.

 The Week Before Last Week: 
Stars of Track and Field – Centuries Before Love and War (2007)
 
Thoughts:  This album first caught my attention after hearing “Say Hello” on 90.3 KEXP Seattle.  I couldn’t dig up much on this band except that they are from Portland and how they pretty obviously took their name from a Belle and Stebastian song.  They may have been influenced by the Scotish group but they don’t sound much like them.  Overall this is a very crisp and well put together album (or at least the songs are) but like the National album “Boxer” I think “Centuries Before Love and War” is a grower.  Pitchfork hasn’t reviewed this album but I wouldn’t be surprised to see this getting a rating of 6.5 to 7.5.

It was 39 degrees F when I left work yesterday.  It was -1 F when I got to work today.  What the hell is going on?

I just found out Google Maps added Street View to Minneapolis and St. Paul, I really wish they hadn’t.

Lights out
I’m burnt out
I can’t say
Much, what’s going on?

Over
The river
I can’t say
Much, what’s going on?

I heard word
From others
That you said
You are doing fine

I heard word
From others
That you said
You are doing fine

(In these tragic times)

www.geocities.com/chairman_an/untitled_01272008.WAV

Check this out…

1. Its a Gibson Faded SG Special
2. Its a bass version of the guitar – very hard to find
3. Neko Case is playing a D chord on a bass guitar (and I know she strums and doesn’t pick!)

Crazy huh.  I’ve also seen Neko play an acoustic Gibson w/ a cut away.  Whats even crazier is that there isn’t one website I could find that lists what musicians like to play (guitars, amps, etc…)… ok I guess thats not as crazy but it’d be cool if there was one.  And I know for the most part you can tell what they are using but it would be cool if they had the year/make/model/customizations/etc like a car I suppose.  The other day I was trying to figure out how Silversun Pickups get their sound… I couldn’t find anything (equipment wise) except for an article that said they use the natural feed back from the amps to get the that fuzz sound.  I was looking for what kind of pedal they use.

Lately I’ve been having these crazy descriptive dreams… some good, some bad.  But what do all these dreams mean?  In college I would have dreams that would turn out to be future deja-vu’s which was really weird.  The last one I had like this was about six months before I moved into the apartment building I’m in now.  I had a dream where I saw this huge freaky bare bones staircase and had to go up them.  The deja-vu part came into play four months ago when I was getting a tour of one of the apartments, I opened the front door to one of the buildings and there they were before me the same as before, just less hazy and fortunately more stable.  But what does this all mean?  I was thinking today, why do we dream at all?  I suppose our brains can’t completely shut down at night, but why do all these random thoughts go through our heads and then form in a story like sequence?  There has to be some sort of scientific explanation doesn’t there?

‘Nuclear’ TV hackers face trial (from the BBC) 
“A group of Czech artists who inserted a nuclear explosion into a national weather broadcast have been told by a prosecutor they could be sent to jail.
The six hackers are accused of tampering with equipment during a live panoramic shot of mountains last June.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_7170000/newsid_7171300?redirect=7171358.stm&news=1&nbwm=1&bbram=1&nbram=1&bbwm=1&asb=1

            
My new favourite radio station to listen to at work:
90.3 KEXP (Seattle) – Washington University Radio
Streaming online at www.kexp.org

I went to look for America in a sedan with two passengers.  The northwest sure is perdy but the drive can get a little exhausting (especially on little sleep and when you’re driving in the fog and there is nothing to look at except for the pavement that you can make out 30 ft in front of you).  But overall its a trip I’m glad I made via my automobile however next time, even though I detest airports, I think I’ll visit the pagan angel in a borrowed car.