Come On Santa

You're sitting in a booth in an old greasy spoon, eyes staring into the eternal darkness of the coffee that sits before you. It's Christmas eve and there's a sad little Charlie Brown Christmas tree by the door. There's one other patron, a man sitting at the counter, wearing a faded baseball cap, ignoring his plate of sausage and eggs while he drinks from a flask of Wild Turkey that he intermittently pulls from his shirt pocket.

She walks through the doorway and the open doors momentarily allow the wind to announce her presence. She slowly drifts to your booth and the music starts as if it were cued for this moment. For a second she's standing there, staring down at you with big blue eyes shrink-wrapped in tears, and it feels like forever. You give a barely perceptible nod and start to get up. As your frame unfolds, she takes your hand and leads you for a few steps and then stops. She whirls in slow motion to face you and takes a hold of your hips, pulls you close and you both begin to slowly sway to the music. Her arms snake their way up and drape themselves around your neck, her head resting on your shoulders while she breathes sighs into your ears. "Come on, Santa..."

The Raveonettes > Come On Santa

Ends of the earth

Dirty Three > Ends of the Earth

Timing is Everything

I've been working diligently on my 2009 mix. It's a little bit longer than I initially thought it might be, but oh well, this is the stuff I liked. 2009 has been a pretty good year, even if I was attending less gigs. One of the more memorable events of 2009 is illustrated in the images below.

It was also a pretty good year for music. I tried to keep my tracklist low, but it slid up to 30 and I couldn't figure out what to cut. Therefore, I'm just gonna post the whole thing in its entire glory. Some of the songs are kinda long (5 tracks at 7 mins or more) and the entire mix clocks in around 2 hours and 15 minutes. But as I mentioned, this is the stuff I liked, for better or for worse. Check it out, maybe you'll like it. Burn an mp3 disc or stick it on your media player of choice. Scope the tracklist below, and download it here if it suits your fancy. Props to my buddy, @MiriamIsntFunny, from twitter who inspired the mix title when I couldn't come up with a thing.

Timing is Everything

1. The Twilight Sad - I Became a Prostitute
2. Fleeting Joys - You Are The Darkness
3. The Raveonettes - Bang!
4. Afternoon Naps - Seasons May Change
5. Camera Obscura - French Navy
6. The Postmarks - Go Jetsetter
7. Phoenix - Love Like a Sunset
8. Perfume - edge (triangle mix)
9. Fever Ray - If I Had A Heart
10. Riceboy Sleeps - Daniell In The Sea
11. Jay Farrar and Benjamin Gibbard - One Fast Move Or I'm Gone
12. Neko Case - I'm An Animal
13. Mayer Hawthorne - Your Easy Lovin' Ain't Pleasin' Nothin'
14. Kleerup - Until We Bleed (With Lykke Li)
15. Asobi Seksu - Sunshower
16. Bat For Lashes - Pearl's Dream
17. El Perro Del Mar - Gotta Get Smart
18. The xx - Shelter
19. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Little Shadow
20. Sparklehorse & Fennesz - Goodnight Sweetheart
21. Bon Iver & St. Vincent - Roslyn
22. Summer Camp - Ghost Train
23. Sparklehorse & Danger Mouse - The Man Who Played God (feat. Suzanne Vega)
24. Fuck Buttons - The Lisbon Maru
25. Sweet Trip - Your World is Eternally Complete
26. I Was A King - Step Aside
27. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - This Love Is Fucking Right
28. St. Vincent - Marrow
29. Them Crooked Vultures - New Fang
30. ISIS - Stone To Wake A Serpent

Decadeology: Listening too long to one song!

I really like all of the New Pornographers' output, you really cannot go wrong if you were to choose only one of their albums to spin. That being said, I think Twin Cinema is a really, really great power pop album. For me, Sing Me Spanish Techno is the focal point of that album. It's an incredibly catchy, driving pop song with great singalong-ability. If you have heard the song, then chances are you know what I'm talking about (and possibly agree with me). If you haven't heard it, I honestly think you're missing out and you can give it a chance here.

The New Pornographers > Sing Me Spanish Techno

Pop Molecule

Just as an FYI, I've been spending a bit of time over at Pop Molecule. It's a collaborative blog that arose out of a random conversation. Stop by, drop us a line and add us to your RSS reader. It's a pretty cool group of peeps. It's mostly a stuff-we-like type of blog, but a couple mixes have already been posted that I think will be worth your time. Check it out.

http://pop-molecule.blogspot.com/

Decadeology: I must above all things love myself

Grinderman's No Pussy Blues starts off with a tapping typewriter and the nervous click of a hi-hat, while a bass drum keeps time like a heartbeat. It reminds me of someone sitting at a table, drumming their fingers while waiting for bad news. The voice of Nick Cave comes in to tell the tale of how he's aged and how he's not taking it so well. He meets a girl at a gig and, try as he might, he can't seem to maneuver her into the sack. He lets out his pent-up frustration and shouts out "DAMN!" as the song explodes into a screeching fury of guitars, banging drums and crashing cymbals. This song takes everything down to base levels. Drums, guitars and bass. Dude just wants to get laid, is that so wrong? Easily one of my favorite songs and albums of the past decade. Not to mention it was an absolute treat to see them live at such a small venue.

Grinderman > No Pussy Blues

You can't deny

Just listening to the new Sweet Trip album, You Will Never Know Why, and my jaw is on the floor. Loved it so much I just ordered it from the Darla site. Healthy doses of shoegaze, c86, electronica and Stereolab are all over this wonderful album. So nice to have a late entry to fave albums of 09 lists, and perhaps even those decade lists upon which we are all working so hard. This track, Pretending, has really caught my ear. I've been repeating it quite a bit so far.

Sweet Trip > Pretending

Decadeology: Bleed you dry

I only recently came across the Twilight Sad, perhaps around summertime. I had liked what I heard from Fourteen Autumns, Fifteen Winters, and then I read that a new album (Forget The Night Ahead) was gonna drop this fall. The first single, I Became A Prostitute, hit sometime in August; it completely blew me away and quickly became a favorite. I love the noise, I love the singer's thick Scottish accent and I love the darkness they conjure up. This song is devastating.

The Twilight Sad > I Became A Prostitute