LoudSpeakers

1. I got my hands on the forthcoming Magnetic Fields record entitled Distortion.
2. I love it.
3. I’m trying to buy tickets to their Somerville show, but hate being pimped on ebay.
4. I was a pimp in a former life.
5. I’m being punished in this life as a result. If you care to change that, let me know.
6. I pre-ordered the album on Amazon. You’re welcome.
7. I’m telling all my friends about it. Again. You’re welcome.

In Atlanta, I listened to music on my desktop machine frequently since I was working from home primarily.  Now that we have an office in Boston, I tend to listen to music on my iPod during the subway rides and at the office. 

The net result?  Not as many Last.fm updates to my listening habits.  Sure, you can update Last.fm from your iPod now with the latest versions of their software, but you have to enable automatic synching —– and that sucks.  I like to synch manually since I listen to tons of music while I work and have tons stored on disk. 

Anyway, Boston has changed a few things.  This is just one of them.

The record comes out in a couple weeks — it’s top 10 material for sure.

There are some incredible tracks on this record.  These are my favorites:

1.  $20 — certainly more serious, but the Indian references make me laugh a little — you almost have to speak a Dravidic language to get some of the references.

2.  Bird Flu — more incredible similarities to South Indian popular music — makes me want to do, what would amount to,  awkward looking ass shaking on the subway.

3.  Bamboo Banger — not sure what she’s saying, but this is a catchy-ass song

4.  Boyz — the South Indian music similarities are more subtle, but this is a good track regardless

I have been revisiting my love for Chuck D, Flava Flav, and Terminator X — collectively known as Public Enemy.  I remember driving my parents station wagon (sans built-in tape deck) around in 9th grade with a portable boombox blasting PE’s “Rebel Without a Pause” from “It Take a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.”  The record sounds as fresh, dance-y, and rebellious today as it did then.  It’s hard to keep from busting out a few robot dance moves on the subway followed by an MC Hammer old skool run-in-place.

I updated my list of favorite records of 2006 to include the record by Clipse entitled “Hell Hath No Fury.”  It’s pretty darn incredible.

If Of Montreal’s “Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?” was to be released in 2006, it would be at the top of my list.  It’s amazingly intricate, yet fun at the same time.

On an interesting note, I noticed in my referrer logs that I was listed as the number one result in Google for the search “favorite records of 2006.”

1. M.Ward - Post-War
2. Lambchop - Damaged
3. The Thermals - The Body, The Blood, The Machine
4. Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
5. Band Of Horses - Everything All The Time
6. Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
7. Clipse – Hell Hath No Fury
8. Luna - The Best Of Luna
9. Mission Of Burma - The Obliterati
10. Brightblack Morning Light - Brightblack Morning Light
11. Robert Pollard - From A Compound Eye
12. Whitest Boy Alive - Dreams
13. Asobi Seksu - Citrus
14. Tapes n’ Tapes - The Loon
15. DJ Shadow - The Outsider

I just returned home from a weeklong trip and decided to start the morning off with M.Ward’s Post-War, a record that I can’t stop talking about apparently.  I realized this morning that M.Ward is best listened to on the softer, warmer sound that is vinyl rather than through the purity that is digital. 

Before I left for India several months ago, a close friend of mine was giving away his 50’s era Motorola turntable/radio since they were moving to North Carolina. Being the vinyl junkie that I have become, I gladly accepted it though the turntable wasn’t working at the time. Very soon afterwards, I hauled the piece of furniture (ultimately what it is) to South Carolina where other close friends who own a repair shop agreed to check it out. $200 later, I have a beautiful sounding piece of furniture. I broke out a bunch of old records this afternoon while I was working. In the recent years, I have been buying the vast majority of records on vinyl if available and going back and finding the old classics as well.

Here was my 2005 list. Here are some of my favorites from 2006 so far:

1. M.Ward - Post-War (drops August 22)

2. Lambchop - Damaged (drops August 22)

2.1  The Thermals - The Body, The Blood, The Machine

3. Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit

4. Band Of Horses - Everything All The Time

5. Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped

6. Ice Cube - Laugh Now, Cry Later

7. Luna - The Best Of Luna

8. Mission Of Burma - The Obliterati

9. Brightblack Morning Light - Brightblack Morning Light

10. Robert Pollard - From A Compound Eye

Update: Had to add another couple of records:

11. Whitest Boy Alive - Dreams

12. Asobi Seksu - Citrus

13 - Tapes n’ Tapes - The Loon

Update 2:

14. DJ Shadow - The Outsider

M.Ward announced a new record, Post-War, due out on Merge on August 22.  Two words:  hay’ll yes.

Looks like Tom’s Of Maine and Interpol are both selling out (to the man). Tom is selling 84% of his company to Colgate for $100M.  Interpol is rumored to have signed to Interscope, leaving my beloved Matador.

My daily Tom’s Of Maine flavor:  Fennell w/ whitening.  My favorite Interpol song:  NYC.

If you’ve even partially been paying attention, you would know that I have been uber bullish of the Band Of Horses debut record entitled “Everything All The Time.”

I hardly agree with the very basis of assigning numerical values to art, but I’m glad to see that this record gets an 8.8 —- whatever the fuck that means.

I don’t really pimp bands in the sales process too much, but the Band Of Horses record is so good that it deserves to be mentioned. I just pre-ordered the vinyl, but the CD is available as well. If you haven’t had the opportunity to hear the record, you’ll be blown away when you do.

Pre-order here

I love Jens Lekman and agree that 2006 is going to be a banner year. In his show in Amsterdam recently, he pointed out why the t-shirts he was selling only said 2006 on them:

“it’s going to be the best year ever - the shirt is for the optimists, and in the future, the nostalgists”

I love the over-the-top things that happen in music. This is one of them.

Le ink: Chromewaves

How long before Times New Viking just blows the fuck up? It’s going to happen. I predict it. Feel free to drop my name when you hear about them. “Raj said that these guys would be huge.”

I get downright giddy when I discover that a service I use (other than a blog or traditional news content site) has introduced an RSS feed. Last.fm added an RSS feed for recent tracks. Can I get a hell’s yeah?

Here’s my RSS feed for recently listened tracks.