Morning Mix 12/2/2009

Sausage Fest today:

• Billy Liar - the Decemberists
• Come Together - Spiritualized
• Jackass - Beck
• Morning Bell (version from Kid A) - Radiohead
• Planet of Sound - the Pixies
• Something So Strong - Crowded House
• Slash N' Burn - Manic Street Preachers
• Juicebox - the Strokes
• Begin the Begin - R.E.M.

The Pixies/Crowded House back to back was an interesting change of pace. I think the Spiritualized song is the best song on this list, but Slash N' Burn is what got me interested in Manic Street. See the video below.

Morning Mix 11/30/09

Post-Thanksgiving and ready for three weeks of work before I go home for Christmas:

• Fall On Me - R.E.M.
• Lovecats - the Cure
• On and On - the Longpigs
• Four Sticks - Led Zeppelin
• Sons of Cain - Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
• So Much - the Sundays
• The Piccolo Snare - Super Furry Animals
• Big Red - Frank Black
• You're Not Very Well - Charlatans U.K.
• Squint - Grant Lee Phillips

Maybe the largest concentration of "acts I've seen live" today. All but Zeppelin, if you give me credit for Frank Black, who I've seen with the Pixies. And not one song released this year. Which reminds me, year end lists start soon. Here are the Longpigs and Frank Black.

Morning Mix - 11/23/09

Ran into some disaster this morning, but here's what came up first:

• Motor Away - Guided By Voices
• Only Shallow - My Bloody Valentine
• Nice Dream - Radiohead
• Mason City - Fiery Furnaces
• Sonny - Paloalto

Then I ran out of juice. Apparently it had been a while since I powered up the old iPod, and now, roughly 700 songs into a 1,400 song playlist (give or take), I have to start all over. Ugh.

Today you get two videos. First the is the short and sweet GBV video for both Auditorium and Motor Away. Next up is the long, meandering, sort of all over the place Mason City, by the Fiery Furnaces, which features one of my all-time favorite guitar solos right around the two minute mark.

Morning Mix 11/20/09

After three straight days of driving 50 miles in traffic back and forth to the suburbs for training (teaching this week after attending last week), I was finally back on the train this morning. You SoCalers who drive every day don't realize how nice it is to live close to reliable and clean public transportation.

• In the Flowers - Animal Collective
• The King of Carrot Flowers - Neutral Milk Hotel
• Blue Spark - X
• Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before - the Smiths
• Not Even Jail - Interpol
• Pandora's Box - Throwing Muses
• Seems So - the Apples in Stereo
• Can You Feel It - the Apples in Stereo

I think that's the first time since I've started this that I've had two songs from the same band back to back. First time Animal Collective has popped up as well, the first track from what will probably be my album of the year, in a close race with Dirty Projectors.

Morning Mix 11/9/09

Happy Berlin Wall day. My brother was actually there in Berlin when it all happened, just by chance. He was studying in Heidelberg and had made a weekend trip to Berlin and ended up in the middle of everything. I still have a piece of the wall in my apartment.

On a programming side, this bit will go on hiatus for about a week since I have to go to a worthless training that I'm pretty pissed off about.

• I'll See You in the Evening - Mazarin
• Bellyache - Echobelly
• Just Like Heaven - the Cure
• Everyone Chooses Sides - the Wrens
  
• The Everlasting Scream - Elf Power
• T.V. Mystic - the High Dials
• The Connection - Travis
• The Caterpillar - the Cure
• The Fishhook Girl - Echo and the Bunnymen
  

The last one is a B-Side. I probably only have about five or six Cure songs on this playlist, so it's a bit surprising to see two come up in one morning. Of the eight bands, I've seen all but Echobelly and Elf Power in concert.

Morning Mix 11/5/09

Today's random commuter music:

• What the World is Waiting For - the Stone Roses
• Testimony - Grant Lee Buffalo
• Waking Up Tired - the Hoodoo Gurus
• In Between Days - the Cure
• Going Down - the Stone Roses
• Generals and Majors - XTC
• Jean - Billy Bragg (cover of the Smiths B-Side)
• Fight - Art Brut
• the Commuter - Simple Kid
• Oxford Comma - Vampire Weekend
• St. Expedite - Grant Lee Phillips

This was like two sides of a mix tape, with the classic stuff on the first side and the contemporary stuff on side 2. Five of the first seven songs were released in the '80s, and the other two were mid-'90s. Also notable, three of these were released as b-sides (the other two from the Stone Roses). Finally, Art Brut followed Billy Bragg, and the song 'Fight' repeats the variations on the lyric "Some things are really best left unspoken but I prefer it all to be out in the open", which is lifted directly from Billy Bragg's hit 'Sexuality'. Funny coincidence.

I'm going to throw a change up today and post the Smiths' version of Jean.

Morning Mix 11/4/09

Here's today's commuting music:

• Tornado Alley - Viva Voce
• Streethawk I - Destroyer
• M79 - Vampire Weekend
• Big Sur - The Thrills
  
• M62 Song - Doves
• Low - Cracker
• Empty - Metric
• Ain't That Enough - Teenage Fanclub
• The State I Am In - Belle and Sebastian

Two things stand out today. After yesterday's sausage fest, we had some ladies today, with Anita Robinson taking vocals on Tornado Alley, and Emily Haines on Empty. Also, pretty poppy, with the exception of maybe Cracker. Also a bit odd to have both M79 and M62 Song in the same morning.

Morning Mix 11/3/09

See yesterday's post for details. Here's today's stuff:

• Good Weekend - Art Brut
• 303 - Kula Shaker
• Give 'Em All a Big Fat Lip - the Whigs
  
• Timorous Me - Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
  
• Evil - Interpol
• Going to Hell - Brian Jonestown Massacre
• Mary Anne - Spacemen 3
• The Holy Ground - the High Dials
• The Ballad of Elton John - Simple Kid
• A Good Man is Easy to Kill - Beulah
• Jeepster - T. Rex
  

Pretty decent showing today. Good stuff to listen to on the train. I've seen eight of these bands live (8.5 if you give half credit for Spiritualized in place of Spacemen 3). Three of them this year. Here's some TL/Rx, who I just saw at the brand spankin' new Lincoln Hall about a week and a half ago. He played this song.

Morning Mix 11/2/09

In order to keep from totally ignoring this blog, I've decided that I'm starting a new series which will no doubt bore the crap out of everyone who stumbles by, but oh well. A little background: I have roughly 7,600 songs on my iPod, 99% of which are from albums I've either purchased and ripped to my computer, or albums I've downloaded through things like emusic (I think I only have 20 songs I've ever purchased from iTunes because of a gift card I received, and they're all almost all David Bowie). The rest are either one offs that I've downloaded from band's websites or places like Stereogum.

From that universe, I created a playlist of only the songs I really like to listen to, and ended up with about 2,500 songs. I listen to music on the train on the way to work, and with that playlist, I found myself skipping songs a lot if I wasn't in the right mood for what popped up. So I cut that list further, and reduced it to it's current 1,300+ songs.

A few weeks ago I decided that I was going to listen to that whole playlist straight through on shuffle. No skipping. I do this on the way to and from work, and while working out. What will appear here will be whatever popped up on a given morning. Granted, I'm about 400 songs or so into the process, but so be it.

Here's the mix for this morning, in order:

• Something's Burning - the Stone Roses
• Creep (the F-word version) - Radiohead
• Drop It Doe Eyes - Los Campesinos!
• Electricityscape - the Strokes
• Elephant Stone - the Stone Roses
• Gun in the Sun - Wavves
• Company I Keep - White Rabbits
• Receptacle for the Respectable - Super Furry Animals
• Three Women - Stereolab
• When Jokers Attack - The Brian Jonestown Massacre