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Thanks to Aubrey over at daily tuneage, I found some fantastic new music today… She posted Lola Who? by the Plants and Animals, from Montreal…

Not only that.. but she apparently found them through XM channel 52 — I mostly listen to XM 43, so finding a new station is actually a huge boon.. woot!

Anyway.. here’s a little seeqpod playlist for you kids.. Enjoy.

SeeqPod - Playable Search

Here’s a happy little ditty for you on this fine wednesday…

Don’t Falter, by Mint Royale.

Enjoy.

p.s. Ooo.. here’s an animated video of the same song… I like the other video better though..

So, Andy just sent me this awesome video, made by my cousins (ok, I think they’re technically like my 2nd cousins once removed, but whatever) Alex and Isis.

Isis was 5 when she composed and sung this song, “my hot dog floated in the water” and it’s just so frikkin’ cute I had to share. Her cousin Alex made the accompanying animation and put it on the YouTubes.

Record it!

Following last week’s post about milkshakes, here’s this week’s musical geekdom (click to enlarge):

The person that made this map also did some amusing additional analysis that you should definitely check out…

meredith and steph drove up north to look for cows.

cow hunting from stephawu on Vimeo.

this is my first music supervision “credit,” woohoo! the track is “Big Sky Lullaby” by Wylie & The Wild West Show — yay music.

So, last night, I saw Ingrid Michaelson play a show at Slim’s… She originally was playing at Cafe du Nord, which would have been awesome since it’s such a small venue, but apparently her tickets sold out so quickly that they upgraded her to Slim’s — last night was apparently the biggest show that she’s played to date. Anyway, her show was awesome.. her personality shines throughout the whole show, as she intertwines funny stories with her sweet, sometimes melancholy songs. Excited to visit San Francisco, since she wanted to see the Full House house, she was disappointed when she only ended up visiting the Painted Ladies, which were the houses shown in the opening credits (so close! only 1.1 miles away!)…

She played only 1 encore song — I absolutely LOVE short encores. I find it kind of annoying when bands leave their best songs out of their set, and then play essentially a second set for their encore. Ingrid did a delicately sweet rendition of “Can’t Help Falling In Love” as her encore.. so good.

Anyway… if you haven’t seen it, here’s her video for “The Way I Am.” Good stuffs.

Marcy planned a super awesome surprise for me last night.. She took me to Concrete Frequency: Songs of the City at the Walt Disney Music Hall.. It was an amazing lineup with 14 musicians, each of which sang two songs. The songs were supposed be around the theme “Songs of the City,” and each artist was encouraged to talk a little bit about each song. Nobody had a full band — most just had a guitar or piano as accompaniment, and when they weren’t performing, everyone was just sitting around the stage on a bunch of sofas.

It was a really awesome show — my favorites were Sondre Leche, Money Mark, Marc Bianchi, and Zooey Deschanel…

Before the show, I was berated for taking a picture of the stage, but alas, someone was able to snag a recording of Zooey’s song and posted it to YouTube.

hooray for the internets!

Zooey is supposedly working on an album with M. Ward, that should launch sometime this year… In the meantime, here’s a few songs from seeqpod:

Anyway.. thanks Marcy for a super super night. xoxo.

This was a good year for me musically, me thinks… I took a look at my Last.fm chart, as well as my iTunes to gather some data.. here are my top 11 tracks of 2007..

1. Your Hand in Mine - Explosions in the Sky
2. The Way I Am - Ingrid Michaelson
3. My Favourite Book - Stars
4. I Defy - Joan as Policewoman
5. Foundations - Kate Nash
6. Your Red Dress - Alaska in Winter
7. Sky Blue Sky - Wilco
8. My Eyes - Travis
9. New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream
10. To Build A Home - The Cinematic Orchestra
11. The Salmon Dance (feat Fatlip) - The Chemical Brothers

Well, I guess these were not necessarily all released in 2007, but, these tracks came to my attention in the past year…

Here they all are, in a Seeqpod player, for your listening enjoyment:

mahna mahnah from sinned on Vimeo.

dance party from merpeck on Vimeo.

Yay, it’s 19 versions of my favorite holiday song…

SeeqPod Music beta - Playable Search

Stay warm, everyone.

Woohoo!

So, my buddy Brian has created this awesome podcasting solution (that anyone who is audio or video podcasting should definitely check out…)

Anyway, I’m giving it a try for my holiday mix…. This way, you don’t have to download all of the tracks, and you can listen right through your browser! Castfire rocks.. I’m gonna start making more shows, methinks.

Thanks Brian!!

Enjoy!!

Woohoooo.. with the passing of Thanksgiving, we’re officially into the Holiday season… And what does that mean? Christmas Music! Yay! So, the fourth annual “Dennis’ Christmas Mix” is now complete… Tell me if you want a copy, and I’ll send you the link. It’s a 109mb download though, so it’s gonna take some time… If you want a real CD, just let me know and I’ll burn you one.

I tried to make a seeqpod playlist, but like most of these songs aren’t even on there.. oh well. Here’s a tracklist..

Let It Snow Let It Snow - Dean Martin
The Christmas Song - The Ravonettes
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Chris Isaak
Sleigh Ride - Relient k
Fairytale Of New York - No Use For A Name
Baby It’s Cold Outside - Built For The Sea
Santa Baby (Alexkidd Remix) - Eartha Kitt
I Don’t Intend to Spend Christmas Without You - Claudine Longet
Holiday Twist - Los Straitjackets
Holy, Holy, Holy - Sufjan Stevens
The Little Drummer Boy - Jackson 5
Please Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas) - The Decemberists
A Great Big Sled (Feat. Toni Halliday) - The Killers
Merry Christmas Again… - The Young Republic
Christmas (baby Please Come Home) - 1980
Mele Kelikimaka - Luke
Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - Billy Bob Thornton & The Boxmasters
O Holy Night - Jewel
Please Come Home for Christmas - Yachts
My Grown-Up Christmas List - Kelly Clarkson
All I Want For Christmas Is You - Mike Viola And The Candy Butchers
Silent Night - Sinead O’Connor
A New Year (Live) - Stars

Happy Holidays!

The days are rapidly getting shorter. Even here in SF, the fall air is crisp and nips at your nose… Last night, a bunch of us got together and had our traditional “pre-thanksgiving dinner” at Kim’s house, and it was sooo tasty.

So, in honor of my favorite eating holiday, I’ve created a little playlist for your enjoyment whilst lying on the couch in a turkey daze..

SeeqPod Music beta - Playable Search

So, curl up on the couch, snuggle up and enjoy.

Thanks Marcy for the inspiration for this post.

So yah… There has been a ton of awesome music comin’ round town lately. Insane. Woohoo. Good stuff.

So my week of music started off with a FREE Chromeo show at Mezzanine… I figured it was a Monday night, so it wouldn’t be THAT crowded, despite there being over 3,000 people on the RSVP list.. I was wrong. Dana and I got to Mezzanine around 10:30pm, and we made it to the front of the line and then… DENIED. We were the NEXT people in, and they cut off capacity. Poop. That kinda sucked. But, at least I got a picture with the bouncer.

But, whatever.. cuz my week of music continued on Tuesday.. Jude joined me, and we headed to Z-Trip at the Independent. He’s touring with Gift of Gab and Aceyalone, and they apparently did the soundtrack to some video game. Z threw out a copy of the video game at the show, which hit me in the head. I don’t have an xbox 360, but at least I got a free game. Woo. In any case, Z-trip ROCKED the house. And I love the Independent. Such a good venue.

So yah.. I missed the Chromeo show on Monday… But… Marcy was on the list for the Thursday night show in LA.. Hmmm.. this.. just.. might.. work…. And.. I like road trips.. So… I headed down to LA. Woohoo. Chromeo was actually only just ok, but, the openers were quite fantastic, including the kids from the Low End Theory party that was usually at the Echoplex that night. And I got to hang out with Marcy. Super bonus happy fun time..

But wait, there’s more… Friday night, I had tickets to the Daft Punk show at the Greek theater in Berkeley… so yah, I drove back up to SF, just in time to join up with the party bus that Julia arranged.

Yah.. Daft Punk was off the hook.. The French duo was able to get the entire place up on their feet, and I’ve never been to such an energetic show there. Incredible. The visuals were absolutely amazing. Good times.

I took a little break over the weekend (who goes out on weekends anyway), and then the week of music came to a close on Monday… Matt Kenny had an extra ticket to the Smashing Pumpkins show at the Fillmore… The Pumpkins were playing something like 14 shows there, so I figured.. why not? I mean.. it was the super crazy week of fun music, afterall.

The Pumpkins played a 3.5 hour set. Yah.. that’s a long time, especially for ADD me. And honestly, not being a huge Pumpkins fan, I only recognized a few of the songs — although honestly, I think a lot of the stuff they played hardly anyone really knew. In the middle of the show, Billy gave a little speech about how this was a new band or something or other and that they were going to be moving forward. All I can say that is he is one tall dude. I mean, the guitar looks like a toy in his hands. Yah. I’m glad I saw them and all, it was a decent enough show, but yah.. once is enough (but not for Matt Kenny, who went like 6 times)…

And with that.. my baker’s week (8 days) of music came to an end. Yah.. good times. I like music. A lot.

Kekeke.. Andy sent me this page about beatbots and it’s so frikkin cool. Watch the beatbot dance to Spoon — it’s not just a simple “move to the beat” algorithm either — the little guy has a few different dances as the song progresses. Kekeke. I want one.

(Kekeke is very appropriate here cuz the robot, Keepon, is Japanese.)

Kekeke.

Ooo… so, if you’re in New York on February 26th, you should definitely check this show out — 17th Annual Carnegie Hall Benefit Concert.. Philip Glass, Sigur Ros, Debbie Harry, Ben Harper and Lou Reed are all playing, so I bet it will be a really cool show. That’s the Monday after my birthday weekend here in SF, so.. hmm.. maybe if I can somehow hop on the redeye Sunday night, I can make it, but I don’t think it’s in the cards, unfortunately… poop. But anyway, NYC peeps, go check it out.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Philip Glass lately, in particular, his Tirol Concerto (mp3 sample). So good. Also been really into Explosions in the Sky — a post-rock group out of Austin, Texas.. The track “Your Hand in Mine” (mp3) is rock solid. I actually was turned onto them due to my recent fascination with the show Friday Night Lights — whose fascination, in part, is due to my unexplainable fascination with West Texas, in which it’s set. Anyway, EitS has a new CD coming out on the 20th, which I’m looking forward to, and then is coming here to SF on May 1st, which I have yet to get tickets for. (hmm. crap, they’re already sold out online, I guess I’ll go to Slim’s and get tix. grr.)

Hmmm… I suppose I’ve been in a decidely mellow mood lately with my music tastes. Uh.. Hmmm. Yah.. so here’s a nice little electro track from Simian Mobile Disco to liven things up a bit.. It’s charmingly titled: Tit’s & Acid. And if you like that, def check out their video “Hustler”.. Yah, hottt.

Saturday was Eileen’s birthday, which she celebrated at El Rio… A karaoke band, the Amazing Embarrassonics, were there… so, people got to get up on stage and sing karaoke… They were pretty good musicians, and were able to cope with the varying degrees of karaoke skill..

Andy did a great job conjuring up Johnny Cash with his rendition of “Ring of Fire”..

I was on the schedule to sing some Neil Diamond.. but, right as I was about to go up.. they announced… “Oh.. We’re done for the night.. See you in February!” Hmm. That’s not cool.

woot.

at the genentech concert a few weeks ago…

So.. one of my favorite shows when I was growing up was Tour of Duty… it ran for 3 seasons, and followed a platoon of soldiers through the Vietnam war… So, I was pretty excited that Sony decided to release the entire series on DVD last year, which I then bought for Andy for his birthday since he was a huge fan of the show too.. We used to have to tell our mom ahead of time what TV shows we planned to watch that week, since she didn’t let us just “channel surf”, so.. Tour of Duty was one of those shows for sure..

Now, I understand that re-watching shows from your youth sometimes doesn’t really withstand the time. Like, when I saw MacGyver again a few years ago, man, I really didn’t realize just how cheesy that show was. But after a few decades, MacGyver looks soooooo cheesy.. And what’s up with the re-use of like the same asian actors over and over and over agian?

Anyway, back to the Tour of Duty DVDs.. I noticed something was wrong when I first started watching the show.. The theme song for the show was “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones, and it was such a perfect song to open every week’s new show.. On the DVDs, that awesome song has now been replaced by this cheesy, generic tune. Yuck. So, from the very first second that we started watching, it was all wrong.. I watched a bit of the first season, and then.. put the DVDs away for almost the whole year, and tried to start watching them again today.. I realized now that it wasn’t just the theme song that they’ve replaced.. but ALL of the period music from the original series has been replaced by super cheesy generic music. AAARRGH. How f’n frustrating is this?!? The show is marginally watchable now, but man, with the original music intact, I’m sure it would still be awesome..

If you don’t think music makes a difference, here are the two intros…

With generic cheesy music

And.. with the original music

Hmm.. which is better? (damn, that stones song is good)

Anyway, someone actually has put together a petition to convince Sony to release Tour of Duty with the original music, but I dunno.. maybe they don’t really care, they already have my money. And, would I buy the whole series again? I dunno. Argh. They should let me upgrade the crappy version that I bought already.

Ok, I’m done ranting.. but honestly, it’s annoying to have 14 DVDs that you don’t even really want to watch.. Serves me right, I guess I should have just Netflixed it.