Project 2010: Day 90 - Firsts

Wow. 90 days of listening to my iPod in order of song title, yet I'm only on the F's. Oh well. Here are some comments on some things that I've listened to today, which brought me deep into the "Firsts".

I'll spare you the R.E.M. "Finest Worksong," but that doesn't mean I didn't love listening to it.

"Fire and Rain" is one of those songs that I thought I liked more than I actually like. It's always longer than I think it is, and slower than I think it's going to be. See for yourself:



On the other hand "Fire Island, AK" by The Long Winters gets better every time. Also the lead singer of The Long Winters has been hanging with John Hodgeman, which makes him even cooler in my nerdy mind.



Fireworks is one of my favorite Animal Collective songs that isn't on Merriweather.



I have posted this video before because it is maybe my favorite video in the history of the world to go with a song that I am in love with. Hooray for Bright Eyes!



And yet another song I love came up today- again, I know I've posted about Noah and the Whale before, but today was actually "First Days of Spring" day, which it totally is. Apt. Although I'm not going through a horrifying break up at the moment. Here's hoping!

Project 2010: zooming through the F's

So I've been going through the F's at a pretty decent clip. I'm at 1,766 of 6,870. Yesterday I spent the entire day listening to 90 Dashboard Confessional songs in preparation for a show I'm going to in a couple of weeks.

I really enjoyed Fields Of Coal by And You Will Know Us... I couldn't find anything decent to embed so follow the link.

Classic Beastie Boys always makes me feel like I'm back in middle school again- in the best possible way.



Honestly, they won't change your life:



Is it just me or does Yeasayer sound a bit like Rusted Root?



probably just me.

Project 2010

So today I ended the E's and moved into the F's and mad it to 1,708 of 6,854. Here a selection of what I listened to today:

I have an unnatural love of Straylight Run. When we get to the S's I'll do an entire post on the Straylight Run / Brand New / Taking Back Sunday nexus. I'll also talk more about them when I get to a song off of "Prepare to be Wrong" which is an album that I love for both its music and its politics, but for now I'll just give you "Existentialism On Prom Night."



The answer to the question is yes:



And I love this song. I love this video. Very angry. Very cool.



More REM. Cause I love them. And you do too.



I find I have no idea what this song means, but I'm still positive that it is as relevant today as it was in 1986.

Here's another of my top 5 Phish songs:

Project 2010: A lot of Everything

Dog's Eye View. Did anyone even know that they existed even in 1995? Well, I did. For some reason I really liked "Everything Falls Apart," and now that I'm listening to it I realize it. It's catchy. It's true. Maybe the tempo should be a little quicker, but who am I to judge. In fact, I'm hitting repeat.



By the way, now that I'm watching this video I realize why all of my clothes from high school are still too big for me.

While everything is falling apart for Dog's Eye View, Motion City Soundtrack thinks that everything is alright. Bad play on words, but it is my favorite Motion City song.



Let me extol the virtues of Lilly Allen. She's great. There it is. "everything's wonderful" is a wonderful rant about the way the world works today.





and just to restore some of my terribly damaged indie cred here is Interpol's Evil.

Project 2010

OK, so things have been busy. Not sure how great my updating will be for the next week or three. Here goes nothing:

One of the really interesting things about this project is that some bands just sound a little bit better when you're not listening to an entire 50 minutes of them at a stretch. I Can Make A Mess Like Nobody's Business / The Early November totally fits into this category for me. Every time one of their songs pop up I really like it, yet I seem to be loath to just listen to one of their albums straight though, and as much as I really love The Decembrists, I think I like them more when they just pop up randomly for 3-6 minutes and then go away for a little bit. Today I heard "The Engine Driver" from The Decembrists.



One of the really great things about this project is finding songs that I may have overlooked. For example some songs might be on a Say Anything double album that at some times might be a little bit grating. On the other hand, apparently "Every Man Has A Molly" is somewhere in there. and yes, we all do.

Project 2010: Day 7X

Today I listened to two different versions of 10,000 Maniacs "Eat For Two." One was the original album version and the other was the MTV Unplugged version. (Sidenote- the Unplugged shows were really great, and it's a shame that MTV decided that music wasn't a really interesting thing to have on TV. Oh well. Not an original thought by any means, but there it is).

The two versions could not be more different. Sure, same words, same band, same singer, but the album version is much faster and practically uptempo, where the Unplugged version is mournful. The Unplugged version seems much more faithful to the feeling of the lyrics of the song, but the album version also has its merits (by the way, it's off of Blind Man's Zoo).

Project 201: Day 76 - The E's!

Sodastream is a guitar player and cello player from Australia. I have their album "The Hill For Company." I saw them opening for Saturday Looks Good to Me in an Ann Arbor, Michigan basement several years ago. Today I listened to "A Drum" and it is just an incredibly beautiful song. The vocals for this duo are just really wonderful. I couldn't find anything good to embed, but the link above sends you to their discography page and has lots of tracks that you can listen to.

In the same vein of kinda mellow songs, I got to Dashboard Confessional's "Dusk and Summer." I have a pretty strong love for Dashboard. His "So Impossible" EP's is one of my favorite song cycles.



Started the "E's" today with R.E.M.'s "E-Bow The Letter." I think I talked about R.E.M. yesterday, so I'll give it a rest for a minute.

Apparently bands were really into E songs with hyphens, because I also heard Beck's E-Pro. Who doesn't love a little bit of Beck on a Thursday?



Finally, I heard Iron and Wine's "Each Coming Night." Samuel Beam makes some really beautiful music, and this is a really good example of what he does. I think a lot of people would recognize he cover of "Such Great Heights" that was on the Garden State soundtrack.

Project 2010: Day 75- Dreaming and Driving

Today I got to song 1,458 of 6,804 on my iPod. This brought be through Dreaming songs and into Driving songs.

OK. I know. People hate the Dave Matthews Band. I get it. I do. But they have some songs that I really enjoy. Today I got to "The Dreaming Tree" which is one of those songs that I really like. I apologize. I know I'm not supposed to.



I also got to Sufjan's "That Dress Looks Nice on You," which, of course, made me really happy.

I also happen to really like Brandon Boyd of Incubus' voice. I've been hearing a lot of his songs, and every time I've enjoyed it. Today i heard "Drive"



I know I have already documented my R.E.M. love. But today was "Drive." How do I not share that?



Finally, I heard something and had to check to see what the heck it was. I was incredibly surprised at the answer. Like shocked. This is Bright Eyes?

Project 2010: Day 74

I've taken a few days off of Project 2010 to listen to the new Paste sampler as well as to do stuff over the weekend. Also, work has been crazy busy, but today I got back on track. So far not too many standouts, but there was this:



The Refreshments are ridiculous. That's really all I have to say about that, but they are fun. I can't pretend as if this is actually a good song, but I do enjoy it. It is certainly no "Banditos":



Also heard one of my favorite Phish songs today, "Down With Disease." You can probably pinpoint the year this video was made just by looking at it.



I was actually surprised by how few songs started with the word "down" as opposed to "do" or "don't."

Project 2010: Day 71

Here I am in Don't land...

And also apparently stuck in the 1990's for the moment as I sang every word to Oasis' "Don't Look Back In Anger." Even weirder, I totally have that jacket that Noel Gallagher is wearing, and I wear it all the time. Mine is definitely not as old as this song is.



Speaking of the 90's, another of the "Don'ts" I listened to is Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop." I know, I know, the song is much older than that, but I associate the song with Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, since it was the campaign's theme song. It was also the time that they came back together for a couple of years. Anyways, makes me think back to a time where things were about to go on an upswing, and I'm hoping that's where we are again in history.



Then, I somehow spent the rest of the afternoon listening to this. It's a compilation of different Code Talking stations. I find it equal parts creepy and fascinating. One of the tapes from The Conet Project was the inspiration for the title of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album, and an piece of that code talker is on the album (track 4 on the site).

Project 2010: Day 70 (figured it out again) - Do

Today I continued my love affair with Nada Surf. Heard "Do It Again" which isn't technically the title track to "The Weight Is a Gift," but still has the lyric that the album's title comes from.



The Flaming Lips put on one of the best shows I have ever gone to. It was like going to an idealized, yet twisted, New Years celebration. It was entirely about being happy and having a good time. There are people in costumes dancing on stage, confetti, MASSIVE balloons and thousands of fans dancing and jumping and singing non-stop. Beyond that, they are one of the most original bands of our time. So, hearing "Do You Realize," the song that really brought me back to The Flaming Lips was a welcome moment this morning.



Wow. Well, today has been unexpectedly good (a weird thing to say when listening to your own iPod, but whatever). Also hit "Do You Want To" by Franz Ferdinand. Made me want to get up and dance. Of course I didn't.



I got to song #1,384 of 6,779 and made if from the "Do's to the "Don'ts)

Project 2010

A quick refresher intro: Starting January 1st I've been listening to my iPod in alphabetic order by song (thus, Project 2010). I've been talking about certain songs or random thoughts that occur as I proceed through this project. At this point i'm pretty deep into the D's, and it's already looking like this will drag into 2011. Today I got to song 1,340 of 6,779.

Now to our regularly scheduled programming:

Every Indie Boy knows and loves Belle and Sabastian. OK, every 32 year old Indie Boy knows and loves Belle and Sabastian. Pretty early in the day I got to "Dirty Dream Number Two," which is a pretty respectable song by them. At some point I should do an all-out salute to them, but for today you'll just get this:



Not too much longer I got to The All-American Rejects "Dirty Little Secret." I have no shame about enjoying The All-American Rejects. They are poppy, hooky, and fun. In addition, I actually really like this video for some reason.



Lately, anytime I hear The Postal Service I think, "when will they come out with another album?" The answer keeps looking like never, which is unfortunate. Give Up was such a great album, and getting something else comparable would be welcome:



Did I mention that I had a ton of R.E.M. on my iPod? I do. I think barely a day goes by where I don't hear at least one R.E.M. song. Not that I'm complaining.

I will complain that I listened to Phish perform "The Divided Sky" twice in a row for almost a half hour (and I wonder why I'm not getting through a lot of songs). I didn't realize that the one 14 minute version was over, and that the 18 minute version began. It's a great jam, just not twice in a row.

Project 2010

So, today started with "The Difference" by The Wallflowers. It brought me back to 1996 and BELTING out the song while driving around, and I am a terrible singer. Terrible. Like so incredibly bad, but this song still rocks after 14 years, and I almost started belting it out in my cubicle.



I also really like The Mountain Goats song "Dilaudid." There are really intense strings:



Honestly, made very little progress today- hope tomorrow goes better.

Project 2010

Today I only got to song 1,303 of 6,779. I think I added more songs this weekend than I was able to listen to today, so I might be losing a bit of ground. I put Freestyle Whales onto my ITunes the other day and I am really enjoying their album.

One of the things I really like about this project is that it gives me an opportunity to find some songs that I may have overlooked, either because they are on albums that I didn't listen to much or because they were buried somewhere in an album where I was no longer paying much attention. One such song is Animal Collective's "Derek" which is off of "Strawberry Jam." I've listened to "Merriweather Post Pavilion" about 100 times and "Strawberry Jam" about 3 times. So, I was pretty happy with this find.



I love Bob Dylan, but at around minute eight of Desolation Row I'm ready for something else to be going on.

Another artist that I seem to have a lot of on my iPod is Beck. Almost every time I hit one of his songs I'm pretty happy about it. Definitely loved "Devil's Haircut" today.




Finally, I got to hear "Dialtone" by Saturday Looks Good to Me. Saturday Looks Good To Me is a Detroit area band that I saw several times when I lived in Michigan. They always put on a really fun show and were one of those bands that always seemed to be having a party on stage with a plethora of band members participating. I couldn't find a good version of "Dialtone" to embed, so here's a link:

http://www.last.fm/music/Saturday+Looks+Good+to+Me/_/Dialtone

Project 2010: Indie Crush: Sufjan Stevens

My last song for today was "Decatur" by Sufjan Stevens. I am in love with Sufjan. For those who are not familiar, Sufjan sings beautiful songs about love, loss, adventures, history, and places. I was able to see him last year at All Tomorrow's Parties New York, and it was one of the most amazing shows I've ever been to. He played his album, Seven Swans, from beginning to end, and the thousand people in the room were so quiet that if anyone spoke at a normal voice almost the entire room was able to hear them. His performance was hypnotic. This is "To Be Alone With You" which is on Seven Swans



Sufjan followed up Seven Swans with Michigan- an album about Michigan and then Illinois. Illinois is one of my favorite albums of all time. The stories he tells in his songs are so beautiful, sad, happy, and interesting. "Decatur" is one of my favorites- "Stephen A Douglas is the great debater Abraham Lincoln is the great emancipator." No one else in the world would fit that into a song about a trip with their stepmother:



Finally, this is Casmir Pulaski Day. Every time I hear this song I get really sad and happy at the same time.



So, there is my little salute to Sufjan Stevens. He deserves a lot more- but this is what I've got.

Project 2010

Today was a really great day of music. I made it through a ton of songs and hit on a bunch of songs that I really, really love. I'm now on 1,257 of 6,714.

I was surprised to find a really great cover of Phish singing "A Day In The Life" live. It was really well done, and you can hear the crowd singing along. It definitely put a smile on my face.

A discovery- I have two The Mars Volta CD's. Everything about The Mars Volta points to the fact that I should really enjoy them. They mix a lot of things in that I like about other bands- long songs with jams, horns, and interesting orchestration. However, every time I hit one of their songs I find myself just waiting for it to end. Right now I am litening to the 12 minute long "Day of the Baphomets." And. It. Just. Will. Not. End.

I talk quite a bit about R.E.M. I will talk about them even more as things go on. Today got to "Daysleeper," which is yet another amazing song by them.



Also, hit The White Stripes "Dead Leaves and Dirty Ground." The White Stripes are just an all around great rock duo and when this song came on it made me happy and bob my head. Nothing wrong with that.



"Dear Anonymous" by Juliana Hatfield came up today as well. I just find that interesting, because every time I hear her I think a little bit about My So-Called Life. I definitely like that show a little too much, and probably watch TV just a little too much.

Made it to "Debaser" by The Pixies which added to my good day of music- I really find myself digging the D's.



"A Decade Under The Influence" might be my favorite Taking Back Sunday tune. Lyrics like "Close your eyes, just settle," "My worst brings out the best in you," and "I've got a bad feeling about this" all (sadly) appeal to me.

Project 2010

I made it to the D's! So, that's pretty exciting.

Got to listen to "Dance Music" by The Mountain Goats. Really like them, really like this song. I couldn't resist watching a sock puppet perform this. I'm never sure if people have too much time on their hands or are just more productive with their time than I am. Who's to say?



Also, got to "Dark Too Early" by Mezzanine Owls. I really their sound a lot. I couldn't find that song, but here's "Coyote."



Finally, as I said before, I don't really like OKGO's new album- but who can resist a little Rube Goldberg? Not me!

Project 2010

Sometimes you just want to yell. Like really yell. Or at least listen to someone yell, and that is where Taking Back Sunday comes in. OK, they are not one of the best or even better bands to come around, but when I'm in the right mood I love listening to them. Today I hit "Cute without the E." It is probably the perfect example of what I love about them (but I can totally respect you not being into it at all).



Also today, Cuyahoga from R.E.M. Growing up in Cuyahoga County in Ohio, I always get a little bit excited about this song, and seeing R.E.M. play it live in Cuyahoga County was amazing. The crowd went crazy. Probably the only place on Eath that the crowd goes wild over that song.

honestly, didn't make a lot of progress today. I'm only on 1,162 of 6,714 but I did listen to the new Gorillaz album and the new Broken Bells album. I was lukewarm on both.