Jesus' Birth Day

Well gosh what kind of Birthday songs would be good for today?

Cibo Matto - Birthday Cake is always a good place to start. I don't really know many other Cibo Matto songs and every time I listen to "Birthday Cake" I wonder if it's for my own safety.

Jens Lekman - Happy Birthday, Dear Friend Lisa - The steel drums are pretty much the most birthday sounding thing in this song. Or maybe they are just birthday chords being played on the steel drums? The same way we've kind of accepted certain Christmas chords, certain Christmas instruments, et cetera. Jens Lekman's voice is coincidentally that of Jesus Christ, if Jesus Christ were from Sweden and was Jens Lekman.

Ween - Birthday Boy - Jesus Christ, Gene Ween says. "Paiiin." Obviously Gene Ween holds some deep personal connective tissue to our two-time coming lord and savior, Jesus Christ. He feels what Jesus goes through.

Speaking of Jesus:



I'll stand
With arms high and hope abandoned
With love
For the one who gave it all.

It's the season for givin' and this is about Jesus, so this is obviously a Christmas song.

Going to talk about something else, now.

The year is ending, and Christmas is almost over. Tiny Mix Tapes has the best list of the top 25 album covers from this year and there are so many good ones I didn't know about on there.







Things are just weird feeling today.

soda claus

At work "One Christmas Catalogue" by Captain Sensible came on which was kind of weird for my store to be playing.



Also I realized I like "Wonderful Christmas Time" by Paul McCartney more than the overly war-hamfisted "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" by John / Yoko / Plastic Ono Band. "Wonderful Christmas Time" seems like the laziest Christmas song that went farther than originally planned which is a great model for just about anything.



"Last Christmas" by Wham! is pretty great and there are more than 400 covers dang. I was in Quiznos eating Broccoli & Cheese soup and a Steak Melt Sammie and I was thinkin' about collecting a bunch of the covers, isolating the line "once bitten and twice shy / I keep my distance but you still catch my eye" 'cause that's where a bit of a falsetto comes in and I wanted to see how many people changed it or whatever but then I got real angry because I'm frustrated about things like this. I'm kinda tired of themed Tumblrs or videos compiling every usage of a fake computer imaging/magnifying sequence in a TV show or whatever. I shouldn't be, but I've been way too happy lately and it's creeping me out so I'm being irrational and overly opinionated to keep myself on my toes.



"Mykonos" by Fleet Foxes came on during the last hour at work. Nobody comes in during that last hour usually and I was done with everything I had to do for the night so I mimicked with the Green-cheeked Conure for a while and wore a respirator 'cause Timothy Hay makes me super sneezy and I tried to wake a cat up by looking at her and whisperin' her name but I guess she's a heavy sleeper or can't hear whispering in her cat dreams or something.

getting back-to-school feelings

But really I just have work tomorrow after having two days off. It's kind of the same thing.

Gonna link stuff at you now.

Blue Blue Blues starring Sonic the Hedgehog, by Ed Choy Moorman


Natasha Allegri

Hey some Christmastime for you!!!!


Drawn by Phil Elverum on Fancy People Adventures the last webcomic ever
The Microphones - Silent Night

I've been listening to "Merry Christmas From Yo La Tengo" pretty relentlessly lately.

Yo La Tengo - Rock n Roll Santa
Yo La Tengo - It's Christmas Time
Yo La Tengo - Santa Claus Goes Modern

Now I just feel lazy. I need to do something with all this do-nothing feeling I got building up in my face.

ALTERNATIVE ROCK FROM THE 90S IN NARUTO AMVS!

Which hit alternative rock singles have been used for Naruto AMVs?

"Father of Mine" by Everclear? Yes.



"Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind? Yes, but WMG took down the audio. (An embed of the song is below the Naruto video.)




"Closing Time" by Semisonic? Do you think they meant 'whisky' or 'whiskey'?


"Dammit" by blink-182? Dude Ranch was a really good album.


"Come As You Are" by Nirvana? "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was too obvious.


"Loser" by Beck? It's just a slideshow but I fuckin love narutos so who caers soy un peridor


"Brick" by Ben Folds Five? No, which is kinda weird. I guess Naruto doesn't touch much on abortions. There's a video for "Best Imitation of Myself" though:


"Song 2" by Blur? Damon Albarn just sounds like Gorillaz to me, now.


"Everlong" by Foo Fighters? I feel pretty bad for the Foo Fighters, having to play this song so dang much. And they don't really modify it a whole bunch; they usually just play it with a few tweaks here and there. Seems pretty draining to me.


"Undone (The Sweater Song)" by Weezer? This is totally a great choice for an actiony anime!!!! Rivers Cuomo was apparently dead serious when he wrote this song. Sorry for misunderstanding, Rivers.


"Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger? NO. WHAT.
WHAT.

"Popular" by Nada Surf? NO?

"Inside Out" by Eve 6? Yeah. Big whoop.


Okay, that's it. Basically almost every mainstream song from the 90s was used in a Naruto AMV.

On a somewhat related note, the weirdest AMV/Video Game MV I've seen is this one for Sebadoh's "Brand New Love" with clips from the game "Kingdom Hearts 2", which may or may not be an inside joke. It's basically a video trying to make it look like two video game dudes love each other.


And what the hell is this Deadsy cover? Who hates a band so much to cover an innocent song like this? I'm not linking it, it doesn't exist. Geez.

crusties

It's pretty dang cold now. I mean you go outside and basically it's cold out, and it probably won't get any less cold. It will probably keep being cold outside. I'm on the lookout for icy sidewalks and winter beards.

What if people started posting icy sidewalk warnings on Twitter? That seems like a wrong idea but it would give Twitter some more purpose. I'm not going to write about Twitter anymore.

I got a few zines today. The one I really really liked was Ariadne Auf Naxos Vol. 2 by Julia Gfrörer.

I picked up the second volume on accident but there doesn't seem to be an issue with continuity or whatever. You can buy the first and second volume on her Etsy for ten bux which is a good plan.

Supercar - Highvision

I'm listening to "Highvision" by Supercar all the way through for the first time. I don't think I should be drinking beer for this but I've already started and I can't really stop.

I just got to "Storywriter" and I really love the way I can barely remember the first two tracks and this song just came in with its awesome hook. The first two songs weren't bad, I just don't quite remember them. Another album I can think of that works this way is "I Can Feel the Heart Beating as One" by Yo La Tengo which basically has a short instrumental for the first track, then a long jam for the second track, then a single for the third track. I'm excited about this way of starting out an album.

I'm also drinking Olympia beer. (ADVERTISEMENT)


Basically "Highvision" by Supercar is an incredible collection of all the best emotions a person can feel recollected with synths and ambience. A good album to listen to when you really need to figure out where you're at in life.

Also holy crap the textures going on in "I"; it's like my head is a popsicle and this album is lickin' me.

Lost Wisdom / Dawn / Black Wooden EP

Pitchfork just dropped off a bunch of Phil Elverum infos. The dang track listing for Dawn. It's incredible.

Lost Wisdom:

01 Lost Wisdom
02 Voice in Headphones
03 You Swan Go On
04 Who?
05 Flaming Home
06 What?
07 If We Knew...
08 With My Hands Out
09 O My Heart
10 Grave Robbers

Dawn:

01 It Wasn't the Hunting
02 Cold Mountain
03 Moon Sequel
04 I Have Been Told That My Skin Is Exceptionally Smooth
05 I Say "No"
06 Moon, I Already Know
07 With My Hands Out
08 A Show of Hands
09 Woolly Mammoth's Mighty Absence
10 My Burning
11 Great Ghosts
12 Climb Over
13 We Squirm
14 Voice in Headphones
15 Who?
16 Dead of Night
17 See Me
18 Log in the Waves
19 Goodbye Hope

Black Wooden EP:

01 Black Wooden
02 The Bottomless Pit
03 If We Knew...
04 Appetite
05 Marriage
06 Mount Eerie Revealed (version)

"Moon, I Already Know" is on Dawn. Holy crap yes. Lost Wisdom has a 'musicians in a room playing music' vibe. Holy heck. Black Wooden has "Marriage" oh crap. There will be THREE studio recordings of "With My Hands Out" which is fantastic. Could mix tracks from Dawn and Lost Wisdom together. Song soup. Oh man.