“Play with matches, if you think you need to play with matches”

“Ego to Bear” – Winter 2012/2013

1. Cloud Nothings – Stay Useless
2. Hot Chip – Motion Sickness
3. Ultraista – Bad Insect
4. LCD Soundsystem – Big Ideas
5. Tame Impala – Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
6. The Smiths – Hand in Glove
7. Talking Heads – Making Flippy Floppy
8. Tune-Yards – Riotriot
9. New Order – Age of Consent
10. Pantha du Prince and the Bell Laboratory – Photon
11. Toro y Moi – Harm in Change
12. The Whitest Boy Alive – Burning
13. The Mountain Goats – Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1
14. David Bowie – The Stars (Are Out Tonight)
15. Scott Walker – It’s Raining Today
16. Stevie Wonder – Ordinary Pain
17. My Bloody Valentine – Wonder 2
18. Local Natives – Colombia

Annotations:
-New record for variety: only 2 of the bands from last season’s mix made it on to this one as well. That means my tastes are branching out, right? Or, at least, going backwards. Which I guess is appropriate given this tracklist.
-This mix also probably sets a record for amount of track #1s in a single season. So it’s a little odd that none of them ended up being track #1 here. But “Stay Useless” is just such a perfect anthem for where my head has been at lately, about needing to find time away from everything, and not always to be productive, but sometimes to just let your mind wander because you need that to stay sane. I also think it forms a pretty perfect bookend against “Colombia,” which explores a different area of my headspace lately; it’s no coincidence that the first theme on here is “give me time!”, but the disc ends with the question “am I giving enough?”
-Honorable mentions: “Audience with the Pope” by Elbow; “Gun-Shy” by Grizzly Bear; a fuckton of other Smiths songs

“Visualize Success, But Don’t Believe Your Eyes”

“At the Bottom of Today” – Fall 2012

1. Beach House – Myth
2. Talking Heads – Crosseyed and Painless
3. Clinic – The Equaliser
4. Dirty Projectors – The Socialites
5. Elbow – The Bones of You
6. Yeasayer – Demon Road
7. Animal Collective – Pulleys
8. Portishead – We Carry On
9. El Ten Eleven – My Only Swerving
10. The War on Drugs – Comin’ Through
11. White Rabbits – They Done Wrong/We Done Wrong
12. School of Seven Bells – Secret Days
13. Kendrick Lamar – Swimming Pools (Drank)
14. Tanlines – Brothers
15. Twin Shadow – Run My Heart
16. The New Pornographers – Jackie
17. Hot Chip – Always Been Your Love
18. Grizzly Bear – Yet Again

-Couldn’t find a link for “Pulleys”, unfortunately. Too bad: AC’s new album has been unfairly lambasted for not topping Merriweather Post Pavilion, but I think it’s still pretty great.

-Almost made it this season: “Lion” by Four Tet; “Flaggin a Ride” by Divine Fits; “Pyramids” by Frank Ocean; “Rhiannon” by Fleetwood Mac (I dunno, too on the nose?); about sixteen other Talking Heads songs, seriously, I listened to so much of them this season

“Use Your Intuition, It’s All You’ve Got”

“Blood Hot” – Summer 2012

1. Japandroids – The House that Heaven Built
2. Dan Deacon – True Thrush
3. Hot Chip – Don’t Deny Your Heart
4. Animal Collective – Today’s Supernatural
5. Here We Go Magic – Made to Be Old
6. The Walkmen – Heartbreaker
7. !!! – Wannagain Wannagain
8. M83 – Raconte-moi Une Histoire
9. Broken Bells – The Mall and Misery
10. Grouplove – Tongue Tied
11. Fleetwood Mac – Dreams
12. Yeasayer – Longevity
13. Passion Pit – I’ll Be Alright
14. Kanye West (ft. everyone) – Monster
15. Peaking Lights – LO HI
16. Delicate Steve – Afria Talks to You
17. Twin Shadow – Five Seconds
18. Dirty Projectors – Unto Caesar

Annotations:
-I don’t usually watch music videos anymore, but Dan Deacon’s True Thrush video is a ton of fun, it’s the kind of thing my friends and I would do in real life. In case you didn’t click on it above, here’s the link again.
-Grouplove is such a strange band to me because I have no idea what kind of music they want to make. Listening to their full-length, it’s nothing at all like what I expected from their EP. And surprise is good, I guess, except that there are so many styles of songwriting that it never gels into anything cohesive. Some of it’s great, and hoo boy, some of it ain’t, but when you write songs as good as “Tongue Tied”, I think you’ve probably earned at least one more album to figure out where you’re going, eh?
-Passion Pit’s album is another strange beast for an entirely different reason. The lyrics are darker, which the critics love (sad lyrics against happy beats, oooh!), but, man, a lot of this is maybe too depressing even for me. And this is coming from the guy who prefers his artists when they’re sad. Maybe it’s because Michael Angelakos really is a hair’s breadth away from suicide on a bad day? Maybe it’s because I selfishly just want jams from this band and jams only? Or maybe because I’m getting older and… dare I say it… happier?
-Runners up for this mix: …not much, actually. I’ve had this one locked down for a while, just took forever to name. Man, I dunno. It’s getting way harder these days to write about music and I’d rather just spend more time listening to it. If you’ll excuse me, then.

“Looking Back is for the Birds”

“Enough Words” – Spring 2012

1. Hot Chip – Flutes
2. White Rabbits – Temporary
3. Phantogram – Don’t Move
4. M83 – Reunion
5. Bear in Heaven – World of Freakout
6. Fleetwod Mac – The Chain
7. LCD Soundsystem – Freak Out/Starry Eyes
8. Elbow – The Birds
9. Talking Heads – Burning Down the House
10. Chromatics – Lady
11. The Shins – Bait and Switch
12. Neutral Milk Hotel – Two-Headed Boy
13. Franz Ferdinand – I’m Your Villain
14. Ra Ra Riot – Too Too Too Fast
15. The Walkmen – Heaven

Annotations after the jump…

Finally, a good reason for a Mad Men prequel

The bikini has one of the best etymological origins I’ve ever heard. From Wikipedia’s entry on Bikini Atoll:

The name was popularized in the United States not only by nuclear bomb tests, but because the bikini swimsuit was named after the island in 1946. The two-piece swimsuit was introduced within days of the first nuclear test on the atoll, when the name of the island was in the news. Introduced just weeks after the one-piece “Atome” was widely advertised as the “smallest bathing suit in the world”, it was said that the bikini “split the atom”.

I hope somebody got MAD PAID off of that.

H-Bombs were tested on Bikini Atoll up until 1958. Makes you wonder what kind of bikini was the worst thing in 1954 after all.

A Helpful Visit

The comic is actually way bigger, so please click here to read it in the hi-res glory that this ramshackle black-and-white comic was meant for!

 

She may not want this, but I’m giving credit to my friend Meredith for the germ of this idea a few months back. I think I had been acting like a smart ass at the time (imagine that).

“I Fell in Love with the Burden Holding Me Down”

Hello! I’m still alive and even listening to music. Here’s the mix I made for the season.

“Happiness in Others” – Winter 2011/12

1. The Drums – How it Ended
2. Tennis – Origins
3. Grouplove – Colours
4. Gang Gang Dance – Adult Goth
5. Radiohead – Staircase
6. Peaking Lights – All the Sun that Shines
7. Talking Heads – I’m Not in Love
8. Jay-Z and Kanye West – No Church in the Wild
9. Drake – Headlines
10. Suicide – Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne
11. The War on Drugs – Baby Missiles
12. White Denim – Drug
13. White Rabbits – Danny Come Inside
14. Elbow – Grounds for Divorce
15. M83 – Teen Angst
16. Wilco – One Sunday Morning

Annotations:

-I don’t think the songs I choose for a season mix are usually very biographical, but this one is kind of an exception. There were a few tough choices between what made it onto the mix and what didn’t based on my headspace a while back.
-Then again, I mean, wow! Look at a bunch of those titles. “Adult Goth”? “Teen Angst”? “Grounds for Divorce”? One of the bands is even named Suicide, for fucking out loud. You might think I had a really bad season! But it was actually pretty good, for the most part. Maybe I just have a thing for depressing music?
-Award for most unintentionally hilarious segue in a while: the spoken outro of Drake’s “Headlines” (must only be on the album version, couldn’t find one on YouTube, sorry), in which he implores us to stop talking about how much something cost vs. how we got it and hey let’s maybe engage with each other more than our money you guys, which then goes straight into a song called “Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne”. Nice one, Meyer!
-I’ve been listening to a lot of M83 lately – especially the new album – but “Teen Angst” was a real standout from when I saw them live last month. Partly because I didn’t even know the song very well before that. There’s a lot to be said for discovering (or re-discovering) a song as the band plays it directly to you – it can be a powerful thing. Maybe next season something new like “Claudia Lewis” or “Year One, One UFO” will make it on here.
-Other close calls: Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s “Fffunny Fffriends”; Ra Ra Riot’s “Too Too Too Fast”; The Shins’ “Simple Song”.

The DEXTER Season Finale Explained

(A meeting between two friends: LARRY, a lapsed viewer of DEXTER who hasn’t seen the show in a year or two, and CURLY, a current viewer who has just watched the season finale.)

(Curly doesn’t give a shit about being spoiled, but if you do, hopefully you understand that SPOILERS LIE AHEAD!)

****

CURLY: So, I saw the DEXTER season 6 finale last night.
LARRY: Yeah? Was there a big twist at the end?
CURLY: There sure was: Deb finally learned the truth about Dexter when she witnessed him carry out his kill ritual.
LARRY: Wow, that’s big news! The way they’d been building up Deb’s character, I knew it’d only be a matter of time before she used her detective skills and intuition to figure out the truth.
CURLY: Well… she didn’t really use any skills or intuition.
LARRY: What do you mean?
CURLY: She just walked in at the wrong time.
LARRY: Looking for Dex? But how did she find his kill room?
CURLY: It was the scene of a current police investigation.
LARRY: Well, I guess that wasn’t entirely new for Dex. Sort of unlikely that she walked in when she did, though huh?
CURLY: No, not at all. Dex told her he’d be working there that night.
LARRY: He… he set up a kill room right where and when he told his sister he would be?
CURLY: He didn’t seem to think she’d be interested in revisiting the known headquarters of a serial killer still at large.
LARRY: Dex didn’t take any of the precautions he usually would when setting up a kill room?
CURLY: Nope. He didn’t even lock the door. Deb just walked right in.
LARRY: Wow, Dex was really off his game, huh? Harry must have had a field day with that one.
CURLY: Harry did not appear in the episode.
LARRY: Well… was Dex just under too much pressure and mistake-prone like he was in season 4?
CURLY: He did screw up a lot this season, freely outing himself to a serial killer still at large for one thing, but unlike previous seasons, it was never treated like a serious symptom that Dex would have to confront.
LARRY: Oh. So, it sounds like this crucial moment of the series was more like a climax in Deb’s character arc. She must have suspected something was up with Dex to surprise him and finally call him on his weird behavior.
CURLY: Nope. She was actually coming in to tell him she loved him. Like, romantically.
LARRY: Really?
CURLY: Yeah. She realized it last episode, thanks to therapy.
LARRY: Huh. Well, that could be an interesting wrinkle. So she realized she was so madly in love with him that she had to tell him her feelings immediately?
CURLY: No, she had several chances during the episode. But every encounter of theirs had Dex acting his normal weird and stand-offish self.
LARRY: But– I mean… but then, why barge in when she did? What changed for her during the episode?
CURLY: I guess you could say she spoke with her therapist.
LARRY: And her therapist told her to speak her mind to her brother.
CURLY: No.
LARRY: No?
CURLY: No. Her therapist said she couldn’t control how her brother would react to hearing the truth. With the subtext being…
LARRY: Kid gloves.
CURLY: Kid gloves, yes. Telling your brother you’re in love with him is maybe not the kind of thing you’d do while he’s in the middle of a super-important work assignment that you just tasked to him.
LARRY: I’d at least sit him down with a beer first.
CURLY: Or six.
LARRY: So… you’re saying that the big event, possibly the biggest event that every DEXTER fan has been waiting for and the series has been building to since the first episode, turned out to be an unearned, illogical moment predicated on both Deb and Dex acting dumbly out of character?
CURLY: Well…
LARRY: …
CURLY: …
LARRY: So when does JUSTIFIED come back?

“Told Myself I’d Never Write a Love Song”

“No Warmth in Dreams” – Fall 2011

1. Wilco – I Might
2. The Drums – Money
3. Future Islands – Walking Through That Door
4. Four Tet – Locked
5. Guided by Voices – Gold Star for Robot Boy
6. M83 – Couleurs
7. Jay Z & Kanye West – Murder to Excellence
8. White Denim – Anvil Everything
9. Fela Kuti – Gentleman
10. Little Dragon – Ritual Union
11. The Rapture – Children
12. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Ativan Eyes
13. Pavement – Frontwards
14. Yacht – Tripped and Fell in Love
15. Talking Heads – Take Me to the River

Mixes are much easier to make when the average song length is over 5 minutes! Dunno why this mix is so full of long songs. Seriously: four songs on here are over seven minutes, and the 11-minute Fela track is the SHORT version. And yet, Gold Star for Robot Boy is barely 90 seconds. Weird.

The title sort of sounds pretty damn depressing, but I meant it in a more motivational way, as in dreams by themselves don’t amount to much if you never make the effort to act on them. Not sure that has a lot to do with the music on the mix, it’s just kind of a general feeling from these last few months. Next season: hopefully something more uplifting!

Deferred Jams

(Being the latest in my series of quarterly mixes…this one easily a month late.)

“Too Much Time” – Summer 2011

1. Phoenix – Consolation Prizes
2. Holy Ghost! – Wait and See
3. Little Dragon – Nightlight
4. Jay-Z & Kanye West – Ni**as in Paris
5. Aeroplane – Caramellas
6. The Rapture – How Deep is Your Love?
7. Friendly Fires – Chimes
8. Ra Ra Riot – Ghost Under Rocks
9. Ducktails – Killin the Vibe
10. Okkervil River – The Valley
11. Cults – Go Outside
12. Yacht – I Walked Alone
13. The Mountain Goats – High Hawk Season
14. Times New Viking – Fuck Her Tears
15. TV on the Radio – New Cannonball Blues
16. Washed Out – Before
17. White Denim – Is and Is and Is
18. M83 – Midnight City
19. The Flaming Lips – Feeling Yourself Disintegrate

Annotations:
-I made an honest-to-god mixtape for someone this summer, and after making it felt I had to tell her not to read too much into the song titles and lyrics I chose. Same thing applies here. I’m drawn to melodies much more quickly than lyrics most of the time, and trying to literally transcribe four months of my life via song titles wouldn’t be much fun for anyone as it is. So basically, don’t look at titles like “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate” and “Fuck Her Tears” and assume I had a shitty summer or anything.
-Actually, “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate” is on there because I saw the Flaming Lips play the entirety of The Soft Bulletin at Hollywood Forever cemetery a few months back. It was nuts, and a fantastic way to revisit one of my favorite albums from college. Maybe they’ll do Yoshimi shows in two years?
-“Go Outside” was pretty overplayed and isn’t even a favorite song of mine, but it’s here as motivation, I guess – to go outside, do stuff, stay active. Or else!
-So, so tough to choose a Yacht song – I’ve been jocking Shangri-La constantly for months now, and I very nearly chose “Dystopia” or “Paradise Engineering” instead. The whole album’s great, and the band is a ton of fun live. I’m sure you’ll be seeing much more from this album on future mixes.