the smashing pumpkins

There was a time from 1991 to 1999 when The Smashing Pumpkins were good and a time from 1991 to 1993 where they were awesome. Sadly, like so many good bands from that time, they were overshadowed by Nirvana.

Anyway, here's Rocket from Siamese Dream.

The Mountain Goats

Some time in 2005 I heard Tammy Wynette's D-I-V-O-R-C-E on the radio. Enraptured by this song, I ran to the Internet and armed with nothing but the word “divorce” I scoured my peer to peer music sharing program of choice to find this song, translation: I typed “divorce” into the the search and downloaded every result that came back. One of the first results to come back was There Will be No Divorce by The Mountain Goats. Hearing this, I ended the search and focused my attention on finding more by The Mountain Goats. They were like nothing I had ever heard before, raw more story than song they showed me that there was good music that wasn't put out by the major record labels.

I am sure you can work out the theme for today's song.

Interpol

theme song for this whole summer:

Interpol, Slow Hands

don't watch, just listen.

Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir, ft. William Elliott Whitmore

theme song this evening:

Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir, ft. William Elliott Whitmore, Nehemia's Misfortune

Holy god. I can bet nothing so interesting has ever happened in any one of my bathrooms. I will admit that in a fit of YouTube video clicking around, I found this little gem and checked it out just because it mentioned WEW. Have I mentioned that he and I will be married someday? We will live on the horse farm in IA that he grew up on, which is conveniently located within a short distance of my outcrops I did my MS/PhD research on. It's a match made in heaven if you ask me.

Modest Mouse

Theme song for the week: Modest Mouse – Missed the Boat

I first heard about Modest Mouse sometime in the early 2000s where I lived with the misconception that all modern music was shit. Popular music had achieved its apex sometime between 1994 and 1998 and it was now on the steep downward decline. So needless to say I dismissed them out of hand and didn't bother listening to them. The decision made I lived in blissful ignorance until sometime last year when looking for more emo music after being blown away by The Van Pelt's Sultans of Sentiment, the name Modest Mouse popped into my head and I listened to The Moon and Antarctica and was mildly pleased by it. Then This is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About and was even more pleased, this pattern continued until I had progressed to We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sunk last Saturday and I was in love.

So the next time you are about dismiss a band you've never heard remember back to this blog entry and don't make the same mistake I did. Watch, listen, love and then go out and buy. Your ears and brain will thank you for it.

Amanda Palmer/Nirvana

theme song this evening:

Amanda Palmer, "Polly"

Yes, that is the same Polly by Nirvana. Can you believe Nevermind is 20 years old? Holy crap. Amanda Palmer is my new queen of musical reinterpretation. Sadly, I cannot find a YouTube video of this song, but please click here and scroll down the page to hear her version of the song.

In the mean time, please enjoy some 20 year old Nirvana.

Monster Magnet

I do not particularly care much for metal. In fact as a rule it along with whatever exactly “urban” is (anybody?) is my least favourite genre of music . Metal songs just seem to have a generic sameness that makes them interchangeable and totally unremarkable. This generic sound is partly a result of being ignorant and unversed in metal music and its intricacies, something that I tried to rectify, at the prompting of friends, by watching Metalocalypse. This fine and educational show gave me an understanding and appreciation of what it means to be metal but unfortunately did nothing to change my opinion on the music.

However, there are always exceptions to rules, and today's song is one such exception. Monster Magnet according to their Wikipedia entry are both heavy metal and stoner metal and for all intents and purposes should be like Usher to my ears. But through some quirk of fate they have succeeded in producing something with Space Lord, that is quite simply, awesome. Maybe it is the Oscar Wildesque lyrics, the cameo by Twiggy Rameriez or even the lightbulb suit, whatever it is it just works.

Do you need to feel like a complete and utter badass today? Then my friend, this is the song for you.