Earlier this year, Michael Griffin passed away. Griffin was the violinist for one of my favorite hardcore (well, queercore) bands of the ’90s, Behead the Prophet. Since then, I’ve been on a mission to find their first EP on vinyl. It’s one of those that I owned back in the day but lost somewhere in the last decade. It was released on now-defunct Outpunk Records, a San Fransisco label dedicated to queer punk bands like Behead the Prophet, Mukilteo Fairies, Pansy Division and Team Dresch.

Thanks to the Internet, however, I was able to track down a digital copy of the EP, and I wanted to share a bit of it. This is track one, clearly a vinyl rip (which I love) and still sounds as good to me now as it did back in ‘95. It’s completely frenetic hardcore, and Griffin’s violin was an absolutely astonishing addition to the group - and totally unheard of at the time. Metal violin? Oh yes.

Behead the Prophet N.L.S.L. “Soul System Blackout” (1995)

Behead the Prophet NLSL MySpace

Hey guys, remember when Ted Leo was just that skinny kid who sang for Chisel? I do. I think the first time I saw them was when they were touring with Karate. It was awesome. I believe I was in Pennsylvania somewhere, but I can’t remember why. The show was at Bryn Mawr. I think. Anyway, I always loved this song and was reminded of it yesterday, so here it is. Probably one of the best songs he has ever written, I think it’s pretty timeless. It’s from 1996’s 8 a.m. All Day., and along with “Looking Down at the Great Wall of China” and “Theme for a Pharmacist” (ooh, foreshadowing), “Hip Straights” is one of standouts in Chisel’s discography. It’s funny, the tune sounds like it could have been written with the Pharmacists (only the drumming would be oodles better), but Leo’s voice is still so young and uncontrollable. As ever, he sounds like he’s impersonating Argybargy (seriously, “The Dog in Me” (1996) and “High Party” (2003) are just a couple of degrees away from Argybargy at any moment, and they’re not alone), in song structure and (moreso) in his voice. In some ways, Ted Leo has been rewriting the same song over and over for close to 15 years. The good thing is that the one song is always getting better, and it’s a good fucking song. Well, here’s the beginning of that journey, for me anyway. Happy Friday.

Chisel “Hip Straights”

Earlier this week, Aaron reminded me of a fun mixtape challenge we worked on a couple years ago. The idea was to take two female film characters and create mixtapes for them - stuff we imagine they’d listen to in their car, things that seem to belong to them even though we could never be sure. In a lot of ways, the experiment has no right or wrong answers until you’ve really found a lot of good fits. One or two solid matches paves the way for the rest of the exercise, and obviously the strength and appeal of the character helps shape that process.

Aaron chose Urban Cowboy’s Sissy, which initially made me really jealous because I was totally head over heels for Boz Scaggs at the time. I knew he’d get to use “Lido,” (even though that’s cheating, because it was on the soundtrack) and it killed me. His mix turned out great, and includes tracks from Heart, Anne Murray, Randy Van Warmer, Dolly Parton and one of my favorite duets ever (not ironically, not as a guilty pleasure, for real): “You Belong to Me” by Michael McD and Carly Simon. Great mix, which you can download at Elastic Heart.

I chose Margot Tenenbaum, which is probably obvious at this point. I tried to choose songs that straddled the line between being things I feel like she’d like, and things that could easily be about her. I think I found a nice balance. This version has been cleaned up a bit, has new art than it did when I originally posted it on (now defunct) Swoon, and I removed a couple tracks that always nagged at me. There was a Feist song, it just didn’t work in the end. I removed John Cale’s “Antarctica Starts Here” and used “You Know More Than I Know” instead. Seems better to me. So, here’s the track list:

01 Elvis Costello & the Attractions “You Belong to Me”
02 Lou Reed “Perfect Day”
03 John Cale “You Know More Than I Know”
04 Silver Seas “Imaginary Girl”
05 Yes “Sweetness”
06 Big Star “I’m In Love With a Girl”
07 Crowded House “Not the Girl You Think You Are”
08 Cat Stevens “Wild World”
09 The Soft Boys “I Wanna Destroy You”
10 The Modern Lovers “Hospital”
11 Pavement “Summer Baby” (7″ version)
12 The Rolling Stones “Love in Vain”
13 Van Morrison “And It Stoned Me”
14 MC5 “Come Together”
15 Bob Dylan “4th Time Around”
16 Colin Blundstone “Say You Don’t Mind”
17 The Zombies “The Way I Feel Inside”

DOWNLOAD: VA - Margot Tenenbaum, Chapter 1 (zip)

They also have chicken wing USB drives. Seriously, it’s like they read my mind and created the best product for my life.

This article in Rolling Stone by Robert Levine leads me to believe (read: finally understand why) some music I think is annoying might actually just be suffering from the new model of mixing and mastering.

I love listening to records, and I have a good track record guessing which albums have been finished in ProTools vs. done straight to tape. I like nuance in my music. I get little thrills out of the small sounds like strings vibrating against a wooden neck, the hollow reverberations of a cavernous double bass and the wholeness of a raw vocal performance. I don’t restrict myself to listening only to albums that relate that way (my issues with Fleet Foxes notwithstanding, reverb can be great sometimes), but I’m always thrilled when I uncover an old gem or hear an album that was done the old-fashioned way. I still enjoy seeing music performed, and I like to think that I’m a thoughtful listener.

All that being said, I do make the choice to listen to most of my music digitally — mostly for convenience’s sake. I try out new records in headphones on my computer - very rarely do I have time to sample a pile of demos in car speakers or on a good system. I have a hard drive stuffed to the gills with things I want to put on my iPod. Many of those files are classics that really deserve a better format. I have to accept that, and do my best to give things second chances when it might be warranted.

I think a lot of music sounds like crap because it is crap. I believe that if my ears get tired listening to something that is trying to “maintain consistent energy” with dynamic range compression, there’s probably a good chance my ears would be tired of it without said compression. I believe that I can tell whether or not I like something despite intentional level-smooshing.

It is a really sad situation though, as there are many groups out there using a wide variety of instrumentation very creatively, and I might be missing out on sounds almost completely. Things even out, though: the listening community has decided (and begun acting as though) recorded music doesn’t have a monetary value of any consequence, and as a result of these millions of listeners preferring computer speakers, we suffer poor quality. We could change that only by rejecting digital music entirely - which won’t happen. We can make up for it by watching artists perform live when they come to our town. There’s undoubtedly a gap between what an artists hears in the studio when recording and what we’d experience in the audience, but the authenticity of a live performance is about all we’ve got when it comes to actually hearing songs the way they were meant to be heard.

I’d like to close with a Donald Fagan quote:

“We’re conforming to the way machines pay music. It’s robots’ choice. It used to be ladies’ choice — now it’s robots’ choice.”

This is actually pretty cool, but I’m a geek so maybe it’s just me. Phil Clandillon and Steve Milbourne, who work at a digital design boutique division of Sony/BMG in London created an .xls music video for AC/DC’s first single from Black Ice (gah) in attempt to help distribution via email. Since so many businesses have strict restrictions on what kind of attachments their employees can receive and which sites they can visit while on the clock, an Excel spreadsheet seems like a perfect solution. Who can’t get a spreadsheet at work?

I find it super weird that this — an unexpectedly cool hat track — comes from the Sony and AC/DC camp. There’s one fatal flaw, though: anyone who wants to see the new AC/DC video probably doesn’t have a job.

Download the spreadsheet here, read the article at Wired here.

It’s that time of year - I begin going through all the records I’ve acquired and revisit almost all of them in an attempt to both clear away things that didn’t stick and celebrate those that did. It’s time for another mixtape, so I wanted to share some of my favorite tracks from some of my favorite records this year. There are no stray songs here - they all belong to records that I recommend completely. There will be at least two more installments here - one with some softer, and perhaps more experimental tracks, and one wildcard.

DOWNLOAD: Flux-Rad 2008, Pt.1 (zip)

01 Xiu Xiu “Under Pressure” (with Michael Gira)
02 The Mae Shi “Pwnd”
03 Harvey Milk “After All I’ve Done For You, This Is How You Repay Me?”
04 Pivot “October”
05 Elephant9 “Dodovoodoo”
06 Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks “Hopscotch Willie”
07 Genghis Tron “Board Up the House”
08 Cave “HLD4″
09 The Dodos “Fools”
10 Fucked Up “Days of Last”
11 Baltic Fleet “Reykjavik Promise”
12 White Denim “Heart From All of Us”
13 Don Caballero “Challenge Jets”
14 Jason Crumer “IV. Pissed Off Responses”

I’d throw Okkervil River into the ring. And Nick Lowe, for sure. That being said, I’d probably be happy with anyone who isn’t the “next Amy Winehouse” or an out-dated pseudo-arena rock band.

Also, Clipse. Hosted by Tim & Eric.

The first time I ever heard it was in 1993, I was a sophomore in high school, and “Kodachrome” was on the Coneheads soundtrack.

Keep in mind I listened to a lot of great stuff at that age thanks to my dad, who is a really passionate music lover … but he hated Paul Simon. Never knew nothing except the Graduate until Coneheads.

How can I fix this, Paul Simon?