28 June 2005

clean up

hater - who do i kill?
american music club - patriot's heart
neko case - tightly


I keep a folder on my machine that's called "Post Me", where I stick songs that I want to share. I do this because every time I put something up here I end up rooting through all my different folders looking for something, and occasionally I'll come across something I want to talk about, but it doesn't fit my mood for the day.

In the process of putting up the first 32 tracks, I've managed to put 7 or 8 songs in my Post Me folder that I haven't gotten around to writing about. So today I'm going to start clearing out that folder, regardless of if any of these songs fit a mood or theme (or regardless of the fact that they're filled with oogy-boogy sadness, or whatever Jon called it).

Track #1 (or 33, depending on how you're counting) today is by Hater. I only know about Hater because at one point in my life I was a certified Seattle-ite, and I followed the careers of the members of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains very closely. I never really was that big of a Nirvana fan.

Hater was a side project by Ben Sheppard (Bass - Soundgarden) and Matt Cameron (Drums - Soundgarden then, Pearl Jam now) along with some other guys that were in less popular bands that I can't remember now. As a Soundgarden fan, I always preferred the songs that Sheppard or Cameron wrote. They just seemed to be bring something completely different and "off" to the band. You can compare "Black Hole Sun" to the song "Half" off the Superunknown album for an example.

Hater's album was kind of like those weird one-off Soundgarden songs, if only you made them a lot more lo-fi and sort of less thought out. Or if you threw in a sort of yeehaw-country-jig-ditty about girls giving you blisters on your eyeballs. Unfortunately you're not getting that track today, because instead I've decided to post "Who Do I Kill?". In hindsight I have no idea why I chose this track to represent the album.

Track #2 for today is by American Music Club. If my memory serves me correct, Mark Eitzel was one of the fellows who sang for AMC, and I saw him open for Low once. Although I wasn't very familiar with his music (except for a track from the No Alternative comp that I always enjoyed), he put on a great show and was a great story teller.

This track, "Patriot's Heart" is a look at America from the eyes of someone who's life doesn't exactly fit the average depiction of the American dream. I think. The truth is I've never really paid a whole lot of attention to the lyrics past the first verse, and the song talks about an overweight male stripper. I think. In any case, I do remember thinking it was great. I have a shit memory though, so maybe I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I should write record review for Rolling Stone, probably.

Track #3 is Neko Case's "Tightly". I don't know what's up with Neko Case... she writes and album that I can't get enough of ("Blacklisted") and then I go to check out her other solo stuff (She's also a member of The New Pornographers) and it sounds like run of the mill country knock off blah. Anyway, Tightly is a great track that reminds me of all the dead people I used to know.

By the way, Six Feet Under was great last night.

Have a happy day.

An aside: I had to re-edit this post 4 times to fix spelling and word us mistakes. I might need a nap or something.

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