Saturday, December 8, 2007

best of '07

Albums of '07:
1. Of Montreal, Hissing Fauna, are you the Destroyer?
2. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
3. The Rowboats, 4 Years...

Best Piece of New Pop Culture:
1. Flight of the Conchords
2. Children of Men

Book:
1. White Bicycles by Joe Boyd

Old Book:
1. Preston Falls by David Gates
(AWESOME!!!)

Happy Surprises:
1. Ray Davies, Working Man's Cafe
2. Robyn Hitchcock, Ole Tarantuala!
3. Mercury Rev, Leg My Ego

Songs of '07:
The Walkmen: Louisiana
Spoon: You Got Y'r Cherry Bomb
Yo La Tengo: Black Flowers
The Hong Kong: Tongue Tied
The Shins: Sleeping Lessons
Robyn Hitchcock: Ole Tarantula!
Elk City: Los Cruzados
The White Stripes: Icky Thump
Feist: 1 2 3 4
The Black Lips: Veni, Vidi, Vici

Finds of '07:
1. Milk 'n' Cookies, s/t
2. Comet Gain (thanks T.C.)
3. Sloan
4. Lou Reed, Coney Island Baby
5. The Shock of the New, Robert Hughs
6. Cheap Trick, In Color
7. Ronnie Lane and Ron Wood, Mahoney's Last Stand

Discoveries/Realizations:
1. Jose Feliciano was blind, not just cool (I never knew)

Monday, December 3, 2007

Songs New and Old (in demonstration format)

several songs from the book, some older most new. we've got a mini-tour in March and we're sifting through the wheat and chaff looking for little fresh notes. Voices in the Choir is my attempt to write a song for Fred Cole and Dead Moon, one of my favorite bands. Instead of Dead Moon it comes out sounding more like David Essex on a bad day. Alone But Never Lonely falls under the heading "Clem Songs with Loneliness in the Title." The Gold Band Curse: imagine you're in the greatest rock and roll band and then everything sours. Inevitable. Baby Oh Yeah is for fun-lovin' types who wanna have a cream ale by the hi-fi. Breakfast at Kingdom Come and Be Mine are untroubled older numbers from before King Vidor and before I learned the 4th rule of song writing. On The Balcony has kazoo and is my attempt to write a Nikki Sudden song.


Voices in the Choir











Alone But Never Lonely









The Gold Band Curse










Baby Oh Yeah










Breakfast at Kingdom Come









Be Mine








One the Balcony