Everybody for Something

Vesna Jovanovic - Temporal Nexus (2007)

He doesn't know if you do this too. Instead of controlling his emotions, he controls his playlist. He controls the extent to which his melancholy seems ridiculous by blasting power pop and scowling motionless to the jangly beat. If it's eighties inspired, he's pulling out all the stops. If it can remind him he's white and spoiled, even better. His playlists aren't mood-changers, they make him realize his mood deeper by challenge and comparison. He likes to sit in a bubblebath, but not force a wash.

One-Two - Something In My Mind (mp3)


Chester French - She Loves Everybody (mp3):

Broken Up

Kalle Kataila - Contemplation, Somerset (2004)

I'm breaking up with an idea, and it hurts just as hard. I tell myself the same things that millions have used to gauze their breakup wounds; that this is a new beginning, that this will make me stronger, that everything happens for a reason. I've rationally described to myself that my ego is causing my own pain. I'm making realistic plans for how I'll react when I run into the idea at a bar, when it goes on to success without me, when it calls me late at night for help. I'm trying to keep my distance, keep it positive, keep myself busy with other things. I've made lists of all the reasons the idea is awful, and lists of every place I failed. I've already carved out several scenarios where we get back together and am trying not to think about them obsessively. I guess these things just take time.

Kath Bloom & Loren Mazzacane Connors - Broken Dreams (mp3)

Decorata

Masaru Tatsuki - Untitled #11 (2005) [from "Decotora: Japanese Art Truck Scene"]

To plastic neon glasses and day glo t-shirts, I present trump. The hip indie accessory for 2009 will be a Japenense Decorata truck rigged with flashing neon lights, back lit graphic cut-outs, hand-painted cats, and plenty of chrome. These functional objects can transport bushels of potatoes with enough embellishment to excite a party on any rural highway.

A general rule: More things should be more like casinos. For example, I offer two songs that are pretty but don't go anywhere...

Tobacco - Truck Sweat (mp3)


Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Ice Cream Truck (mp3)

The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of Their Dreams

Alessandra Sanguinetti - Summer Bath (2000)

This is officially the first in a six month series of goodbyes to summer. Today I start living in reverse, each step a retrospective of bloated summer dreams before they began to wither. I will be accompanied on the trip by two young cousins named Guillermina and Belina from Buenos Aires whose wide eyes and newspaper costumes believe that even a desolate family farm deserves a Renaissance.

Conor Oberst - Eagle on a Pole (mp3)

Trying To Be Home Tonight

Gina Tuzzi - (Let Me In) May I Please Call It Home (2006)

A little bustling, here and there. A little clattering, the achingly sweet. Prolific, mesmerizing, a whole lot of loneliness. If only. If only we could listen, know, understand. If only we could hear it. If only we could just try.

Cloud Cult - Ghost Inside Our House (mp3)

Cloud Cult - Chemicals Collide (mp3)

- Nic

Beat the Buzz

Karin Weiner - Deer in the Headlights (2007)

Windmill - Plastic Pre Flight Seats (mp3): The camera pans down a gray terminal from well above the buzzing traffic of business travelers. G23, G22, G21, G20, G19. Our attention rests on a panel of dark blue leather seats in an overflowing boarding gate. Cameron Diaz sits alone and unglamorous in a sweatshirt and an iPod, ignoring a carelessly-folded newspaper to stare blankly into the eye of the crowd. The staccato keystrokes build to swelling strings and it becomes clear that she is far from home. She has left someone behind. She is chasing something. She has made a sacrifice. She is uncertain. She gnaws on the straw of an empty Starbucks Frappuccino like she's teething a solution from her gums. There are voices in her eyes saying "jump in, jump out". End scene.

First Hundred Years

Corey Arnold - Swans Are Evil (2003)

The Terrodactyls - Growing Old (mp3) I remember this moment clearly. I was running in boots in the street, you next to me. Though there was nowhere important to be, it really mattered that we get there quick. It was important so you'd know I wouldn't be in this naive skin forever. I had places to go. The kazoo was the quickest accompaniment since it required no lessons and sounded most like I intended. I had plans.

The Terrodactyls - Overcast Summer (mp3) And this. The same but barefoot.

[See The Terrodactyls live in Madison this Thursday (10/9) at The Sitting Dutchman - 201 S Baldwin]

What Girls in the Midwest are All About

Apes and Androids - We Don't Understand You (mp3): Just when you thought you could no longer tolerate the new wave of glam-inspired classic rock, Apes and Androids spits in your eye until it looks like art. In a good way. So good that it may be worth ditching the plastic sunglasses. So get fucked up. Party like it's the first time you've heard this track and are kind of obsessed. Dress up like a gothic unicorn or a baseball-paying alien and reenact fast-forwarded William Wegman videos until the keg is emptied. To avoid stepping over the line of bad taste, try to avoid Weimaraners and the guitar solo in the album's second track.

JustSayin Presents: Mount Eerie & Julie Doiron (10/21)

Phil Elverum & Julie Dorion's collaborative album "Lost Wisdom" comes out tomorrow (buy) and JustSayinIsAll.com is honored to present the pair live at the beautifully intimate Gates of Heaven Synagogue in James Madison Park (302 E Gorham St) in just two weeks. Julie's harmony adds a deepened accessibility to Phil's soft vocal while accentuating its characteristic rawness of previously untouched forest. To hear their live echoes in this veune will be a very unique experience, as it was when Phil's wife Geneviève visited us at this time last year. Tickets are at the door, but because it's such a small space you can email me your name to reserve your spot.

Mount Eerie (Microphones) & Julie Doiron - O My Heart (mp3)


Julie Doiron - Untitled (mp3)


Mount Eerie (Microphones) - Wooly Mammoth's Absence (mp3)

The Circus Comes To Town

Yard Dogs Road Show

Sword swallowers and belly dancers. Jazz ballads and accordions. Tattoos and beards. Stripes and tassles. Burlesque and bohemia. Witness as Madison's own Majestic Theater is transformed into an adult carnival the likes of which haven't been seen since Houdini graced the historic stage. Tomorrow (10/2) Yard Dogs Road Show hits town and I'm all but standing on an overturned bathtub and screaming at you in that annoying roaring twenties accent to pay a buck to see a one-of-a-kind monstrosity behind a curtain. One night only folks, come one come all. [tickets]

Devendra Banhart - Samba Vexillographic (mp3)