Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm–Babymouse: Our Hero [#2] (2005)

SOUNDTRACK: THE AMOEBA PEOPLE-”Cosmology, Your Futon and You” (2010). I found out about The Amoeba People from the Kids Corner Top Ten Songs of 2010 list (this was number one). The Amoeba People are a fun, weird kids band who write clever, often science-based songs.  This song has a wonderful bass line that opens the [...]

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Thomas McGuane–”The Good Samaritan” (New Yorker, April 25, 2011)

SOUNDTRACK: ROBYN-Body Talk Pt 1 (2010). Robyn’s Body Talk albums got a lot of praise in 2010.   When I looked at them online, they were really cheap (and considered EPs), so I bought Pt 1.  I was disappointed when I first listened because it seemed like such a sparse album, that I felt there [...]

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Camilla Gibb–”The Principles of Exile” (The Walrus, July/August 2007)

SOUNDTRACK: FIREWATER-Performance from KEXP, July 3, 2008 (2008). I loved Firewater when their first two albums came out and I even saw them once open for Letters for Cleo (a great show by both bands).  Then I more or less lost touch with them.  And it turns out that lead Firewater dude Tod A. had [...]

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Five Dials Number 6: The Obscenity Issue (22 May 2009)

SOUNDTRACK: BATTLES-”Ice Cream” (2011). My friend Lar told me about Battles way back in 2007.  I listened to the concert he sent me, and it was great. But my memory of the band was that they were really heavy (the drummer was in Helmet and Tomahawk for cripessakes). But they’re not so much heavy as [...]

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Zadie Smith–2 book reviews (Harper’s, May 2011)

SOUNDTRACK: POKEY LaFARGE-Tiny Desk Concert, April 20, 2011 (2011). I had never heard of Pokey LaFarge before this Tiny Desk concert was sitting in my download folder.  In fact, the notes on the page say that they had never heard of him before they saw him wandering around SXSW.  And then he climbed onstage and [...]

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Edouard Levé–”Life in Three Houses” (Harper’s, April 2011)

SOUNDTRACK: LES CLAYPOOL-5 Gallons of Diesel (DVD) (2005). I’ve loved Primus for years.  And if you love Primus, chances are you love Les Claypool.  And Les Claypool has created and released music with all manner of bands since Primus broke up (they have since gotten back together and have planned a new release for July). [...]

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David Rakoff–Fraud (2001)

SOUNDTRACK: METRIC-Fantasies (2009). I was hooked by the song “Gold Guns Girls.”  I liked it so much, I bought the disc, and I was absolutely not disappointed.  This disc reminds me of all of the best things about late 90s alt rock (one of my favorite musical periods).  There are echoes of later period Lush, or [...]

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Marni Jackson–”Bob Dylan Goes Tubing” (The Walrus, July/August 2007)

SOUNDTRACK: BROKEN BELLS Live at SXSW, March 17, 2010 (2010). The only disappointing thing about this download from NPR’s All Songs Considered is that it consists of only three songs now.  I guess the band (or more likely the label) didn’t want the whole show streaming or downloadable, so they let us have three songs [...]

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W.G. Sebald–Austerlitz (2001)

SOUNDTRACK: KATE BUSH-Director’s Cut (2011). Kate Bush has re-recorded eleven songs from her two least-loved discs, The Sensual World and The Red Shoes.  According to the story at NPR, this seems to have been inspired by the Joyce estate’s granting Kate the right to use part of Ulysses as the lyrics for the song “The [...]

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Nadia Kalman–”The Counterpart” (The Walrus, July/August 2007)

SOUNDTRACK: BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE-World Cafe March 2, 2006 (2006). Broken Social Scene played at the World Cafe not long after their release of Broken Social Scene (their 3rd album).  This download is primarily an interview between World Cafe’s David Dye and BSS’s Kevin Drew & Brendan Canning, but there’s also three songs that the band [...]

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