Michael J. Nelson–Mike Nelson’s Death Rat! (2003)

SOUNDTRACK: ART BRUT-It’s a Bit Complicated (2007).
Art Brut is a really great punky band from England. Their first album contained two great singles: “Formed a Band” and “My Little Brother.” The premise of the band is that they play fast but melodic songs–they’re punk, but not thrash, and the songs are crisp. [...]

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J. Storer Clouston–The Lunatic at Large (1899)

SOUNDTRACK: VAMPIRE WEEKEND-Vampire Weekend (2008).
There’s some hype surrounding this record. And of course, I wouldn’t have heard about it without the hype. But I have to say this is my favorite record in a long, long time. It has everything! It’s got really tight, fun catchy songs…some as short as 2 minutes. It has wonderfully [...]

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Bill Loehfelm–Fresh Kills (excerpt) (2008)

SOUNDTRACK: TEENAGE FANCLUB-Bandwagonesque (1991).
In honor of this post about an author I went to college with (go class of ‘91) I’m going to mention this album from ‘91.  According to the movie, 1991 was the year that punk broke.  And, with all of the grungey/alternative bands that got onto major labels at the time, you;d [...]

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Various–McSweeneys #26 (2008)

SOUNDTRACK: JOSE GONZALEZ-In Our Nature (2007).
I first heard Jose Gonzalez, as pretty much everyone did, in the Sony commercial. The one where thousands of superballs are dropped down a San Francisco street to the accompaniment of Gonzalez’ “Heartbeats”. It was a beautiful piece of video. And the song was really perfectly suited. A mellow [...]

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Gordon Korman–Son of the Mob (2002)

SOUNDTRACK: GORDON LIGHTFOOT-The Complete Greatest Hits (2002).
In keeping with the Gordon theme of this post, I’m going to mention Gordon Lightfoot. He is an iconic Canadian folk singer that I was sure I must have heard in the past. He seemed to be mentioned a lot recently, so I decided to get a hits collection [...]

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Terry Pratchett–The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld (2007)

SOUNDTRACK: COHEED & CAMBRIA-Good Apollo I’m Burning Star IV, Vol. 1: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness (2005).

For reasons I’m unclear about, I had the completely wrong perception of what this band would be like. I had read a few things and heard from a few people some differing stories. I decided to check [...]

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Jason Kruse–The World of Quest (2007)

SOUNDTRACK: SUPER FURRY ANIMALS-Hey Venus! (2007).
I’ve been a fan of Super Furry Animals for years. Their early stuff is really wacky and psychedelic Britpop (even if they are from Wales). They sang songs about hamsters and they drove around on tanks, and their B-Sides collection was package like a big rubber, well, rubber, with a [...]

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Pseudonymous Bosch–The Name of This Book is Secret (2007)

SOUNDTRACK: FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS-The Distant Future EP (2007).
We really enjoyed the Flight of the Conchords series on HBO. Although the stories weren’t always great, the music and music videos were hilarious. Probably better than the show itself was the live special that they showed on HBO before they aired the series. Their comedy/music [...]

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J.K. Rowling–Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows (2007)

SOUNDTRACK: THE DECEMBERISTS-Castaways and Cutouts (2002) & Her Majesty (2003) & Picaresque (2005) & 5 Songs (2003) & Billy Liar [single] (2004) & The Tain (2004).

The Decemberists were, in fact, the soundtrack for this book. The last 250 pages were accompanied by the entire Decemberists catalog [excepting The Crane Wife, which was out in the [...]

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