I Found it.

Went down to Music Millennium last night to pick up some new releases, but ended up finding what I had been looking for, for over a month now. THE GROUPER CD. yes, they had it, and not only that, the store had two in stock. So of course I bought it and I ended up writing the end of my Gothic narrative for English to it. This CD is so good that it is scary. I tried listening to it this mourning and couldn’t, Dragging a Dead Dear Up a Hill should strictly be listened to at night. You will understand upon listening to merely the first track.

Grouper- Heavy Water/I\’d Rather Be Sleeping

O and I picked up a copy of Animal Collectve’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, and Antony & the Johnsons’, The Crying Light which are both amazing. This had been a good week so far for me musically.

Why is Animal Collective so freaking good?

I saw the hype, went to the listening party, oogled at the trippy cover artwork and waited for the day that I would actually be able to have my own copy of Merriweather Post Pavilion. Through all of this pre-release anticipation I still had somewhat of a feeling that the release might turn out to be not that great. Usually when there is this much build up for any one thing, it turns out to be somewhat of a flop. But that is not the case here. Animal Collective’s latest realease was everything that I had hoped for, but nothing that I expected. There is no question that their sound is changing, but only from good to better. And hey, if I want any of the random bursts of yelling that persisted in their previous albums, I can just go pull one of those out and have a listen. Those guys must be doing something right because everything they have released recently has blown my mind. I think that this half of the decade musically, will be remembered by animal collective and any releases that have stemmed from this group.

This has nothing to do with music

List of things that are generally disliked

By Wick Nilson and Sam Boren

1. Homework
2. Waking up early
3. meat loaf
4. brussel sprouts
5. traffic
6. mean people
7. waiting
8. politicians
9. George W Bush
10. spiders
11. spinning Mac wheel
12. hard labor
13. poop
14. loud mouths
15. know it alls
16. Gym class
17. Jesse Green
18. cleaning
19. broken pencils
20. when other people tear or write on your paper
21. when people puts scraps of paper on you
22. airplane food
23. math, although I personally have no problem with it
24. being out of control
25. having too much control
26. when someone else has too  much control
27. missing a number when you are listing, then hafting to go back and fix all of the succeeding numbers
28. Thinking up clever conclusions
29. making mistakes with pens
30. when spell check doesn’t catch all of your misspelled words.

This is the most work I have done in a while

For the past few weeks I have been searching all of my normal record stores for one specific CD. Grouper’s Dragging a Dead Dear Up a Hill. And NO ONE has it. Everywhere that I try says the the darn thing is backorder and not to expect it any time soon. This CD should not be this hard to find, considering Liz Harris is from Portland. I will continue on my search today by taking the bus down to Music Millennium and searching their inventory. And while I am there I might as well stay for the listening party of the new Animal Collective!

Update-  So, wen’t to Music Millennium earlier, and it just so happens that they sold the last copy approximatly four minutes before I came into the store. Yeah, I am not so happy. On a side note, Merriweather Post Pavilion sounds amazing and I can’t wait for the 20th to see the CD release. I am almost thinking of going to get the vinyl just so I can have it earlier. And thanks to a store worker who didn’t know what was going on, I got one of the posters and promotion codes to download some free songs.

Zooey Deschanel and Ben Gibbard ENGAGED!

Well this year of indie rock news has officially ended with a bang. Zooey Deschanel of acting/She & Him fame, and Ben Gibbard of Death Cab have announced they will tie the knot some time in the future! Could this mean a collaboration  on a  record in the near future? She & the other Him? Could 09′ see the most indie rock baby of all time? Only time will tell.

White Denim- Exposion

Some time last week I published my own “best of 2008″ list. At the time I was fairly sure of my selections, but now I feel I may have spoken too soon. I listened to White Denim’s Exposion, and I think that it should have been somewhere around the top of my list. I also think the Very Best cd deserves a spot somewhere.

Next year I think I will wait until the very last day of the year to avoid another situation like this.

Another Best of ‘08 List

Here is my school chum Jesse’s best of 08 list. I don’t entirely agree with the entire list, but here it is.

1.    Nouns – No Age
2.    Tha Carter III – Lil Wayne
3.    Skeletal Lamping – of Montreal
4.    Microcastles/Weird Era. – Deerhunter
5.    Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
6.    Women As Lovers – Xiu Xiu
7.    Volume One – She & Him
8.    Alopecia – Why?
9.    Evil Urges – My Morning Jacket
10.     Skeleton – Abe Vigoda
11.     The Bake Sale EP – The Cool Kids

My picks of 08

HAHA, I decided to list the best first. I know, it’s pretty unconventional of me.

1. Deerhunter- Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.
2. No Age- Nouns
3. Fleet Foxes- Fleet Foxes
4. Cool Kids- Bake Sale EP
5. Sigur Ros- Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust
6. Tobacco- Fucked Up Friends
7. Lupe Fiasco- The Cool (It was 07, but is was so late it missed all the lists last year)
8. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks- Real Emotional Trash
9. Lil Wayne- Tha Carter III
10. High Places- High Places
11. The Notwist- The Devil, You+Me
12. Xiu Xiu-  Women as Lovers

If I am allowed to include reissues, than I would like to include these two

1. Mogwai- Young Team
2. The Microphones- The Glow Pt. 2

What should I be thankful for?

All of the music sites are off writing their end of the year lists of the top releases of 2008. What should I do? Should I make one too? I mean, I am write a blog about current music so I should know what is good this year, right? But anything I write is just going to be disagreed with, I know this because I go around to all of the other lists and disagree with them.

SO, should I make a list? what should be on it? And how come the spell check on these things says that blog is not a word?

Either way I think I am going to wait a couple more weeks to post about it again.

What did we learn here today?

Anyone else who was at the Deerhunter show last night at the Hawthorne knows what I am talking about. It was just an amazing show. Listening to their two CD’s I thought I had somewhat of an idea of what the show was going to entail. I thought it was just going to be a super mellow, atmospheric type show, which it was at some points, but then there was the times when the whole band was just going crazy. Each of them just hammering away on their instruments, and the crowd going wild.

During one of the in-between songs moments, Bradford Cox had a band-aid that was falling off, so he threw it on a member of the audience. Then after the next song, he made sure we all new he was joking, and gave the man he hit with the band-aid a hug and kiss. Then he offered to do something else for him after the show, which I probably shouldn’t mention considering this blog is a school project. I WANT TO SEE THIS BAND PLAY OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Southern Belle and Times New Viking were alright, just alright.

On a seperate note, if you were that couple that was dancing all obnoxiously in front of me, screw you. You know who you are. You don’t go to a Deerhunter show, and dance like that. I mean, they were dancing to some invisible beat, when it was the drumless atmospheric sections.