So I saw Radiohead last night and it was fucking amazing. Without playing any of their four biggest songs they managed to blow us away completely. So good:

1. 15 Step
2. There There
3. Morning Bell
4. All I Need
5. National Anthem
6. Videotape
7. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
8. The Gloaming
9. Where I End and You Begin
10. Faust Arp
11. No Surprises
12. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
13. The Bends
14. Idioteque
15. Climbing Up The Walls
16. Nude
17. Bodysnatchers

18. House of Cards
19. Lucky
20. Go Slowly
21. Just
22. Street Spirit (fade out)

23. Reckoner
24. Planet Telex
25. Everything In Its Right Place

Here’s something I saw recently on the AV Club that’s apparently been making the blog rounds lately: You’re supposed to pick a favorite album for each year you’ve been alive. You can pick a record based on what you like now, or what you would have picked that year assuming you were old enough to care. It sounds simple enough:

1983 - R.E.M. Murmur
1984 - The Smiths The Smiths
1985 - Tears for Fears Songs From the Big Chair
1986 - Elvis Costello King of America
1987 - The Cure Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
1988 - The Pixies Surfer Rosa
1989 - Beastie Boys Paul's Boutique
1990 - They Might Be Giants Flood
1991 - Nirvana Nevermind
1992 - R.E.M. Automatic for the People
1993 - Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream
1994 - Weezer Weezer (Blue)
1995 - Everclear Sparkle and Fade
1996 - Weezer Pinkerton
1997 - Foo Fighters The Colour and the Shape
1998 - Elliott Smith Xo
1999 - The Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin
2000 - Radiohead Kid-A
2001 - Ted Leo & the Pharmacists Tyranny of Distance
2002 - Rilo Kiley Execution of All Things
2003 - Postal Service Give Up
2004 - The Elected Me First
2005 - Sufjan Stevens Illinois
2006 - Islands Return to the Sea
2007 - Arcade Fire Neon Bible
2008 - Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend

~~~

Lately I've been listening a lot to a variety of music. Air France's new EP is really wonderful. Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago is a great album to listen to when I'm in a mood. I've been thinking a lot about my favorite song this year and it might be "Dry Lips" by Lightspeed Champion. Gah. So good. A lot of the stuff I've been listening to heavily isn't from 2008 (like Headlights). But it's all good.

27 days til Radiohead!!

I'm considering the Siren Festival, but it's this Saturday. Islands, Ra Ra Riot, Parts and Labor, Beach House and the Helio Sequence are all playing. Maybe I'll see if Chelsea wants to go and maybe Kiersten?

http://trichocyst.muxtape.com/

Hello my little neglected music blog. How are things? Today I tried to add a little widget to you that counted down until the Radiohead concert August 12th but I couldn't find one I liked. I'm sorry that I don't write in you more often. I know there's not much of an audience here and I guess that makes it harder for me to get things down.



Lately I've been listening to this band Headlights a lot. Particularly the song, "Put us Back Together Right," which is just so kinetic. It's got an amazing build up and sort of crashes into this amazing flood of music. I love songs like that.



I'm still building mixes but I'm trying to take a break from it. It's hard. It's a way for me to reach out to people and share things I love and there's little more I love in life than music.



Hopefully I'll stop neglecting you music blog but right now I have a headache. Doesn't mean I don't love you.

A lot of bands that I love have this tendency to have a good debut album then an amazing follow up and then they just turn into shit. The slide into mediocrity might take a few albums, but it happens. Not everyone can be Radiohead.

Rilo Kiley's follow up album was amazing. The Execution of All Things is a fantastic album filled with everything I love about Rilo Kiley. Good Jenny songs, good Blake songs, strange interludes, and sarcastic lyrics. They've released two albums since then and have gone from amazing to mediocre to incredibly mediocre. Their last album, Under the Blacklight, is their most radical album to date mostly because of how much it deviates into the mainstream. Great for casual fans and the mainstream, but terrible for long time fans.

I've gone to a few shows alone over the years and it's usually something I only do if I really have to. Anybody who knows me knows that I love to share things. I don't really like doing everything alone but end up doing it anyway. The last time I went to something alone was dancing on New Year's Eve and I did that because I couldn't sit at home feeling sorry for myself. I ended up going dancing and feeling sorry for myself. When I go out to a show or whatever alone I usually have some fun but I'm ultimately left feeling empty.

I had tickets to see the Los Campesinos! on Saturday and ended up with nobody to go with. After debating it back and forth I decided not to go. It was the second time I've missed a show I really wanted to go to, and had a ticket to, but missed in six months. I wasn't feeling up to it alone. I didn't want to go and dance around by myself. And it made me really sad and I realized just how lonely I can be sometime when I can't even give away a ticket to a show to somebody. What the hell happened to me?

This week I'm going to see Islands with my sister. Regretfully, I'll probably miss the Flaming Lips again.

The new Death Cab for Cutie album is out and I'm not really a huge fan of it yet. I haven't listened to it enough maybe or maybe the band is finally starting to settle into mediocrity. So far it hasn't gotten it's hooks into me and maybe time will tell. Death Cab is one of those bands that seemed to peak at their second album (We Have the Facts and are Voting Yes). It's not a bad album by any stretch. It just hasn't blown me away either.

Did I ever mention how much I am in love with the Mates of State? Their new album drops within the next month and it's going to be amazing. I really can't wait to see them come to Philly again.

Oh hey there nobody in particular.

It's been a while since I've updated and I've been a negligent blogger. So what's new in the world of music and the world of Casey? Well a couple of things.

I'm still working on a mix CD that I've been building slowly since my old PC is on the fritz. It's just called 0033 right now. Since the last CD I made Leah (0022 which I never got to give her) I've been assigning my mix CDs a number so that I can keep track of how many I give out just for my own personal volition. Anyway, 0033 just sort of feel into place one night while I was listening to my favorite radio station (WOXY) and has been growing slowly ever since. The problem with 0033 is that it's top heavy with meaningful songs. It's something I'd give to a girlfriend.

1. Burn Ruffians "Little Garcon"
2. UNKLE "Lonely Soul"
3. Via Audio "Developing Active People"
4. AIR "Kelly Watch the Stars"
5. Simone White "The Beep Beep Song"
6. Metric "Raw Sugar"
7. Martina Topley-Bird "Valentine"
8. Moonbabies "Sun A.M."
9. Discovery "Osaka Loop Line"
10. Magnetic Fields "Strange Powers"
11. Stars "What I'm Trying to Say"
12. She & Him "Sweet Darlin"
13. Band of Horses "No One's Gonna Love You"
14. Yeasayer "No Need to Worry"
15. Regina Spektor "Fidelity (Morgan Page Unreleased Remix)"
16. Radiohead "All I Need"
17. Jeniferever "You Only Move Twice"

At 1:13:13 it's a song or two away from perfection. A perfect mix CD for nobody.

I have a few concerts coming up I'm looking forward to in immense ways. Los Campesinos, Islands and the Flaming Lips are going to be in Philly all in the same week. Radiohead tickets go on sale tomorrow. It looks like a great summer for live music if I can afford it.

And just for reference, the current #1 song on my iTunes is tied between "Osaka Loop Line" and "You Only Move Twice".

Cheers.

Oh hey, I'm back. So my monitor broke for like a week and I had to buy (more accurately, my father had to buy) a new one. So I'm back. The two big things of the moment are as such: Tilly and the Wall at the church March 19th, 2008 and the new Death Cab for Cutie song.

I first saw Tilly and the Wall at the ballroom in like 2004 opening for Rilo Kiley (or it may have been late 2003). They remain the first and only band I've ever immediately bought the CD of after seeing them perform. They rocked my world. So I went to see them again after all this time and I'm happy to say they continue to rock my world. Tilly and the Wall is a band made up of pure fun. Girls dancing, people clapping, tap shoes, catchy songs. It was a blast. It was also a show where I kinda wondered what the fuck I was doing there until they came on. It was pretty awesome.

I also got the new Death Cab song and felt a resounding, "Eh," when I heard it. It's decent, but not amazing. I like the lyrics but am reserving opinion for when the album comes out.

Cheers.

There's so many good shows coming up I just may explode from a lack of money and overwhelming sense of "Egads!" Among the shows I'm interested in going to:

3/7 - Jukebox the Ghost @ The Khyber
3/19 - Tilly & The Wall @ The Church
3/21 - PANTHER! @ The Khyber
3/22 - Ra Ra Riot @ The North Star
4/5 - Kimya Dawson @ The Church
4/8 - Minus the Bear @ The TLA
4/10 - Hot Chip @ Starlight Ballroom
4/19 - Kate Nash @ The Troc
4/28 - Atmosphere @ The Troc
5/16 - Black Kids @ Pure
5/17 - Los Campesinos! @ Johnny Brendas (Holy shit, cannot wait)
5/25 - Islands @ The Church
6/15 - Battles
8/?? - Radiohead

Radiohead is on the shortlist of musicians I'll pay top dollar to see in a shitty venue (rumor has it they'll be playing Citizen's Bank Park, which actually me be fucking awesome). Other than that I'm really interested in Los Campesinos, Black Kids, Islands, and I might go see Kimya Dawson, Tilly and the Wall. I wish I could go to them all.

I may or may not have mentioned it before, but I love making mix cds. I am always willing to whip one up for somebody. It's fun to piece together an album that flows really well. I gave away two mixes last night and they were pretty good. One was a concept mix cd, which probably makes me sound like a douche, but whatever. It's awesome.

It's still early in 2008 but there have already been some really stellar releases. I mentioned the Los Campesinos! album in my last post and it has not disappointed in the least bit. However the best album of the year so far (in my humble opinion) has been Vampire Weekend by the band of the same name.

I hadn't really caught the buzz of them but when the album came out I decided to look into it and found out what all the hype (I missed) was about. It's a fantastic album. So far 2008 has been a great little year in music. I haven't checked out Jukebox the Ghost's full length but I'd like to. I really like more and more of the Helio Sequence album that I hear and you still have full lengths of great bands like Ra Ra Riot and Black Kids to look forward to. Not to mention there's a wealth of great looking shows coming up.

So one of the issues with having my own music blog with that nifty little last.fm widget on the side means that sooner or later somebody is gonna see a guilty pleasure of mine pop up. For the most part I make no apologies for the music that I like, but... Every now and then we all have a lapse in hipster judgment and Nelly Furtado pops up. While building my latest mix cd I've been looking for good songs with strings and "I'm Like a Bird" has then at the beginning and then I caught myself and realized it would blast my hipster credentials to be adding such a song to a mix cd.

Here's some hipsterness to offset all of that mainstreamness guilty pleasures:

Los Campesinos! - Death To Los Campesinos!

The Los Campesinos! come out with their debut album soon and I am super pumped. They've got this wonderful mess of music. I love it. A lot of their songs take a few listens to really get into but it always seems to follow the same pattern:

"This is okay... Oh man, that part is awesome... Oh shit, this is great."

In any case, I imagine they are amazing live. I can't wait to see them.

So for those of you who don't know me (and I very much doubt there are many people reading this now who don't know me) I am a young writer who's great passion in life is music. I can't really play music but I'm hard pressed to figure out anything in my life that I am more dependent on. I spend nearly every moment of my free day listening to music. In fact, I'm listening to music as I write this. I decided to keep up a music blog mostly for the people who like to rely on me as a gateway to new music since I tend to make it my business to expose myself to more and more new stuff.

Right now I'm working on a project. A mix cd for a girl. It's called With Strings Attached and it features a variety of violincentric tracks. I love the violin way too much and she's a fan of it too. Last night I told her that I'd make her a new mix and she told me we're hanging out this week, so I suppose it's my duty to get to it. I haven't started a tracklist yet but I definitely know of at least one song that's going to make the cut.

Vampire Weekend - M79