Month: June 2005

I’d like to see the whole band, but I just got confirmation that CYHSY singer Alec Ounsworth is playing in Philly tomorrow night! It’s only $5 to get in, too. Here are the details.

Alec Ounsworth + Feathers + Viking Moses

8:00PM / $5 cover
Kensington South CDC
The Putnam Building
1627 North Second Street
Philadelphia, Pa. 19122
Google maps link

Update: Philebrity delcared July 1st to be CYHSY Day

Pitchfork Media gave Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s debut album a 9.0. It’s time to get off my ass and pick it up.

Clap Your Hands are a five-piece from Brooklyn who’re known to break out both harp and harmonica. They’ve recently been garnering rave press in their home city, and, over just the past two weeks, burning up the internet like a vintage Lohan nipslip. The pundits are saying Wilco (not hearing it), Talking Heads (okay), and Neutral Milk Hotel (getting warmer), but if it checks in with a number of modern and classic new wave referents, the music sings for itself: Clap Your Hands traffics in melodic, exuberant indie rock that pairs the shimmering, wafting feel of Yo La Tengo with a singular vocal presence that sounds like Paul Banks attempting to yodel through Jeff Mangum’s throat. Or imagine the Arcade Fire if their music were more fun-loving and less grave.

Some great stuff on the web this week.

The Onion gives us an issue from the future.

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Mr Waxman takes the country by storm (bid on him).

His birth was as follows: feeling that my ears could use a bit of maintenance, and, lacking a Q-Tip or anything sufficently swablike, I DIY’d myself a bit of twisted tissue and plunged it into my ear canal. After some satisfying rooting around, I withdrew it and (of course) looked at it.

Normally, I look at things I pull out of my ear for satisfyingly large amounts of earwax, which I then use as kindling to stoke my already out-of-control ego. This time, I was met with a small, cheerful face looking back at me.

Here’s my tribute to the Waxman.

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It’s only fair for schools to give the Flying Spaghetti Monster equal time.

But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease.

Note to self: When staining unfinished furniture, stir the stain before applying.

June 17th marked the 3rd anniversary of this site. I started it after getting increasingly PO’d at mp3.com (has since been bought, sold, gutted, resold, etc.).

I’ve enjoyed using this site as a vehicle for various projects over the past few years and I plan to keep it going as long as possible. Thanks to everyone who keeps coming back here for whatever reason they do.

I’ll preface the review with some important background information.

I know I keep bragging about how I briefly met CHYSY singer Alec Ounsworth at The Fire in 2003 and got his demo, but it’s important to the story. His lo-fi demo with the all-time-cheesey casio drum beats ended up getting played in my car about 1000 times over the next few years. I wanted to invite Alec to the treehouse open mic, but I couldn’t read the email address he wrote on the CD-R. A few years passed and one day I downloaded a few tracks from Stereogum. One of the tracks was CYHSY’s Tidal Wave, which was later named “Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood.” I really dug the song and thought the singer sounded familiar so I looked it up and sure enough, Alec Ounsworth was in the band. I added myself to their mailing list and waited for them to come to philly. A few weeks passed and they seemed to only be playing shows in NY.

At some point I started reading about them a lot on music blogs such as irockiroll and others. Pitchfork’s 4 star review for the track, In This Home on Ice, must have blown everything up because after that I swear I haven’t heard of this much hype about a band since Gearge Carlin raved about Wyld Stallions in 1989. David Bowie stopped by one of their gigs, Pitchfork and others threw them near perfect reviews and the rest will probably be history.

The point of all this is that it actually seems possible for a band to succeed the Right Way. You can go from open mic performer to rock critic favorite in less than two years. There wasn’t any company paying people to call up radio stations or plaster the city with flyers. It was just a group of guys who played good music that was heard and written about by people online.

So is the album any good? Yes and I think it’s going to be the best CD of the year. Read on to find out why.The album starts out with an odd carnival style number as if Alec is pestering you to try and ring the bell. It’s the album’s worst song and I still gave it 4 stars on my iTunes playlist rating.

Much has been said of what they sound like. The best description I can come up with is this. Alec sings like David Byrne with a voice like Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes. The music has the same, slow building drum style as the Arcade Fire but the guitars repetitively swims along. It’s catchy but interesting.

Highlights are The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth, Upon this Tidal Wave of Young Blood, and Heavy Metal, which was the only song from his demo that made the album. The CYHSY version is completely sped up from the verison I’m used to and it’s great.

The lyrics move in and out of focus as the pitch in Alec’s voice bounces around each song. It wasn’t until I read the liner notes that I realized he was saying “we have nothing left to fear now that Bigfoot is captured” in Upon this Tidal Wave of Youngblood. Hah.

The thing that will shock you the most about this album is how short it is. With only 38 minutes of music you’ll find yourself constantly back at the first track. I love that they didn’t throw a lesser track in there to clog up the pipes and the result is an album without any weak spots.

I can’t recommend this album enough and currently it’s only available through the band’s website and insound.com.

The first tie game in Odd Man In history occurred last night when Mr Charcoal made a failed assassination attempt against someone, leaving Mr Sapphire (Gobby) and Mr Brown (vitamin_g) as the final two. Since they both had the same score and the same number of shots against them, a tie was called. I need to think of some new tiebreakers The leading candidates have to do with self shots or shooting no one.

If you want to get in on the next game, hurry up and join 2005: A Space Oddity.

For any Kingdom of Loathing players out there, you should check it out again if you haven’t been. You can now defeat the Naughty Sorceress and ascend into heaven where you can then decide to start over again as a new class. Once you do that there’s all sorts of new content just for people who are playing the game for a second time. Think of it like the original Zelda’a 2nd Quest, but for KOL.

If you’ve never tried KOL before, here’s it’s FAQ. At first I thought it was an elaborate hoax of a game, but it turned out to be an extremely elaborate hoax of a game instead.

Jesus I need a Games topic.

I’ve mentioned Clap Your Hands Say Yeah before and it seems like they’re getting a lot of attention on the web these days. The latest is Pitchfork’s 4 star review of their track, In This Home on Ice.

this MP3 from their website promises great things. Jangly, processed guitar, shimmering cymbals, and vocalist Alec Ounsworth’s chorused vocals meet somewhere between a much poppier pre-Loveless My Bloody Valentine and the conventional indie songcraft of the Arcade Fire. So basically we’re trying not to piss ourselves.

Tonight I stopped by the Treehouse to catch performances by Bob Michel, Rob , Kelly Rickets, and some other guy who had us imagine the killer bass lines that usually accompany him with his full band.

I also did some video taping for something I’m working on and Rob (from the Rec Dosage) helped me out with that. Thanks!