What you don’t see

You see that couple sitting on the next table — They look fine — They could just be saying, ‘Yeah, my brother’s buying a new shop,’ or she could be saying, ‘You know what? I can’t do this any more. I’m leaving in three days and I’m not coming back.’ And the other person might have been planning his whole life on that person staying, so he has a broken heart inside. But you can’t see it.

— Erlend Øye, quoted in Norwegian Blues, 2004.

Not today

I think as you get older, when things go wrong it hurts so much, and we question our ability to write any decent music so much, that it’s very easy just to put down your tools and say, ‘I’m not doing it today’. We could drift for months and months and months.

— Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, quoted in ‘It’s not wonderful at all – it’s horrible’, 2008.

Johnny Marr

The Smiths – Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others

The Smiths – Still Ill

November playlist

Oval - Ah!
Simian Mobile Disco - Casu Marzu
Mount Kimbie - Would Know
James Blake - Limit To Your Love
Chad Valley - Anything (Seams Remix)
Kleerup feat Lykke Li - Until We Bleed
Crystal Castles - Suffocation
Laurel Halo - Embassy
Little Anchor - Keep Me Warm In November
Diamond Rings - Wait & See

CEO birthday

I like jj’s dreampop interpretations of crappy top 40 r&b/hiphop songs. Kind of wish a beat dropped somewhere in there though.

Ladies & gentlemen i am floating in space

Spiritualized performing 1997′s “Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space” at Radio City Music Hall, July 30 = Best show i’ve experienced to date, probably.

Here’s the encore performance of “Out of Sight.” Not on said album.

Ian Curtis died 30 years ago

Darlings are so summer

Hey! This band is fun. Check them out.

Darlings - Eviction Party
Darlings - Gorilla

Sounds like good times in warm weather.

Cymbal Rush live on the Henry Rollins Show

I like this version, especially the beginning. It’s more hopeful than the original.

My swag, my life

Big league chew

Made by friends, is great.

Berzerkulosis – “Big League Chew” from David Lombroso on Vimeo.

Performance plugging

Hi, shameless plug. My very cool and small friend Alexa played her first show a couple of nights ago and it tugged heartstrings and lifted spirits and blew minds. Her backing band consisted of several more friends, one of whom demanded that I post this video (in which for some reason he is dead-center and bathed in spotlight).

There is a full house of devoted fans behind this camera, by the way. When Alexa is sitting atop the acoustic scene hierarchy in the near future… Well. You heard it here first.

Out of the 70s, into the 80s

i love synths. Watch the entirety of BBC’s recent documentary “Synth Britannia” covering the glory of synths in the U.K. and the groups that pioneered the sound (for eventual abuse and sometimes advancement by New York City hipsters).

For an abridged version, here is a video of three guys performing an 80s synth hits medley:

Memory Tapes

Memory Tapes is the lovechild of NJ producer Dayve Hawk‘s two solo projects: Weird Tapes and Memory Cassette. (Can we expect future releases under “Weird Cassette” to round out this quadfecta of aliases?)

The first three tracks on the new album, Seek Magic, are absolute money. Give “Green Knight” a listen–yes, that is indeed a basketball game sample about a minute in.

Wolfgang amadeus awesome

This album is so rad. At a time when media distribution and consumption has become so fragmented, the cohesion of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is refreshing. It puts the “album” back in “album.”

Phoenix - Lasso
Phoenix - Armistice

New thom yorke 12”

From comments section of a Stereogum article announcing the above:

“If you’re a serious Radiohead fan, you will listen to both tracks simultaneously.”

Miike Snow

New band on the block, Miike Snow. They’re from Stockholm, and I love it, obviously. I have a thing for Swedes and their Scandinavian brethren. “Animal” is getting a lot of blog attention, but the third track off the album, “Silvia,” is my favorite.

Sounds afterhours

It seems I’m late on the Little Joy wagon. Better late than never.
Little Joy, being only one degree of separation away from the Strokes, still embodies that Velvet Underground influence; hence I am so, so down. Binki Shapiro sounds like Moe Tucker in track 5.

Little Joy - Unattainable
The Velvet Underground - After Hours

Burial two

Burial – Untrue
This album is MINDBLOWING.

Modern guilt

Beck’s Modern Guilt album is months old already, but I am just now giving it a real listen. I like “Walls” and “Gamma Ray.”

Anyway I drew a picture of him (in thought). It looks pretty good if you back up about five feet and squint so that the hatch marks are blurry and “not there.”