Flying High Again

It all started with Nixon. Blame him. It's September's mix, A Beginner's Guide To Levitation. Featuring tracks from 13th Floor Elevators, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, R.E.M., The Monkees, Male Bonding, The Promise Ring, Modernettes, Best Coast, Lou Reed, The Killers, Serendipity, Band Of Horses, Radar Brothers, The Feelies, Andrew Bird, Nick Drake, The Bee Gees, The Cure, Ben Folds, and Club 8. Here's the cover:


Download it here. And you can get even more mixtapery goodness by checking out the Master List.

As usual, feel free to tweet this, share it on Facebook or just send the link to a friend. Sharing is caring. Oh, and if you do, let me know and you just might get some special surprise.

15 Records & 15 More

So I got tagged on one of those Internet meme things on Facebook the other day. It was a thing where you were supposed to list 15 albums that stuck with you, which, c'mon, how am I supposed to pass that up? I've done something similar here on the blog ages ago with my Desert Island Disco series, and while both lists contain a lot of the same artists, for this one I included records that were more introductory and seminal as opposed to ones I'd listen to forever if necessary. So here's my list of 15 Albums:


1. Jonathan Richman - I, Jonathan
2. Harry Nilsson - Nilsson Schmilsson
3. The Beatles - The Beatles
4. Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
5. Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand
6. Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
7. The Unicorns - Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?
8. Talking Heads - Remain In Light
9. The Beach Boys - Friends
10. The Clash - The Clash
11. Yo La Tengo - Electro-Pura
12. Sebadoh - Bakesale
13. Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin
14. Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
15. R.E.M. - Reckoning

And of course, as soon as I hit "Submit" on the Facebook note, I thought of another 15 or so records I could include. So here's another 15:


1. Paul & Linda McCartney - Ram
2. The Dismemberment Plan - Change
3. Beck - Midnight Vultures
4. Spoon - Girls Can Tell
5. Ganglians - Monster Head Room
6. Tom Waits - Bone Machine
7. Belle & Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister
8. Old 97's - Too Far To Care
9. Super Furry Animals - Rings Around the World
10. Halo Benders - God Don't Make No junk
11. Devo - Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!
12. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
13. The B-52's - The B-52's
14. Neil Young - After the Gold Rush
15. They Might Be Giants - Apollo 18

What about you? What are some informative, keystone records from yr life? Ones that you heard and said to yourself, "Yeah, that's it right there."?

You Gotta Hear This

Tom Waits covering the legendary James Brown's classic, "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag." It's like if Albert Einstein decided to cover Isaac Newton. Or something. Anyway, it's glorious.



You're welcome.

These Darned, Dirty Apes

Here's August's mix. Featuring tracks from: The Breeders, The Oranges Band, The Modern Lovers, Stephen Malkmus, Rogue Wave, Bob Dylan, T.Rex, Dr. Dog, Harry Nilsson, Phoenix, Guidance Counselor, Dirty Projectors, Built Like Alaska, The Smiths, The Mountain Goats, The Count Five, The Sunshine Fix, The Raincoats, Let's Active!, and Sparks. Lots of "The…" bands this month. Weird.

Download it here.

As always, there are more mixes over on the Master List. Feel free to share it with anyone and everyone. Sharing is caring.

And hey, have you made a mix that I should know about? Lemme know in the comments section.

Take Me Back To Wondaland

Hey hey hey. July is here and so is the newest mix. Also, it is hot as the center of Hell in Vegas right now. But this mix, this mix is cool. You can download it here. Featuring songs from The Shins, Vampire Weekend (yeah, again), Wilco, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings (yay!), The Dutch Rhythm Steel & Show Band, Paul Simon, Jan & Dean (I've been waiting to work this track in for a while now), Elliott Smith, Graham Nash, Frank Black, Esquivel, Janelle Monáe (you should really check out her new album The ArchAndroid, it's really pretty great), Jens Lekman (of course), The Beatles, Bruce & Terry, The Ventures, Hanoi Janes, The Tammys, Gnarls Barkley and The Drums. It's Hammock Rock, basically.

There are more mixes over on the Master List. Feel free to share it with anyone and everyone. In fact, if you do share it (on Facebook, Twitter or on your blog), drop a link or comment and I will send you a very special Independence Day mix. For realsies.

Let me repeat: If you share this mix, I will send you a special mix.

That is all. Enjoy.

Completely Losing It

You see this online:


You read the lineup and your jaw drops, your mouth goes dry and your hands start sweating. This cannot be real. You read that lineup again. And again, trying to make your brain make sense of the band names that seem to blur together. That is pretty much every great band you have ever loved or at least liked. Then you read it again and you are sure it's some sort of dream or trick or hallucination. Then you pinch yourself and when you're still staring at the screen you realize THIS IS HAPPENING THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING AND IT'S HAPPENING IN LAS VEGAS WHERE YOU ARE LIVING, DUDE! and you officially start freaking out. You're going to have to write that out so it can seem real.

...

Still doesn't seem real.

Is it July 5th yet?

A Suntan On Their Buns

June's mix is live. You can download it here. Featuring songs from Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers, Chuck Berry, The Cyrke, Adam Green, The Clash, Herman Düne, Ed's Redeeming Qualities, Canary, Elf Power, Yo La Tengo, The Specials, Darwin Deez, Bodies Of Water, No Kids, The Art Museums, 1910 Fruitgum Company, Gilberto Gil, Sly & the Family Stone, The Beach Boys and The Apples In Stereo. It's like a suntan for your ears.

There are more mixes over on the Master List. Feel free to share it with anyone and everyone.

There's A City In My Mind

Yesterday on Facebook, I linked to a Pitchfork story about David Byrne suing Florida Governor Charlie Crist over the unauthorized use of a Talking Heads song in Crist's campaign. Today, he blogged about it. I won't comment on it; Byrne does a better job than I could. Read Byrne's entry below, or you can click here to read the entry on his blog, which I heartily recommend you follow.

+++++++

05.25.10: Yours Truly vs. the Governor of Florida

I am bringing a lawsuit against the Governor of Florida.

A while back a friend told me that the Republican Governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, was using the Talking Heads song “Road to Nowhere” in a campaign ad. He’s running for Senate.

Well, using a recording of a song, or even just using that song and not the original recording, in an advertisement without permission is illegal, unless the composition has gone into the public domain. It’s not just illegal because one is supposed to pay for such use and not paying is, well, theft — it’s also illegal because one has to ask permission, and that permission can be turned down.

Besides being theft, use of the song and my voice in a campaign ad implies that I, as writer and singer of the song, might have granted Crist permission to use it, and that I therefore endorse him and/or the Republican Party, of which he was a member until very, very recently. The general public might also think I simply license the use of my songs to anyone who will pay the going rate, but that’s not true either, as I have never licensed a song for use in an ad. I do license songs to commercial films and TV shows (if they pay the going rate), and to dance companies and student filmmakers mostly for free. But not to ads.

I’m a bit of a throwback that way, as I still believe songs occasionally mean something to people — they obviously mean something personal to the writer, and often to the listener as well. A personal and social meaning is diluted when that same song is used to sell a product (or a politician). If Crist and his campaign folks had asked to use the song, I would have said no — even if they had offered a lot of money, such as I have been offered in the past for ad use (though I’ve always turned these offers down).

I believe my audience is aware of this no-ad use policy of mine, and part of the respect I am accorded as an artist is due to my maintaining this policy. Needless to say, if they thought I’d licensed a song to a political campaign they might not respect me as much in the morning.

It might be pointed out that Republican campaign organizations have done this kind of thing before. John McCain’s campaign used the Jackson Browne song “Running on Empty” and Reagan’s folks used Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” Both were used illegally without permission, and in the case of the Jackson Browne song a lawsuit was brought. After the Republicans lost several motions attempting to dismiss Browne’s complaint, they settled with him. Part of the settlement said that the Republican National Committee promised to respect artists’ rights and to obtain licenses for the use of copyrighted works in the future. So, it’s not like they weren’t warned, or hadn’t been burned before.

Now, there is such a thing as fair use. Typically the type of free use that doesn’t require a permission might be a student quoting a passage in a book to make a point in a graduate paper, or someone using part (not all) of “Road to Nowhere” to identify, say, the marching groove in that song as a metaphor for the inexorable forward momentum of time, or some such notion. These uses are typically exempt from licensing, permission and fees. In this case, however, the use was not to comment on or explain something about “Road to Nowhere,” ’80s music in general, Talking Heads or Cajun accordion riffs — it was used solely to further Governor Crist’s advertising strategy in his Senate primary campaign… a campaign that has nothing to do with me or my music.

Another tactic the Republicans have used to justify this kind of thing is the right to political free speech. Their argument is that the song is integral to making a political point, and therefore falls under free speech. Well, that’s just crazy talk — the song has nothing to do with Crist’s political views. It simply has a title that is a handy catchphrase, as does the Jackson Browne song — but the content of the song itself doesn’t have any connection with the politician’s campaign or agenda.

So, my lawyers and I have filed a lawsuit — and we also hope the Republicans might not engage (again) in this kind of illegal behavior in the future.

+++++++

So yeah, suck it, Charlie Crist.

Anyway, here's the video for the song in question, which I totally love. It's quintessential Talking Heads: equal parts profundity and ridiculousness; part artsy and part, well, fartsy. They're my favorite band.

"Now this is surgery, so don't eat anything before you come in. Because I'll have a big breakfast waiting for you."

I'm gonna go ahead and drop this a day early, cuz I'm generous like that. Here's May's mix, Dr. Spaceman. Featuring songs from Love Is All, MGMT, Talking Heads, Brian Eno, LCD Soundsystem, New Order, Beck, Caetano Veloso, The Cellos, Javelin, Toots & The Maytals, Pylon, Chromeo, Gorillaz, Super Furry Animals, Suburban Kids With Biblical Names and, possibly, some medical advice from Ho Chi Minh city medical school graduate Doctor Leo Spaceman peppered in there. It's a doozy.

Get it here.

As usual, there's more mixtapery madness to be found on the Master List. And please feel free to share and promote the mixes or leave a comment if you're liking what you're hearing. Thanks, and remember, science is whatever we want it to be.

Lots of Fun

This is no prank. This ish is for reals. April's mix; check it:


It's spring. It's getting warmer, the days are getting longer. Roll down the windows while you drive around. Turn the volume up in your hoopty. Bob your head and pump your fists. Show that Easter Bunny who's boss.

This month's mix features springy, sprongy tracks from (deep breath) Frightened Rabbit, Surfer Blood, Oranger, Fungi Girls, Grandaddy, Sparklehorse, Big Star, The Thrills, Clem Snide, Sufjan Stevens, Freelance Whales, Badly Drawn Boy, Real Estate, Loudon Wainwright III, The Dodos, Earlimart, Josef K, Throw Me the Statue, The Moping Swans and Pretty Girls Make Graves. So yeah, you're gonna enjoy it.

Tracklist:

01. "She was not the cure for cancer."
02. "Lucid afternoon dream, cosmopolitan scene."
03. "It's a shiver, a sigh, it's a wooden goodbye."
04. "It's a gorgeous day."
05. "We'll sit for days talk about things important to us like whatever. We'll defuse bombs, walk marathons and take on whatever together."
06. "Dogs will wag their tails and birds will sing. Hell, it's hard world for little things."
07. "Music so loud I can't tell a thing."
08. "I came to the city to build a mountain of envy and to marry a Kennedy."
09. "Punched in the brain, in the gut, in the tear ducts, too."
10. "Don't give up. Let's go. Forget about yourself."
11. "I've arranged for your phobias to be performed by a string quartet."
12. "Our love is alive, you know it's never spent."
13. "Your worries ain't so different from my own, though I'm far more accident prone."
14. "Salt my wounds, chlorine my eyes, I'm a self-destructive fool."
15. "A coward's way to be inviolate."
16. "Our heads are sad, our bones are tired as hell."
17. "Otherwise, he'd beat his chest."
18. "Each tug just pulls me through."
19. "Fumigated hags with privilege in their bags."
20. "Keep on doing your thing you do now."

Download it here and, as always, check out the Master List for even more mixtapery goodness.

We're Meeting Arms To Arms

Dudes, you gotta watch this video and watch it all the way through. I love it so much.



Mind-blowing, right? I love Hot Chip. Go get their latest, One Life Stand. It's dance-tastic.

It's A Sad & Beautiful World

So, Mark Linkous is gone. Suicide. If his name isn't immediately familiar to you, I'm not surprised, and that's a shame. Under the moniker Sparklehorse, Linkous produced four fantastically sad, beautiful and broken albums as well as the Dark Night of the Soul collaboration with producer Danger Mouse and film-maker David Lynch and an In the Fishtank collaboration with laptop musician Christian Fennesz.

Linkous was one of our favorites around here. In fact, Sparklehorse was part of the inspiration of naming our Etsy shop. His It's A Wonderful Life and Good Morning Spider records were the soundtrack for the early days of our marriage and have accompanied us on nearly every driving trip we've taken. His music is perfectly suited to long stretches of Western highway, the blue sky opening up over red mountains. I think that "The Most Beautiful Widow In Town," from 1995's Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot is one of the most beautiful songs ever written by a human being. Don't believe me? Give it a listen. Lines like "may all your days be gold, my child," or "it's a hard world for little things" have informed our art and our lives. He was a big deal for us. We will miss him.

As of now, all we know is that he took his own life. As to the whys and wherefores, that's between Mark and his creator. He was obviously a profoundly sad guy, and this isn't the first time he has tried to get out of this world. A previous suicide attempt left him with limited mobility in his legs and he's struggled with substance abuse and alcoholism for a long time. It shouldn't come as a shock that he took his life, but it's still unexpected, shocking and sad. I hope he finds something better than what he had here.

Like any artist who leaves us, Linkous left us behind with his work, a collection of, to borrow one of his phrases, "sad and beautiful" albums. You could do a lot worse than to pick one of them up and give it a few listens.

So, so long, Mark. "There's a heaven and a star for you." Sleep well.

Fangs and Growling

It's March, baby! So, there's a new mix for you. This one's a total garage rocker. Tooth-kickin' music. Here's the cover:



Sadie named this one. Pretty catchy, right? This one's got songs from The Soft Pack, White Denim, Love, Sloan, Iggy Pop, King Khan & The Shrines, Belle & Sebastian, Ben Folds Five, Dungen, Nirvana, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, Jay Reatard, Lyres, The Dirtbombs and Reigning Sound. You'll shake yr hips for sure.

You can download it here and find many more mixes on the Master List. Enjoy!

My Valentine

Hey, Internet. Happy Valentine's Day. If you'll indulge me for a post, I'd like to talk a little bit about my Valentine. That's her in the picture. Isn't she pretty? Yeah, I know, she's totally out of my league, but I'm not complaining. Also, aren't my eyes squinty?

I won't bore you by rehashing the details of how we met and fell in love, but suffice it to say that it's pretty epic. Candace has her version of the story here, and you can read the true story here, if you'd like. The bottom line is: We met. We fell in love. We're living happily ever after.

I'm very grateful for Candace. I'm a weird, moody, nerdy, needy person and there are very few people in this world that I feel really "get" me and Candace is at the top of the list of those type of people. I can't believe that I found such a person, but here we are. Add to that the fact that she's fun, smart, creative, caring, supportive and willing to say hard things to make you better, well, you can see why I took advantage of her lapse in judgment and married her for time and eternity.

Also, she is awesome.

Like I said earlier, I'm a weird guy. I'm a romantic, but not in a "bouquet of roses," type of way. (Besides, we all know that roses smell like poo-poo-poo, right Outkast?) I'm more of a "I made you a mixtape," type. So excuse me if this goes right over your head, but I'd like to briefly share a song with you. It's called "Peephole," and it's the penultimate track off of Guided By Voices' excellent Bee Thousand album. It's a short song, less than a minute-and-a-half, but I think it's one of the most romantic things I've heard. It's one of those songs that, for me at least, captures what it means to really love somebody. Here are the lyrics:

Give me the cost of the albatross
And wear it 'round your neck for size.
Don't let it get you down,
I'm looking inside your house
And oh, and it smells so nice.
Your house always looks so nice.

Maybe they're twice as high, laughing.
Maybe the time is right, you know.
Promise me not to leave.
I'm looking inside your brain,
And […], it's a cluttered mess.
I love you, I must confess.

It's that last couplet that punches me in the gut. "I'm looking inside your brain and … it's a cluttered mess," followed by "I love you, I must confess." To look inside somebody and have them look inside you and see just how supremely crazy and messed-up and broken you are and to still have them love you despite - and maybe because of - all that debris, for me, that's love. That's real, true, abiding and everlasting love.

So, Candace, thanks for putting up with the mess that is my brain, the ball of crazy that is me. I love you like tons. Thanks for helping me straighten my brain up a little. Even if it's only a small corner of the place, it's progress, right? And besides, we have forever, you and me.

Happy Valentine's day, you modern lovers.

*******

Here's the track in question, if you want to listen to it:

Peep-Hole - Guided By Voices

Better Late Than Never, Right?

February's mixtape! Did you think I was lying when I said I'd get it done? Well, here it is, because I don't lie, man:


This mix pretty much rocks. Harlem, TMBG, a Jens Lekman cover, the VU, Cake, Vampire Weekend, the Outsiders, Spoon and lots more.

01. "What's broken can always be fixed, and what's fixed can always be broken."
02. "I'm just as see-through as Casper the Ghost."
03. "And those golden faces are under 25."
04. "Hear me baby sayin' I'm comin' home."
05. "I'm not a real doctor but I am a real worm. I am an actual worm. I live like a worm."
06. "A doctor said 'Your wounds!' and stitched up his broken ego."
07. "Love ain't far."
08. "Well, a lot of good cars are Japanese, but when we're driving far I need my baby here with me."
09. "Those victory laps and Sgt. Pepper tones."
10. "Yes, a penguin taught me French back in Antarctica."
11. "You were born with ten fingers and you're gonna use em all."
12. "This couldn't be more ghetto."
13. "And on the final day of our Eastern journey, we went and talked to a psychic attorney."
14. "Do the Twist & Stomp, the Mashed Potato, too. Any old dance that you wanna do."
15. "Read everything you can read and learn everything you can learn."
16. "I have my brown sound jacket, Queen of Call Collect on my arm."
17. "It is a shame, it is a pity when you can't raise the energy to get from A to B."
18. "No more cops left to mess you around, no more dreams of mystery chords."
19. "Two TV sets and two Cadillac cars? That ain't gonna help me at all. Not one tiny bit."
20. "So who's the people with the peepholes in their smiles?"

***

Download it here. The Master List is here and it's been updated for all recent Brigade member mixes, which, by the way, anybody else want to join?

Aw Yeah

Here's a jam for your day. It's Otis Redding protege Arthur Conley performing his smash hit "Sweet Soul Music," wherein he does a pretty thorough run-down of who's-who in soul. Just a great track, infused with even more energy in this live version. That's the Stax band/Booker T & the MG's backing him up. Ignore the crawl at the bottom of the screen and listen to these dudes roll.



The title is also shared with this book that I'm 3/4ths of the way through. It's a great look at the Atlantic/Stax/Goldwax/etc. period. Recommended if you want to put the era in context.

Rockrockrockrock Rock & Roll, uh, Community College

Dang man. So our computer's totally taking a dump. It might be dying, in fact. This sucks for reals though. Especially since I was working on some pretty epic stuff to start hitting here. Stuff that, had it been able to be posted, most likely would have blown your mind to pieces, so maybe it's for the best, as I would hate for you to explode your head all over your computer screen, thereby causing your computer to die as well. So yeah.

Okay, not really, but still.

But anyway, I guess I'll spoil my surprise and let you in on one of the things I was working on for the blog. See, you guys know I love me some music. I mean, it's on my mind a lot. It takes up a large part of my thoughts and time and, well, hard-drive space. I read books about it, I watch movies about it, I even read comics about it. (Which, by the way, you should totally read Gipi's Garage Band. It looks like being in a band feels.) I make a mixtape every month and if you give me a chance, I will talk your ear off about rock and roll in all it's variant strains.

And now I'm basically going to do just that, only, uh, electronically.

So the plan is this: once a week I'm going to talk about an album you should listen to. Not because I'm cooler than you or anything, but I mean, I got all this knowledge and I feel like I should share it with all y'all cuz that's the kind of guy I am. If you read something that sounds like something you'd be into, track it down. If not, at least I'm posting something here, right.

I was starting to compile my list of albums when our computer started to shuffle off to the digital afterlife, but it will encompass stuff you've probably already heard of - like the Beatles' Revolver or the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds - and some stuff you've probably never heard of - like Papas Fritas' Helioself or Caetano Veloso's self-titled 1969 album - and all points in-between. Think of it like a community college Rock & Roll History class taught by someone who is woefully unqualified to teach, and despite his obvious (and borderline creepy) enthusiasm you can't help but shake the feeling that he's making all of this up as he goes along and you heard a rumor that he's living out of his 1974 Honda Civic hatchback and he's wanted for smuggling exotic animals out of Turkmenistan or something equally weird.

Or basically, a community college Rock & Roll History class.

Or, to make even less sense, think of it like Oprah's Book Club only with records instead of books and a tall, pasty, red-headed dude instead of Oprah. Opie's Record Club, maybe?

So yeah, that's the plan. The start date is entirely dependent on our computer situation, but that's where we're headed here on Big Red Robot. I mean, there's other stuff that'll be going down, but this is a new thing that I'm feeling pretty psyched about. Let me know in the comments what you think. And if there's anything else you want or need more of here at BRR, let me know that, too. I'm always on the lookout for stuff to blog about.

So This Is the New Year

Out with the old, in with the new. This mix was a little tough to pin down. I scrapped probably four mixes before finally just deciding to start the artwork to try and figure out what kind of mix I wanted to make. So this hot mess is the responsible party if you don't end up loving this mix as much as I do:


I wanted a mix that sounded like putting the past to sleep while gettin' all Blade Runner up in this joint. Future soundz. Bleeding chrome bangin' robots and light trails across a neon skyline.

There are some jams on here, a few longer tracks, a couple weird things. It's a little spacey and silver. I had initially hoped to not reuse artists I'd used a lot on previous mixes, but the tracks from Hot Chip, the Zombies, Ganglians and the B-52's fit like astronaut gloves, so here they are. We've also got some Yeasayer, M83, Caribou, Washed Out, Stereolab, Tom Zé, Suburban Lawns, Os Mutantes, Cornelius, Akron/Family, Microphones, Beach House, Hum, Maps & Atlases, Gomez and Walkmen.

So sit back, put some headphones on and let's bury the decaying corpse of 2009. Bring on 2010. Let's make some 3/2/1 contact. Let's make this year our year.

Tracklist:

01. "Last year was a hard year, for such a long time."
02. "It’s a New Year, I’m glad to be here."
03. "Blue Christmas lights tell us stories about ourselves."
04. "Concentrate, don't make a sound. We'll psychokinetically pull one down."
05. "And when I pray it's all begun."
06. "Sold my soul to pay the rent."
07. "The music's loud in your room; turn it down."
08. "You will not catch your unknown."
09. "…"
10. "Who's gonna take it like this? No way."
11. "One chance to leave it all and swim down."
12. "I hear voices from the outside."
13. "I love computers and hot tamales."
14. "Via this paradox that space can be attained."
15. "All in the name of what we're not sure."
16. "…"
17. "And I walked aimlessly around with a flaming pumpkin head."
18. "I'd like your face gone and in its place the sun."
19. "Twenty-ten."
20. "All your worried days are gone. This will be our year."

*******

Download it here. I'm using a new service this time around. Let me know if you have problems with it. And as usual, feel free to share this with your friends, enemies, pets and house plants.

Cheers.

Tune For Tuesday

Here's a jam for you.



Jon Lucien's "Would You Believe in Me," from the 1973 album, Rashida. The whole album's like this, a smooth mix of tropicalia and soul. It's worth tracking down if you're into awesome stuff.

It's the Anthem

Getcher darn hands up.