Mix Annotations - Newer Boulders In Your Chest
Hi Friends,
Here's the link to the latest mix: soundcloud.com/generosity2020/newer-boulders-in-your-chest
ANNOTATIONS
The Shakespearean Frog - Oh my darling - This was listed on a Bandcamp Daily article about the Comfy Synths genre.
Loneliness Remembers What Happiness Forgets - Dionne Warwick - Rose Matafeo picked this as one of her favourite songs on an episode of the 3 Track Podcast. In it, Rose highlights this version on YouTube which starts with Burt Bacharach walking Dionne through the song, which is fun to see. He seems a little needy.
Gonna Get Along Without Ya Now - Patience and Prudence - I was digging through one of my old hard drives and found this song on a mix that Cassie Ramone (of Vivian Girls) made for a blog way back in 2010. The tracklist for it and for a bunch of other mixes are still available on the site (thizzfacedisco.wordpress.com/guest-mixes), and you can even still download some. I think it’s such a blessing when download links on blogs are still available 10+ years later.
The New Colony Six - Love You So Much - This one came from following Numero Group on Bandcamp. I think I read something a few months ago where Numero was like, “Because of the pandemic and because we love the environment, we’re going to focus more of our effort on doing digital releases for many of these reissues rather than pressing expensive special vinyl packages. We just want people to hear the music again,” and since then they’ve just had a slew of new albums getting added to their bandcamp pages. I think that’s probably a good decision, since I doubt the money makes sense to press all these CDs/LPs when realistically there’s only a couple of gems on each of these records. Like, I’m not paying $15 US for the digital version of this album! I can’t imagine too many people want to pay the same or more for a full physical copy.
Anyways, this track is from a group of American teens in the 1960s clearly in love with the British Invasion. Their band name comes from wanting to set up a “new colony” for this kind of music. The name of their second album is Colonization, which is kind of bold for Numero to put out in 2020. Either way, this song is catchy.
The Night Manager S01E05 - I don’t come across too many characters named Andrew. But, when I do, my ears really perk up for iconic lines with my name to include in mixes. The only other Andrew I can think of right now is in Big Mouth… I guess none of the times people have used his name while he’s being pervy or angry or sending a dick pic to his cousin have really felt like the kind of “iconic” tone I want to convey here.
Sleaford Mods - Tweet Tweet Tweet (Live @ Boomtown 2018) - In lockdown I have watched two separate Sleaford Mods documentaries, 2015’s Sleaford Mods: Invisible Britain and 2017’s Bunch of Kunst. (A guy named Andrew Fearn makes the beats, so there’s another Andrew.) I am interested in how they’re talked about as a political band who speaks for the lower classes. In the documentaries, it’s clear that their audiences on these tours are mainly angry white men. They interview a couple of white women (I think there’s overlap between the two docs on the interviewees), and a couple of Black men (who are mainly there to mention how they hear hip hop in the music), but it’s mostly disaffected white men. The band says they just write about their lives, and as white men in England (which is understandably/historically where white people are from) it makes sense that a largely white male audience connects with that. They seem like they have “good” politics, in that they didn’t say anything shitty in the docs or interviews I found, but I’m still leery seeing a bunch of angry young white men being mad at the system, even though, yes, austerity in Britain is something to be angry about.
I’m also interested in how people hear hip hop in the music. Sleaford Mods refer to themselves as a Rock Band, and there’s definitely a throughline that connects this type of music to bands like The Fall, who were reacting against rock and punk rather than embracing hip hop. I don’t even know if hip hop had made its way to white Britain by 1976. I chose this track for the mix, but other similar ones that were in play were The Normal’s “Warm Leatherette” (which I was reminded about by the Lost Notes podcast), or something from Rook to TN34 (MM083) by eMMplekz (which was covered on the James Acaster’s Perfect Sounds podcast), also both from the UK. To me it’s a distinctly British lineage of rock/electronic music, but I’ll have to learn more before I’m sure.
Anyways, this is a live version of the track. I prefer the “singing” that Jason Williamson does in the live version, as compared to the monotone shouting on the record versions (even on the remastered one). I also think “Fuck England” is a good vibe to follow audio from a band called The New Colony Six and Hugh Laurie declaring himself an emperor of Rome.
Oh Sees - Mizmuth - Close personal friends.
Laurie Spiegel & Don Christensen – Donnie and Laurie - These next two tracks are on The Roses Won’t Tell Your Secret: An August Mixtape from Aquarium Drunkard, put together by C. Depasquale. More than any other song on this mix, I feel like this is the really risky one. I’ve been fretting about it. I think it’s an awesome song, but it’s a bit distracting (in a good way) or ignorable and I think it really rewards more attention than many might have for it over its 4-5 minutes. Depends on if you listen to these as background music or not.
George Harrison - Awaiting On You All - Close personal friend.
Yeasayer - Tightrope - Since I’m “old” in music terms, I’ve been really enjoying Stereogum’s series, The Anniversary, which reassesses records at the 10+ year mark. I took a break from Stereogum for a while, and so only ended up finding out about The Anniversary this Spring, and then went back and binged write-up for many of the albums of my late teens/early 20s. This is a long way of saying that I re-listened to the Dark Was The Night compilation, and forgot how great the one-two punch is of The National’s “So Far Around the Bend” (possibly a Top 3 National song for me) and this track. Very fun to sing. These are the kinds of songs I wish were available at karaoke. Ah well...
Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams (2002) - A meme of this line was going around on Instagram. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Spy Kids 2. Seems like a good time.
King Kong Original Cast - Sad Times, Bad Times - This song was very briefly in the Lost Notes episode about Hugh Masekela & Miriam Makeba. They were both in the original cast for the musical King Kong, and is maybe how they met? I don’t remember. I listened to all the episodes while driving, so it blends a little. There’s a slightly faster version of this song available on YouTube, where the horns have more pop. I think that’s the version I hear on the podcast, but I kind of like this slightly slower version. I’m not sure if the difference is them being the overture and the finale, or if someone’s record player was a little quick. Who can say?
The Lovations - I Keep Singing La La La Ooh - Another golden oldie from the Soulhawk channel.
Fredo Viola/Thomas Evans/Peter Ham - Senza Di Te - This is, of course, an Italian cover of the song “Without You” that turns into an English sing-along. It’s from the soundtrack to The Farewell. I don’t know if I registered the song when I saw the movie, but Lulu Wang was a guest on the Black Check podcast and she talked about the process of getting the rights for a song like this. She was set on getting an Italian version of the song, but the rights for an Italian version weren’t with the Badfinger estate (the original songwriters) or the Harry Nilsson estate (who has one of the more iconic versions of it), but likely with the individual translator of the song at the time. In this case, the rights would’ve been too difficult and maybe expensive to track down, so they hired someone to do a modern translation and then brought in a bunch of Lulu’s friends to do the group vocals parts. To me, very interesting.
Longform #412 Nicholson Baker - I usually don’t connect with Aaron Lammer’s interviews on Longform. They feel like less conversations, and more him trying to get through all of his prepared questions. My sense is he also tends to interview legacy journalists, and is just setting them up to tell their epic life story. I’m definitely more of a Max Linsky person. Regardless, I like how Nicholson Baker wrapped up this episode, specifically because I do think a lot about creative expectations and intentions.
Sarah Davachi - Stations I - Close personal friend.
Clifford T Ward - Cold Wind Blowing - From another Aquarium Drunkard mix, this one called All Things Are Quite Silent :: A Mixtape, put together by Jocelyn Romo back in January. I think I’ve included songs I heard on Jocelyn’s NTS show on previous mixes. What a great DJ.
Vincent Delerm - Je ne veux pas mourir ce soir - This was in Ramy S01E07. There’s plenty of great songs in Ramy, and on top of that I was also surprised to find that the score is by our old friend Dan Romer! He’s not really my friend, but he had some memorable songs on the Easy soundtrack, one of which I included in a past mix.
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert May 10 2019 - I think this is from the Whitmer Thomas episode of Iconography where they’re talking about Keanu Reeves, but it’s a long podcast and I will not be relistening to double check. I think the context was about how Stephen Colbert was throwing the question out as a bit of a joke, but got this really simple, poignant answer from Keanu. And it’s true! If your life is about your community and the people around you, then so is your death. It’s not about you anymore once you’re dead; It’s about the people still here.
Linda Perhacs - Chimacum Rain - I was reminded about this song from a mix that Lyra Pramuk made for Fact Mag. I think I got to the Fact Mag mixes from Sarah Davachi sharing her recent mix for them.
Allison Kraus - Down to the River to Pray - I heard this on the video How the Coen Brothers Direct Comedy & Violence (Directing Styles Explained). As someone who will probably never make a movie, I sure do watch a lot of video essays about how it’s done. This song is from O Brother, Where Art Thou? which is one of the Coen Brothers movies that I haven’t seen...yet! Maybe once the Halloween movies are all done for the year.
Sylvan Esso - Free - Close personal friends.
While space allows, I'm stashing my recent mixes and annotations in a Google Drive folder, which you can visit here: The Archive
GENEROSITY 2020
We're also only $859 away from the $9090 fundraising goal. Please consider donating at tinyurl.com/Generosity2020. Highlighting some orgs from the capaign:
- Fort York Food Bank have seen a big increase in the number of people accessing their services and getting food hampers during the pandemic.
- Anishnawbe Health have been doing mobile COVID testing, helping increase access for people.
- Shelter Movers is an org that I started volunteering for back in June. So far, so good! It's my understanding that with the increase in reported domestic violence cases during the pandemic, Shelter Movers has seen an increase in clients needing to use their services.
As always, feel free to tell your friends :)