Mix Annotations - The Best and Worst Horses
Hi Friends,
As the year winds down and people start posting Best of 2021 lists, I'm having a great time not really caring about any of them and instead really throwing myself into reading Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Series. For those that aren't familiar, these books follow the cases of private detective Kinsey Millhone, and each book has a title like "A" Is for Alibi, "B" Is for Burglar, "C" Is for Corpse, etc. I'm halfway through "D" is for Deadbeat, and just loving every minute of it. At some point in 2020 I resigned myself to the idea that I'd eventually end up reading all of these at some point in my life, probably a by-product of just becoming resigned to so many different things since the start of the pandemic, but it's honestly just turning into a passion of mine. Who could've known?
Longtime fans of this newsletter will already know of my deep love for murder mystery tv series. This is a sickness that dates back to reading Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew. Admittedly these aren't *murder mysteries*, and if I'd had more supervision on what I got from the library I might've read Sherlock Holmes or some shit, but instead I started taking out Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books, and the Kellermans' two main series from the library, or really anything that looked like it had sex scenes in it. To be fair, at one point my dad was like, "Are you sure you're old enough for these?" and I told him I was, even though the argument can probably be made that I was too young, given by how deep of an impression the content made on me, to the point that I've probably thought about these following items at least once month for the past 20 years:
In one of Janet Evanovich's books, this dude goes down on Stephanie Plum and she "thanks every lizard in the lizard kingdom" because he has such excellent tongue skills.
Faye Kellerman's series is like almost 30 books, and covers a large chunk of time in Detective Peter Decker's life. This gets tricky when Peter's daughter Cynthia, who was a teenager in the first few books, gets into her 20s, also becomes a cop, and maybe starts dating another cop who is like 15+ years older than her? I don't remember his name or if they actually dated, but there's this one scene where they've ended up sharing an apartment for the night, and he wakes up to answer the door in his boxers and sees it's Cynthia's dad, Peter Decker. And then this dude has the thought, "I'm glad that I'm 40 now and that I don't wake up with morning wood anymore, otherwise this moment would be awkward."
In one of Jonathan Kellerman's books, a dude compares the feeling of someone's breasts to smooth river stones. This made the "bags of sand" part in 40 Year Old Virgin not seem so strange.
There's one series that I can't remember that clearly, but the main character is like an industrial artist who does large-scale installations for hotel lobbies and stuff. I don't really recall anything else about the series, but I think about her every time I go past a large sculpture in front of a condo. Though I think she did one installation where she made giant metal cockroaches that scuttled on the floor and had motion sensors to know when to turn around. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, please let me know.
I'm not really fact checking any of these, it's just what my memory holds. Please don't get mad at me if you go looking for these items and can't find them.
Anyways, I tried going for a chiller mix this time around, definitely something closer to the Late Nite Tales series. There's a Yazoo song I wish I'd included, but maybe that'll be on the next mix. I If you like it, I'd recommend checking out a couple more mixes in the same vibe:
The most recent episode of Quelle Surprise
Anyways, here’s the link to the latest mix: soundcloud.com/draiser2021/the-best-and-worst-horses
ANNOTATIONS
A Space for Sound - An Intro She's been in a previous mix. Highly recommended if you like tank drums and sound baths. If I had the money, I might even consider getting a tank drum or crystal singing bowls. The money and the space.
Boards of Canada - roygbiv Close personal friends.
Lion - You've Got A Woman I don't know if this is where I first heard the song, but it is on the soundtrack for season 2 of Love Life, which I highly recommend. The first season was nice enough, but definitely very basic and hinged on whether you can handle that much Anna Kendrick (which I've been told is not for everyone). Season 2 follows William Jackson Harper, and I think because it covers a shorter period of time is allowed to go more deeply into who this character is and what he's going through. Plus it's scored by Dan Romer, who I'm fully in the bag for. I'm a #RomerHomer? #DanStan? Still workshopping our fan club name.
Slapp Happy - The Drum This was on an episode of Heaven and Earth Magic.
Antena - Seaside Weekend I was looking for something of a similar tone to follow the Slapp Happy song, and found this on a Spotify mix someone made. Might've been a Numero playlist... Either way, this is the song I'm maybe the least sure of, and was thinking of replacing with that Yazoo song. But I like the bassline a bunch, so here it stays.
Wau Wau Collectif - Yaral Sa Doom II I think this album had a hot moment on Bandcamp Daily or something. A fun little song.
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (w/ Nick Krgovich) - Old Panda Days Close personal friends. To me these guys are so early/mid-00s, and I wonder if they're still getting new fans in the 2020s or if it's just people my age and up who are feeling it. I was watching Medicine for Melancholy this week, and got so pumped when it opened with a CFTPA song. It also had an Au Revoir Simone song in it, which also got me pumped. If it weren't for the pandemic, I probably would've gone to see them play in Toronto a couple weeks ago.
Two Lone Swordsmen - It's Not The Worst I've Looked (Lali Puna Remix) Spotify Weekly for sure. I don't listen to many remixes otherwise.
Do Make Say Think - A Tender History In Rust Close personal friends. I really hope they're working on a new album. Likely the only concert that could make me risk it all during the pandemic, especially since there'd probably be seating!
Moondog - Do Your Thing I don't know. Who remembers exactly when they hear about Moondog? You probably see Moondog before you hear Moondog.
Peggy Lee - I Go To Sleep I don't know where this one came from. The original was written by Ray Davies, but initially released by The Applejacks. I don't know if I ever heard it, but it's definitely a very Kinks-y song no matter who is singing it. Well, that's not true. The Pretenders and Sia both do versions that I considered for this, but they didn't fit the sound. I should also say, I was so-so on putting this in the mix, but one morning I *woke up* with it in my head, and that's just the universe man.
The Lovin' Spoonful - Didn't Want To Have To Do It Probably Spotify Weekly at some point. Hard to say. But I have been holding onto it for a while.
Sonya Spence - I Love You So This just came up on other playlists that had Slapp Happy songs on them. Maybe this should've been the Yazoo song. I don't know.
Buffy Sainte-Marie - Guess Who I Saw In Paris Close personal friend.
Myriam Gendron - Go Away From My Window I think Jesse Locke was really hyped about this album. This song is such a great album opener, and Myriam sings it in something closer to my register, so I find myself singing it all the time. If I could've, this whole mix would've been just this song. A bunch of other people have done covers of this, but I most recommend this clip on YouTube of the original songwriter John Jacob Niles doing it. Wild stuff.
Jens Lekman - A Little Lost Close personal friend. Speaking of covers, I first heard this song through Nat Baldwin's version, which I might like even more than the original. I remember being a little disappointed because this is such a romantic song, but at the time I was talking to someone who I was attracted to but definitely did not feel romantic about, and it felt like such a shame that she'd be the person I'd always think about when I heard it, rather than someone who I was actually in love with. Oh well.
Ruth B. - Share Definitely a Spotify Weekly song. I took a long break from Spotify Weekly, and so a bunch of the tracks on this playlist are from older ones, but this one is recent. Only in the past couple of weeklies or so.
Sex Actually with Alice Levine S01E03 I'm having a hard time summarizing my feelings on this series, other than that I didn't really care for it. It's very fluffy and voyeuristic, relying a fair bit the titillation/shock value of watching Alice Levine's reactions as she sits off to the side while other people do cam sex or bdsm play or whatever. There's not much journalism to it beyond the views of the interviewees, and while it tries to not be "Look at the freaks," there isn't much depth to it. I think often about this sex positive party thing that was held on campus when I was in undergrad, and Paul and I went into this one room where they were playing porn on a projector. Now, this was the same room where I saw Mother Mother play, so really not a very sexy atmosphere, and after a minute of watching Paul and I were like "Yup. That's porn, I guess. not really sure what else I was expecting." And we left to make floggers out of bungee chords or something. I think I wore my friend Sam's wetsuit, since I wasn't really sure what you wore to these sorts of things. Or maybe I still had my $10 thrift store wetsuit. Hard to remember now... Anyways, Sex Actually is not very sexy or very informative, but it's a bit fun if you like the idea of watching Alice Levine get very embarrassed while trying to not watch people aggressively 69-ing each other.
Brian Eno - An Ending Daddy.
While space allows, I’m stashing my recent mixes and annotations in a Google Drive folder, which you can visit here: The Archive
DRAISER 2021
This year's fundraising goal is $5000. We have passed it, but my own personal goal to get 5 friends to help me with this very low-effort, passive campaign is still ongoing. So far the people who have stepped up are:
Dalbert
Jade
Shayna
I did see that Winnie included a link in one of their great newsletters, so thanks for that!
It would mean a lot to me if you considered joining us. I’m happy to talk about the many low-impact ways you can do this! Let me know if you’d like to help, or otherwise you can donate here: tinyurl.com/Draiser2021. Even if you’ve already donated, please consider sharing it with your friends and family.