Tapes n Tapes n mp3s

Tapes n Tapes are definitely worth listening to for a spin or two. I don't have time to write about them right now but here are some of their links. Enjoy the indie tastiness. If you want read about them it just so happens that Pitchfork reviewd them today and gave them an 8.3, weird.
Pitchfork Review of Loon

Mp3's to Download!!!
from the loon:
insistor
cowbell
omaha

from the sold out self titled ep:
beach girls
50s parking
icedbergs

Nationalism for The National

The National >> News are my favorite band of the moment. Sure my favorite band changes pretty often but these guys are amazing. My enthusiasm is driven by a few videos I just came across on their americanmary website. They also have all their lyrics listed from Aligator and Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers. You can assure yourself that he does indeed say "I have weird dreams of you pissing in a sink, I think", or "It's a common fetish for a doting man to ballerina on the coffee table cock in hand." Lyrics like this are the ones that keep me coming back for more. With the extremely baritone voice you'll want to listen to every sylable. If you still haven't heard them they have a few tracks to download as well as some videos.

Wasp Nest (Cherry Tree)
Slipping Husband (Dirty Lovers)
Murder Me Rachael (Dirty Lovers)
Cold Girl Fever (S/T)

Look around any blog and you can find "All The Wine" or other tracks off of Aligator.

Live Videos from La Guinguettee Pirate 13-14/12/2005

ABEL
BABY WE'LL BE FINE
ABOUT TODAY

malajube another great band out of canada

malajube

Malajube is a Canadian speaking rock band so if you can't handle the french I wouldn't recommend listening. For me these guys are the french bretheren of Wolf Parade. They happen to be from the same city of Montreal and have a similar sound. This is great because when I study I can't hear lyrics that I understand or else it throws me off from what I'm trying to concentrate on. I think their album is only available in Canada as of right now but it should be out in the US fairly soon. It came out on the 7th and is titled, "Trompe-L'oeil". My girlfriend picked it up in Montreal yesterday so thats how I got a hold of it. They have one track available on their website but keep a lookout for the rest of the album. The title of the track is Montreal -40(degrees)C which is very fitting because Montreal is really cold these days, trust me.

Montreal -40˚c

Le Metronome (off their 2004 Le Compte complet)

Help Me Hosting Files, I don't know what I'm doing

So I love music and videos and the such. I love being able to provide people with links to this stuff, I'm just not exactly sure how to do it other than yousendit. I would love to be able to host things for longer and even more permanently. So today I'm going to offer a few downloads and if you read this and like any of the music make some recommendations of how I can host stuff other than stealing it from other bloggers or yousendit.

The downloads:
I've been listening to Carolina a lot today and M Ward captures a sound that is old and new at the same time.

M Ward - Carolina Find the whole KCRW show at aquarium drunkard

The Ricky Gervais show, go download all 12 of these, they are amazing comedy. Ricky and Steve make fun of Karl Pilkington for a half an hour. The next 4 episodes are going to be for pay only through audible so get the free ones while you can.
Ricky Gervais Show - Ep 12(The Last Free One) mp3 m4a

My cousin is cooler than me and he recommends these guys, I haven't listened yet but it should be good if he says so.

Why? - Rubber Traits
Why? - Sand Dollars

The National - Black Sessions

Muzzle of Bees » The National - Black Sessions

I'm a little behind in finding this but it is definitely worthy of a post. If you haven't gone out and bought The National - Alligator yet, you are completely missing out. If it is because you can't afford it, no need to worry now. You can download live versions of every track of the album courtesy of Muzzle of Bees. Supposedly last year these guys were touring with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and people would leave before The National would come on. Well all those people should be kicking themselves because if these sessions are what they sound like live, they sound great.

A Few Key Tracks:(find the rest at muzzles)

All The Wine
Mr. November
Daughters of the Soho Riots
Abdel

Finally I've Opened Pandora's Box

I know a lot of people have told me about Pandora and I've read about it in many places but I just wasn't ready for internet radio. I'm trying it out right now and so far so good. For those of you that don't know what Pandora is, it's a website with an embedded music player. You tell them a band you like and then they play similar music to the band you tell them.

The way they match up bands is pretty amazing. I read somewhere that they have an office where they just have people listen to music and make notes on it. They write things down like, acoustic, rap, major key, minor key, vocal harmony and label the songs as such. I'm sure there is a lot more math involved but they do a pretty good job with it. I just want one of the jobs where I get to listen to music all day and write about it.

"For almost six years now, we have been hard at work on the Music Genome Project. It's the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Together our team of thirty musician-analysts have been listening to music, one song at a time, studying and collecting literally hundreds of musical details on every song. It takes 20-30 minutes per song to capture all of the little details that give each recording its magical sound - melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics ... and more - close to 400 attributes! We continue this work every day to keep up with the incredible flow of great new music coming from studios, stadiums and garages around the country."

I have no idea what kind of licensing they have but there is a lot of music. I'd like it better if it was attached to last.fm because as far as I can tell there is no way for me to connect the two. All the songs I'm listening to on Pandora aren't being registered on my last.fm account, curses! Sorry Pandora as great as you are, I won't be using you too much because you aren't keeping a tally of my stuff like last.fm, damn I'm anal about that stuff. So if you aren't as anal as me give Pandora a try for a while and maybe you'll find some music you like.

Music for the Insane Weather Afternoon

It is the middle of February in Maine and it should be snowing out. Instead their isn't a speck of snow on the ground, and there is a brutal wind sending the rain sideways. Now I'm not blaming it on global warming or anything like that, but something is wrong with the weather patterns. On a day like today the best thing to do is sit inside and enjoy a good movie, or if you're like me and have to do work, listen to some really good music. So put on your slippers, grab some hot cocoa, a nice book, and make a playlist to match the weather.

Radiohead - The Gloaming: This song is playing as I write this and it couldn't match the weather any better. The somber moans of Thome York mixed with the driving drums seem to fight with the rain. If you have the titles of the tracks with their little parenthesis at the end this track is even called (Softly Open Our Mouths in the Cold). I think that's what I wish I could be doing right now but instead it's 50 degrees in the middle of February.
(mp3 courtesy of http://musecology.blogspot.com/2005/12/radiohead-live.html)

Andrew Bird - Weather Systems: A slow song with some nice violin picking. Andrew Bird captures a bit of the depressing feeling of bad weather. I guess all these songs are going to be a bit depressing but that's the nature of some good music. This track is a live version from the Live Music Archive.

That's all the tracks I have time for right now but I'll add some more when I feel them coming.

Adirondack Wal-Mart Is Coming Whether We Like It Or Not

Adirondack Wal-Mart
I grew up in the nice small town of Saranac Lake, New York. Our only department store for the majority of my life was Ames. There was no need for a Wal-Mart becuase we could get everything we ever needed from Ames or other local business. Well Ames went out of business 4 years ago and now Wal-Mart is moving in with a 121,000 square foot store. I don't even think my high school was that big. The size is about double what most of the people in the town wanted but it sounds like its coming anyway. It's really too bad because now the traffic is going to be so horrible to get to my mother's apartment and getting to Lake Placid is going to be hell. Thanks Sam Walton for getting the ball rolling on destroying my home town.

Head over to The Adirondack Daily Enterprise Website and vote on whether you want a Wal-Mart or not in Saranac Lake.

Of Montreal Full Show Download

Cable and Tweed

Cable and Tweed is nice enough to host a full Of Montreal show from the Variety Playhouse, Feb. 11th, 2006. Personally I'm a huge fan of Satanaic Panic In The Attic and they have some great free mp3's at their audio lounge. My personal favorite of their free tracks is the Shins cover, "Know Your Onion". Check out Cable and Tweed for the full show, I've just included a few of my favorite tracks.
Disconnect the Dots
The Final Countdown (Europe Cover)
Really you should just go over to Cable and Tweed and get the whole thing.

I'm Cool Because I Knew About (Place Band Name Here) Before You

You know this feeling? You stumble across an album or someone gives it to you and you love it. You listen to it a lot, you know all the lyrics and melodies. The only problem is you know that the second this album catches on it's going to be huge. Now I'm not sure if you can claim this for old bands coming out with new albums but you can definitely do it for new bands with their first release. After you've loved your album for a few months everyone is listening to it, it's not yours anymore. That feeling of the album actually belonging to you is gone because at every party you go to people are playing tracks off of it and friends are humming the tune to one of the songs.

There is no cure once this happens. Sure you can flaunt it that you knew the album before anyone else but what does this accomplish? Nothing. The only thing you can do is know in your head that you are cooler than everyone else. Because honestly that's all it really comes down to is how cool you are. The catch however is unless you stumbled across the album completely on your own there is still someone else cooler than you. There is someone out there that recommended the album to you and there are therefore a lot cooler than you. It turns into a pyramid scheme because then the only thing you can do to make yourself feel cool still is to get tell more people about it. In doing this you are making that first person hundreds of times cooler while only marginally increasing your coolness.

So how can you overcome all of this? Well you have to realize that you in fact are not cool at all. I've come to realize it because there is always at least a couple thousand people if not million who heard it before you did. Sure I got Arcade Fire - Funeral back in October of 2004 and they were the shit of 2005. My cousin gave me Sigur Ros () back in 2002 and all I got was shit for listening to it for a few years but now everyone adores it. The past year the same thing has happened with Broken Social Scene, Rogue Wave, Animal Collective, My Morning Jacket, and The National. Now if you are into indie music at all you probably know all those bands, but if you don't help me become cooler by checking them out. After you realize you love them and tell 10 of your friends that you love them you're only helping me get cooler, but you're helping your cool rating too.

Samples of these great bands that will make you cool:
My Morning Jacket - Off The Record
Animal Collective - Grass
The Arcade Fire - Crown of Love
The National - Mr. November
Rogue Wave - Are You On My Side
Broken Social Scene - Cause = Time
Sigur Ros - Heysatan

Sorry for the people I poached these mp3's from I forgot to site all you guys but here are two of them at least. I use elbows: The mp3 Blog Aggregator to find all these links and I suggest you check it out.
http://20jazzfunkgreats.blogspot.com/2005/08/freak-folk-away.html
http://theunderrated.blogspot.com/2006/02/valentines-day-mix-2006.html
http://mockingmusic.blogspot.com/2006/02/listless-intellectual.html

MP3 Blog Aggregator

elbo.ws > MP3 Blog Aggregator
If you are interested in who the top bands in the blog world are right now you need to use this website. Elbows as I like to call it tracks all kinds of mp3 blogs and tells you what people have to download as well as what bands their talking about. I've even added a nice rss feed from the site that will remind you what the top blogged bands are. Thanks for all the links elbows!

Sigur Ros Moves Me

I have listened to a ton of Sigur Ros since I saw them last week. Here are a few links you may enjoy. First off is the .avi of the Conan performance last week via yousendit. Second is the video for Glosoli, if you have Quicktime Pro you can download it. Also I found a link to the whole of Takk, although I recommend you buy the thing here is Heysatan.

I just found this complete link to the Cleveland Show on 2/12/2006
Cleveland MP3
Cleveland Flac

Check out Finkla for more info.

Valentines Day is for (music) Lovers

It's Valentines Day so I decided why not give you a chance to download a song about love. Here is a copy of Broken Social Scene's "Lover's Spit" from their December 16th show of last year. Enjoy!!

"Lover's Spit" 12.16.2005

Development Arrested, Is It Showtime?

(Does this picture seem interesting to anyone else?)

The final 4 episodes of Arrested Development aired on Fox last friday. If you were like millions of other viewers you were watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Well you missed the last 2 hours of one of the best comedies Fox ever aired. The 4 episodes were hilarious to say the least. It was the last huzzah for Hurwitz and co. to please us die-hard fans. The biggest revelation of all... Maebe and GM are indeed not cousins so their kids wouldn't be retarded. Turns out that Lindsay was adopted to spite the Sitwells and she is 40. There were some great callbacks ones that stand out:
Nellie's bleep speach to the office about do's and dont's was a callback to GOB in Afternoon Delight

Buster and his girlfriend talking were a callback from the episode Not-A-Pussy, the dialogue was almost identical except for the fig part in sub for fag.

GM and Maebe getting drunk just like Michael and Lindsay in the first season.

And who can forget the whole return to the boat and come full circle from the first to last episode.

An amazing reference that someone found from Afternoon Delight is that when they are pulling the banana stand out of the water it says, "I'll Get You Bluth, - Hello" referencing Annyong's real name and the revenge for his father.

Here are 4 of my favorite quotes from the second to last episode:

"Those Hollywood shows are so incredebly detailed" Tobias opens cabinet and there is one thing, then GM opens it and there is one Granola Bar.

"Whoever said vegetables were good for your heart" The lady that falls in love with Buster.

"And a lot of us just didn't want to drive all the way down to Orange County" Ron Howard not wanting to drive to Maeby's Birthday.

"I'm no scar dot com." From the Sadam look alike who is playing Sadam in the trial.

The show is currently not in production and Fox doesn't want it anymore. Showtime supposedly still wants it and we'll see where that goes. If it doesn't continue it was great while it lasted, but if it gets a turn to shine again I'll always be happy with more. Who knows maybe Lucille will end up in jail in the next season or maybe they'll kill off some characters. Only time will tell... Mitch please!

Remember Cracker?

Cracker - the official web site

If you grew up in the early 90s you probably remember this band. Their hit song Low has just been rereleased on a greatest hits album. These guys are going on tour too, but it looks like the Cracker (and Family) tour will only be hitting MA and CO. Listening to "Low" again is reminding me of elementary school and watching my friends throwing up after trying chewing tobacco. This version of the song does sound a little cleaner than the original but no need to worry because there are plenty of live versions on www.archive.org.

Comfest 2006

I spent the past weekend at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY celbrating the 17th annual National College Comedy Festival. It was a blast with tons of funny people from all over the place. The improv/sketch groups that were present included:
Flash Monster from Bard
Purple Crayons from Yale
New Teen Force from Wesleyan
Dangerbox from NYU
Wicked Wicked Hammerkatz from NYU
Vassar Improv from Vassar
Pappay Parker Players from SUNY Binghamton
Scatterbomb from Manhattan
Strange Bedfellows from Bates
Sketchup from Maryland
Sketchies from Skidmore
This is Pathetic from Emerson
Skitsophrenics from Cornell
Freinds Like These from Brandeis
Hu Marists from Marist
Lighted Fools from Haverford and Bryn Mawr
Ad Libs from Skidmore
Recess from GWU

Each group had 20 minutes to show off their stuff. We(The Strange Bedfellows) went as one of the only short from improv groups. It seems like the festival is a place where short form improv comedy goes to die and long form improv and writen sketch go to shine. By next year I'm possitive we will be doing long form. The highlight of the weekend for me was definitely the work we got to do with guys from the UCB Tour Co. We worked with the Lighted Fools most of the time and got to practice a lot of good scene work. We worked with Neil Casey and Anthony King from the tour co. This whole weekend just made me more excited to be done with college and take improv courses at UCB theater. Everyone had their moments to be funny but I think as expected the Hammerkatz suprised everyone with their spelling bee "NiggerFaggot" sketch. The sketch was pretty ridiculous but they had the people to pull it off. Their performance last year was without a doubt better overall but the spelling bee thing was pretty memorable and amazing.

Ecstatic for Beat Radio

Beat Radio have released another studio track on their mp3 website. If you liked the demo version of Eligy, then you'll probably like the new Ecstatic EP version with more piano and a bit more production. If you've never heard of Beat Radio then do yourself a favor and download a few of their tracks. Their demo tracks have a lo-fi indie sound with genuine lyrics.

According to Brian:

We just finished mixing the ecstatic ep. It turns out we'll be putting out this as an EP next month and then another EP in the spring. We're finishing up artwork and planning for the release now. We've got sort of a high profile show this wednesday at Hiro Ballroom opening up for a band from the UK called Grand National.

If you're in New York and can make it to the Hiro Ballroom tickets are available here. Keep your eyes open for the EP release next month, I'm not sure what kind of release it will be getting but you can always check out beatradio.org.

Andrew Bird Concert Review w/ Pics and Vids

Music For Kids Who Can't Read Good: Andrew Bird Concert Pictures/Video/Review

Taylor over at Music for Kids Who Can't Read Good has a nice review of an Andrew Bird concert from earlier this week. If you haven't heard Andrew Bird, his album The Mysterious Production of Eggs was one of my favorite from 2005. Taylor has some videos from his digital camera as well as some pictures from the show. You can also find some free live Andrew Bird stuff at the Live Music Archive.

Videos of Sigur Ros from Portland, ME

Buy Any or All Sigur Ros Albums from Amazon

This is the longest of the videos I've uploaded so far. There are lots more, so far about 14 of them, you can find all of them on magomra's(that's me) youtube account All of the videos are from my Canon Elph and I did them at a lower quality to get more footage. I'll throw the rest of them up when I get a chance.

Check out the review of the 7th Boston show over at the Random Musing Blog

Weeds on iTunes + 1 Billion Song Giveaway

Showtime added to iTunes; Video downloads top 12 million

If you haven't seen Weeds yet iTunes now gives you a chance. Weeds is Showtimes newest critically acclaimed show. It follows the life of a recently widowed mom who turns to selling Marijuana to get by. Her two boys have problems to say the least and mom has to deal with them. Kevin Nealon plays a great character as her financial advisor, and town board member who smokes tons of weed. Download an episode or two and I guarantee you'll love it.

On another note iTunes is pushing their 1 Billion song giveaway. The purchaser of each 100,000 song gets a bunch of stuff and then the billionth gets 10 - 60 Gig iPods a 20inch iMac, $10,000 iTunes gift card, and a scholarship named after them. So start clicking and hope you're a lucky one. You can enter without purchasing anything here

Takk You Sigur Ros @ the State Theater

I just got back from the Sigur Ros show at the State Theater in Portland, ME. They were ridiculous. Amina, the opening band, played very similar music and played all the strings for the Sigur Ros songs. When you listen to the band on their albums you forget about the solid energy they have. Almost every song builds with such a crecendo that by the end the drummer is beating the drums to death and the lead singer is singing higher than an angel. I have a bunch of videos I took with my digital camera that I'll throw up on my youtube account. Look for those tomorrow, if anyone knows the setlist let me know. I know all the songs but I'm horrible with names.

Update: Sigur Ros will be on Conan this Wednesday, check local listings for details.

The Portland setlist looked something close to this(according the sigur ros boards):
takk
glosoli
ny batteri
saeglopur
njosnavelin
(here's where it gets muddled)
gong
hoppipola/med blodnasir
olsen
vidrar
svo
heysatan
-
popp

Sigur Ros Tour Begins Tomorrow

eighteen seconds before sunrise - official sigur rós website

Tomorrow night Sigur Ros kicks it off in Portland, ME. I'll be there to start off the tour. The State Theater says the show is sold out but if you check out ticketmaster you can still find tickets. I'll be there but sadly my favorite person in the world won't be able to make it. I'll be sure to post some photos on here tomorrow after the show and maybe I'll capture some video too. A lot of the shows are sold out but check ticketmaster the day before and you should be able to finds some, here are the dates:
* feb 06 • state theatre, portland (me) • venue • sold out

* feb 07 • orpheum, boston (ma) • venue • sold out

* feb 09 • madison square garden theatre, new york city (ny) • venue • tickets

* feb 10 • borgata music box, atlantic city (nj) • venue • sold out

* feb 12 • playhouse square centre, cleveland (oh) • venue • tickets

* feb 13 • promo west pavillion, columbus (oh) • venue • tickets

* feb 14 • ryman auditorium, nashville (tn) • venue • sold out

* feb 16 • taft theatre, cincinnati (oh) • venue • tickets

* feb 17 • palace theatre, louisville (ky) • venue • tickets

* feb 18 • 6pm • calvin college fine arts center, grand rapids (mi) • venue • sold out

* feb 18 • 10.30pm • calvin college fine arts center, grand rapids (mi) • sold out

* feb 20 • murat theatre, indianapolis (in) • venue • tickets

* feb 21 • the pageant, st louis (mo) • venue • tickets

* feb 22 • uptown theatre, kansas city (mo) • venue • tickets

* feb 23 • paramount theatre, denver (co) • venue • sold out

* feb 25 • verizon wireless theater, houston (tx) • venue • tickets

* feb 26 • performing arts center, austin (tx) • venue • sold out

* feb 27 • bass performance hall, fort worth (tx) • venue • sold out

Jon Horowitz Productions

I'm going to be done with college soon and I am guessing I will be as bored as Jon, well until I run out of money. I worked with Jon when I played Jesus in "Time Cavern 2". I posted the video a while back but without further ado, here are Jon's blogs:

24: The Post-College Years: I don't watch 24 but I know people who are addicted. Jon looks like he gives a pretty intense analysis of this obsessive show. Jon blogs straight from CTU in California so you better respect it.

Enter Exile: The Survivor Panama Blog: I've got a lot of respect for the Guatamala survivor but this one I don't know about. I guess when you are out of college you have to move to reality television. I prefer fake reality television like Arrested Development or The Office. If you're a fan of sweaty half naked people fighting for their 15 minutes, check out this blog.

Spot Three Productions: So once I graduate and need work I'm looking right here. Give Jon and James money so they can start production and hire me as some sort of actor/consultant. I've been involved in one production of theirs and seen another, both of them were genius. These guys are the next Damon/Affleck only not retarded.

Broken Social Scene on Conan Download

Broken Social Scene was on Conan earlier this week and I posted a link to watch the video but if you're like me you like to have a copy for yourself. Here is a link to a 150Mb mpg file of the video. Now you can watch Feist dance any time of day or night.

Broken Social Scene - 7/4(Shoreline) on Conan

Let me know if it dies and I'll try to re-up it.

Edit 2005-02-05: I got a better version of the video in .avi and it's only 85 Megs and the link is now to that one. Enjoy!

Last posted March 27th, 2006

Websites I Read Daily

A list and description of all the websites on my firefox quicklinks toolbar:

large hearted boy: One of my favorite blogs that offers great news on pop culture, music, tv, and books. I've found out about a bunch of cool new bands thanks to this large organed fella. My favorite thing is he posts daily bit torrent downloads and direct link downloads of all kinds of live legal music.

pitchfork media: Chances are you already read pitchfork if you are here because of any music I blog about. Pitchfork offers great music news and reviews. So what if they slam some of your favorite music, a lot of the time they are pretty close to right on their ablum ratings.

iLounge: An iPod news source that provides links to the newest releases of iPod accesories and reviews. If something is going on in the iPod world these guys will usually be the first to tell you.

Think Secret: These guys provide Apple news before it's official. They aren't always right with their predictions but usually they're pretty damn close. Don't expect it to be updated daily because Apple doesn't have big news everyday.

BBC News: I prefer an outside US perspective on my news.

Message Boards:
ufck: Formerly Dave Matthews Band forums but now where I like to hear about good new music. The only forum I read is the 2006 Album discussion.

yesand Improv message boards where you can talk about anything. I posted info and got feedback about a problem we had in our improv group. This is also a good place to discuss the most recent developments in comedy anywhere (television, movies, podcasts, books, wherever).

broken telephone: Broken Social Scene are part of Arts and Crafts records and this is their message boards. Make sure you check these so you know when there are tours, television appearances and whatever else you could care about Arts and Crafts bands.

I'm going to pull out all the stops and even tell you about all the really nerdy sites I go to(like these ones haven't been nerdy enough).

Facebook: Oh my god what if someone added me as a friend? What if there are pictures of me someone posted? I need to poke someone. It's a college phenomena, if you're not in college you probably don't know what it is.

Doom 9: This is a blog that is all about video encoding and DVD ripping. There are all kinds of downloads for windows systems but they always have the most recent news on piracy and the next DVD format.

Magic: The Gathering: Yep that's right, I'm not afraid to admit it. I read this website almost everyday. I played Magic from 1995-2002, took a 4 year break and now I'm playing again. I'm not quite as addicted as I used to be but damn it's a fun game. This is probably the pinacle of my nerddom. Get this, I'm playing in a release tournament tomorrow.

Broken Social Scene - 7/4 (Shorline) on Conan Last Night

In case you missed this the great people over on youtube have it up for your viewing pleasure. The band rocked as usually and Feist looked cuter than ever. Someone asked me if I really thought she was that attractive yesterday and I said, "she's got rock star hottness".

Open Heart Surgery

Open Heart Surgery
My step mother is going in for open heart surgery today. The whole concept of open heart surgery seems pretty fucked up to me but I guess it works in many cases. Follow the link above for a video of how they actually cut the blood vessels and then put new ones in from places like your leg. Medical science is amazing, they even have a heart-lung machine that keeps the blood in your body oxygenated. Good luck Phyl we're all thinking about you.