Movin' On Up To The Domain Side

Hello, all.

This blog is now located at www.thepopfilter.com.

Update your bookmarks accordingly. =)

Cheers,
Rahawa

Drop Your Weapon

Band of Horses - Lamb on the Lam (In the City)

Location: Circuit City
Incident: Shooting Spree
Date: 2/14/2007

iMac. iPod. iPhone. iTouch. iTouchMyselfWhenWe'reApart. iHoldUpBanksWithSquirtGuns. iShopliftFromDollarStores. iDepositFakeCoinsIntoCandyMachineSlots. iDistanceMyMind because iCraveYourCaress and uCraveMyiTouch. We can never be, iKnow, but some nights are harder than others to sober up from wishful thinking. My iWant and your uCrave would never be compatible enough to survive the trials of interlinking. Besides, there's that Kevin guy from Car Audio. What is with that? Don't you know iSee uTwo and my iHeart splinters into tiny pieces of useless circuitry?
Goodbye, my darling, my one and true iLove.
See you in the next generation.
Yours,
-Steve, Register 3 on Monday and Thursday Afternoons
P.S. Happy Valentine's Day.

[Band of Horses Myspace]

Bungee Run 2008

Sparrow House - Heart Flood

I'm in a mood this evening, that much is clear. One where the creases in my knuckles seem deeper and even this rolling-cloud of a song appears in brighter spirits than I. It's February. I feel it with every fiber of my being, each stuttering step forward. You know when you were a kid and school carnival would come by once a year, and there was that one game where they'd strap you into a harness with an elastic cord and tell you to project yourself as far from the base as you could? Bungee Run? Well, that's what 2008 feels like. Except underwater.

Is it just me, or does 2008 seem abnormally viscous to other MP3-bloggers as well?

The object of the carnival game was to run as far as you could until the cord's resistance became overwhelming, and if that's the case I'm afraid to admit my cluelessness regarding how I'm supposed to get anywhere this year -- even back to where I was at the cusp of last year's end and this year's beginning -- when I feel this song and this year dangling foolishly around my ankles like a pair of oversized pants.

Possible Solution: Sparrow House needs to release another EP. Doesn't Jared Van Fleet know we need the kind of person around who will start an album by repeating the phrase "give up" in order to then show us, track after track after track, the numerous reasons we shouldn't? Ever. Even when things feel sluggish. Even in 2008's dawning months.

Jared, if you're reading this, come back, please; we miss you truly.

[Sparrow House Myspace]

Gainesville Venues Have Boring Names

This past week was stressful, as predicted, but finally over.

So let's kick off this week with a song/video/band that kicks.



Make sure to catch The Ettes this March when they tour the southeast on their way to SXSW. They play Gainesville March 6th; mark your calendars!

MARCH 5 WINTER PARK, FL / PARK AVE CDS (ALBUM RELEASE)

***MARCH 6 GAINESVILLE, FL / COMMON GROUNDS***

MARCH 7 ATLANTA, GA / STAR BAR / + THE SELMANAIRES & DARK MEAT

MARCH 8 NEW ORLEANS, LA / HI HO LOUNGE / + MORNING 40 FEDERATION

MARCH 9 JACKSON, MS / SAM'S LOUNGE / + THE SEMLANAIRES

MARCH 12 AUSTIN, TX / SXSW - TBA

MARCH 13 AUSTIN, TX / SXSW - TBA

MARCH 14 AUSTIN, TX / SXSW - CHEAPO DISC INSTORE

MARCH 14 AUSTIN, TX / SXSW - NME SHOWCASE @ THE WAVE ROOFTOP ON 6TH

[Buy The Ettes, Myspace]

Unbeast The Leash

Videohippos - Bear Fight

This week will be stressful. I can feel it in my keyboard, the kick of the keys. I often remember faces by their accompanying voices. If one were to, say, walk up to me and remain silent I'm certain that silence would stretch into infinity as my mind struggled to remember their name. That is, until they took their first breath, that rapid intake before a warble, a rasp, a 'hello' that ends on a frequency higher than it started.

"Bear Fight" isn't "Unbeast The Leash's" signature track, but it was the first song to grab my attention, the first one to say 'hi.' There's something to be said about head-turners. Especially when they aren't the most attractive ones in the lot.

[Buy Videohippos, Myspace]

***
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone is, in fact, playing in Gainesville on February 19th! Check him out at Common Grounds if you're in town!

The Instrumental Verse

Mew - I Should Have Been A Tsin-Tsi (For You)

I am constantly amazed by writers who can draw their thoughts out perfectly, string after string, sentence after sentence. It takes me time, additions, deletions, grunts, and I'm still seldom satisfied with my performance. I know experience has a great deal to do with it. Sheer talent as well. So tonight, with six minutes of battery remaining in my laptop, I'm submitting myself to an exercise in haste and forbidden backspacing.

I've resisted writing about Mew in the past though the band has long lingered in my periphery. I don't love them. I can only name a few tracks. The lead singer is a dude, I think, right? Right. Yet I've resisted writing about them largely because this song, this lovely, simple song, possesses an effectiveness that has baffled me for the past two years. It registers at just over two-minutes, contains one verse, and is three-quarters chorus.

I have listened to "Tsin-Tsi" without fail at least once a day for the past 589 days.

It is only now, in these diminishing six minutes, that I understand "Tsin-Tsi" to be the most direct non-minimalist track I've ever heard. Context is irrelevant; I had to Google the word "Tsin-Tsi" to discover its meaning (a soothing Chinese herb). The drums remain constant, the vocals remain constant; the bright guitar and bass are likewise consistent.

It is only now, in these diminishing six minutes, that I understand "Tsin-Tsi's" opening first lines are not, in fact, its first verse. Rather, the guitar solos act as verses.

Yes, the instrumental verse.

Its brilliance lies in the fact that this song, this innocent Danish 2:14, is the aural equivalent of what's known in film as the Kuleshov Effect.

The choruses remain static in tone, context, and structure. However, these wordless verses provide for infinite interpretations of the aforementioned based strictly on whatever meaning the listener cares to impart on the solos. This in turn furnishes "Tsin-Tsi" with the amazing quality of never sounding the same twice.

At least to my ears. What do yours say?

[Buy Mew, Myspace]

One Year Forward, Six Years Back

Goo Goo Dolls - Girl Right Next To Me

And when you dream, 17
I ain't there, so I don't care
'Cause in all my dreams, I'm 23
And she's that girl right next to me
- Goo Goo Dolls, "Girl Right Next To Me"

Before I went to college, before I knew about The Replacements, my heart bopped to the Goo Goo Dolls. My best friend at the time and I would walk the few blocks to her house after school, order several slices of Master's pizza, watch Hitchcock flicks and listen to Johnny Reznik sing about superstar carwashes. I was 17 and in love, and I had the next six years to dream about turning 23, about getting a physics degree and starting a masters program somewhere spectacular.

It's six years later. I turned 23 today. I quit my physics major years ago. Picked up a film camera and a guitar. And I live in the only college town in Florida that snubbed its nose at booking Casiotone For The Painfully Alone on his upcoming FLORIDA tour.

But then there's this blog, there's my band, and there's a great girl right next to me, and despite my closest friends living hundreds of miles away, I feel as though I'm in pretty good shape. Shape enough for 23, anyway.

As for my friend, I have no idea where she is or what she's up to, but as of today I'm done with whatever expectations I had -- be they embedded in music or otherwise -- in my past of my future, and I'm glad to have it end with a song she and I once shared.

[Buy Goo Goo Dolls]

***
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone - Young Shields

Below is a list of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone tour dates. His myspace page does not include Gainesville, but his livejournal post does. Stay tuned!

FEB 16 2008 Miami, FL (White Room)
FEB 17 2008 Tampa, FL (Transitions Art Gallery)
FEB 18 2008 Orlando, FL (Back Booth)
FEB 19 2008 Gainesville, FL (TBA)
FEB 21 2008 Tallahassee, FL (Club Down Under @ Florida State University)
FEB 22 2008 Jacksonville, FL (TSI)

Casiotone For The Painfully Alone Myspace