new music

Not sure anyone looks at this anymore, but here we go anyway.

1. Flaming Lips, Stardeath, Henry Rollins, Peaches, et al. redo Dark Side of the Moon.
http://pitchfork.com/news/36828-flaming-lips-to-cover-pink-floyds-idark-side-of-the-mooni/
Outrageous, right? Fortunately, unlike Beatles covers, this cover album absolutely does not suck. I'm only on the first listen at this point, but I am extremely impressed by how much the cover is true to the original and yet clearly Flaming Lips. Honestly, while the thousandth listen to Dark Side is still excellent, a new take is very nice. Beethoven's 5, 7, 9, Barber's Adagio, and hundreds of other classical "hits" get re-interpreted and re-published every month it seems. It's only logical that more popular art music begins to follow the same trajectory. I love the full album cover, too. For example, for the millions of Beatles covers out there, I have seen none that have systematically reproduced Sgt. Pepper or Abbey Road - the 'suites' or almost 'progressive' records... Leave it to Flaming Lips to do it with the most unlikely cast possible AND get Henry Rollins and Peaches...

On a side-note, Pitchfork let me know that Daft Punk showed up at a Phoenix show in Madison Square Garden. I'm moving to NYC. These things happen in DC and Austin, maybe other places.. but .. New York!

2. Janelle Monae
Get used to it, you like hip-hop / pop / R&B, and you also love music from Atlanta and the surrounding provinces. You love Of Montreal, and you've got mad respect for Outkast, R.E.M., Indigo Girls, Allman Brothers... Now add one to the list. Very appropriately, Janelle Monae's first few releases feature Big Boi (of Outkast) and Kevin Barnes (Of Montreal), and she's touring with Of Montreal. I am confident this is true because I watched them create amazing danceable music while invoking awkward sexual tension together - somewhere between post-modern irony and sycophantic adolescent love-violence ... or schadenfreude (somewhere in the contradictions I get lost).

Metropolis - the Chase Suite EP is a great place to start. It may be useful to know that she takes on a time-travelling android persona, or is an android or an archandroid or something. Anyway, androids aren't allowed to fall in love with humans, and like Sarah Connor, Janelle is here with us today to prevent imminent robot indiscretions. Or something like that. If you're into one-track-at-a-time, pick up her hits first. They are great. No need for snobbery with this one.

You'll find some tracks that sound straight like Madonna, some Lauryn Hill, some Outkast, some Of Montreal, some jazz standards, and overall excessive talent. Her vocal dexterity across vocal range and styles is ridiculous, and the magnitude of energy in her performance is enormous.

It's a bit of a crap-shoot whether she will become a timeless legend with hundreds of cover bands in Japan who sells out Madison Square, or if she'll stick in the "indie" circuit, but no matter - now is the time to go to an Of Montreal and Janelle Monae show. Do it.

Side note: I write so much to make up for and hopefully obviate for others the mild hesitance I exhibited when first listening to Janelle. Her tracks sounded too mild or too poppy for me on first listen. How wrong was I?

3. Zach Miskin, Gene Back, and the Books
Zach's new album is out, with collaborations with some enormous names. The album has a first album feel to it. Some tracks are shockingly excellent, and a few are moderately disappointing, but the net gain for buying this album (it's on Amazon) far exceeds the cost. And, as reported by Michael, Gene is touring with the Books on their The Way Out tour. Damn.

OK I'm tired and need to do some work, so I quit for now. More to come.

Ira's Brief Life As A Spider Lyrics

I was just listening to Hissing Fauna You Are the Destroyer, and of course Horse & Elephant Eatery comes after that if you aren't quick on the controls. I came across this absurdist children's story (moreso than a song), which I think should be written out and published as a children's story + audio.
Strange world we live in, there are at least two homemade youtube videos to accompany this obscure track. My favorite by far so far is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tczx7TGIdlU&feature=related. No, I am not presently under the influence.
Anyway, a few years back I wrote on this blog about Hissing Fauna being the magnanimous magnitude of magnificence that it is, and at this point I think there are a few tracks from Horse & Elephant that must be seen as classic historical pieces.


from: http://www.actionext.com/names_o/of_montreal_lyrics/iras_brief_life_as_a_spider.html

All the baby spiders in the nursery
waving to each other clinging to their mothers
and smile at their dads who say
"Now that's a clever lad"

One particular spider, who's parents had named Ira, fell out of his mother's arms and became lost inside the giant insect hospital. Since mother spiders give birth to so many babies at one time it is exceedingly difficult to keep track of all of them and sometimes a baby will get lost without it's mother ever being aware of its absence. Ira was just such a case. He crawled about for hours crying but his mother couldn't hear him for Ira was a mute. This is where the story gets interesting.

He opened his mouth and discovered a lake in a crater on his tongue. He was thirsty so he drank from the lake. This proved to be a fatal mistake as the lake was really a cake filled with poisonous snakes, and Ira died.

A nurse discovered dead baby Ira and sank with grief. She gently lifted him up to her breast and carried him weeping to the head nurse to see if any baby spiders had been reported missing. The head nurse checked her missing baby spider file and told her that "No, no missing baby spiders have been reported." The nurse holding dead baby Ira then asked if they could have a funeral for him. The head nurse, being a very caring grasshopper, agreed that that would be the proper thing to do. So they dug a small hole near a yellow tulip, held a brief but moving requiem and with great sadness buried baby Ira.

Miraculously, Ira was quickly reincarnated as a wild horse on the far off planet called Nearly. on Nearly, wild horses hold the majority in the senate and Ira has discovered pudding. His favorite is the kind without raisins.

All the baby spiders in the nursery
waving to each other clinging to their mothers
and smile at their dads who say
"Now that's a clever lad"



to update re: beer and/or music
I failed to reliably record the impressions left by the Sam Summer 12er.
I can say with confidence that Lucky Bucket (Nebraska)'s IPA is a hell of a dark, boozy IPA, but I cannot remember for the life of me the beer after which it was designed. As far as I can tell, it is the most sophisticated beer ever produced in Nebraska, though my perspective could possibly be skewed.
I plan to post a brief thing praising Target's Archer Farms (?) putanesca sauce. It is a smoky, olivy, amazing tomato sauce that makes anything taste much better. It is slightly more expensive than your Prego or target's cheaper brands (market pantry, etc), but it is totally worth it. Case in point, I had cold, several-day-old, leftover, whole-wheat pasta straight from the fridge with a splash of this sauce, and it was an excellent meal. I haven't checked yet, but I wouldn't doubt it's even good on rice, gnocchi, or couscous. Anyway, I'll check that out, and I'll get back here.

And finally, I don't know if this blog serves anything but self-satisfaction and bi-annual interactions, but I have made the executive decision that the topic is "food, beer, and music" ... and anything else that seems interesting or funny.

C

summer MUSIC

I will post the contents of a 2010 mix (which will necessarily be several discs long) and try to send out CDs to any friends interested in the next couple of weeks. Right now, I'm struggling, but have only to pare down some artists' contribution to the mix.
For fun, I'll try to articulate the new (to me) stuff that has been important to me and is causing me mixtape stress. This is in order by what's on my ipod or computer most often now.

• 1. (super-hot right now)
  
  
  
  • Surfer Blood - Astrocoast. Obviously, Weezer is the first comparison, but this album has a LOT more to it than that. I have no idea where to start choosing.
  
  
  • The Rosebuds - Life Like. There's something dark about this band that makes the bubbliness of many of the tracks have an ironic tinge that makes it acceptable and amazing for me. Right now, I'm choosing Another Way In, which features the female vocalist, for the mix. I'd like to have one of the male vocalist tracks too, but this is an impossible decision thus far. I love Life LIke, Border Guards, Bow to the Middle (w/ both vocs), Nice Fox, In the Backyard... great album.
  
  
  • Yeasayer - Odd Blood. It took me some time to love the first track "The Children," but the rest of the album latched on like a hive of ticks on first listen. I have no idea how to choose a track from this album. I'm tempted to put track 1 on the mix because it's a bit more 'challenging,' but I'm not sure it's the best or my favorite track. ONE has a good chance, but the "stick up for yourself, son" track has an amazing bridge. This album is what I listen to the most. Several times a day.
  
  
  • The Rural Alberta Advantage - HometownsI don't believe they are from rural Alberta, but the drummer does sound like he's on meth or at least crack. Neutral Milk Hotel comes immediately to mind. Don't Haunt This Place was on a CMJ disc, and it is definitely one of the best tracks.
  
  
  
  



• 2. (awesome)
  
  
  
  • Stars - Nightsongs. The Smiths cover (This Charming Man) is an excellent take on one of the most coverable people out there. Now, I'm waiting for Merritt, Dylan, and Cohen covers. The band's sound is super-poppy, but I like it more each time, and it doesn't seem the band's per-repeated-listen value has peaked or plateued yet.
  
  
  • Notwist - Neon Golden. I love these guys. Some similarities with the Books (that's how I found them through Lala), but a very different style. No one song is particularly compelling. Compelling is the opposite of most of their tracks, which tend to be 'floaty' or 'perpetual' or something like that. However, some tracks, like Neon Golden, are a little more forceful. Tracks like Pick up the Phone are quietly desparate (cliché, but that's a good description) and brooding (brüding sounds good too).
  
  
  • TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain. And Desparate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes. These albums are impressive enough to be on the list above, it's just that I've had these albums forever in my collection and just didn't bother to give them the time. Heavy electronics are used very effectively in a rhythmic/industrial fashion. I swear the singer channels Busdriver when he says, "eye contact" on I Was A Lover. This is another super-difficult decision for the mix.
  
  
  
  



• 3. (of note)
  
  
  
  • Scissor Sisters have a new album coming out this week. If you haven't listened to the self-titled album and the Mary EP until you love them, you are doing yourself a disservice. I assume the new album will be supercool.
  
  
  
  
  

Sam Adams' Summer 12-pack

$12 and brimming with potential, if not good and interesting beers, this box was pretty much the only option at Target today. But, it makes for good literature (I know at least 33% of the readership likes hearing/seeing myself talk). I had the Coastal Wheat on tap at Buffalo Wild Wings during US v. Ghana, and it tasted appropriate to the mood. However, I've had it from the bottle before and don't think it is that bad. I think it was skunked or a dirty tap. I think we got two of the Boston lager in there. I might add a picture when I drink those, but no point in reviewing one of the most available beers around. Interestingly, the 12er comes w/ two of the Sam Lights, which I remember being surprisingly good. I will contemplate these as objectively as possible.

1st randomly selected participant: Brewmaster's Collection, Blackberry Witbier (http://www.samueladams.com/enjoy-our-beer/beer-detail.aspx?id=42e434fe-1f92-4e7c-b496-473507bc698b)

picture forthcoming

I'll give them props for putting a lot into this beer, in terms of ingredients and effortful recipe development. Short of a super-expensive geuze or lambic, this is about as good as I could expect a blackberry beer to be. As the website says, the orange peel, blackberry, and coriander flavors DO in fact complement the malted wheat flavor. If you know what to taste beforehand, this tastes a bit like a buttery blackberry scone. If you don't know what to expect (and especially if you serve it slightly warm), you will react the way Laura did in this situation: "That's nasty. Tastes like cough syrup." The nose isn't anything special, but neither is it off-putting. Mouthfeel is 'fizzy' and light. Enough sour, sweet, and bready to be interesting on all parts of the tongue and have a scone-y ale aftertaste. All in all, my attempts to describe the beer have improved its taste exponentially. Sam should take a cue, as the cursory explanation on the bottle tells you less than the name of the beer. Most importantly, good when served COLD. If you can tell yourself "blackberries and orange peel" rather than "cough syrup," or at least compromise, "Flintstones' vitamins," this is an enjoyable beverage. I'd bet it would be quite nice on a hot day if bottomed-up quickly.

drinks and food

Neither beer nor music, but drinks and food are important too.

So, through the torrents of college-ing
and hailstorms,

we've managed to find some novelty.

This drink was called a "daiquiri" (who knew there was that extra "i"), but is really just rum-lime. It's 2 parts light rum to 1 part lime juice and 1/2 part simple syrup:

shaken w/ ice, which gives it a nice foam. I liked including the pulp and some zest as well. It ends up more sour with the pulp strained out. Excellent. And, if you have the fixins, all you need is tequila and some citrus flavor to make margaritas.

Now, on to food. I finally made it back to the local Indian store (the country, not Native Americans as it usually means around here), and found a lot of help and some awesome new things.

I bought these papadum and this cilantro chutney with the extensive help of the lady behind the counter. She thinks that what I'm used to at restaurants is a mix of cilantro (coriander) and mint chutney (total price $4.50), but this chutney is quite nice by itself. It's pretty spicy, and very tasty for coming from a jar. She suggested mincing up onions and cilantro and serving the papadum, which I have not tried yet. The papadum is strange, but all you have to do is microwave each one for 40 seconds and it comes out just like the deep-fried restaurant papadum. This is an excellent appetizer, and I'm super glad I found these things.

back to beermusic

Unfortunately, I haven't checked since before March apparently, as the last two posts were unknown to me until today. They look great.

I don't have a lot of interesting beer or music news, but will try my best.

Laura and I hit Bread & Cup (breadandcup.com) for V-day for a five-course beer-paired meal. It's supposed to be a 'slow meal,' but this was ridiculous. We'd been to a wine-paired one before, and it was amazing. However, the beer one had the same size pours, it took 40 minutes for each course, the pairings weren't all that special, and there was no good way to order beer or anything in between courses. So, we were a little hungry and pissed, but it was interesting anyway. One pairing was particularly good. For dessert, they served some kind of chocolate business with ganache and strawberries, I think, which was quite rich and awesome by itself, but it was paired with Goose Island's Bourbon County stout(Chicago: gooseisland.com). It's a strong, dense, bourbon-barrel-aged stout with a good portion of Willamette hops. The caramel malts and roast barley come through excellently, and obviously the chocolate malts matched the dessert perfectly. We had a four-pack later, and it was still great, though not as great as when we had fresh dessert to go with it. They suggest a pairing of flourless chocolate cake, which may have been what we had. Sounds excellent, anyway.

Here's a picture of Laura and beer at B&C. Probably the Breckenridge 471 IPA, which is quite nice and regularly available.

Goose Island has been good to us. Matilda is on tap in multiple places here, an abbey style golden ale or something. It's not exceptional for a Belgian-style, but quite nice nonetheless especially compared to your typical taps. http://www.gooseisland.com/pages/matilda/25.php. I agree strongly with their pairing of camembert, which is one of the best cheese styles from our best local fromager, Branched Oak. I'm hoping B&C will get this on tap and serve their camembert (the local one) with fig preserves. Goose Island also has a pretty good IPA.

nerax cask festival

that's right: cask festival. i didn't take pictures but it was all cask all the time, with a majority of beers coming from the UK. notables were darkstar espresso stout and the stadium bitter by a brewery that starts with M.
the darkstar had notes of pine and pork with a little coffee, and the stadium bitter was rife with floral and citrus hop tones, tempered with a smooth cask body. don't ask me to remember any of the other breweries because i won't see them again until next year.
it was a neat festival, all in all, the crowd being about half people my age and half people my parents' age; a good sign that serious beer enjoyment was taking place. admission was 15$, then pints/half pints/quarter pints were 6/3/2 at one big cash bar backed by a scaffold of gravity tapped casks. big whiteboards displayed the list, color coded by country, and when i got the last quarter pint of german maerzen they sent out an eraser on a stick decorated as the reaper's scythe to erase it.
very unique, and i'll definitely be going back next time.

more summertime beer history

my roommate got me this beer for my birthday. it's a very carefully crafted in italy, and aged 2 years. it's notable that this is done in pure old flemish style, without additives or pasteurization. as promised, it was sour! very lively carbonation, as you can see from the picture, and if you taste carefully you might find some oak under there. eat a tums beforehand, though, and split it with somebody as the drinkability is quite low. it's probably great out of a tiny glass on a hot day.

northwestern ipa lineup - 6 month retrospective

this past summer i had a chance to round up a bunch of ipa's of the northwest and drink them in sequence. finally, half a year later, it's time to blog my notes...



The pike IPA is out of seattle. It was good warm with sweet malt in the nose, a crescendo of hop bitterness and a dry finish.
kim sez: "not floral enough!"

the sweetgrass ipa comes to us bottle conditioned from the tetons. i found sweet flowers in the nose and an herbal attack finished with a clean note of copper.
kim sez: "mild, high drinkability, with little aftertaste"



i included the st. rogue red even though it was not an ipa because it was dry hopped, and i expected it to fit right in. in fact it was my favorite beer of the summer, being full bodied with malt on the heavy side. the hop bitterness was gentle yet firm, with lovely floral essence in both the nose and finish. i found it quite drinkable.



the inversion ipa is from deschutes oregon. the brewery is quite good though their flagship products would have to be the mirror pond pale and the black butte porter. the inversion was decent, though i noticed some metal in the nose. the rest of the beer was characterized by aggressive and persistent hop bitterness, but if you watch carefully you may catch a surprise hint of banana in the middle.



a little sumpin' extra from lagunitas didn't self-describe itself as any style, forcing me to get it out of curiosity. it turned out to be...unique, maybe you would say a tripel plus hops. it was pale golden with a brilliant floral nose. the heart of it was filled with assertive dried fruit flavors, followed by some astrigency and lingering alcohol vapors. drinkability was very low, indeed.
kim sez: "uhhhhg...that's a little sumpin' extra..."



finally, a second beer from grand teton brewing co., the lost continent double ipa. with a nose of alcohol and syrup, and large chunks of lazy sediment, you know you're in for an experience. If you don't mind the extreme hop bitterness, you might enjoy substantial grapefruit tones, mopped up with a whiff of floral and alcoholic vapors.
Dad sez: "oh god! it's horrible!"

Schlafly Reserve Barleywine 2007

P1030799
Originally uploaded by m.cannamela

ah, 2007 was a good year for barley! this one comes in a brown champagne bottle form factor and has a rich red color. i give it points for its surprising drinkability as well as its tooth-stripping hop-backed malt power.

founder's double trouble

first, let us all marvel at charlie's mastery of surface tension. oooh, ahhh!

and now the beer:



now stand on your head and take another look at the bottle. neat!
double trouble is a beer i really should have reviewed months ago. it came and went in the winter time, but now it's back! and it's just as good as i remember. plenty of hop aggression, great color and an alcoholic malt backbone make this one a winner, though most of us will find the price point too high for an everyday beer.