Posts Tagged ‘ download ’

M1N1 CPR? The Winter of Mixed Drinks by Frightened Rabbit

February 22, 2010
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Photography by Procrastination Deluxe

Saw something funny on the way into work today.  A woman had one of them creme coloured Mini Cooper things, right?  Not all that peculiar, but her license plate is what struck me, it said “M1N1 CPR”.  Seems like a waste of a vanity plate to me to just say what kind of car you are driving, considering I can see what kind of car you are driving.  We have a Mazda.  Think we’ll get our license plate to say “HNDA AKRD” just to fuck with people a little bit.

“Ooo.. honey, it’s one of those vanity plates!  What’s it say?”

“Hnn-Daa, hmm..”

“Ak-kred?”

“AH! No… not ak-kred, it’s accord, as in ‘Honda Accord’ hahaha!”

“Oh me, isn’t that clever of them, but wait…  isn’t that a Mazda?”

I guess the I’s were taken when she went to the BMV — yes, it’s the “B” MV in Ohio for some weird reason, threw me off when I got up here too.  The B is for Bureau as a healthy reminder of the word bureaucracy — so someone’s probably driving around with a “MINI CPR” license plate.  Either that, or the 1′s just seemed more clever?

I should get a vanity plate for my 1980 Toyota “Pick-up”.  Granted it just sits in the back parking space, I think I put about 1,000 miles on it last year, and when I DO drive it, the spedometer makes a wiki-wiki-wiki-wiki noise, requiring me to turn the stereo up really loud so that the detached speakers that rest under my seats overtake any and all creeks and squeaks the truck emits.  But hey, cost me about $1,000, cash.  No payments, got to love that. But what should my vanity plate say?  SM TRK BG D1K?  That’s probably too many letters, besides anyone with THAT on their license plate better have a massive dick, but probably has a very small tinkerbell.

Hmm… Maybe play on the “8″, something like “H8 T0YTA”, you know, a little topical fuck you to Toyota about that recall thing they had.  I mean, I was rather miffed that my old beat-em-up pick-em-up truck wasn’t included, figured someone would probably drop a little lube down that speedometer while testing my gas pedal, if only out of annoyance.

How about “B1KE INSTD” or something?  If that’s too many letters, could probably drop the “E” and people would still get it, right?  Ride your bike instead, right on message.  Well, except the fact I would be driving a shitty pick-up truck “instead” when you got to read it, leading the person behind me to ask, possibly outloud as they pass me, “hey, asshole, go ride your bike instead of destroying the world and cramping up traffic with that piece-of-shit, eh?!?!”

Hmm…. This is getting complicated.  AH!  I got it!  Thank you google, I’m totally going to swipe this guy’s idea from California:

Nice.  Then, whenever someone passes me and gives me “that look”, I’ll just scratch at my window and mouth out “meeyoow”, and maybe even toss in a wink.

Meh, you know what…  Fuck it.  Maybe after all that snow melts off the thing back there, I’ll come up with something better but for now, I think I’ll just save my money because I gots me some records I need to start getting in my cart, like today’s little obsession via Frightened Rabbit, The Winter of Mixed Drinks!

Last time we heard Frightened Rabbit, I seem to recall a whole bunch of acoustic goodness with The Midnight Organ Fight, a wonderful album.  But now we’ve got The Winter of Mixed Drinks and this time, these boys from Scotland, seemed to take things up a notch or two.  It’s layered. Like a delicious onion, you listen and you hear so much going on, from the sing-alongs to the use of an instrument to fill nary every nook & cranny.  Hard to explain.  Just sounds like this time they had they time to really fill the album out with everything in their head.  Purists might miss the more stripped down sound that I seem to be remembering, but what the fuck do I know?

One thing that keeps striking me is how much this guy sounds like Adam Duritz from Counting Crows.

My mom’s got a mad crush on him…  Adam Duritz, that is, not Scott Huthinson or the dude with the back “tat”.   Okay, I’ve butchered this “review” enough, eh?

Just push play and enjoy!

01 – Things
02 – Swim Until You Can’t See Land
03 – The Loneliness & The Scream
04 – The Wrestle
05 – Skip The Youth
06 – Nothing Like You
07 – Man/ Bag Of Sand
08 – Foot Shooter
09 – Not Miserable
10 – Living In Colour
11 – Yes I Would

A wee bit of scared rabbit lovins:  Myspace | Official | Label

Cheers,

Tsuru

What IS proper blogger twitter etiquette? And we also discuss Dear Companion by Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore

February 18, 2010
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Photography by Dustin

I’d like to pose a question to you about twitter etiquette…  So, like everyone’s twitter account I’m sure, my follower numbers fluctuate more than a flux capacitor… No big deal, tis life. But then today I realized a couple of the “bigger blogs” have stopped following me, one’s I thought I had built a report (“re-pore” that is, not sure of the sp?) with…

Now, that, in and of itself, doesn’t bother me too much, but it did get me thinking, as things like this tend to do.

What IS proper blogger twitter etiquette?

In my relatively short time being earnestly active on twitter I’ve come across a few “twitter-stereotypes”, if you will.  For example… Some tweet every. single. god. damn. nuance. of. their. life. I remember one music festival, it was probably SXSW, this one blog, one of the “big blogs” tweeted EVERYTHING.  That he’s standing around waiting for a band, that some famous dude just came in, that he was hungry, that he’s eating a hamburger, that he’s going to this bar, that he’s standing around waiting for a band, that he just saw some famous dude….. etc, etc, etc.

Other’s only tweet to pimp out their blog posts.  Nothing but “new posts” tweets. This was pretty much me when I first got on twitter.  It was tied into my facebook, so when I posted, I then tweeted, which then updated my status.  Yeah, my twitter had the personality of a egg-shell coloured wall in an empty manufactured suburban apartment.

Some seem truly interactive saying “good morning” and often asking questions, but when you answer, it falls on deaf ears.  The way I see it, if you ask a question and actually want someone to answer, maybe you should engage with that person.  If you have too many followers and they all “answer back”, well, maybe you should stop asking the questions then??

Some will flood you with automated blip/last.fm/hypem tweets. I love that you are loving a song and if I’m following you, I’m genuinely interested, but when it’s 9 songs in a couple minutes, well, unless they are 15 second hardcore songs, I’m going to be a bit dubious.  You know?

Some tweet ALL the time, but they are all “serious” tweets.  I followed Roger Ebert for about 5 hours and was hit with a ton of serious & very one-way tweets, like this retweet, “I play the strings into the fog. There is no joy there. This fills me with disquiet.”.  Lesson… When a serious persons’s followed to following ratio is 1,485 to 1, well, unless you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders in every thing you do, it might not be as awesome-O as you think.

Some tweet obscure things, a phenomenon that you see on Facebook too.  Updates like “No more.”  Huh? What? What happened?  Are you being abused?  Should I report this to the proper authorities???

Now look…   Like Mama and Baby always say, “to each their own”.  We are all different, one man’s tolerance level will drive another man insane. But what about you?

What do your favourite tweeting twitterers that you follow tweet about?

What about me?  Am I too much?   Too little?  Stupid?  Funny? Weird?  Asinine?  Too much annoying cycling or creepy photography, when you just want cool/hip music stuff?? Or D) all of the above?

Honestly, I have no idea.  I can only be me as, for better or for worse (more often than not I find it’s “for better” for me but “for worse” for most everyone else) and hope in our little online relationship you and I have built, it’s nothing but good times.

But look… You know and I both know I’m a odd man.  I’ve accepted it.  Odd, but harmless, I swear.  So, for those of you who have embraced me and continue to follow along,  I just want to say thank you.  You lost 10 “internet cool points” by doing so and on the intertubal superhighway, that’s a pretty big blow to your cred, but I truly do appreciate it.

Speaking of good times (two paragraphs up), well, maybe not “good times” as in “WHEEE!!!”  but more like “good times” as in, “damn that’s good music”, I’m loving the hell out of Dear Companion by Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore…

Singing & playing with the wisdom & sound of 90 year old Appalachian men, Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore bring something timeless and classic to this god-forsaken young decade.  I guess this would fall under the big alt-country umbrella (do they still call it that?), but really it’s just got a sense of old-timey country-folk, touched & accented with the occasional string or two.  It’s rocking chair on a porch in the summer music, it’s cooped up inside in the frozen winter music, it forces the world to slow down, slow to a twitter/facebook/tumblr/blog/forum/blip/foursquare/last.fm/social-network-free world, if only for the eleven tracks….

Thanks Ben & Daniel, I needed that.

1. Something, Somewhere, Sometime
2. My Wealth Comes to Me
3. Needn’t Say a Thing
4. Wilson Creek
5. Only a Song
6. Dear Companion
7. Flyrock Blues
8. Try
9. Flyrock #2
10. Sweet Marie
11. It Won’t Be Long

Some Ben & Daniel Linkage for ya: Myspace | Official | Label

Cheers & love,

Tsuru

Happy Humpday with Big Echo by The Morning Benders!!! WOOT!

February 17, 2010
By

Photography by si Jovy

Happy humpday to ya there, buddy… How the heck is your week going?

Besides the snow causing a whole bunch of indoor riding (yeah, this week is a complete bust for outdoor riding, I’ve accepted it, baa), it ain’t going so bad!  Spirits are good, body is good, life is good, projects are moving forward, HOOOO!

And, of course, some wonderful new music makes life only that much better, am I right?  Yeah, I’m right, otherwise, why would you be here?  Not for my “stellar writing skills”, that’s for sure.  So what album has been gracing my ears, coating my brain with delicious nuggets of love & melodies???  Why it’s Big Echo by The Morning Benders….

Beautiful album cover, eh?  Now, we’ve been a fan of Morning Benders here on the TSURURADIO since we heard Talking Through Tin Cans in June of 08 (ah, so nice to have the search function work, yeah blogger, don’t miss you a bit).  Last time we noticed a child-like innocence about the music.  Well, this time around, and maybe partially due to the production of a few Grizzly Bears, their sound has elevated into the mature and almost, though more off into the background, ethereal, almost like a fog.  If I was a more illustrative writer I’d chock it to a foggy beach setting somehow.

The Morning Benders are just creating really beautiful and layered pop/rock here, and it’s exciting!  Hard to explain why as there are no obvious gimmicks going on, just wonderfully crafted music that seeps into your hoodie as you wander along the chilly morning shoreline…

1. Excuses
2. Promises
3. Wet Cement
4. Cold War (Nice Clean Fight)
5. Pleasure Sighs
6. Hand Me Downs
7. Mason Jar
8. All Day Daylight
9. Stitches
10. Sleeping In

Some Morning Bender link lovins:  Official | Myspace | Label

Cheers,

Tsuru

Bryan Adams in my head? Oh my… And then we Fight Softly with The Ruby Suns!

February 8, 2010
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Photography by xrawrxdeex

So I wake up this morning and this song is playing in my head:

Bryan Adams – Everything I Do (I Do It For You)

Yeah.  I know.

But it got me thinking…  Man, Bryan Adams ruled the world back then, didn’t he?  Every damn ballad he could muster would be played every hour on the hour!   And you can see it, every woman in the house, taking every scratchy voiced word sung to heart.  I think there are two parts of the song though, that really GET ya… First that bridge

There’s no love – like your love
And no other – could give more love
There’s nowhere – unless you’re there
All the time – all the way

Really starts off from the gut, “there’s noooo loooove… like yoour loooove” and ends with that “alllll the waaaaa-Aaaaaaaay!”  followed with that drippy guitar with a bit of lyric reiteration.  Perfect heart tugging action.

But Bryan wasn’t done, any lesser song would’ve been satisfied, but no no, not our romantic troubadour, as he takes us to climatic emotional finale, laying it all out:

Oh – you can’t tell me it’s not worth tryin’ for
I can’t help it – there’s nothin’ I want more
I would fight for you – I’d lie for you
Walk the wire for you – ya I’d die for yoooooooooooooooooooou!!!

Then, ever so gently, “ya know it’s true… Everything I do… I do it for you.”

When Bryan Adams ruled the world, eh?

Fortunately, the world has moved on.  Instead of Bryan Adams, we have Usher or Clay Aiken or something, I really don’t know, instead of “tell me have you ever really, really really ever loooooved a woman” we’ve now got “A girl like you needs somethin’ real, Wanna get you somethin’ from the heart, Somethin’ special girl, It’s my dick in a box.”

Times change, things change, yet it all stays the same.

Speaking of change, is it just me or has a new era of “weird pop” indie music been ushered in?  I’ll put the blame on Animal Collective, but lard know who really brought the trend out of the woodwork.  I’m certainly not complaining, as long as it’s real, it’s all good.  But I was certainly surprised when I loaded up the new Ruby Suns Fight Softly, and was transported one funky odd trippy musical journey!

Maybe I’m just remembering them wrong?  I remember “Oh Mojave”…

Hell, I think it even showed up in a Microsoft commercial or something for Vista.   This one is a bit more E-lectronical than I remember and would fit right in with a Yeasayer, Dirty Projector, Animal Collective listening party!

For me, it works. Not sure why.  This kinda “genre” can be touch and go for me, and sure there are times on the album when I ask “huh?”, but that’s okay.  It’s good to challenge, branch out, not always live in the happy indie strum-strum world.    Who better than The Ruby Suns to do that with?

Exactly.

  1. Sun Lake Rinsed
  2. Mingus and Pike
  3. Cinco
  4. Cranberry (via Subpop)
  5. Closet Astrologer
  6. Haunted House
  7. How Kids Fail
  8. Dusty Fruit
  9. Two Humans
  10. Olympics on Pot

Ruby Sun linkage: Myspace | Official | Label

Cheers,

Tsuru

European by Sambassadeur…

February 2, 2010
By

Photography by introvertevent

Hey all.  Not going to lie to you, I’ve got some personal issues that are tearing me up.  I’m not going to go to any details because it’s private, nor am I looking for any sympathy, but I’ll have to keep this pretty short today.

One thing I will say is that European by Sambassadeur…

…is wonderful.  Just beautiful escapist pop, full, fleshed out, orchestral, and charming enough to sweep you away, even if only for a little while.

Sambassadeur – 01 Stranded

Sambassadeur – 02 Days

Preview 4 tracks here now

Some Sambassadeur linkage…

Myspace | Official | Label

Cheers & thank you,

Tsuru

I’m a sleepy bear, going to wordpress?, & Everybody Knows It’s Gonna Happen, Only Not Tonight by The Go Find

January 25, 2010
By

Photography by turuncuaz

Oh my, I’m a sleepy bear today. After a wonderful and extraordinarily productive weekend of cycling & photography, we go to bed last night and sleep just won’t come. I wanted to ride in, especially with snow pending, wanted to beat it for one last road bike ride this week, but that would mean may 3 or 4 hours sleep and granted I don’t need/get THAT much sleep, I ain’t super man!

Coffee & more coffee, but man if the batch I got doesn’t taste like degreaser.

*sigh*

Okay, fortunately today’s gem, which has been circulating on my ipod for the past week or so, is hitting juuuust right for the sleepy place I’m in. BUT, before we get to that, got a little news-ish thing to share…

As some of you may have taken the time to notice, we are on blogger. It’s been an interesting experience, to say the least. Blogger has a history of deleting posts and, like in my good friend Rotch’s case, whole blogs. Granted, as far as I know, we’ve never had any deletions, BUT I do know that blogger has it set up where TSURURADIO won’t show up on certain searches has blocked Technorati and whatnot, SOOOOOOOO…….. for the past year probably, I’ve been backing up the site on my own server using wordpress. Just turn off the redirect to “blog.tsururadio.com” and work on it a bit, update the back-up, then turn redirect back on.

ANYWHOOSLE DOOSLE… to make a long story short (too late), I finally got the wordpress version looking pretty good. Don’t get me wrong, the importing of blogger posts don’t format perfect, but it’s readable! Check it out!

T S U R U R A D I O . c o m
aka NOT blog.tsururadio.com

What do you think? Not bad, eh? Pretty seamless? So, here’s what I’m going to do.

  1. Double Post: For the next week, all posts will go up on both sites to make sure I even like posting via wordpress. If Step 1 = thumbs up, go to Step 2.
  2. Set Up Aggregators to pull from the right feed. Once Step 2 is completed, go to Step 3.
  3. Turn on redirects to go to new tsururadio.com! HOORAY!

Well, that’s the plan anyway. Your feedback, commentude, suggestions, and whatnots will be greatly appreciated!

Okay, before I either a) fall asleep or b) kill someone for a good cup of coffee, we better get to The Go Find and this sleepy little gem, Everybody Knows It’s Gonna Happen, Only Not Tonight!

I was having a hard time describing this one, it’s really just basic pop on it’s surface. It reminded Baby of Stars a little bit, which is a pretty good comparison to me too. I once heard Stars call themselves “lovers rock” in an interview a year or so ago, and I think that label fits pretty good here. Check out their label write-up:

“Imagine the sound of cereal hit by milk in the morning, only heard if you listen closely. A sound that is comforting and addictive. This kind of innocent image from a daily routine fits the music of The Go Find. It’s never offensive; it’s warm and soothing, but intriguing enough to grab your attention. Its beauty lies in small things.”

Romanticized a bit, eh? Exactly. Add in that the lead singer actually sounds a bit like Torquil and it all just kinda fits in place. This much I know, the “comforting” part of their sound is just what this tired boy needs right now.

Happy Monday everyone…. enjoy!

1 Everybody Knows It’s Gonna Happen Only Not Tonight
2 Love Will Break Us Up
3 It’s Automatic
4 Neighbourhood
5 One Hundred Percent
6 Stay
7 Lottery Man
8 Cherry Pie
9 Running Mates
10 Just A Common Love
11 Heart Of Gold

Go Find Link Love…
Myspace | Official | Label

Cheers,

Tsuru…