Radvent Dec 5 – #Radvent tunage

Create the soundtrack of your year.

Now THIS is more like it!  Though to be honest I feel like I talk about music to people so often I don’t know what to put here that’s worth reading.

It’s actually pretty easy for me to find what I’ve been listening to this past year because of Last.FM.  In fact here is my 12 month chart in detail. However, this year I haven’t really been “into” anything significantly like most years.  It’s certainly been a soundtrack of a year built of previous years and a couple new discoveries.  But unlike years where I can say “I was really into Daft Punk” or “I discovered the new pornographers this year” this year has been a pretty casual listening time.

Of course Nine Inch Nails has been a staple, but there’s nothing new there.  Though I really enjoy any live releases that happen to come out from shows, so there’s generally always been something new to listen to.

Ghostland Observatory came out with a new album this year, “Codename: Rondo” and I’ve given that a few e-rotations.  They ended up pretty high in my list with 119 plays.

Crystal Castles also came out with a new release this year, and I’ve played them a bit.  Well, only 85 times.

I went to see Lords of Acid this year, and around that time I was playing them quite a bit.

Blaqk Audio is an electronic dancey group that I never would have heard of if @andrea_joi didn’t suggest them to me.  They get a pretty constant play rate in my rotation.

If you organize my music by what tracks I listened to the most it gets even a little more broad.  Is that Semisonic’s 2001 hit “Chemistry” way up on the charts?  Yes it is.  And that, my friends, shows you that it’s been kind of a down year when it comes to tunes for me.  (Don’t get me wrong, I really like that song.)

For some reason “Shiny Toy Guns” was a staple this year as well.  But that’s some feel-good, fun time poppy dance tunes that I can’t go wrong with.  So who would blame me?

If you look at albums I’ve listened to the most, I think it’s a pretty good list.  We start with Blaqk Audio’s SexCells, as mentioned before.  A couple soundtracks, including Repo!  The Genetic Opera. And the awesome comedy album by The Lonely Island, Incredibad.

Also as far as albums we have that new album by Ghostland Obervatory I mentioned, The Dance Macbre Remix album by The Faint, Daft Punk’s Discovery, and Battles’ Mirrored.

I’ve heard Battles in previous years, but it was just this year I got their album “Mirrored”, and it’s really great stuff.  Highly recommended.

To close things out I’ll point you to songs that I’ve been recommending, as they are a great example of music I’ve loved at that point in time.  So seriously head over to http://gabekangas.com/musicrecommendations to hear some tunes.

I know this post wasn’t very deep or anything, but hey.  What do you expect?

Below I’ll embed a few sources of tunes probably mentioned above, and you can partake if you like.  Enjoy!

Create a MySpace Playlist at MixPod.com

Weekly Song Recommendation: Mark Mallman – Mother Made Me Do It

I haven’t done a music recommendation post in a while.  It’s certainly not weekly, but I’m not changing the naming.  I don’t know, stopped feeling inspired, I guess.

Well fuck if I don’t feel inspired now.

I’ve always been a fan of Mark Mallman’s.  It started, like many of artists I enjoy do, seeing a show of theirs without knowing who they were beforehand.  This is a prime example of the Gabe Kangas music/movie introduction theory.  It is as follows:

Don’t miss the previews.  One of the new movies may be your new favorite movie ever.
Don’t miss the opening act.  You’re going to the show anyway and they may be your new favorite band.
Don’t just go for the opener.  The headliner may your new favorite band.  You’re there anyway.

Simple enough.

That was in Chicago.  Last fall I was in Seattle and Mallman happened to have a show at a club there a night I was free, so of course I went.  Loved it like the first time.  Grabbed the newest cd.

And then all was quiet until this weekend.  Mark Mallman presented Marathon 3: The 78 hour song.

Live from The Turf Club he played music 78 hours straight.  Him, along side his 400 page binder of lyrics he had prepared, rocked it.  The backing band would change every hour, and aside from ~1min bathroom breaks (while the song continued via the band) and the time a doctor pulled him off the stage (he sprained his ankle… and that whole not sleeping for 78hrs thing) he was on stage playing his song.

I can’t really recap it in all its glory, since I wasn’t physically there.  But through the magic of Twitter and the live video stream of the event I was pretty invested.  But if you’re at all interested check out the liveblog via CityPages.  Here’s a photo they took:

But I must say, watching this thing go down was a firsthand ticket to a man’s journey into madness.  While his first couple days of 24/7 rocking looked like they didn’t take a toll on him, this last day I could no longer decipher the genius from the madness.  His banter with the band started to consist of “I weigh 600 pounds, I think I’m going to die.  This isn’t healthy.”  He had a conversation with his dead grandmother.  He talked to his guitar player about going to Bennigan’s to eat, but realized they were out of business.  It just kept getting weirder.  His voice was going out as time went on and I wasn’t sure if he was going to make it the full 78 hours.  I mean, look at the guy.

But he did.  And it was awesome.

So in the honor of a man who when asked why he would do something so crazy replied with “because”, I recommend you check out this song from his “Live from First Avenue” album, the first album of his I got.  I like it because it has that live energy that I experienced this weekend remotely, but… you know, coherent.

If only everyone loved their craft so much they wanted to see what the extreme of it consisted of.

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Weekly Song Recommendation: Bang! Bang! Eche! – 4 to the Floor

Bang! Bang! Eche!

This week I feature a song by dance rock band Bang! Bang! Eche! called 4 to the Floor.

I always explain to people when going to a show that I don’t like missing the opening act.  Just like I don’t like missing the previews before a feature film, that preview could be for my next favorite movie, and that band I’m missing that I’ve never heard of could be my next favorite band.  A lot of people subscribe to the “if i’ve never heard of them, I don’t want to hear them” theory of concert going, but I’m just the opposite.  If i’ve never heard of them that’s more of a reason to hear them.  Maybe I’m missing something!

I recently saw Har Mar Superstar tear it up at The Waiting Room here in Omaha, and opening for him was Bang! Bang! Eche!  A band from New Zealand that I never had heard of previously.

They fit in the same genre of dance rock as VHS or Beta, CSS, and slightly less like a more organic Faint or LCD Soundsystem.  Personally I love this stuff.  Anything that makes a crowd dance is great in my book and this album delivers.  Plus it’s free.  So go download it from their web site.

Like other music I’m partial to it’s synth heavy with a prominent bass line and driving drums.  The vocals are energetic with just the right amount of effects.  It was nice to see him use a Kaos Pad live when performing as well to recreate those effects.  That’s rare and I really dig that.  There’s no reason just because you’re performing live that vocals should be raw and boring.  They should be just as screwed up as you intended them to be.  Though the group I was with wasn’t too impressed with them, saying the vocalist yelled too much, I dug the performance and the music.  But I understand it’s not for everyone.  It’s a highly effects driven, energy filled band.  It can be mistaken for distorted noise.

So if you like fun dance-rock, go grab this first EP for free.  The second album, Sonic Death Cuntttt is on iTunes and is just as good as the self-titled EP.

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Weekly Song Recommendation: Har Mar Superstar – Girls Only

Dark Touches

Dark Touches, released this past week, is the newest album from Har Mar Superstar.  It’s an album I was really looking forward to for a few reasons.

But the first step before talking about Har Mar is to have you watch a video of him.

He’s an artist that you can really watch grow with each album.  But with that, you never know what’s going to happen.  His last album, The Handler, while substancially more mature than his past releases, I thought was far too serious.  The persona of Har Mar is that where seriousness is the last thing you think of.  It’s about fun, parties, sex and enjoying everything around you.  So I was a bit worried that this new album would continue the trend of deep thoughts and seriousness.

Then I saw him perform his new material in concert here in Omaha.  And I found what I was in for.

Not only was he no longer following the trend of seriousness, but he took the ridiculous factor to the next level.  I saw him perform new songs such as “Almond Joy” (he explained as the male version of the Camel Toe),  Tall Boy (Who he originally wrote for Britney Spears), Creative Juices (with references to his ever growing IMDB profile), and this week’s recommendation “Girls Only”.

In typical Har Mar Superstar fashion it’s a party tune about women.  Along with the other songs from this album when he performed them live at The Slowdown a few months ago it lit up the place.  This guy with songs like this turns every venue into a an awesome party.  Girls are throwing themselves at him.  Guys are throwing themselves at him.

He’ll be back in Omaha next month and I can’t wait for the party that is Har Mar Superstar in concert.  I’m trying to convince friends to go, but people only give me weird looks.  But whatever.  They’re missing out on a hell of a show.

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Weekly Song Recommendation: The Go! Team – Bottle Rocket

The Go! Team is one of those bands that I should have discovered long before I did.  In fact, there were even opportunities to see them previous to checking them out that I missed out on.  But oh well, you can’t know all cool tunes all the time.  You can just get close.

They’re a band that mixes what I’d explain as cheerleaders with an indie synth pop band who are influenced by the 1970s.  It doesn’t make any sense, but the most interesting bands rarely do, right?

This song, “Bottle Rocket” is a horn sample-heavy rockin’ good time fronted by a female rapper and drum fills o’plenty.  It’s just such a good time listening to this tune.  You can’t help but notice the sun is just a little bit brighter and your coffee is a little bit stronger while it’s playing.

The album, Thunder, Lightning, Strike, where you can find this song generally has a pretty similar feel throughout.  So if you like this song, you’d like the rest of the album.  Not too technical, not too deep, not too anything.  Just a really fun time.

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