the oh so quiet show

Soundscapes

Last week I visited Toronto and did a strange repeat of my music store jaunt in Phoenix. My friend I randomly passed by Soundscapes and I ended up buying another Console and Colleen CD. They would’ve been cheaper online (how weird is it that the Canadian dollar and the US dollar are almost worth the same now?) but…WHATEVER, impulsive buying isn’t the end of the world.

I’d share some tracks with you but my Dell laptop stopped reading CDs after I got back from my vacation. Which is pretty bad. This might be a sign that I’m supposed to get a new iMac since lack of a CD drive is very inconvenient. And it’s a two-year-old Dell. So here’s a random song by The Softlightes that I particularly like:

[audio:http://music.diskobox.net/mp3s/softlightes-track01.mp3]

Softlightes – The Ballad Of Theo & June

Say No! to Being Cool. Say Yes to Being Happy

Actually, I like all the songs on their album, Say No! to Being Cool. Say Yes to Being Happy. I’ve had this album for months (it came out in February) and wanted to write about it earlier, but…instead I just kept listening to it and ignoring this blog. SO NOW I AM WRITING ABOUT IT.

The title fits the album. It’s…happy. And it is cool, but it’s primarily happy. And then cool because it’s happy. Yeah? Maybe? There’s a song called “If The World Had Cookies” for god’s sake. Cookies are possibly the only thing that’s right with the world. There’s also a song about microwaves and robots. Everything is quite poppy and happy in that “fat clouds and rainbows and teddy bears” (there is such a music genre, I swear) kind of way. Here’s another example for you to listen to:

[audio:http://music.diskobox.net/mp3s/softlightes-track05.mp3]

Softlightes – A Town Named Blue

I’m gonna go back to bed now since I keep hacking up phlegm and feeling like my blood is boiling. Too much info, I know.

Soundscapes
572 College Street
Toronto, ON M6G 1B3, Canada

You know I’m obsessed with Magnet, right? Maybe not.

I’ll admit I haven’t been listening to him much lately, but I haven’t heard anything about him either. I just happened to come across this Filter US Recordings Blog and LOOKS, THERE’S MAGNET NEWS. Why the hell couldn’t anyone have told me this stuff earlier?

Argh. [shakes fist] Whatever. I suppose I should be happy to hear that the new Magnet album will be out in the US on September 18th and that he’ll be touring with Stars in November.  The problem with that is if he’s only touring with them in November, that doesn’t seem to include the east coast.  Which affects me because I live on the east coast.  And…um…yes.

Sadness.

I don’t mind admitting that I pretty much buy all my music on amazon.com these days (hey, I do buy music) and it’s been so long since I stepped inside a music store that I forgot how fun/wallet gouging it can be to just browse shelves and stumble upon music you didn’t even know you wanted.

stinkweeds

I’m currently vacationing worlds away from my New Jersey homebase in the ‘ZONA! …I mean, Arizona. Phoenix, to be more precise. (I’m here for all fun and no work, unless you count eating as work…and it is partially work, but work of the awesome tasty kind, not the, “Oh god I hate my life please kill me,” kind.) My friend Alex brought Lee Anne and me to Stinkweeds, which he said is the only indie music store in the area, a very nice one at that (and happens to sit between a vintage clothing store and designer toy shop). We oogled their letterpressed business card, OH HOW WE OOGLED THE BEAUTY OF THE RECESSED TYPOGRAPHY.

store!

Anyhoo, while browsing the store and thinking, “Gee, there isn’t anything that I want,” I ended up taking Les Ondes Silencieuses by Colleen, Pan Or Rama by Console and the latest Interpol into my squishy arms. I didn’t know what the Console album sounded like at all (not that I knew what the other ones sounded like either, but if I really like a particular artist I figure I will like everything that they’ve churned out) so the nice guy managing the store unwrapped it and popped it into the stereo for all of us to listen to. Bleepy bloops filled the air with melodious bleepy bloopage.

“I like this. …Um, I’m going to take this from you,” said Alex.

With each passing day I honestly feel more music-lazy than ever (as in, too lazy to seek stuff out myself or go to live shows), but…I really shouldn’t be so lazy. Yeah. Shouldn’t.

Stinkweeds
12 W Camelback Rd
Phoenix, AZ 85013

We Are Wizards = documentary about the weirder displays of Harry Potter fandom. Although I was aware of that thing called wizard rock, I didn’t know how widespread it was. Which is…um…quite. As shall be seen in the documentary:

I love the Harry Potter novels to death (deeeaaattthh I say as I’m rereading the 7th book). Not sure about the music, but it’s cool. I mean, I’d rather listen to HP-themed music than HP-themed fanfic. I think I’d rather do most things than read any kind of fanfic.