Upsetting The Apple Tart II

Mendoza Line We're All In This Alone

1. Adem - To Cure a Weakling Child/Boy Girl Song
This is a cover of two Aphex Twin songs mashed up. I've listened to both and frankly I'm a little confused. Most of my Aphex Twin stuff is from the dark web and seems to be heavily mis categorised. I think this was used in an ad recently aswell. There's a video somewhere of sunlight in a room the week S came home (and Si and Dee Dee float in and out of frame) and this is blaring in the background. Sunlit memories.

2. Sandro Perri | Double Suicide
This has been knocking around since mid last year. And has kinda grown on me. From Toronto via the blogs.

3. Casino Vs Japan | Summer Clip
This is fantastic. Crazy electronica at its best. I've had this mp3 for close to 10 years (downloaded in the dot com goldrush) but there's a glitch in the encoding which no other software has allowed me to burn to cd. iTunes' error correction sorted it out. Lexington Kentucky. Another unlikely centre of music excellence. I need to buy some of this guy's albums.

4. Lo Fine | Remotely Together
"Wise men dont poke pins they wait and deflate them a little" Evan Dando (I think!) appears completely out of nowhere on here. Havent been able to confirm.

5. Allá | Es Tiempo
Self described as Latin Psychedelic. Mexican. Ó na bolgs.

6. Handsome Furs | Hearts of Iron
Need no introduction.


7. The Mendoza Line | Let's Not Talk About It
A husband and wife team from Athens, Georgia. Divorced in 2007 and dissolved the band.


8. The Thermals | Now We Can See
Without a doubt D's favourite Dancing on the Landing song. When the oo-wayoh-oo-wo-oh bit starts she'll drop everything, come running business like from wherever she is in the house, no matter what her state of dress or dishevelment and dance in her curiously studious style (fists clenched arms tucked like a boxer, reversing in circles sometimes nodding her head when her synapses are feeling up to it). She mimics both of her parents dancing styles (god love her) and throws in a bit of Bernard Dunne. Generally elicits the reaction "Moh!" for more when it's over. Only this song and Midlake ever get that reaction. This is a song which all kids seem to love. Try it on yours!


9. Breeders - Safari
Vintage Breeders. Way before stylists. This is interesting also.

10. Jim Guthrie | Difference A Day Makes
From the blogs. Via Toronto.

11. CiM | Commuter Love
This sounds like something from an electronic archive - I have no idea where it came from but it needs its own lofi electronica tag. Very simple but very effective. They've become extinct though.

12. Manchester Orchestra | Brother
From last year's blogs. Via Atlanta Georgia.

13. Murdocks | Die Together
Contains the use of the word "Raaawwwk!!"

14. Jennifer O'Connor | Valley Road 86
The lyrics on this are very evocative.


15. Reindeer Section | Where I Fall
This album reminds me of Whelans lockins and misbehaving. Broken driverside windows and the fear of god.

16. Yo La Tengo | Stockholm Syndrome
This song is 12 years old. Missed them when they played in November.


17. Madeline | Sleeping Dogs
A hit around our house.


18. Karen Dalton | Katie Cruel

19. Murdocks | Playhouse Down
"Powerpop" from Austin TX. Image courtesy of Google Image Search for "Murdocks".

20. Tobin Sprout | Small Parade
He of Guided By Voices. Nice tune.

21. Ben Gibbard | You Remind Me Of Home

22. Camper Van Beethoven | Tina

Upsetting The Apple Tart III

1. B Fleishcmann - Guided By Beats
The start sounds like a German Oral tape. What is the man talking about? Where did he eventually find his misplaced schnitzel? Trace the man's life story to demonstrate how he ended up living in a Youth Hostel? Who says the Germans got no soul (Hai Siamak!). Woops, he's Austrian apparently. Who says the Austrians can't get down? This is a gorgeous little ditty. I remember seeing Mr Fleishcmann play in the Sugar Club with the boy wonder who purchased all the vinyl he could at the end of the gig. I'd never seen a man dance to hardware before.

2. Mice Parade | Focus on the Rollercoaster
From Canuckistan. I know de nada about them except for this song and their fine album art.

3. Emily Jane White | Wild Tigers I Have Known
Nice piano song. I see she's described as a "dark folk" artist. Aint most folk dark? From the blogs.


4. Superchunk | Untied
Perfect guitar music from Chapel Hill NC. The only band I've ever left the country to see. Oh... before he reminds me.... Redlad discovered these.

5. Sparks | Good Morning
This song manages to be very funny while dealing with the socially important phenomenon of post one night stand awkwardness. Reminds me of Dieter, Peter and Skeeter in a small St Kitts hotel room getting crazy with the after sun lotion. Contains the killer half rhyme : "......While I fix you breakfast | I hope it's just your laugh that is infectious" Amazingly, these guys have been around since 1970. "The band's long career has seen them successfully adopt many different musical genres; including glam pop, power pop, electronic dance music, mainstream pop and most recently chamber pop." Ahh chamber pop for the veeeesh. They Might Be Giants cite them as a major influence.

6. Spank Rock vs Burial | Bumpangel
A mashup of Burial and Spank Rock. The marathon table tennis session continues. The bit in the middle is a quick tutorial on table tennis technique from a female world champeen. The tip for long term, sustainable supremacy over your predominantly Asian (mostly Korean) opponents is to "keep that shit nasty"

7. Frightened Rabbit - Fast Blood
"And the fast blood, fast blood, hurricanes through me and then rips my roof away". Still rockin' the suburbs. I found out a wee bit late that these guys are supporting Modest Mouse for their Dublin and Galway gigs. Coulda been a dealbreaker and got me to buy a ticket.

[Bad Bad (really bad) Artwork]

8. Autamata - Fragments
Foggy Notions CD. Try not bopping your head to this one. Many's the nervo was banished by closing my eyes, high in the sky, planes trains and semi camas.

9. Ernesto Djedje | Zadie Bobo
From a great compilation of African music which Chocatini Dupree sent this year. Reminds me of Orchestra Boabab, a good thing indeed. Nice horns throughout. His dad was called Wolof apparently and Ernesto died young. Chocolate Rain anyone?

10. Seabear | I Sing I Swim
A song for bathtime. From last year's blogs. From Reykjavik Iceland. Apparently it's not cold in seabearia. They've very cleverly collated a bunch of random wannabes armed with badly tuned acoustic guitars doing abysmal youtube cover versions of their songs. This is one of the more.... in tune versions of this song (watch out for the Octave Change of No Return)



11. Wait. Think. Fast | Look Alive
Described as Melodramatic. From the blogs.

12. Songs Ohia | I've Been Riding With The Ghost
"I been runnin outta things I dint even know i'd been usin'"

13. Wait. Think. Fast | Clear Our Name
When the music comes from the blogs, the songs tumble down the bit slide and get streamed into your head unidentified and you end up liking 2 songs from the same band without knowing it's the same band. This happened with these.

14. Daniel Johnston | Fish
From buck, a fellow traveller on the long and winding road to nurb town.


15 The Reindeer Section | I'll Be Here When You Wake
Flute reminds me of another Scottish supergroup (The Delgadoes). From bhicipáid "The Reindeer Section arose - according to Lightbody - out of a chance get-together of musicians at a Lou Barlow gig in Glasgow in 2001, at which Lightbody drunkenly laid down the challenge to others to "make an album together", to which everyone said "yeah yeah". Lightbody "went home and next day wrote the album" and later convinced Johnny Davis of Bright Star to fund a recording session and release the proposed album. The group met over three days of rehearsal and ten days of recording to produce the first album."


16. Phoenix | Long Distance Call
The only French representatives. From the blogs. Where the French get their idea of cool :


17. Lungfish | Instrument
First song on Rainbows from Atoms. A Dischord band.

18. Camper Van Beethoven | Take The Skinheads Bowling
"All you ever wanted was to write a song as perfect as Take The Skinheads Bowling but of course you never did. "


19. Dakota Oak Trio | Brownie and Sonnie
This one seems to predate the internet. Draws a complete blank. From a compilation club, from the postman.


20. Zita Swoon | Where's My Love?
This lad has progressed a bit since I last checked in with him. Stef Kamil Carlens the old bass player from dEUS. I love his heavily accented Belgian vocals and he's a quirky great songwriter (See Worse Case Scenario or this (I've never seen a music video with subtitles before)). Here he is on the left hand side.

21, Mas Y Mas | You Can't Play Without Ice
This is a nightmare vision of my children's teenage years. Overdosing on Ice, Electroclash and Rock n Roll. From the blogs. Joe Dolan would turn in his grave.



22. Toasted Heretic | Black Contact Lenses
Easy on the flange there Julian.

23. This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb | Trains and CopsI'm hearing Larry Gogan's voice saying "Folk Punk from Pensacola Florida".
II and I to come when I get the time. I'll be posting these out next week aswell.
I can't wait. And you shouldn't either.

Upsetting The Apple Tart IV - Long Songs

This is my dedication to the lost art of getting lost in music. Early morning train rides half asleep, long songs keep the continuity, black out the gaps and allow you to drift off into or out of. Whatever you want. Anything which offers a bolthole, when the only visual distraction is the garbage strewn gravel banks of Ballyfermot seen through windows fogged up by morning breath, is to be heralded and I've chosen the time honoured medium of the mix tape to pay my respects. There's a risk with long songs. What results can generally be categorised as triumph or tragic waste of time. Longs songs have a tendency to get skipped more often than not, especially on compilations like this where they hog and squat the valuable optical real estate of a CD or the valuable bits in a zip file which needs to squeeze through the pipes. Just as the wise old schoolboy saying goes - more than 3 shakes is a wank - so too in music, more than 3 minutes is also considered onanistic (except maybe in classical music). Elvis got business done in 2:30. Minor Threat in a minute and a half. And I love and respect them for it. Not to the point where I'd fashion myself a quiff or get a blade1 - you can respect the King without trying to be him and if it takes you 2 hours a day to look like a punk you've missed the pony completely. But sometimes you need a bigger canvas. And from a man who's just upgraded from a 4man to a 8man I know all about the need for bigger canvas (the bigger living room will come later).

So here's to journeys, wallpaper, soundtracks, and not knowing whether you're half asleep going clickety clack through Adamstown or half way through a 7 minute drum solo by some band you've never heard of. See? I didnt use the word progressive once.

My 3 minutes are up.

1. Of Montreal - The Past is a Grotesque Animal [11:53]
I've no idea what's going on here. This is unlike anything I've heard from these guys - in fact I haven't liked anything I've heard from them before. But this is interesting and at almost 12 minutes, it'll do to kick us off with the long songs.
On three........."Let's tear our fucking bodies apart."


2. Wolf Parade - Kissing the Beehive [10.52]
Ahh now. If this aint progressive. "If you like Can then I guess you know music".

3. Don Caballero - The Peter Criss Jazz [10.36]
Controversially, this long song is on here mostly because of the the great drumming in the first 2 minutes. Damon Che and Ian Williams (now the guitarist and guiding sound of Battles) were the basis of this incarnation of Don Cab (Pittsburgh) and fuck me. These guys are the muso's musician and while they can deviate into utter noodling, when they hit a groove it's time for the wet ones. Their mostly instrumental songs allowed them to produced some great song titles (pulled straight out of their ass). In The Abscence Of Strong Evidence To The Contrary One May Step Out Of The Way Of The Charging Bull | My Ten Year Old Lady Is Giving It Away | Mmmmm Acting, I Love Me Some Good Acting | Let's Face It Pal, You Didn't Need That Eye Surgery | and my personal favourite Pantsuit, Uggghhh

4. The Wedding Present - Take Me [9:21]
I bought this album when I was about 15 having seen them on Top of The Pops doing Brassneck and I ran up to KFM records in the arcade in Newbridge on my lunchtime, my toes sticking out of my oxblood docs in expectation. The closest you'll get to guitar trance. The rythym guitar is hec-tic...the original guitarist in the Wedding Present was of Ukranian and Irish descent (he later released a Ukranian folk music record and is currently teaching in some Ploytechnic in the UK) so that's where he's getting his crazy intricate rythyms. Joyful.

5. Slint - Washer [8:50]
More memories - these ones are based in bedsits though. What a dark and scary song. I love the guitars on this (and most of Slint's stuff) but the hook on this particularly makes my eyes glaze over. Goodnight My Love.


6. The Wrens - 13 Months In 6 Minutes [6:50]

7. Animal Collective - For Reverend Green [6:35]
The best you've ever played it.

8. Kevin Drew - Gang Bang Suicide [6:22]

9. The Old Believers - Granny's Song [5:10]
Portland OR. Bust. This squeezed on here cos it was the right length. Number 35, Number 2, Number 9, Number 5, 1501 699. and 43. very obvioulsy the wrong album cover but that's OK.

More III|II|I to come next week.....

Valentine Occupanther

A belated heads up. This is happening. That is all.

Go Go Go!