Stay Strong In The Face Of Lil Mama, Girl

(hell yeah gifparty!)
Sooooo, in case you didn't know (which would mean you weren't either of the Sarahs in my life - Fondypoo and Morrison), I started writing for an online magazine last week. I was hesitant to divulge all deets since I am now actually representing a company blah blah blah but the internet has always been and will always be my home, so excuse me while I take off my shoes, light a cigarette, grab a can of Snapple, and get comfy.

My first assignment was to review the new Asobi Seksu album, which is thebomb.com, btw. The album drops tomrrow in case you're feeling inclined to pick it up, but in the meantime, allow me to redirect you to the worldwideweb where my article is posted and sitting happily amongst its peers. I'm not gonna lie, I'm fucking excited. I almost jizzed in my pants when I saw it this morning while greedily refreshing my browser, and I called my mom and texted my exbf and then got a text from Sarah F congratulating me, which totally warmed my heart because at the time I was walking in a shitstorm of rain, getting completely soaked (despite the umbrella over my head), and generally looking sadfaced and sobbing loudly.

So yup yup you can read the article here and then send me countless messages about how much you love me, how good of a writer I am, how badly you want to send me monies so I can get a studio apt, how much you want me to be your girlfriend (available!) and so on and so forth.

And might I add that you should listen to The Lonely Island's CD, Incredibad? It's EPIC. Hint: if you liked "Jizz in My Pants" and "I'm on a Boat" then you will probably ENJOY this shit out of this album. Like me. Maybe we can enjoy it together (still available!) over pizza and cookie cake?

Word.

E

Thursday Is Party Day

I happen to really j'adore Asobi Seksu. They remind me of summer romances, long nights up with best friends, drunken skinny-dipping at the beach, accidentally letting go of a balloon and then watching it float up into the air, impromptu picnics, spending time with the one person in the world who gets you, sheer dresses, bare feet, and wet earth, and getting caught in the rain.

That being said, "Thursday" is probably my favorite Asobi Seksu song, aside from "Walk on the Moon," "Mizu Asobi," and "Nefi+Girly" which is the song they used for all those Skins trailers. It's so ethereally, heavily, softly gorgeous. And makes me long for summer. I mean, what the fuck LA? It's been cold and rainy for the past week. Let's get back to normal soon, shall we?

Anyways, here's the video for "Thursday." Also, if you're looking for someone to spend the night with on Valentine's day, just show up at my house with this song playing out of your boombox, a six pack of Sweetwater 420 ale, and a pizza and I'm yours.



E

When It Rains, It Pours.

No one likes rainy days. Well, I do. In the spring. When they're calm little rainstorms that make you feel cute and feminine when you use your umbrella, or make you feel cozy and peaceful when you're sitting inside. Since it's raining today, I thought I would compile a playlist for a day like this.

April March: "Cet Air La" - April March is awesome. She's kinda important when it comes to the world of 90's chick rock. This is one of her calmer, sweeter songs. And it's in French, which is j'adorable.

The Velvet Underground: "After Hours" - I love this song. And I love this album. This song is just so sweet and earnest. I always want to be looking out a window over the city at night when I listen to it.

The Spinto Band: "Oh Mandy" - You might recognize this song, actually. It's mildly popular, and so sweet. It's about this guy who wants something that's always out of reach, and he knows it, but he tries and fails to get it anyway. Sadcute.

No Saving Grace: "Sandbox" - I actually don't know that much about No Saving Grace...I picked up this song sort of randomly, but it has a nostalgic feel about it. It's sort of sad, and the words are muddled, but I like it nonetheless.

Vivian Girls: "Where Do You Run To?" - Um, love the Vivian Girls. And this song is so perfect for a day inside and a cup of tea.

The Postmarks: "Winter Spring Summer Fall" - This song is awesome because it feels so 70s and Charlie Brown-esque. But then again, the whole album is magical like that.

Prints: "Blue Jay" - Not too sure if it's completely appropriate for a rainy day playlist, but this song will definitely brighten up your day and make you feel a million times more happy and hopeful if you're down.

Marcy Playground: "Sex and Candy" - I gotta represent the 90s here. This is a totally perfect song for rain. Totally perfect. Like disco lemondade.

Broken Social Scene: "7/4 Shoreline" - With all the BS(S) those guys have been coming out with as of late, I think it's time to take a step back to the basics. Did anyone see what I did there? With the initials of Broken Social Scene? Clever, right?

The National: "Green Gloves" - Did I ever mention that Boxer was one of fave albums of '07. It really was. It's such a fucking good album. Oh plus I always try to close my playlists with The National if I can help it.

That's it. It's probably dry wherever you guys are, so I suggest saving this playlist for a rainy day. See how I did that there? That pun I used? Yeah. I can see it already. I'm gonna be so clever in '09.

E

2009. I Hope You Don't Suck.

So in the same vein as Lolita, I thought I would share my favorite albums of 2008. This was a weird year for music wasn't it? We saw the break-ups and disbandonments of the Teeth (this was actually really sad, because these guys are fucking fantastic), Be Your Own Pet (no one saw that coming), Wolfmother (I REALLY didn't see that coming!), and the Format (who?).

But even amongst all the turmoil, controversy, and post-apocalyptic themed releases from meaningful core bands (a - Coldplay, I am disappointed, b - I read far too much Hipster Runoff. Must stop following on Tumblr), we saw the emergence of some amazing albums, and bands for that matter, like the So So Glos, Little Joy, Friendly Fires, and Lackthereof, Menomena's side proyecto.

Anyways, here are my favorite albums from 2008:

15. Noot D’Noot Goofer Dust: I was pretty stoked about this release, especially after I saw them play at WRAS Fest [that's the concert WRAS 88.5 - the college station - held last year. Noot D'Noot and Janelle Monae played it, among other dope hip hop and punk bands. It was fucking awesome because it was only 7.00 a person and it went till 2 am] and then again at Record Store Day. So of course I jumped at the chance to buy it at their Whirlyball [it's a place where you can play whirlyball, which is like a combo of bumper cars and um, scoopyball, which makes no sense, but it would if you played it. Sometimes they have shows there and they're always awesome because it has a bar and pool tables and bathrooms!] show. It’s fucking awesome and trippy and badass. It goes perfect with, ahem, mind enhancements…uh, I mean tea and cookies.

14. Apes and Androids Blood Moon: It’s been a while since I’ve listened to an album where every song on it sounds completely different. That whole aspect keeps Blood Moon really fun and interesting, plus the lyrics are awesome. Who else would say “She’s got an ATM that doesn’t work but you can relax, she’s got cash!” “Golden Prize” is my favorite song. It always makes me want to put on a lot of sequins and spandex and dance in front of mirror. So, you know, it makes me want to be an American Apparel ad.

13. Beach House Devotion: There probably isn’t anything I could say about this album that hasn’t already been said. Perfectly crafted, beautiful, ethereal and effortless. I think if it was possible to live in the clouds, Beach House would be there.

12. Earlimart Hymn and Her: I started to get into Earlimart when they put out Tormentor but I forgot about them until Hymn and Her. I love how heavy the sound is, but at the same time, how light the sound is. It’s like…air whipped honey.

11. Boy Kill Boy Stars and the Sea: This album cost me a shit load (almost forty dollars to be exact) because the record industry tried to fuck American consumers over by not getting anyone in the States to distribute it so it was only available as an import. I fucking hope they can sleep well at night knowing they’re forcing music lovers to have to make a choice between music and food. Oh, and the album’s great; a lot more poppy than their ’06 release Civilian, but danceable and bright nonetheless. I just had to get that first part out there.

10. Vivian Girls Vivian Girls: The girl’s guide to muddled hipster punk.

9. Santogold Santogold: I really like this album, not because Santogold is a black woman challenging stereotypes and really making it in a “white” genre, but because it’s just good music with good messages and that’s what’s really important.

8. WHY? Alopecia: I fell in love with WHY? after I heard “The Hollows.” I played that song for hours on end and I was like, I have to get this record. So I did and it was totally worth it. Even though when you first listen to it, the words just sound like, well words that happen to rhyme, if you really focus and listen, you’ll find a lot of awesome little surprises. I ‘m pretty sure Alopecia will be the most slept on album this year.

7. Flowers Forever Flowers Forever: I like this album because there are a lot of horns and bouncy drums and even some organs! Yeah, even organs! I’m definitely going to be playing “Happy New Year” on New Year’s Eve. Oh and you should too. Flowers Forever is sort of like what would happen if The Black Lips went to Mexico and added Mariachi players and carnival workers. If that makes any sense whatsoever.

6. The Chapin Sisters Lake Bottom LP: I think of this album as what would happen if emo kids made folk music. Really though, these girls sing about being killed, falling out of love, and being generally super depressed. It’s a sad album, but there’s no denying that their voices and music are lovely, so I don’t mind being a little sadder after listening to them.

5. White Hinterland Phylactery Factory: LOVE this album. I used to just put it on in the car in the Spring and let it play all the way through. Casey Deniel’s voice is so light and breezy and the piano and drum accompaniment is really jazzy and smooth. When I listen to this album, I think of walking around barefoot in the Hamptons in the ‘20s wearing a white dress and a feather headband.

4. Dr. Dog Fate: First of all, I would like to point out that Dr. Dog has put an album out every year consecutively since 2005. That’s kind of amazing in my book. I think this is their richest album so far. I love how much their new songs remind me of albums they put out years ago yet still sound brand new. But I can’t actually listen to “Army of Ancients” because it makes me cry. Yeah. Go ahead and laugh. Once I went into Barnes and Noble and they were tracking through the album and I heard that song and started crying in the middle of the magazine section. Sad.

3. King Khan and the Shrines The Supreme Genius of King Khan and The Shrines: I was a fan of these guys since 2007 when What Is?! came out, but really this album is phenomenal. It’s so fucking…groovy. And that ain’t a word I use lightly. It’s definitely perfect for listening to at the beach.

2. The Dodos Visiter: After I heard “Fools” on 88.5 [the GA State college station] earlier this year, I knew I was going to really like these guys. And what do you know? I did! Their rhythms are innovative, their voices are pure and smooth, and their lyrics are wonderful. My favorite song on Visiter is “Ashley.” It reminds me of something, but I’m not sure what it is.

1. M83 Saturdays = Youth: This was an album that took me a little while to warm up to. After listening to it a couple of times, it definitely grew on me. Plus I would completely wear every outfit on the album cover. Really, every song on that album is so beautiful and gauzy. Totally makes me feel like I’m wearing short shorts and running around in a field of daisies holding sparklers in 1983 while the sun is setting. But that’s just me.

I Definitely Didn't Know About This

While perusing the once great, now hollowed shell of musical existence that is Subterranean, I stumbled on this video in their Top 25 Videos of 2008 list. It came in at #16.

I personally have an extreme and memory-rich love of Dr. Dog. I got into them back when We All Belong first came out in '07, and then started digging and basically just fell in love with the whole catalog. My bf knew a little about them and with my obsession with them, he probably got more Dr. Dog in his life than he could handle. I have so many memories and feelings (both happy and sad) attached to Dr. Dog's music that I can't listen to a single song anymore without crying. In fact, I'm starting to tear up just listening to "Ain't It Strange" in my head. It's a bummer though, because I love Dr. Dog and put at least two songs on all my playlists.

Anyways, it would seem they made a video to "Alaska," which happens to be one of the best songs on their '07 release. I remember when my bf and I were driving to the park from dinner at night and we were driving through downtown ATL and I said, "Wait, let me put on some city night driving music," and I put this song on. All the lights...and this song...and then my bf put his hand on mine and we just looked at each other and no one said a thing...it was perfect.

Oh shit. Since I'm getting all teary again, let me just play the damn video. The concept is cool too. It reminds me of the video for "Mountains" by the Spinto Band, or "Who's There?" by Cavil at Rest (but only very loosely). Anyway, watch it, love it, live it. DDFL.

Dr. Dog - New Music - More Music Videos

E

Once Upon A Time I Was A Nerd

Okay, I still have a little bit of nerd girl in me. Not gonna lie. But I was reminded of this deeply suppressed nerdiness when I was listening to my Zune in the car today. See? I have a Zune. I'm like an alt nerd.

Anyway, it was on shuffle and things were chill until "Shimmy Shimmy Quarter Turn" came on. I haven't listened to Hellogoodbye in like two years. And crazily, I remembered all the lyrics. Like they just came pouring out of me like a foreign language in cadence with the music. It brought back flashbacks of me spending forever on the Drive Thru Records website trying to find a cheap Hellogoodbye tee (ahhh to no avail), and putting "Jesse Buy Nothing... Go to Prom Anyways" on repeat, and then practically frothing at the mouth when I heard there would be a second album. I remember pre-ordering that shit a day late, so I actually got my record the day AFTER it dropped in stores, but getting a color by numbers-style black velvet poster with it. I would campaign for HGB and constantly try to propogate their superiority over other pop/punk bands at the time. I felt my heart drop when I saw their video on MTV, and I almost got into a car wreck dancing to "Touch Down Turnaround."

It was kinda sad, in retrospect. I just wanted to hang out with guys who were nerdy and awesome like that. I wanted to go to Huntington Beach and chill with them, playing trivia at Mexican restaurants and TP-ing people's cars and other stupidly fun things. Like I said, it was sad.



E

This Time Just The Girls

Basically if I could form a perfect girl band it would be like the Coathangers. I would be Stephanie (the one with the bangs over her eyes). Only it would also involve sparkly ribbon headbands, 80s synth keyboards, glitter eyeshadow, and be called The Savage Ivories.

Sigh...it's finally Fall. Well, not here, in the volcano-temperature Valley where it still gets to the mid 90s during the week, but in general. And even though colder weather is my favorite, it usually sends me into some kind of temperature induced sadness, like when some people get depressed due to the fact that it's dark so much or whatever. So to combat the aforementioned sadness, I delve heavily into my music stash, putting together playlists and mix CDs that create a winter wonderland full of swirling ambiance and delicious memories. Normally, I would a throw playlist your way, but this is no ordinary winter. This is one of empowerment and feminism, so with that, I've compiled the Fall Fem Fierceness playlist: the best fall and winter tracks from the badassiest females in music. Which would you guys add? Feel oh so free to let me know.

Sara Lov: "New York"

Jenny Lewis: "Rise Up With Fists"

The Watson Twins: "How Am I To Be?"

Asobi Seksu: "Walk On The Moon"

Cat Power: "Lived In Bars"

The Breeders: "Doe"

Be Your Own Pet: "October, First Account"

Northern State: "Three Amigas"

Regina Spektor: "Better"

Magneta Lane: "Constant Lover"

Pony Up!: "Shut Up And Kiss Me"

Charlotte Gainsbourg: "The Songs That We Sing"

The Long Blondes: "You Could Have Both"

And there you have it. Plus a few personal all time favorite riot grrrl songs:

The Grown Ups: "Nick and Nick" (Ummm, a song written back in like '94 about how the dude this girl fell in love with fell in love with a boy, using the lyrics "suck it in the dick" and "which one is the chick" is like pure gold.)

The Cougars: "Brain Cactus" (Surriously. If you don't feel badass when you listen to this song, you never will. And I hurt for you.)

The Chubbies: "Didjahavtasaythat?" (We all know this feeling.)

Don't Tell Me My Love's Not The One That I Want

It's something that I don't say often, except about this particular CD: "I feel like this album was written for me." I said it only once before, sadly, in reference to Fall Out Boy's Under the Cork Tree album. Gawd, I know, that speaks VOLUMES about my musical preference in high school. I swear it's better now everybody. V can vouch, trust.

So when I was an intern at the now defunct 99X radio station in Atlanta, I, like all other interns in all other corporations, got access to THE CLOSET. For fashion interns, the closet is filled with clothing. For business interns, the closet is stocked with office supplies and paperwork. For kids slaving away in the entertainment world, I assume the closet is full of film reels, headshots, profiles, used syringes, and discarded one dollar bills. But for a wide eyed eager beaver devoting her energy to typing CD case labels, running mail, snapping shots for the website, stacking autographed posters, answering phones, and occasionally sleeping/eating her weight in vending machine goods/watching Seinfeld reruns in the break room, THE CLOSET is the compendium of musical goodness and history, the reserves of every album that was every played and will be played at the station in chronological order. I spent a good bit of my time in the closet (once I was there sorting CDs for six hours straight. I could not look at a Foo Fighters or Jane's Addiction record the same since), and while most of it was boring (put Rogue Wave in the R's, file Beck in B, stick Serge Gainsbourg in S, not G), I was rewarded handsomely. The deal was, remove any and all albums that had been in the closet for more than three months and put them in a box. After I finished, my boss would skim through and take out what he wanted and then I got to take whatever was left. Naturally, I got wise to the system and started getting clever. Hmmm, I don't have this Black Keys album...it's kinda old...and into the box it goes! My boss had an amazing collection of music, and we had varying tastes, so I usually got everything I wanted from the closet.

Among the free deliciousness was the Nicole Atkins record, Neptune City. The album came out back when I was still in the pussyfooting stage with my boyfriend. I had the pleasure of seeing Nicole Atkins when she opened up for the Pipettes last winter, and I remember just standing there in a crowd of about 200 people packed into a bar not fit for its occupancy level, mesmerized, because I felt like she was singing to me, for me, about me. But then the Pipettes came out and I spent the night dancing, getting touched by some creepy dude, and walking barefoot on the street because I lent my flats to my friend who was stupid enough to wear heels to a concert when she barely wore heels at all. Feelings and sentiments passed. Emails were sent out and an internship was secured.

My boss knew of my interest in Nicole Atkins. Queshes about said concert were asked and answered accordingly. Then I went digging in the closet, doing my internal duties (guhross!) and I found the Nicole Atkins album. Not one for sappy chick music, my boss let me take it, no arguments made.

I am almost embarrassed to admit that almost a year later, I have finally listened to the whole album. It is incredible. It speaks to me like few records ever do. I sing to it, cry to it, identify with it, and dance to it. You need to own it. Here, I'll help you.

Nicole Atkins: "Maybe Tonight"

Deuces,
Erika