11 posts tagged “maritime”
It's crazy times right now. Lots happening. After the surprise birthday party last week, we were somehow more manic this week.
On Thursday, Jess and I got out of work early, went to see WALL-E and had dinner together. Afterwards, we met co-workers at a bar as it was the day of Laura's birthday. They had been there since they got out of work, so we were by far the most sober people there. Until Lindsay's Doug showed up. Poor guy. We ducked out of there early.
I... can't actually remember what we did during the day on Friday. I do know we got lunch and did a bunch of shopping at Target, but other than that, I think we bummed around. At 7pm, we met up with Laura with a mini-picnic then went to the harbour. Lindsay and Doug met us there and we all sat on the waterfront to have our picnic. Eric and Mitchell showed up shortly after, just in time to watch all the fireworks going off along the lake.
We dumped shit off at home, then went to a nearby bar for a couple of drinks.
On Saturday, we had a ton of errands to run. We paid our economic stimulus cheque into our bank account, went through the pre-approval process at AT&T (ahead of the iPhone 3G release on Friday!), then Jess went to the dentist while I took a faulty item back to Target. We were going to go to a barbeque, but after having a long nap, we just went to our favourite Mexican place and chilled out.
Today, we went for lunch and did more shopping. We needed more sporty clothing as we've been asked to fill in on my office softball team. Yes, me, playing sport. I know, right? Anyway, we got all of that stuff, got it home then got ready for our first softball practice. There were only a handful of people there, but we got a good go of it. Neither of us was as bad as we expected - I connected with the ball a lot, and wasn't a total washout at catching. Bowling (sorry, pitching), however, was another matter.
This week is going to continue the activity. We're taking tomorrow off as we have a lot of chores to do. We have Wolf Parade on... Tuesday? I can't remember. I need to listen to their new CD more. Hopefully this means we get to see The Josie after what seems like forever. Thursday is the Big Kahuna - my green card interview. After aeons, it's finally a reality. Jess is currently wading through a file of paperwork the size of Alaska so we're ready. Then Friday is possibly iPhone day, if they have enough in stock.
Busy busy busy.
On an unrelated note, one of my favourite albums of last year - Heresy & The Hotel Choir by Maritime - came with a bonus 7" featuring two songs. One of those songs was called 'Boy From School', and was pretty awesome...
It turns out, it was a cover of a Hot Chip song...
Which was also covered by Portastatic...
Audio: Share a song you could listen to all day on repeat.
Last year's Heresy & The Hotel Choir by Maritime gave me an even bigger jones for the Milwaukee, Wisconsin quartet, so I will choose one of their myriad songs.
I love so many of them, but the past few days, this has been getting a lot of time on my iPod:
... came from this song. This is a nice acoustic version performed for PRI's Fair Game, a radio show I discovered recently with a funny host called Faith Salie. The original version is on the album Heresy & The Hotel Choir.
This is a selection of songs for an Autumn Sunday afternoon.
Show us which album tops your best of 2007 list so far.
It's a three way tie so far:
The Crane Wife by The Decemberists apparently came out last year - as did Mercury-nominated Irishman Fionn Regan's album, The End Of History; and In Rainbows by Radiohead isn't out yet. Closely following behind these are Nux Vomica by The Veils, Under The Blacklight by Rilo Kiley, 23 by Blonde Redhead and An End Has A Start by Editors.
Here is a list of everything released this year that I have on my iPod, which in theory is everything released this year that I own but it may be incomplete:
Pocket Symphony by Air
Neon Bible by Arcade Fire
Favourite Worst Nightmare by Arctic Monkeys
Fur And Gold by Bats For Lashes
Volta by Bjork
23 by Blonde Redhead
Cassadaga by Bright Eyes
On Letting Go by Circa Survive
Some Loud Thunder by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
An End Has A Start by Editors
The Best Of - The First Ten Years by Elvis Costello
The Reminder by Feist
Our Love To Admire by Interpol
Further North by Johnathan Rice
Spirit If... by Kevin Drew
Because Of The Times by Kings Of Leon
Singularity by Mae
Heresy And The Hotel Choir by Maritime
We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank by Modest Mouse
Year Zero by Nine Inch Nails
Planet Earth by Prince
My Brother's Blood Machine by The Prize Fighter Inferno
Under The Blacklight by Rilo Kiley
Young Modern by Silverchair
Zeitgeist by Smashing Pumpkins
In Our Bedroom After The War by Stars
Beauty & Crime by Suzanne Vega
Nux Vomica by The Veils
Sky Blue Sky by Wilco
Just to give you an idea of the competition my Top 3 are facing.
I have raved about Maritime before. They are a wonderful band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin that formed out of the ashes of The Promise Ring.
Their third album, Heresy And The Hotel Choir, hits stores on 16 October and I have been enjoying a leaked copy all this weekend. Although not as thoroughly wonderful as their last album - We, The Vehicles - it's still one of the best things I have heard this year.
Here are some selections from it.
Some songs I think people should listen to today.
This is the first song available from Maritime's forthcoming album, Heresy And The Hotel Choir. It's unabashedly poppy indie from members of The Promise Ring and Decibully. I love it, and I love Maritime, and I wish everyone would just listen to them.
This is a cover of the song '(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?' made famous by Elvis Costello. It appears on a covers album I bought that also features The Dandy Warhols covering The Cult's 'She Sells Sanctuary' amongst others.
In 2005, I went to the last date on the Manic Street Preachers' Past/Present/Future tour and snagged a copy of the God Save The Manics EP. This is one of the songs, and it's rather good.
Listening to The National last week made me crave Nick Cave, and this is my favourite Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds song of all time ever™. It appears on both Tender Prey and The Best Of.
1. I go to www.nme.com/news as I always do to read what's going on in the UK. I see a promo for Cold War Kids covering Radiohead (see my post about OKX: A Tribute To OK Computer).
2. I go to Stereogum, download the tribute album and listen to it, loving Doveman's take on 'Airbag' a lot.
3. I look for Doveman on Google and find their official site and MySpace. I also discover that frontman Thomas plays piano for Antony & The Johnsons.
4. I read their blog and find a link to a session they recorded for www.daytrotter.com.
5. I download the entire session... and then discover that Daytrotter has free MP3 sessions by a shit ton of great bands including Maritime, The Elected, Bonnie Prince Billy, Headlights and David Bazan (Pedro The Lion) - all of whom have spent lots of time on my iPod in the last year or so.
6. Through all this, I also discovered the new Maritime album is out on 16 October.
Doveman and the new Maritime are on my Amazon Wishlist now. Here is some nice Doveman to listen to.
Audio: Share a song you can't help but sing along to.
The first time I heard this, I was with Jess and a former friend. This song was on a record label sampler. Jess immediately bought the album and we both got pretty addicted.
What are your top 10 most-played songs currently?
Hard to quantify this mathematically as most of my music listening takes place on the iPod Nano that doesn't track listens. The songs I have been most skipping to though, are:
- 'Hey Rabbit' and 'Black Water Child' by Fionn Regan
- 'Shh' by Frou Frou
- 'Top Ranking' by Blonde Redhead
- 'John Wayne Gacy Jr' by Sufjan Stevens
- 'Past In Present' by Feist
- 'Young Alumni' by Maritime
- 'It's Magnetic' by Assembly Now
- 'The Crane Wife 3' by The Decemberists
- 'Dashboard' by Modest Mouse
Some of these songs can be found by browsing the audio on my Vox account.
