The next Tokyo Jihen album, titled Goraku (Variety), hits stores Sept. 26, so says Bounce.com. The new album contains 13 tracks, and the band heads out on tour in October. The special edition of the band’s next single, "OSCA", contains a special lottery ticket to win advanced tickets to the upcoming tour.
I’m waiting impatiently for the management office of my apartment complex to open so I can tell them to fix the air conditioning unit that miraculously busted on Tuesday night, right before the July 4 holiday. So I’m writing this entry to kill some time.
P.S. How do you like the slight remodeling of the site? I’ve had that previous layout since 2005, so I decided to move around the furniture, as it were.
I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me when I saw the headline, "Sonic Youth’s ‘Hits’ Heading To Starbucks" on Billboard.com. But, no — Sonic Youth is actually throwing together a compilation for the coffee chain, and the full title is Hits Are for Squares.
Of course, there were the usual haters who called bullshit on the release, but I thought the idea of Sonic Youth being sold at Starbucks as surreal enough to make sense. Imagine standing in line for your cappuccino and hearing Kim Gordon on the sound system chant, "I wanted to know the exact dimensions of hell. Does this sound simple? Fuck you!"
That would be cool.
Even Thurston Moore realizes the incongruity of the pairing. From the article:
"I guess, for some, Sonic Youth represents something that they don’t really equate with Starbucks," Moore says. "But I kind of like the absurdity of it. Sonic Youth has always, in a way, made itself available to the super mainstream."
(As you probably noticed, I’m breaking the radio silence I announced last week. I reached a point with my various projects where I have to step back for a while. I’ll be going back down the rabbit hole around the July 4 holiday.)
The second quarter is pretty much done, and I’ve got to say that old English band name is quite prescient — pop will eat itself. Rather than spreading the release schedule out, the labels are stacking all the marquee names for fall. Used to be spring would ramp up to the summer tours, while fall ramped up to the holiday shopping season. Now it seems everything gets dumped in the fall, which means a lot of material overlooked.
Last quarter, I assumed releases wouldn’t start picking up till Q2. They haven’t really. And it makes drafting preliminary favorite lists difficult. That doesn’t mean I won’t try.
Finally, part three of why I like the year in music, 1987. (Part one and part two, if you are catching up …)
Here is part two of why I consider 1987 an influential year in music, for me personally at least. (Part one, in case you missed it …)
A few weeks back, a friend of mine posted a bit of trivia regarding a chart-topping song from 20 years ago. Ah, yes — 1987. I turned 16, the perfect age for music to leave an indelible impression on a young mind. I posted a reply listing a number of albums released that year. I figure I may as well expand on that list. Not surprisingly, all these titles are in my music collection.
I’m splitting this entry into multiple parts. I wrote it all in one sitting, but the scroll is a bit long.
This entry summarizes the release posts made over the last few weeks. I am really not impressed with how the US fall release schedule is shaping up. Every time I look at what’s coming up, I have to stifle a yawn. So this round-up is 99 percent Japanese.
While I was browsing around my music library for the gay pride entry, I scrolled right past the Gay American Composers discs released by CRI in the late ’90s. At the time, classical labels were marketing directly to gay audiences by packaging the music of gay European composers in provocative covers. CRI put a spin on that kind of commercialism by compiling its own such series with the music of American composers.
Gay American Composers, Vol. 1 was released in 1996 and contained mostly works by living composers. Gay American Composers, Vol. 2, released in 1997, focused on dead composers. Lesbian American Composers (1999, I think?) focused on — wait for it — women.
CRI went out of business in 2003, and while its masters are now owned by New World Records, these discs are pretty much out of print. Here, then, are select works from all three volumes of the series.
Ruth Anderson, "SUM (State of the Union Message)"
Henry Cowell, "The Lilt of the Reel"
David Del Tredici, "Fantasy Pieces: Allegro Minacciando… Diabloique"
Lou Harrison, "String Quartet Set: Estampe"
Jennifer Higdon, "running the edgE"
Robert Maggio, "Two Quartets: Desire-Movement"
Harry Partch, "Ulysses at the Edge of the World"
Ned Rorem, "The Nantucket Songs: The Dancer"
Nurit Tiles, "Raw Silk (A Rag)"
Virgil Thomson, "Symphony No. 3: Allegro Moderato"
Last week, Towleroad linked to a bevy of MP3s by gay musicians offered up by Hypeful. The list contains the usual indie-ish suspects: Rufus Wainwright, Anthony & the Johnsons, Sleater-Kinney, Pansy Division, the Magnetic Fields.
They’re not the usual mainstream gay pop figures — Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, Boy George — but they’re not exactly … undiscovered either. I was hoping to make some new discoveries, but no one in the Hypeful entry was unknown to me.
So I’m going to extend Hypeful’s offerings with a few artists previously mentioned on this site. It’s not as extensive a list as Hypeful’s, and a number of these files were offered before.
Garrin Benfield, "Don’t Panic"
The Butchies, "Make Yr Life"
Ex-Boyfriends, "Him for Me"
The Gossip, "Standing in the Way of Control"
Ari Gold, "Wave of You"
James William Hindle, "Silence"
Levi Kreis, "I Should Go"
Ivri Lider, "Af Echad Mishnaynu" (Neither of Us)
Jonathan Mendelsohn, "Forgiveness"
Dylan Rice, "March of the Misunderstood"
Sacha Sacket, "I Just Can’t"