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Thursday, December 15, 2011

Dangit, I coulda had a blaster - part 2

After squandering my chance to get a Lineage blaster with that pile of vintage stuff I posted yesterday I had the audacity to do it again with a few trips to the CD Warehouse for some cheep tunes. I could be ripping open a blaster of Bowman Platinum right now, but I'm typing out this post and listening to some music instead. How foolish I am. Here's three 'gently used' discs that I actually paid money for instead of just torrenting like a normal person because sometimes you just want to hold the goddamn album in your hands.  Yes, I'm old. Absolutely none of these I walked into the shop hoping or expecting to find, but I was pleasantly surprised nonetheless.


Not gonna lie. I discovered this band through ponies. I've discovered a shitload of bands through ponies, including Boards of Canada which is one of the bands I have been desperately searching for in my music shopping. I've actually found two CDs by them in my travels: a 3 song EP of a John Peel session, and a live album (bootleg?) I forget the name of that I just couldn't pull the trigger on because you can hear people talking during the show. Actually I had heard Boards of Canada before someone improved/ruined one of their songs with pony giggles, I just didn't start listening to them for hours on end until ponies. MGMT I had never heard of before. Well, I had probably heard of them, but I certainly didn't pay attention to them and I never would have stopped dead in my tracks when I saw their album up on the shelf. I suck at describing music, so I'll just say there's a lot of guitars and electronic stuff in their music, something I'm really into right now. There's also a good remix of Electric Feel by Justice, another band I've been looking for in my music hunts lately. Here's the non-pony version of Time to Pretend.




The sketchy cover sold me on A Sunny Day In Glasgow's debut album. No, really, drawing is relevant to my interests, so I picked up the album when I saw sketches on the cover. Basic marketing, folks. Of course  if there were nekkid wimmin on the cover it probably would have sold more copies, but that's neither here notr there. The cover worked at least this one time. I got Autumn, Again by these guys last year when it was free on Amazon and enjoyed it so I figured I'd check it out. More electronic, more guitars and female vocals to boot. This sucker's right in my wheelhouse. It's a bit... eclectic. And not as chill as Boards of Canada. But I like 'em dammit, even if no one else has ever heard of them. Here's Things Only I Can See. Well, click on it and you can see it too.



Ok, I'm gonna catch hell for the next one but I DON'T CARE.


Yes, I bought an album from a band called The Unicorns.

Twilight is apparently a fan


FINE, I HAVE A PROBLEM. I KNOW THIS. I'm a tad magical horse crazy at the moment, but seriously this album is really, really good. Oddly enough, I did not find this band through ponies. I think it was through Erasure, actually. Which has kind of formed a theory in my head that [adult swim] helped pave the road for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic's popularity with slacker male cartoon addicts with their game Robot Unicorn Attack as a favor to Lauren Faust. A twitchy, silly unicorn game as a sort of John the Baptist heralding the upcoming pony cult. But I digress. This album is really really really good. They only did one full-length CD (and a couple of EPs) before breaking up, but this shit is goooooood. I really suck at writing about music (I can dance like a mother%ucker about architecture though) but I'll give it a shot by comparing it to other stuff I like. It's kinda got the energy of Franz Ferdinand with the loose goofiness of Dead Milkmen with just a touch of Modest Mouse depression for flavor. Does that make any sense? Of course it doesn't. Just listen to the actual music.



Yes, yes, yes. The song is about Unicorns. BUT IT'S GOOD. I don't care, I'll like it if I want to.

So there's my musical purchases for the past couple of months. All three were just under twenny bux. So waddya think? I should have just gotten a Value Box and one of those 100 card junk wax racks, shouldn't I?

(nah)

9 comments:

SpastikMooss said...

Electric Feel by Justice is INSANE.

Right now I'm really into Broken Bells and Portugal the Man. Broken Bells is a side project of the lead singer of The Shins. Portugal is just...awesome. I saw them open for Minus the Bear once.

So...yeah. You needed to know that.

Anonymous said...

Thorzul plays Robot Unicorn Attack for the Erasure.

jacobmrley said...

just when i think this blog can't get any weirder.

dayf said...

brb googlin'

The Shins... and Danger Mouse? Whaaaa?

Holy Shiznit, Portugal the Man is REALLY GOOD.

night owl said...

No ... um ... no ... I think ... uh ... I'd rather go with ... uh .. the blaster ... this time.

I know most of those bands, but I just can't myself to buy CDs anymore. And this is from a guy who has no interest in them durn Electric Books.

Ross said...

That Unicorns albums is really good. You should look into Islands and also Mister Heavenly, two bands subsequently formed by one of the two Unicorns. I don't think they have any songs about unicorns in those bands, though. Also, there's a rap-rock Unicorns 'tribute' band called The UniKorns that I just made up.

I also concur about Broken Bells.

Casey said...

Good call on The Unicorns!

shoeboxlegends said...

Nice pick-ups, that MGMT album is solid all the way through. I've been getting into Portugal the Man myself recently, the studio stuff is good, but there are some great acoustic/live versions of some songs on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-xPOlUzpEk&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f37mmRfkZzM&ob=av2e

Chris Harris said...

BUY A BLASTER OF AMERICAN PIE! DO IT NOW!!! FRANK ZAPPA AND THE RAMONES ARE IN IT!!!