THE WATTLED SMOKY HONEY EATER PRESENTS: SUPER MASSIVE FUN TIME HOOTENANNY EXPLOSION WITH ROBOTS*!

(image via ffffound)

Summer is almost at an end, for most university students in and around New York City. For some of us, classes begin on the last day of August, an abrupt end to a summer that was, weather-wise, too short.

This is an invitation for YOU to come CELEBRATE the END OF SUMMER with US!

We will be on the roof of 100 S. 4th Street (The Rocket Factory) in Brooklyn, NY beginning at 4:00 PM.

So come and bring an instrument, your listening ears, some food or libations, and your friends!


If you'd like to perform, bring some songs/jokes/stories/&c with you, two at a time in a round-robin style hoot!

Check the event page on Facebook.

Performers so far include:

Yours truly

Lars Johnson-Ballard (of Alaska Alaska)

Oliver Ignatius

Flotzy

You!

AND MORE!



*Robots may or may not be a figure of speech

I'M ON A BOAT, AND IT'S 2009, AND...

I don't know that we've posted too many songs so far this year that have been released in 2009. For that I...WE apologize.

These days when I'm listening to music I'm at a friend's house listening to music I've heard before or scrolling through my iPod listening to music I've heard before. I haven't really been too much on the internet, scouring torrents and websites and things for the new jams. I've been at school, reading books.

I mean, yeah, Merriweather Post Pavilion came out and how do you follow that? Say what you will about Animal Collective, but that was a thoroughly epic album. I was a bit bothered by the absence of a guitar, but I read an interview recently in Cyclic Defrost that sort of put my frustrations to bed.

Merriweather will always be an album I love, but I still think Sung Tongs and Strawberry Jam are better records altogether, but maybe it's just because I've heard Merriweather so damn often since it came out earlier this year. (I mean, the Virgin Megastore in Union Square in New York has a big advertisement with the album cover.) It's certainly the album that will get them HUGE, but I know I'll probably turn into one of those fans who "only likes their earlier stuff".

Bon Iver's Bloodbank EP was also pretty great, but I will say it was kind of a letdown although I've been wildly obsessed with "Woods" for periods of time. (I mean, it's like my guilty pleasure music fusing with music I actually listen to...what more could you want?)

Maybe I just haven't listened to it enough, or devoted much time to actually listen to it, save this once when I was at my friend's apartment, and she'd just bought the record. I found it and demanded we listen to it. I've never listened to DeYarmouth Edison before, but I can imagine it's a lot more like what they might sound write rather than Justin on his extremely personal debut album.

Really, though, I've been drifting lately. Oliver Ignatius' album, Demos for Secund was just put on iTunes. If you haven't checked him out already, please do. I don't care if you've flipped the bird to pop music forever, but you might want to go back and listen to him. I've posted a few songs before, just click his tag.

Other than that, this has been more of a year of literature and comedy for me so far. I've been reading a hell of a lot, so I'd be more suited to suggest books rather than songs:

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
A Handf ul of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire

But I don't really want to do that.

Anyways, if you have anything to suggest, let me know, I don't want to be reduced to posting nonsense like that last post...

AMALGAMATION. ASSIMILATION. ACCUMULATION.

"eyes glueup sittin in dark sun peekup" - Oliver Ignatius

Can you make out what those ethereal, hints of whispers you can't be sure you hear in the early morning are saying?  They echo silently before the rain lets up and the sun rises, leaving no trace they were ever there.

Every morning, the witching hours fall slave to the sun, and every night the sun sinks in tiresome defeat. The Aztecs, at the height of civilization, were never quite sure if the sun would rise again once it had set.  Blood offerings were made to assure existence would continue as normal.

Can you imagine?  Every day could very well be everybody's last?  Everyone believes this?  And you're all OKAY with that?

The lonely distortion at the very beginning of everything begins to tell me my fortune until it's drowned out by the brief stints of rain.  It appears again and again, but suddenly the rain stops.  Predictions of my unclear future reverberate in my head.  

The guitar continues to sing cryptic messages.  A tarot spread, a crystal ball.  A cell phone rings somewhere.

Over and over, I can hear you talking in your sleep.  "And we called it lightning," you seem to say between even breaths.  To dream of something so powerful!  

I envy the world you find in your reveries.

I don't care if this song is just a demo: it's beautiful in it's imperfections.  I hear T. Rex behind the veil, and hints of John Lennon's soulful swagger in the delicate melody.

Oliver has continued to create.  I've failed to post.

 -________________________________-

on another note:
Did you know the term "bling bling" apparently originates from this song?

"Bling Bling"  - Juvenile & Lil Wayne

I was catatonic the entire time.

Manjushri - Namasangiti

(item no. 65391)

1000 - 1099 Northern India

Buddhist Lineage, Stone

Collection of Rubin Museum of Art

(courtesy of himalayanart.org)

"Fill That World" - Oliver Ignatius

"Talkin' Rajasthan Blues" - Oliver Ignatius
"Hop Skip and a Jump" - Oliver Ignatius

We got to talking amidst a brief break from class. Music, of course, was one of the first things we discussed.

"Do you write?" He asked.

"Kind of. Nothing I do really takes off... all really stays the same the whole time," I said between sips of lukewarm coffee.

"Sometimes, that's all you need."

I posed the same question back to Oliver, who had apparently just finished recording his second album. He'd done it all himself, he said, from recording the various harmonies and melodies, to instruments, to mixing and mastering.

About forty minutes later, after class, I asked him if he had anything he could show me.

"Sure," he said, "I guess you could call it the 'hit single' if anything." He proceeded to show me "Hop Skip and a Jump".

Decent, truly independent stuff is hard to find. Open-mic nights have lately bored me; almost as though nothing I've heard since the Summertime Potluck Hootennanies Tyler and I put on really excited me. By now you've probably heard us rant about Nicholas Beaven, Bruhder, Vikesh Kapoor, Whistle Jacket, and others. But if I may present to you all Oliver Ignatius.  Someone I'll probably be ranting about often from here on out.

You can download the rest of his album, Demos for Secund here.

Mac users get unrarx to download the songs. It's free and worth it.

On an unrelated note, if you haven't heard the Fleet Foxes BBC Radio 2 Session FM on Aquarium Drunkard, I suggest you do so now.