The List Grows

I haven’t posted here in a while. Things have a little out of hand lately, I was without a computer for several days last week, and then we were dealing with getting rid of a dead car (plus other stress inducing happenings). So I haven’t had a chance to update anyone on the progress of the list. Actually the list is part of the reason that I haven’t been posting. It’s looking like it’s going to be taking up a pretty good amount of time. It is coming along though, slow and steady. It took a while just to figure out how to get started, but now I am rolling along and it is starting to make sense. I have been walking around with pockets full of little pieces of paper; everyday I find myself sitting at work or on the metro and think of a song that has to go on the list… and yeah, before you know it, I have pockets full of scribbled-on, barely legible paper scraps. It’s going well though, and I want to have the list done by the 20th or so so that I can get a head start on the recording of the top 100. On August 1st I will post 100-500 (with number 100 being an mp3) and then post one a day, counting back to one, for the following 99 days.

I watched Ghost World last night for the first time in a while and something strange happened: I subscribe to Acceptable Oddities (done by a music writer who once a month or so sends out emails with links to download records and he includes his reviews of the albums), and I got around to opening the new one last night after the movie. In the film Enid becomes kind of obsessed with Skip James’ Devil Got My Woman. When the movie was over I went to see what goodies came in with Acceptable Oddities, and it was just one album this time: Skip James’ Today!. Weird. Especially considering that the stuff the writer usually sends out is newer indie stuff and here he comes, on this day, with a single old blues album. Albeit an utterly fantastic old blues album… just odd timing is all.

I don’t have a lot of new music to talk about at the moment. Well there is one (though not new). I am sitting here listening to a new favorite record… Snowball by The Field Mice. My friend Tom (who is headed to XX Merge soon… I’m sure there will be some interesting updates from him…) sent me a mix last week that had Emma’s House on it and it really stood out to me. They are, for me, one of those bands that I just somehow missed in all of my travels over the years… I mean, you can’t hear everything, right? They combine elements of a lot of bands that I really love (Touches of Felt and New Order with a bit of indie pop sensibility for good measure… how’s that for vague?) I quickly tracked down Snowball, and I am looking for the others. I suspect that finding them on vinyl will be a bit of a task, so I may just have to break down and buy the discs. Anyway, I say all of this because I think that a lot of people that I know will like them, that is if they haven’t already heard them. There were a bunch of other things on the mix that I really loved too, I’m sure that there will be more about some of that stuff coming soon.

There isn’t a lot else to report at the moment, which is kind of sad. Though, in the interest of people not thinking that I am neglecting to mention this enormous news, My wife has her first solo show coming up on July 24th, there will be another post devoted to just that coming soon.

Devil Got My Woman by Skip James

Emma’s House by The Field Mice