TLA

my recent picks, november 2011

2011-12-01T10:18:00.000-05:00

Hip-Hop: Childish Gambino. It would take me 5 years to write lyrics this referentially dense.

Rock: The Raconteurs. I am astounded that music this good exists in modern tymes.

Pop Punk: Four Year Strong. New album out is not as mean as their previous releases, but strong nonetheless. More melodic. The production is bombastic and awesome as always. I would buy these albums for the outrageous production value, even if I hated the music.

Soul: Mayer Hawthorne. You can't f*ck with Mayer Hawthorne. He's cooler than cool, and he's bringing it back. And yes, that first video is as badass as it looks. Hot chick gunfight.

You know you like my style

mixtape 2011

2011-11-29T15:22:00.001-05:00

I made a mixtape with my favorite songs of 2011.

It's 40 songs, about 3 hours.

It is available here.

Unzip the folder, then use the AAA.m3u playlist file included in the folder to load the songs into your music player. The playlist file is important because it will put the songs in order, and as you know, song order is important on a mixtape.

-Hunter

Not all songs are from 2011 - they are just the songs of my 2011.

thile / daves "man in the middle"

2011-08-17T16:44:00.002-04:00

video platform video management video solutions video player

brad paisley - this is country music

2011-05-23T08:34:00.000-04:00

dispatch ep

2011-05-17T11:54:00.000-04:00

old fashion ladies

2011-04-28T11:05:00.000-04:00

This is a band that I found out about through a guitar-nerd forum (shout out to the SDUGF). They are a French rock band caught me way off guard with how awesome they are.

Sounds like Foo Fighters, Rage Against The Machine, Guns & Roses, Muse, Porcupine Tree, Radiohead, Our Lady Peace.

Kind of puzzling to nail down a style, because each song seems like it's by a different band. My guess is that the players in this band are all highly musical in their own right.

Example? Here's their guitar player doing a particularly badass Britney Spears "Toxic" cover.

Anyways, their EP came out on Tuesday, and it kicks ass. you can stream it in full here.

-Hunter

new beastie boys coming 3 may 2011

2011-04-19T11:10:00.000-04:00

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-Hunter

foo fighters - wasting light

2011-04-12T11:38:00.000-04:00

This album is BAD-ASSED. With a D.

Recorded entirely on analog tape in Dave Grohl's garage or something, this album sounds like what made me like the Foo Fighters so much when I was in the 5th grade. Not that I had great taste in music back then, but hey, maybe I did.

When I was 10, I was not influenced by the ridiculousness of genre and what the bloggers are blogging about and who is on what label.

I didn't do any thinking about music - I just heard stuff and thought either "THAT WAS BAD-ASSED!" or "NOT GNARLY." Those were the only two types of music.

Well the Foo Fighters have really BRUNG THE THUNDAH with this one. In so many ways.

How about less words and more rocking? Listen to this.

-Hunter

what I've been listening to recently

2011-04-11T12:57:00.000-04:00

Here are some of my recent music purchases. I am putting them out there this way (ugly formatting, no tactful descriptions) because I don't have much time to write like I used to. I still like sharing music, though, even if I can't pack my descriptions and reviews with metaphors and lulz. I didn't take the time to embed the YouTube videos(I barely took the time to write this disclaimer), but don't be a lazy ass - just scroll-wheel-click them. Especially Bernhoft.

Jarle Bernhoft's "1: Man, 2:Band" 2 disc set (one solo, one with a band)

He is a Norwegian soul singer, who has an amazing voice. Actually amazing. He is a badass acoustic guitar player and loop artist as well - he does the whole one-man-band thing really well, without the gimmicky feel of some other loop-heavy solo acts.

Watch this video first: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjEsAEsYCw4
Watch this video second: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAnC7RTAMok

Sam & Dave's "The Best of Sam & Dave"

Timeless classic stuff. Makes me feel good. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeL8EPBZN6M

Peter Frampton's "Frampton Comes Alive"

Turns out that his stuff is awesome, beyond the talkbox lesson that is "Do You Feel Like I Do." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKmVFB3bcZM

Fitz & The Tantrums's "Pickin Up The Pieces"

New soul --- motown vibe, with more modern subject matter. Cool New York swagger. I hate that word, but I'm trying to take its power away by using it properly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb6cBKE3WzQ

Further Seems Forever's "Hope This Finds You Well"

Remember the time that Dashboard Confessional frontman Chris Carabba had a badass alt-rock band with one of the best drummers ever? Then he left and the new singer was even better than he was? This band is long defunct, but for some reason, I wanted to listen to them recently so I grabbed their greatest hits, which, thankfully, exists. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOHi4x1po0s

Warren Zevon's "The Best of Warren Zevon"
Jimmy Buffett thought Warren Zevon was a badass. Jimmy Buffett's always right. Zevon wrote "Werewolves of London" but has a lot of other great songs. Cynicism and macabre all the way, but dressed up in breezy, plucky summer strummers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opXCOUgjOOY

Foo Fighters's "Foo Fighters"
The original debut album - recorded entirely by Dave Grohl in his garage almost 20 years ago. So pumped for their new album - it sounds like this old album. This is very 5th grade nostalgic for me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfXIR9lOlXQ

Bright Eyes's "People's Key"

This band just keeps getting better and better. That never happens. You either love or hate 'em. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLAMg6o5w2s

Woo, that felt good to get out. Sorry I don't write (very frequently) any more.

-Hunter

circa survive - dyed in the wool

2011-04-06T21:24:00.002-04:00

after leaving facebook, now I know what it's good for

2011-04-06T13:51:00.003-04:00

In the earley tymes, friends would catch up on a boat, over a beer and some fishing

After not using facebook for about 3 months, I now understand what things it is good for.

Business / blog / music promotion - get your friends to become a fan, then they get updated every time you post a new blog post or release a new product or post a new song. I tried to promote my blogs and guitar building venture with RSS (subscribe to my blog and stay updated!) and Twitter, but it is overwhelmingly apparent that only nerds use RSS (approx. 3 of my friends, all of whom are much smarter than all of my other friends) and many less people use Twitter than facebook (approx. 5 of my friends vs. ALL OF THEM). Facebook is clearly the best way to fly as far as commercial or non-commercial promotion.

Picture sharing - again, I use Picasa, lots of people use Flickr, some newbs use Photobucket, but none of these services are as good at photo sharing as facebook. Why? For one, everyone's on facebook, so whoever you're friends with on facebook is your pool and/or audience. For another, the "Follow Hunter's Picasa" or "Subscribe to Hunter's PhotoStream" (paraphrased) functions of the other big photo sites are all half baked compared to facebook's super integrated approach. I miss out on seeing my friends' cool pictures because I am not on facebook.

This last one kind of goes without saying, but staying up to date with what's going on with your friends / keeping your friends up to date with what's going on with you. I realized this when I moved recently. I moved from Northern VA to Central VA (where I was born and raised) and so I have a lot of friends in the area. I have slowly, little by little, been running into friends at the grocery store and such, and when they see me, they all look as though they've seen a ghost. Why? Because they had no idea I was back in Central VA. My thought, when leaving facebook was "If you don't know where I live or where I went to school, then hey, that's fine, because everyone who's actually really my friend knows where I live and where I went to school and other trivia. Well, I was wrong about that. My real friends don't know where I live.

I guess in the olden tymes, you would notify all your friends that you were moving, by letter or phone call or through the physical social network (parties, softball games, church). But these days, my friends aren't going to parties and church to find out what's going on with whom --- they go to facebook for that kind of info. The very human, social "see and be seen" compulsion is dying because you don't have to "be there" to catch all the juicy gossip and stay up on your friends anymore. It was shocking to me that one of my best friends of all time had no idea I was living 2 miles away from him. But it's my fault - I didn't call him or send him a letter. Any way you slice it, facebook has become the way the world stays in touch. I don't particularly like it, because I still like ye olde ways of going to church and going fishing with your buddies and going out to bars you know your friends will be at to stay in touch with each other. But nobody else is doing it that way, so I find myself fishing alone, sitting with just my family at church, and never running into anyone I know at the bar. That church/party/bar way of staying in touch only works if everyone is doing it. Well, they aren’t and so I’m not in touch with anyone.

I will not wax philosophical / ol' prospector with the standard "when I was your age, men kept in touch by shaking hands at the hunt club," because I believe that, in general, change over time is good. But I also believe in understanding the difference between change and progress. I don't think that facebook is progress, societally. Really, all I can do to fly that flag is to simply be me - go fishing with the guys, invite my buddies over to play music, send Christmas cards, go to church. I know that my idea of socialization is not consistent with the modern model, and I do not resent the change in the model. It's like when Jeep got rid of the Cherokee in favor of the Liberty. Whether or not the Cherokee was a better truck is subjective, but what is a fact, is that I like the Cherokee better, so that's what I'll stick with.

-Hunter

Fitz & The Tantrums

2011-03-10T14:53:00.002-05:00

Just bought an album that I only found out about because of AmazonMP3's Twitter feed - it was their daily $3.99 daily deal, and I liked the title, so I checked it out.

Fitz & The Tantrums - Pickin' Up The Pieces

Holy shit, man - blue eyed soul / throwback / Motown city.

To preview it is to buy it, if you are the kind of person who loves GOOD TIMES music. I am super excited to A) find out about a band I hadn't heard of before, and B) listen to a blue eyed soul album with perfect drum tone and a badass horn section.

Perfect stuff for the spring time, grilling, driving in the rain, partying, cooking.

Wooooooooooooooo,
Hunter

Patrick Stump (who?)

2011-02-18T11:18:00.000-05:00

http://www.spin.com/articles/exclusive-song-solo-jam-patrick-stump

This song (hit the link) sounds just like what MJ would release if he were still making music.

It also has a hyper modern edge, which contrasts much less with the throwback MJ vibe than I could have ever expected.

It also has a dose of that wall of sound / earworm Fall Out Boy composition that made him famous. Or maybe not famous, because nobody seems to know who I'm talking about when I mention Patrick Stump.

After the first listen, I didn't know if I liked it or not, but I knew I wanted to listen to it again. After the second listen, I still didn't know if I liked it, and I wanted to listen to it again.

After I had listened to it three times, I realized that I had just listened to it three times.

Stump's EP Truant Wave is out on Tuesday February 22, and his full length debut Soul Punk is coming this summer.

-Hunter

Bright Eyes - The People's Key

2011-02-16T14:52:00.001-05:00

New Bright Eyes out yesterday --- it's good. And it's only $3.99 at Amazon right now. Image is a link.

FOO

2011-02-15T10:38:00.001-05:00

SPRING 2011

SWANSON PYRAMID OF GREATNESS

2011-01-21T12:48:00.003-05:00

circa survive - appendage ep

2010-12-07T12:30:00.000-05:00

Circa Survive has a new EP out as of November 30, 2010. I have previewed one track, and am saving the others for when I get the CD, so I can have that feeling you get when you hear an album for the first time.

It's only 5 songs, but hell, Keith Urban's latest was 8 songs, and that was supposedly a full album release. It's an EP, deal with it.

Here is a preview of what you're in for:

Also, for all ye loyal readers: I have fallen off a lot with TLA, I know. I had a son on October, and I started building guitars at home, so I am pretty busy. I will post this month about all the music I bought between the last time I posted --- it's a shitload, and I'm sure you'll find something in there that you love.

Love,
Hunter

GIRL TALK: ALL DAY

2010-11-16T14:47:00.002-05:00

IT'S OUT TODAY!

my life according to john mayer

2010-10-19T17:13:00.002-04:00

My Life According To John Mayer:

Are you a male or female: Who Did You Think I Was?

Describe yourself: Bigger Than My Body

How do you feel: Waiting on the World To Change

Describe where you currently live: Comfortable

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Back to You

Your favourite form of transportation: Wheel

Your best friend is: No Such Thing

Your favourite colour is: Another Kind of Green

What's the weather like: Covered In Rain

Favourite time of day: Wait Until Tomorrow

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: Home Life

What is life to you: Bold As Love

Your current relationship: I Got A Woman

Breaking up: I'm Gonna Find Another You

Looking for: Not Myself

Wouldn’t mind: Brown Sugar

Your fear: My Stupid Mouth

What is the best advice you have to give: This Will All Make Perfect Sense Someday

If you could change your name, you would change it to: Lenny

Thought for the Day: Everything Is Not Broken

How I would like to die: Slow Dancing In A Burning Room

My motto: YOUR BODY IS A WONDERLAND!!!

Yeah, I am thirteen.

punchline's "delightfully pleased"

2010-09-28T12:18:00.001-04:00

If you have a sense of humor, and love poppy, punky rock, this is your new jam. To preview it is to buy it.

This album is self-aware, carries NO PRETENSE at all, and is hilarious. They start the album off strong with "Seventy," a song that tells you up front "you won't find songs of hopelessness on this record / you won't find songs that leave you feeling LOST / just press play and let your problems melt away..." and gets remarkably up-front about never making it big, but being 101% content to serve their diehard fans with the line:

"...a platinum dream and a touring saga / we shot for the moon and missed / so we discovered our own planet"

And their own planet is the planet where their appreciation for their fans is always at the forefront - hell, the first track on this album is basically a letter of appreciation written to you and me. I could quote the rest of the lyrics to support the point, but you'll hear the full song soon enough.

Punchline's 2004 "Action" album was the soundtrack of my college years, and all of my friends will agree and remember, we spun that album like it was making us rich. Hearing it now is like hopping into a time machine that takes us back to sophomore year, where Milwaukee's Best and Ramen reigned supreme, and every night was a party night. Come to think of it, we listened to Punchline every night when we were partying, and the "Action" album never got old either. Those songs are truly the anthem of our college years. That album LIVED in the CD player of my awesome Jeep. Well, 2 albums and 6 years later, "Delightfully Pleased" has claimed the same spot - it's my go-to jam.

They mention LOST in the album opener, subtly nodding to the amazing track "Roller Coaster Smoke" - a tribute to the show "LOST," and a must hear for fans of the show. I have never seen LOST, and it's still my favorite song on the album, because it's awesome. Great arrangement, buildup, and groove. Defies genre. I DARE you not to bob your head when you're listening to this. RPT 1 PLZ.

"Roller Coaster Smoke" by Punchline, a tribute to LOST! from modernshortstories on Vimeo.

The musicianship and songwriting here have stayed memorable and strong - you will absolutely have these hooks stuck in your head for a week. Pure delicious earworm goodness with incredible shelf-life. The harmonies and guitar tones are out-the-control good on this album. I have not grown tired of this album yet, and I have played it start to finish probably 20 times in the past 2 weeks.

They also have a song "Keystoned" that is all about how great Pennsylvania is, which I love, because I am a geographer. My favorite lyric in the song comes at the end of a long run of fun facts, where the singer lays out a triumphant "...and Pittsburgh has more bridges than any other cityyyyyyyy," while the rest of the band, in an over-the top 3 or 4 part harmony, a-la Bohemian Rhapsody, belts out a disclaimer "not counting Venice!"

Their "Greatest. Party. Ever." reminds me of myself - while describing the "Greatest. Party. Ever.," they tell you "I've been cleanin' and dustin' and cookin' all day / I got a fridge full of Zima and a vegetable tray" and resolve the stanza with "the WiFi network is slammin / Forrest Gump's on TV" - it's all so fun good-natured that you just want to give them a high five after every song.

Why should you buy this album: when I first discovered Punchline in 2004, I liked them so much I ordered a t-shirt from their shitty website. Well, a week later when the shirt arrived, I found with it a baseball card and a handwritten letter from the band, that said something to the effect of, and again, no pretense, just appreciation for their fans, "Dear Hunter, thanks for buying a t-shirt! We appreciate it and we're so glad you enjoy the album. Please accept this Will Clark baseball card as a token of our appreciation. Love, Punchline."

It just doesn't get any better than that. Reward these guys for kicking ass.

Love,
Hunter

support from my followers

2010-08-26T09:03:00.002-04:00

Posted up on one of my 4WD forums that TLA had some new jams:

cynic - traced in air

2010-08-24T14:08:00.000-04:00

Cynic - Traced In Air

I found out about this 2008 album from my friend David, who, in a stroke of irony, started a blog of his own.

But Hunter, what's ironic about that?!

When we were in high school, back when AOL Instant Messenger was not only the primary method for teenagers to talk to each other, but the AIM Profile served the same kind of function that facebook does today --- kids had their favorite quote, some information about themselves, a link to their favorite band, snarky comments, etc. Exactly like facebook. Don't fight me on this.

Anyhow, back then, the word "blog" didn't exist yet, but guess what word did? "JOURNAL." Yeah baby, you know you remember it. "Journals," which were, predictably, online journals, were the awkward precursor to blogging as we know it, but back in the day, you have to remember that Google didn't exist yet. That meant that journals were not ever meant for mass audiences - they were always meant for your 3 friends that had AOL to read. This exclusivity meant that most early journals were full of embarrassingly ~~retarded~~ pseudo-emotional drivel. This also meant that finding out that someone at your school had a journal was cause for celebration, because that meant you could find it, read it, and make fun of them.

Anyways, one day I checked David's AIM profile, and saw that he had added a link: "my journal." Now, I thought this was weird, because David just wasn't the type. Well; naturally I was excited at potentially having some dirt on David with which to make fun of him. I also thought, hey, there might be a side of David that I've never considered before - maybe he has a more introspective side beneath the hard persona. Maybe he has sensitive ideas about things that he couldn't say out loud because the high school social structure would never let him live it down. Maybe he really loves cats. Maybe he's into gardening. All told, I was pretty curious to see what this journal was going to be about.

So I click the link, and I am just tickled pink thinking that I am minutes away (this is 1997, yo) from laughing at one of my friends writing about how elephant poaching makes him cry, or how he still watches Winnie the Pooh. Well, the site finally loads, and my jaw dropped.

I been zapped!

On the page was a picture of David, mean-muggin' like you never seen before, middle finger up, with big, bold block letters "JOURNALS ARE FOR FUCKING DORKS"

Anyways, the Cynic album is badass, buy it.

-Hunter

Just kidding, I'll actually tell you a little bit about it.

The first thing that stood out to me was the composition --- Paul Masvidal's composition and arrangement style uses a lot of dynamic range --- not only volume, from quiet to loud, but also smooth, clear guitar tones to harsh, heavy guitar tones, from legato, jazzy drum passages up through thrashy metal sequences. you will immediately either 1) respect the composition, or 2) think "OK, I don't get this."

Chances are though, if you read this blog, you'll listen to "King of Those Who Know" at least once, for the sake of science and artistic exploration. When I first heard it, I was like, "ehhh, this ain't my thing," but after I listened to it in full once, I felt a strong compulsion to hear it again, and all these little things jumped out at me. 9 listens later, I had to buy the album.

There is a very present jazz influence. Also, for the guitar nerds out there, you will hear some beautiful Stratocaster style tones. You could honestly mistake the outro to "King of Those Who Know" for John Mayer if you didn't know it came right after a thrash-metal verse.

You'll also notice an incredibly addictive groove to all of these songs once they get going. The post-intro drop on "The Space For This" slays me.

The thing that impresses me the most is how the soft and hard parts work so well together. I remember my sister once told me, with a preface / disclaimer of "I know this is totally lame to say," that she finally "got" Radiohead, while she was at a Radiohead concert that her husband dragged her to - and couldn't describe it any better than this; "it was just beautiful."

Getting Cynic is a lot like that --- the total picture just has a beauty to it. If you zoom in too far and focus on what you're hearing right now, as opposed to what you're hearing, you might miss what's so great about it.

Blues Brothers from Oz is Over the Rainbow on Vimeo.

Think of it like your favorite movie. Mine's "The Blues Brothers." All in all, the movie is hilarious, and the overarching theme of reserved, subtle humor is what I love about it. One if the best scenes / lines in the movie is when they're under the bridge, about to make their run for the Palace Hotel Ballroom in their Dodge cop car, and Elwood turns to Jake and says, " It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses" and Jake, without a second's hesitation, says "Hit it."

If you didn't know the characters, the characteristic of their dialogue, and their dynamic, you would not be able to extract any humor or enjoyment out of that --- but in the context of the film, it's the turning point of the whole story, and one of the most revered movie scenes of all time.

Check out Cynic's "Traced In Air."

-Hunter

i used to be ruthless (at blogging)

2010-08-23T16:45:00.003-04:00

I used to be ruthless at blogging. U SEEN'T IT.

Image Credit

Image is an awesome, awesome link.

I will be writing more TLA goodness soon, with the caveat that there has been a whole schitlöde of new music that I have discovered and haven't written about. I still haven't decided if I'm going to try and write about all of it individually, forget about it and start fresh, or do like my very first post and write about 10 things all at once. If you have an idea, leave me a comment.

I'm leaning towards giant brain dump all in one post.

-HJ

Oh, P.S., no more Google ads. I made $3.53 in ad revenue last year, so it's obvious that the combination of TLA's tiny audience and your cheepnis is just not cut out for web 2.0. I would make a twitter account and push the site, and make it look nicer if I cared about TLA blowing up, but let me be real - I'm just glad you're reading it.

welcome to 2004, what's the future like?

2010-07-14T08:05:00.000-04:00

TLA finally joined facebook.

Now you can get TLA updates on facebook, and facebook updates on TLA.

-Hunter

recalibration

2010-07-08T12:57:00.003-04:00

I just rewrote my Devils of Belgrade - Đavolja Varoš review.

You're reading this post in my voice.

The reason I write --- the reason I geek out on music, is to go beyond "hey, I like that," and dig deeper. I dig to find out what was going on in the artist's life at the time, or where they were geographically when they recorded it. I want to find out what guitars they used, and what stories those guitars carry. I want to find out who produced it, what other bands they've worked with, and what their "sound" is.

Why do I do this?

I get a great satisfaction out of "getting it."

When you listen to something like John Mayer's "Who Says," and think "LOL pot, wtf is up with John Mayer and drugs?! LOL!", you're not getting it.

When you hear Sara Bareilles' "Love Song" and think "man, I wonder what dude pissed her off", you're not getting it.

But how do we "get" the real meaning of songs and music?

Well, I usually read about them on music blogs.

The clues that enable us to form a closer bond with our favorite musicians, to understand their music better, and extract more value from something that has been hidden in plain view, are discovered by people like you and me --- people that love music and just want to get inside their favorite album and wear it like a pelt. When those people make those discoveries and share them, they enable other listeners to share that same joy - the joy of "getting it."

I hope you enjoy the rewritten review. It captures my feelings about the album better, but most of all, and on topic with this post, it contains more information about the album , the artists, and the songs.

It even contains unauthorized quotes from band members.

Love,
Hunter