album of the day vol. III

Odessey and Oracle- The Zombies

Can't say much, as I'm currently writing a term paper for my Asian Art History class, but let this be enough: this album easily stands among Rubber Soul, Pet Sounds, and Parallel Lines as one of the best pop albums EVER. No joke. (I'm sure there are many more best pop albums EVER but my mind is filled with laksis, bodhisattvas, Tang dynasties, and Vairocana at the moment).

album of the day, vol II

The Notorious Byrd Brothers- The Byrds (1968)

   Last summer, I had a bit of a '60s/psychedelic music renaissance. Psychedelic music is what started it all for me in high school, and then my taste went through a series of phases (2000s indie, freak folk, anacortes/olympia stuff, 70s punk, 80s indie; not necessarily in that order). It had been a long while since I'd listened to and enjoyed a session with Jefferson Airplane, the Dead, or Pink Floyd. One reason for this hiatus was probably my two-year long residence in Humboldt County, California, where the people in the dorm building across from me would listen to the same 3 Pink Floyd albums day-in and day-out (Dark Side, Wish You Were Here, The Wall) and guys would actually put on "Purple Haze" when lighting up a joint. This was a period of time when I listened to Raw Power and HEALTH loudly in my room and shut myself off from social interaction. No good.
  
   But after I moved back to Southern California in May 2009, that thirst for the psychedelic and  pleasantly experimental started up again. This resulted in a lot of purchases, an unhealthy amount of money spent on old records. But most relevantly, I got almost every major '60s Byrds album within the span of about two months (I still haven't found Sweetheart of The Rodeo for a decent price; I think I saw Ballad of Easy Rider at Burger last time I was there, but I didn't have the funds).
  
   Which leads me to this album. While The Byrds didn't necessarily go through the dramatic stylistic shifts that characterize the catalogs of The Beatles or Dylan, they did have three pretty distinct phases. This album finds them right smack in the middle of a transition between the second and the third; the psychedelic flourishes of Younger Than Yesterday sit next to conspicuous hints at the country-tinged sound yet to come. This is The Byrds at their most hippy-dippy (consciousness-expanding philosophical lyrics, horn sections, phase shifting), but the songwriting is still there, thank god. The trademark vocal harmonies, breezy pedal-steel guitar work, and spacey atmospherics all combine to make this a great album for lazy sunday mornings (or incidentally, days off from school, like today).




sidenote: What was it with psychedelia and songs about airplanes and spaceships? The trippiness of being in one place and then a few hours later being 700 miles away?

album of the day

Tusk- Fleetwood Mac (1979)

All throughout high-school, I had a thing for the lengthy, unfocused, and vaguely conceptual in music and literature; my favorite band was The Mars Volta, my favorite album was The White Album, and i seriously tried to read Finnegan's Wake (a couple times). Since then, I've come to appreciate the merits of a good pop song or a profound 120-page novel (helloooo Rubber Soul! pryvet Turgenev!),  but I've still got a soft spot for sprawling double-album masterpieces. Hence my excitement when I came across a copy of Tusk at Fingerprints a couple weeks ago. This thing is all over the place, one of those perfect examples of what happens when 3 incredible songwriters get together without the intent of actually collaborating. This is a portrait not so much of the band, but rather of each individual within it, and it's a beautiful mess. Highlights for me at the moment are "Save Me A Place," "Tusk," and "Not That Funny."
 

a tribute to the Joeymeister

aprillll

pink trucks

















pictures of people taking pictures

this bus had no top. it blew my mind.





















white fence is the best album i've purchased in a whiiiiiile










good lord look at the back cover of that paul kantner & the jefferson starship album. for the record, that is a wingèd triple-boob creature carrying some weird clay thing, within which is a room with an american flag and a dude's face and other seemingly arbitrary stuff. good record though.









60-watt kid







worst album cover ever? or best?



dude, get this album RIGHT NOW