Saturday, June 5, 2010

In Today's News


Can't say I've followed Modest Mouse in the last five or so years, but watching them rise out of the northwest music scene (i grew up a half hour away from them) and being Dead-ishly obsessed with them for a spell leads to me occasionally taking interest in articles such as the one I saw on Pitchfork today about Isaac Brock's portrait hanging in the Portland mayor's office. Weird, huh?

That does lead nicely into my current re-obsession with my favorite band from middle school, Archers of Loaf. I guess I should mention that this leads nicely because the first time I saw Modest Mouse is when they were opening for the Loaf on their 1996 All the Nation's Airports tour. Anyway, I love me some early Archers of Loaf, even after all these years. Their guitar work? Phenomenal. Even if sometimes their lyrics leave something to be desired, I can easily ignore it by tuning in to what a tight band they were. So, the problem here is that, since I don't much care for their recorded work after Vee Vee, there's a very limited amount of material to obsess over. Thank god for the man who put together the Web in Front webpage. A fan page for obsesso's like me, he trades for cassette or cd-r copies from his extensive Archers live recording archive. It also taught me how to play a simple version of "Backwash," my favorite Archers of Loaf song. Bless this man.

There is an amazingly weird analysis of Twig Palace's recent solo performance on Radio 8-Ball on this hella out there metaphysics blog. Alongside Twig Palace, you'll hear about 2012's connection to Jordan O' Jordan, wormholes, an analysis of celebrity guest Seth Green's work, mysterious messages embedded into asphalt, Audrey Hepburn's connection to a dying bee, and more.

I guess there's a new Wu-Tang album.


Rue McClanahan, AKA- Blanche from the Golden Girls!, died yesterday. Leaving Betty White as the only remaining Golden Girl. Pop sadness ensues here at Letters With Mixtapes.

Tacoma's Weekly Volcano did a pretty interesting feature on how Marcy Playground frontman John Woznia was once an Olympia resident/Evergreen State College student. I definitely never thought of Marcy Playground as an Olympia band, but the story is pretty interesting. Wozniak took advantage of the free-and-easy curriculum at TESC to do an independent contract to get a record deal. By the end of the quarter he was signed to Capitol, got school credit for doing so, moved to New York, and the "Sex and Candy" song became a big hit.

The dear Alexis Wolf (Tapestry, Ilse Content, Letters member) released an almost totally un-music related zine on the fascinating history of Mary Wollstonecraft, but I will justify mentioning it here by saying that riot grrl would probably not have happened yet if Ms Wollsonecraft hadn't have been the person she was.

So, um, songs to apply to this...hmm...well, I love this Peel Session version of "Backwash"...and, oh! A live version of "Pangea" from the tour we did with Twig Palace on Claremont's KSPC. Ok, that's good.

Archers of Loaf- Backwash (Peel Session) (I believe this version also appeared on their Speed of Cattle b-side album)
Twig Palace- Pangea (Live on KSPC)

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