Upcoming Events, Mar 2008

Should be an enormous post coming soon on my travels during the month of February. I just thought I'd put together this post for my own reference.

I noted tonight that over the next month the Cinerama is showing both Tron and Lawrence of Arabia, which is just terrific. Apart from some re-viewings, Be Kind Rewind is the only thing I'm planning to see in general release. Not sure why yet but the Metro is showing McCabe and Mrs. Miller and then Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Northwest Film Forum's got Popeye, the ByDesign series, and Godard's La Chinoise. At the end of April they're also showing six films, three of which star Marcello Mastroianni (La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2, and John Boorman's Leo the Last) and three others that star Jean-Paul Belmondo (Breathless, Le Doulos, and Pierrot Le Fou). I'll take Belmondo every time, hands down, but I'm still about as excited to finally see 8 1/2 as À Bout de souffle.

Barring sellouts I'm looking forward to Atlas Sound et al, Beach House, and Bon Iver. Further along, Sasquatch 2008 just got announced, including: MIA, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Built To Spill, The Hives, The National, Fleet Foxes, Kinski, Sera Cahoone, Jamie Lidell, David Bazan, and Grand Archives.

2008 Mix, Pt. 1

Download the mix

I finally got around to listening to this Resident Advisor podcast by Dixon from last March. According to RA: "Dixon lays down a mix that rethinks soulful vocals and deep house to dazzling effect." According to Tim Finney on ILM: "Right now the Dixon podcast on Resident Advisor sounds like the best thing I've ever heard... Seriously, it's like dance music died and went to heaven."

I must've started listening the week after because Alex Smoke's mix (big, spacey dub techno) was one of my favorites of last year.

Anyway, the main subject of this post is my first mix of the year. I'm hoping to do this pretty regularly just to collect my singles into something memorable so I don't have a pile of 50-70 tracks sitting around at the end of 2008 which I can't recall anything about. There's a bit of 2007 mixed in. (MP3 not yet posted.)

01 Tiny Vipers "Campfire Resemblance"
02 Samara Lubelski "Ego Blossoms"
03 Evangelicals "Skeleton Man"
04 Electrelane "To the East"
05 Vampire Weekend "A-Punk"
06 The 1900s "Everybody's Got a Collection"
07 Beach House "Gila"
08 The Big Sleep "Pinkies"
09 Blood on the Wall "Sorry Sorry Sarah"
10 Black Mountain "Tyrants"
11 Ola Podrida "Atmosphere"
12 Hot Chip "Made in the Dark"

52:04, 56.9 MB

And may I just take this opportunity to say that if I manage to hear 3-4 more albums as good as Black Mountain's In the Future this will have been a fine year for music.

Logjam

My brain has been stalled somehow for at least the past four weeks. Although it would be fun to just attribute it to SAD and buy a UV lamp, that doesn't feel quite right. It was just as dark outside in December, yet... it wasn't the same.

One other symptom of this weird but generally not depressing malaise is that I can't seem to get very excited about things. Like a lot of movies; despite seeing some stuff that is probably great, it would only be accurate to say that I've really enjoyed one in the past month, Still Life, and even then I've been unable to put together any coherent thoughts about it.

My only theory is that it ought to magically clear up sometime in the next couple weeks. Exposure to new places (Mississippi, San Francisco, etc.) will hopefully spur some mental activity. Wayland, Iowa tends not to be the most stimulating of places in that fashion.

For now I guess I'll just play some more Chain Factor.