Airport

Saturday morning. I'm at the Delta terminal of LGA. Been here since well before 6 am. And I'm tired.

Ah, technology... I'm clumsily typing this entry from my phone (no spell check), I made it through LGA way too early because I printed my boarding pass at home, and at some point this morning, I'll watch an episode of "The Office" on my iPod.

All this so I don't have to think about what an uber shitty week it's been.

Salt Lake visit + Destroyer

It's Tuesday, aka, new music day. Destroyer's latest, Rubies, hit stores this morn and I'm pretty excited to pick up a copy on my lunch break. If you haven't hopped on the interweb bandwagon for this record yet, you can stream it here. Then, chances are, you'll be waving a Destroyer flag yourself.

Also, in a pretty quickly planned trip, I'm heading back to Salt Lake for a visit and some real snow. I plan to spend one to two days here and one day here.

If you'll be around, let me know.


***
Elsewhere:
A Google Blogsearch for "Destroyer's Rubies" will show you much more detailed info on the record and even provide you with a few mp3s.

Also, Pitchfork reviewed it yesterday. Rubies made the best new music list.

Post Valentine's fun: Blue states, fewer weddings

I love when people go to great lengths to state the obvious, like on Slate today.

Valentine's Mix CD (for J)

In some ways, I'm perpetually 15. Awkward and cheesy. So, there's no better gift than the mix CD.

A mix CD on Valentine's Day? Corny? You betcha. Are the song selections themselves corny? Some of them are, sure. But isn't that the point? I think so.

Perhaps I'm exploiting J, but hey, I haven't offered up a mix CD in a long while, so why not.

1. J. Tillman, My waking days, Long may you run, J. Tillman, Keep Recordings
2. Jens Lekman, The one dollar thought, You deserve someone better than a bum like me, self-produced tour EP (May 2005)
3. Colin Meloy, Jack the Ripper, Colin Meloy sings Morrissey, self-produced tour EP
4. The Long Winters, Ultimatum, Ultimatum EP, Barsuk
5. Magnolia Electric Co., Doing something wrong, Hard to love a man, Secretly Canadian
6. The Rolling Stones, Loving Cup, Exile on Main Street, Virgin
7. Cat Power, Could We, The Greatest, Matador
8. Josh Rouse, A song to help you sleep, Bedroom Classics, self-produced tour EP
9. Iron & Wine, The Trapeze Swinger, In Good Company SDTRK Hollywood

Happy Valentine's all.
***
Notes:
J. Tillman's latest record was released just a couple of weeks back and is already sold out. (He has this annoying little habit of releasing records in pressings of 150 or so.) If you have a copy, please let me know! You can find "My waking days" in a number of places, including at Keep Recordings.

Jens Lekman is such a nice young man. He's got presents for us all! Download this tour EP, along with two others here.

KingBlind's got the Colin Meloy Sings Morrissey EP available for download. You can purchase the latest covers EP from Meloy, Colin Meloy Sings Shirley Collins from The Decemberists' website.

Back in September, Stereogum posted this Long Winters track.

You probably already have the new Cat Power, as it's pretty easy to track down. If not, I find that An Aquarium Drunkard is a nice place for mp3s.

Speaking of An Aquarium Drunkard, it's also the only place I've found to download the long out of print Bedroom Classics tour-only EP from Josh Rouse (not to be confused with Bedroom Classics Vol. 2, which is available on iTunes). Sometimes, you can even find a burned CD-R copy of this EP on ebay for a couple hundred clams. It's lovely and includes early versions of a couple tracks that made their way onto Nashville. Bonus: Songs Illinois has a cut from the forthcoming record.

Bows + Arrows posted the Iron & Wine track as a New Year's treat.

Colin Meloy, Josh Rouse: A couple of music updates

Both of which involve shows I saw pretty recently...

Pitchfork reviewed the Colin Meloy Townhall show I went to a few weeks back. Read the review here.

Also, after mentioning on the 31st of last month that he would be returning to New York, I've been searching the interweb for news of the Josh Rouse April date. Here it is, via the Nettwerk label news page. He'll be at Townhall (second mention in one post!) with a full band on April 7 supporting the forthcoming record Subtitulo.

Neither rain nor snow will keep me from that show.

Hope your Thursday is better than mine.

Four O'Clock Photo: Emma's a shy one

10.13.2005: "There were horses, and a man on fire, AND I killed a guy with a trident!!!!"

Speaking of bulk email, there is one "subscription" that I look forward to receiving every day: Four O'Clock Photo.

It's a product of my friend Emily. She's a darned good offline designer for a very strange company in Salt Lake. She's pretty overworked, entirely overeducated, and (I assume) very much under-appreciated. Emily spends the better part of her day working with images--both her own and stock photos.

At some point in September, she decided to start a mailing, offering up an image that she came across or captured, along with some clever commentary. My email address was illegally acquired in mid-October and every weekday since then, like FedEx, Emily's delivered.

A couple weeks back, I created a blogger ID for her, not really expecting her to use it. To my surprise, she's got a photoblog in the works. Check out some of the images from the past month or so here.


2.03.2006

Unfortunately, she doesn't add her captions to the blog, but I'm trying to convince her to do so. Apparently, Emma is concerned that her family and co-workers may learn of her crass nature by reading these things. Worse things have happened.

The captions add a lot. And frankly, Emma is kind of crass. For instance, check out this one, for which she writes: They are Crack, and I am but a gluttonous whore.

Or, this modeling photo from her Momma's glory days: She farted right before this picture was taken. It came forth with such fervor, she surprised herself.
Doesn't surprise me. Not one little bit.

Or this clever commentary on our silly friend Eric's drunken behavior:
A fifth of SoCo $20
A Mountain Hardware Sub-Zero Puffy jacket $300
A 2006 Tacoma (outfitted with ipod adaptor and booster seat) $35,000+

Hauling your best-friend home after he blew-chunks off some hot chick's balcony:
Freaking Priceless.

There are some things money can't buy... for everything else, there's blackmail.

Add the captions already!
***

I'll let you know when she really gets in dialed in. In the meantime, see more everyday at fouroclockphoto.blogspot.com. Or, subscribe to her RSS feed here.

Who wants to work for free?

Or, for trade. Or, cheaply.

In the process of starting a new web project to better display my personal portfolio. I've got some helpful hands potentially involved, but if you happen to be a skilled designer/coder, let me know. I've got an RFQ document with your name on it.*

You'll have the honor of working with me and creating a site that will see millions of unique visitors per day.**

--------------------------

*The RFQ doc doesn't currently have your name on it because I don't know who you are. I would be happy to put it on later though.

**This is a grossly overestimated number.

Stamps for email?

Nothing like stealing from Seth Godin's blog...

Anyway, at least one reader of this page will find this interesting. And that's in addition to me! After all, I do work for an email/interactive agency.

Essentially, Yahoo and AOL will start charging "postage" as a means of eliminating SPAM and confirming the identity of bulk mail senders.

Paying senders will be assured that their messages will be delivered to AOL users' main in-boxes and marked as "AOL Certified E-Mail." Unpaid messages will be subject to AOL's spam-filtering process, which diverts suspicious messages to a special spam folder. Most of these messages will also not be displayed with their original images and links. In other words, AOL stands to make a lot of dollars.

Read about it here.

WOXY in need of some help -- "The future of the future of the rock 'n roll is in your hands"

Do you WOXY?

WOXY certainly helps me get through many a work day. Like any radio station worth listening to these days (or, streaming internet station, as it were), WOXY is going listener-supported beginning today.

At $9.95 for the "true-broadband, CD-quality" stream, frankly, I think they're asking a bit much. After all, one could tune into XM or Sirius for just a couple bucks more a month. Still, WOXY has a special thing going, and I'd like to see that little studio stay afloat. It's a truly important resource.

Swing on over and read about what's bringing this change on. Not familiar with WOXY? Give 'em a listen before you pass judgement.

Note: The low stream will remain free. The broadband stream will remain free for one more week.

***
Elsewhere:
Read more at Donewaiting and the WOXY My Space blog.

Feb 1

I've been told that the first words one should speak when waking up on the 1st of a month are "rabbit, rabbit."

Allegedly, doing so brings you good luck for 28-31 days.

This morning, I forgot to. Woops.

(Last night's show was fantastic, by the way.)