Pandora has given me more music to enjoy, which is great, but it's also given me a lot of the reviews from the All Music Guide, which ranges from the interesting to the banal, from all of which the most salient fact emerged: Stephen Thomas Erlewine is an enormous wanker.

I look forward to a time when the Porny Presentation Bingo card goes unused at a technical conference. (via infotropism)

thedarkages sent me and 2wanda a lovely gift for our anniversary, a copy of The Orchestral Music of Charles Ives performed by Orchestra New England (which he found on my Amazon wish list, hint hint).  I'd put that on the list because it contains the "Country Band" March, which i enjoyed hearing performed at Carnegie Hall.

You are a scholar and a gentleman, sir, and thank you again.

I suddenly remembered today that i saw a picture of U2 with their fathers some years ago and that i really liked it a lot.  So i asked Google and it found the picture right away.

I'd recommend listening to this with headphones; just don't turn it up too high during the quiet section.  The video itself is static, so you don't need to watch it as it plays.

I'm not sure that i can explain why i like this track so much without going full-on nerd.  The odd time signature, the layering of elements, the use of dissonance to create tension, the seemingly incidental noises leading up to the shape of the song's climax... honestly, i'd love to hear this scored for a symphonic orchestra.  It's nothing less than a showcase for John Stanier's brilliant percussion without being anything as vulgar as a prolonged drum solo.

Despite the immense relief i feel over the end of GWB's presidency, i see the widespread celebrations and excitement and all i can hear in my head is Living Colour's "Cult of Personality".

I have to play this song now.  It's traditional.

#10: "What Is and What Should Never Be"  I'm not sure why i like this song so much.  I guess i just think that it's pretty.

#9: "Stairway to Heaven"  Yes, yes, it's overplayed to hell, but it's still a grand, well-constructed, and iconic song.

#8: "Achilles' Last Stand"  A thrashing song that's all muscle.

#7: "The Ocean"  Shifting time signatures and a swinging conclusion.  Plus a ringing phone at around 1:40.

#6: "Misty Mountain Hop"  Bouncy fun anchored by Bonzo's monster beat.

#5: "Tea for One"  I feel like i'm cheating here because, as i said already, it's a simple song.  Even more, it's almost the same song as "Since I've Been Loving You".  But it's sparse and haunting.

#4: "Custard Pie"  The intro to this song just kills me, a perfect ramp-up into a superbly punctuated confluence of instruments and vocals.

#3: "How Many More Times"  A little brother to my #1.

#2: "In My Time of Dying"  I don't know if i can say that a blues song can have movements as if it were a classical piece, but god damn it, this is a four-movement blues song.  It is epic, and not just because it's the longest track they ever released.

#1: "Wearing and Tearing"  I think the band must've realized that this track was so good that it would've outshone everything else on In Through the Out Door if they'd left it in.  Everyone's performing at 100% individually, as a band, technically, everything.

#10: "Bonzo's Montreux"  God rest his hard-drinking soul, but this percussion solo is wanktacular.

#9: "Night Flight"  I can't put my finger on what bothers me about this song, but i do know i skip it a lot when it comes on.

#8: "Down By the Seaside"  Like they were trying to do a Donovan pastiche.  Just wrong.

#7: "All My Love"  Overplayed, and a wretched keyboard solo by Jonesy.

#6: "D'yer Mak'er"  Reggae.  So bad it was covered by Sheryl Crow.  `Nuff said.

#5: "No Quarter"  A boring and overly long dirge.  Tool's cover is about 20 times better than the original.

#4: "Tangerine"  Squishy.  This track really shows off the poor production of the album, especially where in many songs, the vocal tracks are off-key from each other.

#3: "Thank You"  Starkly bereft of any of the musicality that makes Led Zeppelin great.

#2: "Your Time Is Gonna Come"  Melodramatic and overblown.

#1: "Hey Hey What Can I Do"  Inane.  So bad it was covered by Hootie and the Blowfish.

I normally don't get too wrapped up in an album's track order; i can tell what albums are well constructed, which tracks hang well together in the order in which they were released, and which albums are a bit of a hodge-podge but ultimately aren't hindered by their track order.  I listen to my music library on shuffle, anyway, so i can go from Ministry to Beethoven to Juan Luis Guerra 440 to Robert Fripp and i don't really so much as blink.

However, i feel very strongly about the fact that the track order of the first four tracks on The Arcade Fire's Neon Bible is completely backwards.  The album should start off with "Intervention" in order to have, with "My Body Is a Cage", two big pipe organ songs bookending the album.  Then the pacing quiets with "Neon Bible", picks up again with "Keep the Car Running", then slows again with "Black Mirror".  The rest of the album flows quite nicely, but the first four songs as released are simply awkward.  Go on, give it a listen and tell me i'm wrong.

Poll #1323119 touch the clicky! love it!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Am i right about the first four tracks of Neon Bible?

• Time's Joel Stein drinks 50 wines from 50 states and offers a quick review of each.  There are a few surprises, and a few hilariously scathing reviews.
• I'd never heard of Davey Graham (although i'd guess that tronpublic and pdcawley had), but he was a seminal figure in English folk music in the `60s.  He was also one hell of a guitarist, doing stuff people wouldn't catch up to for another 10 years.  Ben Myers at the Guardian posted a retrospective out of YouTube clips.  Graham passed away on December 15.

Sirius and XM completed their merger a few weeks ago, and something that popped up on the Rock station in the last day or two was the ABBA channel — all ABBA, all the time.  Scary, i know.  But just now i had to listen to it because they were playing the Spanish version of "Chiquitita", which was my favorite song in second grade and is probably the first favorite song i can remember having.

The first 40 seconds are disorienting, like listening to a musician warm up.  Thanks to schwa242.

Somehow, i missed this blip in the music scene of the late `90s.  I'm glad that XM's Lucy managed to bring to my attention, despite the delay.  I found this song so compelling that i bought The Thrill Kisser off some used CD vendor on Amazon; i got it today and i've enjoyed listening to it.

I couldn't say why, but i find it a little disturbing to watch a soccer match and listen to the fans chanting to the tune of The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army".

I've always maintained that whistling as part of music is inevitably awful.  It feels intrusive, like someone's playing a cheap instrument amidst high-quality instruments, or worse.  It turns out, of course, that it's a perfectly good instrument in the hands... uh, mouth of an expert.  Such as Andrew Bird.

Yesterday, i had soccer at 17:00 with Quakes (we won 4-2; my defense performed admirably and i had a nearly flawless game), then came home, showered, and on our way out to San Francisco, we stopped for food at El Pollo Loco, but the drive-in line was huge, which caused us to arrive at the GAMH a tad late.  Then i forgot to get the earplugs from my emergency stash in the car, so i had to run back to get them, then on the way back i realized i lost my ticket, so i had to track back my steps; fortunately, i found it in the parking garage, so in we went.

Saturna opened, and they did a good job.  I went downstairs to buy their CD; Matt, the drummer, couldn't unlock the cashbox, so he told me to just take the CD gratis.  I dropped by later to pay, so he gave me their EP for free.  Swell guys, and their music was good, too.  What more can a fan ask?

( then Bob Mould came on )

This is the third time i've seen Bob play and i'm sure i'll be back for more... so long as i don't forget my earplugs.

Look, Rodrigo y Gabriela just fuckin' rock.  I will belabor this further, but that's really all you need to know, and if you're in San Diego, Tucson, Melbourne, Sydney, or Brisbane, buy a ticket now and go see them on their current tour.  If you're in Denver, Austin, or Tokyo, good luck finding a scalped ticket.

2wanda and i picked up elmuchacho and had dinner near his place at Yama Sushi (excellent prices, and they had mirugai sashimi... mmm, mirugai).  Afterwards, we headed to the show.  The openers were two random dudes, one on electric guitar, the other on harmonica, xylophone, and saw.  They were mediocre at best; not offensive, but clearly not very good musicians.  Afterwards, the sound guys played a Shakti track that was really good; it wasn't very long, so i'm guessing it was "Lotus Feet".  Right before R&G came out, they played Tool's "The Pot", which really warmed the crowd up; i've never seen intermission music used so effectively before. ( set list ) As the lights came up, the sound guys closed out the crowd with AC/DC's "For Those About to Rock".  Solid work.

They're intensely engaging, stopping songs in the middle to incite applause and ripping right along after, urging clapping and yelling, and just displaying general showmanship.  They swear a lot.  They have a lot of fun on stage and it is quite contagious.  My only regret was that i wished that they'd played "Take Five".

If you mix bluegrass, an old kung fu movie, traditional Irish dancing, the breakdance-fighting scene from Zoolander, and John Paul Jones, you might end up with a video like Uncle Earl's "Streak o' Lean, Streak o' Fat".

Famed cellist Pau Casals was filmed performing Bach's Suite No. 1 for Solo Cello at the Abbaye Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa in August 1954.  It now exists on YouTube, as part 1 and part 2.

This is all the music that i bought this year, so it is, by default, what i considered the best this year. ( with further ado ) Lastly, via thequietquiet, a video of the Boredoms playing the opening of "77Boadrum", if you're into a lot of people drumming at the same time.