This however is completely untrue of the album I would like to discuss within this post, The XX’s new self titled album. If you have not yet heard it, the lyrics have the subtlety of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. At times they verge on being absurdly affectionate ( I am yours now, So now I don’t ever have to leave, I’ve been found out, So now I’ll never explore) but always manage to emotionally evoke the listener. Like the young lovers of the before mentioned Shakespeare tragedy, the two lead singers of XX seem so blinded by love that nothing else matters. It is this since of urgency that makes the album so damn, for lack of a better word, sexy.

When we live in a time where songs like “Don’t trust me” by 3OH!3 are number one hits (She wants to touch me wahoo. She wants to love me wahoo. She’ll never leave me wahoo, wahoo hoo hoo. Don’t trust a ho. Never trust a ho. Don’t trust a ho. Cause the ho won’t trust me.) we need bands like XX to show us what being overwhelmed with affection is really like. And it is because of this forever desirable image of unrelenting love that seems so blurry in a time were everything is abstract and viewed through the lense of pop culture that I cannot stop listening to XX. In a world where music aggrandizes the one night stand and emotionless hookups, the XX forces you to again feel. For this I thank them.

It’s been a hectic two weeks returning to Green Door Apartments and taking a kayaking clinic at the Nantahala Outdoor Center in North Carolina. I’m still recovering from the latter, in a very good way.

Kayaking is an awesome (there is no better word for it than this) and equally frightening sport. Last week, as a complete beginner, I learned how to kayak. Being on the river is unlike anything I’ve experienced, and I was surrounded by natural beauty all day. For five days, we played in the water for hours on end. I have played golf, soccer, tennis, ran cross country, cycled, but I have enjoyed none of those as much as I did this.

If I loved this so much why not jump right in to this as a full time hobby? This is also one of the most dangerous activities, by leaps and bounds (except maybe the guys that wear flying squirrel jumpsuits and base jump). Safety really is first in kayaking, and sometimes there are enormous consequences for making a mistake. It’s not a matter of if, but when (there is a lot of carnage, some good and some bad). Hearing stories about undercut rocks, foot entrapments, and how many people have died at certain rapids brings out an utterly primal need for survival. This would hold me back, but the possibility of being explosively passionate about something tells me to go for it. So I break free, and dive in.

Rebecca P.

anathallo camp, 2008 – millington, tn**dokkoise house (with face covered) by anathallorandom shots from an amazing weekend.

That a community like the one that has developed on Anathallo’s messageboard could develop should serve as something of a testimony to the heart of their music. It’s hard to even write about my friends, or the times we have gotten to spend together, so I’ll simply copy and paste what I wrote once to a friend after the first ‘Thallo Camp:

“this weekend…to describe it would be something of an injustice. the only thing i could really say, the only thing true that i know you’d easily understand, is that everyone is just as beautiful as you imagine them to be on the boards. i could say the things we did–shake face pictures, s’mores around a constantly vigiled campfire, sleeping bags beneath boundless stars, staring down an impending stormfront to make time to break camp, a perfectly timed Colour Revolt show at the Jackpot Saloon in downtown Lawrence, a single hotel room crammed to overfilling with hearts simultaneously laughing and breaking that they should have to leave again so soon–i could speak of these things as best I could, and hope that you could only know how much you were missed…”

if all the world could have seen us this weekend, an example of how it could be, instead of how it is, i don’t know that another war would ever be fought, or another stomach ever hungry.

So, I’m leaving tomorrow morning early, to experience that again. All of you enjoy your holiday weekends, and I will see you again on Tuesday.

We have our stories: punching out the frat guy on a delivery to Benji’s house, the burn stripe on our biceps, swapping sammich’s for pizzas, finding Derek sleeping in the storage room after a bender, farting on Joey’s leg, rock band karaoke Christmas, countless delivery stories, so on, so forth.

Enter Kelly Hake and her love for all things gypsy–which naturally includes Gogol Bordello.

We had figured out how to hack our Muzak player to play our own CDs. Anyone who has ever worked in a store that plays Muzak CDs knows how beneficial this hack can be.

Four in the morning. We’ve gotten the last of the drunks their sandwiches, and we’re locking the doors and grabbing brooms. We’ve had some drinks ourselves; on top of figuring out the Muzack, we also figured out that you can fit a beer with ice to keep it cool in a 32 oz. drink cup and drink it with a straw without any customers knowing the wiser. It made the shifts go by a little easier.

And now, Hake had put Gogol Bordello in and cranked it. Something about whisking around Jimmy John’s at 4 in the morning with a broom, and half-drunkenly shouting out loud to, “Start wearing purple, wearing purple! La da dada daaa!” just fits when you’ve the right people on shift.

It’s almost strange to remember those times, even fondly remember them. The old crew has scattered now–Derek, Benji, Kelly, Joey, Erick, Josh, Skinhead Joe, Louis, and all the others–have mostly gone their separate ways. A few people linger on, but I’ve heard it’s not the same, and I suppose that happens often enough. Hey-days come and go, and I at least know that should this economy bump me out of my cubical, I can still quickly recite what goes on a No. 9, Italian Night Club. Any JJ’s manager would hire me on the spot, right?

-christopher earl.

To pass the time in my cube, I listen to music next to constantly. Currently, my iTunes says that I’ve 15.9 days worth of music on here. I know that’s chump change compared to some iTunes libraries, but for me, it’s been sufficient to pass the now over 2 years that I’ve worked at my job as a technical writer.

Often times, as I work, the music just gets me by, white noise–a subconscious way to judge the minutes passing–averaging about 3.5 minutes per song, a typical work day is 137 songs, give or take depending on whether I’m listening to a lot of The Locust or Godspeed on any particular day.

It’s always refreshing though, those days when a song jumps out at me, comes out of the white noise and takes on color. It happened recently, last Monday, or maybe it was a Thursday, maybe today. That’s what the cubical life can do to you. Your days become something homogenous.

And no offense to Bonnie Prince Billy, but his mournful howl had simply been subsumed by the ambience of chittery keyboards and the white noise machines in the ceilings. It wasn’t until my iTunes had gone on a few songs past ol’ Billy, that I noticed the tightness of a smile on my face, the lightness of a foot tapping. I Alt+Tab’ed to my iTunes to see what I was listening to (I tend to somehow acquire music without knowing, or forget that I’ve acquired it at some point, giving way to these wonderful surprises).

I had evidently been ambushed by the song“Evacuate” by The Boxer Rebellion. It came out of nowhere, and as my friend Josh said later, the whole album is kind of unassuming in that way. You might not even be aware that you’re listening to it, and then suddenly, you take note, you realize that something beautiful is tapping against your ear drum, resonating in your inner ear, getting you through the day.

The idea is that a group of friends (all music enthusiasts and passionate lovers of sound) contribute little articles about songs that sum up their day, thus providing the greater internet community with a list of really sweet tunes! It’s also wonderous because it allows us, as friends, to collaborate! And collaboration is much more fun than just calling each other and summing up our typically boring days. 

And so a blog is born!

Thank you for your readership, and hopefully we can refer you to some really great songs.