Oy! What ya listening to there?

Tags

mp3, Music

I used to think it was really dorky to walk down the street with your iPod on. I thought those people were right tryhards. ‘Look at me with my nifty gadget. Check out how I’ve discreetly tucked the headphones under my shirt, yet still let that telltale white cord snake out over my collar. Man I’m cool.’

Perhaps it is still dorky, and perhaps it is still a real tryhard thing to do, or maybe it never was, but I’ve found myself doing it more and more lately. Sometimes it’s nice to drown out traffic and people and just go about your business with the company of a good tune. When I’ve got jobs on down the street, all the boring stuff like a trip to the bank or strolling the supermarket aisles can be made a lot more pleasant if I’m listening to Okkervil River or Hello Saferide or The Felice Brothers.

Whenever I see somebody else doing a similar thing, I often want to ask them what they’re listening to. Are they just beginning to discover the bewitching magic of Elbow?

One Day Like This – Elbow

Are they reliving a tune from their childhood?

She Drives Me Crazy – Fine Young Cannibals

Are they listening to a bluegrass cover?

Video Killed The Radio Star (The Buggles Cover) – Handsome Hank & His Lonesome Boys

Are they cruisin’ to a nightclub staple?

Yeah – Usher

Are they overdosing on the 80′s?

What I Like About You – The Romantics

Are they wishing they were born decades earlier?

Penny Lane – The Beatles

Are they channelling their inner rock chick?

Piece Of My Heart – Janis Joplin

Are they remembering their first album purchase?

Don’t Speak – No Doubt

Are they listening to somebody else’s iPod?

I Try – Macy Gray

Are they mentally playing air guitar?

Livin’ On A Prayer – Bon Jovi

Are they wondering the same thing about you?

The Honey Trees

Tags

mp3, Music

Last week I stumbled by chance upon The Honey Trees’ cover of ‘Edelweiss’ and have not been able to shake that haunting voice. Though I don’t make musical comparisons very often, after hearing some of their original stuff I can’t deny that The Honey Trees have the same feel about them as Lanterns On The Lake. Rich instrumentation and the ethereal vocals of lead singer Becky Filip combine to create gorgeous melodies that lodge in my head long after that last note has faded. Lovely stuff.

The Honey Trees are currently touring California in support of their recently released EP Wake The Earth and the best place to learn more is to visit their myspace.

To Be With You – The Honey Trees

Orchard – The Honey Trees

Scatter in the sky

Tags

mp3, Music, photos

I can’t think of a better song to go with these shots. Violin, cello, piano. Bliss.

San Solomon – Balmorhea

Balmorhea’s album All Is Wild All Is Silent is due for release March 10.

A wee little egg

Our silky chooks are small and fluffy and cute in their own right, but the eggs they produce are just gorgeous. I think a rough ratio is probably three silky eggs to one rude regular sized egg. This one, gathered fresh this morning, is probably one of the smallest we’ve seen. It’s almost too cute to eat.

A Small Good Thing – Into Flight

Into Flight are from England and in addition to producing melodic ambient pieces, they also love Sigur Ros. Go to their blog to check out what is possibly the earliest live recording of Sigur Ros performing ‘Svefn-G-Englar’ in what looks like the smallest venue ever. Lovely.

 

Sunday mission

Tags

mp3, Music, recipes

First, make these, which are seriously the best biscuits ever in the whole history of the universe. No, I’m not exaggerating.

Hyacinth’s Everything Cookies Biscuits

1 1/2 cups butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups brown sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 1/4 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/3 cups quick oats
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups granola
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
1 1/2 cups raisins
1 1/2 cups apricots

Cream butter and sugars. Add egg and vanilla. Next add flour, baking soda, and salt. Add in oatmeal and granola. Fold in pecans and other ingredients. With cookie scoop or two spoons, drop onto cookie sheet and bake at 180C (375F) for 10 minutes. Eat.

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I made about 4 dozen using this recipe, but I like my biscuits all fat and chunky so you could definitely get more outta them if you weren’t greedy like me and used your mixture in a more frugal manner. You could also halve it if you felt that 4 dozen was going a little overboard. Which you won’t once you’ve made them.

Source: The Pioneer Woman You can find a heap more recipes here, along with detailed instructions and gorgeous photos of the cooking process as well.

Then check out A Free Man’s yumbo gumbo recipe, along with explanations in the comment section of what biscuits and gravy and grits and hush puppies are, for those of us not familiar with the deep south. And if you’re like me you won’t be able to read the words ‘deep south’ without being compelled to say them several times out loud in the manner of Forrest Gump.

While you’re cooking/reading/obnoxiously imitating the accents of others, have a listen to these:

California On My Mind – Wild Light
Indie rock from New Hampshire USA. Love that harmonica. And the oooohs.

Get Your Head Around It – Headlights
More indie rockness from Illinois, USA.

Green Means Go – The Colour Wheels
Catchy poppy rock from New York.

Tried and True – Wilco
Am finally figuring out what all this Wilco fuss is about. Love the piano on this one.

Everyday – Vetiver
Quirky cute indie folk.

Meet Me By The River’s Edge – The Gaslight Anthem
These folks did some good work last year, and I’m finally getting around to checking it out. Love the vocals.

Also: in the middle of writing this post WordPress chucked a wobbly again and wouldn’t let me insert audio files in it’s usual stress-free way, so I ended up inserting some code manually. Hopefully the tracks will all work for you but if they don’t please let me know and I’ll do my best to fix ‘em up all good like for ya.

It’s possible I have a little OCD

Tags

mp3, Music

WordPress has gone all kinds of crazy today – just have a look at this comment section. What the hell is going on? The other day WordPress did some code changes and, be it coincidence or not, since then my comments have been doing weird things. Today there’s all kinds of crap going on in there, and it’s really bugging me.

I’m one of those really well adjusted people who can’t handle dodgy formatting issues. Everything has to be just so. One of my pet peeves is when MS Word randomly reformats your words, like switching to bold in the middle of typing a sentence. There’s not a lot I can do about my comment issues here since I don’t have any control over formatting stuff, but I will lodge a query with the support team after I’ve had a little wine whine.

While this is obviously not a big deal I really hate it when things don’t work, and it’s rare for me to handle these situations in a constructive way. I tend to scrunch up my face and swear and kick things and cap it all off by calling the offending object really mature names.

Stupid – The Long Winters

Dickhead – Kate Nash

Oh, and do you think it’s possible to have a little OCD? Or is that like being a little bit pregnant?

A beacon of light in a dim, dark wasteland

Tags

mp3, Music

The latest episode of the Contrast Podcast is up and this week it was all about what we liked when we were 21. For me, that was only four years ago, but I kinda had to think hard to remember what I was doing back then because quite a bit has happened since then. Either that or my memory sucks.

I was in my third year of uni back then and I was so sick of it all that I rarely went to class and I didn’t study much. I still did fairly well though thanks to this seemingly superhuman power I possessed – the ability to write plausibly good essays in short periods of time. A day or two before said essay was due, I would hole up in my room, mainline Coke (the drink, dear ones) and write for maybe four or five hours nonstop until the wretched thing was finished. Looking back now, I have no idea how I managed it!

If it wasn’t for this wonderfully useful skill I wouldn’t have been able to take part in more leisurely activities, such as the much more productive enjoyable afternoon sessions that I spent sitting outside with one of the other girls I lived with. We would drag our deckchairs out the front of the unit we lived in and we would eat watermelon and Sunnyboys (the orange ones are the best – don’t let anyone tell you any different) and listen to music on our battered old CD player. I’m not quite ready to share with you all of the dross that we listened to, but I’m not embarrassed to admit to enjoying the music of Missy Higgins, a Melbourne singer songwriter. Her first single ‘Scar’ came out in 2004, the year I was 21, and it really was a beacon in the dim, dark wasteland that the ‘popular’ Aussie music scene had become.

Scar – Missy Higgins

Steer – Missy Higgins

Boring history girl coughs up some answers

Tags

mp3, Music

Yesterday I told you all about A Free Man’s Interview 2009 project and posted my responses to Formerly Fun’s questions. Today you can read my interview of Boring History Girl as we talk music, cricket, bad footcare ads and the irritating Leisl Von Trapp.

Thanks Kitty for your entertaining responses, and also for leading me to this gorgeous version of ‘Edelweiss’. I hunted in vain through my music library to find a suitable tune to match this post and was forced to look further afield, stumbling over this beautiful rendition from The Honey Trees. Schmalz be damned – I love it!

Edelweiss (Sound Of Music Cover) – The Honey Trees

Edelweiss pic from here.

Odd Spot #11

Tags

mp3, Music

Angelina Jolie had a close call when she left Asprey ear rings worth $A2.5 million in her London hotel suite. “Staff got a frantic call from Angelina at the airport. Happily, the diamonds were found after a 90-minute hunt and promptly sent back to LA,” a hotel source said.

I think what they really mean is ‘the diamonds were found after a 90 minute interrogation of enterprising hotel staff who now find themselves stripped of their meal ticket and back out on the bread line.’

Rich Girl (Hall & Oates Cover) – Nina Simone

It’s really not that hard

Tags

mp3, Music

I sent my working visa application off a month ago and I’m still waiting. Yes, they did tell me that it might take up to eight weeks, but seriously people, it’s really not that hard.

pick up envelope from post office box.
open envelope.
peruse contents.
hit a couple of computer keys.
put response in $16.00 return envelope that applicant sent with contents.
preferably put passport in envelope also.
post back.

Can’t You Wait – Geographer

I Can’t Wait – Shearwater

Don’t Make Me Wait – Locksley