Atoms for Peace - Thom Yorke - Eraser - 2006

Saturday evening I took a trip up to Cityfield for the annual visit of the Cincinnati Mets. I met up with my friends around the Penn Station area for some pre-gaming before the first pitch. The problem with this plan is that the Penn Station area ("The Fashion District") is not really a friendly place for my type of bar. The whole zone is covered with tourist traps, fratty sports bars, and faux-Irish pubs that are usually filled with the spill over of Tourists and fratty sports fans. So, it seemed like a totally great idea to go to Deno's Party House and Bikini Bar.

The logic was, ok we amuse ourselves by going into a shitty dive bar where the bar tenders are all FOB russian girls in bikinis...sounds like a win-win situation, right? The problem here is this...we aren't usually the kind of guys to go these bars. Now I don't mean that in a "We're too classy to go here" kind of way, but rather...single men go to bars to meet women, attached men go to bars to NOT HAVE TO TALK TO WOMEN. If we wanted to talk to women, we'd stay home, where we get plenty of that.

We sat at the mostly empty bar (it was only 5 in the evening on a Saturday) and ordered our beers only to have our every attempt at having a conversation interrupted by one of the two (or both) bartenders attempting to "flirt" with us. We tried to make it clear that we really just wanted to drink and talk amongst ourselves, but that didn't really work. At one point, the smarter of the two asked us our names and my buddy introduced himself as "Terd Fergeson" (classy as always, Anand)...this resulted in me laughing uncontrollably. Unfortunately our bikini clad bartender took this as me laughing at my friend's odd name and tried to console him and tell him that it was a very manly name...which resulted in me laughing further. Finally we just had to put down our beers and head for another bar.

Atoms for peace is one of the more underwhelming songs on Yorke's underwhelming solo album. Like much of the album, it's not bad...but, so what?

Atomic - Blondie - Eat to the Beat - 1979

So the other night I was out with my buddy Anand and we ended up in some wine bar on the outskirts of Soho/Tribecca. In our quest to find new bars, we had intended to close out our evening at City Winery on Varrick, only to discover that there was some sort of show going on that you had to have tickets for to even come into the bar. Having decided to close out the evening with wine, we ended up going into this hole in the wall place.

It was quiet and tasteful seeming, with oak book shelves and a jazz tro playing in the corner. The forty something, librarian-ish hostess spotted us and took an almost immediate dislike to us. It's probable that she assumed that we were wasted (correctly) and that we might cause a scene. Little did she know that we were trained professional drunks with ninja-like skills at keeping it together. She was condescending from the get go, trying to usher us into a back corner.

Once we were seated, we ordered a couple of glasses of wine and a meat and cheese plate and got on the business of planning our next adventure. A youngish waitress brought out our glasses of wine, and promptly proceeded to dump both glasses on me. Now I wasn't dressed terribly well, and it was Rose, so it wasn't really a big deal...but still...

Anand and I both looked at each other to confirm that niether one of our drunk assess had been responsible for the accident. The condescending hostess zoomed over to wipe down the table and move us to another one, her condescention now tempered by the knowledge that her staff had fucked up...but still present. Our wine, was of course on the house. The waitress who had spilled on me refused to look at either us, or her boss for the rest of the night...spending the following half an hour furiously scrubbing the espresso machine.

As we wrapped up, the hostess came around to give us our check and asked what had made us come into her place. Anand told her that we liked to wander from neighborhood to neighborhood and check out different bars.

You could see the lightbulb go off in her head...she thought we were restaurant reviewers...and she realized that her waitress had probably shot the review in the foot. It was totally amazing the speed with which that condescention turned to obsequeisness. Our remaining five minutes in the bar were filled with ass kissing on a level I've rarely experienced. We quietly left, tipping well, and letting her stew in the fear that she'd shot her business in the foot.

I'm just barely old enough to remember the time when Heart of Glass was a hit. To me, Blondie were always that band. It was only as I got older that I discovered that there was a much more interesting band behind the hits. Atomic, with it's Spaghetti Western Guitar, disco drums and typically haunting vocals show a band with much more going for it than you'd think.

At The Feast - The Congos - Heart of the Congos - 1977

Antartica, the bar that has the distinction of being about ten feet from my office has a curious phenomenon they call "name night". At the begining of every month they publish a calendar with a name assigned to every day of the week (except Sundays when they are closed). If you enter the bar on the night corresponding to your name you can drink that night until 11 free of charge. Granted, there are restrictions on what you can have...but still, it's free booze...and free booze served by very attractive and friendly ladies...so you can hardly turn that down.

So, I'm sure you've gathered by now that last night was Josh night, and honestly I have to say that I pulled it off with some aplomb. 3 Pints of Vodka and Soda, 1 Pint Rum and Coke, 2 vodka shots and 2 Stellas....all in all a good showing and with very little day after nastiness. Other than a powerful thirst, I was in good shape this morning. My friend Josh also came out to take advantage of the free booze, and lost his hat...literally, but hey...in war there are always casualties.

I've never been a huge reggea person...I tend to find it monotonous, but occassionally I try. My friend Corey put the Congos on my iPod...I keep them there for historical purposes.

Asobi Masho - Asobi Seksu - Asobi Seksu - 2004

The trip was definitely beginning to take it's toll. None of use were kids anymore and 5 days of drinking, traveling, and eating fried foods was wearing us down...so we came home for a late afternoon nap.

After a brief rest, we were back up again and looking for an evening plan. We decided to check out the north west part of town and see how that went. We stopped into a bar called Leibowski's, which amusingly enough had a complete "White Russian Menu". I'm not entirely sure how one makes a variation on the White Russian, but they had a full menu. The bar itself was fairly cool, and I would have liked to have seen it on a night that wasn't Monday. It seemed like the kind of bar that wouldn't be out of place in the less stroller-centric parts of Park Slope. I got some kind of Scotch that had a name that was something about monkeys. I love monkeys. Anand got suckered into doing a shot of Southern Comfort, as the earlier bet finally came around to haunt him...as this decision would also do.

Anyway, we went to a more traditional pub to watch most of the Tottenham v Hull game, to cheer less for Hull than against Tottenham. Sadly Tottenham won with last minute goal. The bar was filled with what we'd pretty much come to consider the standard issue Glasgow bar crowd (again, we were there on a Sunday and Monday, so we were probably not entirely fair on the city) - drunk old men and drunk teenagers. The bar tender however was lovely. I'm fairly sure I announced my intention to marry her.

By the time the game was over it was nearly 10 and our dreams of steak dinner had long since been given up on. We'd all reached our breaking point and were desperately seeking vegetables. We found an Indian restaurant and headed...they were closing in 20 minutes but that wouldn't be a problem as we were not the linger at the table type. We wolfed down our (quite tasty) vegetables quickly and were back out into the night air relatively quickly.

But we were all too full and to drink anymore and Anand was starting to feel queasy from the shot of SoCo on his stomach. You see Anand and I have very different ideas about vomiting. Me, I fight it off tooth and nail...I hate doing and will keep down absurd amounts of booze and spend hours waiting for the spins to stop so I can go to sleep. If I toss, my night is over. I won't drink again, sometimes for days....once for months. Anand on the other hand, will simply say "I'm going over here for a minute", throw up, and be ready to keep going.

It baffles me considerably that he considers throwing a cigarette butt out on the street is littering, but vomiting all over the sidewalk, totally fine.

Asobi Seksu is something of a bipolar band...they're NYC and Tokyo, they're My Bloody Valentine and Shonnen Knife, they're trendy with a hot Japanesse girl for a front woman, they're arty with a disdain for those that would come to see their hot lead singer, and yet they call their band the Japanesse phrase for great sex...I enjoy them when they are My Bloody Valentine, and less so when they are not. This song is one in which they are not.

Archepelago - Mirah - You Think It's Like This But Really, It's Like This - 2000

...this New Years however was something of a mixed bag. The evening started out well enough. My buddy Corey offered to host at his quite swanky and spacious Bushwick loft. My ladyfriend (who looked quite fetching that night) and I had sushi at our friend Shani's and then headed over for the festivities about 830. We helped with some of the party prep and drank some wine...the evening was going swimmingly.

Soon the guests began arriving and again, things were going well. It was a nice mix of close friends and people I'd never met. Several of my ladyfriend's Russian friends showed and turned up the excitement a bit. There was a fair bit of rowdiness, juvenile horseplay, vodka slamming, and party lesbianism...exactly what you want in a good NYE party.

Midnight came and I kissed my girl and slammed champagne and prepared to ride out the evening watching Russian girls grope each other....but then, about 130 AM, one of the party attendees had to turn into That Guy.

He'd shown up about 1130 and started pounding booze. He saw a room full of attractive girls engaging in mildly risque behavior and probably thought that 2009 was shaping up to be a GREAT year. It took him till about 130 to realize that all of those girls were going home with the guys they showed up with, and he was going home alone...that's when a tantrum of epic proportions broke out. He began going around the room, having determined that smoothness would get him nowhere, and blatantly asking women to service him...usually in this request was made in front of the target's boyfriend. When he was inevitably denied, he would respond with what I'm sure he thought of as a clever witticism "You won't suck? You suck!"

Eventually one of the boyfriends decided to do something about this and chucked a piece of ice at his head...this meant that I now had a six foot two wildly drunk and angry Latino man with a gushing head wound to deal with in a room full of suddenly surly Russians at 2 in the morning on NYE. My visions of how my evening was going to end went from pornographic to sad and annoying rather quickly.

Anytime I attempted to point out that perhaps it was time to go, I was given the response of "Listen, I am HOME...I am HOME, right here!!!" He then went on to trash the bathroom, man handle my girlfriend, and at one point stand in the middle of the room with a broom handle and stamp the ground over and over. Finally at 245, everyone was tired of his nonsense and we decided to simply call the party and show everyone the door.

We threw him in a cab, only for him to refuse to tell the driver where he lived and to hurl strings of insults at him in Spanish. My girlfriend ended up paying the cabbie $20 just to get him out of there. We both went home and crashed, our visions of ringing in the new year appropriately long forgotten and the memory of what had been a really great party forever tarnished.

Needless to say, we aren't speaking to this guy anymore.

Anyway, back to the music...I love the album this Mirah track comes from, but find this particular track a little lackluster. It takes an extra-special bit of songwriting to elevate a song that is merely voice and acoustic guitar. Archipelago isn't bad, but it's hardly strong enough to be anything but NPR/Starbucks compilation bait.

The Apt. - Times New Viking - Rip It Off - 2008

As an avid drinker and a nine year resident of the city of New York, I have complicated relationships with many bars in this city. There are the now defunct bars that I hated at the time, but romaticize in the past (The corny MC Exchange that was the bar of my Dotcom, the truly awful Village Idiot that used to sell cheap pitchers when i lived in Manhattan). There are the bars that I used to haunt but am now too old and cranky to tolerate the young clientele (Blue and Gold, Soda). The bars from my old neighborhood (Enid's, Matchless) that I don't visit so much anymore. The places I went with co-workers, the places I went to meet up before concerts, and the places I just found myself all have complex histories, but none is more convoluted than my relationship to Nevada Smith's.

I'm sure I must have talked about Smith's at some point, but for a quick recap: Smith's is a bar in the nether zone that is niether the East Village nor quite Union Square. It is uniformly dark, not especially cheap, generally smells like an arm pit, and it's owner is a cranky old asshole of the highest order. It remains the only bar I've ever been thrown out of in my entire life...but I've probably at this point clocked more hours in this bar than any other in the world.

You see, Nevada Smith's is the bar to go to, to watch English Premeire League Soccer. If my team's game isn't being shown on cable, it's basically my only option, and I am a devoted enough fan that I am willing to go to a bar at 730 AM if need be (for a 1230 kick off in London). This means that no matter how much I may hate this place, no matter how many times I've sworn that I'll never step foot in that place again...as long as EPL games aren't all on TV, I'll be forced to go (Well, "Forced").

But as I was there on Saturday to watch Arsenal beat Portsmouth, I stopped to realize how much the place had changed in the five years I had been there. When I first started attending, a heart broken young man looking for an excuse to drink in the mornings and finding it in soccer, the place was almost exclusively attended by Brits. We Americans were the intruders, the interlopers who would never really understand the sport. There were many colorful charcaters and even more colorful language. The Arsenal corner was ruled by a Frenchman named Andre who was always there and knew more profanity than the devil himself. Andre once broke his hand pounding on the bar during a frustrating match.

Gradually through the years a new type of patron began attending who was niether us nor them: NYU students looking for a place to keep an all night bender going or to kick start the day with beer. They knew the place was open at 7AM, and if the abuse of a few brits was the price to be paid then so be it...but gradually these obnoxious kids picked up the sport, and in a step me and my friends didn't even take, the culture.

I was struck by this moment on Saturday, when I realized that there was just as much singing as always in Smith's but not a single one of the singers was british. These kids had learned the songs and taken up the mantle, but had also driven their British teachers away. It was an odd moment, on one hand seeing American's embracing soccer and "football culture" was a source of pride, on the other it's sad to see the old replaced by the obnoxious new. I certainly left with my complicated relationship with Smith's even more complicated than ever.

Anyway, I get the deal with Times New Viking, they play catchy garage rock, but recorded at earbusting levels so that it seems that their engineer has no clue what they are doing. This is the same trick that has gone on since The Beatles first learned to use feedback, i.e. cover something sugary in so much noise that the listener has to dig to find the sweetness. Usually I'm a fan of this strategy, but frankly, to further put on my old man hat, I just think the sonic mess is too great...it just sounds badly recorded...and not even a "recorded in a dumpster" way that The Thermals sometimes pull, but in a "I can't hear the actual song" way that I just don't care for.

Kids these days!

Apple Tree - Wolfmother - Wolfmother - 2005

So my buddy Rance and I went out to a new-ish bar in Brooklyn and discovered quite a gem (Ok, fair credit to Rance, he went there first). But the Draft Barn is tucked away on the industrial wasteland of 3rd Ave and 12th St...which is of course becoming less of a wasteland by the day.

It's a big German style (well Austro-Hungarian actually) bar with standing tables at the front and proper booths at the back. The Russian bar tender, who I believe is also part owner, was very enthused about the place and knew his beers. In fact he knew them so well that Rance and I didn't walk out of there so much as stagger...but hey, that's why you go to a beer hall.

Also, the beer crutons are simultaneously the best and worst bar food ever invented. Old bread, dipped in beer then deep fried and covered in salt is exactly what you want to eat when you are drinking tons of beer, and damn are they addictive...however I was still full until about noon today. Also, the made-especially-for-this-restaurant sausage was fantastic.

Anyway, this is Wolfmother doing their best Sabbath impression, and as always doing it fairly well.

Anthems for the Already Defeated - Rock Plaza Central - Are We Not Horses? - 2006

So my office held a party last night, nothing too big just a few after work cocktails on a thursday, something they say will be a weekly occurance. But as always the draw was the free booze...which was restricted to beer and wine, but hey who's complaining? Anyway when we realized that all of the other guests had left, me and two of the guys I work with decided that it was our job to finish up the remaining liquor. This took us till about 1030 and involved me drinking champaigne straight from the bottle.

I won't claim that it's been a while since I've been drunk. Hell that's about all I did in Mexico, but...it's been a while since I've gotten drunk without meaning to. I thought I was just grabbing a drink or two, taking advantage of the free booze...only to be sucker punched by the evening. When I got home, I ended up eating wings and fries from the chinese place on my corner and laughing uproariously at a Daily Show episode that I can no longer tell you a thing about. And of course the morning was something of a blur. Good times.

Anyway, several bands have been herralded as the next Neutral Milk Hotel, probably The Decemberists and The Arcade Fire most notably. And while the labels weren't completely without merit they generally meant either unconventional instrumentation and quirkiness (The Decemberist) or unbridled overpowering emotionalism (Arcade Fire)...but Rock Plaza Central is the first band I've heard that just tries the approach of ACTUALLY SOUNDING LIKE the band...of course those are big shoes to fill, and these guys aren't that good...but they do alright.

Another Girl - The Beatles - Help! - 1965

So I was hanging with my friend Shani on Thursday night. We went to check out this new bar in her hood called The Richardson. Decent place, definitely knocking back the Rat Pack vibe with it's faux-loungey decor and jukebox that ends at 1962. It's the kind of place where you are going to spend $9 on an old fashioned, but the old fashioned will have real Agostino bitters and a freshly muddled cherry at the bottom.

Sadly, what Shani ensured me was a quiet bar on other nights was on that particular night swarmed with a party for Urban Outfitters, and it was at that moment that I remembered that I detest humanity. What exactly goes through people's brains that they think that working in the ad design department for a mildly trendy clothing chain in some way makes you the coolest person in the world? The level of pretention in the place was just ridiculous. Shani and I made it through about two drinks, during which time we had to shout most of our conversation, before we just grabbed her roommate and went back to her place, where the drinks were cheap, the music controlable, and the conversation could be had at a managible level.

This is the Beatles, so I'm not obligated to say anything at all. But I will say, this is the rare Beatles song that isn't simply etched into my brain. I actually don't even know the words to this one. How refreshing.

Anna Maria - Peter and the Wolf - Lightness - 2006

So, I had a bit of a drink up with my main man, Anand last night and ended up crashing at a ridiculously early hour. I woke up about 1 and was grateful to discover that my girlfriend had left a glass of water, largely untouched, on the night stand from the night before.

Now granted, this glass of water had been sitting out for more than a day...and was certainly room temperature, even if it was a cool night, but at that moment, it was the best glass of water I'd ever had. It was like I was drinking from a river in Narnia or some shit. Really, seriously...amazing glass of water.

Anyway, this is that sort of...post Oh Brother, Where Art Though, intentionally old timey sounding stuff. It's a clever gimmick...but a gimmick nonetheless.

Animal Farm - The Kinks - The Village Green Preservation Society - 1968

Last night, I met up with two of the guys I used to work with back in 2001. They are two of my best friends and I see them most weeks, so it's not like it was that rare of an event. But as we get older and our free time gets less, it is less often that the three of us hang out all together and without wives/girlfriends (in my case)/other friends present...and I think all three of us wanted a little moment. Much as we pretend to be gruff cynics...all of the reminders we got on the day couldn't help but make us think a bit about where we were 7 years ago.

At the end of a very very involved night of drinking, I split a cab back to Brooklyn with one of the two. Despite being in Alphabet City, we told the cab driver to take the battery tunnel so that we could swing down by the old site, where the twin light memorial was shining. We had lucked into a mini-van cab and it was definitely cool to lean back and look at the lights, with the moon caught between them, and think of happier times.

The Kinks knew a thing or two about Utopia...sadly, we seem further than ever from that kind of dream.

And It Rained All Night - Thom Yorke - The Eraser - 2006

The problem with German bars is that you end up drinking these giant stiens of beer. Sure, that sounds great...until you think about the physical realities of managing a one liter glass mug filled to the top with the finest Bavarian barley and hops concoction. It's not that hard for the first one, but by number three balance and coordination start going out the window...and the next thing you know you are covered in beer at your buddy's birthday party. And not in the fun way. And you almost certainly spilled beer all over some chicks purse...probably some chick you don't even know.

So for the rest of the night you're stumbling around, reeking of german brew and with some lady giving you the stink eye, cause all of her tampons and lipsticks now smell like Korstizer Schwarz Bier and her iPhone is sticky.

But on the upside, they do have those big soft pretzels to comfort you in your hour of darkness.

And speaking of hours of darkness, we got some more from Mr. Yorke. His solo record was something of a puzzler. I think many, and by many, I mean me, expected this to be a much more grandiose record. For all his griping and belly aching about how timid and confined modern "rock" music is, his solo effort was surprisingly modest and restrained. This took some adjustment. In hindsite though, I think the album is better than I initially thought. And this is one of the better songs.

Alpha and Omega - Boards of Canada - Geogaddi - 2002

I had something of hellish Saturday night. My British friend and former co-worker Pip turned 40 and we took him out for a good time. After a lovely dinner and a pleasant time at the first couple of bars things began to take a turn for the worse...

Pip, like many of his countrymen, simply doesn't have an off switch when it comes to booze. Now, I'm sure you've noticed by now that I like the occasional drink or two...but I'm rarely out of control. Pip will keep driving right into the wall. Soon it became messy...and worse still, I had volunteered to let the man crash on my couch.

Shortly after he got us thrown out of O'Connor's (A feat I never thought was possible) I had to basically carry him home down Flatbush. What would normally be a 15 minute walk became a 45 minute walk...but the true nadir came when he insisted on trying to walk himself and then almost immediately fell backwards and head first down a flight of stairs. There was honestly 5-10 seconds in which I thought he was actually dead. And I was going to have to tell his wife that his son was an orphan...it was ugly.

Fortunately Pip was a bit banged up, but otherwise fine...I had to endure a fair amount of anti-Irish sentiment, but I can take that.

Anyway, Boards of Canada making blippy music. Perfectly acceptable

All Night Home - Sparklehorse - Good Morning, Spider -1998

Wow, so after an ill advised bender with my co-workers, I was dragging my ass into work this morning (worst part about an office drink up, if you call in sick the next day, everyone will know why) on the subway. At my second stop, an entire class of 4th grade girls got on the subway car. Now, needless to say this did not do my head any good...I realize that this makes me a terrible old crumudgeon, but I desperately wanted to tell all of these kids to "shut the fuck up". I mean seriously, couldn't they have waited until after peoples morning commutes to take whatever assinine field trip they were going on? In the mornings, most of us working slobs want as close to a quiet peaceful trip on the train, and the last thing we want is 30 chatty cathy's ruining my perfectly good hangover.

So this is Sparklehorse doing their usual "old-timey sounding song, fucked with in the studio" trick. Not bad, but they have better.

All Is Full of Love - Bjork - Homogenic - 1997

So the other night I went back to the local beer gardens to celebrate our new neighborhood option for outdoor drinking. One of the girls that lives in my building came out and decided to throw out the "I can drink you under the table" challange. Now not to seem overly chauvanistic, or like a giant asshole...but there was just no way this was possible. This girl 11 years my junior, and from suburban philly was just not going to take me. Two shots of Wild Turkey and she was out of the game. This did however result in a fair amount of comedy. I tried to wrestle a bassett hound, despite not being a regular smoker I had 4 cigarettes, and then I paid our skinny-hipster-in granny glasses waitress $10 to rap for us. This is on a wednesday night mind you.

The sad thing is, this sort of thing happens to me frequently...I'm not sure why women want to try to outdrink me...and why I can't say no to the challange. Clearly I have issues.

More Bjork, being Bjork

All Fired Up - Interpol - Our Love To Admire - 2007

A couple of my guy friends and I had a bit of a marathon pub crawl on Friday night. Both the guys I was with were married so they were looking for a night of "Guy Time" and I am always down for an adventure...plus it was the one day of the year I like G.W. Bush...Economic Stimulus Package Day!!! So in my effort to stimulate the economy, there were whiskeys (and single malt scotches), there were dirty vodka martini's at the crazy Egyptian/Norwegian/Sushi place on Lafayette, there were many pitchers of beer at the new German beer hall in Williamsburg, there were quarters wasted on Rolling Thunder at Barcade, and late night hi life's at Enid's. And shockingly, I awoke hangover free. So don't say I'm not patriotic, dammit, I stimulated the economy like a Thai hooker with a wiffle ball bat and a set of jumper cables.

Anyway Interpol...It's amazing that a band can so succesfully avoid the sophomore slump, only to crash and burn in their junior effort. It's not a bad album really...and this is actually one of the better songs. They just seem to have not only failed to evolve, but to have actually regressed. Their lyrics have gone from evocatively opaque (on TOTBL) to dippy (Antics) to apparently written by a horny 15 year old with 80's rock star fantasies (do rock bands even HAVE groupies anymore?) and the music is still the same old, same old. With three years between albums, you'd think these guys could put a little effort into the creative part of their enterprise.

After the Last Laugh - Archers of Loaf - White Trash Heroes - 1998

A few words about Sake.
Sake is awesome.
That is all.

My buddy and I were talking yesterday about how White Trash Heroes is probably the Archers album that most resembles Bachman's later work with Crooked Fingers. The outro on this song, for instance, seems a pre-cursor to New Drink for the Old Drunk. Which is what I was last night. Because of the sake.

See, I brought it full circle.

Advance Cassette - Spoon - A Series of Sneaks - 1998

So, I gave new meaning to the term douchebaggery last night. In the span of one evening, I managed to crash a corporate party of a company I haven't worked for in almost a year, insult a pregnant woman, aggressively hit on an engaged woman in front of her fiance, not pay for a single drink, eat two plates of calamari, neither of which I ordered or payed for, bum two cigarettes and somehow came home with a fifth of JD in messenger bag...and on the plus side the calamari was quite tasty. Good times, good times.

Anyway, A Series of Sneaks is either the first Spoon album on which they sound like themselves, or the last one in which they were a traditional guitar band...depending on your point of view. I like that ten years later this song is already obsolete. I can see school children right now saying "what the hell is a cassette?" But I remember when you'd get that sneaky cassette copy of a bands new album before the official release...and I'd be pissed if I lost it too.

Act of the Apostle - Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit - 2006

Okay, important rule...when you go out drinking on a Tuesday night, it is absolutely imperative that you eat dinner. Not eating dinner and then throwing 4 very tasty Brooklyn Cocktails at your stomach...not the smartest decision. Needless to say, my ass is dragging today.

Yeah, I own some Belle and Sebastian. I know, I know...but I honestly love Tigermilk and I thought this album was a decent attempt at some level of reinvention by these guys (and girls).

According to Plan - I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness - Fear is on Our Side - 2006

Can I talk to you about my hang over? A buddy of mine decided to start getting serious with this girl he's been seeing, so last night was my first introduction to her. To ease the awkwardness of such situations, I decided to keep ordering carafe's of sake. At a table for 5 we went through 8 carafes. Not so bad you say? I followed it up with two martinis and two beers at my local bar.

Needless to say, I did not wake up happy...then, because God loves to taunt me, I got put on one of those subway cars that was covered in Jameson's ads. And then when I transfered to the 1 train, my car had the Jamie ads on one side and Stoli ads on the other. I spent the entire ride groaning and praying for death.

And speaking of praying for death...who does sinister titles better than these guys? Look at that band name! Look at the song title!! Wait, no, look at that album title!!! But seriously, this is a great song. Who the hell new five dudes from Austin could produce such beautifully foreboding atmospheric music?