Appendix Out - Many Legged-Boatmen: An album full of sad Scottish ballads from Alasdair Roberts, a folky start to the random eight.

Built to Spill - Kicked it in the Sun: This band had quite the dedicated following in the late 90's, and I think it still pulls out a rusty release and tour every few years. They were notable for playing 8 minute indie/progressing hybrids which seemed to appeal to, not repel, fans of both genres. From Perfect From Now On, I think this was the band at their pinnacle; they never quite captured me after this recording.

Rasputina - Howard Hughes: A three-cellist, one-drummer band that is notable for dark songs about history and general nuttiness. Howard Hughes is an unflattering three-minute biography in one of the faster, distortion heavy songs from the Thanks for the Ether first release from the band.

Sebadoh - Mystery Man: Sensing a late 90's indie trend today from the iPod.

Deerhoof - Queen of the Mole People: Oh, that isn't the stupid song title I've ever wrote about. In other news, Deerhoof's latest Offend Maggie, is very good.

Bill Callahan - Sycamore: I (legally) downloaded this sample track from Callahan's Woke on a Whaleheart at about the point where I finally lost interest in his latest releases. It is pretty decent, but more mellow and straight-forward than the older Smog releases I enjoy.

Knut & Lucas Tamarit/Julien Sauser - Whacked Out (un espirit sain dans un corps sain remix): From an album of remixes, Knut shows that a loud "sound like a bear" band can display a depth of music beyond loud drums and guitars. This is a pretty unique track, degrading into chaotic disarray yet very accessible.

Tom Waits - Tom Traubert's Blues: A sad piano ballad, this is one of Tom's most famous songs (relatively speaking) from the Small Change album. Funny to say (relatively speaking) that a fight broke out in the audience during this quiet tune when we saw Tom in Akron a few years back.

There's a great commercial advertising the cable package "Center Ice" which enables hockey fans to tune into virtually every televised game through a digital cable feed. It starts by showing a man building something unrecognizable in his garage. After a few seconds, it is revealed that he is building a replica "front seat" of a hockey arena; there is plexiglass in front of him and wooden boards that stand about four feet off the ground. It is framed and painted as if it were a hockey venue, and through the plexiglass the man places his television where he watches a game as if he is at the arena.

The inference is that this man is a Pittsburgh Penguins fan living somewhere other than Pittsburgh, but he can watch the out-of-market game as if he were right in the Steel City. The last half of the commercial displays the man cheering for Crosby and the Pens. His neighbor looks curiously at the house that boasts screams for no apparent reason. Finally, the man is so overjoyed that the Pens did something favorable that he stands up to high-five all his hockey-watching friends.

And that's the rub. He is all alone in his living room. No hockey friends. Anywhere.

Minus the yelling (usually) and the home-made hockey rink (probably because I had never thought of it), that man is me. A friendless US hockey fan. On average of 1 living every 274 miles in the county, we hockey fans religiously watch our sport, enjoying the action and relishing in the history of the great game.

And once a year, every non-Winter Olympic year, we are treated to the spectacle of the All Star game, which was this past weekend.

The skills competition was first, conducted deep in the heart of Saturday night when all hockey fans are, of course, home glued in front of their television sets. Every year the NHL maintains a few competitions while trying a few new ideas to keep the 150 minutes from seeming like a month of hard time. It always starts off slow; this year, the "fastest skater" competition allowed us to watch guys skate around in circles to see who could do it the fastest. Unfortunately, the digital clocks didn't work, so we had to take the word of the referee's who were using manual stop watches as to determine the winner.

Yes, ours is a game that hasn't quite mastered the digital capturing of time.

The second event was the ever silly Breakaway Challenge. Started last year, the goal was to mimic the NBA Slam Dunk contest by having the goofiest shot be awarded with the win. Our local Alex Ovechkin got a taste of stardom last year with a win, and went all out with goofy props to match his happy grin to win the event for the second year in a row. I'm sure he is already dreaming of next year's opportunity.

The third was the young stars game where rookies played against second year talents. The game is played four-on-four with no clock stoppages, so the kids just run around as if they are on a local pond making too many passes and taking goofy shots. For years, the game has gained a lot of criticism for not being taken seriously by the players, but it is hardly a serious game to the point where even the network is likely to show somebody sitting on the bench or a famous person in the crowd before they show the playing. Still, it is a nice opportunity for some younger talented guys to have some fun in a pressure-free stage, something a lot of 19-22 year old kids don't get the chance to do much in the league.

The second half of the competition became more interesting. Zdeno Chara smashed the hardest shot record by hitting the puck 105.4 mph (I believe the radar gun was working; they didn't rely on the refs to time the shots from stick to net and do the mathematics to calculate the speed). I think the hardest shot event just goes to show how crazy a person must be to want to be a goalie.

Lots of players smashed styrofoam plates with McDonald's logos on them to shine in the Accuracy shooting contest, with Evgeni Malkin winning the tiebreaker of Dany Heatley. Finally, an oddly exciting Elimination Shootout event ended the night with an unheralded Shane Doan passing more pucks by the goalies (who should equate getting voted for the All Star game to something like getting voted to go to Hell for the weekend).

Typically, the skills competition outshines the actual All Star game the following afternoon. Most guys skate cautiously both attempting to avoid injury in a meaningless game while also refusing to make contact with another player as to tarnish the spirit of the exhibition. The best thing a fan can hope for is a tie near the end of the game which brings out the competitive nature in the players and produces 5 minutes of solid hockey. We got that on Sunday including a fantastic sliding save by Tim Thomas and an eventual shootout win clinched by Ovechkin.

Celebrating 100 years of hockey, Montreal hosted the game with substantial fanfare. Reports stated that folks were actually scalping tickets to the game which is generally unheard of for the fluff event. But Canada loves their hockey, and after attending a Montreal game last year while on vacation in Quebec, I can truly say that I've never been to a more exciting atmosphere than watching the hockey fans root for their sport. I can also say that the team knows how to put on a show; hockey's true differentiator is the history it has been able to hold onto and Montreal did a fantastic job showing off the young stars while recognizing its legacy players with constant acknowledgments and call outs. Hopefully the league can stay healthy; with a boatload of young, talented players who were represented at the weekend events, now is a very exciting time to be a hockey fan.

Okay, intermission is over. Back to my homemade rinkside seat...

I'm starting to enjoy some of these. I'm open to feedback if anybody has comments.

Pixies - There Goes My Gun: The Pixies are a band that I just kinda like, never too much, never too little. Some songs jump out at me (Debaser, Wave of Mutilation, Gigantic), but most just kinda fade into the background.

The Books - Don't Even Sing About It: Another from The Lemon of Pink, another quietly odd mix of instruments and samples.

Mission of Burma - Dirt: From the live Horrible Truth about Burma release.

Kid Koala - Stompin' at Le Savoy: Standard bouncy DJ-ish music.

Red Krayola - Greasy Street: Fun, weird, funky mix of goo.

Smog - Sleepy Joe: Again from Wild Love, my favorite Smog release.

Thuja - Track 7: From The Deer Lay Down Their Bones, a quiet, string-based track that grows in volume and intensity, from ambient to crazy.

Lou Barlow - Blue Sunshine: Early recording from the eventual Sebadoh front man; these releases are fun in their history as anybody these days putting out demos on noisy 4-track recorders (if that) would be shunned in the advanced relative ease of the home digital recording world. Like many of these releases, this is a pretty decent track as a precursor to the punky Sebadoh days.

The last collection for a while.

We set up a web cam via UStream a few weeks ago. It points at a couple chairs we have sitting by a window that overlooks our deck. The deck is usually stocked with bird seed and peanuts; the birds seed and peanuts usually fall victim to birds and squirrels (not necessarily in that order).

Kitty TV is, by all appearances, very entertaining.

Under the microscope, that is.

Tchaikovsky - Dance of the Reeds (from The Nutcracker): "Hey, sucker," said the iPod, "I bet you wish it was still the holidays...I bet it must really stink having to go to work everyday, not having any parties to go to, and having just an endless winter ahead of you. Well, don't mind me, I'm just going to play music all day."

Material Issue - International Pop Overthrow: Although one could make the argument that it all sounds the same, I'm not sure Material Issue ever found quite the same energy from IPO, their first full length CD. This is certainly more fun than the later tracks the iPod has chosen lately.

Howard Hello - Way to Go: Another novel track from this peculiar band; they seem to be wanting to end an indie-movie with this positive, fading track.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan / Michael Brook - Longing: A fairly ambient track from the collaboration using Ali Khan's voice as an accompanying instrument.

Carter USM - Prince in a Pauper's Grave: A non-bouncy, near thoughtful song from Carter that sounds suspiciously like a John Waters song about the end of the world or similar delightful situation.

Genesis - White Mountain: From Trespass, the first "we're a creepy prog band" album from these dinosaurs, with Peter Gabriel reciting a story about an one-eye fox or some such thing. It is probably the weakest song on Trespass which, released within a few years of when I was born, still brings me a lot of enjoyment to listen to.

Flaming Lips - Unconsciously Screamin': Crazy song from the equally nuts In a Priest Driven Ambulance album.

Sonic Youth - Hoarfrost: A Thousand Leaves is certainly a release that takes some listening to in order to appreciate. I saw SY tour with this album before I had actually heard it, and I went home confused as to whether or not I had actually even seen Sonic Youth; the show was so dismal and static that I might have even fallen asleep through it. I bought the CD and promptly stored it away, not liking it at all. But lately, I've been giving it a number of listens and find myself growing fond of it, especially the lenghty "Snare, Girl" near the end. I guess ten years is a reasonable amount of time to have a recording grow on you.

At 50x

At 50x

It has been a little while since I visited my peanut butter jar ecosystems sitting in the upstairs window. I suspect the cold of winter has diminished the quantity of life, but the morning sunlight is still keeping some of the population thriving.

Mats Sundin returned from his hockey hiatus to join the Vancouver Canucks, with his first game occurring in Edmonton, on Wednesday night. For folks like me who follow hockey, this has been a lingering story since last summer and frankly, has grown exceptionally dull as Sundin dragged out a decision for who he was going to play with seemingly forever. Appropriately, the Vancouver / Edmonton game was the only late game on the NHL Center Ice cable package on Wednesday. As the coverage of his first game started, including the display of signs belching insults from Edmonton fans regarding Sundin's decision to take a big payday in Western Canada, I decided to scan the cable guide to find something to watch that might not be as much of a circus.

Man, did I succeed.

The brief description of Subject Two on the cable guide sounded a bit like Reanimator, stating a doctor tortures a man by repeatedly killing him and bringing him back to life. But in contrast to the eerie premise, a peaceful setting in the beautiful, isolated mountains of Aspen fills the opening moments, and two characters surrounded by snow, trees, and mountains in a quaint cabin provide calmness despite the foreboding plot to come. Of course, being alone in the middle of nowhere is a pretty obvious place to set a horror movie, but the execution is quite subtle and allows the characters to steal the drama from the surroundings.

The advertised resurrections start early and occur often; the acts themselves aren't overly graphic, but the creepiness behind the motivation of each action is remarkable. For 90 minutes, the characters develop through the extreme circumstances, with each flaw magnified and exploited.

This is one of the finest low (or, no) budget movies I've seen in a great while; unpretentious and very unusual with engaging storytelling. Having the freedom of a film developed by a small group of people without investor or other interference, photographic and musical artistry is abundant but not overdone, simply adding to the haunting tone. The website promoting the film discusses some of the intriguing stories behind the creation which are oddly fitting given the content. It falls into the "what did I just stumble on" category for me; one of those happy finds that keeps me subscribing to the movie channels.

Material Issue - London Girl: Not much more to add about this band than what I said a few weeks ago. If you like bouncy, mindless pop music, then you can do much worse for yourself than these guys.

Pigface - Methylated: A New High in Low is my favorite incarnation of Pigface, using Meg Lee Chin to accompany beats somewhere between rock and industrial.

Beequeen - On the Road to Everywhere: A psychedelic rambling of tunes and noise.

Butthole Surfers - Hey: The surfers put up a bunch of live recordings on their website, probably ripped from bootlegs they captured over the years. They vary in quality, and I'm not sure a live recording really captures how crazy this band can be. But these are much more raw than the studio releases and worth giving a listen to if you are a fan.

Talking Heads - Love - Building on Fire: Another live recording that makes me like songs I generally don't care much about on the original releases.

The Books - Take Time: From The Lemon of Pink, this is probably the most catchy tune from the album...if you can call their music catchy.

Hum - Mr. Lazarus: 90's - indie'ish rock at its best, right down to the egotistical collapse of a good band in its prime. Although people tend to like You'd Prefer an Astronaut, I think Downward is Heavenward, from which this song comes from, is stronger.

Cheer Accident - Dismantling the Berlin Waltz: Enduring the American Dream was the first CD I bought from this band and it remains my favorite nearly 10 years later. They've been labeled everything from progressive to alternative to experimental; I'm not sure I hear the prog in their songs but the label gets them invited to progfests, so it probably isn't a bad thing. I'd call it wacky music with a good piano used throughout; to me, you can never go wrong with a good piano.