Radiohead – The Bends: Not really a fan on this album, but this appeared on a show from the OK Computer tour which was the shining moment for me and my Radiohead interest.
The Crystal Method – Blowout: Bounce bounce bounce.
Merzbow – Black Brain of Piranese: Noise noise noise.
Tom Waits – Yesterday Is Here: Great song to slow things down a bit.
Mike Watt – Baby-Cradling-Tree-Man: Where every song is named after a hyphenated man of some type.
The Fiery Furnaces – Chief Inspector Blancheflower: Crazy fast tune from the live Remember album.
Subtle – F.K.O.: Weird sounds and great beats make Subtle one of my favorite finds in recent years.
Stereolab – Jenny Ondioline: Courtesy of the NYC Tapers, a great tune to close out a set of the show they recorded in 2008.
The Residents – In The Dark: A spoken word to typically strange music building on a theme from The Voice of Midnight.
Deerhoof – Dream Wanderer’s Tune: Quiet song from the oft wacky Milk Man.
Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey – She Was the One: The dB’s front men with a great acoustic track from Mavericks.
Amon Tobin – Verbal: Visiting the standby bouncy.
Merzbow – 第一曲: Translated as “First Song” from the 14th bonus disk from the 13 Japanese Birds set, this will be loud and crazy for some time.
My Bloody Valentine – Blown a Wish: Following 16+ minutes of Merzbow craziness, MBV sounds positively calm in comparison.
Pigalle – Dans Les Prisons: The French punkers who the iPod seems to really like for the Random Eight picks.
The Replacements – Back to Back: From the poppy and less popular Don’t Tell a Soul, I think I’m a diehard who just likes all eras of The Replacements.
The Replacements – Answering Machine: God’s favorite band with a classic, albeit outdated tune.
The Soft Boys – Dreams: The Robyn Hitchcock-led band with a fun, fairly manic song.
Paul Westerberg – Whole Wide World: Random Eight in a very old indie mood today.
Alpha – With: Upbeat yet mellow track from a band who I always find very compelling.
Spiritualized – Electricity: At their crazy best from the famous Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Spacerelease.
Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice – Cobra Christ of the Cabbages: Time to get psychedelic.
Kronos Quartet – Barber: Adagio For Strings, Op. 11: From Winter Was Hard, this Samuel Barber composition is a haunting tune on a collection that features renditions of songs from John Zorn, Astor Piazzolla, and Terry Riley.
Dreadnots – Death Drop: Pittsburgh’s trippy, samplin’, electro, and hoppy group with a typically interesting collection of beats and noise.
Atari Teenage Riot – The Future of War: Sounds like it will be loud and fast.
Boredoms – Domsbore: A screamy tracks from one of the WOW e.p. releases.
The Crystal Method – The Winner: I like the path this Random Eight is taking today.
Yo La Tengo – Gates of Steel: Great cover from a web-freebie.
The Residents – Final Confrontation: Wackiness from the live Mole Show.
Lou Reed – Goodbye Mass: From the stunning, albeit not very cheerful, Magic and Loss album.
Skinny Puppy – Hardset Head: Fast beat from my favorite album from the puppy, The Process.
The Replacements – Sadly Beautiful: Soft way to end a rather noisy Random Eight.
The Replacements – Black Diamond: Easily my favorite Kiss cover.
Carnival Art – Itchy Little House: Creepy little song from the Michael Petak-led band.
Dalek – In This City (Deadverse Remix): From the Deadverse Massive Vol. 1: Dälek Rarities 1999-2006 release, a very slow, mellow tune…words I don’t typically associate with Dalek.
Bob Geldof – Big Romantic Stuff: At a phase where Geldof was trying to inflict all his music with his Irish roots…with kinda odd results.
Sonic Youth – Heather Angel: Haunting and weird track from the equally described A Thousand Leaves.
Merzbow – Untitled: From CD 6 of the Merzbox, a lengthy track focused more on odd sounding loops and bursts of sounds than the heavy noise art he has progressed to over the years.
Stan Richardson – Shin Kyorei: Another near 20-minute long tune, this one a quiet Asian-influenced track.
The Kinks – Big Black Smoke: That classic Kinks goofiness.
Now that winter has set in and the air is chilled, even in the critter room, Mousy has taken to making a nest and burying himself in it.
The nest is made from shredded toilet paper tubes. We provide the tubes, Mousy provides the shredding.
I’ve worked out a pretty good system of litter for the cage base that allows me to go a while between cleanings. Unfortunately, there is no way to clean the habitat without destroying the nest, so I try to do this as little as possible while still maintaining a cleanly home. Of course, when I do destroy it, I simply give Mousy a few new tubes, and back to work he goes.
Fair to say, Mousy has plumped up since the cold weather came in. If he isn’t hiding food around the cage, then he is devouring it in record time. It is great to give him cashews; he sniffs the air, runs to the bowl, takes one, runs to the back of the cage, eats it very quickly, then grabs another, runs and hides the new nut, and repeats the process until all nuts are gone.
Yep, getting to be a fat Mousy.
I took this shot about a two months ago. It was one lingering wildflower in a field where all others had withered away weeks earlier.
After a heavy frost a few weeks later (we had a remarkably warm autumn, delaying frost well into December), there were of course no signs of flowers, or even green, anywhere. It always amazes me just how desolate our trails look once all the weeds, leaves, and vegetation are gone. One can’t help but think the life will never return.
Nevertheless, this view is only 2.5 months away.
Genesis – The Colony of Slipperman: We seem to be on a bi-weekly creaky prog trend with the Random Eight.
Caribou Vibration Ensemble – ATP 2009: A live track from Caribou’s collection of musicians turning his electronic act into a crazed collection of drums, guitars, horns, and other sounds.
Jay Reatard – I See You Standing There: Fast punk!
The Beatles – Long, Long, Long: Psychedelic Beatles.
The Paper Chase – We Have Ways to Make You Talk (The Human Condition): The closing track to the fantastic Someday This Could All Be Yours.
Dreadnots – Ragnarock-steady: Pittsburgh’s favorite band.
Snowpony – Siamese Fighting Fish: Great song from the 90′s band that never quite rose as high as I thought they would.
Crainium – A New Music For A New Kitchen. Or, (How I Raised Myself Up From The Dead and You Can Too!): I don’t like songs that make me type so much in the morning.
Being unseasonably warm, I took a little walk through the trail that typically results in dozens of insect photographs that find their way to this blog.
Of course, insects aren’t terribly active in January. At best, I find a spider scurrying about, probably also looking for insects. Mostly, I just have to settle for enjoying a walk that is remarkably shorter than my normal jaunts and results in me not coming home covered in mud. There’s a plus side to everything, I suppose.
Winter serves as a nice refresh from the camera. While I enjoy snapping pictures as much as possible, the few months off before the bluebells populate the woods in April and the arthropods that soon follow does provide both a break and a realization of how much I enjoy the hobby.
So, for now, enjoy this vegetable-bearing, disproportionate Christmas decoration.
Zero Zero Three
Stray
