Aubade: Your personal musical enthusiast

Ok, here's the deal: Everything fell apart in terms of me organizing my music in 2009. I was able to keep up with the Quarterly Reports while I was listening to song-based music exclusively, but sometime around the end of 2008 I began really digging on droney, repetitive instrumental music, which, cool, but I was having a really hard time integrating it with the "shuffle" function on my iPod. Sorting through tunes for this year's christmas mixtape, I unearthed this playlist: 80 minutes of randomness I had been digging on in 2009 when I gave up trying to make sense of it all. It doesn't hold together, but there's some stuff here. Enjoy. Cutting Heads - Jerry Leger & The Situation Let's Kill Ourselves - The Ponys The Way We Lived (featuring Sharon Jones) - Wax Tailor Honey Child What Can I Do - Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan Robots - Dan Mangan No Sound - The Magic Hallelujah - The Helio Sequence Staggolee - Pacific Gas & Electric Sunlight - Tune-Yards The Age of Anxiety - Virgin Islands Born Under a Bad Sign - Moneybrother Armistice - Phoenix Love Has Left The Room - A Camp The Very Best Of Neil Diamond - Super Furry Animals Dali - Finn Riggins, ( ) The Great Unknown - Frankel Childish Things - James McMurtry Burial Sounds - The Phantom Band Sin Eater - The Legendary Shack Shakers Strange Birds (Alternate Version) - The Constantines

I kind of gave up on "alt-country" in the late 90s, when the tidal wave of anonymous twangy college kids moaning about their tribulations as dirt farmers got too much to wade through. Now that the old preoccupation with 'authenticity' is out the window and it's all but openly acknowledged to be pretty much all about the performance of one kind of fiction or another, there are a lot of artists indiscriminately pulling together influences from the worlds of rock, folk, blues & country in some interesting ways. Here are some bits & bobs that have caught my ear for one reason or another: not all great songs, not all great performances, but all with some appeal. Enjoy. Everybody Lets Me Down • Ad Astra Per Aspera Genevieve • Proof of Ghosts Big Iron • Jon Rauhouse Lazy Suicide • Megafaun Good Living • Supersuckers Life Of A Fool • Paul Burch Blue Chimneys • Jerry Leger & The Situation Everything I Say • Vic Chesnutt Preach • Tom Thumb And The Latter Day Saints I'll Never Drown • Tim Fite Martha Ann • David Karsten Daniels Tear Down the House • The Avett Brothers Packing Blankets (Live 2005) • Eels New Virginia • The Lonely Hearts When It Rains • Bruce Robison Small Town Murder Scene • FemBots

A collection of choons that venture outside simple guitar-bass-drums instrumentation -- sometimes just with a few other instruments for texture, sometimes dispensing with the formula completely. It turns out Jay Crocker made it onto this playlist twice, but I decided to keep him because a) they're both great songs, b) they have awesomely different textures, c) they're from different albums, and d) I included both Beirut and Andrew Bird, and they're, like, the same dude vocally anyhow. Next up: upstart roots. 1. River of Orchids • XTC 2. Hooray For Tuesday • The Minders 3. Ring Them Bells • Sufjan Stevens 4. Plasticities • Andrew Bird 5. A Sleepy Company • The Olivia Tremor Control 6. Surging Revival • Cuff the Duke 7. Finch on Sunday • Horse Feathers 8. Somewhere Between Good and Evil • Jay Crocker 9. Elephant Gun • Beirut 10. Fingers to Fist • BIG A little a 11. Escape From New York • Chris Mills 12. Robot Clothes • Jay Crocker 13. Starling • La Strada

Now to conclude, with Part II of the year-end/new year's mixtape. Designed to be enjoyed back-to-back with Part I: Chwrw Nid Llaeth but 40% less salty on its own. 1. Three More Springs Ghostkeeper 2. Don't You Evah (Ted Leo's I Want It Hotter Remix) Spoon 3. Download Super Furry Animals 4. Genius Warren Zevon 5. Love Is Like A Bottle Of Gin The Magnetic Fields 6. Impossible Germany (live at Troutdale) Wilco 7. My Only Offer Mates of State 8. See My Friends (live) Richard Thompson 9. Mistress And Maid (demo) Elvis Costello 10. The State I Am In (BBC Version) Belle and Sebastian 11. These Days Nico 12. Gamblin' Man Gillian Welch 13. Glory, Glory Speeches from Don't Look Now Kenneth Patchen

*FIXED* Good afternoon to you all. Here is volume 1 of the annual year-end/new year mixtape. Enjoy! 1. King Of Carrot Flowers Part 1 Neutral Milk Hotel 2. Pam Berry The Shins 3. Changing The Moondoggies 4. God's Gonna Cut You Down Johnny Cash 5. The Candle And The Flame fIREHOSE 6. Bleeding Powers Ted Leo & the Pharmacists 7. Get Up Jake (Outtake­ - Stereo Mix) The Band 8. Rosalie Alejandro Escovedo 9. Abandoned Love Bob Dylan 10. Fifty Years After The Fair Aimee Mann 11. More Axe Bob Marley & The Wailers 12. All These Governors The Evens 13. More Is More Komeda 14. Working To Work Field Music 15. Kicker of Elves Guided By Voices 16. Listen To The Band The Monkees 17. Gwn Mi Wn Gruff Rhys 18. Tiny Spark Brendan Benson 19. My Old Jacknife Ladyhawk 20. End Of Part One The Violet Archers

A selection of more-or-less-recent songs that run the gamut from high-larious to mildly amusing to baffling, while staying well this side of Flight of the Conchords (sometimes father this side than others; Dan Bern's selection far this side, Corb Lund's edging near the line). Maybe if this episode is well received I'll pull out a list of classic-yet-funny tunes, starting with John Prine's "Lake Marie." Something I like about this mix is its variety: there's some absurdity, some pointed commentary, some good ol' goofy fun. And, in the case of track 9, some friendly advice. Just goes to show you can use humour for many purposes, like a hammer. Sometimes I use it to drive nails, sometimes to open cans of Alfa-ghetti. Dinner's at my place tonight! [WARNING: NOT SAFE FOR WORK OR CHILDREN. OR MUCH OF ANYTHING.) Track listing: 1. TV On the Radio - Robots 2. Super Furry Animals - Golden Retriever 3. Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - Poodle Rockin' 4. The Evaporators - Half Empty Halls 5. Dengue Fever - Sober Driver 6. Todd Snider - Vinyl Records 7. McEnroe & Birdapres - Nothing is Cool 8. Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings feat. Lee Fields - Stranded In Your Love 9. The Wet Secrets - Grow Your Own Fucking Moustache, Asshole 10. The Golden Dogs - Construction Worker 11. Belle & Sebastian - Meat & Potatoes 12. Dan Bern - God Said No 13. Nellie McKay - Mother of Pearl 14. Corb Lund - Family Reunion 15. David Bazan - Selling Advertising 16. Andy Partridge - Put it On Again