#109 - five to remember/five forgotten.

make no mistake. i've said it before & i'll say it again. i like the indie rock. i read pitchfork.com at least four times a day & am heading out to chicago for their annual festival a week from today (booyah). i trip over myself getting to friends' indie recommendations. i gush over npr's all songs considered, especially this week's edition, entitled "do record labels matter?" rather than being a study into the fading importance of large record labels, it dealt which indie labels they liked the most. much in the same way that i'm drawn to specific film directors (i.e.--jim jarmusch, hal hartley, wes anderson), i tend to prefer specific indie labels (i.e.--merge, jagjaguwar, kill rock stars) when i'm looking for new music, because i usually know what sort of quality or style i'm getting.

thus far this year, my five favorite albums are all from indie labels. each one's held serious lockdown on my daily playlists & i'm pretty sure the dude i share an office with can faithfully sing the words to at least a handful of songs from these albums by now. anyway, you should check these five out if you haven't...get ready for the gushing. here they are:

	passion pit, manners (frenchkiss) - i didn't start off as a fan of passion pit. they're from cambridge & all, so i gave their EP from last year more than a few shots, but wasn't feeling it, partially because my roommate is a DJ/electronic musician who worked on a remix of "sleepyhead" for two weeks straight & partially because lead singer michael angelakos' high-pitched voice bugged me at times. regardless, when manners (their first full-length) came out in may, i decided to give it a shot. it's head bopping dancy & revelatory & spacy & solid all the way through. i'm much more into it & it's perfect walking around the city during the summer feeling awesome music.
	white rabbits, it’s frightening (TBD records) - for a couple weeks there, this album, white rabbit's second, was my favorite. other than a few songs, i didn't really connect with the first album, but they have a sound akin to the walkmen, who i enjoy & this one's produced by britt daniel from spoon, whose music i love. the opening song, "percussion gun," is by far still my favorite album opening song of the year & the video's pretty damn good too. next step is to catch these guys live. too bad the only local date scheduled is at all points west. f all points west.
	dirty projectors, bitte orca (domino records) - as i mentioned about a month back, i HATED the dirty projectors' last album, rise above, but i'm into this new album a ton. whereas the last album was too up & down for me, this album's songs are a lot more structured & catchier. the first three songs--"cannibal resource," "temecula sunrise" & "the bride"--make up an impressive twelve minute start to the album. they're playing a show here in brooklyn next sunday, but i'll be taking in indie rock in other time zones when they do (booyah), so new york readers...go! it's free & part of the new incarnation of the annual williamsburg summer "pool parties," so if you go, you'll be instantly hip...& speaking of these "pool parties," have you seen this year's schedule? absolutely sick.
	japandroids, post nothing (unfamiliar records) - i exchange fairly frequent emails with my two high school era indie rock-loving friends, mr todd martin, who you may remember from his dealings with spotted dick & chris leduc, who you remember from his adventures with figs. one day, there was a simple email from martin that read, "i like these guys. admittedly sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom (AKA low-fi?)." that's a ringing endorsement if i've ever heard one, so i checked it out & today, still rock out to it a few times a week. i have a ticket to see these dudes at tiny pianos on saturday & am pretty much ready to got the venue now. it'll be a rare paid show for me. i used to go to concerts every week or so, but these days, my concert going's generally limited to events i don't have to pay for, so it'll be a friggin treat...& maybe i can catch them again next week out in chicago (booyah).
	st. vincent, actor (4AD) - for some reason, i ignored st. vincent's first album, marry me, which came out almost two years to the day. it got rave reviews & all, but two years ago, i guess i wasn't enchanted with the type of woman & musician that lead singer annie clark seems to represent. she's basic & unassuming on the covers of her albums, but makes music that absolutely blows me away. sometimes it's all fuzzy & rocking out. sometimes it's angelic but she's singing sad lines like, "all of my old friends aren't so friendly. all of my old haunts are now all haunting me" also, she's short/cute/artsy.  that's like the shawn trifecta. it's a lovely album. i went back & checked out the first album as well...just as good.

#109 - five to remember/five forgotten.

...time to break down the fourth wall. even this blog has outtakes. a lot of the time, i find myself taking pics of snack/drink pairs before i eat them, just in case the mood strikes me. sometimes the pair ends up working its way into a column but occasionally, i get too bored/blocked/tired/drunk/A.D.D. to produce something & after a few days, i find i've moved on. these are five pairs that have been left behind:

	snack: goldfish chocolate graham crackers drink: coors banquet i got these one night while hanging out with the infamous mike weber before a trip to the 5th ave bars. by the time i got home from later that night, my old man ass quickly passed the hell out & i never got around to documenting the evening. i kept the photo around though, figuring there was a good chance i'd partake in the same combo again soon, but a few weeks later, i ended up writing about a night hanging with mike weber anyhow, so i ditched the coors/goldfish idea altogether. it's probably for the best. if i had written about the combo, it would've been like shooting a banquet of fish in a barrel.
	snack: onyums louisiana hot sauce flavor drink: hornsby's crisp apple hard cider how could i possibly resist a snack called "onyums" that's flavored with louisiana hot sauce? i couldn't. that's the answer. they were basically the same thing as the infamous funyuns, but every time i ate one, my taste buds were all "that's hot! i gare-on-tee!" then they were flattened by a hurricane & abandoned by the government for a few days. in memory of them, i abandoned this snack/drink combo. as for the cider...um, it was a cider. it had a rhino on the front of the bottle. that was pretty cool.
	snack: grandma's homestyle fudge chocolate chip cookies drink: crayons tickled pink lemonade i picked up this combo a few days after writing meditation #91, which dealt with my artistic endeavors & began with a story about time spent my grandma's house. it was too soon after though, so i put off writing about it & eventually resigned it to the digital waste bin. the pink lemonade's all natural & made by dads, so that's cool. as for the cookie, grandma makes a pretty good cookie. i think about how excited i was when they released soft batch cookies back in the day & compare it to grandma's cookies & feel like i was being played for a sucker by those feisty keebler elves.
	snack: doritos atomic chile limon flavor shots drink: redhook copperhook do you think you can make doritos better than frito lay can? if so, you're in luck. they've come out with a line of chips--doritos flavor shots--that come with a flavor packet, so once you open the bag, you get to take out the enclosed flavor packet, sprinkle it all over the chips, seal the bag up & shake it around. the results? a ton of flavor powder stuff on the chips, but nothing that a machine can't do. the difference? the satisfaction of participatory snacking. the redhook copperhook is your basic ale, with a color reminiscent of stripping a house to support a meth habit. i'm pretty sure i enjoyed these on a night where i followed the internet down a rabbit hole.
	snack: boulder canyon malt vinegar & sea salt chips drink: atwater block brewery cherry stout i picked up this combo late one night after a trip to the bars, but once i got them home, although i enjoyed them, i was more in the mood for episodes of fringe than i was for writing. a few days later, i married fringe to another atwater beer, so i let this combo fade away. the cherry stout had beer & cherries, so win win there. salt & vinegar is a chip flavor combo that i just can't refuse & since that vinegar was of the malt variety, it felt slightly british & slightly sophisticated...sort of like salman rushdie, but with less danger & less ability to cut ties with hot women who love food.