6.9.11

On The Road Mix (Part 3)

The final section of my three part travel album. Hope you enjoyed it.:

Track listing:
1. Wild Night, Van Morrison - Tupelo Honey
2. Flathead, The Fratellis - Costello Music
3. General, Dispatch - Bang Bang
4. Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison
5. Gallows Pole, Led Zeppelin - III
6. Graceland, Paul Simon - Graceland
7. The King of Carrot Flowers pt. One, Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
8. Dashboard, Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
9. The Great Escape, We Are Scientists - With Love and Squalor
10. Fireworks, yOya - Nothing to Die
11. California Sun, Ramones - Leave Home
12. Power of Moonlite, Tiger Army - II:Power of Moonlite
13. Blue Orchid, The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
14. Way Out, Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
15. Shotglass, Caitlin and the Shotglasses - Caitlin and the Shotglasses
16. Homelands, Brad and Ethan - Live Recordings, Etc.
17. Barton Hollow, The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow
18. The Queen's Rebuke / The Crossing, The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love
13. Blue Orchid by The White Stripes, on the album Get Behind Me Satan. Great single by the Stripes - I absolutely adore Jack White and I'm sure I still have a big ol' poster of him and Meg rolled up somewhere. I even went to a concert promoting this album up in Portland one time. That's a big deal for someone that rarely spends money on shows. Fortunately my folks had season tickets so Cass and I could go. I really love his brand of raw and open sound, I thought his music documentary It Might Get Loud was brilliant. I still haven't picked up his newer stuff post-White Stripes, and I really ought to.

14. Way Out by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, on the Show Your Bones album. Another band I picked up during my sophomore year. A nice little girl band, they do a great job of mixing up Seattle riot grrl attitude with more of a Southern sound. They're easy pleasers, and I thought they'd be a good outro for my brief intrusion of showy rock. I really ought to check out what they've been up to since.

15. Shotglass by Caitlin and the Shotglasses, on their self-titled album. Another local band. I've known Caitlin and most of the band for quite a while. They basically were a group of some of the funnest townie music kids that weren't getting their rocks off just playing in pep band. Cue a burning-brightly band that put out a bunch of shows and one album just before they all went their separate ways. Caitlin and Justin have bounced around a lot, but they're back in Corvallis now and heading a pretty successful punk band called The Angries. Amusingly, I didn't notice that this track (one of their best in my opinion) also contained more than a minute of silence and a secret track. Whoops. Definitely creates a different mood there at the end of the mix. And I like it. I guess it was meant to be.

16. Homelands by Brad and Ethan on their Live Recordings, Etc., album. This song is a real winner with anyone who grew up here in the Northwest. But I'm a fan of a number of their singles including In the Mountains and Seraphim (both on the album). Another local band, though I really only knew these guys by reputation. They were a couple years ahead of me in school, but they also were big regulars over at the Beanery back when I was pounding coffee with the best of them. Amusingly, while their music is very chill my most prominent memory of them was riding a couple of hijacked shopping baskets tied to a bike down Second Street at night.

17. Barton Hollow by The Civil Wars on their self-titled album. A real newcomer to my collection compared to these local bands that I've had for years. Barton Hollow is probably my favorite single from this band, the group is generally more easy-going folk than hard-strumming country. Annabritt introduced this band to me after falling in love with it herself, and she can now do a bang-up cover of it with her friend Catherine Wright to do the harmonizing. Reminds me a bit of a Steve Earle that found a girlfriend instead of heroin.

18. The Queen's Rebuke / The Crossing by The Decemberists on their continuous album The Hazards of Love. Called a rock opera by Pitchfork and other critics, you can imagine some mix of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and a Shakespeare comedy farce playing out behind the mics. However, since the whole thing is connected it makes it rather difficult to pull out a single track. I leaned toward one of my more favorite and unitary ones, The Rake's Song, but people sometimes get a bit weirded out by its baby-killing lyrics (hey, you can't have a tragic narrator without a tragedy) so I figured I'd pick out something that didn't need as much context. However, while this track does a good job of showcasing the vocals and the band, I think that the transitions are too hard and make for a difficult concluding track. I think perhaps I should have picked something else or added additional music. I had room for another 15-20 minutes of music, but not enough time to pick something suitable.

Here are the links to the first and second parts of this mix.

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