lots of music is available for listening in the world

it's true.

i've been so enmeshed in phish- and wilco-land since early summer (tackling wilco's catalog and live shows with a voracity near that of my once-Cardinals obsession, and geeking out on phish after that transcendent Gorge experience) that i think it's ruining my music life.  lately i've hardly been listening to music at all.  which is pretty much the opposite of every day of my life for the last 15 years.  part of it, of course, is just the business of this semester and the fact that now that i have a lot of friends, i don't spend a lot of time alone in my office.  i'm often in my office, but there are also usually seventeen other people in here as well.  which is generally awesome.  but i feel more bad about blaring music in that case.

i've also realized, though, that i'm in a bit of a musical rut.  i haven't been writing, i haven't been listening to anything new, i haven't had (or haven't been making) the time for either.  so here i sit, day after day, spinning the same wilco and phish discs over and over again and though they are generally all awesome, admittedly, it's all starting to bleed together.  the new mason jennings was a good distraction, and i also actually really like the new norah jones record.  the new live gogol bordello disc is great, and all the phish shows from the summer tour are interesting.  but i want to hear something i haven't heard before.  i'm hoping that over christmas i can spread out a little bit, find out about some new bands.  how do you find out about new, unique bands now that "indie" has become mainstream?  i don't want to listen to the newest grizzly bear impersonator, i want to hear new, interesting stuff, even if it was written in the 70s.

i'm listening to loose fur right now.  it's helping a little.  maybe i'll throw on some minus 5 next...

it's christmas time, bitches!

so, i have a new grain of sand to add to the beach of shameful pop culture admissions i've made on this blog throughout the years.  every year i listen to a shitload of new christmas albums in the hope of finding sparkles of brilliance.  sure, christmas is a huge, mean, nasty, soulless commercial enterprise, but we all have those warm, fuzzy moments of one christmas or another, either as a child or an adult, or else we wouldn't spend years and money and travel thousands of miles at the most dangerous travelling time of the year every year in hopes of resurrecting those warm, fuzzy moments.  right?  RIGHT?!

well, most of my warm, fuzzy moments involve christmas music, whether it was the listening to, or the caroling of.  and even in the 21st century, sometimes hundreds of years after many of these songs were made, occasionally a version of an old song or even more rarely a completely new christmas song ("all i want for christmas is you", anyone?) comes along that is actually worth listening to.  besides, i need something to prop up the leaning tower of my sanity come the end of fall semester each year, and what better way than to listen to a shitload of relaxing christmas music?

so this year, i've listened once again to a decent amount (yes, including bob dylan's christmas album, but i'm not ready emotionally to talk about that yet).  not as much as i usually do, but that's okay because early in my survey, i've discovered what is undoubtedly 2009's christmas music masterpiece.

even better, you can download it for free.

this.  is.  so.  awesome.

sure, it's christmas tunes rendered as if through a midi synthesizer or an old NES sound chip, but there are tons of brilliant little moments in here that deserve discovery.  this wasn't just thrown together as a sheer gimmick; each song shows a lot of interesting touches and more brilliant little details come out with each listen.  check out "god rest ye merry gentlemen" if nothing else.  it's ridiculously cool (note for young people: the voice isn't auto-tuned, now get off my lawn!).

also, there's a great, moody version of "greensleeves", which is my favorite christmas song.  so that doesn't hurt.

new band name idea.

"the inevitable heat death of the universe".

mother(fucking) nature!

so it's been a really nice, mild winter so far in pullman.  and for that, i'm grateful.  however, in the last three days, the sudden massive drop in temperature has coincided perfectly with the hours and hours i've been spending outside scouting locations for University of Death...and it's freaking cold.  it was coincidental enough that i felt compelled to whine about it.  in other news, working on the game is way more fun than working on my other papers/projects.  in fact, it's quite possibly my favorite thing i've ever done in grad school.  it's going to be fun.  hopefully it'll be fun for people to play, too.  that's sort of the point.

if you want to check it out, click here.

tweetblog!

it's oddly foggy tonight.  i forgot that happens in winter in pullman.  i have sad feelings.  mike prewett clone is following me home.