First of all, our unofficial CMJ showcase (flyer above by the lovely Carrie Quartly) is this Saturday. You can RSVP on Facebook here and buy tickets here.
Secondly, we've just launched our monthly digital single series Office Supplies! Every month we'll be posting an exclusive (for the time being, at least) song by a different artist on our Bandcamp page. Every song will be "name your price" so it's free to download if you're a total cheapskate. To start us off is the band that closed out our Serious Rockers comp (how's that for continuity?) Snowmans of Love.
In other news, Big Quiet has a music video for "Maura & Dana," which premiered at The Deli Magazine NYC.
And finally, unblinkingearrecords.com is up and running so check it out! (While you're listening to the below podcast, of course.)
The Unblinking Ear Podcast is back for the first time in over a month! Did you miss me? No, you were more than satisfied by each of the three WFMU fill-ins (available to stream here, here and here), you say? I suppose that's fair.
If anyone would like to purchase the above product for me (a mere $68 retail!), I would gladly accept. I have a beard and it needs to be tamed. Yet even with this mammalian hindrance, I somehow manage to fill a biweekly podcast with new music. It's not an impossible task, though admittedly, it is slightly more demanding than complaining.
Here at Unblinking Ear HQ, we've noticed over the last couple of months a large amount of music press/internet babble devoted to deluxe reissues of albums that came out 20 years ago*. There's nothing wrong with that as we here at Unblinking Ear celebrate rock history as well and have also been known to have something of a 90s fetish.
However, what use is nostalgia when it overshadows the vital work happening in the here and now? There has been such a deluge of terrific new releases over the past few weeks and months that we've been struggling to keep up. In fact, the amount of fine new records has been so great that we've decided to eschew the past temporarily and devote this edition of the podcast entirely to brand new music. With so much, so good coming out recently, it was actually rather easy to acompliish.
The next podcast will surely feature some fine music recorded many years prior mixed with equally fine music of the present. But for now... dig the now.
*Incidentally, the actual best album of 1991 was Eleventh Dream Day's Lived To Tell.
It's been brought to my attention that some of you would like a track list for this podcast. There's a few reasons I've elected not to post one.
First of all, I like the element of surprise. When one hears a song as a blank slate, their reaction will be honest. If the listener has heard of the artist before, even just giving their name means that preconceived notions could be at play,
Secondly, giving out a track list threatens this quasi-legitimate podcast with legal action. I don't think this podcast serves much purpose other than giving promotional exposure to the artists represented, but the fact remains that it's their intellectual property used without explicit permission, so someone could easily see it differently. It's probably doubtful that it would come to that but I really don't need Google shutting down this blog.
And finally, as someone pointed out for my very first attempt at podcasting, a track list means that one could just scan the songs and seek to listen to them on their own or simply absorb the information without actually listening to it. It kind of makes the work I put into it counterproductive.
My solution for a while was to stick the track list in the iTunes "lyrics" tab for anyone who wanted it. But one day I forgot and no seemed to care, so I stopped this step entirely.
However, it appears at least a couple of you do care. So from now, I will resume putting the track list in the lyrics tab. I'm also going to "hide" the track list in the comments for each blog post. This way it won't be visible on the main page on the blog and can simply be ignored on individual post by not scrolling down, if that suits you.
Hopefully, we won't see any repercussions from this action. If we do, we'll deal with it. If anyone is an expert on "fair use" laws, feel free to contact me.
(2010 isn't over. You shouldn't even be done with your advent calendar yet.)
Periodically, people ask me what I've been listening to lately. This kind of puts me on the spot as I try to cycle through everything I've listened to in the past few weeks and which of it might be appropriate or attractive to the speaker. Ultimately, it usually provokes a semi-hostile, passive aggressive reaction from me such as "I don't know! Stuff!"
Besides, I do a fairly regular podcast and maintain a music blog. What I'm digging at any particular time is a matter of public record. It's only a few clicks away if you own a computer. I can't do all the work for you people.
Incidentally, this is not a best of 2010 podcast. That will be the next one. Yes, I'll be condensing all the music I've liked best in the past year into a single download. How much more convenient does it get?
So the next time you see me out in public, just compliment what I'm wearing or something. We can talk about music. Just try and keep the topic narrow. And buy me a drink.
New York City went through a pretty rough heat wave this week. One couldn't be blamed for looking over their shoulder to if a Yautja was hunting the urban landscape for Earth's deadliest game. ("Only in the hottest years this happens. And this year, it grows hot.")
A more pressing matter for me was the 12-hour blackout my block suffered through on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. This not only meant that I was unable to DVR the third episode of Louie but it also prevented me from assembling this podcast in as timely a manner as I wanted. My apologies but you can see the situation was out of my control.
As for what happened the prior 6 weeks since I presented my last podcast that prevented me from making a new one... um... hmm. Would you believe that fantasy baseball is a highly-stressful, time consuming activity?
I had hoped to complete this best of 2009 podcast sometime before, you know, 2009 ended. However, I forgot that the time off one gets for the holidays are often just as exhausting as any working week.
Despite an informal year-end round up I posted, I have yet to compile a conveniently enumerated list of my year's top albums. And I don't think I will, for reasons better explained by Ben Tausig at Dusted. However, if you really feel you need a list, I will create and send you one upon request, though I must warn you that after the top spot occupied by Reigning Sound and a silver medal for Grass Widow, the order will be fairly arbitrary.
There are some folks whom I hold in high regard that did make list and contain a bunch of records that escaped my field of vision. (Field of earshot? Auditory range?) Check them out and see how many of these stragglers wander into my next podcast:
Who knew that the power of music could transform a middle-aged desk jockey into an incredibly obnoxious-looking modern hipster? At least that's what implied by the Mastercard commercial running ad nausem on TBS during the MLB playoffs. You would think that he would become a younger version of himself but no. I suppose it's possible that he may have also been mulleted and mustachioed in his glory days. Perhaps Mastercard didn't want to shell out the money for the publishing rights to an Eddie Money track.
Should you listen to this podcast and feel yourself morphing into a paisley-shirted English psych rocker, skinny-tied new waver or indifferently-dressed gentle bedroom recording artist, just remember: it's not what you listen to but how you accessorize that makes you annoying to those who gaze upon you.
