Winter Indie Music Playlist 2014

Making this playlist was fairly easy this year, since most indie artists were weeping into their sleeves and penning wistful cry-baby anthems for today's depressed Democrats. I had to do fifty push-ups a day and run three times a week just to shake off the malaise. Anyway, out of the 3000 songs I listened to this year, these are the warmest and tastiest cups of Sleepytime tea I found. I've also tried to pick vids that don't have shitty Geico ads in front of them, but I can't guarantee you won't be bombarded by some of the worst copy-writing in advertisement history. Below the YouTube link you'll find the written list. It's the length of a standard CD-R.

I do this because I love you like my own feral children.

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WINTER CHILL 2014
1. Damien Jurado - Metallic Cloud
2. Toy - Left To Wander
3. Quilt - Tie Up The Tides
4. Thee Oh Sees - The Lens
5. BORNS - 10,000 Emerald Pools
6. Amen Dunes - Splits Are Parted
7. Rubblebucket - Carousel Ride
8. Perfume Genius - Queen
9. Papercuts - Life Among The Savages
10. Gossling - Riptide
11. Gold-Bears - Hey, Sophie
12. Halos - Dust
13. Ben Watt - Young Man's Game
14. Tennis -Night Vision
15. Kelley Stoltz - Marcy
16. PHOX - Slow Motion
17. Avi Buffalo - Overwhelmed With Pride
18. The War On Drugs - Eyes To The Wind
19. Marissa Nadler - 1923
20. Tom Rosenthal - Run For Those Hills, Babe (not yet available on YouTube)
21. Paolo Nutini - Someone Like You

Summer Indie Music Playlist 2014

Anyone notice how few HAPPY summer indie songs there are this year? It felt like an intense archaeological dig to uncover these. I sifted through literally a thousand songs over the last six months, and I'm still a little underwhelmed by what I found. The trend I've noticed is the only upbeat music today is crappy radio pop with bludgeoning choruses repeated twenty times, most of it combined with the worst dubstep leftovers. I don't put rap on my summer mix because it's a total fucking party killer - full of misogyny, violence, drugs and pedestrian boasts. As far as "indie music" goes this year, the bulk of it is so spineless, mid-tempo and sad that even Rolling Stone is running out of adjectives (smoky, elegiac, somber, heartbreaking, crooning, poignant, meditative, spacy, murmuring, cozy, languid, minimalist, aching, weepy, spectral, atmospheric, moody, haunting, drowsy, vulnerable, dark, forlorn). IT'S FUCKING SUMMA-TIME, YO!!! Are indie bands simply trying to write creative suicide notes? The only music that rocked this year was metal and punk, which I also won't put on my mix because it's too dissonant (even though I love that shit).

Can somebody please step up to the plate and deliver a home-run feel-good summer album like the Cars' first release back in 1979? Do you feel me? 

Anyway, here's the YouTube video playlist (songs below):



1. Wunder Wunder - Coastline
2. White Denim - Pretty Green
3. Beginners - Who Knows
4. Lincoln Jesser - Wicked Son
5. Little Dragon - Klapp Klapp
6. Ray LaMontagne - Lavender
7. King Khan & The Shrines - Bite My Tongue
8. Lowell - 88
9. Painted Palms - Forever
10. Woods - Shining
11. Cibo Matto -10th Floor Ghost Girl
12. Kishi Bashi - Philosophize With It! Chemicalize With It!
13. Tobacco - Eruption (Gonna Get My Hair Cut At The End Of The Summer)
14. Jungle - Busy Earnin'
15. Barrence Whitfield & The Savages - Blackjack
16. Coves - Cast A Shadow
17. Black Bananas - Physical Emotions
18. Chromeo ft. Toro y Moi - Come Alive
19. Mr. Little Jeans - Good Mistake
20. War On Drugs - Red Eyes
21. Kelley Stoltz - Kim Chee Taco Man

Coachella 2015 Line-Up Wish List

There's a resurgence of great music going on these days. The Coachella crew is pretty adept at finding and booking sweet bands. If my two-cents counts for anything, here's who I wanna see next year (in no particular order):

1. St. Vincent
2. Tune-Yards
3. Parquet Courts
4. Ghost Of A Saber Tooth Tiger (Sean Lennon's new band)
5. Papercuts
6. Woods
7. Paolo Nutini
8. Ray LaMontagne
9. Thee Oh Sees
10. Major Lazer
11. Flying Lotus
12. The Black Lips
13. Purson
14. The War On Drugs
15. Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
16. TOY
17. Of Montreal
18. White Denim
19. King Khan & The Shrines
20. Painted Palms
21. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
22. Aztec Camera

Take a few minutes, go on YouTube and introduce yourself to these bands if you haven't already. Enjoy!

Coachella 2014: Indie Band Playlist

It's that time of year again! Here are 22 indie bands you should check out on those delicious two weekends in April. Obviously you're excited about Outkast (even though you only know four of their songs), and you're planning on Arcade Fire, Beck and all the obvious shit. What about the obscure dreamers at the bottom of the Coachella poster? That's why I'm here, friend.

One note: I hate YouTube commercials, so I tend to select videos with low view counts. This means some of these tunes might eventually get deleted. Just in case, here's the original track listing (which also fits neatly on your typical CD-R if you wanna buy the songs and support the artists like I did).

1. J Roddy Walston – Marigold                                  

2. Capital Cities – Farrah Fawcett Hair            

3. Flight Facilities – Foreign Language              

4. Bear Hands – Crime Pays                        

5. Temples – Shelter Song                         

6. The Internet – Dontcha                               

7. Classixx – All You’re Waiting For  

8. Holy Ghost! - Changing Of The Guard     

9. The Preatures – Manic Baby                      

10. Poolside – Do You Believe?                             

11. Little Dragon – Shuffle A Dream             

12. Foxygen – San Francisco                       

13. GOAT – Run To Your Mama                        

14. Chromeo – Over Your Shoulder                                   

15. Haim – The Wire                                                    

16. Cage The Elephant – Take It Or Leave It              

17. Bryan Ferry – Alphaville                                    

18. Dum Dum Girls – Heartbeat                            

19. White Lies – There Goes Our Love Again                  

20. James Vincent McMorrow – Gold                     

21. J Roddy Walston – Midnight Cry                             

22. Preservation Hall Jazz Band – That’s It!                    

Also if you like this playlist, check out my "blanconada" YouTube channel, browse and subscribe.
Cheers!

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My Favorite Films Of 2013

There's no stopping the juggernaut of bland single-word titles. They're even making my year-end lists. But in twenty years who will remember what certain films were about? Like these: The Family, Enemy, The Internship, Epic, The Purge, Adore, Hours, Paranoia, The Call, The Past. Meanwhile, I'll continue to yearn for titles that are evocative and descriptive like: The Spectacular Now, The Wolf Of Wall Street and Inside Llewyn Davis. Or let's check back in a couple decades to see if you remember 12 Years A Slave vs. The Butler. Whether you liked them or not, chances are you'll remember what the more imaginative titles were about. Hollywood is almost brain-dead, so maybe all these movies will be re-released by then with truncated titles, and it'll be just be Slave vs Butler. Who knows?

Here are my picks for 2013:
1. Gravity
2. Prisoners
3. American Hustle
4. 12 Years A Slave
5. Fruitvale Station
6. The Spectacular Now
7. Blue Jasmine
8. Short Term 12
9. Her
10. Mud
11. Side Effects
12. Stoker
13. The Stories We Tell
14. The Conjuring
15. You're Next
16. The World's End
17. Dallas Buyer's Club
18. All Is Lost
19. Coherence
20. The Wolf Of Wall Street
21. This Is The End
22. The Heat
23. The Hobbit: Desolation Of Smaug
24. Spring Breakers

I confess I still need to see Blue Is The Warmest Color, Kill Your Darlings, Don Jon, Saving Mr Banks and all this year's Oscar-nominated documentaries. The most overrated movies I saw this year? Nebraska and Inside Llewyn Davis (and I'm a huge Coen Bros fan). Oh, well. I'll keep shelling out money to see our collective dreams on the big screen. Cheers!