There’s a nice track up from Texans The Southern Sea over at MFR. The song, titled “The Iowa Mountain Tour”, is about one of the obscure “Song Poets” that was featured in the (fascinating) 2003 documentary, Off The Charts: The Song-Poem Story.

Lots of people sent over the link for the Bejar-o-matic, which is awesome. Merge Board member Mushmouth took it one step further. I took it to the obvious conclusion.

Check out the December Mix. Great banner this month, courtesy of Lauren Gregg, who not only has lots of great stuff to see on her site, but also, she’s one-half of Kangaroo Alliance. Go check out their swell Of Montreal video.

Tiny Showcase should probably draft Lauren to do a print, I think.

Goldkixx has posted the track “European Oils“, from Destroyer’s Rubies.

Consider my day made.

I totally forgot about 2002’s Future Home Of Burbank Elks by Steven (Slabco), but damn, I really did listen to it a lot back in the day. I just noticed that you can download that entire album for free. Click on the “mpfrees” link there on their site, and you can download about a dozen more Slabco releases. Damn. Check it out if you think that a lo-fi, bedroom version of Air sounds like something you might dig. Some call it “drip-hop.”

Anyway, I was just reminded of the whole thing when I saw a note that there’s a new Steven record, Mystery of Attraction Cancelled, coming out in January. On Slabco, of course.

On an almost-related-but-boy-it’s-kind-of-stretching-it note, also in January, Tomlab will be releasing a preview single, Young Shields, from Casiotone’s upcoming full-length, Etiquette, which apparently has much thicker sound than any previous stuff, and includes guests from The Dead Science, Papercuts, and others. It’s out March 6th.

And please, let’s not forget that I Am Robot and Proud’s The Electricity In Your House Wants To Sing is out March 20th. No matter how many times I go to his site, I’m always tickled by that upper left corner.

In case you haven’t heard, Merge is auctioning off signed tour posters all month long on eBay. I think it’s a very cool idea, and all proceeds from the auctions will go to Oxfam and The North Carolina Food Bank. So go bid already.

On February 7th, Asthmatic Kitty will release the follow-up to the 2001 AK Compilation, To Spirit Back The Mews. Titled Mews Too: An Ashtmatic Kitty Compilation, the disc will feature new and exclusive tracks from AK standard bearers (Sufjan, Danielson, Half-Handed Cloud, etc.) as well as AK extended-family (Royal City, Jim Guthrie, Denison Witmer and others).

This might seem a bit esoteric, but it bears mentioning: Crippled Dick Records will soon be releasing a reissue of the Vampyros Lesbos soundtrack, in a limited-to-1000 luxury double-gatefold vinyl release with 5 bonus tracks. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, use Google and/or go here and listen to a few mp3s. You’ll see.

Kickball have finally gotten around to posting mp3s from their new one, ABCDEFGHIJKickball:

::: Brown :::
::: Party :::

If the USPS hadn’t completely botched all my mail delivery, I’d have my copy of My Project: Blue’s EP, and be a-tappin’ my foot to that unapologetically sweet pop. For the time being, I have make due with the track they’ve got on their Myspace page. Fluxblog’s currently got a track up too.

And have I mentioned how much I’m looking forward to this one?

02-07-05
Pink Mountaintops
Axis Of Evol

1. Comas
2. Cold Criminals
3. New Drug Queens
4. Slaves
5. Plastic Man, You’re The Devil
6. Lord, Let Us Shine
7. How We Can Get Free

I might as well go ahead and get this out of the way…

The Catbirdseat Top Seven of Oh Five:

And yeah, that’s really my number one. Are you sick of hearing me blab about them yet? I do hope you realize that I’m not, like, a nut. I go on and on about SSLYBY only because they’re that good. Really.

You guys can keep your Hand Claps and your Antonies and your Johnsons. I still love Boris Yeltsin.

1. 
   Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Broom
   MP3: House Fire
2. 
   Herman Düne - Not On Top
   MP3: Not On Top
3. 
   Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
   MP3: Casimir Pulaski Day
4. 
   Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
   MP3: For Real
5. 
   Spoon - Gimme Fiction
   MP3: I Turn My Camera On
6. 
   The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree
   MP3: This Year
7. 
   Final Fantasy - Has A Good Home
   MP3: The CN Tower Belongs To The Dead

Denton, TX’s Midlake have finally finished their
second record, Van Occupanther. Should be out on Bella Union in March.

And hey, Blankets, the new EP by Ottawa’s The Acorn is kind of subdued and lovely, and is available over at Kelp Records. Title track:

::: Blankets :::

The first* Unbunny video, for “Casserole”, is available here. Directed by Common Deer Films.

(*”first” if you don’t count the super rare (like, less than 50 copies, I think) 3-video DVD they did a while back…)

And Music For Robots is graciously hosting a pretty cool video for Junip’s “Black Refuge”. And did you catch that commercial that went around last week, ft. Jose’s cover of “Heartbeats”?

Also, check out Shock Records to get your hands on the Australian-only Jose Gonzalez Tour EP that just came out. It’s 8 tracks, culled from a variety of singles. Tracks include covers of “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, Kylie’s “Hand On Your Heart”, a “Heartbeats” remix, and others.

And when you get done complaining about Sufjan topping those year-end lists, you might want to sneak out tomorrow and pick up the double-vinyl of Illinois, which features the bonus track “The Avalanche.”

After reading that press release that showed up for The Kevins‘ s/t disc, I was almost certain that it would be way too damn precious for me. And you know what? It is pretty damn precious, and yet, I just can’t seem to resist the charms of the opening track, “You!”, which, fortunately for us, You Ain’t No Picasso has just posted.

Last night, as I watched the just-recently-released video for Jeff Hanson’s “This Time It Will”, I realized some things. First of all, I realized that although you couldn’t shut me up about Jeff’s record during the first part of the year, I haven’t actually listened to it in about 6 or 8 months. But hearing that track again reminded me how much I like that record, and I was surprised that I hadn’t added it to my list over there on the left.

So that, coupled with the admonishment I recently received from Benjamin P regarding Minus Story’s No Rest For Ghosts‘ absence, made me realize that it’s probably time for this year’s Catbirdseat Mea Culpa.

“Mea Culpa: 2005″

Jason Anderson - The Wreath (1-18-2005)

Jason, the “Wolf Colonel”, really wants to come to your town, and sing to you– just you, and 4 or 5 of your friends. And he wants to dance, and he wants to talk to you, and he wants to sing you old cover songs, and he wants to sing you songs from The Wreath. And he wants you to realize how special all of that is. Because, well, I guess it is, kinda.

Jeff Hanson - s/t (2/22/2005)

I know that I jokingly like to refer to him as “Elliott Smith on helium”, but you know, even Jeff himself still makes with the “high voice” jokes, so what the hell. Kaleb did a nice, concise review for the Village Voice back in March.

Okay - High Road/Low Road (3/29/2005)

I gave this a fairly decent entry right when it came out. So why the hell did I forget to add it to my list? Dunno, I’m an idiot. And I’d still be giddy with delight if this got released as a vinyl double LP.

Luke Temple - Hold A Match For A Gasoline World (4/12/2005)

Again, you couldn’t shut me up about Luke’s music during the first part of the year, and yet, I still forgot to ever add him to the list over there. This is especially surprising to me considering the great show that Tim and I saw him turn in at SXSW.

Get Him Eat Him - Geography Cones (7/26/2005)

Definitely my most egregious omission. Splendid nailed it when they pointed out GHEH’s ability to “happily embrace punk rock primitivism and new wave noodling” while leaping “nimbly between lizard-brained sleaze and nerdy angst.” Matt LeMay couldn’t have said it better himself. I saw GHEH at their loosest, at the beginning of their tour, and then later, at their tightest, right at the end of the tour. They were amazing in both instances.

Minus Story - No Rest For Ghosts (10/11/2005)
The record is filled with fantastic singular tracks (”Hold On”, “Little Wet Head”, etc.), but also remarkably cohesive and strong as a whole. You were right, Benjamin, this one should’ve been added a month ago.

Completely unrelated: ILB’s Top 40 Bands In America Poll results are up.