largehearted boy: a boy, a girl, and his radio

November 15, 2009

Daily Downloads (Mogwai, Patterson Hood, and more)

Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:

Backyard Tire Fire: 2009-02-28, Iowa City [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Miss You (Rolling Stones cover)" [mp3]
other Backyard Tire Fire posts at Largehearted Boy

Brittany Reilly: 2009-11-06, Blowing Rock [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Blue Kentucky Girl (Loretta Lynn cover)" [mp3]
Brittany Reilly: 2009-08-28, Greenville [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Born to Run (Bruce Springsteen cover)" [mp3]
other Brittany Reilly posts at Largehearted Boy

Guster: 2009-11-06, Rochester [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Homecoming King" [mp3]
other Guster posts at Largehearted Boy

Mogwai: 2009-05-10, Minneapolis [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Killing All the Flies" [mp3]
Mogwai: 2009-04-28, Brooklyn [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Scotland's Shame" [mp3]
Mogwai: 2006-09-22, London [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Acid Food" [mp3]
other Mogwai posts at Largehearted Boy

Mother Hips: 2009-10-30, Groveland [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Stoned Up the Road" [mp3]
other Mother Hips posts at Largehearted Boy

Patterson Hood: 2009-11-04, Athens [mp3,ogg,flac]
"The Flying Wallendas" [mp3]
other Patterson Hood posts at Largehearted Boy

Pelican: 2009-10-18, Minneapolis [mp3,ogg,flac]
"GW" [mp3]
other Pelican posts at Largehearted Boy

Free and legal mp3s of live performances at other websites:

Fastball: Daytrotter session [mp3]
other Fastball posts at Largehearted Boy

also at Largehearted Boy:

previous free and legal mp3 daily downloads
2009 Bonnaroo downloads
other music festival downloads

Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and album streams from weekly CD releases)
weekly CD release lists

tags: music download indie mp3

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November 14, 2009

35 Down, 17 To Go "Bitten: Dark Erotic Stories" (52 Books, 52 Weeks)

Having edited the Best American Erotica series for years, Susie Bright is an expert on what qualifies as sexy writing. Bitten collects 15 short stories that probe the dark side of sex. All these tales are as arousing as they are literary, notably E.R. Stewart's "Cross Town Incubus."

last year when Susie Bright announced she would no longer edit The Best American Erotica series, I wondered who would fill that void. It turns out that Bright herself has done that admirably with the short fiction compilation Bitten.

For one month, enter the coupon code "LHB001" at Atomic Books and receive 15% off this title.

My next book is The Vegan Monologues: Collected Essays, by Ben Shaberman.

also at Largehearted Boy:

52 Books, 52 Weeks (2009 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2008 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2007 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2006 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2005 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2004 Edition)
Online "best of 2009" book lists
Online "best of 2008" book lists
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)

tag: books literature fiction

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November 14th Updates to the Best of 2009 Online Music Lists

Today's additions to the list of the online best of 2009 music lists:

About a Girl Music Blog (top albums)
Backseat Sandbar (top albums)
The Echoes Blog (top albums & songs)
Mdaniellew's Blog (top albums)
Mudpies and Fishfrys (Christmas albums)
Nappy Headed Pro (favourite albums)
New Slang (best albums)
The Stranger Blog (best albums)

also at Largehearted Boy:

other daily updates to the list

Online Best of 2009 Music Lists
Online Best of the Decade (2000-2009) Music Lists
Online Best of 2009 Book Lists

2008 Online "Best Of" Music Lists
2007 Online "Best Of" Music Lists
2006 Online "Best Of" Music Lists
Online "Best Books of 2008" Lists
other lists at Largehearted Boy
Daily Downloads (free & legal mp3 downloads)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
musician/author interviews

tags: music cd list lists indie 2000s albums

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Shorties (Songs About Books, Amis Reviews Nabokov, and more)

The Washington City Paper lists five songs about books.

In the Guardian, Martin Amis reviews Vladimir Nabokov's posthumous novel, The Original of Laura (in bookstores on Tuesday).

The Baltimore City Paper interviews Deastro's Randy Chabot.

CP: References to cartoons definitely come up a lot in descriptions of your music. Is it that much of an actual influence?

RC: I mean, I love cartoons, I watch them all the time, I thought about studying animation. They're not a direct influence, though I own everything that the guy who did the music for Looney Tunes did. But I'm getting less cartoony as I get older.

In the New York Times, Mary Gaitskill reviews Rawi Hage's new novel, Cockroach.

CreativeCloud lists the 10 most (in)famous music headlines ever printed.

The Guardian reviews Tao Lin's latest book, Shoplifting from American Apparel.

Lin's writing is reminiscent of early Douglas Coupland, or early Bret Easton Ellis, but there is also something going on here that is more profoundly peculiar, even Beckettian. The text is woven around large chronological and informational lacunae, which issue near the end in one revelation about a character's travails that is the more troubling for Lin's principled refusal to let it disturb the text's placid veneer.

The Washington Post questions the entertainment value of concerts where bands play one album, track-by-track.

This trend isn't just exhausted, it feels like a cruel perversion of a concert's real-time magic. Live music might be the last bastion of unpredictability in today's hypercurated mediascape: a fleeting opportunity to experience something unfiltered, spontaneous and really real. Instead, we're paying to see our greatest living, breathing, sweating, bleeding rock stars behave like iPods. And with no "shuffle" function!

The Globe and Mail profiles author Cory Doctorow.

As one of the world's most successful bloggers, a writer who freely gives away his work as well as selling it – and not least, a genuine expert in the suddenly fraught world of international copyright – this Toronto-born phenom knows as much about wrecking traditional publishing as anyone alive.

The Cover Story Blog shares "amateur covers of the music you love."

CHARTattack profiles singer-songwriter Alela Diane.

The top 5 U2 literary moments.

At The Book Bench, author Ariel Levy offers a feminist reading list. Jezebel's readers respond with their own personal choices for the list.

NPR's Monitor Mix interviews Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore about music in the 2000s.

On sale at Amazon MP3: R.E.M.'s 11-track Document album for $2.99.

NPR's Monitor Mix wonders if rock music is going soft.

I gave Museyon Guides some travel tips (music and otherwise) for my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama.

Follow me on Twitter for links that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.

also at Largehearted Boy:

online "best of 2009" book lists
online "best of 2009" music lists
best of the decade (2000-2009) online music lists

daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists

tags: music books popculture indie

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Daily Downloads (The Walkmen, Billy Corgan, and more)

Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:

Alejandro Escovedo: 2009-07-12, Santa Monica [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Dear Head on the Wall" [mp3]
other Alejandro Escovedo posts at Largehearted Boy

Billy Corgan: 2009-11-08, Los Angeles [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Plastic Fantastic Lover (Jefferson Airplane cover)" [mp3]
other Billy Corgan posts at Largehearted Boy

Blitzen Trapper: 2009-10-28, Brooklyn [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Devil in Disguise (Gram Parsons cover)" [mp3]
other Blitzen Trapper posts at Largehearted Boy

Explosions in the Sky: 2009-06-30, New York [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Snow and Lights" [mp3]
other Explosions in the Sky posts at Largehearted Boy

Mother Hips: 2009-10-31, Groveland [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Rich Little Girl" [mp3]
other Mother Hips posts at Largehearted Boy

Smashing Pumpkins: 2008-12-03, Universal City [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Ava Adore" [mp3]
Smashing Pumpkins: 2008-12-02, Universal City [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Close to You (The Carpenters cover)" [mp3]
Smashing Pumpkins: 2008-10-24, Hollywood [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Superchrist" [mp3]
Smashing Pumpkins: 1994-08-01, Philadelphia [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Siva" [mp3]
other Smashing Pumpkins posts at Largehearted Boy

The Walkmen: 2009-11-11, Chicago [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Canadian Girl" [mp3]
other Walkmen posts at Largehearted Boy

Free and legal mp3s of live performances at other websites:

Jookabox: Daytrotter session [mp3]
other Jookabox posts at Largehearted Boy

also at Largehearted Boy:

previous free and legal mp3 daily downloads
2009 Bonnaroo downloads
other music festival downloads

Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and album streams from weekly CD releases)
weekly CD release lists

tags: music download indie mp3

Posted by david | permalink | post to del.icio.us

November 13, 2009

November 13th Updates to the Best of the Decade (2000-2009) Online Music Lists

Today's additions to the list of the online best of the decade (2000-2009) music lists:

Condominium (favorite albums)
Dessa (favorite albums)
Endorphin Rush (favorite albums)
Eric's Music Ramblings and Indie Musings (song)
Flavorwire (Super Bowl halftime performances)
Goodbye Oughts (favorite albums)
Heath Rave (Wolvhammer) (most important albums)
The Name of This Blog Is... Gumption Centers (top albums)
NPR (music timeline)
Paste (top music books)
The Telegraph (songs that defined the decade)
Slapping Purses (favorite albums)
Sonic Terra (best songs)
Travis Bos (Chibalo) (favorite albums)

also at Largehearted Boy:

list of the online best of the decade (2000-2009) music lists
daily updates to the list

Online "Best Of 2009" Music Lists
Online "Best Of 2008" Music Lists
Online "Best Of 2007" Music Lists
Online "Best Of 2006" Music Lists
Online "Best Books of 2009" Lists
Online "Best Books of 2008" Lists
other lists at Largehearted Boy
Daily Downloads (free & legal mp3 downloads)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
musician/author interviews

tags: music cd list lists indie 2000s albums

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Book Notes - Hanan Al-Shaykh ("The Locust and the Bird: My Mother's Story")

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.

Hanan Al-Shaykh's The Locust and The Bird is a unique memoir, a mother's life written by her estranged daughter, told in the first person. Not many authors could pull this off, but Al-Shaykh, widely regarded as one of the Arab world's finest writers, does so with incredible effect.

Kamila (Al-Shaykh's mother) can neither read nor write, so she dictates her story of a forced marriage, search for true love, and rebellions both great and small in the name of freedom. The Locust and The Bird is not only a well-written, moving and entertaining story, but is also one of the most socially and historically important books I have read this year.

The San Francisco Chronicle wrote of the book:

"'The Locust and The Bird' is billed as a story of undying romantic love - the cover art reinforces this notion - but it is, at heart, a tale of female independence. The two are often confused, especially when a girl's only viable example of freedom is the right to marry for love. And should such a love turn tragic, it may still be unclear to her that the love of her life - however erudite and enlightened - was merely a symbol of the independence she craved, a conduit through which she might achieve it."

In her own words, here is Hanan Al-Shaykh's Book Notes music playlist for her book, The Locust and the Bird: My Mother's Story:

The Locust and The Bird is my mother's story, she insisted for more than 25 years that I listen to it. I eventually wrote it, since my mother was illiterate, and was not taught how to read or write. I thought I knew a fair amount of my mother's past...

She was forced to marry my father at age 14, gave birth to my sister and me, continued to see the boy she loved secretly, then left home, deserted me and my sister, and started a new life with a new family .

I uncovered truths I was not aware of. I found myself in front of a passionate woman, witty, imaginative, brave and willful. She had survived poverty, tragedies, and cruelty, yet she fought her family and the traditional patriarchal society for freedom of choice. I found myself granting her my blessing, learning how to love her deeply time and time again.

I discovered while I was listening to my mother's story that songs and films had taught her the beautiful language she didn't learn, how people talk and converse with each other, and what strong feelings one can get from listening to a certain songs and how ultimate the power of music, songs, and films helped her to survive.

1. "Weepin' Willows Blues" by Bessie Smith

The song particularly helped me while writing the first two chapters. Although my mother was between seven and nine years old when she lived in a village in South of Lebanon and wouldn't have heard any western songs, I can imagine my mother singing:

I went down the river
Beneath a willow tree

When her mother used to take her and her brother to the Litany River to bathe them by the pink oleander trees.

The raw, heart-rending voice of Bessie Smith singing not a song's tale but a song which compensates your personal grief. While Bessie Smith and her brother roamed the busy streets, she singing and he playing the guitar for one coin or two, my mother and her brother were chasing after their fathers in the fields or in the market in order to buy them food and shoes.

2. "Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" by Fred Astaire

By now my mother has left her village in the south and lived in Beirut.

She loved every thing about it. The horn blazing of cars, the juice seller clanging his little cymbals, the train, vendors selling candy floss and chocolate, shops displaying clothes and gold, big posters, and big billboards showing films playing in movie theaters.

My mother was fascinated with films, Arabic films and the films of Laurel and Hardy, she watched them secretly. In addition, she saw once women dancing the Charleston. The beat and tempo of this song powers the entire buzz and the excitement of the big cities, it does pump in you a great energy. My mother used to dance the Charleston every time she heard western music even to the rhythmic sound of tap-dancing.

3. "Ya Wardet Al-Hoob Al-Safi (Thou Rose of Pure Love)" by Mohammad Abdul-Wahab

Oh, thou rose of pure love
God bless the hands that have nourished you
I wonder, oh, I wonder, oh I wonder.

The White Rose was the first Arabic films my mother saw, and the first song she sang. It was modern, nothing to do with the field songs she used to hear, that she was accustomed to hear while she lived in the South. She learned from that song that love always suffered, and certainly love did not lead to marriage, but to forced arranged marriages, and how the rich will never marry the poor or even middle-class people. Hearing the song spinning in my head took me to the power of words and how they effected my mother, how she wanted to be sent to school but to no avail and how watching this film made her realize that she was not happy or rather satisfied with this sterile life her family lived. With no imagination and music and certainly without any concern for each other's welfare, my mother wished she could run away and live with the actors from the movie.

4. "Dakalt Marra Fi Jinena (When I Entered a Garden Once)" by Asmahan

Finally, after my mother tried in vain to run away from her forced marriage to my father following every trick she and her cut and sew teacher thought of and failed. When she was pushed into my father's room, and felt like a fish being netted. She sank her teeth into her arm so deep that she struck bone. This song has a strange drum beat of war, and as if someone was taken away to be hanged; it echoed my mother's fate.

Though the song was sung in a dreamy melody, about two birds which were in love, one of them left in hot pursuit after another bird.

5. "Ashiq Al Rooh (The Soul's Lover)" by Mohammad Abdul-Wahab

I sneaked with my mother into the movie once to watch a film called Ghazel Al Banat, as soon as the lights went off her lover Mohammad appeared. I was captivated by this song because of the two trumpets, they sounded like nothing I heard before. Than there was the clarinet and the violin, all western instruments newly introduced to the monotones of the Arabic music instrument, the "Oud".

While I was mesmerized by this beautiful melody, my mother and Mohammed did not stop whispering and sighing as they sat hand in hand wishing that the film would never end, so they could stay glued to each other for ever and ever.

I had wished the same but for another reason, I was worried if we ultimately go home my uncle would question and interrogate my mother over and over again wanting to know for sure where we were.

6. "Mishima" by Philip Glass

That repetitive tune in this piece is like a mantra: "I love you but how can I ask for a divorce," it captured my mother's secret relationship with Mohammed. My mother's fear of asking for divorce, her panic that one day Mohammed would lose hope and marry another woman, her mortification that one member of her family would catch her with Mohammed.

Her lover started to become restless in this relationship. Even depressed, he wanted her to be his wife. They both would try to break up, for hours, for one day at the most, and then rush to embrace each other like one wave meeting another.

This tuneful minimalist has certain desperation; something is bound to happen, as if the green, peaceful field one is admiring would sprout danger in no time.

7. "La Poupee' Qui fait non" By Michel Polnareff

I played this French song over and over while writing my prologue in the book.

I had to go back to the '60s in time to capture the era and see myself as a journalist, as a music lover, and as a daughter who was uninterested in her mother. I used to carry this record and a portable record player everywhere I went. I would wake up in the morning to listen to it, and then listen to it in my work, and in the coffee shop. Once I visited my mother and instead of conversing with her, I kept listening to this record, and didn't stop until I saw my mother become so irritated by this "wailing and weeping" as she had described it.

I saw my mother as a child, moody, uncompromising, pulling her hair for hating this song. This made me laugh instead being cross with her, she seemed extremely funny.

8. "Lady D'arbanville" by Cat Stevens

I was called to the hospital. I uncovered my mother's feet; they looked like pure white porcelain. Touching her icy feet, I whispered to her that she was an angel, waiting for the other angels to take her away in her lovely gown and her new shoes. Then the song came into my mind:

My lady D'arbanville
Why do you sleep so still?
Why does it grieve me so?
But your heart seems so silent
Why do you sleep so still?

9. "Mano Dayak" by Tinariwen

When I finished writing the book, I felt I wanted to reach my mother and celebrate together. This song was the one which took me to her, or brought her to my flat where I was playing the CD Aman Iman (water is life). Electric guitars, chorus, singing root music, African Rhythm, from the Touareg, North Easter Mali mingled with Irish melody and ululations of women so wild that it takes one's breath away.

My mother and I sang with the group, yes foreign words to our ears, but we felt the impact with every word, we danced, she the Dabke' (Lebanese folk dance) and I jumped, shook, and swayed.

Hanan Al-Shaykh and The Locust and the Bird: My Mother's Story links:

the author's Wikipedia entry
excerpt from the book

Barnes and Noble Review review
Bookreporter review
Books and Other Stuff review
Counterpunch review
Critical Mass review
Guardian review
The Independent review
Laila Lalami review
Literary License review
Los Angeles Times review
Lotus Reads review
Mary of Many Colors review
More.com
The National review
New Yorker review
Publishers Weekly review
San Francisco Chronicle review
The Saudi Gazette review
Senior Women Web review

Guardian essay by the author
Lewis Burke Frumkes interview with the author
More.com list of the author's favorite books
Smith interview with the author

also at Largehearted Boy:

other Book Notes submissions (authors create playlists for their book)

online "best of 2009" book lists
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
52 Books, 52 Weeks

tags: books music literature non-fiction memoir feminism lebanon

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Shorties (Books of the Decade, Simon Joyner, and more)

The Telegraph lists the 100 books that "defined the noughties."

The Omaha World-Herald interviews singer-songwriter Simon Joyner.

Singer-songwriter Amanda Palmer talks to the Washington Times about her inventive use of Twitter as a promotional tool.

"I didn't really get Twitter at first," she admits. "It's a thing that tells you what everyone is doing at all times, and that always sounded slightly Orwellian to me. But it's been really cool watching everybody experiment with this new tool, whether they're promoting albums or documenting tours or giving away tickets. The coolest thing about it is that it's as flexible as any given person's personality. If you can think it up, you can do it. No one's going to stop you."

Paste interviews author Augusten Burroughs about his new essay collection, You Better Not Cry.

The A.V. Club interviews Bill Simmons about his new book, The Book Of Basketball.

PopMatters reviews Jeff Lemire's graphic novel, The Nobody.

Contrary to normal assumption, the titular character of Jeff Lemire’s latest graphic novel masterpiece, The Nobody, is small-town teenager Vickie, a dissatisfied Gen-Xer living in the small fishing town Large Mouth, an amusingly clever double entendre of a moniker that would do Alan Ball or Gary Larson proud. Indeed, Lemire creates a world that both satirists would admire, but more than anything else, he shapes, through both his images and his words, a complex, gut-wrenching reinterpretation of one of H.G. Wells’ best-known classics.

Foto8 shares a slideshow of Abraham Deyo's photographs of the Shanghai indie music scene.

Paper Cuts interviews author Kevin Brockmeier.

PopMatters lists its top 10 Beatles songs.

The Oregonian profiles singer-songwriter Corb Lund.

The Phoenix New Times ponders the music blog Idolator without its chief writer, Maura Johnston.

The Cincinnati Enquirer interviews singer-songwriter Robbie Fulks about contributing to tribute albums.

Spiegel interviews author Umberto Eco.

Oh Word examines the true worth of blog posts to musical artists.

Lizzyville shares an mp3 of Solange Knowles (Beyonce's sister) covering the Dirty Projectors' "Stillness Is the Move."

David Small talks to the Miami Herald about his graphic memoir, Stitches.

But Small, who appears Saturday at Miami Book Fair International, was initially resistant to the graphic novel form. "I'd read comics as a kid but didn't follow them. My influences come from my studies in fine art, my 30 years doing picture books and the cinema. I'm not a writer and had no interest in graphic novels. I had a prejudice against the form. I didn't want to turn my story into a cartoon. I wanted it to be simple, but cinematic,'' he said, "like Bunuel, Hitchcock or Bergman.''

Follow me on Twitter for links that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.

also at Largehearted Boy:

online "best of 2009" book lists
online "best of 2009" music lists
best of the decade (2000-2009) online music lists

daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists

tags: music books popculture indie

Posted by david | permalink | post to del.icio.us