You’re on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?

I could seriously watch that all day.

Monday Music Roundup

While not as insanely hilarious as ThingsMyBoyfriendSays.com, this site fills that same voyeuristic niche of eavesdropping into the (unintentionally funny) things people say with no regard for who is listening. OverheardinNewYork.com solicits contributions from New Yorkers with good ears, and the result is a site that I regularly lose track of time on:

Hobo: Go shorty, it’s your birthday…
Drunk black woman, joining in: Yeah! Go, go!
Hobo: Shorty, it’s your shorty…
Drunk black woman: You singing it wrong. It’s, ‘We gonna party like it’s your birthday.’
Passerby gives hobo two dollars.
Drunk black woman: You need to give me half of that, I helped you out with the words.

–Overheard on E train

14-year-old girl: I had like eight shots of vodka, and I didn’t get drunk or anything. I just couldn’t feel my face.

–Overheard in Forest Hills

Tight jeans #1: It’s like the only way to be a punk these days is to be a Republican.
Tight jeans #2: I know.

–Overheard on 2nd Ave, between 7th & 8th St

Dude, I’m so punk rock. Finally. Here’s some handpicked freshness for the new week:

Feel Like Taking You Home Now
Brendan Benson
A new tune off Brendan’s MySpace, this one definitely has a darker, more driving edge than some of his past sunny alternative pop. Perhaps all that time with Jack White is taking its toll. I do like this song, especially once the drum builds and it turns into a gloomy rocker. It’s from his untitled forthcoming solo album, and in the meantime Brendan’s also on the new Stooges record singing back up on a song called “Free and Freaky.” For some other new song samples from Brendan, thanks to So Much Silence for pointing me here.

Weapon of Choice
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
San Francisco’s Black Rebel Motorcycle Club‘s third album Howl was a catchy, loose, bluesy-Americana treat in 2005. This sonic sample from their new album Baby 81 (due May 1) is definitely fuzzier and anthemic, although it also still has the tambourine that I love. It’s a trend I’m noticing more lately, a gravitation away from the young and bluesy sloppiness and into the more produced, larger sound. It will be interesting to see what the album as a whole is like. There’s one more sample song, 666 Conducer, streaming on their site and BRMC recently announced a tour with The Killers.

The Now
Mouthful of Bees
Having a mouthful of bees is pretty much my worst nightmare. Maybe an earful of bees. Whereas I can handle spiders completely without cringing, and once fearlessly killed a scorpion in El Salvador (okay, I had, because he was in my hostel room and no way we were sleeping together), something about bees literally gives me the cold shivers and a primal panic in my gut.

All that to say that I like this song despite the band name — kind of a David Byrne fronting a surf-music-trio vibe. Extremely fresh. Mouthful of Bees is from Minneapolis, and this song is from their 2007 album The End, out now on Afternoon Records.

Maybe We Should Fall In Love
Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers
Here’s the first official mp3 released from the Roger Clyne camp for his new album No More Beautiful World, due out March 20. This one has an acoustic Mexican-seashore feel that’s a little more relaxed, similar to the reworkings of songs on the Four Unlike Before EP last year. It’s fun; it doesn’t grab me as unyieldingly as some of the cuts off Americano! but I still like it. Clyne is, of course, relentlessly touring as usual — starting in the homelands of AZ and CO, then up and down the West Coast in April, and from there . . . everywhere. An excellent show.

Brianstorm
Arctic Monkeys
And finally we have a (non-radio-rip) mp3 of the new tune from Arctic Monkeys off their forthcoming album Favourite Worst Nightmare. It appears to be about someone named Brian who gets top marks for not trying and is apparently both smooth and wet, but other than that I can’t translate much. It is, however, relentless from the opening notes and catchy as all get out. I’d expect nothing less from these fresh-faced NME wunderkinds. The much ballyhooed followup to their 2006 album Whatever People Say I Am . . . is due out April 24th on Domino Records, and they just announced a North American tour which, unfortunately, skips the Rocky Mountains completely. Boo to that, but yay to this song. If it doesn’t make you dance a bit this Monday morning, then you clearly need some more coffee.

What Britney should have gotten tattooed

I know it’s rotten to jest at one who is so clearly falling apart. I know. But admit, it makes you laugh:

Thanks, Stereogum. I am migrating to the new Blogger so barring technical difficulties, I might have more good stuff up later today. Pete Yorn in Denver tonight!

The worst (and yet best) Valentine’s Day card ever

The inside reads (no joke): “Just like you.”

This fantastically horrible card was in the section of the card store for her/from him, but I bought it to use the other way around. Because it makes it even more awesome.

Monday Music Roundup

Dear lord, this site is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a loooong time.

I was laughing out loud (like, rest-your-head-on-the-desk, hope-no-one-hears-your-stifled-guffaws laughing). It was a thing of beauty. ThingsMyBoyfriendSays.com was new to me, and exactly what it sounds like, a gal documenting random funny things that her boyfriend says — no more, no less. Choice cuts:

“I think I’ll ask the dentist to install tusks in my face so I can fully embrace my orcish heritage.”

or

(When I finally made him shave his damn beard:)
“See, this is why I won’t let you have nice things. Because you won’t let me grow majestic facial hair.”

It’s voyeurism perfected in hilarious fashion.
Now for your recommended weekly musical allowance:

Big Chair
Travis
Here’s a radio rip from the BBC of the new one from Scottish rockers Travis – a driving bass line combines with some chattery electronic effects and the smooth vocal delivery of Fran Healy. This’ll be on their fifth studio album, Open, due in the Spring. Ben Stiller is rumored to have laid down some cowbell for one of the tracks; if I ever got to do that for a band, I think I’d die happy. Travis is also headed for the scenic Indio desert of Coachella in April, if you’re lucky enough to catch that fantastic line-up.

Rhythm & Soul (live)
Spoon
I’ve been listening a lot to uber-talented Austin indie/punk/rock/etc band Spoon lately, digging the eclectic combo of often-acoustic guitar, thumping beats, and funky confident vocals. I think this new track (performed live this past August at the lovely Greek Theatre in Berkeley) will sound divine with the full studio treatment. Hooray! [thx Matt]

All My Loving (Beatles cover)
The Smithereens
I am still a little unsure as to why this album was actually necessary; it’s a complete cover of the seminal Beatles’ album Meet The Beatles (1964) by New Jersey rock band The Smithereens. Overall it is interesting to listen to, as the band walks through a series of covers that are largely faithful to the arrangments of the originals but with an edge of their own; The NY Times says, “The album manages to scream Beatles 1964 and Smithereens 2007 all at once.” See what you think of this tune — for all the hype, I don’t exactly know why anyone would listen to this when the original is available.

Rocking Chair (The Band cover)
Death Cab For Cutie
DCFC covers familiar ground lyrically (“Oh, to be home again . . .”) in their reinterpretation of The Band‘s
grizzled soulful ballad, from the diverse new album of covers Endless Highway: The Music Of The Band (out mañana) which has some good stuff on it. Jakob Dylan’s contribution is interesting to me because The Band first came to prominence in ’65-’66 as the backing band for his pops, donchaknow.

Chasing Heather Crazy
Guided by Voices
I make myself a mix CD for the car every month. This is the first song on the next one. Just to entertain myself.

From GBV‘s Isolation Drills (2001).

That was fast

Referencing this, donshaknow.

From the folks at Busted Tees – I actually have some of their shirts and love ‘em because they make me laugh (and make random strangers also laugh at me).

I love my Gramma

Some people’s grandmothers are rotund and plump, sunny demeanored, aproned, bearing a tray full of fresh cookies.

My Gramma is awesome. She is an artist and English tutor who loves to write complaint letters and get free stuff, she raised 5 great children (including my dad), she often claims to be “happy as hell,” and she engaged me in a frank conversation about birth control the last time I was visiting her with no embarassment whatsoever. She often makes me laugh out loud, like when she just sent me this email full of warm materfamilial advice that I can carry with me in my heart (about her highly unfortunate and painful case of shingles):

if anyone comes near me, they are dead. I am one mean cranky gramma.

And if anyone ever tells you that you have shingles, kill yourself instantly.

Right on. Thanks, Gramma!

Ugh! These s’mores are disgusting.

Fun is getting smaller, people

I’d just like to take a moment to mourn the passing of the “Fun Size” candy bar as we know it.

With Halloween coming, we picked up two large bags of chocolate delicacies at Sam’s Club last weekend, in preparation for the costumed masses that happily descend on our house in suburbia.

Now, I may (or may not) have opened said bag of candy in advance and behind closed doors, you know, just to sample the wares and make sure nothing is poisoned. I was shocked and chagrined to see that fun is apparently getting smaller, with Snickers and Milky Ways (and maybe more — who knows how far this travesty has spread) now tinier than ever, mysteriously shrunken from the candy I remember by about 1/3. I thought I was crazy until my friend Jenn recently commented on the same abhorrence, reassuring me that I’m not completely nuts yet.

You don’t just go around messing with Halloween history, M&M/Mars Co.! Is nothing SACRED anymore?

Little Things (acoustic) – Bush
(Heather hearts Gavin Rossdale)

I Want Candy (Kevin Shields remix) – Bow Wow Wow
(from that Marie Antoinette soundtrack you can enter to win here til Friday the 20th)

National Talk Like A Pirate Day

In honor of National Talk Like A Pirate Day today, I am going to share my favorite pirate joke. It sounds best spoken, but this will have to do:

“A pirate walks into a bar. He’s got this giant wooden steering wheel coming right out of the crotch of his pants.

Everyone tries to be polite, but finally the barkeep has to ask: “What IS that thing, man?”

Pirate looks down and says, “Arrgh. I donno matey, but it’s drivin’ me nuts.”

And how perfect is it that there was a whole blessed CD of pirate songs that just came out?

“A Dying Sailor To His Shipmates” – Bono


Pirate shirt design courtesy of Busted Tees.