Peace On Earth (The 2014 Popnarcotic Christmas Music Mix)
Every year when I do a holiday-themed music mix, I always give it a working title, just for my own mental reference: “Wassail” or “Xmas Cool” or something like that. This year I quickly gave this collection of tunes the working title “Peace On Earth”. Obviously, that’s from the wonderful MattPondPA cover of George Harrison’s immortal “Give Me Love” that kicks off this year’s mix. I’d always eventually meant to change it to something snappier. Funnier. Something goofy. But then over the past few weeks the news has just been bleak. People keep getting killed for incomprehensible reasons, and even more incomprehensibly, idiotic shouters want to blame every person besides the killers for events that happened. Much like the moronic inanity of the “War On Christmas”, it’s pseudo-rage meant to push buttons. Media outlets of every stripe and political leaning figured out years ago that ginned up outrage equals ratings and page clicks and money.
And so “Peace On Earth” ended up being a title I kept. It felt sadly appropriate, obviously. I don’t worry about it being “too topical” or too rooted in 2014, either. If we know history well enough, we know that sadly “Peace On Earth” will always be a quixotic wish with applicable currency for any year.
But….not just every year will have this lineup of holiday tunes. It’s not all wistful solemnity! There’s that chiming “Getting Better All The Time” guitar nick that the wonderful Pugwash use on “Tinsel And Marzipan” for instance, that sets my heart a-flutter every time. There’s Dutch indie rockers Clean Pete and Niek from the band Afterpartees doing a take on Kirsty McColl and Shane MacGowan that seems a little too rip-offy…and then the chorus dips into that minor fifth outta nowhere and I swoon. Maybe most improbably, I discovered this year that two bands do songs called “My Beerdrunk Soul Is Sadder Than All The Dead Christmas Trees In The World”. Turns out its a quote from Charles Bukowski, so that probably explains it. There’s a Joy Formidable B-side with that title, but it sounds icy and distant. A Scottish band called Broken Records also do a completely different song with that title, and theirs sounds like an amazing, drunken raveup. Guess which one I used? I hate that I’ve not even mentioned an awesome Francopop tune from Canada’s Chic Gamine or The Raveonettes or Los Campesinos. Shoot, there’s even some K-Pop, a genre which I figured there’d be no way I’d ever put on a mix, but when you hear a song like “An Eighties Christmas Song”, you just gotta. I mean, c’mon. We got yr cool Yule right here, mac.
This year there’s also more Lisa Mychols (who, you know, get used to seeing in these mixes for a good long while, and if her Christmas album recorded with the Wondermints ever comes back in print, you should but immediately–right now it’ll run you about $100 used) who’ll pluck your heartstrings with “Pure And Simple”. There’s London indieboys Tellison making a good case for telling a few lies over the holidays. There’s some classics too for chilling and grooving.
And of course, there’s me putting this out there to wish you the happiest, most joyful, and hopefully peaceful of holidays and new years. I know that “Peace on earth” is a cliche and a humbug and thoroughly impossible thing, but I don’t think I’m going to stop wishing for it, just the same. Merry Christmas!
Peace On Earth (Christmas Music, 2014!)
1. “Humbug”
2. “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)” MattPondPA
3. “You’re Just Like Christmas” The Crookes
4. “Tinsel and Marzipan” Pugwash
5. “Favorite Things” The Supremes
6. “Noel (Au Coin de Portage et Main)” Chic Gamine
7. “Let It Snow” Frank Sinatra
8. “Make It To Christmas” Clean Pete featuring Niek
9. “Snow Song” I Was A King
10.”Don’t Tell The Truth This Christmas” Tellison
11.”Winter Wonderland” Ray Charles
12.”Winter Now” Broadcast
13.”An Eighties Christmas Song” Tramgirl Karaoke Club
14.”Pure and Simple” Lisa Mychols
15.”My Beerdrunk Soul Is Sadder Than All The Dead Christmas Trees In The World” Broken Records
16.”When Christmas Comes” Los Campesinos!
17.”Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer Mambo” Billy May
18.”The Christmas Song” The Raveonettes
19.”Christmas Stars” Dwight Twilley
20.”Taking Down The Tree” Low
21.”I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday” Wizzard
22.Fairytales, New York, and the Boys of the NYPD Choir
(click the header or picture and the music should happen.)
Really, I Promise. Christmas Tunes are coming!
Got hepped to something on Saturday morning that sounded funny to use in future years. Decided Saturday afternoon that it incorporated such a neat part of 2014 that I wanted to stick it into this year’s mix.
Making a few audio adjustments for posterity today.
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Yes, Virginia, There Is a Christmas Mix Coming.
Bleah. In my heart of hearts, I’d meant to have a Christmas mix done and posted for general consumption on Monday. However, a couple of regular accounts I work with were desperate to get some things done before the holidays, and were willing to make it worth my while to help them out. So…self-imposed deadlines for Wednesday and Friday have come and gone. Yikes!
I sorta feel like Scrooge a bit, because I’ve been working lots and not doing that whole “keeping Christmas well” thing. At least not as well as I’d have liked to. Let’s go with that.
It isn’t just that, though. I’ve either become extraordinarily picky about what songs I’ll consider for a Christmas mix, or the awful crap to good stuff ratio for the Christmas tunes I’ve been listening to is way out of whack in favor of the former category.
The other thing is, if I wanted to have something done right now, it’d be done. I’ve learned from experience that this is no way to do a holiday music mix, though. Rushing and cutting corners leads to bad stuff. There are at least two mixes from the last 10 years that I just cannot listen to at all, because I know I rushed them, and I know there are gaping errors in content and placement in both of them. A Christmas music mix is kinda forever for me, for each year I do it. No backsies.
At any rate, I’m at the quality-control stage here, and I have to have it done for a little holiday shindig tomorrow. So. I’ll finish it up tonight. Post it tomorrow, and maybe throw a reminder up for those of you who only surf the internet on weekdays at work on Monday. You know who you are.<a
Horror Movies For Halloween, 2014!
“Wanna see something really scary?” (Dan Aykroyd, The Twilight Zone)
I know I do, especially at this time of year. In fact, last year I spent October buried in horror films. Over at Quarter To Three, Tom Chick and I dual-blogged our impressions of 30 selected horror movies covering 30 years, from 1957-1987. It was a blast.
This year, I’m going to be doing something similar, but with a modified theme. For 2014’s horror movies in October, we’re going to cover the best 31 horror movies of the last 15 years. The premise–and I don’t want to spoil too much just now–is that the last 15 years for horror film have been a golden age in the genre, covering a wide variety of sub-genres. We’ve got found footage, fake documentaries, creature features, psycho killers, ghost stalkers and even a good ol’ fashioned werewolf or vampire, too. Oh yeah–we also got zombies. Boy howdy, do we have zombies!
I think we’ll be up again at Qt3, and so each day a friend and I will write about a new movie over there, and I’d love for you to show up and offer your own opinions in the frequently lively discussions that ensue. Consider this your invitation to join in!
On the movies chosen: I crowd-sourced it with some of the horror aficionados at Quarter To Three over the last few weeks. We started with nearly 100 films to fill 31 spaces. We wanted to get culturally significant movies in, we wanted a representative cross section of films, we wanted to give a leg up to artistically interesting movies, etc. etc. I can’t tell you how bummed I was to have to leave great flicks like Zombieland or Trollhunter off the list, but that’s just how strong the last 15 years have been. If your favorite movie isn’t covered, well…maybe we’ll get to it some other time? In the meantime, here are the 31 movies we’ll talk about in October, in the order we’ll discuss them.
The Blair Witch Project
Audition
Ginger Snaps
Session 9
Frailty
The Ring (US)
Ju On
May
28 days/Weeks Later (A two-fer!)
A Tale of Two Sisters
Shutter
Shaun Of The Dead
Call Of Cthulhu
The Descent
[rec]
The Orphanage
Lake Mungo
Martyrs
Let The Right One In
Splinter
Paranormal Activity
Triangle
Cabin In The Woods
House Of The Devil
The Pact
Berberian Sound Studio
Resolution
The Last Will and Testament Of Rosalind Leigh
You’re Next
The Banshee Chapter
Trick R Treat
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How To Tell Your Returneds Apart.
In the last few days I’ve sort of stumbled upon a recently added Netflix TV series. The show is called “The Returned”. It’s a French show based on a 2004 movie, and I’m finding it absolutely absorbing, almost in the way that True Detective and Twin Peaks once got their respective hooks in to me.
The premise of the show is simple: a small mountain town in Alpine France suddenly has selected dead folks coming back, exactly as they were before they died. They appear healthy, in mostly sound mind…and fairly confused and blanked out on where they’ve been and what happened to them that they died in the first place. If you’re expecting that to be warm and fuzzy, don’t. Living people react to folks who’ve been dead for a decade or more just showing up at the house in unpredictable ways.
Also, apparently one of the returned dead is a serial killer.
And then there’s Victor. Yeesh.
It’s a haunting and beautiful show that I cannot recommend enough. That being said, if you’re not careful, you’re going to get caught in this weird net of Returned-isms, because apparently every intellectual property publisher and their Uncle Bob wants a version of this premise. Let us fine folk at Popnarcotic help you navigate this nonsense.
1. We begin with Les Revenants, a 2004 French film.
Les Revenants was directed by Robin Campillo. It received middling reviews. Many critics thought the premise was interesting, but not particularly well-executed. The movie was retitled “They Came Back” for English-speaking audiences.
2. The Returned (the French TV series THAT IS SERIOUSLY GREAT AND TOTALLY WORTH WATCHING!) is an adaptation of that 2004 movie.
The show is called “Les Revenants” in France, but on Channel 4 in the UK and on the Sundance Channel and Netflix in the US it is called “The Returned”. The first 8-episode season aired in 2012. The second season airs later this year. The series is created by (or adapted, or however is the proper way to put it) by a fellow with outstanding taste in music named Fabrice Gobert. In one of Fabrice’s previous movies, he got Sonic Youth to do the score (apparently just by asking); Mogwai does the score for The Returned, and it is outstandingly beautiful and haunting.
3. In 2013 a very bright young filmmaker named Manuel Carballo made a movie called–wait for it–The Returned.
Carballo’s movie is also excellent, and although it’s a zombie movie, as Tom Chick points out in his interview and podcast with Carballo, it’s so much more. This Returned is actually about healthcare issues, rationing, and medical ethics. Other than the title, it has no relationship to the French TV series or movie.
4. August of 2013 saw the release of a book called–come on, you’ve already guessed–“The Returned”.
The book is by a guy named Jason Mott, who as far as I know never saved any games in the 2011 World Series. In Mott’s book, he apparently presents a scenario where he explores how a family copes with having a long-dead child suddenly return to them, alive and exactly the way he was when he died. Stop me if this all sounds familiar to you. I guess in this novel, the rising from the dead thing is also a bit of a global phenomenon. Or something. Frankly, I’m stunned that Jason Mott wasn’t sued to the ends of the earth for what sounds like a blatant bit of plagiarism.
5. ABC here in America optioned Mott’s book for a TV series called Resurrection.
“Hey, but wait,” I can hear you thinking. “This show will be based on the novel, so it won’t be like the awesome French TV series that is suddenly getting ripped off by everyone who brushes up against it. Indeed, in this interview the executive producers of “Resurrection” claim that not only have they totally never EVER seen the French show, but they’ve deliberately avoided watching it for fear of ripping it off. The producers of the ABC show say that, in fact, to try to be totally original, they’re only using Mott’s book as a jumping off point, but that their TV show will go in its own unique direction. In fact, their original vision of Mott’s novel involves them setting Resurrection in a mountain village in Colorado, and making the initial season of the series only 8 episodes. If I am a lawyer for Canal+, I’m on the phone with everyone at ABC at this point, because they’re completely lying here. The show is an obvious ripoff of the French show, and it’s so boldly crass the way they’re doing it that I can’t help but root for this show to fall flat on its face. What, are they waiting until they see the next season of Les Revenants in November before deciding on a second season?
6. But wait, there’s more!
Just when you thought you could tell one Returned from another, it turns out that the A&E Channel has actually secured the rights to the French TV series (which you really should be watching right now instead of reading this). A&E has a show runner attached to the series and is apparently moving full steam ahead on bringing an Enlish-language American adaptation of the show to American cable TV. Oddly enough, A&E is majority-owned by Disney/ABC. Talk about hedging your bets.
At any rate, there’s one Returned I recommend, and that’s the French TV show. It is beautifully, cinematically shot. The dialogue is painful and real-sounding. The acting is superb. The production values are through the roof. It can be seen on Netflix (which is where I discovered it), the Sundance Channel on cable, or you can buy individual episodes from Amazon and iTunes. If my fanboying over how great the show is hasn’t yet convinced you, let me show you the title sequence, which spoils nothing about the show, but does tell you everything about how beautiful and weird and amazing it is:
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A True Detective Musical Interlude…
Like lots of folks, I’m quite smitten with the HBO show True Detective. As a fan of Ellroy, Pelecanos, and Ligotti (the latter I’ve just started reading in the past year, and hoo-boy), I’ve found myself right at home in its swampy, noir charms. As a die-hard Angel Heart fanboy, I can’t help but see True Detective as a 21st Century update of that setting and theme.
I’ve also really dug the music in the show. HBO sometimes just wins me over based on a theme song–like using the Brian Jonestown Massacre’s “Straight Up And Straight Down” for Boardwalk Empire–and they couldn’t have picked better music than the haunting Handsome Family tune that opens every True Detective episode this season. I still maintain that T-Bone Burnett’s signature production sheen spackles on some of the dullest sonic layering and compression you’ll ever hear (I liken it to someone taking sandpaper to smooth out any rough edges which is usually a terrible thing to do with rock and blues and soul; if he’d produced the White Stripes, “Fell In Love With A Girl” would’ve been played through a capo’d guitar turned down to 4, with Jack White’s vocals auto-tuned). Despite that beef I have with him, there’s no disputing the dude has good taste in the music he picks.
Something I forgot about until recently is that I sort of made my own True Detective soundtrack over four years ago. I uploaded it here, too! For Halloween in 2009 I made two music mixes. I did one for a small get-together that involved watching a couple of bayou/backwoods horror films and also drinks and cards. It was a pretty downcast mix, and I think I was going for haunted and rustic and creepy as a feel. I called it Rosedale At Midnight, the title of the mix referring to the crossroads in Mississippi where Robert Johnson is alleged to have sold his soul.
When I put that mix together, I was reading and influenced by George Pelecanos’ most existential novel, The Night Gardener (about retired homicide detectives haunted by unsolved serial killings…sound familiar?) I remembered it over the weekend and gave it a couple of listens today and as a mix it holds up, and as a nice “Gimme more of that True Detective-sounding music” it really works.
So, in case you missed it back when, I hope you’ll indulge me exhuming it this week, as we await a visit to Lost Carcosa.
Rosedale At Midnight
1. Intro….
2. Cary Hudson, “Haunted House Blues”
3. Syd Barrett, “Late Night”
4. Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians, “Raymond Chandler Evening”
5. Califone, “Funeral Singers”
6. House Of Freaks “Lonesome Graveyard”
7. The Velvet Underground “Ocean”
8. Neko Case “Ghost Writer”
9. Hank Williams Sr. “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”
10. Blitzen Tripper, “Black River Killer”
11. The Clientele, “Graven Wood”
12. Outrageous Cherry, “Out There In The Dark”
13. The Cobbs, “Deathcapades”
14. Matt Murphy D/B/A Guy Terrifico, “Friend Of The Devil”
15. Gene Austin, “Girl Of My Dreams”
16. Sparklehorse, “Spirit Ditch”
17. The Rolling Stones, “Midnight Rambler”
18. Mark Lanegan, “The Winding Sheet”
19. Cat Power, “Werewolf”
20. The Rain Parade, “A Broken Horse”
21. jennyanykind, “Ghostly White”
(Right click the title, or this sentence, to save or stream.)
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Top 50 Music List of 2013, Mixtape 3
Down the stretch comes the final mixtape of the best music of 2013! Click away.
1. It Hugs Back, “Sa-Sa-Sa-Sails”
The first time I heard this song–which opens IHB’s 2013 album Recommended Record–it felt like a year-old lab puppy had just jumped into my lap and smothered me with affection, totally unaware of its own gloriously clumsy and over-the-top power. This song is a tidal wave of awesome. http://ithugsback.bigcartel.com/
2. The Men “Without A Face”
Obviously wearing a Neil Young influence elsewhere on their album New Moon, this particular song sports that influence a bit while still nicely recalling their noisier previous efforts. http://wearethemen.blogspot.com/
3. Emiliana Torrini, “Speed Of Dark”
This is here because Glenn Boothe tweeted about how good her record was last week, and I’ve been listening in a fairly obsessive endless loop since. Slinky and dark and sleek yet not without some rough edges, this Icelandic singer/songwriter album Tookah would be a for sure entrance in a year end top ten albums list, if I still did such things. http://emilianatorrini.com/
4. Superchunk, “Trees Of Barcelona”
Don’t call it a comeback. Superchunk’s second record after a hiatus continues the standards of excellence they’ve always had. One thing that people who write about Superchunk never seem to play up enough to my mind is just how well-built your typical Superchunk song is. This track, for instance is a genius exemplar of how you put verses, choruses, vocal clusters, bridges, and fadeouts together into a near-perfect whole. http://www.superchunk.com/
5. Temples, “Keep In The Dark”
Here in America we try, we really do. American bands try hard to look like rock stars before they’ve sold a record, try hard to get that 70s feel just right…but we’ve never, not ever done that as well as the Brits. Take Temples, for example, with the Bolan curls and gold lame pants and leather shirts…THESE guys are rock stars. This is a teaser single for a 2014 album that looks like it’ll be an absolute monster. Even better, it deserves to be. This is how you write a fantastic pop single. Dig those harps! http://templestheband.com/music
6. Guided By Voices, “Islands (She Talks In Rainbows)”
Well, WELCOME BACK, TOBIN SPROUT! Holy crap, what a song this is. You know how cool and lush and amazing the song that ends the first GBV album ever–“Captains Dead”–sounds? This is that, again, and it feels like some amazing transmission from an alternate guitar rock universe. I know a lot of folks who were stoked that the old GBV lineup were recording again. This is why. From the album English Little League, http://rockathonrecords.com/guided_by_voices.html
7. Leisure Society, “All I Have Seen”
Let’s put something to rest: The Leisure Society aren’t a folk band. On their 2013 album, Alone Before The Ark, they both pare down their instrumentation a bit while filling out their sound. It’s a rock record with forays into folk, punk (no really!), and even–like here–a bit of blue-eyed soul. Wanna know why they’re Ray Davies’ favorite band? Give this a listen and then ask yourself if any other band could pull off a song this graceful, soulful, muscular and yet delicate. http://www.theleisuresociety.co.uk/
8. Euros Childs, “Holiday From Myself”
No idea what it is, but something about Euros’s beautiful, winsome voice makes me instantly nostalgic and happy. It conveys a sense of longing and whimsy and sadness somehow all rolled into one. This is music the adjective “lovely” was created to describe. From the 2013 album Situation Comedy, website is here: http://euroschilds.co.uk/
9. Mikal Cronin, “Shout It Out”
We live in wonderful times, times where a beautifully constructed hook like the one here captures the hearts of hipsters and cranky old men like me alike. Mikal Cronin at this point in his career seems to be tapping into a talent without boundaries. This song, from the sort of latin-guitar opening to the handclaps and noise closing, is just amazing. From the album MCII, available here: http://www.mergerecords.com/mcii
10. The Martha’s Vineyard Ferries, “She’s A Fucking Angel (From Fucking Heaven)”
Not sure what’s more amazing, the song title (which is clearly the song title of the year) or that the music actually lives up to it. This has a bit of a 90s indie noise punch married to a postpunk whirr of guitars and bass and a song that totally succeeds at making that title pay off. From the 2013 album Mass. Grave, check it here: http://kiamrecords.bandcamp.com/album/mass-grave
11. Eleanor Friedberger, “Stare At The Sun”
The excellence of her solo album, Personal Record, has me thinking about going back to listen to Fiery Furnaces and seeing if that band retcons. There’s none of the affected preciousness I’ve always associated with FF here, just a meaty, wonderfully executed song and album. Check it here: http://www.eleanorfriedberger.com/
12. Polvo, “Light Raking”
How great is this song? I mean it comes off sounding like the most pop thing Polvo’s ever done…and then after that first chorus they remind us “Hey, you’re listening Polvo, cheese.” Love the way this songs subverts expectations constanstly throughout, with those Don Henley synths on the chorus to the way they deconstruct and rebuild it all again. From the 2013 album Siberia, check it here: http://www.mergerecords.com/polvo
13. Brendan Benson, “Oh My Love”
Benson’s consistency became almost (don’t tell anyone I said this) dull in the past few years. In 2013, he released a single each month, and the unique approach seems to have fueled a new creative spark in his work. This song is like a swaying, swinging Pachelbel’s Canon with clever lyrics and brilliant execution. Benson collected all his 2013 singles onto an album at year’s end called You Were Right. Check it out here: http://www.brendanbenson.com/
14. The Parquet Courts, “Borrowed Time”
Yes, I know. You’ve heard this song dozens of times over the last year. So what? When a group of young NYC area rockers gets together and perfectly distills the things I loved so much 20 years ago in Big Dipper and Hypnolovewheel and this time the whole world notices…well we’re taking that for a victory lap here. http://parquetcourts.wordpress.com/
15. Dragoon, “Be In My Movie”
After waiting for a couple of years for the first Dragoon album, this one just sort of seemed to spontaneously appear last winter. Astonishingly, the album–The Galaxy Is But A Nursery–is better than the debut. This song is emblematic–loud, raucous, hook-filled, and clever. Check it out: http://dragoongalaxy.bandcamp.com/
16. Franz Ferdinand, “Right Action”
We promised you hits, hits you get. Yes, this song is all over cooler radio stations–but with good reason. This is how you write an outstanding, butt-shaking, anthemic post punk anthem…and we’ll ignore that it completely rips off That Petrol Emotions “Big Decision” for now. http://www.franzferdinand.com/
17. My Bloody Valentine, “In Another Way”
Of all the tracks on My Bloody Valentine’s surprising return to the land of the living sort of self-title album MBV, none sounded so much like a continuation of themes from Loveless than this track. Interestingly though, this song also best shows the way to a future MBV sound and future records, if they feel like it. A beautiful, sensual assault. http://www.mybloodyvalentine.org/Catalogue.aspx
18. The Elephant Stone, “The Sacred Sound”
The Elephant Stone’s self-titled 2013 album might be one of the best two or three records that came out in 2013, and what makes it striking is how often it both hews close to a formula before then breaking away from such constraints. For instance, this song is all feedback and noise that gives way to woozy strings and Rishi Dhir’s echoed voice closing out our look at the past year with one of the most gorgeous songs that came out in the last 12 months. http://www.elephantstonemusic.com/
That’s it, we’re done! Thanks for reading or listening or tolerating. Have a lovely 2014, y’all.
Popnarcotic 
