So Says I (Day 11)

Paul Westerberg - "Let The Bad Times Roll"
M Ward - "Post-War"
Coldplay - "Twisted Logic"
Los Lobos - "Luna"
The Arcade Fire - "No Cars Go"
Time for a few obligatory words about The Arcade Fire. They do live up to the hype. I mean come on, name another more original band from the past three years - - that also managed to reach a level of deserved success. Anyone? I caved to the press clippings in '04 and bought their first CD (a CD, how quaint, huh?) in L.A. at the spectacular Amoeba Music on Sunset Blvd. Driving around the city at night blasting "Neighborhoods #2 (Laikia)" was a lot of fun. So what of their follow-up, Neon Bible? Good, not great. For some reason, I prefer hearing the songs much more in the live recordings I have from their last tour. In concert the songs feel more immediate and raw, like the first album. Meanwhile, how cool was this pairing? I would never have thought of it, but "Keep The Car Runnin'" really does sound like a Bruce song. (You gotta love the guy screaming, "Oh my god! What the fuck?!" on the video.)
Nada Surf - "Treading Water"
Emmylou Harris - "Michelangelo"
The Shins - "So Says I"
Yo La Tengo - "Last Days of Disco"
Gorgeous song, all-time great band. The songs on And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out (plodding, ethereal) did take some getting used to (especially after the instant classic I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One). Since I interviewed the band just as this album came out for a magazine (which recently removed archived articles from their site, bummer), it remains a personal favorite. Since I can't link to the article, I will tell you that for the piece I took Ira, Georgia and James to a New Jersey Nets game. Sadly it wasn't baseball season...
Wilco - "Ashes Of American Flags" (live)
Billy Bragg & Wilco - "Secrets of the Sea"

And then I got to work.

Today's Stats
Total songs listened to: 11
Total minutes of music (approx.): 47
Song with the most previous plays: (tie) "Twisted Logic," "So Says I" - 8
Miscellaneous factoid about my trip to work today: The main factoid I planned to share was that I actually saw some guy on the subway reading one of those Kindle things, and I took a photo of him to prove it. (If you don't know, the Kindle is the digital device from Amazon that you can download books on to.) The secondary factoid is that I was so enthralled by the "mosaic" function on my phone's camera (see below) that I missed my stop. Fucking idiot.