Michael's Texas Embrace

In case for some reason you meant to keep track of all the songs I've made about food lately, I have updated the Current Song Page with all of the dumb-ass food songs so far, including a snazzy extra-crappy cartoon at the top and a new song, Suzy was a Vegetarian. I know, ohboyohboyohboy, right? Get wet.

I'd tell you something interesting about this new song, but it isn't interesting at all. Why listen to it? I don't know. Maybe you're bored or something. I can relate.

My first impulse is to apologize for this. It's really just the same couple of lines over and over. Except that they get mixed up as the song goes along, and I guess that's something. But I can see how this could be annoying. It's also very tinkly sounding. (Props to Andrew Haun for the Christmas gift...I'm using it! Soon I will make it sound better! And, props to my mom for the christmas gift. She got me the super slide whistle; it's metal and has about a two and a half octave range. Every year I ask for toy instruments and noise makers, this year people really delivered. It's a sure bet with me. I want more!)

So, I am sorry.

And yet, this seems like a return to something older for me. I think it's all the toys, and the incongruous chorus that almost sounds like a "serious" song. This song just sort of happened yesterday. (I had the day off.) It has inspired me, though. I want to make "drum-n-toy" music for a bit. Also, it makes me want to start a band with a bassist, and then a bunch of people playing whistles and toy glockenspiels and shakers and stuff. The bass is necessary because toy instruments are almost never in the bass range.

But I'm totally going to make more songs with the toys. Oh yeah. They all seem to be in C, so I will be composing in C major or A minor for a bit. Ah well.

Covered In Butter

Crap! I almost didn't post a Best of 2005 list! But I will! Here it is!!

10. Three way tie: "Broken Social Scene" by Broken Social Scene, "Twin Cinema" by the New Pornographers, and "Everything Ecstatic" by Four Tet. They was real good, but I liked t'othern more.

9. "In Case We Die" - Architecture In Helsinki. It sounds like somebody throwing a kindergarten class into a room full of Indy Rockers and making them fight it out. Who would say no?

8. "LCD Soundsystem" - LCD Soundsystem. It made me shake my booty. Privately, mind you, in the living room with the shades drawn. But shake my booty nonetheless.

7. "Picaresque" - The Decemberists. I'm not in love with every song. I admit. But the ones I am in love with, I would kill a monkey for.

6. "Z" - My Morning Jacket. More focused than their last, yet stranger. "Into the Woods" is fantastic. I mean, start a song off singing about a burning kitten and a baby in a blender, and I'm yours.

5. "The Runners Four" - Deerhoof. Strange. Noisy. Excellent. Oompah-pah!

4. "Apologies to the Queen Mary" - Wolf Parade. I sure like the synths. And I sure listened to this until Maggie was like, "Argh! Are you still listening to the same CD?"

3. "Gimme Fiction" - Spoon. It's tight. And impossibly cool-sounding. And "I Turn My Camera On" is going to teach yer mamma to dance and yer gramma to suck eggs.

2. "Separation Sunday" - The Hold Steady. This one is a surprise, since I picked it up in the free CD box at work. But I've listened to it a freaking ton, and I like it more every time. It rocks, it tells a story, and the lyrics and delivery rule. Who knew that what the punk rockers should really do was try and play bar-band-style classic rock? You don't even know, yo.

1. "Illinois" - Sufjan Stevens. I almost didn't want this to be number one, just because it's so obviously the best. I thought, "surely there was something else, this album is just too good, too effortless." But no. Nothing is better. It pwns.

Happy new year! I may be a little drunk, but I love you all! (Both of those statements are true.)