One of our regular listeners, Jacob Muncy, decided to live blog the Dr. Deadalus Modern Midnight Entertainment Hour last night. You can follow along by going to the program schedule http://web.krtu.org/x4068.xml Just click on Dr. Deadalus, Wed at midnight and follow the Playback link
Here's Jacob's thoughts :
12:01: I have to specially open the KRTU broadcast file in
VLC Media Player because the default Ubunbu audio app won't play it. Is this
annoying? Yes. So that took me a couple seconds. But I come in on... The Dirty
Projectors, lilting echoes and harmonies, with guitars out of a Beach Boys
song. Predictable and pleasant.
12:02: I never got really into Projectors-- they never have
moved past background music for me-- but they make some damn good background
music.
12:03: “The Dr. Dedalus Modern Midnight Entertainment Hour”?
Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE your radio show name?
12:04: Really enjoying this mic break. Michael's radio voice
is awesome.
12:06: Speaking of background music, this Rattatat track is
really pleasing to the ear and really nice to do homework to. The way the
guitars and the beat almost merge together into one thumping rhythm. I wanna
read poetry to it. I also wanna have a beer to it on a sunny afternoon.
12:08: And what's this? Should I recognize it? I'm hooked.
The guitars (I think they're guitars?) sound like bells run through whatever
filter they're using.
12:09: Local Natives, the ticker tells me. Of course. And
the vocals come in. This is what they do best.
12:12. And the next track's guitars come in. Mm. Crunchy.
12:13: Pavement's lo-fi quality gives it this distinct sense
of oldness. They always sound like they really belong in 1977 with Iggy Pop and
the Sex Pistols.
12:16: And then the weird shouting at the end of the track
reminds you that this is so modern indie it hurts.
12:17: I love Sleigh Bells. Although, interesting error: the
slightly washed out, bubblegum vocals at the opening, combined with the
acoustic guitar, made me think of Cults for a split second. Cults, however,
while I love their first album, is consistently trying and failing to be as
sonically rich as even this (fairly scaled-back) track.
12:18: Officially given up on getting my John Donne reading
finished. They're just poems, I can read them at the start of class and be
fine.
12:20: Yeah, that transition worked. Run with it.
12:21: I've always felt guilty for not getting more into
Deerhunter. This track is confirming my failure. Also, re: set associations, I
bet Local Natives listen to a lot of Deerhunter. That same moody, ethereal
moody that so much indie nowadays likes to play with. Everyone seems to be
trying to capture the feeling of watching a sunset while lying mostly submerged
in a pool of water (but not normal water, water with a slightly higher
viscosity than normal water. Frozen vodka maybe, but that's tMG territory).
Alternatively, they're all trying to capture the feeling of being high. I like
my image better.
12:24: “Now they are through with me... now they are through
with me...”
12:26: I don't know this, but I like it. More of the
ethereal echoes that seem to be defining this set, but with an R&B bent in
the beat and melody. This is a soundtrack to a movie scene that involves Samuel
L Jackson walking, I've decided.
12:27: Tame Impala, okay. The problem with liveblogging this
show is that it reveals how much basic indie knowledge I'm totally faking.
12:28: Wiki tells me they're psychedelic rock, and that they
like their songs to sound like dreams. Why are musicians so interested in
dreaming? What sonic qualities do dreams possess? I very rarely remember audio
from my dreams, only images, fleeting and static.
12:30: “Do you realized that happiness makes you cry?”
12:31: Am I the only one that groaned a little bit when this
song got all operatic and space-y? I know it's sort of your thing, Flaming
Lips, but the weird expansiveness makes the lyrics about death and solitary
realizations sound sort of silly.
12:32: I'm going to level with you. I'm not 100% sure that
transition to Cloud Nothings worked. I'm going to level with you again: I don't
care. I love this song. How weird and funny it is that this album seemed to hit
everyone we knew at the exact right time. If this had come out a month earlier
or later, I wonder if it might have missed out on that perfect synchronization
with our lives?
12:36: I forgot that album was called Attack on Memory.
There's a lot to talk about in that concept. A knowing, relentless bent toward
nostalgia (itself anti-memory if we're going to be honest) and anti-aging that
fits into a college student's life particular. Hopin' time will stay useless.
Funny, in juxtaposition with that Flaming Lips song.
12:37: NBD, I just discovered that Cloud Nothings are
geniuses.
12:38: Shit. I have to pee.
12:39: Another surreal indie band channeling the spirit of
R&B with this Toro y Moi track. Those fine samples stand in for Marvin
Gaye's voice, and they're about just as effective. I have no idea what this
song is about, but I'm just going to say it's also about sex.
12:41: Y'know what some media blogs call the R&B/indie
lovechild that's come forth in the past couple of years? PBR&B. Heh. Heh.
12:43: Interestingly, my first question when the Purity Ring
comes on is not, “What is this?” but “Where are we now?” I always feel like
electronic, heavily-synthed pieces are about creating spaces as much as they
are anything else.
12:45: One of the notable things about Ulysses is
that it dramatizes every single aspect of its character's lives. So far in, in
the first six chapters, I've experienced one piss, one bowel movement, and one
bath. This isn't at all relevant to the music, but I am counting down the
minutes until I can go to the bathroom, and if James Joyce can write about it,
so can I.
12:47: Now I'm wondering, “What is this?”
12:48: The droning bass is hypnotic, especially in
conjunction with the restrained, menacing vocals. This song didn't want to get
out of bed this morning.
12:49: “Myth” is a great name for a song. The way it opens
up in such a compelling way at about a minute and a half is neat. Maybe the
song finally decided to get up and get breakfast.
12:50: This song isn't quite melodic in a normal sense, but
it also isn't quite... not.
12:51: I think you just tricked me into liking The Postal
Service. Dammit you guys.
As a
sidenote, I don't know why I've never liked TPS. I love Death Cab, and Ben
Gibbard's voice is wonderful. It's just never done it for me.
12:52: It's still not quite doing it for me. I like
the female vocal jumping in here, but the way they use chiptune sounds just
don't feel that expressive to me. Those effects need to do something other than
just make the proceedings feel a little cartoon-y, and I'm not getting it.
Could this song not be more effective with traditional instrumentation?
Gibbard, godlovehim, just doesn't strike me as an electronic songwriter. Say
what you will about Owl City, but his use of electronic sounds successfully
communicated an honest sense of childlike wonder in a way that I don't know he
could've done otherwise. Or the use of electronics created that wonder? (it's
his initial and only style of recording, so it's worth asking) Egg-chicken and
all that shit.
12:55: I was too busy thinking about the Postal Service and
Owl City to have any feelings about that last mic break. Whoops.
12:56: FEIST. I have little else to say about her.
12:57: Except, perhaps, that I would join her moon colony
anyday.
12:59: I have many thoughts about LCD Soundsystem, but they
mostly begin with intense acclamations of praise.
1:00am: Something about the chord progression-- this song
feels like a benediction. I have no doubt that this impression is highly
calculated on their part, and it plays well against a song about fundamental
lack. Scraping for what affection and love you can get. It says: Things end.
But they also don't.
1:06am: bbl bathroom
-Jacob Muncy is a Senior English major at Trinity University. You can follow him on Twitter @jakemuncy
You can hear the Dr. Deadalus Modern Midnight Entertainment Hour with Michael Garatoni and Johnson Haygood Wed. nights at midnight.
Jacob, you are my favorite.
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