Shameless Complacency

Well, the White Stripes benchmark for hard-to-find-b-sides has been surpassed, by none other than Jeff Tweedy and co.. Seriously, I started my search for these on Saturday, and countless hours and emails later, I only managed to come up with barely half of what I wanted. It never really hit me how much material Wilco have produced over the years, until I pulled these together. Not necessarily because of the difficulty I had finding these, but in how different they are from each other. You can hear the progression of the band in these tracks, from alt-country to rock to alt-rock, and finally, back to alt-country. Although my favorites here are the two tracks from the More Like The Moon EP, ‘Bob Dylans 49th Beard’ and ‘A Magazine Called Sunset’,most of you will probably find ‘One True Vine’ the most interesting. Vine is the first b-side from Wilco’s latest LP, Sky Blue Sky, to make an appearance. Judging by Wilco’s penchant for recording far more material than they can use, however, I doubt it’ll be the last.

Wilco - A Magazine Called Sunset.mp3

Wilco - Blasting Fonda.mp3

Wilco - Bob Dylan’s 49th Beard.mp3

Wilco - I Am Not Willing.mp3

Wilco - I’m Always In Love [Solo Acoustic].mp3

Wilco - One True Vine.mp3

Wilco - Student Loan Stereo.mp3

Wilco - Sunken Treasure[Solo Acoustic].mp3

Wilco - Thirteen.mp3

Wilco - Tried & True.mp3

Okay, so calling some of these b-sides might be a (huge) stretch, but that doesn’t take away from how cool it is to hear Arcade Fire performing songs so different from what we’re used to. It’s hard to believe these lo-fi folk-rockers would go on to become one of the most over-hyped (I love ‘em, but you know it’s true) bands in recent memory. These tracks, mainly demos from the early 00’s, find Arcade Fire experimenting with alt-country and folk; while you can hear shards of their modern sound (’Cars & Telephones’, ‘Burning Bridges . . .’), I can’t imagine anyone being genuinely impressed with these tracks. There are few, if any, lost treasures here. If you treat them like so, you’re likely to be disappointed. However, treat them like the interesting little oddities that they are, and you’re in for a pleasant surprise.

Arcade Fire - Accidents.mp3

Arcade Fire - Asleep At The Wheel.mp3

Arcade Fire - Born On A Train.mp3

Arcade Fire - Brazil.mp3

Arcade Fire - Burning Bridges, Breaking Hearts.mp3

Arcade Fire - Cars & Telephones.mp3

Arcade Fire - Freeway.mp3

Arcade Fire - Goodnight, Boy.mp3

Arcade Fire - In The Attic.mp3

Arcade Fire - Naive Melody.mp3

Arcade Fire - Sonata.mp3

Arcade Fire - Surf City Eastern Block.mp3

Arcade Fire - The Great Arcade Fire.mp3

Arcade Fire - Virgin Mary Highway.mp3

Arcade Fire - William Pierce.mp3

Arcade Fire - Winter For A Year.mp3

OTHER: On a  completely unrelated note, I want to take a minute to hype a music forum that’s been helping me out lately, Hodiau Direkton. It’s where I find a lot of material, so stop by if you like finding new music.

Sorry it took me longer than usual to put this up, but there were a few tracks that I had a hard time finding, and a few I had to give up on completely. But that’s okay, considering the size of the White Stripes back-catalog. All of thes tracks are interesting for one reason or another, be it their lo-fi charm, or the novelty of hearing the White Stripes cover Dolly Parton. The best of the bunch would definitely be ‘Ashtray Heart’, with it’s crunchy guitar line and sarcasm-laced lyrics. Enjoy, and I promise to have this up in a more timely fashion next week.

The White Stripes - Apple Of My Eye.mp3
The White Stripes - Ashtray Heart.mp3
The White Stripes - Candy Cane Children.mp3
The White Stripes - China Pig.mp3
The White Stripes - I Ain’t Superstitious.mp3
The White Stripes - Jolene.mp3
The White Stripes - Lafayette Blues.mp3

White Stripes B-Sides.zip (Coming Soon)

For your listening pleasure, eight Fesit b-sides. Some are from Open Season, and some are from the red demos, but they’re all good. The most interesting, however, is easily Feist’s cover of Peaches’, her best friend’s, ‘Lovertits’. It unlike anything we’ve ever heard from Feist before, all electro beats and suggestive lyrics. But, that’s what Peaches is all about, eh? It does manage to lose some of the dirt from Peaches version, and Feist’s full vocals suit the song surprisingly well. Long live Peaches and Feist collabs!

Feist - Intuition (Red Demos).mp3

Feist - Leisure Suite(Red Demos).mp3

Fiest - Lovertits (Peaches Cover).mp3

Feist - Mushaboom (Red Demos).mp3

Feist - Snow Lion.mp3

Feist - The Eastern Shore (Red Demos).mp3

Feist - The Simple Story .mp3

Feist - Tout Doucement.mp3

People have been pestering me to make a weekly playlist for a while now, so here it is; the best music post on SC over the past week.Yeah, it’s imperfect, but things will get better. Now the only days of the week I don’t have features for are Thursday and Saturday. Any suggestions?

Blonde Redhead - 23.mp3

Feist - 1 2 3 4.mp3

Björk - Charlene.mp3

Dept. Of Eagles - No One Does It Like You.mp3

Rivers Cuomo - Pig.mp3

Animal Collective - Polly.mp3

Marylin Monroe - Happy Birthday Mr. President.mp3

Technorati Tags: 23, Animal Collective, Bjork, b-sides, Covers, Department Of Eagles, Feist, Marylin Monroe, mp3s, Rivers Cuomo, The Reminder

Last week’s set of b-sides were a nice intro to this feature, but a very messy one. This week, things are much more organized. I’ve included ten b-sides by Björk, from different albums; they’re listed below in chronological order. They’re all good quality, and they’re all b-sides in the sense that they were included only on singles that are now somewhat hard to come by. Although they’re all quite good, my favorites are ‘I Remember You’, ‘Charlene’, and ‘Verandi’. ‘I Remember You’ is a Sinatra-style love song, but with Björk’s own twist, whereas ’Charlene’ relies on it’s slow-burn electro pulse to draw you in. Finally, ‘Verandi’ features an eerie organ, and some of the highest vocals I’ve ever heard from Björk. Enjoy!

Björk - Atlantic.mp3

Björk -I Remember You.mp3

Björk - Sidasta Eg.mp3

Björk - Sweet Intuition.mp3

Björk - Charlene.mp3

Björk - My Spine.mp3

Björk - Visur Vatnsenda-Rosu.mp3

Björk - Scary.mp3

Björk - Verandi.mp3

Björk - Amphibian.mp3

Björk B-Sides.zip

It’s tough to say just how long I’ve had these Modest Mouse b-sides on my hard-drive, but it was just this past weekend that I re-discovered. They’re from all different era’s of Modest Mouse, but I think the majority are from the early-to-mid 90’s. Enjoy these, and with any luck, I’ll have another band to do this with next Tuesday. Oh, and I should warn you that the quality on some of these leaves a lot to be desired.

Modest Mouse - Wagon Ride Return.mp3

Modest Mouse - Sin Gun Chaser.mp3

Modest Mouse - Edit The Sad Parts.mp3

Modest Mouse - Too Many Fiestas For Reuben.mp3

Modest Mouse - A Manic Depressive Named Laughing Boy

Modest Mouse - Beta Carotene.mp3

Modest Mouse - Church.mp3

Modest Mouse - Crazy Gnome.mp3

Modest Mouse - Stonewashed Jeans.mp3

Modest Mouse - Baby Clean Conscience.mp3

Modest Mouse - Four Leaf Clover.mp3

Modest Mouse - Humpin’ Pumpkin.mp3

And a zip file, for those of you to lazy to download those one at a time.

Technorati Tags: b-sides, Modest Mouse, mp3s

I know you’re all waiting for more on Cassadaga, and I’m sorry that I haven’t posted more yet. I just don’t want to post it’s piece until I’m sure of my opinion. In that respect, the piece probably won’t be ready until mid-next week. But since this is, essentially, an mp3 blog, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll give you this mp3 if you wait patiently and promise to check out my review next week. ‘Susan Miller Rag’ is a b-side from Cassadaga, which you should receive a 3″ CD of if you pre-ordered. It’s quite different from anything I’ve ever heard Bright Eyes do. It’s an upbeat rock track, with some very nice mellow instrumentation. After a few listens, it’s fairly easy to hear why it’s a b-side; it just doesn’t fit in with the overall tone of Cassadaga.

Bright Eyes - Susan Miller Rag.mp3

Technorati Tags: Bright Eyes, Cassadaga, mp3s, b-sides