tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78697800087334838382012-02-17T04:17:29.707-05:00and I can hear 'em <br><br><br>Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.comBlogger1051100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-14037527197277742582011-05-29T15:25:00.002-04:002011-05-29T15:47:39.587-04:00

Shockingly enough, I've been so busy in May that neither this nor my personal blog have been updated, although links and information for both have been piling up steadily. I was hoping to get time to write a proper song review here, but no such luck. However, I am going to share some of the stuff that I've been reading/watching about Low that's worth your time (some of which I wish I'd run into

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-64798787116865512012011-05-03T13:11:00.004-04:002011-05-03T13:54:29.955-04:00

So Low played at the Mod Club in Toronto last night, during which time the audience found out just how horribly our elections went (a little context, if you need it). After he flubbed the opening to "Murderer," Alan even asked us about the results; the when crowd erupted in boos and profanity, he just laughed and told us now we'd see what it's felt like to be an American in 2004. He also prefaced

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-26286800022659712242011-04-14T08:58:00.004-04:002011-04-14T09:09:29.817-04:00

Still very busy this week, but my review of C'mon is up at PopMatters today. I will be covering all of the tracks here, but if anyone was wondering what I thought of the album... (quick answer: 9/10)

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-34329611990846264122011-04-13T13:50:00.004-04:002011-04-13T14:30:59.450-04:00

So there's a new, unembeddable video for "Try to Sleep" out. I've been very busy this week, but after I get some stuff dealt with, I should be able to write another entry for here... for now, I have to say I like the video (and yes, I think he does a good job in it).EDIT: Yeah, for some reason it didn't come up on YouTube when I searched it, but it's there. So here's the video.

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-58515277045652431182011-04-05T15:40:00.004-04:002011-04-05T23:20:54.749-04:00

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-36509518833207725902011-03-22T15:45:00.004-04:002011-03-22T17:31:42.626-04:00

100th post! Of course, not all of them are songs, and in fact we're coming perilously close to the second anniversary of the last proper TMW,TMW review. In that time, Low have made another album, although we won't actually see it until mid-April. I've already preordered C'mon, which means I can listen to a streaming version, and if you're a fan of Low I can say confidently that you should too.

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-89375670788498608962011-03-12T12:52:00.004-05:002011-05-03T13:43:36.455-04:00

I said I was coming back, and the first part of that is this long-overdue effort on my part. A little while back Low put out a free digital EP called Live at Eindhoven, which is excellent, but very short. That EP is just a small fragment of the band's performance at the Heartland Festival, recorded at the Catharinakerk Eindhoven, the Netherlands, January 22, 2009. Well, thanks to the good offices

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-84886389302628690232011-03-04T11:26:00.003-05:002011-03-04T11:39:15.445-05:00

Wow, so the last actual song review I wrote for here was in April 2009, huh? This is one of the unintended side effects of having a job. But it's not like I'm any less obsessed with Low, and I'll admit, this thread (on a message board I refuse to join because I don't have the time to keep up at all) makes me kind of eager to get back to TMW,TMW. I've got the new Low album, and I've got that

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-75295549144985114122010-06-07T22:44:00.003-04:002011-03-04T11:39:04.721-05:00

I know, I know; I got a real job, and it's been keeping me too busy to write for the places I normally write, let alone this blog. Yes, I do still intend to finish things off here... at some point. RSS feeds are your friend. But for now, this was just too bizarrely awesome to let pass without comment: Robert Plant's new album will contain two Low covers, of "Silver Rider" and "Monkey." The story

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-15792378702698893312009-10-13T00:56:00.004-04:002011-03-04T11:38:53.807-05:00

How much do I want to attend one (or more) of these shows? So much that it actually hurts a little. I hope all Low fans anywhere near Houston, NYC, Middletown or Minneapolis manage to get to one of those shows, because this sounds incredible:Providing the musical backdrop to Thorson's piece, Heaven, Alan and Mimi are providing original music and vocal orchestration. Heaven examines the trinity

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-50246073750611170922009-10-09T04:10:00.002-04:002009-10-09T04:25:49.640-04:00

Plans have been long underway to get TMW,TMW dusted off and working again, and hopefully that'll happen soon, but for now a little tidbit from maybe my favourite general purpose pop culture website, the Onion AV Club: They included "Mom Says" in their list "Don’t try to wake me in the morning: 36 (mostly excellent) songs to soundtrack your suicide." And while that title makes it sound a bit

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-18861437071419418432009-06-24T01:02:00.004-04:002009-10-09T04:33:04.940-04:00

Yes, we're still trucking on here. I have no idea what happened to May, let alone most of June; I've been sick, but believe me this thing will continue to be intermittently updated at the very worst. Once I get some other commitments dealt with I am thinking of returning to a regular schedule to polish off the rest of Low's songography, because this is getting ridiculous! So keep watching

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-58826297361130556822009-04-20T23:03:00.002-04:002009-04-20T23:44:23.404-04:00

This is a song, I think, about being angry with yourself. Or at least, I'm angry with myself right now (I'm unemployed and struggling not to waste my days, and what do I do? Fall back into playing Civilization all afternoon and evening, goddamn it), and "Little Argument With Myself" is the Low song that springs to mind. It's a brief song, occurring just after the most terrifying song on Trust

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-47409529265321198282008-12-02T00:27:00.003-05:002008-12-02T00:46:19.432-05:00

this is secretly one of our favouritesI'm not sure whether Alan's liner notes to the b-side version of "I Remember" found on A Lifetime of Temporary Relief are just indicating that alternate version of the opening song from Secret Name or to "I Remember" in general. I kind of hope it's the latter.No disrespect to the version they recorded with Mimi singing lead for the UK "Immune" single. The

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-18207827726766814612008-11-27T11:25:00.003-05:002008-11-27T11:31:31.989-05:00

This song is terrifying. Up until the last verse, where the lyrics change a bit, it's also one of the bigger mismatches I've ever heard between lyrical content and lyrical delivery. Picture a song about waiting for Santa to come with presents, delivered a bit like a hybrid between "John Prine" and horror movie soundtrack music. When the drums come in, I got a little shiver. And the video!

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-22347384640739688412008-10-27T20:25:00.002-04:002008-10-27T21:26:30.857-04:00

Ye gods, it's been a while. Sorry. You sort of get out of the habit of doing these, and then.... come to think of it, this time of year seems to have been bad for my colleagues, some of whom are still plugging away and whose work I enjoy. There is one notable exception in terms of productivity: Matthew Perpetua's excellent Pop Songs 07-08 (lest we forget, the R.E.M. blog that got this whole

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-88328854636525500572008-09-04T12:16:00.001-04:002008-09-04T12:17:39.185-04:00

I keep trying to find the time to write another entry (and should be able to do so pretty soon), but for now, he's an interview I did with Alan for PopMatters.

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-12655036428997014342008-08-23T01:45:00.002-04:002008-08-23T02:08:58.548-04:00

probably one of our most self loathing songs. it's easier to be this obvious when you're younger. age makes you want to hide such feelings, or at least be more cryptic, unfortunately sometimes. hard to play now without feeling like a cry-baby. i'm not sure if that's good or bad.Oh Alan, I know how you feel - do I ever! August has been a mercilessly busy month, and also the closest I've had to a

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-78564694007214462002008-07-25T17:08:00.002-04:002008-07-25T17:47:01.081-04:00

studies show that people who live under major power lines become "addicted" to them - Alan Hmm, I've been trying to do one a week, but I guess one every two weeks is more realistic right now, sorry! Still, we forge ahead, etc. I am still adjusting to having 80 gigs(!) to play with on my iPod, and so have only recently started throwing on mixes in addition to albums (I generally prefer to listen

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-12482138070553136432008-07-11T01:09:00.002-04:002008-07-11T01:28:55.528-04:00

So after a friend and I made ourselves sick by eating too much sushi tonight, I came home and I listened to some Underworld. Partly because I've been listening to a lot of Underworld recently, and partly because the band's genius mix of motorik style propulsion, occasionally soothing textures and Karl Hyde's heart-on-sleeve stream of consciousness seemed fitting to my bodily state after I awoke

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-56289177011229414212008-06-15T20:21:00.002-04:002008-06-15T21:37:50.483-04:00

Tension and release. It's all about tension and release.Except in my memory "Embrace" is all tension and no release; maybe it's the lines "Pushing my body to get that embrace" and then "Crushing your skull with my warming embrace," but as the kick drum pounds away softly in the background, it feels to me like something slowly tightening in, sealing off all escape. There's a little bit of guitar

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-3846294318155134222008-05-30T11:09:00.002-04:002008-05-30T11:58:25.243-04:00

Ha, I am going to manage two posts in May! I think one of the reasons for my relatively slow posting rate these days is I'll think, a week after a post, "hmm, I should update TMW,TMW again." And then some part of my mind counts remembering I need to post as having checked that particular thing off of my to-do list... and then a few weeks later I go "oh crap, I never wrote that up, did I?" So

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-48250984006422743052008-05-07T00:20:00.002-04:002008-05-07T01:58:52.126-04:00

first attempt at strings, the pop tradition. the baby sounds are from one of the cello players' daughter. the timing was so perfect we had to leave it in.They certainly do like baby sounds, eh? When I read the above in the old song backgrounds page, I didn't remember them at all, but sure enough if you listen (instead of hearing it in your head; as the Radio Lab show on earworms noted, what you

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-37049676552266643672008-04-23T17:01:00.002-04:002008-04-23T17:31:40.096-04:00

So a combination of last minute thesis scrambling (it's handed in now, I just have to pick up the bound copies once they email me and then go graduate), laziness in the wake of said last minute scrambling (this is the first time I've done nothing without guilt in a few years) and that Low documentary I posted about have left me a little unsure what to cover next, and when to do it. The time is

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-86722466406947988182008-04-13T15:36:00.005-04:002009-10-09T04:36:10.647-04:00

I've been a bit busy, both with preparing for my defence and also with carousing (seeing as how the thesis is actually, you know, written), but I want to get to another entry soon; today, however, I have a number of things to write for PopMatters. My friend Erik sent me something to tide you over in the meantime, however; a Dutch TV special on Low, You may need a murderer (link is on the right,

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-82610727518586287972008-04-01T21:46:00.002-04:002008-04-01T23:16:57.661-04:00

Interviewer: "How would you describe The Great Destroyer?"Alan Sparhawk: "The new album is desperate. No. It's bitter... I'm tired of hiding it. Life is too short. If something is ripping you apart, you've got to let it out. You've got to let yourself say it and not feel like everybody is going to look at you like you're uncool because you fall down and start screaming about something that

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-10922955737910419002008-03-23T15:47:00.002-04:002008-03-23T16:40:13.786-04:00

it's, um, about my mother. i lost a helium balloon. it was blue. mom said the astronauts would get it for me.Aww, that sounds nice, doesn't it? Kind of sweet. Right up there with Calvin's dad telling him that the wind is just trees sneezing.And "Mom Says," despite being on the coldest album Low have ever released (although not the darkest, that's Trust, or the angriest, that being Drums and

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-68399942721807663852008-03-07T12:00:00.002-05:002008-03-07T13:07:13.632-05:00

The original recorded version of "Will the Night," as much as I love it, seems painfully perverse to anyone (and this is going to include almost everybody who wasn't a Low fan back in 1997) who has heard the much more available and popular version on Secret Name. The original was, in Alan's words, "recorded on a mini-cassette recorder with us hovering over, then played back through a lot of

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-90861234796790734072008-03-01T11:57:00.001-05:002008-03-01T12:29:32.109-05:00

One of the relatively few demos included on the A Lifetime of Temporary Relief boxset is a gorgeous, ten minute rendition of "Lullaby," arguably the centrepiece of Low's debut I Could Live in Hope. At first I was thinking that the two versions weren't that different; there's a thick, lovely coating of static and room noise present on the demo (my fondness for such things probably explains a lot

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-77983951051019734832008-02-27T15:14:00.003-05:002008-02-27T16:52:44.510-05:00

From your place on SunsetThe hills are on fire...Thanks to the ever-highly esteemed Robert Inverarity (one of something like 5 oeuvrebloggers still going, if I can count myself), we have a genuine rarity in this day and age: A non-new Low song I not only hadn't heard before today, but had never even heard of. How does a band do that now, keep some material only to the lucky and obsessed? Well,

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-76028759003264229642008-02-19T22:25:00.004-05:002008-02-19T23:50:29.028-05:00

Whoof. Well, that took a little longer than expected! Still, at least one version of the thesis is done and dusted and it's time to get back in the saddle here. Apologies again - profuse apologies - for the delay.In my downtime, one of the things that dictated the shape of a lot of my listening was my ever flowing Unsorted playlist, where tracks I download go to be heard until I decide if I

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-47143891615639372812007-12-30T12:50:00.000-05:002007-12-30T14:02:34.696-05:00

Despite the commerce involved, we hope you will consider this our gift to you. Best wishes.- Mimi, Alan & ZakSometimes I listen to Low's mini-album Christmas without the covers. Low's version of "Little Drummer Boy" is shoegazerrific in a way they wouldn't really be outside of it, the remix of "Joan of Arc," and maybe "Whitetail" and is the track they're probably best known for in many circles.

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-51524461746962994472007-12-10T12:36:00.000-05:002007-12-10T12:38:16.257-05:00

I should have posted here a week or so ago... I'm on my last push to get the first draft of my thesis out, and I can't really justify doing any more posts here until that's done. It might be a little while (end of January should be the very latest), and after that things should get back to normal on a permanent basis; editing and re-writing never takes as long as writing does. Sorry about the

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-78353437135635524192007-11-26T11:54:00.000-05:002007-11-26T18:00:12.702-05:00

I am not, as a rule, a fan of demo versions. Unless I get to them first (something that holds for most of us when it comes to music; broadly speaking, the people I know prefer the cover over the original if they heard it first, etc etc), in which case I don't tend to have much use for the finished version! Maybe I'm just not hearing the right ones; the demos I've heard tend to stick pretty

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-86235872697255208042007-11-22T12:20:00.000-05:002007-11-22T15:15:06.960-05:00

I organize my CD collection a little oddly, at least right now. (NB. "right now" = "since I moved in to this apartment, in 2004 or so") My large, wall-mounted Ikea CD shelf fell when I was first moving in (you have no idea how much that upset me), and when putting stuff back on it, I decided this was the perfect opportunity to try and pare down the old CD collection. As I believe I've

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-71195692054555366172007-11-17T13:39:00.000-05:002007-11-17T15:53:28.238-05:00

Some sort of blare, stiffly echoing drums, the blare modulates down into a thick burble, and thenOh my myLittle white lieSwear I'm gonna make it right This timeIt's like a radioTurning way down lowTelling me things I do not know I knowTonight you will be mineTonight the monkey diesTonight you will be mineTonight the monkey diesThe first time I heard "Monkey," a song I was prepared to dislike, it

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-30391891388690447222007-11-08T18:00:00.000-05:002007-11-08T19:12:06.493-05:00

So let's talk about album tracks. As I might have previously mentioned, most of my favourite albums are very concise (I'm thinking of anything from Closer and Armed Forces to Phosphorescent's Pride and Drums and Guns). "Album tracks," as the term is usually conceived among music fans, don't recall occur in those cases; it's hard to say that "Isolation" or "Senior Service" or even "Hatchet" are

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-14410501113404524922007-11-05T19:03:00.000-05:002007-11-05T22:00:46.551-05:00

Aaaaaand we're back. Sorry about that; a heavy grad school/TAing/day job load, the death of Stylus, the trip to NYC to celebrate the death of Stylus - it's been a long month or so for me too, believe me. But I certainly didn't forget TMW,TMW (my thoughts on it ranged consistently from "fuck, I wish I had time to do an update on _____ tonight" to "oh god, I can't bring myself to work on anything

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-35139960702721242272007-10-22T10:15:00.001-04:002007-10-22T10:16:18.657-04:00

Apologies for the longer hiatus than usual; I've been up to my neck in grad school, which means things here will be sporadic for a while. But TMW,TMW will continue to update, and will finish. Unless I get hit by a car or something.

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-50525303199799788962007-10-10T22:05:00.000-04:002007-10-10T22:37:14.240-04:00

A simple little thing, a painfully sentimental ode in its original form, goddamned Countrypolitan backing and all. Tom T. Hall didn't exactly have much of a voice, and although the schmaltz of the original means its popularity is no surprise (I'd never heard it before, mind you), Low do a few things to improve it immeasurably.Setting the song to quiet acoustic guitar and Mimi's voice gets things

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-17576843899474690262007-10-01T20:06:00.000-04:002007-10-01T23:53:53.877-04:00

Hold me closer than thatIt's a song of deep devotion, of desperation, of quiet strength, of amazement at our strength, of profoundly ineffable metaphor, of fear in the face of the future, of the human desire not to be alone, of the way the one we love is all we need, of the trap of material possessions, of obsession, of resilience, of love.Hold me closer than thatIt's no wonder they dedicated

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-46643326106493188292007-09-27T17:07:00.000-04:002007-10-01T23:54:58.870-04:00

There is fucking pounding (and pounding and POUNDING) and drilling and sawing and dropping and crashing and etc etc etc coming from the apartment below me, and it has been all day, since it woke me up at 10 am. Which would be a pretty normal time to wake up if I hadn't been out with coworkers until about 3:30 am the night before, and my throbbing headache probably wouldn't be persisting so long,

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-28794792694707528722007-09-24T11:40:00.000-04:002007-09-24T12:01:00.405-04:00

Ugh, I was going to try and get an entry done this morning but I'm kind of rushed and as a result inspiration is abandoning me; sadly, this is a problem because the Mountain Goats concert tomorrow night means I probably won't have a chance to do another one until Thursday. Hold tight, people; I may be slow, but I am persistent, and unlike sadly many of the blogs linked at the side I will be

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-63981483683532021882007-09-20T12:29:00.000-04:002007-09-20T13:21:44.104-04:00

Apparently Zak suggested covering the Bee Gees; a sentence that those who only know them from Saturday Night Fever and on might find kind of horrifying (although, I don't know, I think Low, especially 'classic' Low, tackling disco sounds kind of appealing...). But this was the Bee Gees of Idea and Odessa which is a very different, much more Beatlesque thing indeed. Alan said "someday we'll

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-2305178850504323842007-09-17T18:46:00.000-04:002007-09-17T20:23:34.651-04:00

1. Okay, so with grad school and my job(s) et al, clearly any sort of real scheduling is beyond me. I'll be trying to do entries as often as possible. Please be patient, and maybe utilize our handy dandy RSS feed? It's sad to see so many other oeuvreblogs slow or even stop, but I promise you TMW,TMW will keep going until it's done, no matter how long that takes. I may only manage an entry or

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-34780215164654942102007-09-12T10:40:00.000-04:002007-09-12T10:58:32.098-04:00

In the long interregnum between The Curtain Hits the Cast and Secret Name, Low made their most significant EP. At 35 minutes, Songs For a Dead Pilot might as well be a mini-album, and the stuff here is more striking than anything from the Transmission EP or any of their other small collections. It's telling that SFaDP is the one of the few EPs that isn't collected on A Lifetime of Temporary

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-89070332833161393942007-09-10T22:52:00.000-04:002007-09-10T23:56:34.794-04:00

Sometimes you get so tired (cf. the sound of Bowie's voice during "Sometimes you get so lonely" in "Be My Wife"). I accidentally stabbed myself in the arm with a knife that was in the drying rack, trying to put a cup in the sink. I keep remembering this blog at night and forgetting it in the morning (I'll be better, I hope, now that I'm back at school and not working so much). I have to see

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-17403792299134182362007-09-05T22:19:00.000-04:002007-09-05T23:07:23.276-04:00

It's weird, that deviations from my preferred pace here at TMW,TMW come from both being over worked, from being too active, and also from being too down. It's been a semi-shitty week, but today at work it blossomed into a full on storm of crap (probably the least pleasant shift I've worked yet, for a variety of reasons, and I've been working 6 days a week for a month or so now) and although I am

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-11742085853334521362007-08-30T12:30:00.000-04:002007-08-30T12:31:10.021-04:00

I have been laid low by a combination of booze and hot peppers; sadly, my head now hurts far too much to think, let alone type. Back tomorrow.

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-69575779922782602742007-08-29T11:36:00.000-04:002007-08-29T12:16:57.121-04:00

So it's Covers Week here at TMW,TMW which (like all things here that make it look at all like I have a plan) is an impromptu decision based on me not having any particular song I wanted to talk about. I've done a few of these previously, of courseAfter "Down by the River," one of my favourite of Low's many covers, I thought that maybe I should cover the only cover that the band have included on

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-2520438997758792502007-08-28T22:20:00.000-04:002007-08-28T23:27:23.989-04:00

Back in the Audiogalaxy days I ran into something that purported to be Low covering Neil Young's immortal Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere chestnut "Down by the River" (you know, where Neil shot his lady). Along with "Cowgirl in the Sand" from the same record "Down by the River" was one of the songs that convinced me that I did in fact love the electric guitar and Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-58092856442994941942007-08-27T11:30:00.000-04:002007-08-28T23:06:46.369-04:00

A welcome rarity today at TMW,TMW; I'm tackling "Sleep at the Bottom" at the request of a reader, the redoubtable Robert P. Inverarity of the fine Fragments of a Cale Season oeuvreblog. He mentions that this track is pretty atypical for the band, as "Musically, it seems to lack the creeping malevolence that marks a lot of their catalog, though the lyrics do seem a bit sinister." I'm not sure

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-29353137251374633382007-08-23T21:57:00.001-04:002009-11-13T12:23:11.912-05:00

"(Usually in these dreams of home you prefer the landscape to the right - broad night-lawns, towered over by ancient walnut trees, a hill, a wooden fence, hollow-eyed horses in a field, a cemetery... Your task, in these dreams, is often to cross - under the trees, through the shadows - before something happens. Often you go into the fallow field just below the graveyard, full of autumn brambles

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-75448755776952348582007-08-22T16:16:00.001-04:002007-08-22T16:17:07.657-04:00

Uh, having kind of a crappy week. So much so I kind of forgot to update yesterday or today, and I need to go to work soon. Might be back tomorrow, definitely back Monday.

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-24356243013453264632007-08-20T10:49:00.001-04:002008-04-23T17:17:01.328-04:00

After literally something like a couple of years where I managed to avoid sustaining the slightest cut or contusion, I recently put my hand down on a broken piece of plate in a moshpit. Just as I recover from that, a flying bed leg this morning drew blood from the vicinity of my left knee. My new bed is fabulous; the legs I bought from Ikea at the same time as mattress and box spring to hold it

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-30865826993376238242007-08-16T21:33:00.000-04:002007-08-16T22:08:15.201-04:00

"July" is a surprising song. So much so, in fact, that one of the ways it's surprising I didn't realise until I went to rip it in service of writing this post.So let's start there. "July" is 5:35, although if you'd asked me before I looked at it tonight I'd have said it was under four minutes at the very most. And for such a long song (by this album's standards, at least) with the standard Low

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-33130726607886172832007-08-14T13:14:00.000-04:002007-08-14T13:41:15.967-04:00

HomeEverybody wants to go homeEven when they're oldEven when they're smallHomeEverybody wants to go homeEven when they're oldEven when they're smallHomeHomeHomeHomeThe sound that starts "Home," a kind of cycling buzzing hum, always makes me think of plugging and unplugging a guitar into an amp. It takes the place of drums and bass, with only Alan's barely-there guitar and tremulous voice

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-3012336021988812962007-08-13T11:33:00.000-04:002007-08-13T12:56:25.179-04:00

[Blog update: A number of newer oeuvreblogs have sprouted up, devoted to T-Pain and Pavement, Marillion and Wilco (and how could I forget Elton John?). They are all linked at the side, and I wish their authors every success, these things are a bit of a commitment. Several of them are already favourites of mine.]All Alan ever said about "Anon" (pardon the alliteration) is this: "from a dream i

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-2284860651010270692007-08-09T12:39:00.000-04:002007-08-09T13:08:00.746-04:00

A brief word about the new 'singles' tag on this post and "Over the Ocean," before I begin: I'm going by the listing on Low's own site, which means that not necessarily everything that has a video is a single (i.e. "Canada"). I'm only using it for those things that actually had a single release, and I'm only using the tag for the A-side in question, because to try and start labelling everything

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-51451385827583347292007-08-07T17:20:00.000-04:002007-08-07T17:24:20.391-04:00

Ugh, well that went south fast. Some other writing assignments (including a paid one) unfortunately had to take precedance, and I'm off to TO to interview Los Campesinos! tonight. For now, some excellent live video provided by Erik will have to suffice; I've got it set to "Pissing" but it's all quality.

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-22800319068058720982007-08-06T12:17:00.000-04:002007-08-06T12:18:13.152-04:00

I'm still in Kincardine visiting family for the long weekend (in Canada); today's update should happen this evening once I'm back in Guelph.

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-6851852808598437182007-08-02T12:31:00.000-04:002007-08-02T12:41:51.843-04:00

And you can see herBefore it cracks and goes outShe throws rocks at streetlightsKeeps the streetlight changer busy"This gradual loosening of traditional standards, encouraged by such poet-critics as Bob Grumman, has resulted in the word haiku being applied to brief, mathematical "poems," ("mathemaku") and to visual poetry by Scott Helms. This attempt at stretching definitions of haiku can be

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-75124750911875382502007-08-01T15:14:00.000-04:002007-08-01T15:30:49.689-04:00

Given how out-of-it, how spaced a lot of Low songs (especially early ones) sound, it says something about "Lazy" that Alan wrote "always wanted to hear a cool echo-y dub mix of this song" on the old Low song backgrounds page. He also notes that although his sister's name is Sarah, "it would be mean to say it's about her."The bass and drums sound fairly standard but Alan's guitar has a shimmering

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-17126158661002443402007-07-31T16:07:00.000-04:002007-07-31T16:21:24.281-04:00

If what we create when we're not trying too hard is more revealing of our true selves,* then "Kindly Blessed" is definitely the most interesting solo Mimi song. She wrote it in five minutes while washing the dishes, after Secretly Canadian asked the band for an a cappella song for a compilation. Given the way the band's religion and use of religious themes is often used by media interlocutors,

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-43907625599696030422007-07-30T11:25:00.001-04:002007-07-30T11:25:40.408-04:00

The festival was incredible, but some shit is going down today; service returns to normal tomorrow.

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-12951184151126472682007-07-26T15:55:00.000-04:002007-07-26T15:57:03.270-04:00

I've got a music festival to go this weekend and a lot of work to do before/after then; see you Monday.

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-88545199156352198652007-07-25T21:45:00.000-04:002007-08-09T12:42:42.064-04:00

"Over the Ocean" was the first song I read about as Low's peak, in a long forgotten article or webpage, some precursor of mine declaiming to anyone who would read that the band had somehow fused pop perfection and their usual crystalline, glacial phrasing into something mindblowing.In the period before Trust came out (in other words, in the period when Things We Lost in the Fire sent me

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-68773072304525286342007-07-24T08:37:00.000-04:002007-07-24T09:31:14.876-04:00

I seem doomed to have epically shitty nights, as far as sleep goes, on the occasions where I close one night and open the next morning. Last night this was not down to Frailty-inspired insomnia like last time, but rather one of my girlfriend's cats decided that he should pee on my side of the bed. I'd think he doesn't like me, but he's done it when I'm not sleeping there before (or so I hear).

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-84254078443077136012007-07-23T13:00:00.000-04:002007-07-23T13:05:37.393-04:00

So I got sick and tired of all that black and switched templates. I still don't have enough free time to get into the nitty gritty of making my own so I'm using one called "Tekka" with minor adjustments. One of my favourite parts of it is the way that, at the resolution and screen width I use, the title of the blog stacks neatly. Feedback is always welcomed, of course, but for now I'm pretty

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-30211924065715388462007-07-23T11:38:00.000-04:002007-07-23T12:35:29.601-04:00

There are two songs on The Great Destroyer that mention the album's title. "Silver Rider" is much more ambiguous, saying "The great destroyer / She passes through you like a knife," which still leaves plenty of room for "Walk Into the Sea"'s more direct formulation to apply: "Yeah, time's the great destroyer / Leaves every child a bastard."As with most recent Low songs, Alan and Mimi's children

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-833168088760551522007-07-19T17:48:00.000-04:002007-07-19T18:31:00.459-04:00

All soldiers, they're all gonna die"Pretty People" might just be the most disturbing song in Low's oeuvre, certainly the most disturbing one I can think of from their studio albums (and so, as I mentioned in my review, it takes more than a little chutzpah to put it as the opener to probably their most high-profile effort to date). I'm not a particularly dark person, at least I don't think so,

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-69367657440994562482007-07-18T15:22:00.000-04:002007-07-18T16:54:05.929-04:00

Yesterday at work (my unexpectedly long working day being the culprit of TMW,TMW's silence on Tuesday, by the way) I bought the "Dinosaur Act" single, b/w "Overhead" and "Don't Carry It All." This was pretty significant for me, the same way getting Teenage Fanclub's phenomenal Four Thousand Six Hundred and Sixty-Six Seconds: A Short Cut to Teenage Fanclub was. In the latter case, that

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-66275797293009419152007-07-16T18:21:00.000-04:002007-07-16T19:34:03.007-04:00

Aaaaaand we're back. I flew back in from Vancouver on Tuesday but between going right back to work at the used CD place and hanging out with my girlfriend (also significant quantities of jet lag, sleep deprivation and an open bar wedding reception last Saturday) I just couldn't bring myself to update my personal blog, let alone Too Many Words, Too Many Words. Still, I find myself more than a

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-47709104716221099932007-07-01T01:21:00.001-04:002011-05-03T13:41:53.450-04:00

I once again underestimated how fast shows at Massey Hall start and how crap driving in Toronto is, so I settled into my seat when Low were part-way through "Take Your Time" (they only played a 45-minute set, so I think I missed one or two songs at worst). To make matters worse, Massey is a deeply shitty venue when you get stuck up on the second balcony, and Low were on the right side of the

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-69623322041423442242007-06-28T14:27:00.000-04:002007-06-28T14:29:38.869-04:00

I had this all set up to be updated normally this week, and then I got a whole pile of hours at my new job, which combined with getting ready for my road trip to BC means I've got no free time! I hate to do this, folks, mainly because I know this is how you lose readers, but I'm going to have to put TMW,TMW on hiatus now and come back to it on the 11th or 12th of July. Won't you put our RSS

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-20295151399700557272007-06-26T23:45:00.000-04:002007-06-27T04:30:49.915-04:00

one of those songs that just falls in your lap. sounds like an old song - maybe because of the folk harmonies.That's Alan. And "Sea" certainly did fall into my lap - I didn't have time to do an entry before going to work, and seeking something I could do relatively quickly (I have belatedly become addicted to those Star Wars Lego video games, despite a basic dislike of Star Wars; I skip the cut

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-34657535551717712312007-06-25T03:01:00.000-04:002007-06-25T03:23:15.358-04:00

I sometimes have problems with writer's block. I didn't used to, and I'm not wholly sure what the issue is now, although certainly my adult life has gotten more stressful as it's gone on (with some breaks). I don't get it, and I know I need to at some point. And it's what results in me sitting here at 3:00 am on a Monday morning, feeling like shit because yet again I have only finished the

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-10826223621369893822007-06-21T21:34:00.000-04:002007-06-21T23:22:55.367-04:00

WEIRD FEELINGCAN'T EXPLAINI have never seen The Mothman Prophecies, and it's only years after I'd first heard Low's "Half Light" (which plays over the credits, apparently) that I've become intrigued about it. I always knew "Half Light" was from that movie when I downloaded it; the version you can hear in the video above is the single mix, and the MP3 I have is the near seven-minute end credits

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-5469647568657293422007-06-20T11:09:00.000-04:002007-06-20T11:51:32.007-04:00

I guess we're having sort of an impromptu oddities week here at Too Many Words, Too Many Words, as today I want to tackle Alan and Mimi's collaboration with Mark Nelson on his sophemore album as Pan*American, 360 Business/360 Bypass. I don't know how you feel about ambient dub; if you're anything approaching a normal person, you don't either, having probably never heard the term let alone the

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-5366864688007997452007-06-19T17:57:00.000-04:002007-06-20T11:08:45.122-04:00

Prefatory note: I am exceedingly pleased to see that my good (internet) friend Iain F. has tossed his hat in the oeuvreblogging ring with his dissection of the Bluetones' discography Paraguay and Laos. Not being British I've never heard them, but Iain's off to a great start and I think I'm going to enjoy his tour of those 111 songs very much indeed.So, I missed yesterday due to getting a job,

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-83532577453030736572007-06-14T15:45:00.000-04:002007-06-20T00:10:01.960-04:00

I don't own the Transmission EP anymore, and given my deep and abiding love for Low that should probably tell you something. Or maybe not; I mean, I own way too many CDs and I'm basically always looking for excuses to get rid of more. But remembering that "Transmission" itself is not on the A Lifetime of Temporary Relief box set (nor is "Sleep at the Bottom," their collaboration with Piano

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-60664498889446542692007-06-13T12:04:00.000-04:002007-06-13T12:21:28.152-04:00

One of the already-recurring themes of my semi-public engagement with Low's discography has been the relative obscurity of their lyrics. I mean, a lot of bands I really love do this, although never in quite the same way. But if you want to talk about the cryptic nature of much of Low's lyrics, try parsing this out:Black, like a forestAnd still, like a lionMy knees are bendedWe used to speakA

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-9372827624398191942007-06-12T13:59:00.000-04:002007-06-12T17:41:05.494-04:00

seriously though, Low becoming a good band instead of an OK one coincides with Sally getting on board, this bodes poorlySo I'm skipping around the great wilderness of the internet, meaning to get down to today's entry but really just kind of farting around, and a variety of links I can't remember I ran into this thread about Zak Sally's departure(s) from Low, and the above comment from the

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-47321214053996794782007-06-11T23:17:00.001-04:002007-06-11T23:45:03.722-04:00

I'm not scared of waking up / I'm not afraid of getting cut...Okay, back on track. My life is both very slow and kind of busy right now, as I'm not single again. Which means less is getting done but also less free time. You know how it is.When I wrote about anger and "Pissing," I originally intended to write about this. Not because it's angry, not at all really, but because there's an energy

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-3798397347593960732007-06-09T18:09:00.000-04:002007-06-09T18:12:31.241-04:00

Ze links are updated, and an especial welcome extended to Kyle of All My Little Words, whom I inadvertantly pre-empted with this blog (just to note, if Low had been taken I think I would have gone with Belle & Sebastian, a band with a manageable catalog and about which I have much more mixed opinions). Any future oeuvreblogs that I hear about will be added there, unless they really piss me off

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-36295587726711823702007-06-04T22:25:00.000-04:002007-09-21T18:26:21.988-04:00

I am a person who gets mad easily. I would say I get mad irrationally, but that kind of seems like a truism. I'm not mad right now (I find that those of us who can blow up usually don't spend too long stewing about it), and I wasn't for most of the day, but I did have a good maybe five minutes of full-on seeing red. For those of you without tempers (lucky!), I can inform you that "seeing red"

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-46496373931072612312007-06-02T03:09:00.000-04:002007-06-02T03:12:23.438-04:00

Apparently I mostly spend Fridays out these days, although today I had the excuse of joining a Merleau-Ponty reading group formed by some of my fellow Philosophy grad students here. So I think for now at least, unless the itch grabs me or there's a great outpouring of sadness, I'm going to stick with a song a day, Monday-Thursday.Also, it's nice to see little story in New York Magazine on "

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-63547898304257416502007-05-31T15:39:00.001-04:002008-03-25T02:11:29.969-04:00

Actually, last night I dreamt that I was stranded on some sort of jungle planet with one other guy and a bunch of the xenomorphs from Alien. We got across a river, and for some reason they couldn't swim, so we were safe. And then I remember in that dream-vivid way looking across the river through the foliage and seeing this thing - the alien's phallic head jutting out of a mess of carbuncles

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-38890068561599182822007-05-30T15:39:00.000-04:002007-08-14T13:27:56.725-04:00

With the exception of the untitled and unlisted track preceding "In Metal" on Things We Lost in the Fire (and no, that won't get its own entry) Low don't really do interludes. What they have instead are fragments of songs that serve the same purpose as actual interludes do. I actually prefer the approach, although it's one they haven't really done since Secret Name. While the difference I'm

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-82854807108528932832007-05-29T19:12:00.000-04:002007-05-29T21:12:01.693-04:00

Like any discography, you can take Low's and start making connections. Certainly that's a little harder with the hard left turn of The Great Destroyer, and even Drums and Guns in unlike any other Low album in a real sense, but there are a few pairs that always go with each other in my mind. Most pertinantly, I always think of Trust and The Curtain Hits the Cast as Low's 'dark' albums. How much

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-27363534538046807902007-05-28T10:27:00.000-04:002007-05-28T14:19:08.194-04:00

Attempting to repay the aid of a kind TMW,TMW reader I asked if there were any songs he wanted to see me cover sooner rather than later; and while I'm chagrined that "Don't Understand" was one of them (as the old post is pretty wince-inducing for me), I was happy to see that one of the songs he asked for, "Swingin'," was one I was considering doing today anyways.Although I think Things We Lost in

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-64422670606708495442007-05-26T11:35:00.000-04:002007-05-26T12:20:20.150-04:00

I apologize if anyone was really upset that I didn't update this blog yesterday, but I can't feel too bad about being one day late on a purely volunteer endeavour I'm doing basically to see what it's like. Unlike Wednesday, where I was in and just forgot/didn't get to it, I spent pretty much all of Friday out. I was out late dancing on Thursday, woke up in time to start hanging out with friends

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-71329858072138217182007-05-24T15:24:00.000-04:002007-08-09T12:46:44.236-04:00

One could argue that this entire blog (and others of its kind) are nothing more than prolonged exercises in overanalysis, but that doesn't change the fact that there are some Low songs I won't or can't analyse. Can't actually isn't terribly likely - even if I would have found it difficult when I was a teenager perhaps, years of phenomenology have me pretty sure that the human mind can analyse

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-72062940119205857722007-05-23T23:59:00.000-04:002007-05-24T01:18:18.390-04:00

Woof. I managed to not quite get around to this today, as I spent much of the afternoon on the phone fixing my phone and internet connections. Which doesn't mean you don't get an entry; but I dug up my old piece on "Don't Understand," so both to put something here while being able to go to sleep and to embarrass myself into not slipping up again, here's what I thought of this song back in April

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-25473471679961189352007-05-22T11:19:00.000-04:002007-05-22T13:31:41.634-04:00

Out of all of the other band blogs I've read, it will come as no surprise to those who know me (or to its author) that my favourite is Mike Powell's EMOTIONAL KARAOKE. There are many reasons for this - I know and like Mike, as far as his writing goes I am his biggest/most vocal fan, I love the Mountain Goats - but the key one is actually the way in which that blog stands out from the rest of us

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-6630775842864246842007-05-21T11:42:00.000-04:002007-05-21T13:37:47.688-04:00

Usually I think "Alone" is a pretty creepy song, but not today. Well, I still think it's kind of creepy, but given certain events in my personal life I empathize with the narrator more than I usually do. But maybe "narrator" is the wrong term - when your lyrics are as minimal as Low's are, you don't really have characters, or plot, or setting. But I still want to use the term narrator to set

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-30366348080573987142007-05-18T12:45:00.000-04:002007-05-18T13:20:09.870-04:00

I chose "Starfire" today for reasons other than historical progression, but after I started writing this entry I remembered with something approaching ruefulness that it also happens to continue the story of how I fell in love with Low, so I might as well start there. After getting and loving Things We Lost in the Fire it took me a while to investigate the rest of their discography. That

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-11774151186660141092007-05-17T23:18:00.000-04:002007-05-28T14:20:51.254-04:00

Sluggin' down fruit juiceExtra tall, extra wideIt's been a long, and in some ways tough, day. I got in earlier, but got distracted by phone calls and the like; I still have the dishes I promised my brother I'd get done before tomorrow so he'd have something to put his sandwich in, and I'm not going to have as much time to read as I'd hoped. I'm already tired, and although I've been drinking

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-8205422137054204482007-05-17T15:22:00.000-04:002007-06-02T03:12:52.573-04:00

I'm a procrastinator by nature, but that doesn't change the fact that I was getting around to today's entry very soon; but then a friend I was seeing tonight called and pushed things forward as she's got a cold and teaches school early in the morning, so I must get to that. She goes to bed early enough that I'll be back and updating before the end of the day, though, and I had a few things to

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7869780008733483838.post-15129857603630492722007-05-16T10:56:00.000-04:002007-05-16T11:39:37.059-04:00

Most mornings (and afternoons) I wake up with a song in my head. It actually took my sleep-bleary brain a good half hour today to connect the fact that "Shots & Ladders 2" soundtracked my slow ascent to consciousness with the fact that I needed to pick a Low song to write about; think the beginning of the book version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where "yellow bulldozer" swims around

Ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05740401073988507304noreply@blogger.com6