Nooo, wait!!!

Before you tell all your buddies your favorite songs of the year, consider these last minute write-ins!


Bonnie "Prince" Billy - "Cursed Sleep"
My new favorite BPB song from the excellent The Letting Go; his finest performance since Matewan!






Tom Waits - "Never Let Go"
My favorite song from Orphans, and since Steven Drozd had such a disappointing showing, these are the only drums this year that made me want to cry.

Ooh Do I Love These

Since

a) Cap'n Jazz hasn't left the cd player for a week, and
b) because Myrtle Strupp, head librarian of Cassette County recently reminded us of him,

here are two songs from two different projects of Mike Kinsella.

American Football - "Never Meant"

Owen - "The Ghost of What Should've Been"

Tight drumming, good guitarin', very underrated.

You have your fits I have my fits but feeling is good

I never find the very special words I should.

Animal Collective - "Banshee Beat"

No title

We at Cassette County are sitting here trying to be happy with a plate full of moms holiday casserole and for once it's not working and this song is saying everything.

The Futureheads - "Fallout"

* * * * *

Belle and Sebastian - "O Come, All Ye Faithful"

Belle and Sebastian - "O Little Town of Bethlehem"

Flaming Lips - "Little Drummer Boy"

Flaming Lips - "A Change at Christmas"

Sunday music

I've only had this album for a few days, but if I wasn't too lazy to compile a favoritealbumsoftheyear list, this would probably be on it. It's music for a Sunday inbetween afternoon and evening when you've just watched a movie and you're reading the Calendar section of the Times with a glass of wine.

Calexico - "Lucky Dime"

This song kinda reminds me of Figure 8, which is never a bad thing.

I'm singing. I'm hollering.

Cap'n Jazz - "Ooh Do I Love You"

This sloppy, unfinished, posthumously released demo represents everything that I love about Cap'n Jazz, and probably everything that everybody else hates about them. Urgent, loud, dynamic, seemingly nonsensical but ultimately brilliant, 100% sincere. I love this.

For some reason, I always break out Analphabetapolothology around Christmastime. Tim Kinsella is my Burl Ives.

The rules are the first to go

Josh Ritter's The Animal Years wins the Who?? album of the year award. Do you have any idea who he is? I don't either, but he got Brian Deck to produce his album, and the results are pretty good.

Here's "Girl in the War"

and

"Lillian,Egypt".
By posting this song am I acknowledging that I am that much closer to fully embracing my fascination with watching GAC and CMT videos on mute? Not that this song is really that Nashville sounding....but shoot, I'd vote for it on Power Picks.

Red with purple flashes

Tuesdays are YouTuebesdays here at Cassette County. Here is The Creation live from 1966; hotter than the loins from which Max Fischer was spurned.

Give yourself ten points if you spot your parents in the audience of the first clip.
Give yourself zehn points if you spot your parents in the second clip.
*Add an additional five points if they're doing the Mashed Potato.



Live in Germany

It's the coldest time of winter

*Did I ever tell you I almost went to go see Merle Haggard at the Crazy Horse Steak House in the Irvine Spectrum a few years ago? I wonder if he rode the Ferris Wheel after the show...


**Dedicate this one to your sweetheart tonight.
"If We Make it Through December"


***From AMG:

Throughout 1957, Haggard was plagued by financial problems, which made him turn to robbery. At the end of the year, he attempted to rob a restaurant along with two other burglars; the three were drunk at the time. Believing it was three o'clock in the morning, the trio tried to open up the back door of the restaurant. However, it was 10:30 and the establishment was still open. Although the trio fled the scene, Haggard was arrested that day. The following day, he escaped from prison in order to make peace with his wife and family; later that day, he was recaptured. Haggard was sentenced to a 15-year term and sent to San Quentin prison.

Prison didn't immediately lead Merle into rehabilitation. He was fired from a series of prison jobs and planned an escape from the jail, but was talked out of it by fellow inmates. Nearly two years into his sentence, Haggard discovered that his wife was pregnant with another man's child. The news sent Haggard over the edge. Soon, he and his cellmate began a gambling racket and brewing beer in their cell. Before long, Haggard was caught drunk and was placed in isolation for a week. During his time in isolation, he had several conversations with Caryl Chessman, an author and a member of death row. The conversations and the time in isolation convinced Haggard to turn his life around. After he left isolation, he began working in the prison's textile plant and took some high school equivalency courses; he was also allowed to play in the prison's country band. At his second parole hearing in 1960, Haggard was given a five-year sentence -- two years and nine months in jail, two years and three months on parole; he left prison 90 days later.


****My top 6 favorite Merle Haggard album covers:

I'm a Lonesome Fugitive (1967)



Sing Me Back Home (1968)


Pride in What I Am (1969)


The Land of Many Churches (1971)


I Love Dixie Blues...So I Recorded Live in New Orleans (1973)


I Wish I Was Santa Claus (2004)

Welcome to Cassette County!

Nearing the end of December, I figured the best way to launch this blog would be with probablymaybe the best song of 2006 from probablymaybe the best album yet by the best band nobody listens to...

Califone covering "The Orchids,"
(click here)

orginally by Psychic Tv in 1983.
(click here)



***Califone performing "Fisherman's Wife" in a bathroom.