Good news to those who love iTunes and may like to purchase some of the songs from the artists on this list. ( I know no one will, but its my blog and I can endulge illusions of grandeour if I want to) I am going to be copying my "SVC best of 2007" playlist to the iMix function. Encapsulating one song that I like from each album. It will probably set you back 20 bones or so, but if you dig the list or are unsure if you will, then it will be worth it. I have also organized it in stellar S.Vincent fashion which means the playlist will flow perfectly from start to finish. I'll give you more details once the list is complete.
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I hate having to park far away when I go to the gym. That seems wrong cause I am going there to exercise and yet I hate having to get exercise before I get in there, but its true. I'm not sure if it's because I'm usually in a rush due to a late arrival, the coldness of the current season, the narrow sidewalk that makes 2 people walking on the same path very difficult, the fact that i have a large gym bag, or I am just lazy. It could be one of those things more so than the others, but I am pretty sure I am aggravated by all of those factors. That and the fact that all the other cars in the parking lot belong to people who are either in there being douchebags, walking on the treadmill at a snail pace, pedophiles eyeing up underage girls, or soccer players (enough said). Can you tell that I go to the gym with a lot of frustration? No? Well I do.......so here is another Gym Rule to live by.
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GYM RULE: The handle on the front of the treadmill is for emergencies only,
Lurch. You are not supposed to turn the treadmill up to full speed, hang onto the handle, and clomp along like an idiot. If you can't run/walk on a treadmill without holding onto something, you probably shouldn't be on it. Go sit down on the floor and wait for Orderly Williams to scoop you up and take you back to the home.
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NUMBER 6: Okkervil River "The Stage Names"- Love the VanGogh schizophrenic style album cover. Okkervil River is another great band from the Austin, Texas area. Although, I am not sure if you can really qualify them as being from Austin given that all the band members are high school friends from Meridan, New Hampshire, seperated by college, then re-united in Austin to form this band. Sure seems like Austin is the happenin' music place to be these days. You can catch a few country guitar sounds in this album so they are a little bit influenced by their surroundings, but this is a indie-rock album through and through.
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The band name comes from a short story by Tatyana Tolstaya about the Okkervil River in St. Petersburg Russia. I have no idea what the story is about, but it would probably be pretty hard to read since Lead vocalist/band leader William Sheff is all over the place with his lyrics. I am actually still trying to decipher the storys of his songs and I have had this album for 4 months now. You'd almost need a degree in English to pull out his message, but thats okay, the musicianship on this album is crisp and the songs are all so diverse from track to track that the lyrics are a bonus if you can get them. There is plenty of catchable phrases that give you some kind of hint and you can just roll with that.
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This band reminds me a little of Arcade Fire. which is probably why I like this album so much. But as much as some sounds and songs sound like Arcade Fire, it really doesn't risk plagerisim. They use some similar musical styles, but Arcade Fire is much more elegent, involved and dense while Okkervil is much more loose and pleasantly simple using more of the classic guitar and percussion format. That doesn't mean Okkervil is simplistic, just that their songs are more comfortable in their shell. No extravagence, just simple theatrical indie-folk rock drama.
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That's probably the signature feel of this album is its wailing dramatics. William Sheff wails and rolls with his band in a method similar to Arcade Fire with a little less shout and a lot more depression. My favorite is "Our Life is not a Movie, or Maybe" which I think is a song about how life can be like making a movie in which there is all these great ideas and a passion for what the movie should look like, but that it never turns out the way you pictured it in your head. The reality of the camera not always catching the image the way you had it in your head at the start.
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I look for more great things from this band, but I am not sure if they can match this album. Their previous album, Black Sheep boy, was quite good as well but there is such a wide range of song diversity between all the tracks, that any song on this album could be a format for an entire album. In that way, this is almost a "Best of" album without intending to do so. But good luck anyway to the boys from Russia/New Hampshire/Texas........
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