I kind of gave up on "alt-country" in the late 90s, when the tidal wave of anonymous twangy college kids moaning about their tribulations as dirt farmers got too much to wade through. Now that the old preoccupation with 'authenticity' is out the window and it's all but openly acknowledged to be pretty much all about the performance of one kind of fiction or another, there are a lot of artists indiscriminately pulling together influences from the worlds of rock, folk, blues & country in some interesting ways. Here are some bits & bobs that have caught my ear for one reason or another: not all great songs, not all great performances, but all with some appeal. Enjoy.

Everybody Lets Me Down • Ad Astra Per Aspera
Genevieve • Proof of Ghosts
Big Iron • Jon Rauhouse
Lazy Suicide • Megafaun
Good Living • Supersuckers
Life Of A Fool • Paul Burch
Blue Chimneys • Jerry Leger & The Situation
Everything I Say • Vic Chesnutt
Preach • Tom Thumb And The Latter Day Saints
I'll Never Drown • Tim Fite
Martha Ann • David Karsten Daniels
Tear Down the House • The Avett Brothers
Packing Blankets (Live 2005) • Eels
New Virginia • The Lonely Hearts
When It Rains • Bruce Robison
Small Town Murder Scene • FemBots

A collection of choons that venture outside simple guitar-bass-drums instrumentation -- sometimes just with a few other instruments for texture, sometimes dispensing with the formula completely.

It turns out Jay Crocker made it onto this playlist twice, but I decided to keep him because a) they're both great songs, b) they have awesomely different textures, c) they're from different albums, and d) I included both Beirut and Andrew Bird, and they're, like, the same dude vocally anyhow.

Next up: upstart roots.

1. River of Orchids • XTC
2. Hooray For Tuesday • The Minders
3. Ring Them Bells • Sufjan Stevens
4. Plasticities • Andrew Bird
5. A Sleepy Company • The Olivia Tremor Control
6. Surging Revival • Cuff the Duke
7. Finch on Sunday • Horse Feathers
8. Somewhere Between Good and Evil • Jay Crocker
9. Elephant Gun • Beirut
10. Fingers to Fist • BIG A little a
11. Escape From New York • Chris Mills
12. Robot Clothes • Jay Crocker
13. Starling • La Strada

Now to conclude, with Part II of the year-end/new year's mixtape. Designed to be enjoyed back-to-back with Part I: Chwrw Nid Llaeth but 40% less salty on its own.

1. Three More Springs Ghostkeeper
2. Don't You Evah (Ted Leo's I Want It Hotter Remix) Spoon
3. Download Super Furry Animals
4. Genius Warren Zevon
5. Love Is Like A Bottle Of Gin The Magnetic Fields
6. Impossible Germany (live at Troutdale) Wilco
7. My Only Offer Mates of State
8. See My Friends (live) Richard Thompson
9. Mistress And Maid (demo) Elvis Costello
10. The State I Am In (BBC Version) Belle and Sebastian
11. These Days Nico
12. Gamblin' Man Gillian Welch
13. Glory, Glory Speeches from Don't Look Now Kenneth Patchen

*FIXED*

Good afternoon to you all. Here is volume 1 of the annual year-end/new year mixtape. Enjoy!

1. King Of Carrot Flowers Part 1 Neutral Milk Hotel
2. Pam Berry The Shins
3. Changing The Moondoggies
4. God's Gonna Cut You Down Johnny Cash
5. The Candle And The Flame fIREHOSE
6. Bleeding Powers Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
7. Get Up Jake (Outtake­ - Stereo Mix) The Band
8. Rosalie Alejandro Escovedo
9. Abandoned Love Bob Dylan
10. Fifty Years After The Fair Aimee Mann
11. More Axe Bob Marley & The Wailers
12. All These Governors The Evens
13. More Is More Komeda
14. Working To Work Field Music
15. Kicker of Elves Guided By Voices
16. Listen To The Band The Monkees
17. Gwn Mi Wn Gruff Rhys
18. Tiny Spark Brendan Benson
19. My Old Jacknife Ladyhawk
20. End Of Part One The Violet Archers

A selection of more-or-less-recent songs that run the gamut from high-larious to mildly amusing to baffling, while staying well this side of Flight of the Conchords (sometimes father this side than others; Dan Bern's selection far this side, Corb Lund's edging near the line). Maybe if this episode is well received I'll pull out a list of classic-yet-funny tunes, starting with John Prine's "Lake Marie."

Something I like about this mix is its variety: there's some absurdity, some pointed commentary, some good ol' goofy fun. And, in the case of track 9, some friendly advice. Just goes to show you can use humour for many purposes, like a hammer. Sometimes I use it to drive nails, sometimes to open cans of Alfa-ghetti.

Dinner's at my place tonight!

[WARNING: NOT SAFE FOR WORK OR CHILDREN. OR MUCH OF ANYTHING.)

Track listing:

1. TV On the Radio - Robots
2. Super Furry Animals - Golden Retriever
3. Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - Poodle Rockin'
4. The Evaporators - Half Empty Halls
5. Dengue Fever - Sober Driver
6. Todd Snider - Vinyl Records
7. McEnroe & Birdapres - Nothing is Cool
8. Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings feat. Lee Fields - Stranded In Your Love
9. The Wet Secrets - Grow Your Own Fucking Moustache, Asshole
10. The Golden Dogs - Construction Worker
11. Belle & Sebastian - Meat & Potatoes
12. Dan Bern - God Said No
13. Nellie McKay - Mother of Pearl
14. Corb Lund - Family Reunion
15. David Bazan - Selling Advertising
16. Andy Partridge - Put it On Again

While you were driving around trying to avoid that damn Kid Rock song all summer, I had this playlist on deck at all times. The songs I'd randomly selected for it seemed to arrange themselves naturally into a kind of Pilgrim's Progress storyline (don't ask me what Kara Keith and Arthur Alexander did to horn themselves into the sequence; I'm just the conduit).

Ladies and germs, The Good Times Are Killing Me.

Good Times Charlie Robison
Kick This City Kara Keith
Something For The Weekend Super Furry Animals
Please Go Home The Rolling Stones
Paisley Pattern Ground The Black Hollies
Crash Pad Number Marc Carroll
Heaven The Gerry Alvarez Odyssey
Sunday morning Pet Politics
Rock Bottom, Pop. 1 Robbie Fulks
O.K. With My Decay Grandaddy
Orphans Wooden Stars
Take Care Of Us The Star Spangles
Pretty Girls Everywhere Arthur Alexander
If Looks Could Kill Camera Obscura
Death of the Life of the Party Drag The River

A themed 'cast, of a sort; at least, one that stays within a mood rather than leapscotching and hopfrogging all around the stylistic chessboard. It was created as the soundtrack for the gloomy months of March and April.

Equally applicable, of course, to the oncoming autumn season. Are the leaves turning where you are, too?

Aubadecast 1.3

Fall Into The Night Eliza Gilkyson
Taps Reversed Christine Fellows & John K. Samson
song for the angels (miracle version) Great Lake Swimmers
Doctor Blind Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
Crooked Legs The Acorn
Santa Clara The National
Hope For Us All Nick Lowe
Falling For Catriona Al Tuck
Billy Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
The Ballad of Love and Hate The Avett Brothers
Beautiful Way Beck (feat. Beth Orton)
Little Waltz Basia Bulat
Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) Nancy Sinatra
If Silence Means That Much To You Emma Pollock
Here We Are Patrick Park
Old Song AM
Hail, Mary Shearwater
Quiet Creek Old Man Luedecke

Allow me to trot out the Aubade Podcast version 1.2. This month's installment features some very fine musics.

Track 1 is for David. I began two consecutive mixtapes for him in the late '90s which began with the studio version of this song, after which he wrote me something to the effect of "Please don't put this song on any more mixtapes for me. I like it, but it makes me want to go out and kill my kin."

Track 20 is for Jason.

Track 14 is extremely interesting in that I know of no other band who has ripped off the sound of Ringo Starr's solo albums. Don't you just adore it?

Track 18 is for those of you who got the idea from Aubadecast 1 that Oneida are some kind of techno band.

1. Caleb Meyer Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
2. Real Love American Princes
3. Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar (live) Bob Dylan
4. 100 Million Little Bombs Buddy Miller
5. Devastation The Besnard Lakes
6. Fourth Time Around (Bob Dylan cover) Yo La Tengo
7. New Orange Bike Sister Suvi
8. Nobody's Dirty Business Mississippi John Hurt
9. I Left My Heart in Iran Forgotten Rebels
10. Bring It On Home To Me (Sam Cooke cover) Britt Daniel
11. Aly, Walk With Me The Raveonettes
12. Stranger Than Fools Jesse Malin
13. Route 23 Chatham County Line
14. Who Cares What The Question Is? The Bees
15. Sidewalk Chalk The A Sides
16. Personal Stars
17. Heart It Races (Architecture in Helsinki cover) Dr. Dog
18. All Arounder Oneida
19. Can't Stand It (live with Andrew Bird and horns) Wilco
20. A World Of Hurt Drive-By Truckers



P.S. Don't forget: this pawdcast is eggs-splicitly designed to be cramm'd onto an 80-minute blank CD.

Well, after knocking myself out making mixed CDs all last year I came to the conclusion that there must be a more efficient way of going about this whole business of sorting through and sharing music. Hence the first installment in an experimental series of podcasts. Each one is designed to be burned on an 80 minute CD and listened to like a regular mixtape, but there are no track breaks. This gets around the problem of you white-eyed devils who take my mixes, cram them track-by-track onto your iPods, and never hear them in their immaculately sequenced glory. Take that.

The first "immaculately sequenced" podcast is an only-ever-so-slightly-tweaked version of eighty minutes in the life of my iPod on shuffle.

This is what happened: during the course of getting the first Quarterly Report disc of 2008 ready (all the songs were in the playlist; I was winnowing the last 20 minutes of extraneous tunes out and assembling a sequence) iTunes crashed and lost my library file. All playlists: gone. "Last played" tracking back only to last September. In other words: royally hooped.

Gamely (I thought), once the weeping subsided I took this radical disorganization of my digital music collection as an opportunity to revisit some stuff I hadn't paid much attention to first time 'round. iPod: autofill randomly! Press play and...

The next two hours were spent with my hands in an electical panel (not live) and my ears on cloud nine. Tons of great stuff I hadn't given two thoughts about were laid out end to end like Dorothy Parker's girls at Brandeis in a pleasing and often surprising sequence.

Or maybe it's just me.


Track listing:

French Film Blurred Wire • Driver Surprise Me The National • War Pigs Cake • People Gonna Talk James Hunter • Billy Gillian Welch • Étienne D'août (version radio) Malajube • I'll Fly Away Goose Creek Symphony • All Over Again Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings • Hockey Monkey The Zambonis featuring James Kochalka Superstar • The Fool Neutral Milk Hotel • Dearest Forsaken Iron & Wine • Reservations Jeff Tweedy • The Youth Are Getting Restless Bad Brains • Stand Down Margaret English Beat • All The Old Showstoppers The New Pornographers • Lullabye Cracker • Up With People Oneida • Dark Star The Mabuses • Things Don't Change The Reivers • Get Ready To Ride The Lion Culture • Faraway You Marah