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This is our fourth annual tape, featuring mostly music bought during the most recent year. Our previous tapes' pages:
I'm Just A Tape (1999)
Gogitchyertapebox (1998)
Fire Up the Tape Deck (1997) (page not active yet, but some day, hopefully...)
If you're curious about the font used on the tape cover, it's called "Kidprint." I'm not sure where we got it, but Chank remains undoubtedly the finest source for fonts.
The tape name comes, obviously, from the Sugar song on the first side.
Babe the Blue Ox: Can't Stand Up. BTBO was on last year's tape as well with the excellent T.G.I.F.U., an indictment of the multitudes of chain restaurants. This year, we got an older disc, People, which is just great.
They Might Be Giants: (She Thinks She's) Edith Head. We didn't get anything new from TMBG this year we were all that excited about, so we went back to Long Tall Weekend, from which last year's Older came. The band has a new record deal now, and will have a kids' album out soon, so expect them to return again next year (this is their fourth straight year for us). We saw them play at the 9:30 Club this year, and Ella (and we) met John Flansburgh at the Navy Pier in Chicago on the Fourth of July. (We have pictures, but haven't put them up on her page yet. Soon -- possibly even by the time you read this. Click on "Ellanora" up top there.
Sugar: If I Can't Change Your Mind (solo mix). This is from Besides, a pretty great two-disc set. The first disc is mostly (if not all) b-sides to singles; the second is a typically intense live show. The original of this song came from the amazing Copper Blue, and it's even better in this solo mix.
Belle and Sebastian: She's Losing It. A first-time appearance on our tapes from this witty duo. Go ahead, bob your head as you listen; you know you want to. No need to feel guilty about it.
Ben Folds Five: Mess. The Five recently announced their breakup, which is a shame. We first saw them at South by Southwest back in, um, probably 1996. Actually, to be more accurate, Bill saw them; Dena couldn't see over the throngs at the Scholz Beer Garden. The newest, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, doesn't quite have the sheer joy of some of the earlier albums, but it's still solid. All three members have new projects, which we'll look forward to.
Morphine: The Night. Mark Sandman, lead singer for Morphine, died way too young on stage in Italy relatively recently. It's pretty much impossible to talk about them without saying "atmospheric," but, well, that's (partially) what it is. It's also great.
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy: I'm Not Sleepin'. We could call this Ella's theme song, given her occasional protests against the institution of slumber, though she rarely does the dropping-the-'g' thing. Anyway, the swing fad lives on in a few bands.
Beck: Sexx Laws. It still astonishes that Beck's still around. We were sure he was a novelty thing with Loser, and here he is, still producing some of the greatest stuff. And yes, he spells it with two 'x's.
Steve Earle: The Galway Girl. Once-hit-single-creating-machine, then-junkie, and now lower-key singer-songwriter. Earle's not exactly the poster boy for singing technique, but he's got the stuff on the writing side.
Old 97's: Ray Charles. This is off Early Tracks, a collection of (duh) early tracks. More bluegrassy than some of the more recent (but also great) stuff, it's a fun collection.
Lucinda Williams: Can't Let Go. Wow, this disc (Car Wheels on a Gravel Road) is incredible. If you don't own it, go buy it, now. No, don't use Napster, you dirty thief. Buy it. We're waiting. Go ahead, we'll still be here when you come back.
Elliott Smith: Somebody That I Used to Know. I'm still not entirely convinced he's as brilliant as lots of folks think, but he writes some pretty excellent songs. This is one of them, off Figure 8.
Emmylou Harris: My Baby Needs a Shepherd. Red Dirt Girl is an ethereal album that grows on you with every listen. I think it's not quite as good as Wrecking Ball (which Daniel Lanois produced), but it's still solid.
Low: Just Like Christmas. Low is a band from Duluth, Minnesota and, I have to say, they sound like it. This is probably the perkiest song they do. It's off their Christmas EP from the end of 1999.
Eels: Flyswatter. Actually just one guy. Amazing album (Daisies of the Galaxy). Apparently, the Democrats got fussed at for distributing this CD at some convention-related event; its cover looks like a children's book, but --- shock! --- it has naughty language. Personally, I'd be okay with the Democrats distributing this CD but getting in trouble for, say, abandoning real campaign finance reform. Oh well.
P J Harvey: Kamikaze. Thus begins a really excellent trio of rocking women. This tape more than most (I think) is really male-dominated, and I'm not sure why. This PJ Harvey album (Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea) is rather different than Dry and the other previous ones --- much more straight-up rock, and less of the dynamic changes you might be used to. This song sounds like the "old" PJ, but that shouldn't be read as us disliking the new one.
Fair Verona: Note to Self. It was a long and annoying night at South by Southwest. Mike Pattillo and I had wandered far around Austin hearing really astonishingly crappy stuff. On a whim, we stepped into one of the smaller Sixth Street clubs where this band --- all under-20 women --- was about to play. I'm not sure if it was just the contrast with the horrible stuff we'd heard up to then, but they seemed, right then, like the best rock and roll band in the world. And so we bought the self-titled EP, and it's pretty good.
Sleater-Kinney: You're No Rock n' Roll Fun. What Fair Verona can hope to be when they grow up. No, that's really not fair to Fair Verona, but it's a nice line. Sleater-Kinney keeps putting out great stuff; this album (All Hands on the Bad One) is the first we've bought.
Billy Bragg & Wilco: My Flying Saucer. Off the second CD of Woody Guthrie lyrics put to music by Billy and Wilco, Mermaid Avenue Volume II. The CDs teach that not everything someone famous writes should really be recorded, or even published, but also produce some pretty good songs, including this quickie.
Johnny Cash: Solitary Man. Nobody else is Johnny. To be fair, I don't know that anyone else would exactly want to be Johnny. From American III: Solitary Man.
Son Volt: Windfall. Lifted from a Tom Selby tape of a couple years ago, we finally got around to buying this disc (Trace) in 2000, and it's super. (Hey, I'm having trouble coming up with more superlatives -- what's wrong with "super"?) The song has the unfortunate tendency to cause me to sing along, and not quietly, regardless of context.
Luna: Dear Diary. Continuing to inherit the mantle of the Velvet Underground, Luna released The Days of Our Nights, another soup-to-nuts piece of pop perfection.
The Dandy Warhols: Get Off. Still not sure what to think of this full CD (Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia), but it's got two or three gems on it.
Aimee Mann: Momentum. From the Magnolia soundtrack, which is as good a soundtrack, in terms of fitting perfectly with a movie, as I can think of.
Papas Fritas: Vertical Lives. It's hard to know what to do with Papas Fritas. They write these just incredible pop songs with bizarre (sometimes) lyrics and way overdone (sometimes) arrangements. But it's hard to do much of anything but enjoy the disc, Buildings & Grounds.
Moby: Run On. Okay, so there's hardly a Moby song that isn't used in some advertisement somewhere. Maybe this one is, too. But I dare you to listen without moving in some form of rhythm. (Note: Minnesotans are exempt from this dare.) Off Play.
Louis Armstrong with The Mills Brothers: The Song Is Ended. We bought this CD (a best of called Louis Armstrong Sings) in a really interesting record store in Carmel, California. It specialized in what places like Tower just call "vocalists" --- people like Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and so on. This song seems to be the perfect way to end the disc.
Comments? Questions? Corrected links? Write us.
And as always: The tape is recorded in Doubly, because the tape list is listening.