Password: sharedmusic.net
Artist.......: Fujiya & Miyagi
Album........: Transparent Things
Label........: Tirk
Genre........: Alternative
Catnr........: n/a
source.......: CDDA
rip.date.....: Jun-05-2006
str.date.....: 000-00-2006
quality......: VBR/44,1Hz/Joint-Stereo
Url..........: n/a
track title time
01. ankle injuries 05:05
02. collarbone 04:04
03. photocopier 04:05
04. conductor 71 04:10
05. transparent things 02:55
06. sucker punch 02:41
07. in one ear & out the other 03:43
08. cassettesingle 06:31
09. cylinders 03:07
Runtime 36:21 min
Size 56,1 MB
Release Notes:
Fujiya and miyagi's music could best be described
as part krautrock (Can/Neu/Cluster/Kraftwerk), part
new wave guitar rock (Talking Heads/Wire) and part
90's electronica (Aphex Twin/Four Tet/Boards Of
Canada).
Their first three limited 10" releases for tirk,
released in limited quantities of 1,000 through
spring 2004 to winter 2006, all sold out within
weeks of release.
'Transparent Things' collects all of the tracks
from the 3 EP's, along with an exclusive new track,
'Cylinders'.
Part: 2 : The Presidents Of The United States Of America- These Are The Good Times People (2008)
Password: sharedmusic.net
- Release Info -------------------------------------------------------------- -
Artist: The Presidents Of The United States Of America
Album: These Are The Good Times People
Label: Figit!ve Recordinds
Playtime: 39:06 min
Genre: Rock
URL: http://www.myspace.com/thepresidentsoftheunitedstates Of America
Rip date: 2008-02-23
Street date: 2008-03-11
Size: 62.52 MB
Type: Advance
Quality: VBR kbps / 4410kHz / Joint Stereo
- Release Notes ------------------------------------------------------------- -
With THESE ARE THE GOOD TIMES PEOPLE, THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA have delivered an inventive, uplifting and often brilliant rock &
roll album. From the opening, celebratory blast of "Mixed Up SOB"--which
embraces the spirit of the band's 4 million-selling eponymous debut--to the
warm, Shins-like lilt of "Loose Balloon," the group commandeers your
attention with fourteen contagious winners.
Simply put, THESE ARE THE GOOD TIMES PEOPLE delivers the goods with PUSA
sounding as vital as ever. With the collective strengths of founding
vocalist, basitar player and principal songwriter CHRIS BALLEW, original
drummer JASON FINN and guitbass player ANDREW MCKEAG--who officially joins
the band with this album--PUSA lend their joy and enthusiasm to any and all
within an earshot.
Recorded by Northwest legends The Fastbacks' own Kurt Bloch (Robyn Hitchcock,
Mudhoney, Les Thugs) and mixed by Martin Feveyear (Epoxies, Amber Pacific,
Screaming Trees), the disc marks an alignment between the band and EMI via
the new imprint Fugitive Recordings. Sharing the landscape with recent,
acclaimed efforts by Ween and They Might Be Giants, PUSA--as masters (and
progenitors) of "Joy Pop"--dig deep and pull off their most diverse and
accomplished record yet.
Case in point is the twangy, swing-informed exuberance of "Flame Is Love,"
which effortlessly shares the company of more recent numbers like the
riff-tastic "Poor Turtle" or the light, countrified "Truckstop Butterfly." As
for the aforementioned "Mixed Up SOB," it was originally penned in 1989 and
first existed as "a slow, 12-string kind of thing," says Chris. "It wasn't
until I decided to Cars-ify it that it came to life."
"Chris is very prolific and there's never a lack of new material," Finn
explains. "He's also got stuff from the last ten years on his computers. And
he's always sort of rifling through fragments of material from hard drives,
cassettes, Dictaphones, wherever. And every time we do a new record, he goes
through that stuff. And every time I think I've heard every song that he's
ever written, he pulls out like eight great songs I've never heard, and I'm
like, 'Why the %$@ didn't we do this one or that one?'"
And then there's the glistening, piano-touched pop winner "More Bad Times,"
which is brand new, sort of.
Replete with an a cappella break and a captivating acoustic shuffle, the
song--which can't help but be one of the main focal points of THESE ARE THE
GOOD TIMES PEOPLE--is essentially a hybrid of Presidents music and the lyrics
to a song by an old, obscure group known as Ed's Redeeming Qualities. "I used
to go see them when I moved to Boston in 1988. They had a ukulele, a violin
and an old man shaking a can of rice," Chris chuckles. "And they had a song,
"More Bad Times," that was very different musically. But I always loved it."
"So, we're goofing around with acoustic guitars," Ballew continues, "and
Andrew started playing a new riff, and all of the sudden that other song came
into my head, and I starting singing those lyrics over it and changed the
rhyme scheme and it just fit. I wound up writing a final verse and discovered
how much fun it is to take an existing song and turn it into something else.
When we finished it I was like, man, this is the feel good hit of the
summer."
"I was just playing this part on this Silvertone guitar that Chris had in his
house and it was tuned an octave higher. And he was like, 'Keep playing that!
Keep playing that!'" Andrew laughs. "He started jumping up and down and got
all excited."
"It's certainly one of the high points and it's in a spot where we rarely
go," Finn acknowledges. "We've gone a little bit further out toward the edges
on this one, but in a totally focused way. Of course, people have always
expected a 'mixed grill' from us stylistically. Our earliest crowds in
Seattle didn't know whether they were going to get loud, soft or all ska on a
given night. That was part of the fun…as long as it wasn't ska very often."
Since the Seattle-based trio first burst into the public eye with its
aforementioned debut – on the strength of radio smashes like "Lump" and
"Peaches" – it has been plugging away in fits and spurts with remarkable
success. Look no further than their twice Grammy- nominated debut The
Presidents of the United States of America, which continues to thrive as an
enduring modern rock disc since peaking at 6 on the Billboard Top 200.
Enjoying the kind of longevity shared by eponymous classics of the genre like
Violent Femmes and Weezer, it's found a new life on digital services like
iTunes since its rights reverted back to the band in 2003.
1996's II rocked just as hard, giving birth to the full throttle, Top 10
single, "Mach Five," which fostered PUSA's most imaginative and infamous
music video. Meanwhile, accelerated fan favorites like "Lunatic to Love" and
"Tiki God" left their imprint on then-up and-comers The Hives.
In advance of a much-deserved hiatus, two well-chosen covers helped leave a
substantial cultural mark. First, a boisterous take on The Buggles' "Video
Killed The Radio Star" musically defined the smash Adam Sandler flick "The
Wedding Singer." Next, "The Drew Carey Show" adopted the Presidents'
rendering of Ian Hunter's "Cleveland Rocks" as its theme, bringing the trio
into millions and millions of living rooms across the fruited plain. "Ohio!"
indeed.
In 2000, Chris, Dave and Jason reconvened for the vibrant studio-only effort
Freaked Out and Small, which boasted the airwave favorite "Tiny Explosions."
Giving PUSA a chance to record songs that Chris had crafted outside of the
band's unconventional 2-string, 3-string format, the project included the
riotous track "Jupiter" and live in-studio performances on the accompanying
DVD. "We weren't officially working again at that point, Jason explains. This
Musicblitz company appeared out of the ether and offered us a chance to make
a record with no touring obligation. Sounds like a hoot, says us, and we had
a blast recording it for 10 days, then didn't give it another thought.
Neither did Mudicblitz, who went out of business a couple of weeks after
putting it out."
A full reformation followed a series of reunion gigs for 2004's Love
Everybody, and while critics were handing out four star reviews and "Some
Postman" was a radio favorite, the band ultimately realized that operating as
a touring band and maintaining its own PUSA record label was a huge
undertaking. As Finn puts it, "Being our own label was interesting, but
ultimately the day-to-day realities of managing a retail operation were
taking too much of our rocking time. Plus, during our frequent DIVA tantrums,
it was less fun calling and screaming at ourselves!"
With Love Everybody, Dave stepped away from the band for touring purposes and
ultimately passed the guitbass to McKeag, a Seattle music vet and longtime
friend of the band who was initially introduced to the group by Dederer years
ago and who first served as a roadie for The Fastbacks when they opened for
PUSA on their June 1996 U.S. tour.
"After 200 shows in the band, I've finally earned my stripes. Woo-hoo!"
Andrew laughs. To which, Finn adds, "Andrew is a huge, huge guitar player. He
takes the rock & roll of the band and capitalizes the 'R's'." It's a notion
upheld by the punchy, rollicking "French Girl," the quirky and undeniably
sharp "Fangs"--which boasts Jason's finest harmony vocals to date--and the
blistering, forceful anchor track "Ghosts Are Everywhere."
Then there's "Deleter," a bona fide funk song with horns that the band built
from a beat that Finn had been playing at soundchecks for years. "One day at
practice we put it together but I couldn't make any lyrics fit," Chris
explains. "Then I remembered an email I had from Robyn Hitchcock--who I've
been friends with and whose records I've been playing on for a while--and he
asked, 'Do you still have that horn part you did?' So I wrote back, 'No man.
If I know you're not going to use it, I delete it. I'm a deleter.' And he
replied, 'She's a deleter.' So we started riffing back and forth. That banter
became the chorus. I wrote the verses and we finished it." Soul singer Fysah
Thomas rounds out the song with the first ever guest vocal appearance on a
Presidents album.
With a cover image of a hand with a pin coming in to pop a balloon, Ballew
says the track "Loose Balloon" fostered the album art. It was also the first
song he wrote for THESE ARE THE GOOD TIMES PEOPLE. Written on Christmas Day
2005, the first he spent alone after his marriage dissolved and his kids were
off with their mom, Ballew says, "The split was a positive one but that day I
was really bummed. My whole life was changing. And that song came out as
therapy."
When it's suggested that although it came from a dark place, it still
translates as a song of strength, Chris is quick to explain. "When you write
a song and you play it live you have to live it," he says. "If you tell a sad
story, you have to live it over and over again each night. So my version of
musical therapy isn't to wallow in the sadness but find that little bright
spot and turn up the volume on it."
That sentiment lends itself to the title of the record: "Whenever we were on
tour over the last couple years and things were sucking and we're sitting
backstage somewhere, cold and eating whipped turkey in some strange third
world country, everyone would be quiet and I would say, 'These are the good
times, people.' Like, this is it! This is what we signed up for! And it sort
of mutated into the record title, when I thought that without the sarcasm, it
could be used as a positive statement. "
Perhaps that outlook also explains why PUSA have persevered and remain able
to make inspiring music on their own terms long after so many of their '90s
alt-rock peers have gone by the wayside. With an average age of show-goers at
around 20, the band's high energy shows continue to pack venues all over the
world, selling out shows in London, Amsterdam, New York, Sydney and Seattle
on its last world trek.
With THESE ARE THE GOOD TIMES PEOPLE, new and old fans alike should find
little problem joining the party with PUSA circa 2008. "I know this stands up
strong against our entire [CENSORED]. And I hope our fans agree. We've finally
gotten to the point where we can let the vibe come to us and then we jump out
at it and reel it in. I think we've really brought our 'A' game to this
album. I feel like we've given as much as we ever have on this record."
Forgoing the director role he has assumed in the past, Ballew says a
democratic dynamic steered the project and greatly improved the energy of the
band. Playing to their strengths on THESE ARE THE GOOD TIMES PEOPLE, Chris
concedes, "I've just kind of learned over time that it's a lot of stress for
me and I don't necessarily end up with something better. I just decided to
lay back and not care while caring deeply, letting the cream rise to the
top."
- Track List ---------------------------------------------------------------- -
01. Mixed Up S.O.B. ( 3:05)
02. Ladybug ( 2:34)
03. Sharpen Up Those Fangs ( 3:05)
04. More Bad Times ( 2:59)
05. French Girl ( 3:04)
06. Truckstop Butterfly ( 2:04)
07. Ghosts Are Everywhere ( 4:08)
08. Loose Balloon ( 2:45)
09. Flame Is Love ( 2:39)
10. So Lo So Hi ( 2:18)
11. Poor Turtle ( 2:48)
12. Rot In The Sun ( 2:25)
13. Warhead ( 1:55)
14. Deleter ( 3:17)
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -
