December 28, 2008

Sam Hughes Reviews: Holiday Edition

December 24, 2008

Thomas' definitive list of the absolute best music to come out this year

ALBUMS


The Music Tapes - Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes - Merge

Dear Nora - Three States: Rarities '97 - '07 - Magic Marker Records

Why? - Alopecia - anticon.

Sissy Wish - Beauties Never Die - Sony/BMG

Born Ruffians - Red, Yellow and Blue - Warp

PAS/CAL - I Was Raised On Matthew, Mark, Luke & Laura - Le Grand Magistry

Make a Rising - Infinite Ellipse And Head With Open Fontanel - High Two

LAKE - Oh, The Places We'll Go - K

REISSUES


Daughters of Albion - Daughters of Albion - Fallout

Leo Diamond - Skin Diver Suite - Request Records

Biff Rose - Biff Rose - Omni

Judy Henske and Jerry Yester - Farewell Aldebaran - Phoenix

SINGLES

Solange - "I Decided"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD8wzrBLrLI


Miniature Tigers - "Cannibal Queen"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrUrv7CBbN4


Dr. Dog - "The Rabbit, The Bat, and the Reindeer"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZYTk06Qhc8

Beyoncé - "Single Laides (Put a Ring On It")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mVEGfH4s5g


Of Montreal - "For Our Elegant Caste"
http://fakepennycomics.com/blog/OFM_ForOurElegantCaste.mp3


Thao Nguyen - "Bag of Hammers"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57OtoBN_Jig


December 22, 2008

young nick krill’s year-end wrap up… word of the year!

curate: verb [trans.] (usu. be curated) – select, organize, and look after the items in (a collection or exhibition)


being a child of two museum people, i spent plenty of time at the dinner table overhearing stories of curators and the wilds of curation. it seemed like a pretty garden-variety activity in the classy world of early american decorative arts, but as a young pop-rock music maker / recording engineer, 2008 socked it to me pretty hard when it laid “curate” on me…thick.

it started on tour when various rock promoters talked to me about how they curated concerts. fair enough, i guess, although the use of curate seemed a bit lofty when i was talking to a promoter in a crumby club with sticky floors. by years end, i had people talking to me about curating recording sessions, and my personal favorite, an email sharing youtube videos with a subject that ended with “ : a curated email.”

i respect all the folks that have been curating this year (well, maybe only a few of the rock promoters) but for some reason “curate” is giving my spine the same shiver that “zeitgeist” did a few years back. i’ll hand it to the curators for using a pretty descriptive word, but when fancy words are associated with things like bulk emails and assembling five singer-songwriters in one place i think we need to draw the line.

maybe i am being a jerk…after all, i really liked the curated email, and i went to a bunch of fun concerts…and really, who am i to say that high culture gets to use fancy words while low culture has to keep it simple (and who am i to decide what is high and low culture anyways). i guess if you are gonna curate, don’t try to deny a band a few extra waters for the stage or short them some door money…then all your expressiveness does is change you from a wang-dangle to a self-important wang-dangle.


happy new year, and good luck curating your holiday gifts!

-young nick krill

December 8, 2008

Cooking with Jon



Just kidding. Thomas and Jon just posted the same thing at the same time unbeknownst to each other. It got us thinking about our favorite Michael Keaton movie. For actual "Cooking with Jon" video, see one of the posts below.

Cooking with Jon: Holiday edition


RSVP Here


OR

Listen Online!

Cooking with Jon

While we do like to do more than promote tours and shows and other various spinto activities on this blog, sometimes we find that promoting an event is a good excuse to make a silly video... Case in point, tonite in Boston... day off, no show, no Phillies games for a few months- lets make a youtube video promoting our XPN show...

details about the gig after the video:





The XPN gig


Friday December 12, 2009
12 noon
hear it live-
In person: World Cafe Live
on radio: 88.5 WXPN (only for people in or around the Philadelphia area)
online: www.XPN.org



PS- the pasta sauce was a little spicy, but luckily there wasn't really enough of it for anyone to have too much and then there was too much pasta, so everyone had barely any of the too spicy sauce mixed into an extra large serving of angel hair pasta and so the spice (or any of the taste) was mellowed nicely. We had eggnog for dessert.

December 1, 2008

The Spinto Band Holiday Tour '08!

Happy December everybody! We've got some news for you:



Pretty crazy, right? The end of that video is no joke! The part of Joe Hobson WILL be played by Stevie Hobson on this Holiday Tour. These will be our last shows of this year, so please join us and The Oxford Collapse in this wintry mix of neglected New England.

12/03 - Garfield Artworks - Pittsburgh, PA*
12/04 - The Bug Jar - Rochester, NY
12/05 - Mohawk Place - Buffalo, NY
12/06 - Iron Horse Music Hall - Northampton, MA
12/07 - Club Hell - Providence, RI
12/09 - Space Gallery - Portland, ME
12/10 - The Space - Hamden, Connecticut
12/11 - The Bog - Scranton, PA
12/12 - FREE at Noon Concert at the World Cafe Live - Philadelphia, PA*
12/12 - Maxwell's - Hoboken, NJ
12/13 - The Talking Head - Baltimore, MD

*Without Oxford Collapse

Visit our myspace for more info or spintoband.com to buy tickets!