Wednesday Shuffle Shakedown

If you live in Austin and get The Onion print edition every week or if you keep up with the publication regularly, then you're likely familiar with the A.V. Club's "Random Rules" feature. If not, it consists of a celebrity putting his or her iPod on shuffle and justifying or explaining the first few songs that come up. No skipping is allowed, period. Because this is a slow week in music and because I will likely never be asked by the A.V. Club to do this, I'm going to take on this challenge personally, and I'm going to try to do this every Wednesday. First five songs, here we go.

1. Ghostface Killah featuring Raekwon - "R.A.G.U."
This is one of the more laid back tracks off of last year's EXCELLENT FishScale LP. I think I've come to the realization that Ghostface is one of maybe five rappers that I legitimately enjoy. I know it's the cool thing now to pretend that you're as into rap and electronic music as you're into old-fashioned rock and roll, but I find that someone as emotional and varied as Ghost comes along very rarely in hip hop.

2. Destroyer - "From Oakland to Warsaw"
From Your Blues, this song features chimes and lush string arrangements, making it huge and gaudy even by Dan Bejar's standards. Even though I do love it when he gets big and Bowie, I think that I prefer Bejar in more stripped-down settings, like most of Streethawk: A Desire. In songs like "From Oakland to Warsaw," the arrangements can get in the way of Bejar's uniquely emotive voice. After seeing Sunset Rubdown, I would absolutely love to see how Spencer Krug and Dan Bejar would sound together onstage in there side project Swan Lake.

3. Decemberists - "16 Military Wives"
Yeah, the one with the video that rips off Rushmore. This song is actually one of my least favorite off of Picaresque, but that by no means makes it a weak song. However, I prefer my Decemberists songs to focus on sea wenches and barrow boys, not heavy-handed political themes. When they played this at ACL this year, Colin Meloy had the audience chanting along with the "la-di-da" part, which was obviously fun. However, he then had everyone chanting along with something to the effect of "the Bush administration is killing American kids," which was not catchy at all. It was almost as awkward as when Common had everyone in the mostly white audience raise their fists Black Panther-style. It seems like in today's musical/political climate, it's impossible to like a band without agreeing with them politically, which can be frustrating; after all, most musicians are d-bags anyways. Regardless, a very catchy tune.

4. King Elementary - "Rebecca"
Awwwwww...

To those poor souls unfamiliar with the Jackson, Mississippi music scene, these guys were the best thing since sliced bread. In one of my classes I'm writing a paper on W.C. Don's, the dive bar where most concerts in Jackson went down, so I've been listening to these guys a lot lately as well as other Jackson mainstays like Champagne Heights and Living Better Electrically. I remember when these guys did an impromptu performance of this song at a house party, and people were going so apeshit that the house literally shook. It was Rock City.

5. The Good Life - "Under A Honeymoom"
This is Tim Kasher from Cursive's acoustic project, which is kinda like Bright Eyes but with a far less warbly and annoying voice. I've only listened to this album a few times before, but I bought it after being briefly obsessed with The Ugly Organ, which remains the only Cursive album I own. This song ends with a beautiful coda of organs and glockenspiel, making it much more epic than most of the rest of the album. I'd recommend this album -- Album of the Year -- to someone looking for a less grizzly M. Ward or a more assertive (smog).

The 6th song was "Explode" by The Cardigans. Damn the fates.

Now, I think that that was fun, and I open the message boards up to anyone who wants to shuffle it up and tell everyone what their first song is. Funniest answer wins. Nothing. Also, boards are available for costume suggestions, as I am still without.

Speaking of Halloween, AMC is doing Monsterfest every night up to the 31st, so last night I stayed up until 2 watching Hellraiser. I think that between that and Nightmare on Elm Street you have two examples of potentially great movies completely marred by obsolete special effects. Clive Barker and Wes Craven owe it to all of us to go George Lucas on those movies so that we can send the Cenobites back to hell with some dignity.

Jocksville:

• Game 1: Red Sox 5-Rockies 2. The only things in this world that might be hotter than the Rockies right now are San Diego and Josh Beckett. Too soon?
• Kevin Durant has sprained his ankle. Al Horford: consider yourself Ringo because you're next.
• NFL Draft will be quicker next year. Fine by me as long as we got the extra time to laugh at Brady Quinn last year.
• Tony La Russa returns to St. Louis, thus crushing my hopes of the world's first manager trade with the Yankees.

ybb (Your blogging buddy),
Benji