Happy Halloween from the Gruesome Twosome!

In honor of the holiday, we decided to share a spooky song or two in between our predominant activities of cackling madly and stirring our witchy brew at Red Blondehead Headquarters while the flying monkeys circle our heads before going out into the world to obey our nefarious bidding.

Up first, we have a fun Lylas rarity..."Bit by a Witch" from their hard-to-find Halloween release What is Undead, Anyway? I love the "Dear Diary" bit Kyle Hamlett does at the beginning (it's pretty funny to see him do it in person) and at the end when his brother Josh repeats "Bit by a witch" all deep-voiced in the background.

Lylas - Bit by a Witch

And to continue our theme, a few vampire-themed songs:

Margot and the Nuclear So & So's - Vampires in Blue Dresses
Say Hi to Your Mom - These Fangs

A song about zombies:
Final Fantasy - The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead

Monsters!
Sound Team - Movie Monster

And songs of a more general sort of fright:
Say Hi to Your Mom - The Forest Scares the Hell Out of Me
Doves - Darker
The Theater Fire - Kicking Up the Darkness

I thought about including a Kevin Federline song on this Halloween Mini-mix of Terror but some things are too evil and frightening even for us.

Tracks from Wilco in Huntsville 10.9.06

Hi folks!

Thanks to our good friend Nate Saturday, we now have in our greedy little hands an audience recording of Wilco's show last week in Huntsville, Alabama. It's an excellent audience recording--Mr. Saturday gives it an A-. Good, hey?!

Here's the tracklisting along with a few tracks for ya. Enjoy!

01 Intro
02 Poor Places
03 Muzzle of Bees
04 Shot in the Arm
05 Impossible Germany
06 Break Your Heart
07 Kamera
08 Handshake Drugs
09 Jesus, Etc.
10 At Least That's What You Said
11 Airline to Heaven
12 Walken
13 Theologians
14 I'm the Man Who Loves You
15 Via Chicago
16 Hummingbird
17 crowd

--1st encore--

18 Late Greats
19 Always in Love
20 How to Fight Loneliness
21 Heavy Metal Drummer
22 crowd

--2nd encore--
23 Let's Not Get Carried Away
24 Kingpin
25 Misunderstood

The Blow

Last night Red Blondehead caught Man Man with Asobi Seksu and The Blow. While we have posted Man Man and Asobi Seksu songs before, we had never heard of The Blow. So when Khaela Maricich (one half of The Blow) began her spastic but endearing dance routines while singing over electro-dancepop, we were surprised, amused, and then entranced. I wish I could find a good video of her, but everything I found at YouTube was either poor quality or one of her more lowkey songs with less dancing. So take a listen to these songs and picture a girl doing the interpretative type of dancing that you do when you are in your room alone and you've got a fun song cranked up. I say "you" because when I'm dancing alone in my room, I'm doing elaborate professional-level choreography.

The Blow - Parentheses
The Blow - True Affection

The Blow's new album Paper Television will be released next week.

Amalg*

Where've we been! Well maybe "where have YOU been?" is a better question. Hmmm? Yeahhhhh.

Well we're right HERE. And here's some new to newish stuff that is worth a listen. We can't stop, anyway.

Cemetery Row 14 from The Minus 5's 2006 release The Gun Album. This track features Colin Meloy of *yawn* The Decemberists. Funny, the only time I can stomach the guy is when he's singing a song written by Scott McCaughey.

Portrait in Clouds from the recent Wooden Wand release, Second Attention. This is a great record to check out in its entirety.

Tropicana and Kennedy from Ratatat's infectious Classics.

Finally, a track from The Curtains' new record Calamity, which will be released next Tuesday on Asthmatic Kitty. Deerhoof fans will of course be in love with this one: Go Lucky.

Till next time, friends, till next time.

BottleTree podcast #4

Hi everyone, we just finished recording podcast number 4 for BottleTree. This podcast features the headliners and a few openers for shows from Oct. 9 - Oct. 18, including the following:

Marjorie Fair (October 9)
Frisell / DeJohnette / Harris Trio (October 12)
Tara Jane O'Neil (October 15 w/ Two Ton Boa and Delicate Cutters)
MC Trachiotomy (October 16 w/ Yakuza Dance Mob)
Wolf Eyes (October 17 w/ Hollow Bush and John Wiese)
Man Man (October 18 w/ Asobi Seksu and The Blow)
Asobi Seksu

Click here to download podcast 4; we hope to see you at these upcoming shows!

Joseph Arthur - Nuclear Daydream

After getting a message from Leah that only said, "The world wants traci to post mp3s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!," I thought that maybe it was time to post something despite her hyperbole. (I'm quoting her verbatim. There were really that many exclamation points. She's the Queen of Punctuation, after all.)

I've been listening to Joseph Arthur's latest release, Nuclear Daydream, repetitively since it was released a few weeks ago. The whole thing is classic Arthur doing his singer-songwriter/I play all the instruments on my album thing, but stripped down a little. I especially can't get enough of "Enough to Get Away," it's just one of those songs that makes me feel happy. It reminds me of "You're So True" in that respect.

Joseph Arthur - Enough to Get Away
Joseph Arthur - Too Much to Hide
Joseph Arthur - Automatic Situation

Have a good weekend everybody!

Akron/Family Part 1,000,000,000

Okay, it's no secret that I'm nuts about Akron/Family. It's just that they're so full of energy and unbridled joy, and it's just that that translates so well both live and on their records. I've said this all before? I'm begging you to see/hear for yourself.

Yesterday the band put out their third release on Young God Records, Meek Warrior.

Listen to some songs here:

Gone Beyond
Meek Warrior

Buy the record here. And for the love of God, will Amazon quit putting baby gear in my rec'mendation section? It's so not my fault that all my friends have decided to contribute to the overpopulation of this planet. SO QUIT SHOWIN' ME WIPE WARMERS, AMAZON!!!!!!!111111 BRING ON THE RAWKKKKK!!!!!!!!

Yeesh. :)

very sad news, re: Wilco

It has come down the grapevine that Wilco's Jeff Tweedy lost his mother, Jo Ann Tweedy, last night. No details have been released yet about the reason for her death.

Friends of the family have suggested that this is all the more a devastating loss because of the closeness of the family. Our hearts are heavy for the Tweedy family because of the loss they have sustained. Please send good vibes (or prayers, if you will) their way.

One song immediately came to mind when I heard the news this morning, one Tweedy recorded with Golden Smog for Weird Tales: Please Tell my Brother.

For those of you wondering, Jeff's wife, Sue, has commented that Wilco will not be canceling the tour because his mother would have wanted him to play.

Head over to Via Chicago to leave comments for Jeff and his family!