At least I know I'll never sleep at night, I'll always lie awake until the morning light.

I’d like to give a shout out to one miss Reilly Muckey.

Reilly’s a pretty awesome gal to hang around and quite the looker too but that’s all beside the point because the point’s not whether I’d ever make out with a girl named Reilly Muckey and how appropriate that would or would not be. The point happens to be that Reilly has a favorite band that she talks about ad nauseam.

Okay, so, lots of people do that. Heck, I do that so often that my coworkers can all probably name members of Okkervil River so talking about your favorite band is not too out of the ordinary. Only Reilly’s favorite band happens to rock the proverbial Casbah, in their own special acoustic way, and grown quite accustomed to it.

City And Colour is the cleverly named side project of Alexisonfire’s Dallas Green (Get it? Dallas is a city and Green is a colour! City! And Colour!) but unlike Alexisonfire, you’ll hear no screaming here. Nor will you hear any distortion or, well, anything electric. Instead, you’ll only hear beautiful, post-folk indie-bedroom musings that is far more mature and understated than anything you’d probably be expecting from a member of Alexisonfire.

Heavy on melody and honesty, City And Colour has garnered comparisons to Nick Drake and Iron And Wine and those comparisons are not completely unjust. Released in February, the second effort from City And Colour, Bring Me Your Love, is equal parts introspection and acoustic catchiness (After a few listens, if you don't find yourself humming the incredibly sweet and charming The Girl throughout the course of your day, well then you might either be immune to sincere love songs or deaf and either way I am very sorry that you had to find out such sad news this way), making City And Colour the perfect soundtrack to insomnia-ridden late nights spent introspect-ing. And I couldn’t be doing it without Reilly Muckey.

So here’s to you, Reilly. And your awesome taste in music. If I drank, I’d raise a stein of beer to you. But I don’t. So how about I crack open a bottle of water, crank up this Dallas Green fellow and we'll call it even?


Confessions

The Death of Me


Hear more Dallas Green via Myspace!

The Hot Half Life Reviews... Okkervil River's The Stand Ins.

Well, readers, it’s happened.

My anticipation reached fever pitch as the final cover was put up on youtube and the posters arrived in the mail - In fact, mine are hanging spiffily above my computer at this moment! Which is to say that Okkervil River’s the Stand Ins, the self-described sequel to The Stage Names, was finally physically released this week. Now can I calm down? Can I shut up about Will Sheff? Can I move on to other bands?

Well... Probably not.

Not every one is so lucky as Okkervil River fans and I think we know it - Not only do we get a stellar album handed to us in the Stage Names but one year later, we’ve been presented with it’s companion. And then we get solid covers done by amazing artists of each track - Ola Podrida owned Calling and Not Calling My Ex and A.C. Newman was so ace on Lost Coastlines that I almost wish that’d made it on to the album instead of the phenomenal Will Sheff/Jonathan Meiburg version that we got. (Don’t freak out at me! I said almost!) As if that’s not enough, now we get another national tour. Do these guys ever take a break? No. Is it more than we deserve? Yes, definitely.

So what do I think of The Stand Ins? Well, it will come as no surprise to anyone who’s read a single blog entry of mine in the past that I adore it. It’s everything I’ve come to expect from Okkervil River - Melodic, unexpected, upbeat, clever and lyrically biting with melodies seamlessly woven in and out from one track to another (The tune of closer Bruce Wayne Campbell can be heard in the opening refrain of the instrumental Stand Ins, One while bells join Singer Songwriter and Starry Stairs and then later can be heard in Calling and Not Calling My Ex) all of which makes for a logical and consistent album.

Equal parts beautiful phrasing and jaunty rock and roll, The Stand In’s crowning achievement is probably the fact that the record starts off brilliantly and ends just as strong, if not stronger. Lost Coastlines is the perfect road trip song for those who don’t want to road trip, feeling homesick for a home you might not even really have anymore for lack of staying in it, with Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg taking the chorus as Will Sheff delivers the smart lyrics anyone with an ear attuned to that sort of wit has grown to expect and the album continues strong from there. Singer Songwriter delivers barbs worthy, in my slightly biased opinion, of Bob Dylan at his prime (“You’ve got taste, what a waste that’s that all that you have.”) while On Tour With Zykos, a classic Tragic Okkervil River Lady song that’s joined the ranks of A Girl In Port and Savannah Smiles, will wrench the heart of anyone who’s ever felt like they’re meant for something better than the sad monotony that surrounds them. But the best moment on the entire album is arguably track 11, Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed On The Roof Of The Chelsea Hotel, 1979. Clocking in at an epic five minutes and fifty-four seconds long, the song starts slow and quiet with Mr. Sheff softly singing lyrics about love and yearning that, quite frankly, make me love and yearn as well, before building, slow and steady, to what turns into a fully orchestrated, smokey and romantic jam featuring perhaps the entire album’s best moment at three minutes into the track.

If every album could end this way, well, then we’d all probably take such amazing songs for granted. Instead, I’ll just hope secretly that when I am so lucky as to see Okkervil River play next month in Chicago, they do not play Bruce Wayne Campbell because frankly, I would make a fool of myself what with the hysterical fit I’d throw upon hearing the opening lyrics.

Like I said, us Okkervil River fans. We’re a lucky group of kids.

Bruce Wayne Campbell Interviewed On The Roof Of The Chelsea Hotel, 1979

The Hot Half Life Presents... Cinemascope.

When I first started this blog, my goal was to have a blog of all media, not just a blog of music. Granted, music is the art form I tend to gravitate towards so it hasn’t surprised me that the first one-point-five months of this here little guy have been dedicated to songs. But wouldn’t it be cool to have a blog book club, some blog how-to crafts and the occasional blog movie reviews? I’ve thought it would for some time now. You might say I have delusions of grandeur for The Hot Half Life. And if you were to say that, well, you’d be right my friend.

And yesterday afternoon, whilst hanging out with a pretty awesome group of people, it was suggested that we watch a movie that I’ve been interested in since I heard about it’s production - The Tracey Fragments.



Visually stunning and the very definition of indie, the Tracey Fragments is carried by the always phenomenal Ellen Page and whenever he’s on screen, the magnetic Slim Twig as Billy Zero commands the same attention from the audience as he does from Tracey herself. But... Well, it’s probably not a glowing review that one fourth of the film’s viewing party fell asleep. And it’s probably telling that the last twenty minutes of the film was spent talking about cereal because Honey Smacks are more intriguing than poor Tracey Berkowitz wandering around in nothing but a floral print shower curtain searching for her hypnotized younger brother who thinks he’s a dog.

Often times, the high concept Tracey Fragments felt like a glorified music video with the split screen style wearing quite thin and transcending beauty to become simply pretentious and dizzying. The story was lackluster because there really wasn’t much of one. And as for the conclusion... Well, there wasn’t much of that either.

The movie wasn’t terrible by any means. It was good but I wanted more - More plot, more of a end, more depth from Tracey’s voice over. The film shot for deep and often just succeeded at being what it was - A fifteen year old girl talking about the psuedo-intellectual things that most fifteen year old girls who hate their lives would think is very deep subject matter.

Aside from Ellen Page and Slim Twig, the most amazing part of the film for me had to be Broken Social Scene’s score and the amazing soundtrack which delivers more and more with every track played. The film, in my opinion, is worth watching for the most romantic day dream sex ever filmed, set to Rose Melburg’s sweetly beautiful Each New Day, as Tracey lays in bed reading comics and fantasizing about her future first time with the crush she’s yet to hold a conversation with, Billy Zero. At once hormonally charged and innocently tender, nothing about it felt prying or perverse. Instead, it made me want to be in love.

Rose Melburg - Each New Day

Change Up Your Dreams.

I’ve discovered a lot of great new music this summer. A season, to me, is almost a waste if I don’t. I just love to find new music. I get excited about new melodies to memories, new lyrics to learn, new experiences to vicariously live through. And of course there’s always the few songs you find that mean something more than music because they describe your life as you’re living it at the moment that you hear it.

For a while this summer, that song was Okkervil River’s On Tour With Zykos.

What did I say last month about not doing another Okkervil River related entry until after the release of the Stand-Ins? Well, I’m sort of girl of my word - Sort of! For you see, I found myself wondering something after hearing that song... Who’s Zykos? Wikipedia wasn’t very helpful - It told me what I’d already gathered. Zykos is a band. They make music. Oh really, Wikipedia? How helpful of you! After that one minute of wiki-initiated frustration, I sort of, sadly, let my Zykos curiosity linger by the wayside for a while.

That is, until last night when something truly amazing happened over at Okkervil’s legendarily awesome youtube channel, and that something was Zykos covering On Tour With Zykos.



And thus, I have been on an quest for the day to dig up various bits of information and mp3's about Zykos as my Zykos curiosity has been re-peaked.

Wikipedia is still a bust and the ol’ myspace, while giving me the chance to hear the awesome track What You Know, doesn’t answer the burning question - Is the lead singers real name John? I guess I may never know that one. But I have learned the following : Not completely unlike fellow Texans Spoon and What Made Milwaukee Famous, Zykos is surprisingly fun, almost sort of dancey, and have honestly taken me by surprise - After hearing their cover of On Tour With Zykos, I did not expect them to... Well... Make me want to chair-dance as much as they do. Wipeout (Try Waking Up!) is quite endearing with it’s shout-along chorus and it’s parenthetical exclamation point and Zeroth makes me want to be the cool kid in the back of the hip party, clad only in black and white, smoking cigarettes, drinking diet coke from a can with a straw and looking antisocially aloof while talking to no one and perhaps wearing sunglasses. I don't even smoke! Nor do I drink carbonated beverages! So basically,I mean to say that Zykos is hip. Damn hip. And they make me want to be hip too.


Wipeout (Try Waking Up!)


Zeroth



Oh and also, speaking in a round-about sort of way about Okkervil River, it should be noted that Chad over at the oft-mentioned Everybody Cares is hosting an Okkervil covers project that everyone should keep an eye on, if you're so musically inclined. If I had a camera... I believe my guitar and I would be cozying up to Lost Coastlines after work this evening.

Love, she said, how everyone I gave it to, they’re all gone and don’t let that ever be you, boy.

I should be asleep right now.

You see, I work a lot. It's not that I mind - I love my job and if I could be there more, well, I probably would. And when I'm not working, chances are that I'm hanging out. But instead of sleeping, I'm listening to the same song on repeat which is something I've been doing since I got home two hours ago.

The song? January by Ravens and Chimes.



Chad over at Everybody Cares said it best and probably first when he posted this wonderful review back in, appropriately, January that included the perfectly stated sentence "'January' is a song that you'll want to listen to on repeat, put on a mixtape for the girl you have a crush on, or dance along with all alone in your bedroom."

Perfectly encapsulating both the petrifying fear and complete exhilaration to be found in infatuation, January is lyrically magical, musically invigorating and perhaps one of the most exciting songs I've ever had the opportunity to hear. It makes me believe. It makes me happy. And hopefully that's enough to sustain me on very few hours of sleep at work tomorrow.


Ravens and Chimes - January