Scripted Failures

This would have been up sooner, had Yahoo mail’s spam filter not thrown the Joy Electric newsletter in the spam folder, but the new Joy Electric album is entitled “My Grandfather, the Cubist”, and is due out on May 27th on Tooth and Nail Records.  Also the Joy Electric website has been updated with a sort of cubist influenced look and a rather lengthy interview with Ronnie.  Unfortunately there’s not a new track to listen to or a tracklist up yet, but hopefully both those will happen soon.  We’ll report it here as soon as it happens.  Get excited!

Coming Home to Me(You)

Disc One: Finding One’s Heart a Home

Prelude: Hearts With No Homes
1. Yoko Kanno, “Stella By Moor”

Chapter One: A Love Found in Distance
2. Starflyer 59, “I Fell in Love at 22″

Interlude One: The Soldiers of Love
3. Yoko Kanno, “Cosmos”

Chapter Two: The Gnawing Ache of Distances
4. Mae, “We’re So Far Away”
5. Mae, “Someone Else’s Arms”
6. Bon Voyage, “I Just Wanna (Be With You)”

Interlude Two: Sometimes It’s Hard to Know Where Home Is
7. Yoko Kanno, “Road to the West”

Chapter Three: Letters from the Home Front
8. Bruce Springsteen, “Dancing in the Dark”
9. Bruce Springsteen, “Born to Run”
10. Death Cab for Cutie, “Transatlanticism”

Interlude Three: There Could Be Grace and Beauty in this Life
11. Yoko Kanno, “Blue”

Chapter Four: Calling the Soldiers of Love Home
12. Joy Electric, “Buttercup Fairy Jamboree”
13. Joy Electric, “Birds Will Sing Forever”
14. Starflyer 59, “Your Company”

Postlude: Leaving the War for Home
15. Yoko Kanno, “Flying Teapot”
16. Yoko Kanno, “I Do”

Disc Two: Yr(My) Home is With Me(You)

Prelude: The Birds That Sing, They Sing for Us
1. Yoko Kanno, “Cyberbird”
2. Yoko Kanno, “Green Bird”

Chapter One: A Homecoming
3. Death Cab for Cutie, “Passenger Seat”
4. Dance House Children, “Once Upon Your Lips”
5. Goat Explosion, “Night Cranes”
6. Interpol, “Public Pervert”

Interlude One: There is Grace and Beauty in this Life
7. Yoko Kanno, “Space Lion”

Chapter Two: Walking in the Sun
8. Yo La Tengo, “Our Way to Fall”
9. Mae, “The Everglow”
10. Mae, “Ready and Waiting to Fall”
11. Starflyer 59, “For Us”

Interlude Two: One Day We Will Look Back and Find…
12. Yoko Kanno, “Waltz for Zizi”

Chapter Three: Our Memories, Forever Treasured
13. Bon Voyage, “On Your Side”
14. Dance House Children, “There Will Never Be”
15. Dance House Children, “Wisteria Time”

Postlude: …That Life Has Been Good to Us
16. Yoko Kanno, “Ave Maria”
17. Yoko Kanno, “Memory”

- Finding One’s Heart a Home - i fell in love at 22 with a girl that’s close to you find a job and find a life no more long days longer nights remembering everything about my world and when you came wondering if the change you’d bring means nothing else would be the same did you know what you were doing did you know did you know how you would move me well i don’t really think so but the night came down and swept us away and the stars they seemed to paint the most elaborate scene to date when the lights first came upon us and we saw the everglow and the moment’s magic swept us away and a young man’s dream was almost seen so plain when was the night that showed us the sign revealed in the ksy to leave all behind but where to begin throwing caution to the wind we reached for the stars everything was now ours it’s so close but we’re so far away i just want to wake up in someone else’s arms i just wanna be with you if you don’t mind i get up in the evening and i ain’t got nothing to say i come home in the morning feeling the same way i ain’t nothing but tired man i’m just tired and bored with myself hey there baby i could use a little help you can’t start a fire you can’t start a fire without a spark baby this gun’s for hire even if we’re just dancing in the dark they say you gotta stay hungry hey baby i’m just about starving tonite i’m dying for some action i’m sick of sitting around here trying to write this book i need a little reaction hey pretty baby give me just one look you can’t start a fire worrying about your little world falling apart this gun’s for hire even if we’re just dancing in the dark baby this town rips the bones from your back it’sa death trap it’s a suicide rap we gotta get out while we’re young cause tramps like us baby we were born to run amanda let me in i wanna be your friend i wanna guard your dreams and visions just wrap your legsround these velvet rims and starap your hands cross my engines together we could break this trap we’ll run till we drop baby we’ll never go back you walk with me out on the wire cause baby i’m just a scared and lonely rider but i gotta know how it feels i wanna know if love is wild baby wanna know if love is real together amanda we can live with  the sadness i’ll love you with all the madness in my soul someday girl i don’t know when we’re gonna get to that place where we really wanna go and we’ll walk in the sun but till then tramps like us baby we were born to run the distance is quite simply much too far for me to row it seems farther than ever before oh no i need you so much closer so come on you are loving i am faithful i’ll do everything i’m able be in love with me here forever king and country live forever birds will sing forever when we’re together so come on and be with me i want your company - Yr(My) Home is With Me(You) - with my feet on the dash the world doesn’t matter when you feel embarassed then i’ll be your pride when you need directions then i’ll be the guide for all time happy daisy sunshine berry bugs dandelion wreath rose verse and prose phlox sweet sap tinglings strawberry jam bloom holly hocks and once upon your lips holly jolly sweet tart harpsichord melodeon songs virginia riddles dwindles penny porcelain chimes so tell me that this is a time for our day dreams i wanna tell you how i feel i wanna hold you close again i want to look around the room and i want to see you in my life hold me in your arms like you do i wanna feel your warmth at night i want you in my arms again there is love to be made so just stay here for this while i remember the song you sang i remember the way you looked at night and i remember the way it made me feel so we’ll try and try even if it lasts an hour with all our might we’ll try to make it ours cause we’re on our way we’re on our way to falling in love here’s the night and it shines and it calls us on and on so be here by my side and watch the stars they’re ours so take it all the way oh and our hearts are on the everglow so just let go and fall into it it’s never been more perfect being alive i’ve never been so satisfied misery’s not company for us not for us you’d never say life’s just all bad when you think of times we’ve had there will never be another day like today where we can sit and smell the roses there will never be another time another place where we can dance in all the flowers kiss the flower that i gave to you to hold and love kiss the days that you gave to me to hold and love remember for me remember for me remember for me…

Friday Mixes is a weekly feature that showcases a mix of songs from various genres that usually share some common theme.  If you have an idea for a theme, email us at feedback@scriptedfailures.com and maybe we’ll use it.

I just found out yesterday that Winnipeg, MB’s own The Weakerthans are scheduled to play at The Bottletree in my former college town of Birmingham, AL, only 1.5 hours from here, on March 30.  I’m ecstatic.  This will be the first time they’ve ever played in Alabama.  Tickets (via etix.com) are only $13, and there are two other bands, Liam Finn and Christine Fellows, neither of which I am familiar with, but I plan on being so before the end of March.

I never thought I’d see The Weakerthans live without heading up to Canada, so this is amazingly awesome.  Here’s a video of their most recent single off of their most recent album, Reunion Tour, entitled, “A Civil Twilight.”  Enjoy:

I was wrong.  Yes, that’s right, I was wrong, and have been for three years.  Contrary to my early opinions and outspoken rants to my friends, The Flaming Lips’ “At War with the Mystics” does not suck.  I came to this realization today while giving it another try.  Now, while I have thought it was a terrible record for the past three years, I did enjoy right off the bat songs like “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song”, which is so incredibly joyous, “Vein of Stars”, which is one of the most haunting songs The Flaming Lips have recorded, and “Goin’ On”, which makes me feel more hopeful about the world’s future and my own personal future.  But other than that I basically hated the rest of the album, sans a few classic sounding Flaming Lips instrumental passages.  So this is my retraction and explanation of my sudden conversion.

Granted, some of you are probably saying right now, “Jesus Justin, this record isn’t as good as “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots”, which wasn’t as good as “The Soft Bulletin”, but was still good, and this record is literal light years away from being as good as “The Soft Bulletin”, which is in my opinion their best album.  I concede this willingly, but I will argue that, despite all that, it is a good record.  Just because a band’s new record isn’t as good as their past records doesn’t automatically bar it from being a good record.  Now that we’ve gotten out of that way, let me explain my sudden conversion.

I went into this album, as many of you probably did, hoping for some fusion of the dense orchestral beauty of “The Soft Bulletin” with the spacey synthetic-ness and ethereal instrumental tendencies of “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots”.  Therein lay my problem, and possibly your problem.  Coming into a record with such huge expectations like that is never a good thing.  Granted with bands like The Flaming Lips, whose past output has been so amazing, it’s hard not to have those expectations.  My sudden conversion came today when I dropped those expectations and listened to the album for what it is.  If “The Soft Bulletin” was The Flaming Lips doing orchestral pop, and “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” was The Flaming Lips doing synth-laden pop, then “At War with the Mystics” is The Flaming Lips doing some odd mixture of funk, rock, prog, spacey pop, and hippy protest songs all filtered through The Flaming Lips incredibly psychedelic lens.

Don’t believe me on that description?  Just look at the lyrics.  Most of them are direct reactions and protests to the then current and, unfortunately, still current darkness of the Bush regime and the world in general.  Look at the long song titles, especially the one with multiple parts separated by slashes.  That just screams hot prog action.  The songs with the aforementioned long titles scream hot prog action too, with their multiple sections, and twists and turns.  As for the funk, if you’ve listened to the record you know there’s some damn funky songs on there.

What I find most endearing about the album is the positivity.  Sure it’s hippy protest music, but it’s so incredibly positive.  It takes the world view of “Sure things are really fucked up, but there’s enough of us malcontents to turn this situation around if we really band together.”  Maybe I’m just a damn dirty hippy, but I can get behind that.  Of
course there’s also those beautiful Flaming Lips instrumental passages that I can never get enough of.

So listen to the record with all this in mind and see if you like it a bit better.  After all how can you resist Wayne singing, “We got the power now! Motherfuckers it’s where it belongs!,” on “The W.A.N.D (The Will Always Negates Defeat)”.  Just thinking about that puts a big goofy grin on my face.  Granted, there is still a semi-clunker or two on the record like “It Overtakes Me/The Stars Are So Big…I Am So Small…Do I Stand a Chance”, that I’m still on the fence about, but even semi-clunkers like that have their moments of grandeur.  Just listen to the second half of that song, which is the “The Stars Are So Big…” half, which begins with a classic Flaming Lips spacey instrumental and continues on with some gentle singing by Wayne.

I admit I haven’t gotten to the point where I’m totally ga ga about the album yet, but I have come to the conclusion that it is a good record.  So drop your preconceptions, listen to the record with the description I gave above in mind, and see what happens.  Leave comments and let me know if it changes your opinion.  I’m curious.

Stereogum has a great list of new albums coming out in 2008.  They missed a couple that I’m looking forward to, though:

The Autumns, Fake Noise from a Box of Toys: Early 2008 (Bella Union)
Damiera, TBA: 2008 (Equal Vision)
The Little Ones, TBA: April 15, 2008 (Astrelwerks)

Justin will be posting his “Most Anticipated Albums of 2008″ very soon.

As you may have heard by now, Death Cab for Cutie recently announced that their new album will be released this May.  This is in addition to Chris Walla’s solo endeavor, Field Manual, which should be coming out later this month (the 29th: excited about that one as well).  Plans was a pretty big departure from Transatlanticism, but was equally, if not more, amazing, and I can’t wait to see where they go from here.  According to Walla, the record will be “polarizing.”  I either absolutely love or absolutely hate the sound of that.  Also, they recorded on analog tape, with little overdubbing.

I’ve enjoyed almost every project Ben Gibbard’s had a hand in, so I’m sure this is going to be a quality record, but what to expect?  If you want a first-hand preview, head on over to their website where they’ve put up some video footage of them in the studio.  You can hear part of one song from the new album.  It sounds pretty cool, but you don’t get to hear much before it ends.

Walla stated that a track called “The Ice Is Getting Thinner,” “just breaks [his] heart every time.”  I can’t wait.  There were several songs one could say  that about on Plans,
but the most intense one that comes to mind is “What Sarah Said.”  I
freakin’ love that song.  If they pull out another one that
heart-wrenching and with that kind of emotional intensity, I’ll be a
happy fan.  Nick Harmer said about the same track: “It’s a really pretty, electric
guitar song … it’s somber like … ‘Brothers on a Hotel Bed.’”  Sweet.

Other interesting quotations:

Harmer: “a sampling of the most uptempo, upbeat Death Cab songs as well as some of our saddest”

Walla: “really weird. It’s really, really good, I think, but it’s
totally a curve ball, and I think it’s gonna be a really polarizing
record. But I’m really excited about it. It’s really got some teeth.
The landscape of the thing is way, way more lunar than the urban meadow
sort of thing that has been happening for the last couple of records.”

Walla: “louder and more dissonant and … I think abrasive would be a good word to use.”

Other track names we know so far:

“Bixby Canyon Bridge” (a likely opener)
“I Will Possess Your Heart” (a nine-minute jam)
“Casino Blues” (previously one of Gibbard’s solo songs)

Supposedly, the album features David Bazan from Pedro the Lion and John Broderick of The Long Winters singing on “a couple of choruses.”

Incidentally, I’m also wondering if “Walking the Ghost” might make it onto this album.  If you don’t know (or forgot), “Walking the Ghost” was a politically-charged song written right after Bush’s re-election (and purportedly about it), and was originally slated for Plans, but it didn’t make it onto the album.  Here’s hoping it shows up on their as-of-yet-untitled May release.  I actually made it to the Ashville, NC show on the Tour for Change when Death Cab open for Pearl Jam back in 2004.  That was a great show.  Here’s hoping they tour closer to home after the album’s release this year.

Read more about it from Billboard.com’s article.

The Color Mix

Prologue:

1. Red House Painters, “All Mixed Up”
2. Coldplay, “Yellow”
3. New Order, “Blue Monday”

Exposition:

4. Green Day, “Give Me Novacaine”
5. Tori Amos, “The Power of Orange Knickers”
6. U2, “Ultraviolet (Light my Way)”

Climax:

7. Azure Ray, “We Are Mice”
8. Umbrellas, “June, Summer, Rose”
9. Joy Electric, “The Burgundy Years”

Resolution:

10. The Goo Goo Dolls, “Black Balloon”
11. White Town, “Your Woman”
12. Felt, “Grey Streets”

Epilogue:

13. Death Cab for Cutie, “A Lack of Color”

Friday Mixes is a weekly feature that showcases a mix of songs from various genres that usually share some common theme.  If you have an idea for a theme, email us at feedback@scriptedfailures.com and maybe we’ll use it.

I’d like to issue a minor correction to my previous “In Rainbows” review.  After buying the physical copy at FYE, and listening to it again, I can honestly say that it ranks up there with their last few albums.  “Not that great” was a bit of an understatement.  I was disappointed because my expectations were too high.

I still don’t think it’s “Ok Computer,” but it’s definitely “Hail to the Thief.”

I’ll just rest easy knowing that I wrote that short-sighted review on an indie blog that no one will ever read, and not after we become huge.

Also, for people that haven’t heard somehow, Radiohead released some live studio footage on New Year’s Eve.  It contained the entirely of “In Rainbows” performed live in the studio.  As you would expect, they changed up the songs quite a bit from what I’ve heard.  Justin and I are planning on watching it tonight.  I’m highly looking forward to it.