Getting It Right

This is for those times when you come home from work, throw your keys on the table
and know you've just put in a good days work.  It is full of front porch guitar, positive rock, and retrospective folk.  This is not the mix you put on when you build the log cabin.
This is the mix you put on when you want to remember building it.

Keep it simple, friends.

1. Leo Kottke - Part Two
2. Tallest Man On Earth - Troubles Will Be Gone
3. The Head and the Heart - Lost in My Mind
   Can't argue with these harmonies.
4. Alt-J - Something Good
5. Here We Go Magic - How Do I Know
   Try listening to this while walking down the street without smiling.
6. ALO - Blew Out the Walls
   Those big chords in the middle will shake up your day.
7. Broken Social Scene - Meet Me in the Basement
8. Megafaun - Heretofore
9. Jack Johnson - Enemy (Worst Friends Light Leak Remix)
10. John Renbourn - I Know My Babe
11. Mark-Almond - Friends

image: theyardpdx.tumblr.com

Earth Day Playlist

via panopticamx

Spring!
Keep it light. Keep it hopeful. 

It's Earth Day. 

By all means go outside and do somersaults.  This playlist was meant for just that.  

 If you have a second, read something - here and here to make sure you stay in the know. 
Ride a bike.
Support your local CSA or Farmers Market.
Make a Meatless Monday plan.
Donate one dollar.
Write a letter.

But like I said, do some somersaults too.

1. Windsor for a Derby - Melody of a Fallen Tree (We Fight Til Death, 2004)
2. Tycho - Costal Brake (Coastal Brake 12", 2010)
    Pay attention. Everything Scott Hansen touches turns to gold.
3. Fat Freddy's Drop - Roady (Based on a True Story, 2006)                                                                      Fat Freddy's Drop is a New Zealand powerhouse of soul, reggae, dub... you name it.
4. The Dining Rooms - Cosi Ti Amo (Numero Deaux, 2009)                                                                      You know those movies where the little league players aren't working together, but you know they have so much heart and could be great if they just played naturally?  Then there's an inspiring speech by the unlikely leader of the group and all of a sudden there's a montage where they're catching fly balls, hitting homers and laughing while leaving the field... yeah this is the song for that scene.
5. Benoit & Sergio - Boy Trouble (Boy Trouble 12", 2011)                                                                      Really more of a summer jam, but maybe if you start playing it enough now, by mid-summer it will be the jam.  For open air parties where your friend of a friend brings his fog machine so you're worried about the cops, but it ends up being a great night.
6. Lemonjelly - The Staunton Lick (Lemonjelly.KY, 2000)                                                                 Lemonjelly gets trashed on, but this is just so feel good I couldn't resist.
7. Bibio - K is for Kelson (Mind Bokeh, 2011)                                                                                               As noted before.
8. Paul Simon - Rewrite (So Beautiful or So What?, 2011)                                                                      Paul Simon's new album came out this month.  This song is so clever that it was published in the New Yorker.
9. Air - Ce Matin La (Moon Safari, 1998)                                                                                              Classic.
10. Sugar Minott - Oh Mr. DC (Oh Mr. DC, 1978)                                                                                      Some ace Studio One reggae to finish it out. 

Phoenix Salon

image: Luis Beltran

So you just moved to Phoenix to open a hair salon.  You're pretty excited about the potential especially since you landed a small spot in the cool part of town.  You want to be different than those other clunky places.  Maybe you could serve cocktails?  Have a choice magazine rack and show old films? You know you want to attract the hip, younger crowd so before you start playing the newest Buddha Bar over a boombox - get a legit soundsystem, wash the windows, and put this on.

1. Thievery Corporation - All That We Perceive (The Richest Man in Babylon, 2002)                                No messing around.  We're starting this off right away.  This is my go-to if a friend has some serious speakers.
2. Wax Tailor - Que Sera (Tales of Forgotten Melodies, 2006)                                                                   Crisp intro.  He gets points for sampling Doris Day singing in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much.
3. Thievery Corporation - Amerimacka (The Cosmic Game, 2005)                                                             I hate to post two tracks from the same artist so early on, but Thievery Corporation has this sound down.
4. Dusty Springfield - Spooky (Dusty Definitely, 2001) 
5. St. Germain - So Flute (Tourist, 2000)                                                                                               Business is picking up...
6. Affkt and Felipe Vargas - Meilan (2 Years Cecille, 2010)                                                                       LOVE the breakdown.  A patient groove.  I see this going over well in Majorca.
7.  The Chemical Brothers - Lost in the K-Hole (Dig Your Own Hole, 1997)                                     
8. This is where I would put Chris Joss -Atomic Tape                                                                         (Terraphonic Overdubs,  2008) but I could not find an mp3 version.  You might question it at first.  Wait until the private eye guitar kicks in.
9. Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band - A Special Morning                                                              (A Special Album, 2008)  The reverb on the whistling makes this sound so surreal.
10. Nujabes - Kumomi (Metaphorical Music, 2003)                                                                                     If you pick up one artist from this mix make it Nujabes.  Modal Soul and Metaphorical Soul are essential listening.
11. Red Astaire ft. Erykah Badu - Rollin' Stone (Nuggets for the Needy, 2007) 
12. Lemon Jelly - Come (Lemonjelly.KY, 2000)                                                                                       After putting in a solid day of hard work.