Category Archives: the mountain goats

Your music in the clouds

Posted on by
Reply

Have you heard about the Amazon Cloud Drive?

This is a new service provided by Amazon that they hope will make them some extra income, as well as spur additional sales in their MP3 Download Store.

Why do you want one? The main reason might be that no one buys physical CDs anymore. I mean, do you? Well, if you are anything like me, you have a few devices and computers that you play your digital music on. Maybe you only have one place where your music library is, and it’s probably safe at home. Except it’s not safe. It might even be little anxious thoughts that nag you about the fact that you aren’t backing up all this precious music. All the CDs you ripped to MP3, all the albums you have bought on iTunes; they are all at risk. Not to mention all your photos and documents…did you just have a full on panic attack?

Amazon Cloud Drive starts off as free, but will be limited with only 5GB of space. This might be adequate for some, but if you are even here reading this, it might be likely you are a music fan and probably have a library bigger than 5GB. Plus, you might want to move all those bazillion megapixel images you have taking up space on your drive to the Amazon Cloud, which means you will need more space. The pricing plans go all the way up to a terabyte of space (1TB) and all the many sizes in between, but the price doesn’t go down the bigger you go. It’s a dollar a GB. 1TB is $1000 a year. That’s a hefty price for most of us. I’m a music nerd, and my music library is over 180GB. so I would probably be looking to spend $200 a year to cover my entire library. I’d have to leave any other files types (photos/movies/documents) on my machine, or come up with $500 for the next plan up (500GB).

I am pretty committed to Dropbox. I’ve paid for the 50gig upgrade ($100), and have convinced many friends and peers to at least sign up for a free 2GB account. I suggest you sign up as well. Dropbox is the same idea as this Amazon Cloud Drive, with a few exceptions. Dropbox stores your files on their server, but also has a client that will keep folders on any of your computers in sync. Move a file into your dropbox at home and it will be synced and ready to use when you get to work. You can get to your files with any browser if you find yourself on a machine that isn’t yours. There are also apps for Android and iPhones that will allow you access to your files on the go. But trying to keep an iTunes library synced this way is problematic because of the machine specfic XML files that iTunes uses to read your library contents. What this really means is that you can only have iTunes open on one computer at a time. There are ways around this, but I find it’s not worth the work. I use dropbox to move albums and documents back and forth between computers and to share with friends. Also, it’s important to mention that when you refer your friends to Dropbox, you get an additional 250MB per referral added to your account for free. I’ve earned an extra 5GB this way!

I use Audiogalaxy to have access to my library from anywhere, and that’s free. But unless you have a backup plan on that library, all those files are at risk, since you are never really uploading anything to Audiogalaxy. It’s just allowing you to stream music from your machine at home, for example, to your PC at work or even to your smart phone. It’s a great service, especially for the price, but I’ve been feeling like updates for new features and bug fixes are slow to come.

Should you get an Amazon Cloud Drive? I’d sign up for the free account. 5GB of cloud storage is tough to beat, and I’m sure you will use it. Paying for it will entail checking the size of what you want to securely store in the cloud and then deciding if the price is something that matches your budget and needs.

There are some other perks though that might sway you. For example, if you purchase your digital music from Amazon, you can store those files to your cloud, and it won’t count against your total. That means that you are only paying for the storage of music that you haven’t purchased from Amazon. If you continued buying music from Amazon you could grow your library without having to come out of pocket for more space. They are also running a promo right now that will give you a free upgrade to the 20GB account if you buy one full album from Amazon. This freebie is only good for a year, and is only available to US customers.

There are some risks and downside with Amazon Cloud Drive. For one, it’s still unsure how the music labels will react to this. Amazon doesn’t have agreements with any labels as of now, because it believes there’s no reason to — since the Cloud Drive is just holding onto what’s already yours. The labels might not see it the same way. MP3tunes ran into this problem and is facing a pending lawsuit from from labels and publishers under the umbrella of the major label EMI. Also the Amazon Cloud Drive has an android app, it doesn’t have one for the iPhone. An iPhone may happen, but Apple has many reasons to not allow this into the app store. Plus, it’s very likely that Apple will be releasing a service like this in the near future, and you may not want to upload all your music to Amazon just to have to reupload it to Apple’s service.

If you are still liking Amazon Cloud Drive I suggest you pick up the new Mountain Goats album All Eternals Deck. It’s only $5 and will get you that free 20GB upgrade, which is a killer deal, all things considered.

Click to play The Mountain Goats – Beautiful Gas Mask

…Is Getting Burned

Posted on by
Reply

Track One is called “Schizophrenia.” But it’s adorable and perfectly composed, so I don’t dial up the head shrink when Jukebox the Ghost skitters through the Yes I can, No I can’t, Yes I can lyrics like they are performing warm-up scales at a frenetic pace.

…yes I can
I swear to it,
that’s just how my brain works.

It might be one of the best opening tracks ever to grace an album. It just might be. Jukebox the Ghost has been touring nonstop since 2006 and their second LP is called Everything Under The Sun.

They got guns, they got knives,
they got guns, they got knives,
they got guns, they got knives and spies,
I am no informant.

They’re a three-piece. You know how much we love three-pieces who sound like half an orchestra around here. And I love a lyricist who can make me smile.





They knew my name,
they screamed and screamed,
they knew everything.

You could say that I’m well liked
but I’ll never be friendless…

You could say that I’m alright
or you could say schizophrenic…

And now, The Little One is hooked, because you’ve got upbeat tunes, excellent song composition, a mixture of instruments, and lyrics that help me explain myself to you.

They’ve played with Ben Folds, Tally Hall, and showed up on David Letterman in September of this year! Woot, boys!

Probably more notable to mention than the tour they literally JUST kicked off with Barenaked Ladies is their appearance at both SXSW and Lollapalooza this year. Yes, that means it’s time for you to know about them, since you obviously missed them on NPR’s World Cafe Wednesday. Tell your friends. It’s like, everything you love about The Mountain Shin Lips in a Death Cab. Isn’t it? ISN’T IT.

Check out Track 6, “The Sun”.

Click to Play Jukebox The Ghost – The Sun

Quick, buy the album NOW and pretend you’ve owned it since it was released in September. Buy Let Live & Let Ghosts, too, because that one is a dandy-dandy.

Lord lift up these lifeless bones

Posted on by
3


Tried to brace myself
But you can’t brace yourself when the time comes
You just have to roll with the blast

“A certain amount of suffering has to be done internally and just accepted as a normal and universal part of life. A bit o’ sadness and anxiety is the price of living. This is a subject I deal with quite often on my radio program. I find myself telling more and more callers that what they are experiencing simply needs to be endured-and that there isn’t necessarily a solution or pharmaceutical prescription to eradicate every human emotion and reasonable reaction to life’s challenges.”

I hope we’re all in crash position when we hit

Is there a book that you can reference that helps you to discern or distill situations and scenarios that present themselves to you throughout your life? Perhaps, perhaps not. Perhaps for you, it’s more like a music album that provides your perspective.

For John Darnielle, the singer/songwriter who leads The Mountain Goats, The Bible manages to provide the source by which to put life, death, and memories into context. And he plucked a dozen passages from it to create his latest album, The Life of The World to Come. Each track is given, simply, the name of the passage that inspired it.

Say what you will about the content in The Good Book, however, which other piece of literature has provided the foundation and backbone for endless other works of art, matters of law, references of morality, songs of praise and sorrow, and just really good stories?

Of course, customs and anthropology of the times created passages that lead to confusion when translation to modern life is required. This often leads thinkers to write off the entire works. Much like the writings of one controversial Dr. Laura Schlessinger. I tell you what, though. I have seen much adversity and great challenges in my personal life. And I have hated the way this has eaten away at my insides. One of her books, “Stop Whining, Start Living” was on a discount rack outside Borders and I picked it up recently. I will take my inspiration anywhere I can find it. And maybe, Darnielle’s fans who weren’t previously interested in The Bible will find a reason to find a their own [insert inspirational-themed book here, such as Chicken Soup for the Art of Happiness and Small Stuff].

The passage I shared at the top comes from the controversial talk radio host but it’s true isn’t it? We want to hide from pain. We want to experience tragedy in a medicated haze. Matthew 25 shares two of Jesus’ Parables, and it appears that Darnielle found comfort in the Parable of the Talents as he dealt with his mother-in-law’s death from breast cancer. The song is titled, simply, “Matthew 25:21”. What Will You Do With What You Are Given, is the question someone willing to move forward from the tragedy is willing to ask themselves. How Do I Get Closure From The Pain is the question so many call Dr. Laura to ask, and many times, the answer is… You Don’t. Sometimes there is no cure for the reality and magnitude for what happened. You can dance with the pain or you can endure and move past it.

“‘You have done well, good and trustworthy servant,’ replied his master; ‘you have been trustworthy in the management of a little, I will put you in charge of much: share your master’s joy.'”

It is true that much of this album is more melancholy and downbeat than many of The Mountain Goats’ other albums. Track One, in context, is quite an attention-grabber and it’s poignant how well Darnielle can grasp the admonitions of idolatry from 1st Samuel to create a metaphor for how in life, we sometimes give ourselves a bit too much credit for our achievements and our own relative greatness.

Not every source of inspiration is easy to nail down. In “1 John 4:16”, it would be easy to assign hundreds of meanings to the lyrics contained, but based on the passage, I believe it’s again his simple but poignant way of saying, life is going to sling some shit. God loves me, and this gets me through.

Download The Mountain Goats – 1 John 4:16

If you appreciate the more passionate side of the Goats, you may find that Psalms 40:2 satisfies your need to hear him belt out lyrics through clenched teeth in the way only he can do so well. Because that shit that gets slung? Damn, it’s still HARD to deal with.

Download The Mountain Goats – Psalms 40:2

The Mountain Goats has an ENORMOUS discography. Get it. From each album to EP you will go on a new journey. And love it.