guster

The Dunce Cap: Week of July 2, 2012

in: heavy rotation

The Dunce Cap, Vol. 47: Oh, it’s tough when love’s a weed – it grows inside of me. (click on link to listen to mix via 8tracks or play above)

1. “Ho Hey” – The Lumineers
2. “Nothing’severgonnastandinmyway (again)” – Wilco
3. “The First Single” – The Format
4. “Absolutely (Story of a Girl)” – Nine Days
5. “For Nancy (‘Cos It Already Is)” – Pete Yorn
6. “If It Makes You Happy” – Sheryl Crow
7. “Do You Love Me?” – Guster
8. “New Shoes” – Paolo Nutini
9. “Here Comes The…” – Butch Walker
10. “In the Sun” – Joseph Arthur
11.  “How’s It Gonna Be” – Third Eye Blind

Welp. It’s been one of those weekends, the kind that throws your entire conceptual existence for a loop and forces you to rethink the very construction of your day-to-day life. Not to be, y’know, melodramatic and whatnot. To be fair, and to be concise, I put myself in an incredible pickle, one that’ll take a lot of finagling and change (true, serious, real, long-lasting change) to get out of. I will get into that later, surely, in vague and agreeable terms, but I think knowing even that informs the composition of this Dunce Cap. This one’s a happy one.

I realize I’m recycling a lot of tracks from previous mixes, but I’m certain this particular combination of songs is fairly perfect for this moment. It’s a little longer than a traditional Dunce Cap (10 plus one, woohoo!), but it’s a mix replete with handclaps, soaring choruses, killer harmonies and unbridled optimism. From the most excellent opening by the Lumineers that spells out its lightheartedness in its title to the Sheryl Crow girl road trip anthem (see “Crossroads” if you don’t believe me) to the incredible Butch Walker/P!nk collaboration, this mix is a relatively uplifting reminder that good things don’t have to end. I’m going to lay some real claim to my very favorite Wilco track, “Nothing’severgonnastandinmyway (again)” from the exceptional album Summerteeth, which seems, at current, fairly apt. It’s a real winner, but it’s certainly not the lone standout on this Dunce Cap. There’s that Nine Days single from the late ’90s about “a girl who cried a river and drowned the whole world,” and I’m pretty sure that’s who I’ve become as of late. Pete Yorn’s “For Nancy (‘Cos It Already Is)” was my sister’s favorite track from his debut album, musicforthemorningafter, and it’s one I like to keep on standby as a call to arms of sorts. In my mind, I like to think I can hear it and keep it as a reminder to keep moving forward, to keep the faith because things are already okay, or they will be, or whatever, though in rereading the lyrics, there seems to be a lot more to it than just that – they’re lyrics, and a point of view, I can really get behind these days. Maybe give the lyrics a gander and see for yourself. I think you’ll get it.

I don’t know, y’all. I’m trying to listen exclusively to happy tunes. I’m trying to move forward. I’m trying to try and to be better, you better, you bet.

So, for now, and for future iterations of the Dunce Cap, truly happy listening.

Oh, yeah, I should say too –
This week’s been kind of fun and good and stuff, too, not just a lesson in life. Three quick things: I liked this week because

1. It made liking Katie Holmes cool again!
2. I properly ID’ed a Creed song at trivia. I’ve still got it. So proud.
3. Dawson’s Creek season five seems to open nearly every episode with establishing shots of Boston. I couldn’t be more excited*.

*I keep forgetting – more on that later.

Dunce Flash: Short Cuts

in: the press

Pacey-Con photo from Just Jared

  • Pacey Witter is back, looking rogue, scruffy and decidedly more handsome than Dawson Leery. That’s right, folks – Dawson’s Creek‘s Joshua Jackson staged his very own convention mere feet away from the throngs at San Diego’s Comic-Con. The aptly named Pacey-Con celebrated Jackson’s seminal character in all his bumbling glory.

    “Well, it came about because I just thought it was time to remind the world of the greatest character in TV history,” Jackson joked with MTV News Tuesday. “The original concept was, you know, actors are always trying to run away from characters they’ve had in their past. Well, I wanted to do the video that was the exact opposite.”

    Jackson staged Pacey-Con outside of the convention hall, and the whole thing was taped for a hilarious Funny or Die segment (video embedded below) the website released today. Jackson handed out Dawson’s Creek fan fiction while decked in Pacey’s signature bowling shirt, a bit soundtracked by the show’s theme song, Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want to Wait.” Capeside to San Diego, indeed. [MTV]

Vodpod videos no longer available.

  • Dunce Cap favorite Guster released a new single, “Bad, Bad World,” from their forthcoming album, Easy Wonderful, set to drop October 5 on Aware/Universal Republic. Easy Wonderful will be Guster’s first album in four years. You can grab “Bad, Bad World” for free via the band’s website, or you can stream it below. [HitFix]


Guster, “Bad, Bad World”

"A Space Odyssey 2010" from Mila's Daydreams

  • Holy cuteness, Batman! Frisky writer Adele is on maternity leave after giving birth to her daughter Mila, and she’s maintaining a baby blog at Mila’s Daydreams. During Mila’s naps, Adele likes to imagine what her infant might be dreaming about; she then captures these epic tales in staged photographs like the one above. Gotta love the itty bitty unwitt-y bloggers. [The Frisky]

The Dunce Cap: July 19, 2010

in: heavy rotation

get yer eyes checked!

The Dunce Cap, Vol. 17: The room is on fire as she’s fixing her hair. (listen to mix via 8tracks)

1. “If You Find Yourself Caught In Love” – Belle & Sebastian
2. “Congratulations Smack and Katy” – Reggie and the Full Effect
3. “I Met a Girl” – Wheat
4. “Spitting Games” – Snow Patrol
5. “Down” – Blink-182
6. “Reptilia” – The Strokes
7. “Naive” – The Jealous Sound
8. “So Says I” – The Shins
9. “Amsterdam” – Guster
10. “Chicago is so Two Years Ago” – Fall Out Boy
11. “California Waiting” – Kings of Leon
12. “Mexican Wine” – Fountains of Wayne
13. “The Sound of Settling” – Death Cab for Cutie
14. “Shiny” – The Decemberists
15. “Toxic” – Britney Spears
16. “My Favorite Accident” – Motion City Soundtrack
17. “Shakin’” – Rooney
18. “Such Great Heights” – The Postal Service
19. “So Long, Astoria” – The Ataris
20. “My Coco” – stellastarr*

Four score & seven years ago…

The year is 2003. Ariel Sharon is the newly elected Prime Minister of Israel. I am only nominally Jewish. The war in Iraq has just begun. 100 people have lost their lives in The Station night club fire, as pyrotechnics from Great White’s stage show set the insulation foam ceiling alight. The O.C. premieres on Fox.

I am in seventh grade. I no longer have braces, and my hair is just growing out of its yield sign phase. I carry a tin Weezer lunchbox to school, and I still listen to Good Charlotte mostly unabashedly. This is the summer of my musical discontent, and it is, in response, the spring of my musical awakening.

Seven years ago, I was in seventh grade. I had just recently discovered that all music did not come from boy bands and teen queens, and I had also become incredibly engrossed in Josh Schwartz‘s The O.C. I was obsessed with Weezer. My taste in music was rapidly expanding, and 2003 was certainly the year my music repertoire really took shape. It was the heyday of pop-punk and my real transition into indie. In the hopes of avoiding sounding even sappier than I do now, this should suffice: 2003 was the first year I really, truly started to love music. Music by musicians with musical talent. And, man, the new material that came out of 2003 continues to astound me and occupy my iPod with some regularity. It may be a bit melodramatic to say that 2003 was the year I came into myself, as that’s an exaggeration, but it was certainly the year I began a great passion for music.

I started to make mixtapes for friends and boys, and these artists really became staples of my playlists. There was The Postal Service’s Give Up, Belle and Sebastian’s Dear Catastrophe Waitress, Death Cab’s gorgeously lush Transatlanticism, The Shins’ Chutes Too Narrow. There was the catchier-than-the-common-cold Yellowcard, a maturing Fall Out Boy, an aging Chris Carrabba in Dashboard and an Alkaline Trio album that was just melodious enough to shout out loud. There were two hilarious videos for Motion City Soundtrack’s “The Future Freaks Me Out” and Reggie and the Full Effect’s “Congratulations, Smack and Katy.”

There was a White Stripes album that nearly overshadowed the brilliance their fans had come to expect with De Stijl and White Blood Cells. There was a disappointing Saves the Day follow-up to an album (Stay What You Are) as they drifted away from a record label, Vagrant, that would come to define my early interactions with music. That’s not to mention The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Stills, The Long Winters’ brilliant photograph of adolescence, When I Pretend to Fall, or even The All-American Rejects eponymous first album, a CD I bought the day it was released.


The Long Winters, “The Sound of Coming Down”

So much of who I was in school was defined by my ownership of these and other albums. I had a fervent passion for music, and 2003 was really the year that fueled my musical ravenousness. So this is an epic tribute to the year 2003, to seven years ago, to the music of the year and the efforts that would come subsequently.

Not as interactive as the last Dunce Cap, certainly, but a fair tribute to a year that changed music – for me, at least.

And I’ve still got that Weezer lunchbox.

Happy listening.

The Stills

Alkaline Trio

Dashboard Confessional – A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar

Pete Yorn – Day I Forgot

Vendetta Red

Adam Green

The Darkness

Yellowcard

AFI

Relient K

Saves the Day

A Perfect Circle – Thirteenth Step

Story of the Year

Outkast

Kill Hannah

Jamison Parker EP

Something Corporate – North

White Stripes – Elephant

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever to Tell

The All American Rejects – Self-titled

Book Club: Summer music

in: on queue

We’re two weeks away from summer, at least here at Northwestern, and yesterday the university’s famed Dillo Day marked the real start to summer celebrations. First up on The Dunce Cap’s music list: Guster, the midday artist at Dillo Day 2010. Guster performed alongside Regina Spektor, Super Mash Bros, Rhymefest and Nelly, who rounded out the day’s line-up.

Pretty melody:

Photo courtesy of NU student

See, my older sister got me into Guster six years ago. I’d listen to “Amsterdam,” from the band’s 2003 effort Keep It Together (or the one with the hummingbird on it), on repeat for days on end, and I’ve since fallen in love with their quirky lyricism and catchy hooks. The four nice Jewish boys from Tufts are known for their stage antics, wherein the members may pick up strange and unusual instruments, partake in witty stage banter or even participate in large-scale stage gags, such as a 2001 show in Rochester, NY, in which the guys were summoned to an empty stage “Price is Right” style. The members have paraded as a hillbilly opener (Peace Soldiers) and then as a jam band (Trippin’ Balls), and they continue to play hilarious covers, as with yesterday’s version of “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” an almost obvious epilogue to their own tune, “Red Oyster Cult.”

All in all, Guster remains one of my favorite bands, a constant tribute to summer, a theme The Dunce Cap seems a bit obsessed with. Check out “Two Points for Honesty” and “Amsterdam” below, and try to catch them out on the road this summer.

Congratulations on being the greatest looking place ever (existed). – Guster member on Northwestern’s Dillo Day crowd

“Two Points for Honesty,” from 2001’s Lost and Gone Forever

“Amsterdam,” from 2003’s Keep It Together

In other news: The use of Paula Cole’s “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone” as a torture device in the Star Wars-themed episode of “Family Guy” (“Something, Something, Something Dark Side“) was pretty upsetting. A hilarious but sad remembrance of one of my favorite songs from the ’90s.

The Dunce Cap: May 17, 2010

in: heavy rotation

Image courtesy of John Pavlich.

The Dunce Cap, Vol. 8: Hey you with the pretty face, welcome to the human race. A celebration. (mix via 8tracks)

1. “Summertime” – The Sundays
2. “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” – Vampire Weekend
3. “Promises” – The Morning Benders
4. “Lust for Life” – Girls
5. “Center of Attention” – Guster
6. “The Only Living Boy in New York” – Everything but the Girl
7. “Mrs. Jackson” – Marvelous 3
8. “Mr. Blue Sky” – Electric Light Orchestra
9. “25 or 6 to 4” – Chicago
10. “Stars are Blind” – Paris Hilton

Yeah, I threw you off with that last track, didn’t I? The truth is that I love “Stars are Blind.” It’s terrible and cheesy and breathless and over-produced, but it makes me want to belt it out. Frankly, so do all of these tunes. And, yet again, each reminds me of summertime, when the livin’ is easy. There are some classic rock throwbacks, even a really great Chicago track, despite my denunciation of all geographically named musical artists. There’s an Everything but the Girl cover of my favorite Simon & Garfunkel song and a Marvelous 3 (Butch Walker‘s old band) track that nearly brings me to tears.

And, due to my disappointment in Mayfest’s choice of a nighttime headliner for this year’s Dillo Day, I’ve included a good ol’ Guster track. Here’s to hoping CollegeACB was right about something. Guster and Regina Spektor may be able to salvage an otherwise lackluster line-up. Band-aids galore!

Pour yourself a glass of lemonade, find a comfy seat on the porch, pull out your favorite novel and take a breather. These songs will get you started, but feel free to explore. Peter Gabriel, too.

Happy listening.