Good Weather For Airstrikes

One of my favorite bands, and a frequent M3 contributor, is Rilo Kiley. Their second album, The Execution of All Things, is one of my favorite albums of all time, and despite my slight dissappointment with 2004’s follow-up to Execution, More Adventurous, that album did yield one of my favorite songs of last year, “Portions For Foxes”. “Portions” was recently released as a single with two different versions being released, each with a new, previously-unreleased b-side. The first b-side is “A Town Called Luckey”, a departure from Rilo Kiley’s normally light-hearted indie pop fare, and it’s awesome. It’s an entirely new sound for the band, featuring wonderfully dark instrumentation, and I’d be thrilled if this was any indication of the direction the band has decided to go with future material. The second b-side is “American Wife”, previously available only on the Good Music For UNICEF Tsunami Relief compilation released by Urban Outfitters last February. It kind of plods along for 4+ minutes and is nothing special, which is probably why it’s a b-side. Also, the single version of “Portions” is drastically different from the album version. It’s been completely re-recorded and remastered, and the new version sports a more produced, electronic version of the album version’s guitar intro, which I love, and abridged lyrics, which I don’t love. One of the highlights of the song for me was, “You’re bad news, I don’t care I like you”, but the new version only keeps the “You’re bad news, baby you’re bad news” part, which is unfortunate, as it completely changes the meaning of the song. Nevertheless, here’s the new and (debatably) improved version, as well as the two previously-unreleased (kind of) b-sides.

Also, in a related story, Jenny Lewis is a veritable goddess and I would like to marry her. She was also on Troop Beverly Hills and in that movie, The Wizard, but these accomplishments pale in comparison to band-mate and back-up vocalist Blake Sennet who not only starred in Nickelodeon’s Salute Your Shorts but also managed to lock down a recurring role on Boy Meets World and EVEN appeared in an episode of Disney’s Smart Guy. And yes, that means he got to meet Tahj Mowry, and yes, I couldn’t be more jealous. But I digress… MP3s below.

DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS: I’m only gonna post the downloading instructions on the first couple posts, but please follow them. DO NOT STREAM THE FILES. I only have a limited amount of bandwith and you guys are gonna obliterate it by streaming the audio, so DOWNLOAD, please. On Windows: right click on the link and then drag down to save file as… On Macs: hold CTRL and drag down to download linked file… thanks in advance.

MP3s:
“Portions For Foxes” (Radio Edit) - Rilo Kiley
“A Town Called Luckey” - Rilo Kiley [highly recommended]
“American Wife” - Rilo Kiley (follow link to download from Radio Free Internet)

UPDATE: recent Tahj Mowry sighting

So the whole Kanye West controversy is more or less old news, but for the one of you who may not have heard about it, West went on a rant during the “Concert for Hurricane Relief” that aired on NBC, saying “George Bush doesn’t care about black people… [America is set up] to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible”. West went on to say, “I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it says they’re looting. If you see a white family, it says they’re looking for food… They’ve given them permission to go down there and shoot us.” This rant inspired underground Houston rap duo K-Otix, also know as The Legendary K.O., to drop some lines over Kanye’s “Gold Digger”, and the end result is the bangin’-est political statement in a minute, “George Bush Doesn’t Care About Black People”. Download below.

MP3s:
“George Bush Doesn’t Care About Black People” - K-Otix

So I guess a good place to start would be to pick up where the first post left off, with more Sigur Rós. Aside from being the inspiration for the name of this blog, Sigur Rós is also one of my favorite bands and are one of the most ground-breaking groups in music today. Thom Yorke even said that Sigur Rós was a primary source of inspiration for the last Radiohead album, and if you’re inspiring Radiohead, you know you’re doing something right. They’re not exactly the most overwhelmingly accessible bands, as they have a very dreamy, atmospheric, instrumental sound and their lyrics are written in Icelandic. Or in the case of their second album ( ), “Hopelandish”, which is apparently a made up language consisting of eleven syllables (”You xylo. You xylo no fi lo. You so.”) repeatedly deconstructed over stirring orchestral arrangements. Regardless, they make beautiful, amazing, awe-inspiring music, and they continue to do so on their fourth release Takk…, released last week. The album is more accessible than their previous outings, but when discussing Sigur Rós “accessible” is a very relative term. Here are two tracks off of the album, “Glosoli’ (the first European single) and “Saeglopur” (the first American single), as well as the unbelievable video for “Glosoli”, which I got for free on a DVD with my purchase of Takk… last week. And I got buttons too, but that’s neither here nor there.

MP3s:
“Glosoli” - Sigur Rós
“Saeglopur” - Sigur Rós [highly recommended]
“Glosoli” (music video) - Sigur Rós (follow link to access videos) If you want to hear more, check out the band’s current web page for a huge selection of mp3’s.

Right, so this being the inaugural post on GWFAS I will introduce myself accordingly. My name is Derek, I’m 18 years old and from Washington, DC, and I’m currently attending the University of Virginia as a freshman. This blog will serve as a place for me to write about and share with you up and coming bands, as well as the base of operations for M3 Music, my fledgling mixtape service. M3, which stands for Music Mix Monthly (or maybe it doesn’t, it just had a nice ring to it) was a CD mix service I started up this past school year to disseminate new and good music to my peers at school. It is a ten-song mix of what I deem to be the hottest jams of today and tomorrow, or just incredible songs that need to be heard, and a new edition drops once or twice a month. Sometimes more often than that, sometimes less. So far there have been six editions of M3 and I will be posting them here in the next few weeks, and then all future editions will also be available for download here. The site get’s its title from the Sigur Ros song, “Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása“, which, when translated to english, means, “Good Weather For Airstrikes”(credit to MC Everett Case for bringing this awesome translation, as well as the video below, to my attention). As for me, my preferred music blogs (and the inspiration for GWFAS) are You Ain’t No Picasso, Gorilla vs. Bear, and Stereogum, so if you’re visiting this page and you haven’t been to these sites, leave here and go there. Now. My favorite bands are Bloc Party, Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, The Decemberists, The Go! Team, The Shins, Death Cab For Cutie, Postal Service, Bright Eyes, A.C. Newman, Iron & Wine, and the incredible Sufjan Stevens. Also, I tend to be a mild perfectionist and I take everything too seriously. Including this blog. I apologize in advance.

MP3s:
“Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása” - Sigur Ros
Also, watch the incredible video for this song here. It’s a truly unbelievable film and even if the atmospheric/experimental/Icelandic thing isn’t really your scene, watch the video anyway. Seriously though, watch it.

So, like the music video archive, I’m also creating a central archive for all of the artist profiles, available below.

Arctic Monkeys
Editors
The Epochs
James Blunt
KT Tunstall
Maximo Park
The Subways
We Are Scientists

So below is the complete list of music videos that I’ve uploaded to the site so far, and this will just be used as an archive and central access point for all of them. A good amount of them were ripped directly from the iTunes music store back when the music video hack still worked, so they’re relatively, if not extremely, high resolution. But yeah, here’s the complete list (alphabetical by artist). To be updated regularly…

Ryan Adams - “So Alive”
Arcade Fire - “Rebellion (Lies)”
Arctic Monkeys - “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor”
Bloc Party - “Helicopter”
Brand New - “The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows”
The Bravery - “Unconditional”
Brazilian Girls - “Don’t Stop”
Brendan Benson - “Cold Hands (Warm Heart)”
Bright Eyes - “Lua”
Caesars - “Jerk It Out”
Chromeo - “Rage”
Death Cab - “Soul Meets Body”
The Dirty Three - “Great Waves”
Dizzee Rascal - “Fix Up, Look Sharp”
Mike Doughty - “Looking At The World From The Bottom Of A Well”
Doves - “Black & White Town”
Doves - “Snowden”
The Early November - “Mountain Range In My Living Room”
Eisley - “Telescope Eyes”
The Exit - “Don’t Push”
Fall Out Boy - “Dance, Dance”
Feist - “Mushaboom (Version 2)” [highly recommended]
The Go! Team - “Ladyflash”
Head Automatica - “Beating Heart Baby”
Jack’s Mannequin - “The Mixed Tape”
Jamiroquai - “Feels Just Like It Should” (AOL Sessions)
The Killers - “Somebody Told Me”
Talib Kweli - “Get By”
Talib Kweli- “Get By” (AOL Sessions)
Talib Kweli - “Waitin’ For The DJ”
The Like - “What I Say And What I Mean”
M83 - “Don’t Save Us From The Flames”
N.A.H.P.I. - “Do They Know It’s Hallowe’en”
The New Pornographers- “Use It”
The New Radicals - “You Get What You Give”
Of Montreal - “Wraith Pinned To The Mist And Other Games”
Obie Trice - “Don’t Come Down”
Obie Trice - “Rap Name”
Over It - “Siren On The 101″
Phoenix - “Run Run Run”
Postal Service - “Against All Odds”
Rilo Kiley - “It’s A Hit”
Royksopp - “Only This Moment” [highly highly recommended]
Royksopp - “Poor Leno” [highly recommended]
The Secret Machines - “Sad and Lonely”
The Secret Machines - “Nowhere Again”
The Shout Out Louds - “The Comeback”
Sleater-Kinney - “Jumpers”
Something Corporate - “I Woke Up In A Car”
Something Corporate - “Punk Rock Princess”
The Spill Canvas - “Staplegunned”