Duck & Cover :: Indie rock music writing from Arcade Fire to the Zygotic Minci

In honor of Halloween, I'm guiding your attention to sound scape creation artist, SEHT. A good Halloween vibe (at least for me) relies heavily on atmosphere. From the abundance of haunt-related decoration to the increasingly chilly weather, it isn't Halloween if it doesn't feel spooky. When I was a boy, I paid $4 at Osco Drug in Wichita for a cassette tape called "Spooky Sounds of the Dark." On October nights, I would play it to help me get into the Halloween spirit and generally scare the shit out of myself (I was 9). The tape was 90 minutes of low-budget chain jangling, cat shrieking, howling, and a few dead moments when there was little more than a creaky gate and leaves rustling on a footpath. But it was these hollow scenes that truly made my ears tingle. Natural sounds layered in an unnatural way, grouped to create a mood, can bring to the listener the audio equivalent of metaphor. One might approach SEHT in a similar way as I did to the four-dollar cassette...

From my office in Wellington I look out over the bus station, commuters busily weaving between each other to find the right bus; getting on, climbing off. Just past the bus station is the train station where there happens more of the same: surges of bodies entering and leaving, choosing a footpath, following its way into the city. And beyond that? The harbour, quiet today and bluer than then cloudless sky overhead. Beyond? The Tararua ranges: a green wall on the horizon, their dramatic rise from the water covered in pine and giant fern. Between here and the hills--my world, my scenic world--are a thousand ideas, a thousand conversations; a thousand quick glances from the girl in the Saturday blouse; a thousand shouts, a thousand moments leaning against the window waiting for someone to wander by. Jacket in hand, I quickly grab the iPod and sunglasses and head for the door, and before the sun hits me, I choose the song for the rest of the afternoon. Band :: Beirut Song :: Scenic World

All right, 2007 has been a great year for new releases, and I have to admit that we have been remarkably remiss by covering barely 1/8th of them. For the record (the not so timely record) we heard, enjoyed, and had big opinions about The Shins, St. Vincent, Spoon, Okkervil River, the National, New Pornographers, Electrelane.... A veritable laundry list of what I have come to think of as my generation's adult contemporary. We just never got around to sharing those opinions; and, to be fair, there has been SO MUCH new music that we barely got around to thinking that the new Okkervil River was one of the best things ever before we had to take some time to wonder who St Vincent reminded us of. In any event, my iTunes has been flooded lately with an influx of new music, so much that I can barely take time to give it all the attention that it needs... and writing a full review? No thanks, and especially not five or more. So as a compromise, I have composed the following Haiku poems for s...

Good news for us living in the Southern Hemisphere: Bjork is paying us a visit! Hot off the Pitchfork press is Bjork's list of tour dates down under . If you don't feel like clicking, I'll summarise the itinerary: blah blah blah blah, Brazil, blah blah 18 JANUARY, AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND blah, blah, Australia, blah blah I may have to recount my "I'm never going to another outdoor festival as long as I live" testimony, and just suffer the heat, rain, bad food, hippies, and lack of shade for what will be my first Bjork experience.

DivShare , the media storage and streaming service we use here at Duck & Cover, has just upgraded its service. Once only a place to store files, DivShare now stores AND streams video while also hosting live versions of documents and slide shows, too. The best part is, most of DivShare's service is free. We like to think we got in during the beta days--you know, semi-clunky interface, frustrating failed uploads, and an embed link I had to hack to ensure I wasn't unwittingly offering free downloads without artists' permission. Ah, good times, good times. However, their product has just kept getting better. From the article at TechCrunch : The whole service is now providing a one-stop solution that will save users the download process, whatever the format of the file is. They offer free unlimited hosting and convert to flash nearly every file type (audio, video, office documents,..) instantly upon uploading with embedding capabilities. This is different from a company l...

For those who think punk is dead, dying, or just derivative, please consider bands like Refused, Blood Brothers, and--wading into the mix--Die! Die! Die! While Swedish rockers Refused attempted the equivalent of punk reform with their 1998 swan song The Shape of Punk to Come (which unfortunately alienated more fans than it attracted new ones), Blood Brothers, who serenade you one moment and scream in your ear the next--in a good way--were some of the freshest I'd heard in a long time. And finally, there is Die! Die! Die!; specifically their latest release, Promises, Promises . Not groundbreaking, but far from derivative, Promises is a solid, well-produced album that sacrifices none of punk's inherent rottenness. Die! Die! Die! pounded into the New Zealand punk scene (which is also the alt/hardcore scene, which is also the indie scene, which is also the prog scene, which pairs occasionally with the dub/reggae scene--hey, it's a small country) in 2003, released their first ...

As many of you know, Radiohead's latest release becomes available for download (from their site) today. However, some of you may not know that they are leaving the pricing up to you. That is, you pay what you think the download is worth. Don't believe me? Go to Radiohead's website and try to download the new album, In Rainbows . When you come to the pricing page you are faced with blank boxes. Click the little red question mark for an explanation and a very short, very uplifting message. Is this the future of the music business? I doubt it, but a boy can dream. In the meantime, let's tell the industry what we think a fair price is.

Tonight, well, last night if we’re to be totally honest, I was to start packing. As has been expressed in a previous post, I am in the middle of Tremendous Life Change. I am moving as much as I can afford of my current life in Hawaii back to what could be said to be my old life, but is really my new life, in Seattle. Yesterday, I turned thirty two. Thirty was spent in the middle of a hectic move to Hawaii, a move that was even more hectic because I allowed my then partner to shoulder all of the responsibility in getting us here. Sure, I helped, but not as much as I could or should have. Part of it was that I was resistant to change, and, even at the cusp of thirty, acting the part of a spoiled child. This time is different. This time I only have myself to answer to (because who wants to be in a relationship with a spoiled child? Exactly.), and must handle things differently. Jamie suggested that I take some time out of the packing to do a post about Music for Packing, which, really, t...

I have been told that I have a shoe fetish, but I continue to refute this. I have, simply, a healthy appreciation for footwear. That said, when I saw the new range of boots from D.A.T.E, I almost allowed myself to succumb to the status of fetishist. Put simply, these shoes are hot. The initials stand for the first names of those involved in creating the shoe company. Four individuals from differing backgrounds (business admin, fashion design, graphic design, etc.) formed D.A.T.E in Britain, but quickly established that the sneakers needed to be made elsewhere. Yet don't get your backs up about another shoe company that outsources production to sweatshop-infested countries like Vietnam (Nike), Indonesia (Adidas), and China (everyone else). D.A.T.E shoes are made in Italy, where most good shoes are made (unless they're made in Spain). Italian-made shoes carry a quality standard that should cover both design and build. In fact, the phrase "Made in Italy" is almost a bran...