Album Review: Get Guilty by A.C. Newman

It's been a while since my last post. I've been listening to a lot of new music, and I'd like to share the highlights, so I'm going to start reviewing the albums I've bought this year that were released in 2009. I may throw in reviews for older music that I just discovered as well. We'll see where this takes us.

I'll start with the first 2009 release that I picked up: Get Guilty by New Pornographers frontman Carl Newman. Released back in January on the Matador label, this really seemed to be an overlooked gem. Newman's music is upbeat, hooky, catchy, power-pop with somewhat obscure but extremely clever lyrics. What sets Newman apart is emotional connection that his music can make with the listener. This stuff isn't background music: it demands that you pay attention to it, to the point that I'll find myself stopped in my tracks, listening with full attention with my eyes closed.

Stylistically, this album sounds a lot like his other band, the New Pornographers, and I mean that in the best way. Newman plays with the pop-style chord structure just enough to keep you guessing. He's also managed to pull in a whole lot of additional talent, starting with the opening anthem "There Are Maybe Ten or Twelve." The arrangements are full and lush, yet don't feel over-produced. All-in-all, this is a very good album. Highly recommended.

Rating: ***1/2

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Discovering New Music

For a couple of years now, one of my biggest hobbies (or obsessions, take your pick) has been discovering new music, mostly new indie rock.  I'm not directly plugged in to the music scene in any way, but I still feel pretty well-exposed to new music thanks to the Internet.  (The Internet: Is there anything it can't do?)  Assuming I can actually stick to it, I'm planning to start writing my own reviews of new music that finds its way onto my iPod.  However, before I start that, I thought I'd share my sources and tell a little about them.

1) NPR: All Songs Considered

All Songs Considered started out as a website devoted to the incidental music used on the daily NPR news staples "All Things Considered" and "Morning Edition."  Over time, it morphed into its own weekly half-hour show hosted by NPR pop music critic Bob Boilen.  (While my local NPR affiliate doesn't carry the show, I do subscribe to the weekly podcast, available on iTunes.)  All Songs looks at contemporary popular music of various sorts, with an emphasis on world, indie rock, folk, and pop music.  All Songs was where I first encountered some of my favorite artists, like The Decemberists, The New Pornographers, and Belle and Sebastian.  These artists are typical of the kind of acts that are showcased: Interesting music that doesn't have too hard an edge.

2) The AV Club

Sister site of news satire site The Onion, The AV Club is all about pop culture reviews.  I particularly like their music review site.  Their reviews are a little more varied in some ways than All Songs: they aren't afraid to review music that is more polarizing, such as hip hop, metal, punk, and electronica.  One thing I really like about the AV Club is that they tend to link to audio streams from the albums that they review, assuming that the publisher allows it.  I for one am far more likely to check out an act I've never heard of if I can hear a sample track.

3) Sound Opinions

Hailing from WBEZ in Chicago, and billed as "The only hour-long rock 'n roll talk show," this is another public radio pop music show.  The format is a little different: Co-hosted by rock critics Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago Sun-Times, and Greg Kot of the rival Chicago Tribune, the show features music news, new album reviews, and the occasional live concert.  Jim and Greg also have some recurring features, like the "Desert Island Jukebox," where one of them waxes poetic about a record that they just can't live without.  They don't always agree, and I don't always agree with their reviews, but the show is always a fun listen.  This show is also available as a podcast from iTunes (which is how I listen to it.)

4) CD Baby Music Discovery Podcast

From the independent music publisher CD Baby, this weekly podcast usually showcases four or five tracks from a particular music genre (or sub-genre.)  Recent featured genres have been Celtic rock (for St. Patrick's Day), rockabilly, instrumental post-rock, and nerdcore hip hop.   Sometimes the genre isn't too appealing to me, but they always play something interesting.  One downside to this podcast: it's really a marketing took for CD Baby, and most of the tracks are only available from CD Baby directly.  You can subscribe to the podcast from iTunes.

5) Pandora

For those not in the know:  Pandora is a web radio station that uses technology called "the music genome project" to analyze a given piece of music, and to come up with other music that has similar characteristics.  How it works:  You tell Pandora the names of a few songs and/or artists that you like, and it will put together a playlist of other music that you should also like.  I was a huge fan of Pandora when it launched, but one problem of a web radio station that only plays songs it thinks you'll like is that the music starts to sound the same.  Nevertheless, it has played for me a few songs from artists that I'd never heard of that I just loved, and then bought the album.  (Cases in point: The Broken West, Greg Summerlin).

6) World Cafe

Okay, yet another public radio pop music show, this one from WXPN in Philadelphia.  Host David Dye plays an eclectic mix of world, folk, rock, and pop, both old and new.  I don't get to listen to this show very often any more (my new office doesn't get radio reception), and the show isn't podcast for licensing reasons.  I do try to catch it whenever I can, and I always seem to enjoy it.  Like All Songs, the music featured definitely has that "adult contemporary" feel to it, and rarely has any hard edges.

7) eMusic

I've been a subscriber to eMusic for about two years now.  This is a subscription-based music download service that is completely devoted to music from independent labels.  It's my favorite music download service: music is about a third the price of iTunes or Amazon.  It's on this list for the extensive music review sections and artist spotlight.  Another thing I love is the large number of free label sampler albums that are available free to subscribers.  

So, there you are:  my major sources for new music.  Other sources include local radio stations WVBR and WICB, Guitar Hero, MySpace, and word-of-mouth.  Keep on rockin'!

Vacation Redux: Orlando / Disney World

The three of us took a week-long family vacation to Walt Disney World and Sea World in Orlando back in January. We had a wonderful time. The weather was cool for Florida, but was far warmer than central New York State. For accommodations, we booked a condo through All-Star Vacation Homes. The place was great, and was only about a 10 minute drive from the Disney parks.

We decided to drive down rather than fly for two reasons: 1) Even taking motels into account, it's cheaper than flying; and 2) we're considering taking a month-long cross-country trip at some point in the not-too-distant future, and we wanted some experience with multi-day car trips. Our trusty late -'90s Saturn was completely up to the task. The drive to Orlando is about 1200 miles each way from here, or roughly 20 hours. We decided that we would stop for the night in North Carolina each way. We made reservations at two Econo Lodges: Fayetteville on the way down, Rocky Mount on the way back.

In order to break up the trip, I had planned short mid-day stopovers at roughly the half-way points for all of the travel days. We ended up not actually stopping at all of them, but it was nice to have the option.

Saturday: Travel Day

We left home at about 6:30 AM and headed south on I-81. The traffic was fine, although the weather got a little snowy in central Pennsylvania. For a midday stopover, I had picked the Oregon Ridge Nature Center in Hunt Valley, MD. It was quite close to the highway and easy to find. It reminded me very much of our own Cayuga Nature Center. We took a 3/4-mile hike through Maryland woods and had a little picnic lunch in the car. We hit the road again at around 1:00 PM. We hit traffic (of course) on the DC Beltway, but that thinned out not far past Alexandria VA. The drive through Virginia was unremarkable, and we made it to Fayetteville NC a little before 8:00 PM. We checked in to our motel and found it to be one of the nicest Econo Lodges we've encountered so far. Another thing that struck us was how warm it was. Even pst 8PM, the temperature was in the low 60s. While we had considered finding a local restaurant to sample regional cuisine, we decided to have dinner across the street at a Ruby Tuesday's.

Sunday: Travel Day

We hit the road at about 7:15 AM the next morning, and headed south on I-95 again. Again, the traffic was very light and the drive itself was unremarkable. I had planned a side trip in Savannah GA, but looking at the maps again, I found that it was much farther from the highway that I had thought, so we decided to skip it. We stopped for lunch at a highway rest stop near the Georgia-Florida border. Now, it was warm enough to eat outside in January. We had picked up some deep-fried peanuts at a gas station earlier: those Southerners know their junk food! Back on the road, we made excellent time, and we pulled in to the office of the rental home at about 6:30 PM. We checked in, and got the keys, a parking permit, and a map, and then we drove the final half-mile to the place. We were impressed: the house was exactly as described on the web site. It was well-stocked and very comfortable-- about three times the space of on-site Disney accommodations, at roughly one third the price. After we unpacked, we drove back to a nearby strip mall for dinner at an Outback and to buy groceries for the week. After dinner, we played cards for a little while, then went to bed.

Monday: Epcot
For our first Disney park, we decided to go to Epcot. Part of the reason was some advice we'd read from our Disney travel guide, The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World. (The book, by the way, was our Bible for this trip. It proved to be a real asset, and we highly recommend it!) The park was remarkably uncrowded. For the first half of the day, we toured "Future World." Our favorite rides were "Soarin'," "Test Track," "The Seas with Nemo and Friends," and "Honey I Shrunk the Audience." "Spaceship Earth," "Living With the Land," and "Journey Into Imagination" were okay. We didn't like "Mission Space" all that much because we all got a little motion sick on that one. We didn't make it to "Innoventions," and "Universe of Energy" was closed for renovations. After lunch, we went to World Showcase. There aren't as many rides here, so we enjoyed the faux international culture, and sampled a bunch of different cuisines. We had dinner at the Biergarten in the German Pavillion, which was excellent. World Showcase does seem to be primarily a collection of themed gift shops, but we still enjoyed it. Norway and Mexico have boat rides; China, France and Norway have well-done propaganda films (oops, I mean "cultural education films"), and Morocco and Italy had live shows. Several pavillions also had little museums, the best of which were in China and Morocco. I enjoyed the Moroccan bazaar so much, I bought myself a fez. The day ended with "Illuminations," the park-wide fireworks display. All-in-all, a great day.

Tuesday: Disney's Animal Kingdom
We spent our second day at Disney's newest park, a cross between a zoo and an amusement park. When I was a kid, I had been to Busch Gardens in Tampa, and Animal Kingdom seemed to be directly influenced by (i.e. competing with) that other park. All-in-all, I was extremely impressed with Animal Kingdom, and I think it may be the family favorite of the Disney parks. The grounds were absolutely beautiful, re-creating small fictional regions of Africa and South Asia, and also having a dinosaur-themed section. I was astounded at the attention to detail at the park. Additionally, they had some excellent rides: "Expedition Everest" was an excellent roller coaster, the "Kali River Rapids" was a fun river-tube ride, and I enjoed "Dinosaur," which was somewhere between an indoor roller coaster and a "dark ride". However, the highlights were the animals. In the Asian section, we walked through an excellent zoo which had the trappings of an Indian royal animal park. I was particularly impressed with the Bengal tigers. In the Africa section, we were blown over by the African Safari. We saw giraffes, rhinos, crocodiles, a bunch of different antelope, flamingoes, and lions. Again, the grounds were breathtaking and the animals were magnificent. An added bonus was that this park was also not crowded at all. Animal Kingdom closes at dusk, so we left at around 6:00 and headed back to the condo. I cooked dinner there, and we watched a movie before heading to bed.

Wednesday: Magic Kingdom
We got up early and were at the gates of the Magic Kingdom about 45 minutes before they opened. Again, the crowd was much smaller than we had anticipated, which made it much more enjoyable. We managed to get on Space Mountain with no line at all (we were the third car of the day!), and liked it so much we got right back in line and rode it again. I had last been at the Magic Kingdom in 1987, and much had changed, though a good part was the same as I remembered. We really enjoyed Magic Kingdom: I particularly like Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain. (Splash Mountain was closed for maintenance.) I also really like the Buzz Lightyear ride, the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Philharmagic 3D movie. I noted that they had redone much of the Pirates ride, adding an animatronic Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow and giving it an actual plot rather than a bunch of unconnected vignettes. The Kid liked the Dumbo ride and the Winnie the Pooh ride. I really have to wonder what the Imagnieers were drinking when they designed "It's A Small World." I was hoping to see the Hall of Presidents, but that one is also under construction, as they have to add an animatronic President Obama. We had dinner at the Liberty Tree Tavern, which was very nice. One minor cirtique of the Magic Kingdom is that they don't serve alcohol-- which they do serve at all of their other parks. I would have really liked an ale with the New England dinner (or a rum punch after Pirates). Oh, well. We also wasted a good hour by staking out a good viewing spot for the evening parade, but we had misread the schedule and realized that there was no parade that day. We stayed for the fireworks show, which was nice, but not as nice as the one at Epcot. All in all, an excellent day.

Thursday: Disney Hollywood Studios
While we still had fun this day, we were definitely getting "parked out." DHS was our least favorite of the parks, and by far the most crowded. (These may be correlated.) The DHS grounds are also very impressive, re-creating Hollywood of the late-1930s. We really enjoyed the "Aerosmith Rock 'n Roller Coaster," the "Twilight Zone Tower of Terror," "Muppet-Vision 3D," and the "Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular." I also liked the Star Wars-themed "Star Tours." This was the only park that had serious lines for the rides, and we ended up using the "FastPass" options a few times. DHS does have an evening lights-and-fireworks show called "Fantasmic", but unlike the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, you need to sit in a designated viewing area and get there at least 90 min before showtime. We decided at around 6:00 that we'd had enough of Disney for one vacation, and didn't stick around for the show. We went back to the condo and I cooked dinner again, and we played some board games before calling it a night.

Friday: Sea World
We wrapped up five days of theme parks with the least-intense park of this vacation. Sea World is easily the equivalent of any of the Disnety parks, but at a much less intense pace. Sea World is more of an aquarium than an amusement park, and has a much more leisurely feel to it. Its grounds are also beautiful, in a way completely different from Disney's: Disney conjures the look and feel of elsewhere, while Sea World doesn't pretend to be anything else. At Sea World, the animals themselves are the main attractions: dolphins, orcas, seals, sea lions, rays, flamingoes, sharks, penguins. They even have narwhals, walruses, and polar bears! I enjoyed the three trained animal shows we saw: a hokey-but-fun sea lion & otter show called "Clyde and Seymore Take Pirate Island," a spectacular-but-weird dolphin-and-aerielist show called "Blue Horizons," and an inspiring orca show called "Believe" starring Shamu. Sea World also has a few thrill rides. The only one in operation while we were there is an amazing roller coaster called Kraken. Sea World also closes at dusk this time of year, so we left a little after six. We had dinner at a little Chinese restaurant in the strip mall that also houses the condo's rental office. After dinner, we packed up for the return trip.

Saturday: Travel Day
We checked out at 7:30 AM and started on the return trip. We stopped at a rest area in Georgia for a picnic lunch. Later that afternoon, we decided to stop at that quintessential tourist trap South of the Border, on the border between North and South Carolina. I was expecting it to be so-tacky-it's-fun, but in reality it was just kind run down and sleazy. We bought some ice cream cones and poked around a couple of the kitchy trinket shops, but I felt like I needed a shower afterward. We got back on the road after spending about half an hour there. We pressed on to Rocky Mount NC, where we had reservations at an Econo Lodge. Long story short, the hotel was unacceptably bad, and we ended up staying at a nearby Comfort Inn instead. That Econo Lodge was so bad, I wrote three complaint letters and a very bad review at TripAdvisor.com. Luckily, the Comfort Inn was fine.

Sunday: Travel Day
We left the Comfort at around 7:00 after a pretty good hotel breakfast. Traffic on the DC Beltway was much better this time, and we breezed through without any trouble. I had planned a midday rest stop at the Visitor Center of the Gettysburg National Battlefield Memorial, but we decided to drive into the town of Gettysburg for lunch at a diner instead. After lunch, it started snowing, and was snowing pretty steadily for the remainder of the trip. We finally crossed into New York at around 7:00, and we stopped at the first rest stop off of I-81 in New York. Strangely, we happened to meet some friends of our from Ithaca at the same rest stop! I bought a very bad coffee from a vending machine, and we made it home at around 8:00. For dinner, we walked down to the Ithaca Ale House for a burger.

We had a great trip. The drive wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be, and our trusty Saturn gave us no trouble at all. If we ever go back to Orlando, we'll most likely stay in the same place. Next time we're down there, I want to do Discovery Cove and Universal Studios. I'd also like to see some beaches, and maybe go over to Busch Gardens.

So little vacation time, so many destinations!

I Just Can't Get Into Web 2.0

Okay, it's been more than two months since my last post.  I've been pretty busy, including a family vacation to Orlando.  I haven't blogged about it.  I haven't updated my Facebook status in five weeks, and I haven't sent a Tweet since Inauguration Day.  I still haven't gotten around to posting photos on my Flickr account.  

I use the Internet constantly to gather information, but I rarely post comments, upload content, or even edit Wikipedia.  I guess what it boils down to is that I'm just not that into the whole Web 2.0 thing.