dougo | Seven songs from spring

So, back in June, Chris Barrus tagged me with a meme:

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.

I know it's well past spring, but since I believe this is the only time I've ever been tagged, I feel like I should play along. I'll choose to interpret "right now" to mean at the time of Chris's post, and stick with stuff I was listening to in the spring (as near as I can remember) instead of what I've been listening to lately. As you can tell from my Last.fm charts, I don't actually listen to songs over and over again—I prefer variety to repetition. So, I listened to the songs below only two to four times, or maybe only once, but for some reason or another they were memorable to me. They're listed in no particular order. Following Chris's lead, I've included YouTube videos where they exist, and links to mp3s otherwise. (I would have made a muxtape but they're still battling the RIAA...)

1. Film School, "Compare"

It's hard to pick just one song from Film School's album Hideout, because it's great from start to finish. They unashamedly rehash the glory days of shoegaze, and that's just fine with me. My favorite track is probably the uptempo "Lectric", but I listened to that a lot last fall when Brad Searles posted it after the album came out, so here I'll go with the more dreamy "Compare".

2. December Sound, "Kill Me (Before I Kill You)"

December Sound is another good shoegazer revival band, this one local to the Boston area. I saw them open for Spectrum last year and picked up their 4 song CD-R, and I saw them a few times again this spring after their album came out. Their use of synth and samples and drum machine edge them more towards the goth/industrial side at times, but there's still plenty of dreamy/noisy guitar. They've covered Jesus & Mary Chain's "Reverence" and The Cure's "Fascination Street" so you know where their heads are at.

Full track on Myspace.com (is there a way to link to individual tracks on Myspace?)

3. Helms, "Ghosts with Searching Eyes"

Helms is probably my favorite local band right now (either them or Major Stars). Their 2006 album Secret Doors is great, but this track from their 2000 album The Swimmer (which was their original band name) made an impression on me this spring. In case you couldn't tell from the title, it's a pensive reflection on Pac-Man. Recommended for fans of Jmac's Arcade (and vice versa).

Full track on Last.fm

4. Raveonettes, "Aly Walk With Me"

Saw this on MTV2's "Subterranean" and it stuck in my head. The Raveonettes are pretty much a Jesus & Mary Chain pastiche, but that's fine by me.

5. Peter, Bjorn, and John, "Young Folks"

Another one I saw on MTV2's "Subterranean" and it stuck in my head. I slipped the Peter, Bjorn, and John album into an Amazon.com order this spring to get free shipping and it didn't do a whole lot for me, but I still like this song. Lately I've been watching the Showtime show "Californication" and its theme song is totally a rip off of "Young Folks".

6. The Velvet Underground, "I'm Not a Young Man Anymore"

I ran across this on a blog this spring, a previously unheard song by the Velvet Underground, recorded live in 1967. And it's really good too! No idea why they never gave it a proper release. I love the guitar riff.

Full track on sendmedeadflowers.com

7. Nine Inch Nails, "Discipline"

This is a pretty forgettable Nine Inch Nails track, but apparently it's the track I listened to the most in the last 6 months (after the free download) so it belongs on this list. Hm, I guess I should re-download The Slip after I lost it in my disk crash.

Okay, now I get to tag seven people. Let's say: