Hem, Departure and Farewell, April 2

Hem was on the verge of breaking up, but songwriter Dan Messe penned a track, “Tourniquet,” that eventually brought the band back to record another album.

James Blake, Overgrown, April 9

I read a lot of reviews complaining about how James Blake’s self-titled debut was too conventional compared to his EPs. I think I’d rather have the conventional.

The Flaming Lips, The Terror, April 16

They still record albums? I thought they sold music in Gummi Bear skulls.

LOVE PSYCHEDELICO, IN THIS BEAUTIFUL WORLD, April 17

ABBOT KINNEY was a real winner for LOVE PSYCHEDELICO. I’m hoping that streak continues.

Kuriyama Chiaki, “Toyosu RUSHIFERIN”, April 24

Kuriyama Chiaki’s new single was written by 9mm Parabellum Bullet guitarist Suguwara Takuro, who appeared on Kuriyama’s debut album, CIRCUS.

Guided By Voices, English Little League, April 30

Four albums in the span of 18 months. Was anyone else not very impressed with Let’s Go Eat the Factory and Class Clown Spots a UFO? Bears for Lunch seemed somewhat decent, but twice bitten …

Midnight Oil, Essential Oils, April 30

This 36-song retrospective was released in Australia last year, and I even got an import as a Christmas gift. It’s also been available through digital services in the US. This compilation does a thorough job of sampling just about every album, live album and EP, some of the tracks previously unavailable in the US.

Patty Griffin, American Kid, May 7

It’s rude to wish an artist would record a sequel to an album, but I would still love to see Patty Griffin do another Flaming Red.

98 Degrees, 2.0, May 7

Not only do I still own Revelation, I also have a fondness for Nick Lachey’s What’s Left of Me. That doesn’t mean I’m pre-ordering this one. (But I will fire up an Evil Streaming Service if it’s there.)

Sam Amidon, Bright Sunny South, May 14

Bright Sunny South marks Sam Amidon’s debut on Nonesuch. For some reason, this signing surprised me. I would have thought Amidon would have moved to a large indie — Merge or something of that ilk — instead of jumping to a major, even a forward-thinking one such as Nonesuch.

Nonesuch seems to be aligning itself with the indie rock circuit, if the signing of Iron and Wine is any indication.

Eluvium, Nightmare Ending, May 14

Oh, I hope Matthew Cooper doesn’t sing on this one.

Shiina Ringo, “Iroha ni Hoeto/Kodoku no Aritsuki”, May 27

May 27 marks the 15th anniversary of Shiina Ringo’s debut, and this single is her first release after the dissolution of Tokyo Jihen.

Sigur Rós, Kveikur, June 18

Did we jump ahead in time five years? Because I could have sworn the last Sigur Rós album was released just last year.

I hope you’ve discovered some new music on your visits here. I know a lot of the readers who come to this site don’t necessarily pipe to make their presence known. That’s OK — I’m that way too.

I also know Holidailies was borne out of the tradition of personal journal writing, which this site tends to avoid. Rather I try to write personally about music I love, and while you may not come away with my life story, you should come away with a sense of my taste and a bit of my inner world.

I signed Musicwhore.org up for this month-long event because there was a lot of good stuff I encountered in 2012 that was just getting squeezed out by other projects on which I’m focusing. Before the last 31 days, this site would lay dormant for weeks and months at a time.

I do look forward to that scarcity, I have to admit. I’m at a point with this blog where something really, really has to move me to get me off my arse and write something.

And for those times when I’m not so compelled, I hope to be turn to Twitter and Facebook to pipe up now and again.

Thank you for visiting. Maybe again next year?

Each album in the 9-disc series had distinctive, templated covers. The LCO moniker occupied a corner in big Helvetica type with an abstract image dominating the remaining surface. It was a far cry from the yellow label branding of Deustche Grammphone or the low-budget art of Naxos.

These albums are long out of print, the recordings butchered on various compiled reissues. The ensemble’s reading of Vivaldi’s concerti and Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante pop up on other EMI Classics releases.

One album has managed to maintain its integrity despite numerous reissues and cover changes: Minimalist. In fact, the album is scheduled for another reissue on Feb. 12, 2013.

Of the discs in that original series, Minimalist was the only one to feature modern music from American composers. At the time, major labels were finally coming around to minimalism, with Nonesuch cornering recorded premieres by Philip Glass, Steve Reich and John Adams.

Minimalist was one of the first albums not released by Nonesuch to focus on these three composers.

I had actually bought the album around the time it was released — as a Christmas gift for my piano teacher. I didn’t get around to buying a copy for myself till 2012, when I found an original Virgin Classics pressing at Silver Platters.

By then, 23 years had passed since that initial gifting. Back then, I had only listened to a scant number of works from each composer. Today, only two of the works were unfamiliar to me.

Minimalist was intended to be a crash course in the works of Glass, Reich and Adams, and it serves that purpose well. Although each composer has been tagged with the minimalist brand, their individual writing styles couldn’t be any more different.

Adams doesn’t go for the level of abstraction as Glass and Reich. Reich’s harmonic language is more adventurous than Glass or Adams, his rhythms more syncopated. But Glass is the most accessible, his harmonic and rhythmic language clearest of the three.

LCO selected the right works from each composer to highlight these differences.

Adams’ Shaker Loops strikes just the right balance between intellectual rhythmic exercise and programmatic storytelling. It’s certainly a good choice as an introduction to his output.

Reich’s Eight Lines highlights the signature syncopation that drives his work, while being just the right length to fit on a minimalist showcase.

Company is one of Glass’ most recorded works, and LCO jumped on that bandwagon early. It’s too bad so many other chamber orchestras followed in their wake. Thankfully, LCO also include Glass’ Façades.

The only odd man out is Englishman David Heath. He’s no minimalist, and the dissonance of his contribution, The Frontier, clashes with the harmonies of his American counterparts.

It’s also the most interesting work on the disc. There’s a bit of a rock attitude underpinning The Frontier, and it’s a nice contrast to the high-mindedness of the preceding works.

Despite that jarring addition — or maybe because of it – Minimalist hangs well together as an album. So well, in fact, it’s been immune to butchering. (Mostly — some of these recording appear on other EMI compilations.)

Looking back, I made the right choice giving this album to my piano teacher. I’d probably direct other curious listeners to it in the future.

I knew him for all of two weeks. He moved to Hawai`i with my grandmother when I was four years old. One night, he had a heart attack, and before I knew it, he was gone. I was too young to develop much of an emotional attachment. All I remember was the would tickle me all the time, and I didn’t like that.

After he died, his violin became a point of contention among his children — my mom and various uncles and aunts. I won’t get into the details of the various spats that have occurred with this violin, but one such recent spat landed the violin into my mom’s hands.

And it was in bad shape.

I wish I took a “before” picture, but it was too disheartening. The fingerboard was detached from the neck. The hairs on the bow hung loose. The G string was missing. The bridge wasn’t set.

So I drove my mom down to Music Center of Hawai`i to have a luthier give an estimate. The bow had to be replaced, but the fingerboard could be reattached and the bridge remounted. He also wanted to change the pegs.

Of course, these kinds of repairs can cross a threshold where it makes more sense to buy a new instrument. My mom was going to fly out to Chicago to spend a few months with the grandkids, and she wanted my niece, who’s studying violin, to play this instrument.

The luthier mentioned he really couldn’t tell whether repairing the violin would be worth the effort since it needed the repair to determine its playability. But there wasn’t much of a question about my mom’s choice — she wanted it repaired.

We also had to give the luthier a deadline — it was Friday, and I was flying out the following Tuesday. He said he would get it done by Monday.

And he did.

We went back, bought a new bow and a new case. The luthier tuned it and let me have a go at what little I could do with it. (I took about three lessons from a friend many years back. I bought a violin myself at a going-out-of-business sale of a music instrument store in Austin.)

It actually sounded really good. The luthier pretty much told my mom that it wasn’t a heirloom, but the old wood gave it a really nice tone.

I almost wanted to steal the violin for myself.

You’ll understand when you gaze at this photo:

I want to get a better case for my violin now. But it’ll have to wait since I just spent $805 on a guitar and amplifier.

I’ve been a member since Feb. 28, 2006, so it’s taken me nearly six years to reach this point. My Top 10 artists account for roughly 13 percent of those 100,000 listens, and the list isn’t terribly surprising:

1. Tokyo Jihen
2. Cocco
3. Duran Duran
4. Shiina Ringo
5. Eponymous 4
6. Kate Bush
7. Emmylou Harris
8. John Adams
9. Philip Glass
10. Steve Reich

One thing to know about my listening habits is the fact I still consume entire albums. As a result, my statistics indicate I listen to a few number of artists but with great frequency.

Here’s the activity from the last 12 months:

1. Tokyo Jihen
2. Fugazi
3. Dead Can Dance
4. Santigold
5. Guided By Voices
6. itsnotyouitsme
7. John Lunn
8. The Smashing Pumpkins
9. Györgi Ligeti
10. Philip Glass

In most of these cases, the frequency of listens for these artists can be attributed to multiple albums from one artists getting regular rotation (Tokyo Jihen, Dead Can Dance, Smashing Pumpkins) or by albums with a high track count (John Lunn, Philip Glass, itsnotyouitsme). Guided by Voices fits both criteria for releasing three albums in one year with enormous track counts.

Tokyo Jihen monopolized the year with three releases, two of which competed for a slot on the year-end Favorite List. John Lunn is the composer of the Downton Abbey soundtrack, which I played quite a lot at the beginning of the year. Recommended if you like Richard Robbins or Michael Nyman.

itsnotyouitsme released a double album last year, Everyone’s Pain is Magnificent. It’s the kind of post-rock that goes beyond the blurred distortion of MONO and Explosions in the Sky, and I played it a lot.

In reality, Györgi Ligeti’s entry on this list is due to metadata tagging. That’s really Jeremy Denk playing Ligeti’s etudes.

Although Smashing Pumpkins released a new album this year, it’s the reissue of Gish that bumped them into the list. I wouldn’t normally listen to that much Smashing Pumpkins.

The Fugazi number is also an interesting statistic. I own only two albums from the band: 13 Songs and Repeater. But I’ve been using Spotify to listen to the other albums in the band’s discography to figure out which one to get next. As a result, I gave them a lot of spins in the past year.

The most deceiving statistic of all is the overall count for Eponymous 4, my home studio project. If I logged every time I listened to a mix of a song I was working on, that count would skew the entire curve. When I do log a listen, it’s from one of the “officially” released albums.

I do find it amusing that I appear to favor the music of Tokyo Jihen, Cocco, Shiina Ringo and Duran Duran over my own. Actually, that’s not odd at all.

I thought I knew all 10 of my readers, but I guess you never know who’s visiting.

So now it looks like I’m back on the radar of the Duran Duran fan community, something I haven’t really been involved with since the start of the last decade.

Does anybody remember Tiger List? And those pesky Watchbeings who kept enforcing those mailing list etiquette rules? Yeah, I was one of them.

I posted regularly on the list and became something of  a contrarian. If fan sentiment went one way, I’d pipe up to play Devil’s advocate. Just ask me what I think about “Palomino”.

That was back in the ’90s, which is eons ago in Internet years. I’m not sure who in the fan community today would even remember Tiger List.

I got less involved with the community around the time of Pop Trash. That was when Cocco, NUMBER GIRL and Shiina Ringo came into my life, and I adopted my current role as a lapsed Duranie.

These days, my fandom is a lot more personal. If the band does something I like, I’ll advocate for them. And if they do something boneheaded — like, say, release Red Carpet Massacre — I’ll voice a very strongly-worded opinion and still part with my cash.

But I no longer subscribe to mailing lists or hang out in forums. I follow the band on Facebook but not Twitter, since I figure both channels essentially disseminate the same information.

And I try to catch them live. I missed their show at the Austin Music Hall in 2007 because I hate the Austin Music Hall more than I love Duran Duran. (And that should tell you something about how much I hate the Austin Music Hall.) But I caught them in Dallas (1999, 2000), Austin (2004, 2010) and long, long ago in New York City (1993).

So if you’ve stumbled upon this site from those shout-outs, welcome! Feel free to say “Aloha” if you remember me from the Tiger List days.

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before?
   By virtue of now living in a place that isn’t Austin, Texas, just about everything really. I rode a ferry. I commute to work by bus. I bought more winter clothes. I understand hoodies. I moved to a gay neighborhood. Really, everything.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
   Moving from Austin to Seattle pretty much precluded any intention for a New Year’s Resolution. As for 2013, I’m going to begin work on becoming a performing musician instead of just a composing musician. I may also try to date. Seriously.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
   No.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
   No.
5. What countries did you visit?
   Canada.
6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?
   Sex.
7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
   Jan. 6-Jan. 9 — when I drove from Austin to Seattle.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
   Settling into a new life in a new city.
9. What was your biggest failure?
   Getting a warning at work about my use of strong language.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
    Caught the flu in April. I went for a flu shot this season.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
    Marshall MC15CFX guitar amp.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
    The voters of Washington, Maine, Maryland and Minnesota
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
    The Republican Party. (Wow. Same answer as last year.)
14. Where did most of your money go?
    The cost of living in Seattle. And retirement.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
    Hanging out with a friend from Austin who moved to Seattle a long time ago.
16. What song will always remind you of 2012?
    That’s a difficult question, but I may have to go with Café Tacvba’s “De Este Lado Del Camino”.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
    a. happier or sadder
    b. thinner or fatter
    c. richer or poorer?
    a. Happier b. Unchanged c. Poorer
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
    Sex
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
    Drinking tea
20. How will you be spending/did you spend Christmas?
    At home, playing with my new guitar!
21. Did you fall in love in 2012?
    No, I’m hoping to save that for 2013.
22. How many one-night stands?
    Zero.
23. What was your favorite TV program?
    The landing of the Mars Curiosity Rover on NASA-TV.
24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
    I wouldn’t say hate, but there’s a definite sense of ambivalence.
25. What was the best book you read?
    Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
    Oriental Love Ring, In This World. I’m glad a random web search informed me the band had gotten back together after 20 years.
27. What did you want and get?
    A life without cedar allergies and triple-digit heat.
28. What did you want and not get?
    Sex.
29. What was your favorite film of this year?
    Now that I no longer live within close proximity of an Alamo Drafthouse, I haven’t really watched any movies this year.
30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
    I turned 40, and I went to see Alarm Will Sound at Town Hall.
31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
    Sex.
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
    Expanded winter wardrobe. Also: shirt jacket. And fleece. Lots and lots of fleece.
33. What kept you sane?
    Constitutionals.
34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
    Brian Dietzen.
35. What political issue stirred you the most?
    Approval of Referendum 74.
36. Who did you miss?
    Andy
37. Who was the best new person you met?
    The co-workers in my team.
38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012.
    You can never save enough for a cross-country move.
39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. Too many things happened this year that it can’t really be summed up in a single lyric. Sorry.

Too bad I was still too young to see them play live. By the time I had that independence — more commonly known as “college” — the band had already split up.

I no longer have a cassette player, but the Hawaii Punk Museum made No Place to Play available online. On a lark, I decided to search the web for Oriental Love Ring and discovered the band had reunited and released an album of new songs in 2010.

“Damage” hinted at what the band could achieve, and In This World fully realizes it.

There’s not a single dead spot on the album. Guitarist Beano Shots wrote or co-wrote the lion’s share of the tracks, and his melodic gift hasn’t dimmed since his days in the Squids.

Peter Bond sounds perennially youthful with his soaring tenor, and he and Shots weave their guitar riffs beautifully on such tracks as “Prayers to an Empty Sky”, “Disconnected Girl” and the title track.

Not surprisingly, Bond’s contributions to the album, “I Know You Know”, “Take Me to the Moon” and “Tonight”, have the bite of his later band, Spiny Norman.

Original drummer Bryan Brudell used electric drums on “Damage”, forever dating the song (in a good way, as far as I’m concerned.) Larry Lieberman opts for a more organic sound, and he’s in lock step with bassist Chad Ikezawa.

In This World arrives 20 years after Oriental Love Ring first split up. The band says they’re doing this out of fun, and it sure does come across in the finished product.

This album is also something of a weird wish fulfillment for me. Oriental Love Ring were playing at Wave Waikiki at a time when I was still learning how to drive. “Damage” spurred my imagination and made me wonder about all the stuff we didn’t hear. As it turns out, some pretty damn good music.

Back then, I hadn’t yet gone to any concerts, so the idea of live album-as-souvenir didn’t really resonate with me. I just knew I preferred the studio version of “Is There Something I Should Know?” over the one that opens Arena.

I’ve since gone to a number of Duran Duran shows, and I have a better appreciation of Arena now. But the album was recorded so early in the band’s career that it really doesn’t tell the whole story — just that part known to most people.

A Diamond in the Mind rectifies this gap and makes the incredible leap of sounding so polished, it could pass itself off as a studio album.

The Manchester show recorded for the album in December 2011 followed a fraught-filled summer when Simon Le Bon lost his voice and the band didn’t know if he’d get it back. The worldwide tour set to begin then was hastily rearranged to give Le Bon time to recuperate.

And did he ever.

He sounds better on A Diamond in the Mind than he does on the band’s most recent studio album, All You Need Is Now. He’s got some really power behind his pipes now, and his tone is clearer than ever.

Duran Duran have been touring for three decades, so the show comes off flawless. But that probably has as much to do with advances in mobile recording technology as it does the band’s natural showmanship. Every part of the band can be heard, and with Nick Rhodes armed with software samples, he can fill out all the missing parts that wouldn’t travel well.

In a way, A Diamond in the Mind is a bit too perfect. Arena had a lot of raw energy that made many of the songs sound coke-fueled (which they probably were.) Even the band’s SXSW showcase had a few flubs that came off as charming than ill-prepared.

The cleverest moment on the album comes at the end of “The Wild Boys”, where it segues into a brief quotation of “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. More of this, please.

Most importantly, A Diamond in the Mind fills the gap missing since the release of Arena. Now we have a(n official) live album that includes “Notorious”, “Ordinary World” and “Come Undone”. The picture is more complete.

The synths get a heavier hand this time around, and the guitar work of Brace Paine is more embellishment than driving force. The production is slicker, perhaps even watered down, and Beth Ditto’s usually fiery performance turns darker.

But it’s the album I like more.

Part of my resistence to Music for Men was the stark contrast to Standing in the Way of Control. Gossip was already transforming from a garage band trio to the current incarnation of dance band, and Standing in the Way of Control was the pivot, an album that dipped more than a foot into the new sound while retaining most of the old.

With A Joyful Noise, the transformation is complete, and it bears little or no resemblance to what came before. And that makes it easier to evaluate on its own terms.

And the songs on A Joyful Noise are far catchier.

“Move in the Right Direction” is as much an affirmation of the band’s creative direction as it is a dance floor anthem. Gay bars would do well to jump on remixes of this track.

“Get a Job” stakes the same lyrical terrain as Björk’s “Army of Me” with a bit more funk.

Gossip really knows how to hit a chorus, as evidenced on “Casualties of War”, “Involved” and “Get Lost”

For a dose of the old band, “Love in a Foreign Place” recalls the fire of the pre-major label days without indulging in nostalgia.

Folks who liked the rock sound of Music for Men will probably be disappointed by the full embrace of dance on A Joyful Noise. But listen beyond the surface, and the these tunes sink in easily.