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EDMONTON BY THE RURAL ALBERTA ADVANTAGE

The Rural Alberta Advantage

Another great band from Canada.
Spent this evening listening to the album called Hometowns twice.
The first time was because I hadn't heard it before, I had purchased it, and thought it would be a waste to buy it and not listen to it
the second time was to try to recreate the experience I had listening to it the first time. Also because I am bored like a 10 year old spending the summer at home without a single summer camp in sight...
Its good. And you would think so too if you would take a minute out of your extremely busy and important lives to have a listen

Here is a short one. Its over before you've got a chance to lose interest...but you won't because its sweet

The Rural Alberta Advantage [mp3] Four Night Rider

If the above song won't play, and it won't play for me and I want to fistfight something right now, then just click on the myspace page and listen to songs there

The Rural Alberta Advantage Myspace Page RAA
Buy the LP or CD at www.saddle-creek.com and you get the digital download immediately.

We Will No Longer Be Prisoners To The Heat

Here is what you have to do, I have figured this out just recently. Accept the heat. It is 95 degrees and it feels like 105. Stop complaining because that won't make it any cooler. Accept the fact that you will be wearing a wet shirt soon. Accept the fact that sweat burns your eyes. When you have done this you are half way there. Make sure you have a cooler filled with beer, lots of ice, and then more ice inside in the freezer because even ice in a cooler becomes water quicker than you can imagine. Drink the beer at a rate that would seem alarming to a physician. Don't worry about hydration. It is too late. You are and will continue to be dehydrated. The final two things might be the most important. Surround yourself with people who have bought into the earlier rules of the summer. These people are your friends and they WILL NOT complain about the heat. It is not allowed. They will also drink beer with you at an alarming rate and they will not think about their health for the next 3-7 hours. Finally, and arguably the most important thing you need is good music, good playlists, nice rotation of great, great summertime songs.
Here are a few songs from summers past to get you going. And here is to all the people out there breaking out of their cold, cold basements and ignoring ticker tape heat advisories to take back their summer.

SUMMER PLAYLIST I
Soul Asylum [mp3] Summer of Drugs
Evan Dando [mp3] Frying Pan
The Jayhawks [mp3] Lights

The Lakers (Kobe) Win and Nobody is Impressed

I am far removed from idolizing professional basketball players anymore. Even if I had the desire to idolize them I am very happy that I don't. It is nice remembering what it was like to want to be Larry Bird; running around my basement on Friday nights watching the Celtics on TNT; that is one of my fondest memories of being 10 years old. I can't remember, back then, if old people told me that Bird was nothing compared to the likes of Havlicek or Cousy or other fellas a generation before...maybe they did, but I believe that those "old people" still secretly thought Bird was the most amazing thing they had ever seen. I feel sorry for the kids growing up today who have the likes of Kobe Bryant or even Lebron James to emulate and idolize. The fact is, those guys are tired heroes. There is nothing to them that should be appealing except for the fact that they are great athletes...freaks even.
Not that Bird was "Mr. Personality" because quite frankly he was not someone you expect entertained guests at parties with his witty banter and charm, but at least he was real. Kobe is a manufactured character. He is a film script so influenced by other movies you feel you are watching a parody of sorts. He is so unoriginal you almost feel a little sorry for him...until you remember he is just an simple egomaniac lost in his own uninteresting psychosis. The scowl (which looks like an angry possum to me), the Jordan like speech patterns in interviews, the constant "I" comments littered throughout his tireless post game monologues...Its all calculated and manufactured and all very droll. Bob Knight is surely getting a laugh at Kobe and his conjured up "game face".
As my brother has pointed out numerous times in the last two days, "This was the most forgettable championship team in the last 25 years and any championship team from the last 25 years would handle these Lakers in 4 games." I couldn't agree more and that's not just because we were all hoping for a Lebron/Kobe matchup, it is because the '09 Lakers, ho hum, were not a 1 man team they were just 1 man...Kobe wanted it that way and thats what he got...boring as hell. Today's athlete would trade in 3, 4, 5 championships, shared with another great player or two, for 1 that they feel like they can call their "own". If that is not a sad, sad, joke then I am as confused as I have ever been about professional athletics.

Deer Tick is a Good Band, and if You Don't Think So You Are Wrong

Went to a concert the other day. A Jenny Lewis concert. It had been almost a year since I have seen live music and forgot how much I enjoy it. I don't know how I forgot, but I did. Deer Tick opened for Jenny Lewis and I hadn't heard much about this band but I like them a ton and they have a new cd coming out next Tuesday and this song is one of the ones they played and I liked it a lot.
We noticed they end some of their songs real abruptly, and oddly we liked that...

Deer Tick [mp3] Easy

Buy Sunset Rubdowns Album Now and They will Send It To You Immediately

The new Sunset Rubdown album, Dragonslayer, is amazing and great and I am almost tired of it because it is all that I have been listening to. Here is a song from it to listen to. You can go to www.jagjaguwar.com and pre-order the record or cd and they will send you a digital code so you can hear it right away. Everyone should do this. This means you can buy records and still get the song on your Ipod without buying one of those gadgets that converts your LP's to digital form. That is probably something simple, but I don't want to do it.

Sunset Rubdown [mp3] Silver Moons

There is not a better group of people putting out music right now than these Wolf Parade/Sunset Rubdown/Swan Lake folks from Canada. If you disagree then your opinion is wrong.

Live From The Clap

This has been a long time coming. A couple covers from our friend from the South, Mitch Miggenburg.
Enjoy them. They do exist...they really do.
Mitch Miggenburg [mp3] I've Changed

Mitch Miggenburg [mp3] John Wayne Gacy Jr.