The Pelican’s Perch

Stars

“You have worked 12 hours and 5 minutes” says my cell phone as I logged out today. 

Whew boy what a day.  I think I set the record or came very close to setting the record for games shot in a single day.  Today I did six, but one of them was two “onesies”, meaning you only shoot one of the two teams playing that game, at the same time.  That means the first I shot went smooth, then I had to race over to the other field and shoot that game even though it was half over.  Needless to say, that was not an ideal situation, but I did get through all the games and was happy with a lot of the shots I took.  It’ll be interesting tomorrow to finally see them printed out, and then to sell my own shots to the parents.

I did have some time tonight to find some music.  Stars, one of those bands I never get tired of but rarely find myself listening to their music when I think about it, is releasing a new album on September 25th called In Our Bedroom After the War and I’m excited to finally hear new stuff from Stars.  Their last album was released in 2004, so it’s been a while.  If you haven’t heard Set Yourself On Fire, by all means go out and check that album out, then once that wins you over, you’ll have a reason to be as excited as me to hear their upcoming album later this year. 

01 The Beginning After the End
02 The Night Starts Here [mp3]

03 Take Me to the Riot
04 My Favourite Book
05 Midnight Coward
06 The Ghost of Genova Heights
07 Personal
08 Barricade
09 Window Bird
10 Life 2: The Unhappy Ending
11 Bitches in Tokyo
12 Today Will Be Better, I Swear!
13 In Our Bedroom After the War

While searching for that mp3 above, I also randomly found this interesting remix of their song “Your Ex-Lover is Dead” done by Final Fantasy (aka Owen Pallette).  I knew Stars put out a remix album, and that Pitchfork tore it a new one, but I never got around to listening to it.  Owen may have given me a good reason to go check that remix album out.

Your Ex-Lover is Dead (Final Fantasy remix)
 

Not related, but one of Stars’ best…
Set Yourself On Fire (towards the bottom) 

Another reason I like Stars so much is how cool to fans they’ve always been.  Case in point their latest message at their site which I’ll sum up briefly with four quotes from it:

“Inevitably someone will leak the album…We believe that the line between the media and the public is now completely grey…As such, we are making the new Stars album available for legal download today, four days after it’s completion…It’s our hope that given a clear, legal alternative to downloading music for free, you will choose to support the creators.”

Dear Stars,
You rock.  And I don’t just say that to anyone.  Stars and LemonDrop leading the new fan-controlled music industry.  Care to join us?

-Kevin

Official Site / Myspace / Buy Set Yourself On Fire
Amy Millan’s site (girl singer) / Mephis’ Site (side band)

(I’d honestly go as far as hosting the album here in complete support of them, once I found it, but that would destroy my bandwidth and shut me down for a while.  So you’ll just have to find it yourself and I’ll most likely post a few songs here and there until September.  Man, this turned into a doozy of a post out of nowhere.  See you tomorrow with probably yet another story in the continuing saga that is my month from hell)