December

Hi Folks. 
Are you wondering about the December CD?
Are you surprised you haven't heard anything about it up to this point?
Who is Mr. December anyway? (humor me on that one).

Well rest easy people!
December's CD is put together...that is to say the artwork is done...the songs are picked and lined up...the liner notes are written. 
All I have to do is burn these puppies, assemble the parts and they are out the door.
You should have them before Christmas.

Just wanted to give you a heads up!
Thanks.
Dan

Pretend this is from Mike Mena....and that his picture is posted here.

Pretend this is really from Mike Mena as it really is, only he couldn't log on. He asked me to please post this for him and to let you know The November Eleventilicious Double A-Z Album is on its way. Before month end-even. Thanks!


From Mike:


The Eleventilicious Team has set the bar extremely high. As far as I know, I’m the only person in the group who was a paid talent scout with a record company. In spite of that credential, I was intimidated because of the high caliber of previous discs. Bravo! As I racked my brain for an appropriate theme, ideas were considered only to be discarded. Then, I came upon Music A to Z. It seemed simple and the songs flowed. A few of the acts I signed are represented here.

Adorable. I signed this band. They never broke it big but…
Blur- They were so talented and thought it was their job to torment me.
Caravan Palace- A recent discovery through KCRW.
Devotchka-Great name. Great band.
Everything But the Girl- this was one of their early, heart-wrenching recordings
Field Music-the guy who introduced me to Blur & Jesus Jones introduced them to me.
Gorillaz-Damon Albarn from Blur went on to form Gorillaz. I had the pleasure of working with guest vocalist Bobby Womack too.
The Hollies- Being my brother invited my participation, this one is for him.
The Irish Tenors- Yes, a weepy classic. Nothing bats top-notch song-writing.
Jesus Jones- My wife speaks French, Spanish & English. Yes, she’s an international bright young thing.
Kinks- Gotta love a song that mentions Donald Duck.
Lana Del Rey- Love the harp. Great lyrics too.
My Morning Jacket- I just say yes to the title of this song. “You Wanna Freak Out.”
Neil Young- It makes me think of a harvest and not the album.
Ozomatli- These guys are heroes in Los Angeles. Their live shows are a party.
Portishead- They got their groove on.
Question Mark & the Mysterians- Because I couldn’t bring myself to using Queen.
Radiohead- this song “High & Dry” is so gut-wrenching in a good way.
Shelby Lynne- “I Only Want To Be With You,” has been covered so many times, but not like this.
Tokyo Police Club- Great lyrics and great pop.
U2- My brother I share some terrific U2 memories
The Verve-Amazing opening chords.
Wilco-Terrific primitive pop.
Aside from Katy Perry, there are not many songs about the 4th of July. I worked with John Doe as well!
Yma Sumac- Couldn’t bring myself to using Yes and this loungey sound is cool.
Zuco 103- Brazil with a modern beat.

Thanks for listening!
Mike Mena

Happy 11/11/11

Just wanted to wish everyone in the Eleventilicious CD club a very happy 11/11/11. I'm so pleased at all the great and varied music we've shared so far this year and look forward to even more in the next couple of months.

The Badlands

Hello Eleventilicious crew.

i have just mailed out all the October cds tonight, a little behind schedule. i hope they get to you soon.

As a note, i didn't mean for this mix to be so personal, in the sense that i am randomly sharing my life with a group of people that i don't know at all (except for a small taste of your fine musical preferences), but i suppose that all my mix tapes are about mood and feeling and memory. i am not sure though, why i decided to spill so much personal bullshit in the liner notes. So please pardon the over-sharing.

The Badlands is not as emo as the title might suggest. Actually, it is far more literal in the geographical sense, in that i was remembering a trip at the end of this summer through the badlands of the Alberta prairies. And it was a good trip, and a good summer, save for, well, i guess, feelings and emotions, which are not my forte.

The other thing about this mix is that i spent summer traversing the whole of North America for microbial conferences (yay grad school reimbursements!) and other fun life stuff, one of the stops being nxne in Toronto. nxne was a lot of fun and it was a blast running around in the nighttime heat trying to see as many awesome bands as possible with friends, so a lot of the bands on the mix were at nxne. And in hindsight, they are all super good at capturing my state of internal craziness, hence the appearance of so many nxne alumni on the mix.

So i hope you enjoy The Badlands. And thank you for letting me be a part of Eleventilicious.

cy

September CD

Hi All!

Just an FYI that I heard from Billy Kleinfeld and he put his September CDs in the mail today! He's not on the blog and apologized for his tardiness- so I just wanted to pass along the news.

Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar

Hi, all! I hope this CD finds everyone well, and that everyone is having a great summer.
When first thinking about this collection, I considered multiple themes – “music about music”, “music with place names in the title”, “music by children of more famous musicians” – but, I ultimately decided to go with no real theme.

However, I still wanted a bit of a challenge. My instinct when putting together collections of music is always to go right to indie rock, so I knew I wanted to go a bit of a different route. Consequently, this collection has a bit of an alt-country flavour to it. See, since joining an alt-country band a while ago, I’ve been listening to a lot of music I never really paid much attention to before, and found that there’s a lot of really great stuff out there.

This is a collection of songs from those albums which have really stuck with me, songs which carry all of the same qualities that I’m drawn to in songs from any other genre: great musicianship, clever, well-written lyrics, and substance. Songs with beautiful stories like Damien Jurado’s “Abilene”, a song so well-written and recorded that it manages to trigger a bit of synaesthesia in me as I actually hear dark blues and blacks. Songs that find a unique way to tell us about love, like Hayes Carll’s charming song “Girl Downtown”. Songs that tickle my existential anxiety, such as First Aid Kit’s haunting cover of the Fleet Foxes tune “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song”, proving that it is possible to take an already great song and turn it into something even better.

In addition to songs I’ve been listening to more recently, I did manage to include a number of old favourites in this collection, as well; selected songs that I feel fit. Among others, there’s the Silver Jews’ whimsical “Honk If You’re Lonely”, the Kinks’ timeless “Strangers”, and a fitting outro with Will Oldham’s “I Am Goodbye”.

Thanks to Eleventilicious, I’ve had a really interesting year in music, and I’m looking forward to hearing the rest of the contributions. I hope everyone enjoys this collection as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

I meant to include this on the July Eleventilicious Playlist

This was a recent find through NPR and I meant to include this on my playlist. I even ordered the vinyl. Better late than never. Enjoy.