• First sample is the first two tracks. Posting this one mostly for the spoof of Handel, even if it is a bit short. Also, I’m planning on posting a minidisc recording of the real Hallelujah chorus next. Hallemoojah Chorus & Angus We Have Heard on High.
• As for the other track I’m posting …. well, if you had a specific type of illness (a fever, perhaps) and this illness had only one cure, and if you had this illness around the holidays, your physician would likely prescribe this song, as it does indeed contain “more cowbell” than most songs. By my estimate, the following mp3 is approximately 99% cowbell. Carol of the Cowbells.

• In the Bleak Midwinter – (words by Christina Rosetti, music by Gustav Holst)
• Masters in this Hall – (English words by William Morris, traditional French tune)

Again, the recording quality isn’t the best, but it’s better than no recording at all.

Silent Night – Harmonica: Fr. Henry Petter; Vocals: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton congregation

The quality is what you’d expect from the equipment and the “microphone placement” (on my lap in the pew), but I think it’s still listenable. Might be slightly better with headphones. I cleaned it up a little in Audacity: added fade in and out, and a high-pass filter to lessen some of the pretty serious thumps in the first half (doors closing, possibly?).

Expect more bootleg Christmas music postings in the next few days …

• Delta Mk II - The Orb Orblivion
• I miss you – Bjork
• Fluffy – Spaceghost – Musical Bar-B-Que
• Dry The Rain – The Beta Band – The Three E.P.’s
• Army Of Me – Bjork
• Summertime – Miles Davis
• Asylum – The Orb – Orblivion
• Dark & Long – Underworld – Dubnobasswithmyheadman
• In A Landscape – William Orbit – Pieces in a Modern Style
• Car24 – Yoko Kanno + The Seatbelts – Cowboy Bebop OST 1
• Couldn’t Cause Me Harm – Beth Orton – Central Reservation
• Hyper-Ballad – Bjork – Post
• The Steward of Gondor – Howard Shore & Billy Boyd – LOTR ROTK
• Everything Is Wrong – Moby – Everything Is Wrong
• Circles – Soul Coughing – El Oso

Top 10ish from the iPod .. which i use nearly everyday but still doesn’t include all the music i listen to
(can’t export a songlist of iPod tracks for some reason?)

• Postal Service – Such Great Heights (played 23 times(!))
• The Shins – New Slang (18)
• DNTtel – (This is) The Dream of Evan and Chad (15)
• Mogwai – billisdead (14)
• Coldplay – Don’t Panic (13)
• DNtel – Fear of Corners (13)
• Royksopp – In Space
• Beth Orton – Sweetest Decline (12)
• Claude Debussy – Claire de Lune
• Son Volt – Chanty
• Aquabats – Welcome to Eltingville (11)
• Bjork – Triumph of a Heart

other bands and albums that showed up near the top

• Garden State soundtrack
• Royksopp – Melody AM
• Postal Service – Give Up
• DNtel – Life is Full of Possibilities
• The Shins
• Gotan Project
• Sigur Ros

Some of those have been on the iPod longer than others ..

So on Sunday we met some friends from work and had lunch before heading to the
park. Got there and met some more friends who were listening to Paul Thorn
(who was, apparently, pretty funny). The sounds from Soulive on a (much
bigger) nearby stage caught my ear so I wandered over by myself. Sounded very
nifty, very ‘funky’ .. this scenario was pretty much repeated through the rest
of Sunday — not me wandering off, but the collision of two separate but
equally interesting acts appearing simultaneously. We sat down for Lucinda
Williams, but left early to sample some G. Love and Special Sauce.. partly a
mistake: did get to hear G.Love’s “Cold Beverage”, but we missed Lucinda
forgetting the words to a song and cursing and swearing because of it. Then we
plunked our chairs down in front of Ben Kweller for most of his set, where he
played his whole new album from start to finish, “just like Phish”. cool.
But we left early again to go witness Polyphonic Spree, who happen to be
responsible for the music in this
VW Beetle/Apple iPod ad. They were odd .. picture 25 people in white robes
or long t-shirts or something jumping and bouncing around on stage. They
sounded alright though .. I think they were a bit overhyped though, so some people were disappointed.

Other bands we managed to see:
• Yo La Tengo: very soft, almost put me to sleep,
  but sounded nice .. apparently we missed their loud-and-rocking songs

• Karl
  Denson’s Tiny Universe: as we were walking by the Heineken stage (on our way to
  get seats in front of the massively crowded capmetro stage in preparation for
  Ween and REM), I said “hey these guys sound pretty good … kind of like the
  Greyboy Allstars .. hmm” and I
  looked at the schedule “Karl Denson … hmm, name sounds familiar .. is that
  the guy from the Greyboy Allstars” .. and it is. So that was fun. They did a lot of the music
  fo Zero Effect, which is
  how I found ‘em.

• Ween – they were alright, but I guess we’re not really ween fans .. we
  were there to secure some good seats for REM

• Beth Orton — only caught a little bit, but she sounded good .. again, couldn’t
  hang around cause we had to get back to the friends who were saving our seats
  for …

• R.E.M. — amazing! wonderful! awesome! yeah, they were pretty
  great .. the href="http://www.masciana.com/rem/setlist/main.php?id=3">setlist from the
  show. I recognized most of the songs .. 2 or 3 were new, and will be on
  their new 2-CD greatest hits thinger coming out soon (Animal, Bad Day, and (I
  think) Final Straw). They “ended” with Man on the Moon, and then of
  course came back for an encore .. we kept thinking they would be all
  predictable and do End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine), but they
  did 3 other songs before getting to that one .. fun

Lots of people at the festival had flags and other things on tall sticks to
help stay together and find each other and stuff … so in the crowd in front
of the capmetro stage someone had a tree .. or a part of a tree or branch or
something, 15 feet tall maybe. The funny thing was that both Ween and Michael
Stipe said something about “the tree” when they were up on stage.

oh yeah, also, I’m lazy and don’t have any pictures from the weekend up yet
… soon!

Yesterday we made it down to Zilker around 2:00, wandered a bit, looked at the
shops, heard Endochine, the Dandy Warhols, wandered some more .. then we
planted ourselves (in the chairs Natalie bought that morning after deciding
that a blanket on the grass isn’t that comfy, and you can’t see as well ..
which was good because it rained on-and-off most of the day) in front of the
HEB stage, where at 4:00, Jay Farrar took the stage. First song was just him
and a guitar, then he was joined by his band. Sounded quite a bit different
than Son Volt, but not completely so. New instrumentation, for one .. sounded
like more keyboards or something in one of the songs. And then the band went
away for a while and he played Tear Stained Eye and Windfall, which was really
cool. And then they all played one more new song ..

(the festival recap will resume later .. have to go finish up the
festival today: Lucinda Williams, Ben Kweller, Beth Orton, REM .. yay!)