The latest episode of Almanac, wherein I listen to the new Bill Callahan album for the very first time, all the way through, and provide some thoughts after each song.   Since they’re pulling tracks from the internet, I won’t be posting the track listing, but it is available if you do a little Googling.

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Finally! A new episode!  This one was recorded on March 25th, I was fresh off the thrill of working on a Grizzly Bear music video, as well as the delight of talking to one of my favourite new actors, Tyron Leitso.  After seeing him in the short lived but endearing show Wonderfalls, I contacted Tyron, and asked if I could contact his agent about an interview of sorts.  To be honest, these little ventures of mine sometimes veer into disaster, like the time I tried to interview different people from Lookbook and discovered that not everyone has something interesting to say. Luckily that was NOT the case with Tyron , who kind enough to answer questions to my heart’s content, and I’ve trimmed out the best 20 minutes to share.

Service Bell – Grizzly Bear + Feist
Unknown Legend – Neil Young
My Hands are Shaking – Sondre Lerche

Interview with Wonderfall’s Tyron Leitso, a clever Canadian actor.  We discuss the difficulties of acting, the triumph of timberframing, and unique filmmaker Uwe Boll.

I Don’t Believe You – The Magnetic Fields
Can’t Make a Sound – Elliot Smith
Seems So – Apples in Stereo
Born to Love Magic – Nick Drake

Also I recently learned how to properly export my mp3 files, so they’re a much higher quality from here on out, no more scuzzy audio hopefully. (Now if I can just learn to read a VU meter!) …We’ll just call that the joke that wasn’t.

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Here’s an episode of Almanac, (my hour long radio show) that I thought I had lost.  As best I can figure out from the small references I make, I think I recorded this around the beginning of February.  I give an explanation of the show in the first few minutes.

I Wonder Why The Wonderfalls – Andy Partridge
Not That Dumb – Suddenly, Tammy!
Concrete and the Clay – Unit 4 + 2
Another One Goes By – The Walkmen
Here Comes my Baby – Cat Stevens
Oblivious – Galaxie 500
You Don’t Make it Easy, Babe – Josh Ritter
Saro – Sam Amidon
Beautiful Dream – Suddenly, Tammy!
Me and the Major – Belle and Sebastian
William, It Was Really Nothing – The Smiths
Summer Song – Chad and Jeremy
The Story of My Life – The Velvet Underground

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For a radio hour dedicated to the new and wondrous, I was shocked to find that we’d never presented an old-fashioned radio murder mystery.  This is one of our more ambitious outings to date, involving the co-ordinated efforts of a host of live readers.  We hope to do more of these in the future.

Colt Carter is on, in the Case of the Missing Husband.

The show was performed live on March 11th, 2009.

Featuring the vocal talents of:  Christy Giannestras, Cate MacDonald, Amanda Mae Meyncke, Ryan Schaffner, Heather Schaffner & Abigail Schilling.  From a script written by Cate MacDonald, Amanda Meyncke and Afton MacDonald.

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Aren’t you too cute in your puffed sleeves and tattered skirt?  Let’s get out on the dance floor, and do the Molly Ringwald!

Almanac hosts an 80’s prom, and even if you’re rolling your eyes, and you never went to prom and yadda yadda, it doesn’t matter, cause we are doin’ this thing with style.

Dancing With Myself – Billy Idol
Everybody Wants to Rule the World – Tears for Fears
I Melt With You – Modern English
Our House – Madness
Enjoy the Silence – Depeche Mode
The Promise – When in Rome
Age of Consent – New Order
Head over Heels – Tears for Fears
Love is a Battlefield – Pat Benetar
(musical interludes are the remixed wordless versions of Human League songs)

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Returning to formats of old, I encorporate the ever-popular “guest host” format with the old Almanac “interview-in-the-middle” format.

Phd candidate Ryan Schaffner guest hosts, and I interview Zach Weichbrodt, poet in residence at the Almanac chateau.¹

Anna Freud    3:07    The National
Flightless Bird, American Mouth    4:03    Iron & Wine
Most Of The Time    5:04    Bob Dylan
Helplessly Hoping    2:42    Crosby, Stills & Nash
Oliver James    3:24    Fleet Foxes    Fleet Foxes
Interview with Zach Weichbrodt “The Babes of Poetry”
Ceremony    5:57    Galaxie 500
Darlin’ Ukelele    4:07    Jolie Holland
White Collar Boy    3:21    Belle & Sebastian
Oh No    4:21    Andrew Bird    Noble Beast

¹ (The Almanac chateau has many large and spacious rooms, our favourite room is the Correspondence Room.  Dark blue velvet covers the walls, and the entire back wall is comprised of floor to ceiling windows, and appropriately plush draperies.   The room is somewhat spare, holding a single, ancient, manicured writing desk, a large cabinet filled with paper and various writing instruments, and highbacked egregious plaid chair.  Inscription over the door reads: Waste Not Your Thoughts on Idle Men, You’ll Just Repeat Yourself Again.  Only in Latin.)

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The latest Almanac is here to whisper in your ear and tell you secrets about where it’s been.  I only say one bad word, and it’s at the very end of the broadcast.  There’s way too many good covers, but here’s the best of recently. If I sound a little more nervous than usual, well, I am.  Almanac is heading into it’s fourth season, y’all.  You all look prettier and kinder by the year, your faces are disfigured with love.

Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard (Paul Simon Cover)    3:32    Julie Doiron
The District Sleeps Alone Tonight (Postal Service cover)    3:44    Jonna Lee
The Same Old Song (The Four Tops Cover)    3:04    Iron & Wine
It’s All Over Now (Baby Blue) -  13th Floor Elevators
Alone Again Or    3:25    Calexico
Love Will Tear Us Apart    3:29    The Cure
Buckets Of Rain (Bob Dylan Cover)    3:29    Neko Case
Highway To The Danger Zone    2:45    Homesick Elephant
Too Little Too Late [Jo Jo Cover]    4:10    Daniel Rossen
Just Like Heaven    4:19    The Watson Twins    Fire Songs
The Breeze/My Baby Cries    6:22    Bill Callahan
Footloose    4:57    Doveman
Always On My Mind (Willie Nelson Cover)    4:51    Iron & Wine/Calexico

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This is an entirely unscripted Almanac, done spur of the moment, and not the official start to Season Four. Sometimes you do things for other people, and sometimes you do things just for yourself.

Jim Cain    4:29    Bill Callahan
I’m Getting Back Into Getting Into You    2:35    Silver Jews
Tear in Your Hand – Tori Amos
My Friend    5:03    Bill Callahan
I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)    3:39
Crush    3:02    Noise Rathchet
Cat Heaven    5:06    Jets to Brazil
NYC    4:22    Interpol
Sixteen, Maybe Less    4:49    Calexico / Iron & Wine
There Are Maybe Ten Or Twelve    2:44    A.C. Newman
Lemurs, Man, Lemurs    3:10    Minus the Bear
The Purple Bottle    6:52    Animal Collective

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Because perhaps you need a special treat to get you through tonight.  Through secret back channels and the sharp eyes of an internet friend, I came across two new mp3’s from the Bill Callahan album, Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle,  which doesn’t release until April 2009.  I think this album will end up being very personally important, and there isn’t much I love more than a Smog album.

I’m not even going to fill your long ears with tales about when the next Almanac is coming out.  It sits idle and indolent on my hard drive, at about an hour and a half.  My mornings are filled with my office job which I like, and then my afternoons and evenings with all manner of designing and manufacturing underwear.  Today I worked a twelve hour day, I think.  Good for the naturally indolent side of me, difficult though to adjust to that much work.   I have never been the sort of person to falter and fail at writing back to e-mails, I’ve always made time for everything, but on days like today, I just want to fall into bed.

Listening to these two, in the dark, especially Jim Cain, is sort of a lonely experience.  The violins at the end kill me, in the same way that every Bill Callahan song contains a moment so small it might escape everyone else, but for you, it is, and it is just what you needed to hear.

Jim Cain by Bill Callahan (removed by request of Drag City)

My Friend by Bill Callahan (removed by request of Drag City)

Andrew said that I looked like Zelda Fitzgerald, and I think it is sort of apt, at least in tone.  Cate got me a lace parasol for Christmas and I shall twirl it merrily come springtime, wearing a poofy white lace dress.  The other day, I literally thought to myself,  “Well, I am going to need kid gloves sooner or later.”  And no, that is always a later, and never a sooner.  I need to either get serious about my latent desires to dress as if I were an extra in a period piece about French regency excess, or I need to give up and start just wearing jeans and Gap T-Shirts.  Oh yes, I am such a student of Platonic moderation. People will say things sometimes like “I wish I had an occasion to dress fancy.” and I find myself wondering if  Every Day is occasion enough, though lately I’ve not dressed accordingly.

The Almanac radio archives are all up and running! I can’t podcast them through iTunes for various legal reasons, but there they are, ripe for listening.

I wrote that part before Christmas, and here it is the last day of the year.  I’ll spare you many of the details, but really, this has been a difficult one, and I am looking forward to changes.

Next year will be better, parasols and all. Maybe I’ll even put a photo in my Christmas cards, ala the woman holding a cup in Monet’s painting, next year!