I’ve been quiet these last couple of days because I’ve been listening to obsessing over some great music I dumped on to a CD. Felt like annotating the setlist, for no particular reason than to do it:

• The Flaming Lips — Fight Test
  
  I don’t know if YOSHIMI BATTLES THE PINK ROBOTS is as good an album, start to finish, as THE SOFT BULLETIN was, but it’s still an album full of songs about scientists, robots, and… more scientists, I think. How can you not like a song with a line like “I don’t know where the sunbeams end/and the starlights begin/it’s all a mystery”? (Listen to the stream at their website)
  
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs — Y Control
  
  Listen to this on my lousy radio at work with only one working speaker, and I still get hooked by the guitar drone/whine at the outset. I think I’m listening to old Killing Joke for some odd reason before Karen O’s voice shatters that illusion. (and I still say she sounds like Chrissie Hynde.) (Video for “Y Control” here)
  
• New Pornographers — The Electric Version
  
  I blame this one on the Han/xtop/Chu/Fraction Gang of Four. The damn thing is addictive — it moves so much. Pity that more modern pop/rock doesn’t have the same kind of bright sound this song puts out. (mp3 clip here)
  
• Franz Ferdinand — Take Me Out
  
  More to blame on the radio station. Why does the last two-thirds of the song sound like a lost track from the Eighties by Rockwell? (clip)
  
• Pixies — Bam Thwok
  
  I am a latecomer to the glory that is the Pixies, so I don’t have fond memories to compare this new track by the reunited band to — to me, it’s just one more piece of their catalog. Dig it, though I have to agree with those who’ve said that they wish Frank Black’s voice were more upfront. Black’s last tour through Columbus with the Catholics was probably the single best live show I’ve ever seen, and if that’s how he sounds now that he’s “all grown up” beyond the juvenilia of the Pixies, I can’t wait to hear how they sound now that they’re back together. October 4, baby. (“Bam Thwok” and iTunes)
  
• My Morning Jacket — One Big Holiday
  
  This show was like watching Cousin It play Skynyrd and Creedence covers. It was awesome. (Amazon clip here)
  
• RJD2 — Through the Walls
  
  Columbus boy who apparently got bored being ignored by the city. Undefinable indie rock/DJ/sample stuff (well, maybe undefinable by me — I don’t have the vocabulary to describe how many different themes he works through in the space of about four minutes, but it works.)
  
• The Postal Service — The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
  
  This one’s McKeever’s fault. I borrowed it, I listened and enjoyed, I returned and forgot — and then heard “Such Great Heights” on the radio one afternoon. Remembered, went out and got it myself. This track’s better. The unconscious association I make with “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” is probably intentional and to this song’s benefit, even though there’s really no relation of any kind. (download the mp3 from SubPop here)
  
• Sam Roberts — This Wreck of a Life
  
  I saw this guy with Casey at Little Brothers’ last summer. Nobody was there. Sam didn’t care and gave us a great Rock Show. This was one of the most affecting tracks of the evening.
  
• The Thorns — Blue
  
  Cover of the Jayhawks’ standout by the Matthew Sweet/Edwin McCain/Pete Droge CSNY pastiche. Best part is that I can’t figure out which one of ’em’s hitting that top note. (listen to a clip here)
  
• The Beatles — Yesterday
  
  If you don’t like this song, you are a Communist.
  
• Snow Patrol — Run
  
  I had gotten home the other night from work and was in the basement putting a load of laundry in the washer when my cell phone rang. It was Val: the only thing she said was “Snow Patrol.” “So, yeah…Snow Patrol.” When she says she likes a song, I have to go find it, because it’s like a no-hitter: doesn’t happen that often, and when it does, hoo boy. (play the video for “Run” here)
  
• The Whiles — Lonesome Reply
  
  Local kids. Wait for the build at the end; the wall of sound is crushing. Sounds better in the recording than it does live, though that might have been just the lousy setup at the Newport. (download the track here)
  
• Turin Brakes — The Optimist
  
  I’m not even sure how I first stumbled across this, but it’s pretty in a spacey-Nick-Drake kind of way. (clips from THE OPTIMIST LP available here)
  
• The Finn Brothers — Edible Flowers
  
  Heard on, of all things, NPR last week. A beautiful, beautiful arrangement, and that harmonization! (stream from their website — click on audio/video)
  
• The Last Hotel — Buried
  
  Yet another Columbus band. Listen to this and you might hear the Jeff Buckley influence — but is that really such a bad thing, after all? (stream it here)
  
• The Secret Machines — Nowhere Again
  
  There’s something about this that, I swear, makes me nostalgic for my first year in Columbus in law school. I can’t explain it, I have no idea why it does, but the images conjured up are all neon-lit nighttime scenes set in smoky downtown bars. Weird. (mp3 for you here)
  
• Modest Mouse — Float On
  
  I keep thinking the lead singer’s voice is just gonna break in the middle of one of those yelps. (here’s the video)
  
• Wilco — The Late Greats
  
  I was reading a review of A GHOST IS BORN (okay, it was probably on Pitchfork, and there goes all my cred when I tell you I tended to agree with at least this notion): Wilco’s most direct antecedent is, in all probability, The Band. Listen to this track and you get that. Not so much with the rest of the album, no — but I think it’s the jangly piano near the end of this. (stream the whole damn album for free here)