Beyond Sufjan: The U.S. Geography Mix - Winner and Track Listing!

Hey, where'd this week go? We're already into September and I haven't announced the Monthly Mix winner from August. The fabulous Amanda from New York won this month's custom mix, which if you remember back to the voting period, was "Beyond Sufjan: the U.S. Geography Mix."

This mix really just started out with me wanting to put a song called "New Hampshire" by Matt Pond PA onto a monthly mix -- a shout-out to my homestate, of course -- not to mention that Sufjan Stevens shows no signs of ever finishing his 50 states project, leaving many a state's lyrical potential unexploited. If you'd like to make your own mix to take a road trip through my music collection, here's what you need:

1. “New Hampshire”, matt pond PA, Emblems
2. “Lovecraft in Brooklyn”, The Mountain Goats, Heretic Pride
3. “Marching Bands of Manhattan”, Death Cab for Cutie, Plans
4. “Harrisburg”, Josh Ritter, Golden Age of Radio
5. “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight”, The Postal Service, Give Up
6. “For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti”, Sufjan Stevens, Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State
7. “Slow Down Chicago”, Canasta, We Were Set Up
8. “Chicago”, Lucy Wainwright Roche, 8 More
9. “Iowa (Traveling III)”, Dar Williams, Mortal City
10. “Grand Canyon”, The Magnetic Fields, 69 Love Songs (Part 2)
11. “Houston”, R.E.M., Accelerate
12. “Florida”, Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
13. “Shores of California”, The Dresden Dolls, Yes, Virginia…
14. “State of the Union”, Cloud Cult, Aurora Borealis

So, did I leave out any must-have songs featuring U.S. geographical landmarks? Leave your additions or corrections in the comments!

Off to the Burbs

I'm off to the suburbs for the weekend for a songwriting retreat with the band. A good chunk of the new album is already in various stages of doneness, including a couple that are in regular rotation in our setlist now. In fact, we'll be playing two of them tonight at the Abbey Pub.

In the meantime, pretty up those Facebook profiles with blatant, shameless Ian-related promotion. Details at the end of this Monthly Mix post. (Really, you can tear yourself away from the new Scrabble for five minutes, and the new Scrabble isn't as good as Scrabulous was. RIP, my little copyright-violating distraction.)

Next week, get ready for my show at the Elbo Room on Tuesday (details) and some more frequent new content.

Revenge of the Monthly Mix

I'm back from Portland now and readjusting to the beloved humidity and flatness of Chicago. You know what else is back? The Monthly Mix!

But before we get into that, some show notes for Team Chicago. My next solo show is coming up a week from Tuesday -- that's August 26th -- and I've got a Glen Hansard cover with your name on it. (Yeah, you know who he is. No, you totally do. He's that guy from the Frames and the movie Once. Yeah, see, I told you.) Also, the ambient, lush and synth-looped stylings of Teletextile come back to town at the Bottom Lounge tonight at 9pm, so if you're avoiding the Air and Water Show, that's the place to be. And in Canasta-land, we're playing a show at the Abbey Pub next Thursday. Whew! Busy month.

August Monthly Mix Contest

Last month's poll elected "Riding in Cars with Boys" as the theme for this round of the Monthly Mix. So while I'm putting together a mix of my favorite songs about cars, or boys, or...riding(?) -- I have a new challenge for you readers. Even better, it's more fun stuff for you to do on Facebook. Here's how it'll work:

(a) If we aren't Facebook friends yet, add me as a friend. You can find me here.
(b) Put me on your profile in some way, shape, or form. This can be as simple as going to my ReverbNation player on my Facebook profile and adding a track or two to your own profile, or adding me as a favorite artist on Pandora or iLike (if you have those installed on your profile). I have a few examples on my own profile. Or get creative!
(c) When you're done with that, email me (or Facebook message me) to let me know so I can include you in the drawing for the Monthly Mix.
(d) In the first week of September, I'll randomly select a winner from anyone who's completed this month's challenge.

That's it! So go procrastinate some more on Facebook and share the indie-folk piano love at the same time.

Quick Monthly Mix Update

[Housekeeping: Does anyone want to go to Schuba's for free on Saturday? Sure you do.]

As I mentioned earlier, I decided to space out the Monthly Mix contests more so they don't take up all of the blogspace I could be using to post silly YouTube videos and making Top 10 lists of various pop culture products. (Oh wait, that's the Onion's AV Club blog. My mistake!) I'm going to try alternating between months where we vote for the mix theme and the months when you can actually win that mix. To get us back on track, I'm having a run-off poll between the last winner, Beyond Sufjan: The U.S. Geography Mix and the two top contenders from this month.

And it bears repeating: I'm still seeing if this whole thing works smoothly, so if you have suggestions (or technical problems), just email me (ian at ian wilson music dot com).

June Mix Track Listing (What Happens When You Add a Violin)

[Quick plug: Team Chicago, mark your calendars for Tuesday, July 15th -- I'll be playing a free show at Big Chicks in A-ville/Uptown.]

Put down your sparkler and hot dog for a second, because I have to announce our first Monthly Mix contest winner. You may want to clap or something.

So, again, thanks to everyone who wrote Amazon reviews for the EP. I was honestly taken aback with some of the high marks you all gave! The randomly-selected winner from the review writers requested that he be announced as "Mooch, who incidentally founded a successful chain of menswear stores (bet you can't guess which one)" -- which I put in quotes because I don't fact-check this blog, so I can't confirm or deny this whole menswear claim. So congratulate Mooch on his shiny new mix CD and his menswear success.

And if you want to put together your own violin mix, here's the track listing. All of them have a prominent violin part in them, though some are less featured than others. Feel free to jump in here on the comments and pick this apart -- did I overlook any important repertoire for the pop/rock violinist?

1. "This is the Dream of Win and Regine", Final Fantasy, Has a Good Home
2. "Oh Sister", Andrew Bird, Soldier On
3. "Impostors", Canasta, We Were Set Up
4. "People Get Ready", The Frames, The Cost
5. "Parting of the Sensory", Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
6. "Electioneering", The Section, Strung Out on OK Computer
7. "The Arctic Circle", Final Fantasy, He Poos Clouds
8. "Mama Who Bore Me", Spring Awakening (Original Cast Recording)
9. "In the Mausoleum", Beirut, The Flying Club Cup
10. "Ampm Two", Teletextile, Care Package
11. "Joga", Bjork, Homogenic Live
12. "Disappear (Stakka)", My Brightest Diamond, Tear It Down
13. "Let's Hear That String Part Again, Because I Don't Think They Heard It All The Way Out In Bushnell", Sufjan Stevens, Come On Feel The Illinoise!
14. "Busride", Canasta, We Were Set Up

Questions? Comments?

You There, Geography Nerds, You Win

The first complete cycle of this whole kit-n-caboodle I call the Monthly Mix contest is wrapping up, so congrats on getting through it. I know it's a little tricky, what with there being polls and obtuse titles of mixes with surprise songs coming at you in the mail. But it will all make sense soon! I'm putting the finishing touches on the first mix, "What Happens When You Add a Violin," and will post the track listing once the winner is announced.

The mix for this month, then, which one by a single vote in the poll, is "Beyond Sufjan: the U.S. Geography Mix". The runner-up, "I Pretend to Read a Lot," stays in this month's poll, and two fresh titles are there for you to ponder and vote on.

And for those of you who wrote Amazon reviews last month, thank you thank you thank you. I've recently found out there's been a pretty significant delay in The Crater EP getting released on iTunes, so Amazon is the most popular vendor I'll be distributed through for a while longer. I'll announce which one of you review-writers won the very first mix in the next few days.

Things to Do This Week

If you're in Chicago:

Tomorrow (that's Tuesday) at 9pm at the Empty Bottle, Canasta will be joined by the Battle Royale, who played with us up in Minneapolis. They brought out a really great crowd for us when we were up there, and we'd love to return the favor. Hot hot dance party guaranteed.

If you're not in Chicago (or you like going to bed early -- pfft):

There's only a week left in this month's Mix contest (complete details here). A couple of Team Chicago peeps have mentioned to me lately that they didn't know how to write music reviews, so they were intimidated to go onto Amazon to write one. Don't be afraid, it's the internet! You're anonymous! Plus, chances are, if you're reading this blog, you are in the upper 10th percentile of Internet writers and grammarians: people who (a) write in complete sentences and (b) have never used more than three exclamation points in a row. (But it's so fun!!!!!!!!!!) I'm just trying to generate a little buzz for the EP, so if you have two minutes, head over to Amazon and buzz away before July 1st.

It's Here! The Monthly Mix Contest!

I try to take good care of my little Damper Pedal blog, but I feel like it's been lacking, oh, I don't know, some element of inconsequential and unpredictable competition. I've also recently gotten back into the lost art of the mixtape (well, mix CDs now). So today, I'm rolling out the Monthly Mix Contest.

Look to your right and you'll see a new polling feature in the sidebar under "Monthly Mix." Here's how it works:

• I'll post three themes/ideas for a custom mix CD, either my own or based on your suggestions.
• Over the course of the month, I'll announce a little contest (different each month) to decide who gets a CD chock full of new music from my favorite artists. (Fair warning: while the contests will hopefully be fair and transparent, they will also be completely self-serving. I have no qualms about sending hordes of you, my loyal readers, out into the Internets to do my bidding. Mwa ha ha ha ha!)
• I'll announce the winner here on Damper Pedal (unless they're shy); meanwhile, another poll will go up for the next mix contest.
• Repeat steps 1-3.

I've posted three of my own ideas to get us started. If you have a theme or idea you want to go into the next poll, leave your suggestions in the comments here.

Like they say in Chicago: vote early, vote often!