Monday, 22 June 2009

Wednesday, 7 January 2009

For Recess(ion) – A New Mixtape for YOU

Yes this is music related. First off for those that know I do an Xmas mix every year – I apologize for it’s absence this year – between school, the Obama campaign, Life, and the fact that all of my Xmas music is trapped on a kaput hard drive – it just didn’t happen…  Next year tho!

In the meantime here is the new (compressed digital audio) mixtape I’ve finished,  it’s called For Recess(ion) and consists of 31 tracks clocking in at almost exactly 2.5 hours split over two sides  -  a few bits from 2008 but mostly from 2007 and prior, typical Chas Danner heavy hitters like Rogue Wave, Stars, Elbow, Downtempo stuff, new friends The Vapors, and lots of lyrics worth paying sharp attention to…

As always, tracklist will follow in approximately one week…  until then surprise yourself…

And enjoy a new America as of Jan 20 (yes I’ll be there)

For Recess(ion)
a mixtape by Chas Danner

SIDE A (mp3 file)
SIDE B
(mp3 file)

both SIDES in a zip file

**Right Click (PC) or Option Click (MAC) and hit “SAVE AS” then download and drag into iTunes or whichever**

1/13 Update: Tracklist

Chas Danner
In Recess(ion)
Compressed Digital Audio Mixtape

SIDE A

1) The Cinematic Orchestra – Into You  (Ma Fleur, 2007)
2) Ryan Adams – Two (Easy Tiger, 2007)
3) Lemon Jelly – ’95 Aka Make Things Right (’64-’95, 2005)
4) Buffalo Tom – Torch Singer (Big Red Letter Day, 1993)
5) Rogue Wave – Cheaper Than Therapy (Asleep At Heaven’s Gate, 2007)
6) Massive Attack – Black Milk (Mezzanine, 1998)
7) Elbow – Newborn (Asleep In The Back, 2001)
8) Depeche Mode – Waiting For The Night (Violator, 1990)
9) Fiona Apple – Criminal (Tidal, 1996)
10) A Tribe Called Quest – Butter  (The Low End Theory, 1991)
11) Liz Phair – Divorce Song (Exile in Guyville, 1993)
12) Liz Phair – Shatter (Exile in Guyville, 1993)
13) U2 – So Cruel (Achtung Baby, 1991)
14) Beck – Guess I’m Doing Fine (Sea Change, 2002)
15) Midlake – Bandits (The Trials of Van Occupanther, 2006)

SIDE B

1) Rogue Wave – Lake Michigan (Asleep At Heaven’s Gate, 2007)
2) Stars – One More Night (Set Yourself On Fire, 2004)
3) David Gray – New Horizons  (Flesh, 1994)
4) The Vapors – Can’t Talk Anymore (Magnets, 1981)
5) Stars – 14 Forever (Sad Robot EP, 2008)
6) Peter Gabriel – Mercy Street (So, 1986)
7) Blue States – What We’ve Won (Man Mountain, 2002)
8) Zero 7 – In Time (When It Falls, 2004)
9) Cut Copy – Midnight Runner  (In Ghost Colours, 2007)
10) Stars – Midnight Coward (In Our Bedroom After The War, 2007)
11) Beth Orton – Concrete Sky (Daybreaker, 2002)
12) Maps – Don’t Fear (We Can Create, 2007)
13) The Flaming Lips – Do You Realize?? (Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, 2002)
14) Hybrid – Just For Today (I Choose Noise, 2006)
15) Cut Copy – So Haunted (In Ghost Colours, 2007)
16) We Are Scientists – After Hours (Brain Thrust Mastery, 2008)

Compiled using iTunes and Garage Band, Jan. 2009

Tuesday, 10 June 2008

(FOR) David Holdt, (WHO IS A BRILLIANT GUY) Click on this

Holdt in Nov96David Holdt is an under appreciated yet tremendously talented writer and thinker, and also one of the better teachers on the face of the planet.  He taught for over 30 years at the excellent progressive private school, Watkinson, in Hartford, CT – and his class there, Writer’s Workshop, has probably changed the lives of most of the students that attended during that tenure. He still teaches at the University of Hartford, right across campus from Watkinson, and now lives in Tolland, CT. He might have a functioning website soon, if I can talk him into it, or if he already has plans for one and I just haven’t heard yet. Either way, I will also try to talk him into some modest blogging, but that may take a while.

The above is my effort to encapsulate Mr. Holdt, having realized now that people indeed do google David Holdt, and in the top ten results an old post of mine comes up that was the end result of a struggle to communicate to David a google map indicating the best places to park for Red Sox games in my old neighborhood in Boston.

Now as much as I like to advertise that David Holdt and I are friends, or that I try to get him to go to Red Sox games as much as possible, or that I know where to park for such games, if I had a car, which I don’t – if my meager website mentions of his name are one of the only google representations of such a great person….then that situation needed to be remedied. So now that first paragraph will work its way into the top ten results hopefully. A trick, perhaps, but as Holdt always says about Wikipedia, if you read it on the internet, it has to be true. (citation needed) (actually one is not, David Holdt hates Wikipedia.) (citation definitely unneeded)

In addition, since you’re obviously interested enough in David Holdt to click thru to my somewhat-very-less-important-than-his-impact-on-the-world-website – you might as well watch the speech he gave at his retirement gala this past Saturday, which is also his YouTube debut!

 

and, if you’re really really feeling like indulging yourself, you can even read the speech I gave at that same gala. (Altho my feeling is it read better than in reads) (And since I handed in, one last time, my final edit [the edits in pen at the table as I waited to speak] I have tried to fix it again with a few minor changes, including the massive typo in the first words of the first sentence  which scrambled my brain at the already nervous beginning of my speech – until after a 5 second [unwittingly dramatic] pause, I got it right and began)

Expand this post below or download to read it… they both come complete with the cool hyperlinks a speech can’t have when you read it on paper. Unless you’re a robot.

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