sunday aka hunting the depths of the internet for music

i love movie soundtracks. for a long time, i wanted that job. movie soundtracks. i thought that a movie-soundtrack-job consisted of watching movies/hunting the depths of the Internet for new music, then placing the fruits of your labour over top of those movies you watched. sounded pretty rad to me, until i learned that a music supervisor's job really consists of negotiating contracts between labels, publishers and the studio - most of the time. not so rad. who knows though. i'd still like to see for myself. i think my description makes more sense.

(yes. i'm getting to my point.)

one of my favourite movie soundtracks (of life) is empire records - and not just because i have a long-standing crush circa 1995 on ethan embry and maybe even liv tyler, just a little bit - but because the soundtrack was, most literally, another character in the movie. amazing soundtracks always play that role.

another movie soundtrack i love is adventureland. same reason. a common thread from both those soundtracks is the band big star. long story short (because i just linked to the wiki): they're a band who got caught up in the record label machine. it's a sad story that is unfortunately repeated all to often. you know a couple of their songs. most notably, "the ballad of el goodo" (empire records soundtrack, though it's a cover) and "in the street" (that 70s show theme song.) they're a band that heavily influenced a number of other bands who heavily influenced blah, blah, blah... and so on. most exciting though (in my little musical world) is that both rem and the replacements cite big star as a major musical influence. so much so, the replacements actually recorded a tribute song, "alex chilton."

moving on, with the help of the adventureland soundtrack and hyperspace, i got my hands on their first two records: #1 record and radio city. buy them on emusic.

seriously. buy them (or it). it's timeless, classic, rock and roll songwriting. you can't help but fall in love. they're the kind of songs you wish that a greasy man (who looks like he might be homeless) would sing to you just to make you smile.

i love, love, love "i'm in love with a girl" from the adventureland soundtrack.

and speaking of greasy, incredibly adorable men, here's a cover of "thirteen" by sebastien grainger.

(sebastien grainger released one of the best records of 2008, as far as i'm concerned, and i'm sort of mad at myself for neglecting to post about it. in lieu of that, the cover. buy his record too though. it's quite fantastic. sebastien grainger & the mountains. i thought it was & les montagnes? maybe that's just in canada... haha)