listening party

Today we had a listening party at the Uns' house. Mary was out with her parents, but Karen, Ben and I descended on Guan for an afternoon of sharing our eclectic musical tastes.

It was iPods at dawn as we went round the room, sharing a track each and occasionally the story behind why we liked it. For posterity and because I am an obsessive list-maker, I kept note of all that we played.

We got a little sillier with our selections towards the end of the day. But it was a really interesting afternoon, and lots of fun hanging out with some of my favourite people. G cooked us a delicious dinner, we chatted about the upcoming writing website while Ben played Katamari Damacy, then called it a night. Luckily we managed to catch Mary on our way out!

And now, to bed. Who'd have thought you could get so tired just listening?

Here is the listening list in all its glory (most readers will probably just want to skip it, unless you have a particular interest in music):

• Karen: started off with Tank! from Cowboy Bebop, but then her MP3 player ran out of battery charge before the song was even done, so K was kind of restricted in what she could share with us.
• Guan: Katamari on the Rock by Yu Miyake, Masayuki Tanaka (from the PS2 game Katamari Damacy. Won't fail to cheer you up.)
• Karen: (she got another go because of the dodgy first attempt) Brestir og brak - Björk and Tríó Guðmundar Ingólfssonar (crazy Icelandic jazz)
  
• Rebecca: Anchor Song - Björk (love the lush saxophones)
  
• Ben: Letter from home - Pat Metheny (introduced by Ben as "the world's best elevator music")
• G: Blue Lines - Massive Attack
  
• K: All my stars aligned - St Vincent
• R: Edible Flowers - Finn Brothers (a soaring, sublime chorus)
• B: I wanna know girls - Portastatic
• G: Dumb it down - Lupe Fiasco
• K: Faded - The Afghan Whigs
• R: Hot girl in the comic shop - Tripod
• B: Ha ha world - Larry Norman
• G: Chemical Calisthenics - Blackalicious
• K: Confessions of a broken heart - Lindsay Lohan (Guan gritted his teeth)
• R: Your ex-lover is dead - Stars
• B: Arcadia - Apparat
• G: A little lost - Jens Lekman
• K: Comfortably numb - Dar Williams and Ani diFranco
• R: I don't like Mondays - Tori Amos
• B: Test, don't tell - Ivy (er, I might have gotten that wrong)
• G: The last trumpet - Lyrics Born
• K: Karma police - the Bad Plus
• R: The hard road - Hilltop Hoods
• B: My man, my bomb - Team 9 (Feist/Young Pony Club mashup)
• G: Thieves in the night - Black Star
• K: Towards the waves, I'm ready, There's been an accident - Twilight Singers
• R: 'you really are quite good looking, Rebecca' - Kyle from South Park (it had to be done...he says I'm a fox!)
  Waiting for my real life to begin - Colin Hay
• B: Gethsemane - John Farnham (from Jesus Christ Superstar)
• G: Release - Blackalicious
• K: Not the one in ruins - the Panics
• R: On behalf of all the geeks - Tripod
  Daft Punk is playing at my house - LCD Soundsystem
• B: Lady - Stryper
  If I were a rich man - Magnetic Fields
  Home to you - the Peasall Sisters
  'Spiderpig' from the Simpsons Movie
• K: No such thing - John Mayer
• R: Dat dere - Rickie Lee Jones