realish

Realish Mix 2009 is here!

Published by realish January 12th, 2010 in personal. 7 Comments

The mix is done! Hallelujah. (Only two weeks late this time.)

As usual there are several ways to get it. Me, I prefer old-fashioned CD (see #3) but I’m told you kids enjoy iThis and iThat.

1. Download it via bittorrent (fastest).

2. Download it directly.

3. Get it on CD (“compact disc”—ask your parents about it). I’m happy to send you the double disc if you send me your address. Really. Just send me your address. Don’t feel like you’re imposing, or you don’t really know me, or whatever whatever. This is part of my life-long quest to rebalance my karma. (I was kind of a dick when I was younger.)

Why prefer a CD? Well, I put quite a bit of thought into song order and the unity of the sides, and occasionally edit the songs to make them flow together better. All that is lost when each of 46 songs becomes a single in an mp3 library. Really, it’s meant to be heard in a car, at high volume, on a road trip. Other listening scenarios are suboptimal, but what can you do?

I’d love to hear your feedback.

UPDATE: A track list has been requested, so a track list shall be provided:

Side I
01. fun.: At Least I’m Not As Sad (As I Used To Be)
02. Florence And The Machine: Kiss With A Fist
03. Vinyl Life: Hot Sauce
04. Julian Casablancas: 11th Dimension
05. La Roux: Bulletproof
06. Wild Light: California On My Mind
07. The Avett Brothers: Slight Figure Of Speech
08. Grizzly Bear: Two Weeks
09. Monsters of Folk: Say Please
10. Pearl Jam: Got Some
11. Metric: Sick Muse
12. Little Boots: New In Town
13. Chali 2na: Get Focused
14. Blitzen Trapper: Silver Moon
15. Wilco: Bull Black Nova
16. Phoenix: Lisztomania
17. Mayer Hawthorne: Maybe So, Maybe No
18. Kid Cudi f. Kanye West & Common: Make Her Say
19. Manchester Orchestra: Tony The Tiger
20. Pink Mountaintops: Execution
21. Discovery: So Insane
22. General Elektriks: Helicopter
23. Owl City: Fireflies
24. The Budos Band: Bonus Track

Side II
01. Regina Spektor: Blue Lips
02. The xx: Islands
03. The Avett Brothers: Laundry Room
04. Deer Tick: Friday XIII
05. Todd Snider: Money, Compliments, Publicity (Song Number Ten)
06. Monsters of Folk: The Sandman, The Brakeman and Me
07. The Octopus Project: Wet Gold
08. Bat For Lashes: Daniel
09. Neko Case: This Tornado Loves You
10. Lightning Dust: History
11. Animal Collective: My Girls
12. K’naan: America
13. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros: Home
14. Drug Rug: Coffee In The Morning
15. Iron & Wine: Stolen Houses (Die)
16. Frida Hyvönen: Sic Transit Gloria
17. Dawes: Bedside Manner
18. Here We Go Magic: Fangela
19. Phosphorescent: Pick Up The Tempo
20. Regina Spektor: Laughing With
21. Harper Simon: Ha Ha
22. The Cinematic Orchestra: Arrival of the Birds

2009 mix in process

Published by realish January 6th, 2010 in music. 3 Comments

For those who have asked, yes, I’m hard at work on the 2009 mix. I should be done within a week. Stay tuned!

Reading too much punditry these days

Published by realish March 15th, 2009 in personal. 0 Comments

2008 mix: a horrible thought

Published by realish January 13th, 2009 in personal. 2 Comments

1. Most people downloaded the mix rather than asking for CDs this year. It appears the long-foretold mainstreaming of digital music is finally upon us. (Of course, now I’m stuck with a stack of CDs.)

2. Most people seem to use the execrable iTunes.

3. When you import the mix into the execrable iTunes, it completely scrambles it—won’t play it in order. And of course, song order is crucial.

Damn you iTunes.

2008 mix

Published by realish January 7th, 2009 in personal. 4 Comments

The 2008 mix is here, a bit late but no worse for wear. You can see the set list here.

As always, the easiest way to get it is to download the torrent. It’s a two-step process:

1. Install this program. (Or if you’re on a Mac, this one.)
2. Click this link.

Done!

(Previous years’ mixes can be found here.)

If you prefer to download it the old-fashioned (read: slow) way, you can do that here.

And finally, as always, if you’d like a CD send me your address and I’ll mail you one. (Really, even you.) I’ve got a stack of CDs and a stack of padded envelopes—don’t let them go to waste. I need the good karma.

Meanwhile, this is how to fight with a lightsaber:

other people’s children

Published by realish October 27th, 2008 in personal. 0 Comments

2007 mix

Published by realish January 20th, 2008 in personal. 1 Comment

It’s a few weeks late, but the Realish Mix 2007 is here. I’d love to give you a copy.

If you want to download it, you can here.

To download it, you’ll need a bittorrent client.

If you’re using a Windows machine, download and install this one. If you’re using a Mac, try this one. Feel free to contact me if you run into trouble.

If you don’t feel comfortable using bittorrent (which is, I promise, fast, easy, and free), you can download directly: set list, playlist side one, playlist side two, side one files, side two files.

If you’re old-fashioned and want a CD, just send me your address and I’ll drop one in the mail. “Even me?” you ask. “But I barely know you.” Yeah, you too. Think of it as me paying general karmic debts accrued during my unfortunate 15-30 years. I have a stack of CDs, a stack of envelopes, and a book of stamps. Just say the word.

Contact me at realish ]at[ gmail ]dot[ com.

Grip’s first tricycle ride

Published by realish May 22nd, 2007 in personal. 1 Comment

Watch to the end to witness the fruits of our comprehensive safety training.

Huck eats and sleeps

Published by realish January 27th, 2007 in personal. 0 Comments

At the same time:

Realish Mix 2006

Published by realish December 19th, 2006 in personal. 8 Comments

The 2006 mix is here! It’s good. You want a copy. I want to give you a copy. Let’s work together.

Here are some ways you can get it:

1. The Old-Fashioned Way: Snail Mail

If you still enjoy listening to actual, physical CDs—say, in your car or home stereo system—I will happily mail you one. As always, I spent quite a bit of time putting it together, and my heart swells with pride at the thought of you carrying it with you through the years, showing it to your children, having it placed in your coffin next to you, that sort of thing.

Just email me your physical address—realish [at symbol here] realish.com—with the subject line, “Dave, man, you rule. Really.”

However. If you’re a modern sort, and listen to music only on your iPod or other mp3 player, and intend to rip the CD immediately to your computer, let me urge you: don’t. The music will then have been encoded and compressed and re-encoded and re-compressed, leaving you with crappy, low-quality files.

You deserve better. You deserve high-quality mp3s. If you just want mp3s, please see delivery methods 2-5, below.

2. The Nifty Person-to-Person Filesharing Way: Pando

There’s a small, safe, and very nifty person-to-person filesharing program called Pando. It allows me to send big files or folders to you, and you to me (much bigger than email can handle). I recommend it. When you click on the following link, you’ll be prompted to download and install the program. Then you can download the mix.

You can read more about Pando here, if you like.

3. The Super Cutting Edge Firefox Way: AllPeers

For those of you who use the Mozilla Firefox browser rather than Internet Explorer—and I deeply hope that includes all of you—you’re probably familiar with “add-ons,” little widgets you can add to the browser to make it do various cool things. One of them is called AllPeers. Once you install it, you can share files with a private network of people, via the browser. You have to see it to believe it—it’s really cool.

Anyway, you can install AllPeers, then look for “realish.” You’ll see the folder available to download. Just leave your browser running.

4. The Dummy-Proof Way: Box.net

I have the mix stored online through a service called Box.net. You can download it from there via your web browser.

The catch is, you have to sign up for a box.net account. It’s free and only requires an email and password.

Once you’ve signed up for a box.net account, go here. You can click through and download the files individually, but that would take a while. Instead, click the little orange arrow at the top, next to the words “Music Mixes.” Choose “zip folder.” That will add all the files in the folder to a .zip file and start downloading.

The downloading will take a while. What can I say? It’s a big mix.

5. The Best, i.e. Bittorrent Way: Pirate Bay

If you’ve ever downloaded a bittorrent file, you know how sweet, fast, and secure it is. If you have a bittorrent client, you can download the mix from popular filesharing site Pirate Bay (yes, it’s perfectly legal … as long as you only download my mix), here.

If you don’t have a bittorrent client (a small piece of software that downloads bittorrents), well, good, you’re not a geek. I highly recommend uTorrent for its ease of use. Once you’ve installed the client just go here and click to download the torrent. That’s when the magic happens.

(Incidentally, you can also download last year’s mix, via this page.)

If you don’t want to install Pando or AllPeers, sign up for a box.net account, or download a bittorrent file … I got nothin’ for ya. Nice knowing you. Enjoy your arid, music-less life.

Questions? Email realish [ at ] realish.com, or leave a comment below.