Cheese Muffins

I've been on a baking kick lately. A few days ago I made cupcakes from scratch, and today I made Monterey Jack muffins. When we got our new kitchen last month we also got speakers installed, so I am now able to bake and listen to music simultaneously! Muffin Recipe, Muffin Mixtape, and muffin pictures below! :)

Recipe for Monterey Jack Muffins
Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 beaten egg
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup cooking oil
• 1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

1. Preheat oven to 400°. Grease one muffin tin (should hold 12 muffins) and set aside. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cheese. Make a well in the dry ingredient mixture.
2. In another mixing bowl, combine egg, milk, and oil. Pour egg mixture into the dry mixture. Mix until moistened. Do not mix too much, or the dough will be too tough!
3. Spoon batter into muffin tin. Each muffin cup should be about 2/3 full. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden. Let cool for 5 minutes and eat warm.

This recipe is super easy and the muffins were pretty good, if I do say so myself. I adapted the recipe from one I found in a Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. Including baking time, it took about 35 minutes.

Muffin Mix

1. Stay Positive- The Hold Steady
2. Two Halves- My Morning Jacket
3. You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb- Spoon
4. The Sons of Cain- Ted Leo
5. Eraser- No Age
6. Sequestered in Memphis- The Hold Steady
7. Alex Chilton- The Replacements
8. I'm Amazed- My Morning Jacket
9. Constructive Summer- The Hold Steady
10. Sheila Take a Bow- The Smiths
11. A Little Bit of Feel Good- Jamie Lidell

The mix was just thrown together before I started baking. It's basically a blend of good songs off the albums that have been in heavy rotation over the past few days (Stay Positive, Evil Urges, Pleased to Meet Me...). No order, but it is about 35 minutes which is the time it takes to make the muffins! Woohoo!

Muffin pictures!

Happy 4th of July

Not a patriotic song in the least, but it has "American Flags" in the title...

Sorry I Accosted You.

I accosted a probably very friendly couple at a Barnes & Noble about a month ago. I feel bad about it, and yet I knew that accosting them was my duty. Read on:

I was standing in line with some friends at Barnes & Noble. Susannah was purchasing Robert Penn Warren's "All The King's Men" for summer reading, and as I waited for her to check out, I eyed the small CD rack. It was stocked with impulse soccer-mom buys, such as Michael Buble and Kenny G, but then, in the upper right corner, there was a copy of The Best of Radiohead. Now, as a huge Radiohead fan, I knew that this compilation album was in no way Thom Yorke's idea. It was a portion of EMI's plan of revenge after Radiohead left their label to give away In Rainbows. A twenty-something couple in front of me were browsing the CDs as well.

"Oh, Radiohead!" said the man, picking up a copy.
"They're great," replied his girlfriend tracing her finger down the back track listing.

I fretted. "These people can't purchase this sham of an album! Radiohead wouldn't want that!" I thought. So, I did what any partially insane teen would do.

"You can't buy that!" I said abruptly.

The couple stared at me blankly. I stared back.

"Um. EMI, Radiohead's old label, released it without permission. Radiohead, uh, doesn't want people to buy it," I stammered.

The couple stared at me blankly.

"Um. Ok," said the male with a forced chuckle, placing the album back on the rack. "Why is this nervous girl with braces yelling at me about Radiohead?" he was probably thinking.

My friend Victoria looked at me with an amused smile. I turned around and walked away. Mission accomplished.

My apologies for accosting you, friendly couple. But you really shouldn't buy the album.

Summer Shuffle

Every summer for the past three years I have made a massive playlist called the Summer Shuffle. It usually contains between 75 and 100 songs, ranging from old classics to new hits or just whatever I've been listening to, or simply songs that remind me of summer. The tunes are in no particular order, and every time I listen to it, I just stick the whole thing on shuffle so a new mix comes up every time. I'm the kind of person who puts great care into making mixes. I try to make the songs flow perfectly into each other, and I put a lot of focus on what the first and last tracks are, making sure there's enough meat in the middle so that the listener doesn't get bored, etc. So, the Summer Shuffle is quite a departure from my usual mix-making tendencies, but it far-and-away my favorite thing to listen to in the summer. This year though, in addition to my Shuffle, I made an "abridged" summer mix, using 16 songs from the shuffle, organized to maximize the listening experience. Here's the track listing:


a waste of time, pure and simple.

1. Blankest Year- Nada Surf
2. I Feel it All- Feist
3. Wild Mountain Nation- Blitzen Trapper
4. Production City- The Whigs
5. Lights Out- Santogold
6. Graveyard Girl- M83
7. 7 Stars- The Apples in Stereo
8. Strawberry Swing- Coldplay
9. Baby Britain- Elliott Smith
10. Heavy Metal Drummer- Wilco
11. Kirby's House- Razorlight
12. To Go Home- M. Ward
13. White Winter Hymnal- Fleet Foxes
14. Boy With a Coin- Iron & Wine
15. In Our Talons- Bowerbirds
16. Neverending Math Equation- Sun Kil Moon

If you're interested in a copy, email me at nmsles@gmail.com with your address. I'll send over a copy of the mix in a one-of-a-kind case :)

And with that, I leave you with this summer-spirited picture.

No Age or Fleet Foxes?

Dilemma: Should I go to the No Age show or the Fleet Foxes show?

F Yeah! I Want My FNMTV!

I missed it. By a few years, by a generation, whatever. I missed when MTV was actually MUSIC television. For my generation, MTV has just been about The Hills, and Real World, and My Super Sweet Sixteen- not to mention the truly craptastic shows like Next and Parental Advisory. Even MTV2 is just reruns of Punk'd and Cribs. No music. I once tried to get into TRL and watch it after school everyday, but then I got sick of it because it was the same terrible music videos every day, and the hosts were annoying. I've always wanted an MTV show that actually focused on music and new videos that were interesting.

I think I found that show. On Friday nights all summer, there is a new show called F'N MTV (the FN stands for either "Friday Night" or "Feedback Now"). It's hosted by Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy, who I really do not care for at all, but I watched the first episode and sort of...loved it. To start with, the mix of groups who appeared, performed and premiered new videos were eclectic, so say the list. Lil Wayne and Duffy each performed their latest singles. Vampire Weekend, Shawty Lo and Boys Like Girls each premiered new videos. Katy Perry was on the commenting board, along with two other fellows who are somehow qualified to comment on music videos. The format of the show was fun and interesting, and so simple that you wonder why MTV doesn't just make all of their programming like that. It was, without a doubt, the best two hours of MTV I've ever watched.

For starters, Vampire Weekend premiered their "Oxford Comma" video, which was awesome. It's a single shot and very Wes Anderson (one of the commenting men was very happy to have made this comment of about Anderson. He seemed quite smug after mentioning it. Which made me resent the fact that I noticed it too.) and not to mention that "Oxford Comma" is a great song. BLG premiered some emo-pop video of theirs that I didn't care for because it looked and sounded like every emo-pop song/video ever.... Duffy was great performing "Mercy," Lil Wayne was better performing "A Milli". People could text their opinions of the videos as they aired and then there would be a tally of people's opinions after the video. Pete Wentz was not even as annoying as I had anticipated (granted, I anticipated 100% annoyance).

Basically, the show was pretty awesome. If they kept this the whole year I would definitely tune in. To put it in the words of one nervous hipster who sent a video of himself commenting on the "Oxford Comma" video: "It was...the best thing I've seen on MTV. Ever."

Oh and I just remembered that Lil Mama showed a video too, which was great! Yeah! F'N MTV! Yeah!

Mid-year Review- Best Albums of 2008 (so far)

I shouldn't really call these the best albums of 2008, these are just my favorites, and god knows my taste needs some sharpening. So here, in no particular order, my favorite albums of 2008, so far.

1) For Emma, Forever Ago- Bon Iver

Just a gorgeous collection of songs, some heartbreaking, all of them perfect for listening to at night. The myth behind the album is that Justin Vernon (I'm too lazy to fact-check, but I'm pretty sure that's his name) hibernated all-by-his-lonesome in a cabin for quite some time and emerged with these soulful acoustic tunes. NPR recorded his set when he opened for Black Mountain in DC in February. That recording can be found here. Listening to it makes me all the more excited to seem him in August. Should be a great show.

2) Narrow Stairs- Death Cab for Cutie

To all of you naysayers blabbing on about how Ben Gibbard is a wimp and Death Cab sold out once they were on the O.C., please kindly shut up. Death Cab will always get flack for being to sensitive and too girly, but dammit, this is a great album. It's got more meat than Transatlanticism, the songs are catchy as hell, and I got the album a week before it released through a leak (Don't worry, I paid real money for it when it actually came out. Otherwise I would feel dirty.) and it has yet to grow stale. The instrumentals shine here more than on any of their past efforts, and Chris Walla's production job is, in a word, fantastic.

3) Nouns- No Age

What fun! That's all I can say about No Age's wonderfully cacophonous Sub Pop debut (don't get all hot and testy- I know they made albums before, hence why I specified that this is their Sub Pop debut). The punk duo sounds like their having a great time through each of the melodic lo-fi punk gems on this album. I was hooked since I heard "Eraser," and I ain't letting go. Hopefully No Age sticks around for more great releases.

4) Hold On Now, Youngster...- Los Campesinos!

This punctuation-happy twee-core outfit has to be one of the (sorry) cutest bands I've ever seen. After hearing "You! Me! Dancing!" on a podcast, I purchased the album and was addicted to their hook-filled tunes, witty lyrics and charming use of the glockenspiel. I had the opportunity to interview guitar player Tom for my zine Pop (interested in a copy? email us at popmagdc@gmail.com! woo!) and instantly fell in love. He was incredibly friendly and adorable and gushed about Pavement and had an accent. It was wonderful. **I just finished reading John Sellers's memoir, Perfect From Now On. In it, he mentions a particularly terrible album review in which the female author began by describing her immense crush on the lead singer. I ashamed to see that I just did that. My deepest apologies. This is why they don't let 16-year-old girls write for Spin.

5) Mission Control- The Whigs

The Whigs are a severely under appreciated group. The trio crafts concise rock n' roll tunes with a heaping helping of The Replacements and a grungy polish. I loved their first release, Give 'Em A Big Fat Lip, and Mission Control is in no way a sophomore slump. In fact, I think the boys got better. Every song feels like the best and each sounds better when the volume is cranked. The album is solid, cohesive and balanced, yet each song can stand strongly on its own. Why the Whigs don't have more mainstream attention is beyond me. Their songs are catchy and melodic, with what I think of as widespread appeal. This is the kind of band that you just want to hang out with. I can't wait to hear what they put out next. Just writing about it makes me crave it. Off go the Talking Heads, on go the Whigs. So...good....

6) Vampire Weekend- Vampire Weekend

Don't you just hate when some band is hyped to the point of exhaustion after the release of one EP, and then their album finally comes out, and it is, well, a massive disappointment? And you hear they suck live, to boot? Luckily, none of that (except the "hyped to the point of exhaustion part," of course) applies to Vampire Weekend. Their debut is original (to all of you who say it's a Graceland knock-off...just let it go already), obscenely catchy, and accessible enough to put on mixes for friends (I'm not one who cares deeply about accessibility, but Vampire Weekend is much more appealing to my less musically-inclined friends than, say, Animal Collective. So it's good to have stuff like this on tap when they ask for mixes.). Overall, I love this album. It's sunny and light, and I must admit, I'm impressed that the boys were able to crank through the trenches of hype and produce an album that lived up to, if not exceeded, expectations. I've been especially excited to get it back into rotation lately, because it is such a summer album.


That's all for now, folks. I would have put My Morning Jacket up there, but I just bought it last week. While I know it will probably be in my Top 10 of 2008 list, I'd feel like a sham if I judged it a week into the purchase. Some other albums I've bought and loved include The Dodos, Fleet Foxes and Girl Talk.

I'm Baaaaaaack.

So I left this blog a few months ago for no reason in particular (I believe, "I'm too busy" was what I told myself. Meh. I waste so much time in a day that I'm never really too buys.). But. I've decided that's important to keep writing about music in order to practice to that when I'm old enough I can create the bitchinist music magazine or supervision company or TV show ever. Skadoosh. And I'm off! See you in a few. I gotta go brainstorm what to write.

OK Go w/ Bonerama- 9:30 Club, 2/2/08

Artists on the Rise

Chester French
These Harvard grads got noticed by Pharrell (yes, that Pharrell) for their ultra-catchy Beach Boys-flecked tunes. The duo's preppy style also reflects in their lyrics, such as in the earworm "The Jimmy Choo's." Their MySpace is racking up friends by the minute, and the duo (D.A. Wallach and Maxwell Drummey) will be releasing their debut, Love the Future some time in the...future.

Jack Penate
Through his distinct Londoner accent, this jumpy new singer is gaining points through his musical similaritites to singers such as Kate Nash and Lily Allen. On his debut, Matinee, Penate's hooky and ska-tinged melodies act as the cherry on top of a lovely lyrical sundae. He's got a great falsetto to boot.