I have also heard that Giant Drag does a distorted cover of this song as well, but have had no luck finding it. Anyone out there have it? Annie from the band emailed me back and she doesn’t have a live recording, but maybe some uberfan out there?
Well a new week brings new music for y’all. Here are five tracks that I found listen-worthy this week. Let me know what you think! Here’s a secret about all bloggers: we crave your comments, so leave a little note if you feel the urge.
Proclaim Your Joy – Mark Eitzel (right click, save target as) Jangly music and feel-good lyrics in this little ditty (who doesn’t need a little uplifting on Mondays?). Also tongue-in-cheek funny. Mark Eitzel (American Music Club) has a voice which reminds me of Evan Dando’s, so I like it by default. I thought this song had interesting musical footprints to it – it mixes what sounds like banjo with some little electronic touches. Different.
White Daisy Passing – Rocky Votolato (right click, save target as) Here is a new artist I just kinda found on the internet and I really like. Texas-born/Pacific-Northwest-resident Votolato has a new album coming out in 2006 called “Makers,” and this is the first cut off that album. This track has a dreamy feel to it, and if you like it you can download more music from his website. His last two releases, Suicide Medicine and Light and Sound EP, were produced by Chris Walla from Death Cab for Cutie, who also plays various instruments on the albums.
Creep – Damien Rice My first instinct is to like this cover because I like both Damien Rice and Radiohead, but I am kind of mixed on it as a cover effort because it hasn’t changed much from the original. This song, no matter who is singing it, reminds me of being angst-ridden my freshman year of high school. Oh the drama and alienation inherent in being 14.
Consequence – The Notwist (link expired) I haven’t heard much other music from these guys, but I very much dig the hazy, lo-fi, laid-back vibe to this track. From their album Neon Golden, which made it onto several reviewers’ lists of best indie albums of 2003/04. I would link you to their site to learn more about them, but lord almighty it is the most confusing thing I’ve seen since I got out of calculus. But don’t hold it against their music.
Blue Suede Shoes (live) – Carl Perkins (right click, save target as) This is so awesome. A fabulous song by an American icon, done live. Can’t sit still. “Goodness gracious alive.” I think I like this original better than Elvis’ better-known rendition. According to Perkins, he wrote this song after a show in Arkansas when he was touring with Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash (um, would have loved to see a show on *that* tour!). “Blue Suede Shoes” was recorded December, 1955, and released January 1, 1956 on the Sun label. It is still Perkins best-known contribution to the world of rockabilly music.
ALSO: I have added a new song to my Jeff Buckley Tribute Songs post, thanks to ‘Splean,’ who was very kind to send me the mp3 of the PJ Harvey song “Memphis” about Jeff. Thank you very much and please check it out!
So this song surfaced on the internet a few days ago. It’s called Stickman, and until this point it has only been around as a live version, not studio. It’s quite pretty with a definite Beatles-esque feeling to it.
It is one of apparently several unreleased studio cuts from his sessions to record From A Basement On The Hill. Let’s hope that whoever released this out there will give up a few more.
So I have been recently moving my belongings to a non-wet location and I have come across all of my absolutely fabulous mix tapes from my teen years. They are varied. They are marvelous.
I really liked (and miss) the physical process of making mix tapes…pressing play on one deck and record on the other, it felt more like a craft than just dragging, dropping, and burning. I’d pull songs off the radio sometimes so there was like “KSJO…BALL-BUSTING ROCK ‘N’ RO-” at the end before I managed to hit “stop.” It was great. Plus, I liked the artistic license contained in Side 1/Side 2. You could do two totally different things musically and yet have them under the banner of one mix tape.
Am I a geek? I think so.
FOUR MIX-TAPE LINKS:
“Singing In My Sleep,” Semisonic (mp3) A pop song about a mix tape, and listening to it over and over, even while you sleep. My revelation when I figured out what this song was about was wonderful. I thought to myself, “That is the best item ever to include on a mix for someone.”
“Mix Tape = Love,” The Tah Dahs (mp3) Another cutesy song about the process of mixing for those you love (slash lust over) containing the hilarious line, “This song doesn’t fit but I want to use it – I’ll show you I am well-rounded.“
Art Of The Mix(website) For other dorks in search of TPM (the perfect mix), this is a giant catalogue where you can post what you’ve done and why, and see what other songsters are stitching together. Not cassette tape-specific, it is all-inclusive to CDs and iPod playlists and probably even 8-tracks (what?). Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture(book) (MLA format is italicize book titles? underline? dangit.) And finally, Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth has edited a new book about cassettes which looks to be right up my alley. It is on my Froogle wishlist for this year.
So, one of the very cool things about running a music blog, I am learning, is that it can be like Christmas every day when I check my email! People from all over have sent me music I need to hear. This is an indescribably wonderful thing.
A few days ago a kind and enthusiastic soul named Adam emailed me the new Josh Ritter track, Thin Blue Flame. It is from Ritter’s new album, “The Animal Years,” due out in Spring 2006. Josh Ritter is a new name for me. Other than seeing his work on a Putumayo American Folk compilation CD (You Don’t Make It Easy Babe), I had not heard him before, so this was a treat.
Josh Ritter is a singer-songwriter from Idaho who has been steadily building acclaim for his quality releases over the past few years. Critics have compared his work to the “sparse elegance of Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, the gritty passion of Neil Young’s Harvest, and the melodic charm of Cat Stevens’ Tea for the Tillerman.” I recently read an interview with Cameron Crowe that said Ritter was favored to be on the Elizabethtown soundtrack (along with many other excellent artists, as Crowe is best for), but unfortunately ended up being left off. Ritter is signed with V2 Records (the White Stripes, Grandaddy).
If you like Damien Rice and David Gray, you will probably like this song. The length and the story-telling aspct of it also reminds me a bit of Dylan. Ritter’s new album is produced by Brian Deck, who has recently worked with Iron & Wine and Modest Mouse. Deck’s production on this song includes background chatter and glasses clinking, which adds to the sense of immediacy, as if this song is being performed live for you in a small coffee shop or dark bar. It clocks in at almost ten minutes, and I personally enjoyed listening to it on repeat while drifting off to sleep. It starts slow and builds several times and then fades, and it contains some stunning lyrics that create beautiful mental images (complete lyrics here):
The old hometown and the streets I knew wrapped up in a royal blue I heard my friends laughing out across the fields . . . the raw smell of horses and the warm smell of hay Cicadas electric in the heat of the day . . . The lake was a diamond in the valley’s hand.
Cake fans, the band is going on tour in early 2006! Starting in Massachusetts, loping across the country (through Denver, yay!) and on into California for several shows, this will be a fun one.
For tour dates, go to http://cakemusic.com/tour.html. Tickets go on sale for many shows tomorrow, Saturday the 10th (or some California shows on Sunday).
I won tickets to see Cake live once (from KFOG, possibly the best radio station in the world) at Yoshi’s in Oakland for a private concert. It was *so* grand. In addition to can’t-stay-in-your-seat music, clever lyrics, and all forms of percussion known to man (cowbell? got it. little vibrating thing? got it too.), we got to sing along to “Sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell.” It was like summer camp without the bugbites and hot guy counselors named Flash.
MUSIC DOWNLOAD Here is a Cake track off the new Stubbs the Zombie soundtrack, which is full of fun retro cover songs. It is a hokey version of Strangers In The Night (exchanging glaaaances).
Hey, remember that time that a water line in the attic froze and burst and sending 200 gallons of cascading, gushing water through my house from the attic to the basement? Oh, wait, that was yesterday, and that wasn’t fun. Even as I am temporarily displaced from home, I wil try to maintain posting because, well, I have a lot to say and you have a lot to listen to. So great is my commitment to you, the reader.
Oh, and this made me chuckle, one of the funniest blog posts I’ve read in a while, from So Much Silence.
Today marks 25 years since John Lennon was killed outside his New York apartment building by a deranged sicko Mark Chapman on December 8, 1980. I wanted to post some news from NME.com about a live tribute and covers project that will take place in the Abbey Road Studios in London, which you can listen to online. Awesome lineup:
SONG LIST / LIVE PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE From Abbey Road, London: Jamie Cullum – Jealous Guy The Delays – Give Peace A Chance, Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) Katie Melua – Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, Cry Baby Cry Paul Weller – Love Badly Drawn Boy – Happy Xmas, Look At Me Lulu – Money, Rock N Roll Music Gomez – Hey Bulldog, Instant Karma Stereo MCs – Walrus, Tomorrow Never Knows Sugababes – Come Together Stephen Fretwell – Help!, And Your Bird Can Sing Trashcan Sinatras – Woman, Free As A Bird
From SIRIUS, New York: Dave Matthews – Watching the Wheels, Good Morning, Good Morning Dr. John – Revolution Daryl Hall – Julia, All You Need is Love Teddy Thompson – You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away, I’m Only Sleeping Joseph Arthur – Imagine, Across the Universe
You should be able to listen to the Lennon Tribute today here, through the BBC Radio 2 streaming audio Thursday, December 8, from 2 pm ET to 6 pm ET (on SIRIUS Satellite Radio channel 18, The Spectrum and BBC Radio 2).
It seems that we will also be able to download some new Lennon cover tracks from the Amnesty International site for $0.99 each.
The San Jose Mercury News also featured a nice tribute piece here. Well written and insightful, plus it quotes a friend of mine, so it is worth a read. Rolling Stone also has a good story on Lennon, which I found interesting reading for the way it set the scene and filled in details of his life and the night he died which I didn’t know.
TODAY’S MUSIC DOWNLOAD I Know (demo version), John Lennon
This song was released on Lennon’s 1973 album “Mind Games,” but I much prefer this earlier stripped down demo version. I think it is a gorgeous song, simple perfection. Enjoy.
So here is a bit more on OK Go, who I mentioned in my “Let’s spread the clap” post. No, OK Go does not have the clap (well, they might but that is really their business. I hope they don’t because they are all quite cute), but the title was a reference to the use of handclaps in their music, which is intelligent, catchy, and hip-shakin fun.
Some of you may have seen their genius backyard-dance video for the song A Million Ways, which I can only liken to a synchronized-swimming routine done on land, with the bass player doing the lip-syncing to the words. They also usually end their live shows with it. It is a thing of riotous beauty. (If the above link doesn’t work on your computer, you can select a different player at their homepage www.okgo.net).
Damian Kulash, lead singer of OK Go, wrote an interesting article in the New York Times yesterday morning (12/6/05), so I guess that means he is muy importante now. From the OK Go email update:
[Damian's] article is about DRM, or Digital Rights Management, which is industry shorthand for “the reason your computer stopped working after you bought the new CD by The Coral,” and shouldn’t be confused with IHY, or It Hates You, industry shorthand for “the reason your computer stopped working after you bought the new CD by Celine Dion.”
Damian’s article is called “Buy, Play, Trade, Repeat.” You’ll find it here, unless you’re one of those hip retro-ironists who insist on reading the actual paper, in which case you’ll find it on the Op-Ed page (industry shorthand for “opposite the editorial page”) next to an article by some boob named Wesley Clark, blah-blah-blahing about the Middle-something-East.
OK Go is playing a free show in Los Angeles on 12/14, and unfree shows in Columbus and Albany. For details check their website at www.okgo.net. If you live in one of these cities, definitely go check them out.
**Photo credit David Goldman, shot for Alternative Press at the Hotel 17 in NY
Name: Heather Browne Location: Colorado, originally by way of California Giving context to the torrent since 2005.
"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel." —Hunter S. Thompson
Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. Rock on.
1. “The Arms of God, Vol. 2.” Zip file mix of Bruce Springsteen, solo acoustic from 1995. Twelve tracks of music and an interview. Thanks to Renee for uploading this gem. Details about the setlist (and even cover art!) here.
Name: Heather Browne
