If you are worried about aliens reading your mind (and really, who isn’t?), Rocky Votolato has a song just for you. Actually, despite the extraterrestial theme, I really like this song that Barsuk Records just posted up on his section of their website for public enjoyment. I recommend his entire Makers album (2006), from which this track hails. It’s got a bit more of a beat than many of the other lush and dreamy acoustic plucking tunes on that album, and some wheezy harmonica. Check it out:
Rocky is going on tour with Lucero and William Elliott Whitmore, which is going to be a great evening of music. They swing through these parts in late October and I don’t think I’ll be in town, unfortunately. But if I were, I’d be there with bells on.
Just a quick note as I dash out the door on this (rainy) Friday afternoon to go potentially freeze my butt off at a Rockies game up in Denver with my sister tonight. I’ve been looking for a reason to post up this mp3 of Eddie Vedder singing the old baseball classic, and jumped for joy when I realized today was the day:
“Take Me Out To The Ballgame” – Eddie Vedder From 5-14-06 with a special Mother’s Day dedication for the mamas (Link updated 9-26)
I really want to root, root, root for the home team now that I have relocated to Colorado, but I secretly miss the San Francisco Giants like nobody’s business. Whether it was the old cheapie bleacher seats my family used to regularly occupy when they played at Candlestick Park, or the beautiful sunny days spent at the new Pac Bell Park with some garlic fries, a cold beer, and the view of the Bay, all is well in my world when I am rooting for *my* home team.
Ben Kweller is all grown up, and with this new album of his (self-titled, ATO Records, just came out Tuesday) he is poised to be spending a lot more time spinning in my CD player. His new album is an engaging and well-crafted pop gem that sounds best played loud in the open air. There’s a lyric that goes, “He is in the yard just washing his car, thinking ’bout his pretty wife, making lemonade with the KitchenAid, making him a perfect life.” For me, that pretty much sums up the feel of this album. Lemonade, outside, perfect life.
The songs consistently have these great builds and breaks that make me want to dance around and airdrum on things. There’s also that effect where I found myself somehow singing along on the choruses the very first time I listened to it. It’s got a recognizable quality even if you’ve never heard him before, but it’s eminently fresh.
While I have enjoyed the playful pop of his previous two releases, the thing that struck me about this new effort is the maturity of his lyrics. Ben got married to longtime girlfriend Lizzie in 2003 and together they just welcomed a little baby boy earlier this summer, so it’s not surprising that his songs nowadays dredge deeper relational questions and struggles than before. Whereas we used to best know Ben for the lyric “She is a slut but X thinks it’s sexy, Sex reminds her of eating spaghetti, I am wasted but I’m ready,” now he throws out lyrics that catch my ear and that I can relate to, about the everyday challenges and joys of real relationships, and of loving someone so different from yourself.
He muses to his gal on “Sundress”: “I wanna start going on a mornin’ walk, What about the days when we used to talk?” — and it just resonated as being such a simple and honest sentiment. Kweller relates tales of “passionate make outs and passionate freak outs” in the winding piano ballad “Thirteen”, and the stupidity of arguing late at night (“Lights on through the night just to get it right, A battleground at my feet, an unwinnable fight”) amidst the warm autumn harmonies of the lovely “Nothing Happening.”
But the album is also a touching and real collection of sweet, straight-up love songs (“She’ll never be in second place. I see it in her, I hear it in her, I feel it in her, I know it’s in her. She’s magic”) and old-fashioned desire (“Skin to skin in the salty river, made love in the shadows”).
As we’ve discussed before, Ben Kweller plays all of the instruments on this album and wrote all of the songs. That’s pretty impressive once you hear the variety of instruments he uses, and to such competent effect. One of the best tracks on the album, “I Gotta Move” sounds like something that The Beach Boys or The Monkees would be proud to claim, although Ben’s take is a bit more electric but still with that same deep goodness radiating throughout. “I Don’t Know Why” has just a slight edge to it that actually reminds me of Tom Petty (oh! it channels the melody of “Won’t Back Down,” that’s it), and there is a fun White Stripes vibe to the garage punk closer “This Is War.” There are triangles chiming, xylophones blomping, piano melodies and sublime vocal counter-melodies blending together, and maybe even a little cowbell. It’s a pop symphony.
TUNES: Run – Ben Kweller (opening track, great thrumming song — and do I hear a hint of Springsteen in those opening jangles?)
My favorite song on the album is still probably “Penny On The Train Track,” and Matt has that one up over on You Ain’t No Picasso if you want to preview it before you go out and buy the album.
************************************************************************* And this one is just for fun, because you know I can’t resist when it comes to covers:
Several of my fantastic eagle-eye readers wrote me in the middle of the night to let me know that Damien Rice has announced his new, long-awaited follow-up album to 2003′s “O“.
In keeping with the pattern of succinct album titles, the new one will be called “9,” and will come out in November in Ireland on Rice’s own Heffa label. I hear that Rice produced & recorded the album himself, as well as designed all the artwork. So he multitasks.
FULL TRACKLIST 1. 9 Crimes 2. The Animals Were Gone 3. Elephant 4. Rootless Tree 5. Dogs 6. Coconut Skins 7. Me, My Yoke And I 8. Grey Room 9. Accidental Babies 10. Sleep Don’t Weep
Rice recently played a two-song set in New York City (and he didn’t invite c) for the ONE (Make Poverty History) campaign, which means, of course, that Bono was there. The U2 frontman introduced Damien, and had some pretty serious words of praise for the Irish songwriter.
Bono said, “What you’re about to hear and see is like being at a Bob Dylan gig in the early Sixties or a Cat Stevens gig in the early Seventies or James Taylor, or something extraordinary. Damien Rice is able to still and distill the storms into quiet reflection. He’s really a remarkable talent, I can’t quite believe that he’s here. I’m very humbled and very honoured and I would ask New York to give him the kind of welcome only New York, only Manhattan can, and then give him the silence he deserves because this is something very special.”
Then the best part is that Bono repeatedly demanded silence from the audience; among the stars who watched his performance were models Helena Christensen and Christy Turlington and actors Heather Graham and Ed Burns. An exact quote of Bono’s words were: “Take your f*cking finger food and f*ck off!”
That entertains me to no end. I want to take Bono around to concerts with me.
You liked their Descended Like Vultures CD last year? Yeah, me too. Well now you can give a little something back to the band that gave you suchgoodlistening last year. Kudos to these guys for organizing this and for all the caring (and really good) musicians who are contributing their chops for this show. Wish I could make it.
Rogue Wave Benefit Show
On Saturday September 30th 2006, San Francisco band Rogue Wave will host a benefit concert at The Independent to raise money for their drummer Pat Spurgeon, who is in desperate need of a kidney transplant.
Pat was born with one kidney and it failed. He had his first transplant in 1993, which served him well until now. After 13 years, it has started to deteriorate. He has been on dialysis since April and is hoping desperately to find a donor. Some of their friends have gotten tested to see if they are a match, but Pat has yet to hear good news.
Provided he finds a donor, there will be an enormous amount of costs that both Pat and his donor will incur. In a logical world, medical insurance would cover his donor’s and his expenses after the procedure, but it does not; so he and his family must carry the financial burden. The expenses can be huge. We are trying to raise money for costs like: donor’s travel, care, bills, lost work wages, etc., as well as Pat’s expenses, care, bills, etc. while he is in recovery.
If you cannot attend the show, we encourage you to donate whatever you can by visiting www.roguewavemusic.com. (Note from Heather: I just gave a little bit and wow! I feel like a better person)
Thank you for your love and continued support, Rogue Wave (Zach, Pat, Gram, Evan)
SUPER SHOW: 9/30/06 The Independent 628 Divisadero St., San Francisco, CA 94117 Doors: 8:30pm; Show: 9:00pm Tickets available now on www.ticketweb.com
It’s Wednesday. It’s the middle of the week, hump day, booooring. You’re stranded on a little island right in the center of the workweek, equidistant from either weekend, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
How about improving your blah mood with a podcast dedicated entirely to songs which use that feel-good manual form of percussion, the handclap? I am a complete sucker for songs which effectively utilize this, the oldest form of percussion (other than, like, woolly mammoth foot thuds or something), and I have contributed a track and a scintillating spoken intro in the middle of the hour, right after the ‘Mats song. I had so many great songs to choose from, but I went with the one that was the most infectiously catchy, a favorite of mine.
To stream the dealio, head over to the Contrast Podcast site and click the neat little button. Seamless and my preferred method.
If you must have something to download and savor, you can get the mp3 of the podcast here:
It is practically so much fun that I feel it should somehow be illegal. There are some great & varied selections this week (and that Meters song was the one used in the closing credits dance scene from Hitch — come on, it was funny!).
Take some time and spin this podcast, you will be happy that you did.
(image shamelessly swiped from the fab Girlpants.org music blog)
My eyes are on the verge of bleeding. I don’t know what’s worse, the side ponytail or the fact that they’ve just stripped all the sly humor out of this glorious dance. Ice dancing to OK Go’s “A Million Ways”: it’s almost like a Craig and Arianna skit gone wrong.
There are 18 positive, glowing comments on the YouTube page for this video, and nary a dissenter. Am I just missing something? Holy lord.
I went to the dentist this afternoon, a new guy. He actually called me “Sally SuperTeeth” after he checked out my pearly whites, and continued to do so for the entire appointment. Like the upward of eight times or so. It was awesome.
The little third grader in me felt like I got a gold star. I almost raided the toy chest on my way out.
The coolest news around these parts this weekend is my newfound ability to bring music to any room in my house with the new iSphere that my folks got me as a belated birthday present! I love hearing the bass, cranking it loud directly from my iPod, and being able to cruise through my playlists whatever I am doing. It vastly improves upon my previous system of bringing my laptop wherever I wanted to listen to tunes, or being reclusive and putting in the earbuds. Yay! I think you should get one, definitely the coolest electronic toy I’ve had in several years. (Thanks Mom & Dad!)
Here are some of the songs that have been gracing said iSphere in recent hours.
“Technology“ The Whigs You must give The Whigs a listen right now, and buy their new album, the pugilisticly-titled Give Em All A Big Fat Lip, when it’s re-released tomorrow on ATO Records (home of Ben Kweller, Mike Doughty and My Morning Jacket, among others). From the opening beatbox breaths of this Strokes-like melodic rocker, I was hooked. The album is varied and driving from start to end. Rolling Stone called the three-piece from Athens, Georgia “One To Watch,” raving about their “Ninieties indie rock with Sixties pop craftsmanship and Southern-rock twang . . . the best unsigned band in America.” Good thing ATO snapped them up; I foresee good things from these guys.
“I’ll Walk You Out“ Corinna Repp When Mark Kozelek (muted frontman of the Red House Painters/cover-loving experimenter of Sun Kil Moon) couldn’t find someone to distribute his collection of hushed Modest Mouse reinventions, he created his own label, Caldo Verde. Although he says he wasn’t looking to add artists to the roster, now he has signed the fantastic Ms. Corinna Repp – and check out this crackly, lo-fi, atmospheric gem from the Portland native. Her debut album The Absent And The Distant comes out tomorrow on Caldo Verde, and she will be touring with her benefactor Kozelek for a handful of shows in October, starting in Indianapolis. Other music from Repp can be found on eMusic, including her contribution to the terrific sampler The Sound The Hare Heard.
“Let’s Turn The Record Over“ Elliott Smith My blogger pal Chad was the first of my regular-reads to draw attention to the four new demo songs from Elliott Smith that were posted last week over on Elliott Smith B-Sides (because Chad has Elliott radar built in like a bat). I think this one is my favorite because of the strong harmonic vocals with just a hint of desperation, and the short length which leaves you wanting more. You should also check out “True Love,” a beautiful track which is rumored to have been produced by the masterful Jon Brion. As Chad says, all this posthumous material is setting Elliott up to be the Tupac of the singer-songwriter world. Aw yeeeah.
“The First Five Times (Russian Futurists remix)“ Stars Thanks to Dodge’s weekend record store hunts, we get to hear this sample track from the forthcoming Stars remix album, Do You Trust Your Friends (due this fall on Arts & Crafts). The original version of this song, with it’s rhapsodic orchestration that falls in like an assault and its clean, feisty percussion, is one of my favorites on their superb 2004 release Set Yourself On Fire. But this version is starting to grow on me as well, with its dirty electric guitar grooves and fat pauses between the thumping beats. A remix album sounds like an interesting idea since Stars make richly layered music that can be reimagined in a variety of ways. Thanks Dodge!
“Pile of Gold“ The Blow Finally something that should make you get up and shake it a little bit, if everything is functioning correctly with your rhythm-thing. There is a slightly sleazy ’80s-cocaine sheen to this track from The Blow, which a friend of mine christened the “Hey Ya” of the indie rocker world when he first heard it. The lead singer Khaela Maricich sounds reminiscent of Karen O. from Yeah Yeah Yeahs in her snarly drone with a sexy little edge to it, and the comparisons to the simple male-female duo sound of Mates of State is pleasantly unavoidable. The Blow is from Portland, and this track is off their new album Paper Television (Oct 26, K Records).
Finally, I’ll leave you with something that made me laugh recently. I was watching some episode of Saturday Night Live (I think a re-run because I no longer sit at home to watch SNL on Saturday nights — because, well, I am not a high schooler with no car anymore) and something actually made me laugh (!!). They were doing a spoof of NBC’s fall lineup and one of their new “shows” was billed this way: “This fall, watch straight men receive fashion advice from a gay guy who may or may not be looking at you in ‘Queer Guy With A Lazy Eye’!”
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.
If you are worried about aliens reading your mind (and really, who isn’t?), Rocky Votolato has a song just for you. Actually, despite the extraterrestial theme, I really like this song that Barsuk Records just posted up on his section of their website for public enjoyment. I recommend his entire Makers album (2006), from which this track hails. It’s got a bit more of a beat than many of the other lush and dreamy acoustic plucking tunes on that album, and some wheezy harmonica. Check it out:
Ben Kweller
Name: Heather Browne
