Monday Music Roundup
Okay, so perhaps you, like me, enjoy some chuckles from the audacity and obvious illiteracy of the spam that you encounter in your daily email life. I always wonder to myself, “Hmmm, self. Could ‘Lotts of plesure waits for you right after you take this medicine ‘ from a Romanian email address be, in fact, honest medical advice? ORRR perhaps that ‘small-cap ivesssting hint!!!’ that I’ve been needing is just right there in my inbox!
I never have the guts to actually engage the spammers, mostly for fear that they will somehow firebomb my inbox, but one courageous soul from the Best Of Craiglist feature did just that. And he rocks my world. I almost fell out of my chair laughing.
While you read that, listen to these:
Lord Don’t Slow Me Down
Oasis
This is a new song that Oasis has graciously bestowed upon us from their aforementioned tour documentary Lord Don’t Slow Me Down, which is currently being screened for fans in locations across the U.S. You know how nutso those Oasis fans are — someone smuggled this (fairly decent other than one quiet muffle at the beginning) recording of the new song somehow, since it’s not released in any official way yet. Written by Noel and recorded during the Don’t Believe The Truth sessions, Gallagher described it in typically lavish hyperbole as being “one of the best things, like The Who, The Yardbirds and the Jeff Beck Group combined, and it’s got two drum solos on it!” He has also said that his girlfriend thinks it’s the only Oasis song you can dance to. It sounds huge and stomping and ready for a big arena show, and I must admit a bit grudgingly that it may be growing on me.
If I
Piers Faccini
I am pretty sure I found this guy over on the excellent (and of late legally beleaguered) Aurgasm blog. Piers Faccini‘s first full-length American release, Tearing Sky, came out this month, and it is a fascinating interweaving of singer/songwriter rocking-acoustic music (like Everloving labelmate Jack Johnson, or tourmate Ben Harper) with global rhythms and vocals. With Faccini’s low whispered voice, it’s bedroom music with a touch of the exotic. You can download two more of his songs on his MySpace. He’s got some European tour dates (he is loved in Belgium), then a few on the West Coast, including the musty allure of the Hotel Utah in SF.
Get Into My Life
The Winnerys
So shut up — these guys are from Madrid?! In a highly entertaining retro-power-pop throwback that I’d swear was from Liverpool, this Spanish quartet is making some sweet ’60s sounds. Listen to those harmonies on this track (especially on the lyric “More than one night, more than one day“) from their Daily Urban Times album (2006, Rainbow Quartz/Redeye). Uplifting and highly recommended, you’d have to be dead inside not to like this one. Thanks to Bruce’s post on Power Pop for this.
In The Countryside
Benjy Ferree
Here’s one that I would never have expected to sound the way it does. Benjy Ferree looks like Sam Beam from Iron & Wine (think = melancholy bearded strummy music) and the album cover leads me to think that we are going to hear songs on the lute about the Sherwood Forest. However and happily, this is a rousing march replete with ebullient instrumentation and strong British Invasion overtones that tells me to put my happy hands in the air, which is exactly what I just might do. From the 2006 release Leaving The Nest (Domino).
Hard Luck Tom
The Bees
Oh, so confusing. So this is The Bees (US), not the UK fellows from the Isle of Wight that I have enjoyed in the past. The American Bees are from Nashville and this song is pure sunshine and feel-good vibes that makes you want to roll down a hill in the dandelions. But you try it and see. From the 2006 album High Society that now I really must get (thanks Neiles for the rec).
that oasis song truely is the fuckin bollocks and yes, even you will end up dancing as you vacum in pearls! you know who this is!
Anonymous — November 27, 2006 @ 6:18 pm
well, obviously it’s no Walk In The Park, but they can’t all be.
heather — November 27, 2006 @ 7:15 pm
hey no problem..thanks for the link!
Styeiles — November 27, 2006 @ 9:13 pm
that correspondence is freaking hilarious!
jeffro — November 28, 2006 @ 3:58 pm
Oasis tune is fuckin brilliant!!! Straight up, plug your guitar in, turn it up to 10, smack you in your face rock n roll. Need more of it. Too much of this sad sap introspective indie going around.
Pyze — November 30, 2006 @ 1:52 pm
“High Society” really is something special — out of 11 songs, only one can be considered filler — and the Bees look like they’re right at home on CD shelves between the Beatles and Chris Bell. Daniel Tashian, the band’s lead singer and songwriter, played guitar on Josh Rouse’s “Nashville” album; “High Society” and “Get Something Started,” “Nashville” keyboardist Curt Perkins’s new album, prove that Rouse had some equally talented singer-songwriters backing him up a few years ago.
Tashian cowrote Rouse’s “Quiet Town,” and the Bees’ “The Country Life” has the same theme. Both are great songs.
Keep up the great work, Heather! I don’t see how you have the energy.
Mulberry Panda 96 — December 4, 2006 @ 9:40 am