Monday Music Roundup

Ah, the last day of 2007. We have about four different options for this evening and no one can decide anything. Both my brother and sister are still in town, which adds to the fun myriad of possibilities. Right now I think the frontrunners are either going to Heidi’s to drink hot German wine (she just got back from a trip to the Paterland), doing something in Denver with my little brother, or perhaps just the usual NYE tradition of sitting on my porch with that bottle of vodka and a shotgun.

Also, in related holiday news, my sister is the best present buyer ever — look what finally arrived:Courtesy of Uncommon Goods. Now I just have to figure out what to put in a bowl with a hole in the center (it was, after all, a real record in its past life).

My last five offerings of 2007!

My Own Worst Enemy
George Stanford
With a crisp piano melody that sticks in your head like a Billy Joel or Ben Folds tune, this song just feels like cold January and fresh starts. A couple of trusted ears recommended that I check out this artist from Philadelphia (George Stanford is formerly of the band Townhall). This first track I listened to is rumored to have a dual-meaning about either a girl or his love/hate relationship with his music and songwriting. Either way, it’s charming and heartfelt and I’ve found myself humming it all day. Stanford has an EP currently out on Smash Records.

Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
Vampire Weekend
I’ve mentioned before that I worked in a rad international education job for five years, and during that time I got to help dozens of students study abroad in African countries. Two students that I remember took the time to share some African music when they came back, feeding a primal love that runs hot in my veins for the ebullient, earthy percussion common to much of their music. So it’s a bit inexplicable that I’ve resisted listening to hot blog-buzz band Vampire Weekend, which has an oft-cited African undercurrent reminiscent of both Graceland-era Paul Simon (an album I unabashedly love) and mid-80s Peter Gabriel. I finally took a spin, and of course, I find their album absolutely delightful.

[Sean’s in the same late-arriving boat as me, but as usual, he’s a heck of a lot more eloquent]

Electric Bird
Sia
With swankily gorgeous vocals that boast a hint of ’40s glamour mixed with Fiona Apple’s dramatic range, Sia is an Australian artist that I have heard a a few scattered places and always enjoyed. This track is from her forthcoming January release, Some People Have Real Problems. I have no idea what is going on with the U.S. album cover so I just close my eyes and listen to the sultry brassiness of this tune instead of pondering the magic marker on the face. It could be the hot trend of 2008.

Baltimore
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
Old pal rbally blog is sneakily back after taking too many months on hiatus, and this elates me. Jenning’s fifth or sixth post since returning is a screaming live show from former Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus, with his new band The Jicks (causing me to wonder what a jick is). Rbally also points me to this new mp3 from the Matador website, a first listen off of Malkmus’ forthcoming album Real Emotional Trash, due in March. Still all crunch and fuzz but with elegant melodies and flourishes throughout, and laced with Malkmus’ literate lyrics and endearing warble.

Number One
Miss Fairchild
Finally, if you have no idea what to play tonight for your New Year’s festivites, and don’t have time to make up a mix (like moi), then the fine trio of gents from New England funk/soul band Miss Fairchild still have that 2-part mixtape up for free download on their website. Their mix blends together a wide range of old-school and modern songs (funk, hip hop, soul) with a few get-up-shake-it tracks of their own making, like this dancetastic groove from the Ooh La La Sha Sha EP. Their MySpace says they sound “like Sly Stone remixed by Beck” — it is thoroughly fresh and modern, but also a lot like something Prince would put on a mix for you. It’s a free party in 2 clicks, just waiting to happen. And a bonus for those who snag it: In January when you hit the gym with all the other resolvers, you’ll have the best soundtrack on Treadmill Row.

Oh, and this image ran in the paper today in their retrospective article on 2007. It’s still my favorite picture of the year, and when I am old, I will think back on the pure joy of The Rockies’ amazing 2007 run, and smile.

I wanna be adored

Last night I sat down on the couch with the new Rolling Stone (and their interview with my thoroughly-beloved Cormac McCarthy) and watched two very interesting BBC America documentaries. The first was called My Small Breasts and I, followed by My Big Breasts and Me. Yep, boobs. Both of them were fascinating inquiries into how a) we always want what we ain’t got and b) bigger is not always better (I must say, I ran with a new sense of gratitude at the gym today).

I mention breasts not only to watch all the interesting Google results that will now bring people here on my statcounter, but because when Small Breast British Girl #2 was walking down the cobbled streets of her quaint town, giving her new sample boobs a test drive and judging the reaction of men passing by, the song playing in the background was The Stone Roses “I Wanna Be Adored.” This made my ears perk up because that’s certainly a slinky fantastic song normally absent from American TV, and I felt the need to officially give props to those cool BBC music producers. Then, as my brain is wont to do, I ADHDed my way across synapses to think upon this cool documentary that I had recently seen on VH1 about the Stone Roses and meant to mention. See, it connects.

VH1 Classic is schooling us all with an enjoyable series on The Seven Ages of Rock, including one about What The World’s Been Waiting For: Brit Pop. If The Man is forcing you to work today, this is a superb way to kill time which is already essentially grey, lifeless, and dead in these waning hours of 2007 when no one wants to be at work.

You can watch the entire feature online, and it’s nicely broken up into segments on The Smiths, the Manchester scene, The Stone Roses, Oasis, Suede, Blur, The Libertines, etc. While I almost prefer the gentle British lull of the female narrator talking about breasts to Dennis Hopper’s sharp delivery here, you know that I love this era of music, and this series (which was originally assembled for the BBC) unearths some pretty cool live footage and has ace interviews with all the biggies.

I Wanna Be Adored – Stone Roses
I Wanna Be Adored (early version) – Stone Roses

P.S. If you haven’t read Alex Green’s wildly enjoyable take on the Stone Roses yet, why not?!

Wednesday Music Roundup

I had high aspirations for posting this on Monday, but then I had Christmas shopping to do (meager shopping since we’re still half-jobless this holiday season, which is actually kind of freeing cos no one expects anything but cookies from you). My sister and I actually braved the shopping scene to find some fun little inexpensive gifts. They’re selling shirts like that on the right at Target, which confused me.

Sis has been feeling the stress of helping to care for my sick uncle (she’s the closest-located relative to the hospital in CA) so she had expressed a desire to bake the most complicated Christmas cookies we could find while she was here in town. Her exact instructions to me were, “Go online to Martha Stewart.com, and find a recipe for something like talking reindeers with 8 layers of phyllo dough and green glitter.” We didn’t get quite that adventurous but we did manage to make even more basic cookies than truly necessary. They were good snackin to eat warm from the oven on Christmas Eve while the whole family watched A Christmas Story as we do each year in the hours before Santa comes.

“Sons of b*tches! Bumpuses!“

Bad Place
The Beauty Shop
At first, I listened to The Beauty Shop out of curiosity – their moniker was incongruous for the sound described (Mojo says “as much J Mascis as Johnny Cash”), but also probably because it made me reminisce of the cosy little Beauty Bar in San Francisco that I used to go to on occasion. See, both use the name and the promise of beautiful things to entice the unsuspecting. I am glad I clicked to listen to this trio out of Illinois because they get under my skin. This song feels a bit like that cover of Cash covering Soundgarden’s “Rusty Cage,” and when frontman John Hoeffleur sings about punching a hole in the sky, punctuated by little yelps and a rough and ready acoustic guitar, you believe him. More tunes here.

345
Supergrass
Fitting nicely onto your mix between Feist’s 1234 and something from The 5.6.7.8.s, this new numerical scorcher from Oxford’s Supergrass is just as slicing as the other new track “Diamond Hoo Ha Man” was. If these tunes are any indication of what’s to come from the forthcoming album in 2008, they’ve been listening to more White Stripes and smoking less supergrass. I felt a little frisson of electricity when this first came over my speakers.

Endless Conversation (acoustic)
The Alternate Routes
One of the Fuel/Friends favorites in 2007, The Alternate Routes keep on putting out sublime melodies with this new acoustic EP, which they’re selling exclusively at shows. Eric the guitarist tells me that the band had these alternate versions echoing in their heads of songs from Good and Reckless and True, so they recorded the EP themselves and now their label, frankly, is trying to figure out what to do with it. Let’s hope it gains an actual release in 2008 because it’s simply lovely — dusty backporch Sunday, sweetly aching, Willie Nelson-styled versions of their roosty music.

Heart It Races
(Architecture in Helsinki cover)
Dr. Dog
I mentioned this song some months ago as the b-side to a Dr. Dog 7″ Beck remix, and now I finally have the mp3 from a friend who put it on his annual Best-Of-2007 mix CD which he distributes to his lucky friends. Track #9 on the mix, I’ve been listening to this tune non-stop on repeat. It took me a while to place this song as an AIH cover that I’d streamed months before, but either way it made me love Philadelphia’s Dr. Dog even more. With equal parts Sixties doowop, git-down handclapping rhythm, and spacey My Morning Jacket-esque vocals, this is a perfect song. Perfect.

Cut Your Hair (Pavement cover)
Cassettes Won’t Listen
This is what happens when Stephen Malkmus gets channeled through your Casio keyboard, and even though it’s impossible to improve upon the original, this updates it in a strangely danceable, slightly-weird but pleasing way. Part of a free EP of Nineties covers with album art that hits right at the heart of the Class-of-’97 nostalgia bin, Cassettes Won’t Listen and the blog Music For Robots take care of you with this free collection. They also give Liz Phair, Butter 08, Blind Melon, and Sebadoh their unique treatment, just for kicks and giggles.

Had to be good for Santa Claus: Pearl Jam 2007 Christmas single

In all my years of collecting the Pearl Jam Christmas singles, I can tell you for a fact that the annual 7″ has never arrived on Christmas Eve, in the purple twilight, with snow dancing all around me.

I stopped by my mailbox a few hours ago on the way back from last minute grocery shopping for the Christmas dinner I am making tomorrow. As I stood there shivering, fumbling the key with my frozen-in-two-seconds fingers, I got a fantastic Christmas present in plain brown wrapping, stamped “Ten Club” in the corner. As every year, my heart began to thump as I savored the slow unwrapping. Most years we use the term Christmas single loosely because it turns out to be a Presidents Day present or an Easter gift. But for 2007, Ten Club — your timing was impeccable.

Merry Christmas, guys.

Santa God – Pearl Jam
Jingle Bells – Pearl Jam

Thanks to DropTheLeash for the audio rip and SYM

“…that lick embedded in our DNA starts to come out of the speakers” :: McCartney rocks Amoeba

In late June I received a cryptic email message from my friend Tony, who knew I was heading out to California at some point in the heat of the summer, but said he was “going to LA for a once in a lifetime event,” thought he might have an extra pass, and wanted to make sure I was going to be 1500 miles away and not 5. Intriguing.

The plane ticket I was holding was indeed for the end of July, not June, and on barely four days notice I couldn’t find a way to get out to the California coast that didn’t involve knocking over a liquor store. If I had, this is what I could lived through, and this is what I could have heard:

PAUL MCCARTNEY AT AMOEBA RECORDS
LOS ANGELES, JUNE 27, 2007
Drive My Car
Only Mama Knows
Dance Tonight
C Moon
That Was Me
Blackbird
Here Today
Back In The USSR
Nod Your Head
House of Wax
Get Back
Hey Jude
Lady Madonna
I Saw Her Standing There

ZIP: MCCARTNEY AT AMOEBA

During the event on a Wednesday evening, Tony texted me with something that read like “so ringo starr is standing right next to me. this is insane.” Even that tenuous connection with the proceedings three states away made me feel happy and I couldn’t wait for the boot to eventually surface. Also definitely read this piece to feel the excitement, an evening “too good to be true.”

Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova (Once) cover “Into The Mystic”

One of the most highly acclaimed musically-infused movies to come out this year, Once is the story of a Dublin busker who works part-time in a vacuum repair shop instead of living out his musical calling (Glen Hansard of the Irish band The Frames and The Swell Season), and the musical connection that he forms over the course of a week with a fellow struggling artist, a not-yet-twenty year old street vendor from the Czech Republic who happens to play the piano (Marketa Irglova, the other half of Swell Season).

You’ve probably seen the lush and lovely soundtrack that they made popping up on year-end Best of 2007 lists all over the place, and with good reason. This particular cover is a bonus track on some special editions of the soundtrack, and it is jaw-droppingly good. Although it starts winsome and delicate, it builds into moments of heartfelt intensity. The song always ends too soon, so I have to back up and listen to it over again.

Into The Mystic (Van Morrison cover) – Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova

The DVD came out this week in the U.S., which is something that my Netflix queue is thrilled about.

* * * * * * * * *
In unrelated news, this kinda restored some of my faith in humanity this morning as I read the paper over my cup of coffee. Religious or not, I thought it was an inspiring story of giving this time of year, and what we are capable of.

Christmas mixery

Mmmmmm. Cookies. My 4-year-old and I baked those Rudolph cookies last weekend. There was sugar and M&Ms everywhere, and don’t even get me started on how hard it was to bite those pretzels into antler shapes. Unsanitary, but it gets the job done the only way I could figure out how. The end result was fantastic, and we’ve been delivering (what I now realize are little saliva-contaminated) batches to our good friends all week long.

While we baked, we listened to my new Christmas mix for 2007 that I’ve been tweaking and perfecting for weeks. I think I’m good now, and since I just realized that Christmas is in 5 days, we should hop to it. Let me just say that there is so much annoying Christmas music out there. Good heavens, no one should be allowed to cover Little Drummer Boy again, and nothing with synthesizers, ever.

These 20 tracks have passed my Grinchy muster, and all 20 of them are non-annoying — good Christmas listening that won’t bug the snot out of you.

FUEL/FRIENDS CHRISTMAS MIXERY 2007
The Christmas Song – The Raveonettes
Merry Xmas Everybody – R.E.M. (2007 fan club single)
Father Christmas – The Kinks
Let It Snow – Magnet
Do You Hear What I Hear? – Third Day (with the night wind talking to the little lamb, this song was a favorite as a kid)
Merry Christmas, Baby – Otis Redding
Christmas Song – Denison Witmer
Xmas Eve – The Damnwells
Hey Guys! It’s Christmas Time! (Sufjan cover) – Luke Flowers
Here It Is Christmas – The Old ’97s (new song 2007)
Much Farther To Go – Rosie Thomas (w/ Sufjan)
Christmas Means Love – The Soul Stirrers
In The Bleak Mid-Winter – Sarah McLachlan (from Wintersong)
That Was The Worst Christmas Ever! – Sufjan Stevens (still my favorite of his thousand Christmas songs)
It Feels Like Christmas – Al Green (and to hear it, by “Christmas” Al means “sex”)
Ding, Dong, Ding, Dong – George Harrison
Sing Mary Sing – Jennifer Knapp
O Holy Night – Tracy Chapman
Waking Up On Christmas Morning – The Smithereens
Christmas Message from Elvis / Silent Night – Elvis Presley

CHRISTMAS MIXERY ZIPPERY

One note: Luke Flowers, who covered Sufjan up there in spot #9, is a talented local artist here in Colorado Springs. I saw him perform that song Tuesday night at a coffeehouse in my neighborhood, and he recorded the whole set. By the magic of the internet we can listen again and recreate that event. You can download the 12-song live Christmas album for free on his site: some lovely reworkings of traditional tunes, 4 Sufjan covers, and an original song about his Christmas pony that froze solid. Merry Christmas!

Two brand new songs from Superdrag!

Superdrag fans have been lying awake at night for the past four years on their Stratocaster-print pillowcases, tossing and turning while they ponder the aborted run of this fine Knoxville band, wondering to themselves what kind of songs may still have been nestled within them when the final incarnation of the band split in 2003.

Today, they wait no more.

Superdrag has recently reformed in their original lineup and posted two brand new songs on their MySpace page this morning with the session information listed as “4-Track 2007.” I am very excited by how good these sound. This first track preserves the classic Superdrag sound — fuzzy guitars, clattery drums and edgy-but-perfect harmonies. Plus John Davis uses the word “immolate” which makes the vocabulary freak in me do a little jig. Somewhere his high school English teacher is smiling.

I Only Want A Place I Can Stay – Superdrag

One other track (the hazier resistance of “Live and Breathe”) is streaming at www.myspace.com/superdragofficial. Let’s all go tell em how happy we are to hear them back again.

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The Stereophonics at Kelly’s mum’s house in Wales

The Stereophonics recently played a set for the BBC 1′s Live Lounge series, starting with an interview at Kelly’s childhood home in Wales, followed by a show at the Cwmaman (no, I don’t know how to say that) Men’s Club where the band had played their first show way back in the day.

The band covered the Foo Fighters song “Best of You” during the set, and after hours of fighting with the stream on the BBC site, I finally found this unofficial blog that had just the tune I was gunning for. Tonight this just seems like one of the saddest, most melancholy songs I’ve heard in a long time; Kelly sings like he’s a staring off a million miles away. Each lyric gets at me tonight. Clearly that’s also by virtue of the strength of the original songwriting here that glows through the ache.

On this version you don’t get the Grohl-screaming but you get at the core in a new way.

Best of You (Foo Fighters cover) – Stereophonics

That site also has an mp3 of their performance of “Local Boy In The Photograph,” which feels fitting for the setting. And on a lighter note, here are a few more pics from the whole silly junket:

Beryl and Oscar (aka Mum and Dad) charmingly have a few Stereophonics videos in their collection, behind the ceramic elephant and the piano school tote bag.

Kelly’s mum telling interviewer Jo Whiley about the mullet that Kelly rocked when he was younger . . .

Said mullet in the sunset. Hot.

Their live set at the Cwmaman Men’s Club.

The full photo slideshow is here

Ian Dury contest winners

Sorry I forgot to wrap this up sooner: For that cool Ian Dury 7″ contest, I have picked my two random winners. Eli from New York and khalas/Kelly each won themselves a nice vinyl single of Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll. Thanks for playing, sorry it took me so long. I just got the vinyls the other day; they sound great.