Vampire Weekend
everyone's blogging about these guys from Brooklyn. all justifed. take a listen. soweto guitars, skanking beats, crisp pop with enough cool changes to make it all interesting.
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January 30, 2008
January 20, 2008
Sweet rock and soul from BH
Ben Harper travels back in time yet forward. The story was he and the Innocent Criminals had just spent a ton of time on the road, were burnt, but the juices were flowin'. They holed up in Paris and recorded this record in 7 days. Sweet rock and soul. Super listenable.
Fool for Your Lonesome Train
January 18, 2008
Tom Waits approved - Jesca Hoop
Waits on Hoop- "her music is like a four sided coin. She is an old soul, like
a black pearl, a good witch or red moon. Her music is like going
swimming in a lake at night".
What more to say? She used be his nanny. Kismet is the name of the record. I put "Love is All We Have", a beautiful tune about Hurricane Katrina, on my annual xmas disc I make for my family and it was, by far, the best received song. Listen for yourself and tell me what you think.
January 17, 2008
Okkervil River - The Stage Names
this record keeps seeping into me. Opening track is jumpy, with a little Wilco-esque freak out 2/3 of the way through. You Can't Hold the Hand of Rock and Roll Man is a handclap stomp that has me humming and shaking my head. But the tune that keeps me listening is A Girl in Port. Stonesy piano and slide guitars combined with Will Sheff's aching vocals - "I'm not the lady-killing sort enough to hurt the girl in port..."
From wikipedia:
Okkervil River's founding members became friends in high school in Meriden, New Hampshire, and after parting ways for college moved to Austin, Texas to live together and start a band. The band consisted of songwriter Will Sheff, Zach Thomas on bass and mandolin, and Seth Warren on drums. Their first gig was at Steamboat in Austin on January 11, 1999. The band was named after a short story by Russian author Tatyana Tolstaya, and after Okkervil River in Saint Petersburg.
A Girl In Port
You Can't Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man
Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe
November 10, 2007
rockin' new find for this old guy - Les Savy Fav
Les Savy Fav and frontman Tim Harrington - the guy least likely to share a stage with Justin Timberlake (thankfully), but, oh, my, do these guys get it on. buzzy post punk from Brooklyn. I hadn't heard of them; I received an Insound email with a pre-release offer for their first album in 6 years, Let's Stay Friends. I remember seeing the band name a few years back, thought it looked cool on the page but never checked them out.
These are off the new record released Sep 18 on French Kiss Records:
What Would Wolves Do?
Raging in the Plague Age
The Year Before the Year 2000
pic courtesy of Daniel Boud - www.boudist.com - ck out the rock attire!
November 09, 2007
Back in the saddle again
I'll be hitting you with more than a few baby pics as well as a bunch of new tunes. Sorry for the delay in updating; time to blog has been non-existent (really time, in general, has seemed to go poof since Beck's birth). He is starting to laugh, which is so simple yet so cool.
On the tune front, I've been digging the new Robert Plant/Alison Krauss record Raising Sand Definitely not a Zep album, this features a subdued Plant, the angelic pipes of Krauss and the production of T-Bone Burnett. There's some jumpy tunes along with some beautiful ballads. One review starts, " Perhaps only the fantasy duo of King Kong and Bambi could be a more bizarre pairing" but this really works. Two killer vocalists with a great producer = very good record. check it.
November 07, 2007
Introducing Beckett Crawford Arthurs
Howdy all - we are now 4.
Beckett Crawford Arthurs cruised into the world on Aug 31 at the wee early hour of 2:44am. Weighing in at 9lb 5oz, topping out at a height of 21 inches, the kid is a little bundle of love. Shana is doing great and we are all thrilled with Beck's arrival.
While writing this, Van popped into my noggin - enjoy
August 29, 2007
New New Porns
The latest effort from The New Pornographers, Challengers, picks up where Twin Cinema left off. Great pop melodies with interesting song construction that always have unique twists. Even when the melody is familiar, they layer vocals and instruments in such elegant ways. Failsafe
has a cool 'how soon is now' smiths guitar. The title track, Challengers
, has the always sweet Neko vocals. But, by far, my favorite song is Myriad Harbour
. It features these quirky call/response lyrics with pixie-one string pickin'.
If you like this record, make sure to check out Neko Case's last record, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, and AC Newman's The Slow Wonder.
August 24, 2007
The Ocular Penetration Restriction Act of 2007
sooo good. - great Friday laugh, courtesy of the Onion. the guy does such a spot on, boring congressman, it hurts. favorite line: 'as the saying goes, "nobody is born a skull fucker"
**caution: obviously some strong lingo**
August 22, 2007
The Godfather, prefunk
Gotta-have record Live at the Apollo, from the Godfather, James Brown. This is prefunk James, top of his game, entertaining like no one else. From the great horns on Think, to the sweet blues of I Don't Mind, to the amazing 10:43 of Lost Someone, you understand why this guy was the MAN. When he pleads, "I neeeeeed your love soooo bad", there is nothing you can do except give it to him...
Think
I Don't Mind
Lost Somenone
