Grab Bag : New and Recent Releases

May 23, 2007 by · Leave a Comment
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Miranda Lambert is back with a second album, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and sets loose her inner Dixie Chick for an excellent disc that rocks as hard as it twangs. Proving she’s not some one album flash in the pan, Miranda wrote the bulk of the tunes on this new disc. Check out the blistering title track.

MP3: Miranda Lambert – Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Buy Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Nick Lowe may or may not have an inner Dixie Chick, but he surely knows how to weave the country into his soulful pop gems.
He brings it full circle with At My Age, a new disc that’s closer to his Brinsley Schwartz roots than to his Jesus of Cool Pure Pop For Now People years.

MP3: Nick Lowe – A Man In Love
Buy At My Age

Photo By Ken Hinchey

Rap accompanied by lap steel guitar, in the words of the band :
Many have seen us, but they don’t know what our name is
They can’t remember,what I often hear’em say is
The white guy, in the white suit, with the black tie, on the slide, with the black guy, is fly
Hey Yo, We’re Slo Mo…The Odd Couple Of the Year
We love to play for people, mingle, and have a couple beers – Slo-Mo “Odd Couple”

MP3: Slo-Mo – Aramingo Takeout
Buy Smokey Mountain

Put Philip Glass, The Chemical Brothers and Ween in a room, tell them all to start playing at the same time, and you’ll have an idea of what Baltimore’s Dan Deacon sounds like. The Pitchfork rave of the moment is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but his noisy cacophony of song is definitely different.

MP3: Dan Deacon – Okie Dokie
Buy Spiderman Of The Rings


The National – Boxer, the anticipation and buzz on this disc was so loud I had to check it out for myself.
I’ll commit blogger blasphemy and say I’m still not sure what the big deal is. Here’s one song I really liked. Listen for yourself and see what you think.

MP3: The National – Apartment Story
Buy The Boxer

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Grab Bag : Ryan Adams,Bless 1, Feist, AI

May 17, 2007 by · Leave a Comment
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Many thanks to all of the Ryan Adams fans who have been dropping by. Download the Halloween Head and Two over at ProductshopNYC. Live versions of a bunch more of the new songs here.

Forget about the new Kanye West and Common leaks, Chicago has a new contender. Get the new track from Bless 1, “My Existence” over at Thirty Three Jones.

File this in the “I just don’t get it” category. Someone please leave a comment explaining why Feist is so extremely popular right now. I mean there’s nothing really offensive about her, but nothing I can see to drive so much hype either. Here’s her recent appearance playing live on a bus for the Jimmy Kimmel show.

Feist on the bus on Jimmy Kimmel 5.15.07- “I Feel It All” and “The Park”

American Idol, hmmm now what’s that quote again ? :

“A bad day of music on a preprogrammed Clear Channel radio station is still better than a good day on American Idol”

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Grab Bag : Recent Releases

February 28, 2007 by · 2 Comments
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Who Reads The Directions Anyway ?


Just a mix of a bunch of the newer songs that I’ve been into lately, plus a few from last year that had sort of slipped through the cracks.

First up a couple of the songs that were the main inspiration for my Brian Eno History Lesson post a couple weeks back. She’s A Rejector, a guitar laden new wave-ish hip shaker from the new Of Montreal disc, and Strange Lights, a reverb drenched fuzzed out dirgey rocker from Deerhunter. (antichrist television blues) is one of my favorites from Neon Bible, the soon to be released Arcade Fire disc. It’s a blistering rocker of a song thats owes as much to Springsteen as it is does to the Velvet Underground. The reunited Dinosaur Jr returns to form, although unless he’s singing I can’t say I really hear Lou Barlow‘s being back in the fold influencing these new tracks much. The Kaiser Chiefs second disc picks up right where Employment left off, Everything Is Average Nowadays is one of the catchier songs on the new one. The next two will have you up and dancing for sure LCD Soundsytem doing Watch The Tapes from the forthcoming Sound of Silver and the Macromantics new one which uses a formula similar to Lily Allen but cranks it up another notch.

Winding it up with a handful from last year that I just recently picked up, if Fleetwood Mac ever decided to go alternative you’d have Midlake. Roscoe is Rhiannon for Alterna-Rockers. Silversun Pickups shows what can happen if you take all of those 80’s and 90’s influences like Pixies and Sonic Youth and put them to good use. Lazy Eye is one catchy song. And last but not least Sparks show they can still pull it off when they want to, Perfume is a bouncy hypnotic fun little ditty that is classic Sparks.

MP3: Of Montreal – Shes A Rejector
buy Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer ?
MP3: Deerhunter – Strange Lights
buy Cryptograms
MP3: Arcade Fire – (antichrist television blues)
buy Neon Bible
MP3: Dinosaur Jr – Almost Ready
buy Beyond
MP3: Kaiser Chiefs – Everything Is Average Nowadays
buy Yours Truly, Angry Mob
LCD Soundsystem – Watch The Tapes (link removed by request of label)
buy Sound Of Silver
MP3: Macromantics – Scorch
buy Moments in Movement
MP3: Midlake – Roscoe
buy The Trials Of Van Occupanther
MP3: Silversun Pickups – Lazy Eye
buy Carnavas
MP3: Sparks – Perfume
buy Hello Young Lovers

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Grab Bag : This Week’s Releases

January 25, 2007 by · Leave a Comment
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Here’s a random handful of the many new releases that came out this week.

Julie Doiron – Woke Myself Up (Jagjaguwar)
Julie Doiron started out in 1990 playing bass in Canadian Sub Pop band Eric’s Trip.
Woke Myself Up is Julie’s seventh solo disc since the breakup of the band in 1996. It’s a stark emotionally charged affair that falls sonically somewhere between the icy chanteuse of Cat Power and the folky warmth of Joni Mitchell

MP3: Julie Doiron – You Look So Alive
MP3: Julie Doiron – No More

[BUY IT] [WEBSITE] [MYSPACE]

The Broken West – I Can’t Go on,I’ll Go On (Merge)
At the risk of sounding Bandwagonesque I’m going to throw in another blogger vote for The Broken West as a really great power pop band. Throw in equal parts Teenage Fanclub and Guided By Voices, season to taste with a little Big Star, and you’ve got LA’s The Broken West. Enough chiming guitars, harmony vocals and handclaps to keep any power pop fan happy.

The Broken West is :
Ross Flournoy (guitar, vocals)
Dan Iead (guitar, backing vocals)
Brian Whelan (bass, backing vocals)
Rob McCorkindale (drums, percussion)
Scott Claassen (keys, backing vocals)

MP3: The Broken West – So It Goes
MP3: The Broken West – Big City

[BUY IT] [iTUNES] [MYSPACE]

The Shins – Wincing The Night Away (Sub Pop)
Sure, like everybody else we’ve been listening to the massively hyped new Shins album for a couple months now. But now everyone can buy their very own copy. This baby will probably suffer some severe hype backlash, so why not one more gratuitous listen before it goes down, it’s actually pretty good. Here’s a couple for you, the super catchy pop single Phantom Limb and the very Enya-like Red Rabbits. Enjoy.

MP3: The Shins – Phantom Limb.mp3
MP3: The Shins – Red Rabbits.mp3

[BUY IT] [WEBSITE] [MYSPACE]

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