Now if you haven’t already bookmarked Daytrotter, this cut should convince you what a great music resource it has become. As much as I love the album version of this song, hearing Emily’s vocal striped away from the slick layers of production makes for a new experience and I gotta say, I am truly moved. So do yourself a favor and hook up with Daytrotter at http://www.daytrotter.com and then go make friends with Metric on their MySpace Page and over at ilovemetric.com
Before I get outta here, I’m dropping a rare Saturday song ‘cuz I went to see Kate play Spike Hill in Brooklyn last night as she kicked off her latest solo release, White Horses. The show was great, the crowd was stoked and to cap it off she did a totally rocked-out version of ‘Roman Candles’, one of my favorite songs and one I’ve been trying to get her to include on the set list more often! And for all you New York types who haven’t fled the city for the beaches this weekend, she’s playing a set tonight at Rockwood Music Hall, so if you’re just sitting around wondering when the heat wave is gonna break, get off your ass and head downtown for a bit of fun!
It’s been more than a year since Crocodiles graced the pages of The List with Neon Jesus, and their debut album, Summer of Hate, tore up the blogosphere and they toured across the US and Europe opening for bands like Holy Fuck and The Horrors…but now they’re back with more buzzy, swirling, My Bloody Valentine-like psych-rock on this Summertime 7″ release. ‘Sleep Forever’ is meant to whet your appetite for their new full-length release due out September 14th on Fat Possum Records. I’m diggin’ singer Brandon Welchez’s laid-back vocals, but what really stands out is the tight production on this song is a noticeable change from last year’s intentionally punkier, lo-fi album.
Let’s have a bit of fun before we all head out for the long weekend! Hank and Cupcakes are a Drum & Bass Duo (please don’t call them techno!) that arrived in Brooklyn from Israel a little more than a year ago who have quickly built up a reputation for having one of the most infectious stage shows around. Over the years, lotsa bands have covered Joy Division’s ‘She’s Lost Control’, but I don’t remember anybody sexing it up into a dance number…..it’s just what you need whie you’re stuck in traffic on the way to the beach for the Fourth!
Thanks to Adrian for turning me onto today’s song. He sent me a link to a Nick Knight-directed video of Kate Moss shimmy-shakin’ to this twangy, foot-stomping, lo-fi, jangly little blues number and I’ve been diggin’ it all morning. The Strange Boys are a simple little garage band from from Austin, Texas that blew up overnight with last year’s killer debut, The Strange Boys and Girls Club, and now they’re following up with Be Brave, an R&B meets country charmer that sounds as destined to be featured in an iPod ad if ever I heard one! Lead singer and songwriter Ryan Sambol isn’t gonna be mistake for Pavarotti any time soon, but he sings with such emotion and charisma that you get instantly caught up in the rollicking fun that ensues.
I swear as God is my witness, it was just this morning as I was taking my shower, I was wondering, “When the Hell is Blonde Redhead gonna put out something new?!!”, and Voila!…a leak from their next album drops in my lap a few short hours later! The trio of Kazu Makino and the Pace twins (Simone and Amedeo) have been making music together since 1993 and have released seven full-length albums, but noting since 2007 and for dream-pop junkies like myself, that’s far too long. ‘Here Sometimes’ is apparently gonna be the first track on Penny Sparkle, due out September on 4AD, and if this is representative of the rest of the album, it’s far more synth-heavy than their previous effort, 23.
Sez Kazu…
“I am not sure what Penny Sparkle is but I hope I offered to them as much as they offered me. I know that we have never made a record this way and if I could go back in time, I would do it exactly the same way again…”
For more of Blonde Redhead, hit ’em on their website or over on MySpace or sit back and enjoy the video for ’23’…..
Eric Elbogen will always hold the dubious distinction of being the first person to ever grace the pages of Damn Ugly Photography when the blog went live and I made the Say Hi song, ‘November Was White, December Was Grey’, the very first web-based Song of the Day. If it’s possible to wear out a CD, I must have come close ‘cuz I had his album ‘Oohs & Aahs’ on repeat for weeks. Apparently he took a break from working on the next Say Hi album and dropped by Daytrotter and did a live session a few weeks back. If you guys aren’t already following Daytrotter, I can only ask, “Why?!!”…they’ve had amazing acts come by since 2006 to record mini-sessions of their songs…and you can download it all for nuthin’! Anyway, that’s where I found todays song, but you should all do yourselves a favor and bookmark the site, then head over to Eric’s facebook page and hit the “LIKE” button.
And as a bonus, here’s the video for “One, Two…One”……
It’s shapin’ up to be ‘Singer/Songwriters Named Sarah Week’ here on The List. Sarah Jaffe wishes she could be a little more delicate. This song…from her debut album, ‘Suburban Nature’, that she recorded in an old funeral parlor…is drenched in regret and heartache and she tugs at your heartstrings and cuts to the bone by pairing her soulful voice with the deep bass moan from a sadder-than-sad cello, yet the song actually swings towards the upbeat with the inclusion of a well placed scratchy guitar and shuffling snare drum. A native of Red Oak Texas, she’s only 24 so I’m chalking up her World weary attitude to what is likely an old soul.
“…50 boys, 50 lies, 50 I’m gonna change my minds…..”
That’s some powerful stuff. Go on….make friends with Sarah Jaffe on MySpace
*UPDATE*
I don’t know if Dallas photographer David Wilson just has too much time on his hands or what, but for whatever reason he decided to cover “Clementine” using a ukulele and a room full of synthesizers! Jaffe wrote on her Facebook page, “I’m not sure who you are, David Wilson, but you are awesome and so is this! Thanks!”
I’ve been sitting here listening to this cut off of As Day Follows Night, the third album from Aussie singer/songwriter Sarah Blasko, and while I’m struck by the sheer beauty of her voice, I’m having a hard time describing how it makes me feel. It’s kinda like if Karin Bergquist from Over The Rhine rode in on horseback in a Spaghetti Western! The howling intro and sparse guitar carry her pleading vocals though a haunting, bleak landscape painted by her stirring lyrics…
I can’t even understand me
So don’t think that you can help
When I say things and see things
That’s no way on earth to tell
That kind of honesty takes my breath away…and then makes me sad. I guess it’s working then, huh?!!
As Day Follows Night was was recorded in Stockholm, produced by Björn Yttling (of Peter, Bjorn and John fame) and was released a year ago everywhere but the States…that mistake is being corrected, ‘cuz it’s now scheduled for an August release, but until then, check out Sarah on her MySpace Page
We’re gonna do a musical about-face from last weeks ‘The Muscle & Charm’ with a leak off of the new album from School Of Seven Bells, due out next month. I love this Brooklyn-based trio and their psycho-hypnotic swirl of mesmerizing vocals, vibrant melodies and rhythmic noise. I was tossing out cuts from Alpinisms last year as fast as I could get them and I’m looking forward to hearing what the new record has to offer. On ‘Babelonia’, I’m instantly taken by the familiar Cocteau Twins-like chanting from twins Alejandra and Claudia Deheza and carried along by Ben Curtis’ shoegazey wall of of chugging percussion, layered guitars and electro-atmospheric noise. Disconnect From Desire is set to drop July 13th, but in the meantime you can check SVIIB out on their MySpace Page
If this little photography side-business I have going ever tanks and I had to find another gig, I don’t think I could ever be a real music reviewer because I have this nasty habit of always comparing any new music I hear to music I already know. I suppose it’s only human nature to think that way…I mean, when you tell somebody about a new band you’ve found they’ll invariably ask, “Who do they sound like?”…but real reviewers should have more arrows in their quiver than that. But then I’ve never professed to be a reviewer, but just an interested bystander. That hasn’t stopped millions of indie bands and tiny labels from sending me music from their latest Next Big Thing, which is exactly where today’s song came from. Henry Pope, the bass player for the Los Angeles based Atlantic Line, dropped me an e-mail offering their new album and would I mind get the word out to my cult-like followers? But it got me thinking, how did Henry know about my little corner of the musical interweb…and then I remembered that he also played with Lemonwilde and they were one of the first bands featured on the Song of the Day after I started the blog!
So now I’m gonna lean on my crutch of comparison and try to describe what I think of Atlantic Line…
I checked out their MySpace page and seeing the “Ambient/Live Electronics” tag these guys are describing themselves as, I was expecting a totally different listening experience from what I got hit with. Ambient?!! I spent yesterday with their album ‘Exit To Intro’ on ‘repeat’ and only one of the eight tracks (the Coldplay-like ballad, ‘Ghost In Daylight’) comes close to being described as ambient, so you rock fans needn’t be scared away by the thought of any frilly, loopy synthesizers and unintelligible lyrics! If you have to pigeonhole these guys in any category, Henry’s thumping basslines, William Oraha’s wall of fuzzy psychedelic guitar riffs and Noah Alexander’s power drumming is gonna be found in the arena rock section! And then there is lead singer Ray Silva’s voice…with his wailing and pleading and shouts, you come away feeling like you’ve just experienced a sort of weird mashup of Bono, Thom Yorke and Ian McCulloch. And since I mentioned Ian McCulloch (you can just feel another comparison coming on, right?!!), the first time I heard ‘The Muscle & Charm’ I couldn’t get the similarities to Echo & the Bunnymen’s ‘Bedbugs and Ballyhoo’ outta my head! Silva sings, “Who’s from the future, I’m from the future Honey…Do ya wanna see it, Do ya wanna see it Baby?”, but I’m hearing, “Buffalo and Bison…Bison and Buffalo…Ballyhoo and bedbugs…Bedbugs and ballyhoo”…! Go on…tell me I’m wrong!!!
Now here’s the best part….the boys are offering up the entire album on their website. It’s an honor system kinda thing and you can download it for nuthin’, but don’t be a cheap ass…if it gets you going, toss ’em a few bucks to show ’em how much you appreciate real music! (And yes…I kicked in!)
And then head on over and make friends on their MySpace Page
OK…let’s step back from yesterday’s exercise in shameless self-promotion and get back to why we’re all really here…to get some new music for your iTunes folder!!!
After the new website went live yesterday, I sent Ryan Karazija the link telling him that his band, Audrye Sessions, was chewing up some serious bandwidth in the ‘Famous People’ gallery. Ryan got back to me late last night with a gift…a leak from their new album. ‘Bad Day’ is a revelation…unlike the guitar-driven Audyre Sessions I know…it’s simply beautiful…like a pastoral journey that floats in on a warm breeze but steadily builds to a frenzied & joyous drum-banging, anthemic crescendo. Few songs get me hooked as quickly as this one did and honestly, I can’t wait to hear more. No word on when Ryan and the Gang plan the next release, but stay close…I’ll let ya know…and in the meantime, check ’em out on MySpace
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And it even comes with
a trippy YouTube Video…
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Hey Kids…It’s a Two-Fer Tuesday today on The List!
Paul Banks, Carlos Dengler, Sam Fogarino and Daniel Kessler…those Joy Division-lovin’, dark-minded boys in the dark-colored suits otherwise known as Interpol…are back in the studio and they just leaked ‘Lights’, a song that takes more than two minutes before it really gets going, but then majestically builds up a theatrical momentum and ultimately sounds like it could be the opener off of their as yet unnamed new album. Now don’t get me wrong, I really like this, but I think the boys might hafta sit down with The Killers and work out some royalty payments, ‘cuz from where I’m standin’ they straight-up lifted the opening riff from The Killers song, “All the Pretty Faces”, and used it and the plodding hook that carries this song!!!
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club just dropped Beat The Devil’s Tattoo, the sixth album in nine years from the L.A.-based neo-psychedelia-garage rockers and along with the new album comes a new drummer, one-time Raveonette Leah Shapiro. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s no bigger Raveonettes fan out there than Mr. Damn Ugly, but when I heard the hard-rocking BRMC was gonna be backed up by their drummer, even I took a deep breath. But if what I’ve heard from Beat The Devil’s Tattoo is any indication, she’s fitting in very well the band’s established sound. On ‘Conscience Killer’, the tribal driving backbeat and fuzzy, reverb-heavy guitars help give Peter Hayes’ vocals a hot & sexy T-Rex feel. And just what is it about Marc Bolan (and The Raveonettes, for that matter?!!) these days? It was only a few weeks ago when I offered up a Raveonettes cover of ‘Heart Of Stone’ by Brooklyn Psych-rockers Amazing Baby that was a dead ringer for T-Rex and now we have BRMC jumping on 70’s Glam Train!
BRMC is currently in the middle of a bone-crushing European Tour, and you can check ’em out on MySpace
Demander calls themselves a three-piece irregular rock band.
Sivan Harlap and Dave Kurutz met behind the snack bar at Villa Park High School in 1994. Karen Kanan Corrêa met Sivan and the two played in The Hissyfits back in 2001. Sivan actually spent the first few months of their acquaintance trying to get Karen kicked out of the group because I guess not everyone likes viola in a rock band, but Karen eventually switched to bass and the two became fast friends. Over the next two years they performed with The Killers, Gary Go, Holly Golightly and many others, but since 2004 they’ve been playing together under the name Demander. Dave and Karen met completely by chance in New York many years after the previous events, somewhere near 2008. Through some cosmic melding of the minds, the three of them now make bright sexy-time adventure pop for jogging, dancing, drinking or making out. And next Tuesday they’re set to drop their second album. It’s called Future Brite. Recorded in NYC, the album was produced by Jim Keller (Co-founder of 80’s band Tommy Tutone and writer of 867-5309) and was mixed by John Agnello (Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth, Hold Steady). Guest musicians include Franz Nicolay of The Hold Steady, Native American Music Award winner Martha Redbone, and members of World/Inferno Friendship Society and Anti-Social Music. During the recording process, there was apparently some singing done in a vocal booth that smelled like sheep perfume and a whole lot of clapping. You can enjoy more of Demander on their MySpace Page and further fun can be had by watching the fun-fun-fun video for ‘Math’…
Hailing from a tiny town in Northern Wales, The Joy Formidable is getting loads of hot press after having just dropped A Balloon Called Moaning, an album of frantic, grungy, Lo-Fi rock that stands out because of the stark contrast between all the crashing guitars and feedback and noise, and Ritzy Bryan’s pleading, fragile little girl vocals that rise above the noisy cacophony lamenting, “All these things about me you never can tell”…
Check out more of The Joy Formidable on their MySpace Page and then you can watch the video for ‘Whirring’ where they once again propagate the myth that all of Wales is nothing but a cold, grey wasteland of moors and mountains and fog!
Just last week, Kate Tucker put out a call on Kickstarter to help her fund the release of ‘White Horses’, her next album, and now The New York Times has a story about websites like Kickstarter, SellaBand and PledgeMusic and how indie acts are using them to get their projects off the ground.
So if you haven’t checked out Kate’s video yet, follow THIS LINK and toss her a few bucks. In less than a week she’s already pulled in $2150.00 of her $5000.00 target, but we gotta keep this going. I know some of you have already kicked in a few bucks, and I’m gonna try my best to not get all Public-Access-Pledge-Drive on you and hold any feet to the fire, but I know how many people are reading this and I also know a lot of you could dip into your mocha latte budget and help out and it ain’t exactly gonna hurt your bottom line…
So Band of Skulls did a live session over at Daytrotter a few weeks back and layed down some pretty gritty versions of songs from last years ‘Baby Darling Doll Face Honey’ and show once again just how damned good they are. No overdubs or fancy production, just straight to tape and out the door…what more can you ask?!! If you haven’t bought this album yet, I hafta ask, why not? Follow that link above to Amazon and spend six bucks…you’ll thank me later. And then register at Daytrotter where you can download even more of their killer live sessions with bands like Au Revoir Simone, Beach House, Bon Iver and Spoon…all for nothing! Now am I offering value here, or what?!! Check out Band of Skulls on MySpace
I’m tag-teaming a Song of the Day along with a bit of good, old fashioned log-rolling today. The song is a previously unreleased acoustic version of ‘On The Radio’Kate Tucker and Mark Isakson layed down for Seattle’s Bumbershoot festival last year. The log-rolling is explained below…..
Kate has finished recording White Horses, her new solo album, but she need a bit of help. Being an indie artist often means little details like coming up with the last few bucks to press CD’s, promote the album and loading up the tour bus sometimes force her to employ extraordinary measures…in this case, hit up folks on the internet for whatever they might be able to contribute! Kate has put together a Kickstarter Funding Video…complete with ‘prizes’…in order to raise the final $5000.00 she needs to put White Horses to bed. If you toss her a few measly bucks you can get a signed CD and a bit of good Karma…for 50 bones she’ll unlock the vault and give you her bootlegs from her first album, the out of print Eros Turannos, and a few more goodies…$500 and she’ll record an acoustic version of any of her songs, dedicate it to you, post it on YouTube, and send you an exclusive mp3…..and for you seriously High Rollers, a grand will get Kate to play a concert for you and 40 of your closest & dearest friends (!)…two grand and she’ll sing for you, and cook you dinner and get you drunk (!!)…and if somebody were to kick in the whole five grand…well, I think it goes without saying that if anybody hits that target, Kate’s gonna have a friend for life!!! (Or it means she sold herself into slavery…I’m not quite sure…..)
I’m asking all of the friends of The List to head over to ‘Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is! Kate Tucker Sings for Her Supper!’ and watch the Kickstarter video…and if you can, show her a little love. And then pass it along to a few friends. It’s a lot more interesting than those damned LOLCats videos that keep filling up my inbox! And let’s be honest…the more true artists like Kate out there might mean we have to endure less of Lady GaGa…!!!
Today’s song came out of one of those happy coincidences that happens when social networking actually does more than self-aggrandizement, passing on the latest Lolcat video, or informing you about the awesome tuna melt some a guy you haven’t seen in twenty years just had for lunch! My friend Molly Roberts (who I haven’t seen in a while, but it hasn’t been that long!) posted a link on her facebook page to a song by A Sunny Day In Glasgow, a Dream-Pop/Shoegaze outfit from Philly that her son, Ryan Newmyer, just happens to play bass for. Thanks to the power of Google, within five minute of listening to the song I became an instant expert on the group…they formed about five years ago, have a couple of full-length albums and three EPs’ under their belts and have gone through a Baker’s dozen of current and former members, all the while under the leadership of Ben Daniels.
Anyway…my searching also revealed that ASDIG has a new EP out, Nitetime Rainbows, and one of the more creative videos I’ve seen in ages for ‘So Bloody, So Tight’ that I’m including below. Anybody who loves The Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, Lush, or The Jesus and Mary Chain is gonna go nuts for this stuff. They’re on tour right now, in fact, if you happen to be down at SXSW, they’ve got nine gigs set up this week! Give ’em a look on their website or over on MySpace
Damn Ugly Photography 