Friday, 10 April 2009

New Album #?!- Conor Oberst- Outer South














Conor Oberst & the mystic valley band- Outer South

Track Listing
  1. Slowly (Oh So Slowly)
  2. To All The Lights In The Windows
  3. Big Black Nothing
  4. Air Mattress
  5. Cabbage Town
  6. Ten Women
  7. Difference Is Time
  8. Nikorette
  9. White Shoes
  10. Bloodline
  11. Spoiled
  12. Worldwide
  13. Roosevelt Room
  14. Eagle On A Pole
  15. I Got The Reason #2
  16. Snake Hill
Was pretty excited when I found out that this had leaked, so excited in fact that I'm posting the album without listening to it! I will be though, all day, just you watch me. Except I'm also re-reading on the road.. I would expect these two events not to coincide.

I read a funny review of this album where the guy said something like "I've been listening to conor oberst's new album with the mystic valley band and it's great except that he let's some of the other guys sing on it which is kind of like winning a three some with johnny depp and him insisting that johnny vegas joins in." I was confused that the guy saw winning sex with a man in some sort of celebrity sex lottery as a good thing but the alliterative nature and pure oxymoron of his comparison was brilliant.

Oh and- DISCLAIMER!!!: For god's sake don't download this album from that link just wait and go and buy it when it comes out, have you no will power?! Come on support the artist and buy the cds so you can be down with the grandads...

And to think I try and make money from music lol

Thursday, 9 April 2009

New Bands #3 (Truck Festival 13 Line Up)

Every year I go to an independant music festival in steventon, Oxfordshire, it's been our little secret for over a decade now. It's been getting bigger every year but still entirely none commercial, this also means only the very coolest bands play because they're not getting paid £1,0000000 or having thier own trailer etc for example last year we got to see the reformed Lemonheads perform Shame about Ray in it's entirity (give or take..) and this year supergrass and ash are headlining. So many amazing up and coming acts, every year you fall in love with new bands for life, these are who are expected to be making the headlines this year. I've also decided to put pretty pictures up on this blog and who knows, maybe a naked chick? Ooh the suspense!!















Red Light Company- Meccano

Ah remember when you'd go over grandma in the 80's and somehow she'd have an anchient mecanno kit from like the stone age for you to play with that was rusty from when jesus peed on it and you'd try and make a car by bending the things around and ruining it for everyone else? Oh wait those aren't your childhood memories... Wait- those aren't even MY childhood memories...

From London, and covering a few far reaches of the globe with band members from Wyoming and Australia, the drummers from bridgend! INTENSE!!! Ah you shouldn't joke, I just find the whole thing disturbingly fascinating. Woah wait a minute.. Their album cover has a naked chick on it!!! Got well nice boobs as well! So there you go, just as I promised a naked chick what are the chances! Ha.

I've listened to all the bands I am posting today and these are my favourite, that is no slur against the other bands, these are just exceptional. Lyrics are proper eloquent and actually resonating with our times, I can't speak highly enough of these guys. Check out the track scheme eugene on their last.fm page too.














Yacht- So Post All' em

I've been aware of YACHT for a while, his touring has been relentless so only from seeing his name on posters. He's from portland, a scene I am constantly creaming over, formally of the band "the blow" he's experimetal, electronocoustica, but he also hits the right pop buttons for it to be enjoyable and scindie enough for the lyrics to be engrossing. This track has a fairly unique backing, I can't even imagine what half the instruments are in this. I can only imagine that this guy is an absolute riot live, a must see.















Sportsday Megaphone- Have you ever fallen in love with someone that you shouldn't have

Forget about the Fallout boy length song title- They desribe themselves as "Awesomely frantic ipod karaoke! ultrapop confetti headphone piƱata!!!" Along with their name I think that's enough reason to like them. First impressions are they're a bit low-fi electronic, truth is this is kinda a cover of that song "have you ever fallen in love with someone ever fallen in love ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love" I think it's by the human league, if it's not, don't correct me because i don't care :(












Pulled Apart By Horses- I punched a lion in the throat/The Lighthouse

These guys are from leeds and I've read so many outstandingly abstract reviews from them. A common consensus is that their sound is "mental" and also that they are going to be huge in 2010, I'd agree to a LOTP or Little Man Tate extent. This track "I punched your mother in the scrote"... or something like that, I had to listen to twice to even get a grip on it, it swirls like a guitar driven, vocal yelping cyclone. My comparison to LOTP is probably the most coherant, the lyrics aren't exacly shakespeare or doherty :p but i'd imagine shouting along and jumping around to this in a tent would be awesome. I'd imagine them to be the fighting with wire of this years truck.














And so i watch you from afar- I Capture Castles

I want to give a shout out to these belfastians beacuse I am hyper critical of them and wish I wasn't because so many people seem to see their relevance where I fail to. They're an instrumental band, signed to a major label and tipped for big things and yet i'm like... Uh- it's an instrumental band?... I don't get... this. This. I. Do not... Get. But yeah they seem to be doing something right I just wish I knew what it was. Bottom line is, I'm definately going to see them at truck to see what's goin on.

Wednesday, 8 April 2009

Bands you should know II















Modest Mouse

I got to see these guys 2006 just after dashboard was released but just before the album came out, they had a suprisngly awesome fan base over here that I had no idea about. They've released almost countless albums but only started to achieve success when the "float on" from "good news for people who love bad news" hit #1 in the billboard chart, this was followed by "we were dead before the ship even sank" with johnny marr of the smiths, hitting top spot in the album chart.

Despite this success chiselled from the rock of the 90's seattle scene, frontman Isaac Brock has remained incredibly true to himself and the band and how he is percieved by the bands following is very important to him which has lead to some quite messy moments on and onstage involving self harm, DUI, attempted murder, jail time neither the success or the infamy has taken his feet off the ground he's a killer lead.

I've selected "half a dozen and a half..." yeah so three quarts of a dozen tracks that I think both represent modest mouse the best and give anyone just getting into them a great foundation... You can easily find the mainstream stuff like float on, online.. I found that funny anyway..

Missed the boat
Bury Me with it
Alone down there
Dirty Fingernails
Interstate 8
Talking shit about a pretty sunset
Doin the cockroach
Secret Agent X-9

Up next week- Interpol

Tuesday, 7 April 2009

Ipod Shuffle #3

It's that time of the week! Spin that wheel!

Justin Timberlake/50 cent/Timothy Baland- Ayo Technology
Slightly Stoopid- Righteous Man
Muse- Take A Bow
M.I.A- Come around
Amy Winehouse- You know i'm no good (Live)
Rothko- Give
Crystal Castles- Courtship Dating
Paramore- Pressure (Live)

O.K once again there's always one that I feel I need to explain myself for! I thought Ayo Technology was a pretty original name for a track and the videos pretty cool, I downloaded it and it's actually alright. "your hips your thighs you got me hypnotised" It's just something that happens to be on there...

At least that shows I do these things honestly! No skipping!

Secondly there's the frat band slightly stoopid, I downloaded their library on the stregnth of the name of the album name "slightly not stoned enough to eat breakfast yet kinda stoopid" I figured, here's a band that can make up for the lack of blink 182 and the bloodhound gang inspired college rock in my life!

Muse, one of those 21st century bands that everyone else in england seems to love but I just don't get their cultural relevance. They join a list with numaries such as radiohead, coldplay and kings of leon. Apparently their live shows have lasers and stuff which make it worth £60 a ticket. I'd only pay that much if they invented a machine to bring people, not only back from the dead but make them and their bandmates younger and could take them back to a certain time and did it to the beatles and they went on a sgt. peppers/white album tour and I'd still privately curse the economy.

One Thing I was amazed by MIA about is that she releases a song that blows up like nobody's ubsiness and has a kid while the money's rolling in, she like planned exactly the coolest time to do it because she wasn't all over the stupid tv shows and festivals as a one hit wonder and instead gets to release another album next year and actually think about grinding it out as a career artist. Pretty cool. She's also hot and looks like konnie huq. Oh yeah- there's a pornstar called "Connie Fuq".

Ah what can I say about Adubs, I got into her around 2002 and was well pumped for her debut album Frank and absolutely loved it, told everyone to get into her and she was gonna be huge, the album was nominated for the mercury prize and rightly so I thought it was awesome. Anyway I forgot about her, went to canada and saw her cd on the shelf while at uni and I was like... That's weird... I come back and she's like the female Jesus over here and then she blew up over there with the grammys to, it was pretty insane. The second album was very professional and well thought out.

Rothko have apparently been on the grind since 1997, this is the first i've heard of them, and my first impression is a bass driven rhythmic yet at the same time avante garde instrumental band. I don't like instrumental bands but if you like that kind of thing then I would say listen to this in a room that lets in little light but enough for it to be depressing.

Ah crystal castles, marmite, peanut butter and jelly, I got into them with crimewave and because for whatever reason and I have no idea what it is, I find alice glass supremely hot! The video for courtship dating sold this track to me and I really dig it. I'd love to see them Live, I missed out at the nme awards and as expected not everyone got what it was about.

Paramore, the girl's hot has a cool voice, writes catchy songs, the guitarist and bassist are good the drums are effective, they're a really good band I think they'd be fun to see live but I don't care if I don't.

I'm not too impressed with how mainstream this shuffle was, muse, paramore, justin timberlake, amy winehouse, MIA. But that's the way of the shuffle, last week it turned up some great tracks... It's still on shuffle and oh man I don't wanna say what just came on! Ha, I think it's doing this on purpose. But anyway, if you just take away from this that's a result right?

Monday, 6 April 2009

Classic Band/Album #2

Sorry my computer's not been working this weekend, kinda meant I got a lot done! It's chugging along now but it means I have a lot of blog ideas I want to get down. Firstly-














The Lemonheads- A shame about Ray

I saw the Lemondheads perform this album in it's entrirety last summer, to prepare for their headline slot at truck I made this the album of that summer and listened to it all the time when I was driving. So glad I found it but it made me realise that there must be so many other albums that pass people by like I don't really know pearl jam, smashing pumpkins or jane's addiction but they've all had supposedly iconic albums out. Life surely isn't too short to embrace all of them?

Lemonheads, formed in highschool out of Boston in the mid 80's were, and after there reform in 2005 still are, fronted by Evan Dando. They were named after a particular confectionary "was sweet on the inside, and sour on the outside", particularly apt. They released 3-records relatively well-recieved on the underground grunge scene before being signed to atlantic after the success of Lick.

Their debut on a major label is their defining moment. There so much to say but as ever I'd want people to discover it for themselves. I'd reccomend buying the deluxe edition (it has the demos on) and reading the inlay and falling for this cd.


http://www.4shared.com/file/102030466/ab9175c5/01_-_Rockin_Stroll.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/102031020/992bda4d/02_-_Confetti.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/102031675/90bba635/03_-_Its_a_Shame_About_Ray.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/102032532/7a40e725/04_-_Rudderless.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/102032874/ff971447/05_-_My_Drug_Buddy.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/102033240/66fc612e/06_-_The_Turnpike_Down.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/102033605/75f3f879/07_-_Bit_Part.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/102034055/91de4837/08_-_Alisons_Starting_to_Happen.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/102034619/f889bdaa/09_hannah__gabi.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/102035246/aaf49bc7/10_kitchen.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/102035544/41b5ec6e/11_-_Ceiling_Fan_in_My_Spoon.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/102035735/7a779e51/12_-_Frank_Mills.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/102036199/9f16e9ac/13_-_Mrs_Robinson.html

Friday, 3 April 2009

New Bands

The weather outside is surely too glorious to spend writing a blog, but i was out in it all day yesterday and all morning today so i'll take a break from it, have a few glasses of water and of course crack open a few amazing bands...

I must've listened to about 150 bands to get these this week! I think I'll have to do a different kind of post tomorrow! Took me to the far echelons of... well europe... Italy, Scandinavia... Neither of which are represented here.
Btw if anyone's on twitter mine is- twitter.com/introversimondu

I've been listening to quite a lot of pearl jam really starting to dig them a bit more, i think my next classic band post will be about them, the reason I wasn't that into them before was because they seem to occupy an uncomfortable place between metal and soft rock but I dig the lemonheads so... they might be too big to be considered for that post though, I dunno though I wanna do my favourite Dylan tracks there so why not.

Amazing Baby- Head Dress I searched my blog and turns out I haven't mentioned these guys, which is weird, I assumed i'd have mentioned them about 50 times now because they're awesome. They're 2009's other answer to MGMT (The actual answer being TEOTS) just as wicked and weird but with the twist that their tunes are just that little bit more dancier.

Wavves- So Bored Nathan Williams started this as a one man band, at SXSW it was expanded slightly, the sound- what pet sounds would have sounded like if it was recorded in a bathroom and it was just one guy trying to harmonize with himself. Not an insult at all, however it must be said that it's very similar to No Age who i'll probably mention some time. There was a lot of hype about wavves early this year and some feel that the live shows aren't justifying it, with an expanded line up they'll stand a better chance.

Stardeath and white dwarfs- Chemical Look, here is why the name is gramatically correct and it's not because they are talking about two things in the same semantic field both of which could be argued to be both concrete and abstract nouns, they're two different phenomenon. Bottom line is if you're talking about stars, you don't call them dwarves, if you're talking about midgets? go nuts. I'll shut up as this one might be long becaaaaause- THESE GUYS ARE AMAZING!!! Plus get on them RIGHT NOW because they're still ever so slightly considered underground but they've just signed to warner bros so are going to be humungous. Vocals are as brilliantly indie pop as you can get and the guitars as impressive as mars volta, the percussion is creative and it all blends together to make brilliance. When they break out the acoustic guitar (smokingpotmakesmenotwanttokillmyself) it still sounds polished and yet like the best that the 90's brit scene had to offer at it's height. They also pride themselves on having the most epic live shows, laser displays and everything you'd associate with $60 tickets but for a tenth of the price and for the moment, 1% of the people. Seriously catch them while you can afford it.

Remember to check out This is Ivy League.

Other bands that I checked out which are worth a heads up are ivory town piano factory, A camp (the chick from the cardigans solo project) and Lemondwilde. These bands just didn't get in cos they're not new, check out lemonwilde on yesterday's new tracks blog though.

I'm off out to catch this sun while I can, life ftw right now! The weather can be misleading :)

EDIT: I popped outside for a minute but it was bugging me that I knew there were spelling and discourse errors in this post... /obsessive

Wednesday, 1 April 2009

Bands you should know I

So as the blogs becoming more popular and there's more interest and directions for it to go I mentioned yesterday I'm going to try and get some consistancy with it, I'm thinking it'll look like

Mon- A restrospective on a classic band or album
Tues- Ipod Shuffle
Weds- Modern bands/artists you need to know
Thur- New Music
Fri- New bands
Sat- New bands
Sun- more of a wildcard like if i've found a band that's been around ages that I think should have attention etc just whatever I feel like.

Should be pretty sweet deals.

















Bands you should know I
- Pinback

Pinback of San Diego, California are Rob Crow (foreground... has a big orange beard these days) and Armistead Burwell Smith IV. I've been a fan of them for as long as I have death cab, their album Summer in Abaddon is, in my opinion, the epitomy of the music of the sun.

Like Death cab they were featured in the o.c but didn't garner the same attention as death cab or modest mouse recieved on the back of it. This probably the reason I was able to see them at a 60 person venue in london last year and meet rob crow so it's not so bad. Smith's bass lines are as intelligent and creative as you'll find in indie rock, Crow is criticised for his lyrics lacking meaning at times, this is debatable either way, but they make fantastic tunes aimed at the spring/summer audience.

Penelope- Fans favourite, the track that got them onto the airwaves and on the radar

Fortress- The track that was on the O.C, I feel it's not representative of Pinback's sound which may be why they didn't get as much attention. Still good though.

Loro- My favourite track. The bassline is bliss, the lyrics nonsensically beutiful. The perfect chillout track.

Barnes- This track shows how much they can do with so few instruments, such an effective track musically with some fantastically visual lyrics.

Wasted- A black flag cover, chilled down about 8 notches, pretty great. Reminds me of uni.

Tune in this time next week for Modest Mouse.