Wednesday, January 31, 2007

midlake

Fleetwood Mac? The Moody Blues? Neil Young & Friends, you ask?

No!

Midlake. And they're this nifty little quartet from Denton, TX. Plus they're playing The Parish on February 23. Worth checking out, I think...

Midlake - Roscoe

too cool!

Props to Michael for the tip...and I want to know the music used, if anyone can identify it.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

my friend jay...

...is the only person I know who can be absolutely charming, singing a song while sitting on the toilet.


the goddamn doo wop band

No, seriously, that's their name. The Goddamn Doo Wop Band. How can you not love them? From Minneapolis, though their MySpace page declares them to be from "Inmypantsolis"...

Does it get more fun?

Somehow, I can visualize myself and several friends from high school having done this ourselves. Kristen, Ferra: you're on vocals.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

southerly

James and I saw Southerly when we went to see Jeff Hanson in Denton. Unfortunately, is was an Octopus Project show, and the openers had short sets. We left before the Octopus Project managed to convince an audience member to go home and get them a snare stand; they'd forgotten theirs in Austin. They weren't very good at all.

Jeff Hanson, of course, was amazing. Southerly was also impressive - an unassuming figure alone on stage. Check out his MySpace page. I'm digging the orchestral arrangements on "Soldiers". Also, bully for him signing and all...

heartbeats...

Just in case you haven't seen the long version of the Sony commercial featuring Jose Gonzales' "Heartbeats", here it is. Freakin' awesome:

Click for the .MOV file...Quicktime is a bitch to embed for some reason...


Go San Francisco! Go high-bounce balls!

Thursday, January 25, 2007

gotta be a joke...

I'm finding this little nugget of musical turd shared with me last night by a friend to be so terrible that it's funny. Not only is the video worth watching, but snippets from the web site are priceless, too. First, the video:




Yes, folks. If you didn't know before, God hates a fag. If you're a fag, he hates you too. Probably especially the fag in the video, for such blatant disregard for God's gift of music to the world. Anyway, I'm a little scared of you if you were able to watch it without eventually giggling. And from the web site, we're warned off some of the faggier music out there. For your protection, dear readers, note these unholy bands:

* The Spores (endorse suicide) * Scissor Sisters
* Rufus Wainwright * Merzbau * Ravi Shankar
* Wilco * Bjork * Tech N9ne * Ghostface Killah
* Bobby Conn * Morton Subotnik * Cole Porter
* The String Cheese Incident * Eagles of Death Metal
* Polyphonic Spree * The Faint * Interpol
* Tegan and Sara * Erasure * Le Tigre
* The Gossip * The Doors * Phish * Queen
* The Strokes * Sufjan Stevens * Morrissey(?questionable?)
* The Pet Shop Boys * Metallica * Judas Priest
* The Village People * The Secret Handshake * The Rolling Stones
* David Bowie * Frankie Goes to Hollywood * Man or Astroman
* Richard Cheese * Jay-Z * Depeche Mode * Kansas
* Ani DiFranco * Fischerspooner * John Mayer
* The Indigo Girls * Velvet Underground * Madonna
* Elton John * Barry Manilow * Indigo Girls
* Melissa Etheridge * Eminmen * Nirvana * Boy George*
* The Killers * Lou Reed * Lil' Wayne * Motorhead
* Jill Sobule * Wilson Phillips * DMX * Lisa Loeb
* Dogstar * Thirty Seconds to Mars * Lil' Kim
* kd lang * Frank Sinatra * Hinder * Nickleback
* Justus Kohncke * Bob Mould * Clay Aiken * Arcade Fire
* Bright Eyes * Corinne Bailey Rae * Audioslave
* Red Hot Chili Peppers * Panic at the Disco
* Elton John(really gay)


I absolutely love the fact that Elton John requires a special warning, and that he appears on their list twice. It's fabulous. And poor Jill Sobule...didn't she sing "I Kissed A Girl" or something and not much else? I guess that means, well, you know, even lesbian one-hit wonders cannot escape the scrutiny of the holier than thou. Morrissey (questionable?) is priceless, too.

Also, dude quotes Oscar Wilde on the site:
"Suffering is one very long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return. With us time itself does not progress. It revolves. It seems to circle round one centre of pain."
--Oscar Wilde (reformed homosexual)


The riotous part of *that* is the citation of Wilde as a "reformed homosexual". The only thing that "reformed" Wilde was his death - due to persecution for his "love that shall not be named." If you're wondering from whence this fountain of straightness bubbles... Thank You, Houston.

PS -
OH! OH! OH! In his "video blog", Mr. Davies - in the cadence you'd expect - thanks Andrew Sullivan (the unrepentant-yet-conservative homosexual) for denouncing YouTube's decision to take down the music video above. I snorted out coffee at the part when he thanked Mr. Sullivan for "getting behind him." Adolescent, perhaps, but you know it's funny...

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

a post for joe...

Here's a post for my friend, Joe. If you are not Joe, however, I invite you to enjoy the music of these two awesome projects of Will Sheff & Jonathan Meiburg anyway. Based out of Austin, Okkervil River and Shearwater are as different as they are face-meltingly amazing...

Also, Shearwater is playing at Emo's in March. I will attend this show, even if I have to kill someone for tickets and beat someone unconscious to drag with me.

So, the samples: the lead song off Okkervil River's 2006 EP, Overboard and Down. Please note that it is not a political statement at all. This is supported by the lyrics...

Okkervil River - The President's Dead

And two of my favorite (only because I had to pick) tracks from Shearwater's 2006 album release, Palo Santo.

Shearwater - Nobody

Shearwater - Seventy-four, Seventy-five

Well shit. I can't stand it. Here's another of my favorites from that album:

Shearwater - Hail Mary


And one more awesome one for good measure:

Shearwater - Red Sea, Black Sea

Sunday, January 21, 2007

kraig johnson

Check this guy out on MySpace. He reminds me in a few songs ("Silent Side" for instance) of a young Bob Seger. You know, one that hasn't smoked enough yet. Once his songwriting matures just a bit, I think he'll be pretty terrific.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

findlay brown


In keeping with my preference for the singer-songwriter, folk-with-a-twist genre, I'll draw your attention now to Findlay Brown. Unfortunately, I don't have much to offer in the way of samples, but his web site streams all of his songs for you...

Just click "Releases" on his site and check out the two EPs that constitute his discography to date. Check out especially "Come Home", which is muy beuno.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

do you realize?

A little feel-good for you:

The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize?

Do You Realize - that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize - we're floating in space -
Do You Realize - that happiness makes you cry
Do You Realize - that everyone you know someday will die

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize - Oh - Oh - Oh
Do You Realize - that everyone you know
Someday will die -

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do You Realize - that you have the most beautiful face
Do You Realize

aaron schroeder

Here's an interesting artist I just saw this morning for the first time. For some reason he reminds me a lot of Ben Folds. Only there doesn't seem to be much piano.

Aaron Schroeder - Between Drags

Aaron Schroeder - Fake Crimes


I didn't consider the significance of posting about Aaron Schroeder, New Artist as my first post of the new year. I might have put some more thought into it if I had done. In new year news, one of my resolutions is to post no less than twice per week in 2007. I know this isn't a staggering commitment or anything, but I think few could argue it'd be a marked improvement over last year's record. There's even the possibility 2 posts per week will be a minimum we don't see. Know what motivates me, faithful readers? Comments. Lots and lots of comments...

:-)

Happy New Year, everyone!