LPFM Radio

...from Pitchfork...


Basically, Congress passed the Local Community Radio Act which should make it easier for low-power FM (LPFM) stations to get up and running.  When the FCC first allowed LPFM stations to exist back in 2000, their goal was to "...create opportunities for new voices on the air waves and to allow local groups, including schools, churches, and other community-based organizations, to provide programming responsive to local community needs and interests."

However, it's been a rough ride and, as the Act mentions, "Local communities have sought to launch radio stations to meet their local needs. However, due to the scarce amount of spectrum available and the high cost of buying and running a large station, many local communities are unable to establish a radio station" and still "in 2003, the average cost to acquire a commercial radio station was more than $2,500,000."

 It's still gonna be difficult, but at least there's good news in that this glacial process is still moving along.

Atlas Sound - 4 Albums for the Price of None

If any of y'all listen to Deerhunter and enjoy the music (especially the more recent stuff), it might be wise to check out Bradford Cox's (lead singer, guitarist) solo work.  He calls it Atlas Sound and here's his blog.

But more importantly, he just dropped 4 albums, Bedroom Databank Vol.s 1-4, which all of us can download for free.

Vol. 1

Vol. 2

Vol. 3

Vol. 4


Personally, I recommend making some hot cocoa and listening.  Solid work from an amazing person...

The Ting Tings, "Hands"

This has been "old-news" for a little while now (2 months???) but I still hadn't heard the track yet.  The Ting Tings are getting ready to release their sophomore effort soon, but to hold us over they dropped "Hands".

If you're anxious to hear it, you can find it on their facebook page along with a remix by Passion Pit.

To be honest, I don't think the track is amazing.  A little monotonous and tired sounding.  I'm a little bit worried about the followup to their debut We Started Nothing.  It's hard to repeat such awesome catchy-ness, unless you're Katy Perry or Lady Gaga of course.  But, let's keep our fingers crossed.

Girls

Pitchfork mentioned informed us earlier today that Girls will be releasing a new EP on November 22, Broken Dreams Club.

Given the awesomeness of their debut album, Album, this should be good stuff.  Check them out somehow when you get the chance.  I always recommend a Pandora or last.fm station, but Myspace or their own site works too.

Crystal Castles NA Dates

Crystal Castles just announced more NA dates.  California ones are:

03-02 San Diego, CA - House of Blues
03-03 Pomona, CA - Fox Theatre
03-04 San Francisco, CA - Warfield Theatre

Their facebook page only mentions the SD and SF nights, but pitchfork says they're doing Pomona as well.  Which makes a lot of sense.

I HIGHLY recommend seeing these guys live.

Just look at how crazy this chick is...

she punches a fan several times starting at the 2:40 mark

Let's do this!

Alright... looks like 2 people is enough for me. 

Go to the Pixies website, surrender your email address, and download a 4-track live EP from their Doolittle touring.

Looks like you get... "Dancing The Manta Ray", "Monkey Gone To Heaven", "Crackity Jones", and "Gouge Away".

Despite my pleading...

I'm not getting enough comments (read: ZERO) about posts to keep me motivated to do this.

I'll probably stop.

But, before I do, go check out Avey Tare's solo album, streaming now at NPR.

It's pretty damn good and comes out Oct. 20.

Reznor Turning "Year Zero" into T.V. Series...

It looks like Trent Reznor has been working on turning his Year Zero album concept into a T.V. mini-series that would be on HBO.  Still a ways off, but moving forward...

Rolling Stone has the story here.

Few things to deal with...

Arrived at work this morning, browsed through my feeds, and it looks like several places have some cool stuff to check out!

Here we go...

• Trent Reznor's and Atticus Ross's score for The Social Network apparently includes this version of "In the Hall of the Mountain King."
• The new Sufjan Stevens album, The Age of Adz, is streaming at NPR.
• Metric wants fans to contribute remixes for their album Fantasies.
• Gang of Four is coming out with a new album, Content, in January.

OK Go do it again...

Here's their new video for "White Knuckles"


AMAZINGLY WELL TRAINED DOGS.

Pavement on Colbert Report

Pavement plays Gold Soundz and Stephen Malkmus gets interviewed.

Linked up by pitchfork.

A Perfect Circle dates...

Here it is!  The plan is three nights at each venue, with night 1 being Mer de Noms, night being Thirteenth Step, and night 3 being Emotive.  Exception: Vegas only has two nights and drops Emotive.

Dates.

Still no word on ticket prices.  Keep y'all updated.

Deerhunter & Tricky Albums Streaming

The new albums are up for streaming now.

For your daily dose of Deerhunter...

And, for your daily dose of Tricky...

The Social Network score sampler...

Here's your homework for the weekend...

Go here, surrender your email address, and download a 5-track EP from the Social Network score.

The Social Network is the Facebook movie that's being scored by Trent Reznor (NIN) and Atticus Ross.

enjoy.

Damien Jurado and Richard Swift

This great indie music blog, the Aquarium Drunkard, posted this about a week ago and I'm finally getting around to it.

In August, Damien Jurado and Richard Swift (both great singer/songwriters) teamed up to record Other People's Songs Vol. 1.  They mention the following on their website...

“Other People’s Songs Vol. 1” is a collection of covers recorded on the weekend of August 21-22, 2010 (with the aid of a four-track cassette recorder and a Coles-4038 ribbon microphone).  It is available to you (the world) via the inter-webs for FREE.  These recordings came about spontaneously, and we wanted to share them in the same manner.  Look for another one around Winter time. “Thanks, Brochacho” - DJ/RS

The whole album is also available for streaming here, so go do that today!  It's really beautiful, chill work and it's great to hear Damien Jurado push his vocals outside of the norm on a few of the tracks.

Mary Anne Hobbs' Last BBC1 Show

I will be back to post my thoughts on the show at some point soon.  But, in the mean time, reserve two hours at your computer or around a computer to listen to Hobbs' final show on BBC Radio1.  You have ~6 days until it's taken offline (at least off of BBC's site).


LISTEN NOW!

Deerhunter's "Helicopter" Video

If you missed it a few days ago, go to Deerhunter's website and click on the article's text to see a video for the new track "Helicopter".

All black & white, it's basically just a close-up video of the face of singer, Bradford Cox.  With lots of other video spliced in (in much the same way that the Animal Collective/Panda Bear videos were... see my last post).

If nothing else, give the track a listen.

Panda Bear @ the Glass House

After complications with FYF last weekend, several shows immediately following were discounted to ridiculously low prices.  One of these was Panda Bear (The Goat opening) at the Pomona Glass House for $5.

I can't avoid discussing The Goat for a second.  I guess I was pretty thrown off.  I mean, you go to a Panda Bear show, pumped to have the entire venue basically drowned in dense layers of incomprehensible vocals and samples.  And then, a pretty vulgar "skate rock" band opens the evening.

I have to admit that I was considering walking out to spare my ears for a while.  But after I saw the keyboardist smiling and laughing during the performance, it made me realize that they're having fun, and that's what the music was about.  Whereas Panda Bear would come come out in ~45 minutes to play his heart out with songs that express some pretty intense emotions, The Goat were there to simply rock out to some more shallow songs (I hate to use that word, but it's deadly accurate here) including a cover of DMX's "Ruff Ryder's Anthem".

Anyways, when Panda Bear (Noah Lennox is his actual name, btw, and I will use these names interchangeably, b/c sometimes one seems more appropriate than the other) did finally come on, it was his usual type of setup.  Lennox stood behind his altar of effects processors, synths, keyboard, what-have-you, with his guitar strapped on and ready to go.

Two projectors (stage left, stage right) shot out light across the heads of the crowd, landing it on the back walls and having a Disco Ball 2.0 effect.  Then, a third projector shot video onto a stage wide screen behind Lennox.  This should immediately make fellow Animal Collective fans think, "ODDSAC."  And rightly so.  Not only was the recently released DVD being sold in the front (thank God, I finally got my copy), but over the next hour we would be treated to a very similar "visual album" type experience.  In fact, some of the visuals from the projected video looked a little familiar to ones seen in ODDSAC.  Imagine your favorite media player's visualization package (Windows Media Player, iTunes, Milkdrop, etc.), then make it more coherent, and splice in actual videos of people that are blurred into the spinning and stirring visuals.  Pretty magical.  My favorite bit was a few minutes where several clips of (what I'me pretty sure were) fans reactions at a sporting event were mixed in, and looped over and over, revealing a little more each time they came through.  The effect was strikingly emotional when accompanied by Panda Bear's intense music.  Another memorable bit was some passionate lovemaking looped over and over during "Song for Ariel / Guys Eyes".

Onto the music... the most important thing to mention here is the vocals.  It's very clear (through both Panda Bear's past work and Animal Collective material) that Lennox is not afraid to belt it out.  His voice is not a storytelling/sharing accompaniment to the music.  His voice is an integral part of the music.  Using lots of "st" and "pft" noises throughout his songs and dragging the vowels into endless sustain, it looks like Lennox is further exploring what he can do with that beautiful mouth of his (was that too creepy?).  Indeed, in a recent interview with the L.A. Times' music blog Pop & Hiss, Lennox reveals...

"I’ve been listening to a lot of crooners like Sinatra and Scott Walker. There’s such a power there, and I’ve never really been into literary concerns as a lyricist so I wanted to focus on that forceful presence." - Lennox for Pop & Hiss

As I was hoping, Panda Bear performed bits of Animal Collective tracks along with his solo material.  Most interesting was his tortured version of "Daily Routine" from Merriweather Post Pavilion.  For those unfamiliar with the track, there is a super-catchy part where Lennox sings a line and then he answers back immediately with a sort of jingly synth riff.  Lennox would start this call and response session but only got around to giving the response after several abrupt starts and stops.

I didn't catch the full setlist, but he did play my personal favorite "Comfy in Nautica".  And he also played the new tracks "Tomboy", featuring a prominent "kst" sound as mentioned above, and "Slow Motion".  You can check out the new track here and here.

The much awaited album, Tomboy, doesn't actually have a release date yet.  But the first single has already been released and plans to release the second in October appear to be working out.

Keep your eyes on this guy.  He's a fantastic musician, an excellent performer, and he puts together a great visual show as well.

Quick reminder!!! Jenny & Johnny

You can buy the album starting today!

Kanye West et al.

If you haven't heard, Kanye's been pretty busy on Twitter.  Back on the 22nd he posted...

I know yall need the music so I'm dropping 1 new song every weekend until Xmas.

So far, he hasn't let us down.  The first track out was "Monster," featuring Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Bon Iver, Nicki Minaj, and of course Kanye West.  You can get to it at his blog.  It's really more funny than anything else hahaha.  But it has some good parts.

This weekend's track was "Runaway Love," featuring Raekwon and Justin Bieber.  Here it is.  I've never listened to the little kid before, but I don't mind him on this track at all.  Pretty good stuff.  Now all I wanna do is kick back for the day and listen to Wu-Tang though!

Jenny and Johnny streaming @ NPR

Head over to NPR to hear Jenny and Johnny's debut album, I'm Having Fun Now.

It'll be there until August 31, and then you can go buy it!

Mark your calendar... Coachella sets dates...

April 15, 16, & 17.

FINALLY. Animal Collective's ODDSAC, tomorrow!

If you didn't catch the screenings of ODDSAC earlier this year you completely missed out.  But, lucky for everyone, Animal Collective are releasing the video-album in dvd form.  And it comes out tomorrow!


Check out the film's official site for details, but also check out pitchfork to hear two tracks from the movie (they say they aren't confirmed to be from the movie yet, but I can vouch, and they are).

Do Broken Social Scene make you wanna dance!?

If they didn't before, they will now...


This is the first of seven remix tracks that will be released every Monday for the next seven Mondays.


LOVE IT.




-once again, from the mighty Pitchfork.

U.S. Open of Surfing, Weezer

I am JUST learning about this and I live about 10 minutes away...

Since Tuesday, a number of sweet bands have been performing out at Huntington Beach following days full of professional surfing, skating, and biking. While the sports continue into Sunday, the final band performance is from Weezer (Hot Hot Heat opens, music scheduled for 4:30pm-6:30pm) on Saturday. Oh yeah, it's free too.

Since the festival includes other fun stuff, fashion and art, etc., it might not be a bad idea to head out there if you're in SoCal. It'll surely be busy, so be prepared for a completely packed beach.

Bruise Cruise Festival

Cruisin' for a bruisin'?

If you happen to be in Miami in February 2011 and also happen to have several hundred $'s lying around, DO NOT miss this trip to the Bahamas.

Capped at 400 people, the cruise doubles as exotic seafaring vacation AND garage rock festival. The artist list?

The Black Lips

Vivian Girls

The Strange Boys

Thee Oh Sees

Ty Segall

Turbo Fruits

DJ Mr Jonathan Toubin

along with "Special guests being announced soon!!"

***How has this type of cruise not been done before?!??!?***

-from Pitchfork.

LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip, & Sleigh Bells

GREAT NEWS!!!!

LCD Soundsystem's fall tour just got 1,000,000 times better.

They've announced, via their website, that they will be accompanied by Hot Chip and Sleigh Bells. Sleigh Bells temporarily, but officially, rule the world. So this is frikkin fantastic news.

The L.A. area show is at the Hollywood Bowl, October 15.

For more dates, check out the above link.

New Broken Social Scene Video

Straight from the BSS newsletter a few minutes ago...

Forced To Love Hello friends! We are excited to share our brand new video for "Forced To Love" from Forgiveness Rock Record. It was directed by MAKAPOON (Adam Makarenko & Alan Poon) and produced by Geoff McLean (Vision Entertainment). Share! Enjoy! YOUTUBE VIMEO

Damien Jurado - Saint Bartlett

I still can't tell if Damien Jurado is good music for sad, rainy days. On the one hand, his songs tend to impose upon listeners an immense sense of sorrow and heartbreak... but on the other hand, he convinces you that he has it worse. It's folky blues meets emo. I don't know why I enjoy this quality of his music; it's likely just my appreciation for his ability to so forcefully express sadness in his music.

That said, Jurado remains effective in expressing these emotions with Saint Bartlett. However, impressively, he does so without making me want to die. :D

The new album takes the rough, lonely sounding music of Jurado and nestles it into a bed of well orchestrated pillows. You still get plenty of the acoustic tracks like "Rachel & Cali," "Pear," "Kansas City," and "With Lightning In Your Hands." But you also get the thick, softening sounds from compositions like "Throwing Your Voice" and "The Falling Snow."

I particularly enjoy the way that Jurado ushers you into the album. The opening track, "Cloudy Shoes," is a dreamy, reverberant song that sounds like it marks the rolling of the credits to a bittersweet drama. You are just finishing a touching and heartbreaking story and this is what you're left with.

As I write this, I'm listening to track 2, "Arkansas." I was simply going to comment on the similarity between this song and the famous "Stand by Me" (seriously, check this out). But then, I swear to God, 1 minute in, he sings "Fade out, this is where the credits roll." I DON'T MAKE THESE THINGS UP, PEOPLE. I wrote the previous paragraph and then realized that the "Fade out, this if where the credits roll" line is the CHORUS OF TRACK 2. Awesome.

All in all, this album takes the genius of Jurado to another level and it's organized perfectly to get you through. And where does it leave you at the end? Wanting more.

Well done, Mr. Jurado, well done.

Music for the week...

I started up last.fm again and will probably keep using it now since it runs oh so smoothly with XBOX 360. Check that out for all of your "what did I listen to earlier???" and "what should I listen to next???" type questions.

For these types of posts, I'll basically be running off of what last.fm tells me.

Tool: Of course. And their show a couple weeks ago was otherworldly as usual. There is NO SUBSTITUTE for what Tool does live. I know that NIN is a more exciting show, and that Niklas Sundin from Dark Tranquillity can play Adam Jones into his grave, but Tool harmonizes sound and visual art in such a way that you are almost forced to step outside of your frame of reference for a couple hours. Maynard generally asks you in some way to join them for the evening, this time saying, "Whatever's happening outside these walls has nothing to do with what we're doing here. So for the next two hours it's all about us." But, even if you don't listen, you get wrapped up in the experience a few songs in.

France Gall: I've basically been a housewife for the last few weeks, and nothing sets the cooking and cleaning mood for me like French pop. Check out France Gall or Carla Bruni for a sampling.

Trip Hop: This typically brooding genre sprouts from Bristol's underground art scene. The big faces are Portishead, Tricky, and Massive Attack. All deserve a thorough listening to.

Dubstep: Lots of samples. Lots of bass. Lots of repetition. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. I was a little bit worried after a few days of testing the waters here. I guess I didn't realize the spectrum of music that would fall under this category. In the end, it seems like dubstep is a broad enough genre that, if persistent, you can find your little niche of what you like. But you'll likely have to sift through a decent amount of stuff you don't like in the process. It took me finding Scuba and DJ Mary Anne Hobbs before I liked anything.

Blues: Between Lead Belly, Robert Johnson, and Son House, YOU are having a good day. No one has ever had the blues like these poor gentlemen.

Street Sweeper Social Club

I swear, I have like 6 posts that are saved as drafts right now. Several reviews and other posts coming soon. In the mean time...


Street Sweeper Social Club just announced a new E.P., The Ghetto Blaster, to be released Tuesday, August 10th. You can pre-order it here and you can also listen to their cover of M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" right here.

They've been playing "Paper Planes" live for awhile now. I saw it back when they opened for NIN and Jane's Addiction. The song, performed live, is pretty awesome. Super loud and pretty heavy. But for some reason this studio version sounds pretty flat. Boring almost. Zack's pissed off vocals always kept RATM's rap-rock sound from sounding tame and dry. I mean, what happens to hip-hop if you strip the booming bass and replace it with guitar? Well, as long as you have a vocalist who raps like a madman, you'll still come out with something heavy. But if you have a vocalist who sounds happy, it kills the metal and you're left with almost nothing. Hopefully the E.P. rocks harder than this teaser track. I'm actually pretty angry about this because I really hoped they'd record it and capture the same sound they had live.

RATM tix on sale Monday

According to ticketmaster, tickets for the Palladium show (next Friday) go on sale this Monday at 10am. It also states that tickets are $50.

Probably worth it as this promises to be a pissed off and eventful show.

Good luck.

Deerhunter, new album, Sept 28

Good Morning.

Saw this on Pitchfork this morning... looks like Deerhunter has a new album, titled Halcyon Digest, that will be out Sept. 28.

If you head over to their website, there is a poster you can print out. They want you to hang it around your town to promote the new album and, if you do, you can apparently send in photographic evidence to flyers@halcyondigest.com to ensure that you hear the single first.

Not sure if that's worth the effort, or the ink, but I'm all for supporting this noise-rock/ambient-rock band. I say noise-rock/ambient-rock because that's the easiest (not most accurate) way to classify the type of work they've done so far. Their debut was total Liars, noise, anger style rock. Their follow-ups have been much prettier, soothing, and more ambient-rock than noise-rock***. During an interview in 2005, lead vocalist and frontman Bradford Cox said:

The first album is influenced by all these chaotic things that were happening at the time. Our original bass player passed away in a skateboarding accident. He was a very big influence on us as a person and as a friend. He was a very positive person. So I would say, if anything, that the album was the result of a lot of negativity. It was a final statement for that set of feelings, I guess. Once it was done, I said, "OK, I don't ever want to make this album again."

While I'm super happy for the band to have seemingly migrated away from all of the negativity, I'm a little bummed that their music has been so different from what I feel was an amazing debut. Anyways, it's a bit pricey to purchase the debut and it's not really on myspace or last.fm (only 1 song), so torrent it if you're really curious. If you're interested in their later work though, well, that's all over the place.

***I think I need to work on a word for what I typically call "noise." More on this later...

Almost forgot... Best Coast streaming

Go here, right now, and stream Best Coast's upcoming album. Comes out on the 27th.

Zack de la Rocha & RATM

A couple things are going on with our favorite musician/activist.

• One Day As A Lion (Zack from RATM and Jon Theodore from Mars Volta) are playing 2 L.A. shows all of the sudden. Tickets went on sale yesterday and, from the looks of it, they're no longer available online. Luckily, you can still grab them in some record stores. Here are the deets...

1. July 17 - Pomona - Tickets available at Fingerprints Music, Long Beach or The Glasshouse Record Store, Pomona.
2. July 18 - Los Angeles - Tickets available at Origami Vinyl, Los Angeles.

• Also! ... It looks like Rage Against The Machine will be playing in Los Angeles (which they haven't done in like 10 years). It's strictly a protest/benefit type show regarding the AZ nonsense and will be at the Palladium on July 23. Check the above link for the official press release.

In short, this is all happening very fast so get to work if you wanna see Zack/Rage.

M.I.A. - /\/\ /\ Y /\

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I was spending a few days in the Stone Age (Winters, CA). Anyways, I've had the chance to listen to /\/\ /\ Y /\ a few times now and I've got a few thoughts on the album.

Overall, it's solid work that doesn't stray too far from what M.I.A. has done in her previous efforts (and I think that's a good thing). She continues to combine pop, electronica, rap, reggae, noisy guitars, lots of bass, chanting, etc. to create coherent tracks that range from pick-me-up songs like "It Takes a Muscle" to bitter and angry loudness like "Born Free." (BTW, if you never watched the super-intense, not-work-appropriate video for "Born Free," watch it now. At least get through the 6:51 mark.)

It seems that M.IA. has allowed herself a little more freedom in terms of embracing noise. She's got a slightly more industrial vibe (most blatantly, the drills in "Steppin Up") with this album that I'm totally digging. And she pushes the echo, reverb, and distortion on her vocals a little further than in the past.

Pair that up with political themes throughout and the overall effect is kinda like Mickey Mouse fighting the forces of evil during Fantasmic (note: I frikkin love Mickey so that comparison holds a lot of weight). Maya is standing there, orchestrating a whole lot of chaos into a controlled harmony to battle those who won't tell the complete story of what's happening around the world. Even if it means she has to deal with death threats directed at her kid.

Once again (I already posted this), most of the album is streaming here.

Approve.

Outside Lands and Treasure Island

It was recently brought to my attention by my younger brother that the Outside Lands Music Festival lineup was recently announced. More importantly, it was brought to my attention that Cat Power will be there. :D

August 14-15. Single day passes are $75, 2-day passes are $140. Other exciting artists include Phoenix, The Temper Trap, & The Strokes, to name a few. Honestly, I'm not overwhelmingly impressed by the lineup, but Cat Power (who doesn't perform very much) might be able to squeeze a single day pass out of my wallet.

Also, I figured I'd check the other big Bay Area festival coming up soon (Oct 16-17), Treasure Island Music Festival. Looks like the lineup comes out on Monday! Dear God I hope these predictions are correct...

Most of M.I.A.'s New Album on Myspace

If you're dying to hear the new album, /\/\ /\ Y /\, head over to M.I.A.'s Myspace. Pitchfork reported this a few hours ago, saying the "entire" album was out. And, well, most of it is.

Unfortunately, we're still waiting for the track "Lovalot", which one Spin reviewer stated was her "riskiest gambit yet." Cool news, nonetheless!

I'll definitely be back to post my full feelings on the album, but for now, go listen!

The Happy Hollows

Earlier this year, during the chaos and disappointment of Coachella no longer selling single day passes, several sweet bands from around the area played a free show (No-Chella) on the Pomona College campus.

Among the bands were a trio known as The Happy Hollows. The singer/guitarist Sarah Negahdari definitely MAKES the band for me. With a Karen-O-esque voice and a powerful strumming hand that rips out super-sick guitar riffs... I'd totally pay to see her strumpunching someone.

Anyways, I've been wanting to see them again and I just ran across a new opportunity (read: free show) to do so. The Hammer Museum at UCLA is putting on a series of free shows this month to promote a few burgeoning bands. KCRW is helping to put this on and it looks like the plan is two bands, with a KCRW DJ filling in the breaks, every Thursday night till July 22. This Thursday, July 8th, The Happy Hollows and Admiral Radley are playing at 8pm. Check out the above link for more info.

You can stream The Happy Hollows album Spells here and you can download the B-sides here for any price you wish to pay (or for free). I particularly enjoy the track Lieutenant, so maybe check that one out AT LEAST. :D*

Music for the week...

Since I get bored just posting news and reviews, I'm going to throw weekly updates of "what I'm listening to" (or, actually, what I listened to for the last week). Let's see if this revives my dependence on last.fm or what! This first list is probably covering the last ~2 weeks. And it certainly leaves out random songs and short plays of random albums. This is what I have been purposefully listening to. Anyways, here goes...

• Christina Aguilera's Bionic - Aguilera has returned... from the future lol. She's done your basic pop, and was great at it. She did old-school (by old school, I mean old-school blues, soul, and all that jazz), and I really dug it. Now, she's doing bass heavy pop that's electronic-influenced. Good stuff.
• HEALTH's ::DISCO2 - Remixes of Get Color by the likes of Crystal Castles, Pictureplane, Gold Panda, ... .
• Owl City's Ocean Eyes - Doing this to maintain cultural awareness. At least, that's what I tell myself.
• Uffie's Sex Dreams and Denim Jeans - I heard this was bad (and it is). But I look at the sun sometimes too.
• Devo's Something for Everybody - Fun in concentrated form.
• Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster - This has owned my car's stereo for awhile now.
• Best Coast (no particular album, just whatever I can find online)
• The Sea and Cake's Everybody - These guys are going to be with Broken Social Scene in the fall.
• The Like's Release Me - Already told you about this...
• Sleigh Bells' Treats - Jackie's wake up music.
• Kele's The Boxer - Solid club music.

And some oldies but goodies...

Ramones' The Ramones, The Clash's The Clash, and David Bowie's David Bowie. Self-titled albums rule.

Update from Trent Reznor!

It looks like Trent and Atticus Ross put together the score for David Fincher's "The Social Network."


Check out the full story here.

Two new MIA songs

Head over to MIA's Myspace to check out her two new songs, Tegkilla and a remix of XXXO by Various.

I'm pretty stoked for her new album, / \ / \ / \ Y / \, which comes out July 13th.

Beck's Record Club

Only recently have I begun to appreciate the crazy awesome coolness of Beck.

Case in point... Beck's Record Club.

I can't really describe this better than they do themselves, on the website:

Record Club is an informal meeting of various musicians to record an album in a day. The album chosen to be reinterpreted is used as a framework. Nothing is rehearsed or arranged ahead of time. A track is put up here once a week. The songs are rough renditions, often first takes that document what happened over the course of a day as opposed to a polished rendering. There is no intention to 'add to' the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording. Only to play music and document what happens.

If you follow the blog, it works out to be a month or two of weekly music videos from one group of artists. Previous Record Club's have covered: The Velvet Underground & Nico, Songs of Leonard Cohen, Skip Spence's Oar, and most recently INXS's Kick.

Artists involved in the past: Feist, Jamie Lidell, MGMT, Annie (from St. Vincent), and Liars, just to name a few.

The new Record Club has just been announced and it will cover Yanni's Yanni Live at the Acropolis. Should be fun. Lineup includes Thurston Moore (from Sonic Youth) and Tortoise.

Check it out!

And I can't hold back, from the previous Record Club... check out Annie's vocals on INXS's Never Tear Us Apart and Need You Tonight. Amazing.

Altered Zones

As you probably know, I'm a big fan of pitchfork. Probably TOO big of a fan.

And, as one of my main sources of new music and music news, it's sometimes hard not to just repost whatever they post. In order to not duplicate them, I have basically vowed to myself to not post things that I read or hear about from pitchfork.

Anyways, with that said, this just in from pitchfork! LOL. It's an upcoming site featuring a collection of blogs that regularly post relevant and important things (news, .mp3's, pictures, etc.) about new bands, music, labels, etc.

ETC. ETC. ETC.

Check it out, starting July 7th. In the mean time, read that post from pitchfork. And, if you're not reading pitchfork already, do so. That way I don't feel obligated to repost their stuff. By promoting them right now I can lie to myself and say that I already reposted their stuff... sort of.

:D*

The * is my teeth glistening.

The Like - Release Me

I held off on posting this as long as possible because my initial reaction to The Like's sophomore effort was, "What happened!?" It took me a few listens to get on board, but I finally have. The trick was to not allow myself to compare the two albums. Release Me is very different from Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking? and, given my love for their debut and everything they did on AYTWIT, I found I can only appreciate Release Me by not expecting the same things. Bands have to change over time, right? Right. (not according to this band lol***) Anyways, just had to get that off of my chest.

One change must be noted, however. The sound has gone slightly retro (background singers, vocals that parallel the main melodies, a cute little organ, early rock 'n' roll guitar (the "Sqaure One" intro sounds a lot like King Khan & BBQ Show's "Fish Fight"), etc.). In fact, this is probably the most important change to be aware of before listening to Release Me.

The album contains a few hits that can stand alone and are playlist worthy. The opening track, "Wishing He Was Dead," is a fun, catchy song that highlights one of my favorite aspects of Berg's vocals: the occasional faltering and cracking. The title track, Release Me, is another chorus-heavy sing-along-song dealing with a doomed relationship. It seems the theme of dysfunctional romance rings throughout.

Overall, the album's decent. Not a classic like AYTWIT, but still a good, girly, retro soundtrack for impending breakups. I'll definitely pull this out when I decide I'm too good for Cristiano Ronaldo...

*** The title track off the album contains the lyrics "Nothing ever changes / People never change."

Tool & Hercules and Love Affair

Tool tickets (Nokia Theatre, July 18-19) go on sale this Friday at 10am. They are a must-see-during-lifetime band. And they're playing Third Eye. Pretty much like the most awesome song, live, ever.

Hercules and Love Affair tickets (the Echoplex, August 14) go on sale tomorrow at noon. You might have heard a few tracks off of the debut album featuring vocals from Antony Hegarty (of Antony and the Johnsons). I'm not sure whether Antony is out singing with the band, but either way, Hercules and Love Affair make for sexy and awesome disco dance music. So prepare to get down in the small, hot and sweaty Echoplex venue.

Los Saicos... getting more and more popular...

If you haven't been listening to Los Saicos, you've been missing out. Los Saicos were a garage rock band that existed in Peru from 1964-1966. They were definitely a unique sound within South America and they apparently weren't aware of similar styles of rock present in the U.S. or England during that time. After 1966, they stopped playing and went a varitey of ways. One member (guitarrist Rolando Carpio) died in 2005, but the rest of the guys are still around.

If you lurk around on the internet, you're bound to find some of their music, but if you aren't up for piracy check out youtube. Here's a link to check out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haVaaDLwWvI&feature=related

Anyways, the news is that a Los Saicos documentary is on the way (has been on the way). There's no telling when it's coming out, but there have been test screenings of it and it was supposed to be out in 2009, so hopefully that means SOON. Saicomania.com also has a variety of other links to check out, including a facebook page, a twitter page, etc. From those I found two little gems...

1. You can buy Los Saicos: The Complete Recordings Box Set from Munsterama. It comes in CD and 7".

2. This video of El Entierro De Los Gatos. Looks like Saicomania footage.

Jenny and Johnny part II

Just sent out from Jenny and Johnny...

9/1	Santa Cruz, CA @ Rio Theater
9/2	San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
9/3	Oakland, CA @ The New Parish
9/5	Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
9/8	Salt Lake City, UT @ The State Room
9/11	Omaha, NE @ The Waiting Room
9/12	Minneapolis, MN @ Cedar Cultural Center
9/13	Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
9/14	Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom
9/16	Washington, DC @ Black Cat
9/21	Hoboken, NJ @ Maxwell's PRESALE SOLD OUT
9/23	Chapel Hill, NC @ Cat's Cradle
9/24	Athens, GA @ 40 Watt Club
9/25	Nashville, TN @ Mercy Lounge

Jenny and Johnny

Everyone's talking about Jenny (Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley) and Johnny (singer/songwriter who has worked w/ Jenny in the past). The couple have already announced an upcoming LP entitled I'm Having Fun Now and they're also going on tour around North America.

The only date around SoCal so far is Oct. 3 @ The Hollywood Palladium. They're opening up for Belle & Sebastian and tickets are going for ~$39 ($50 after "service fees"). I highly recommend seeing this show if you have the money. (But if you have the money, you might also want to consider seeing Tool play "Third Eye." )

Either way, give Jenny and Johnny a listen by typing in your email address here. Given the current popularity of She & Him, I was expecting an acoustic duet. But the released track features a full band that sounds more like Metric than She & Him. Hell, it sounds more like Metric than Rilo Kiley or Jenny Lewis. If you love Rilo Kiley or Lewis's solo work primarily because of Jenny's vocals, this song might put you off as it's mostly Johnathan Rice. But let's hold off final judgement until we have some more tracks.

Considering turning this into a music blog...

So, since I'm currently working part-time, I've been thinking a whole lot about second jobs, second careers, hobbies, methods of time travel, etc. ...

And... I most frequently ponder the possibility of music criticism / music journalism in my life. I think, for awhile at least, I'm going to turn this into a music review / what-I'm-listening-to blog. We'll see where it goes.

No reviews to start, but there is some morning news...

* Radiohead are apparently finishing up another LP right now - http://pitchfork.com/news/39212-radiohead-lp-possibly-out-this-year/