Whatcha doing today? Amy, Hailey, and I will be heading over to Ribfest a little later today. Not sure if we are going to check out any music today, but The Psychedelic Furs are playing on Monday so we'll probably go see 'em.
The Furs are one of the bands that my uncle Craig included on a mix CD he made many years back for me called Uncle's Primordial Soup. The disc also featured tracks (mostly new-wave and post-punk) from Mission of Burma, The Clash, The Ramones, The Cure, Joy Division, New Order, and more. These songs reflect what he was listening to back when he was in college in the early 80's. He has always sort of been the "cool" uncle in the family. I mean, how many 14 year olds get Joy Division's Substance album for Christmas?
Anyhow, this is the first part of a look back at many of those artists that paved the way for the current crop of post-punk and new-wave inspired bands that are finding popularity today. Not all of these songs come directly off of the Uncle's Primordial Soup mix CD, but you get the point.
Only a few days ago I got the latest self-released EP from Nees and Vos and it has already made its way into our rotation and the t-shirt which accompanied it has already made it through the wash at least once. On the EP, the duo of Andrew Neesley (keys/trumpet/production) and Chris Vos (vocals/guitar) lay down a handful of catchy and soulful tunes that come across as a fusion of 60's/70's soul, rootsy rock, and hip-hop inspired beats. Like RJD2 backing the Black Crowes or even Lenny Kravitz playing the blues (if he actually had some soul) with a killer horn section, Nees and Vos make music that is perfect for chillin' out and having a good time. Every song on the EP is good and I guarantee that you'll be tapping your toes or nodding your head before its all over.
What are you doing one week from today (that's Friday, July 6th for all those keeping score)? If you are in Chicago and don't have any plans you should head over to Cal's Bar and check out the show. It is 100% blogger sponsored by yours truly and my homies over at Songs:Illinois and Big Rock Candy Mountain.
Three bands + cheap beer + bloggers = good times.
The lineup includes Ann Arbor, Michigan's Frontier Ruckus, Chicago's own indie pop darlings Satellite 66 and newly transplanted Chicagoan and Latest Flame artist The Gunshy. Bands start at 10PM, and beers will be poured before that. See you there.
Yeah. Can You See the Sunset From the Southside now has an official (well, at least a favorite) vodka. That vodka would be Reyka Vodka and you can see a picture of the bottle in my freezer above. Reyka is an extremely smooth vodka that tastes like vodka. Yeah, you can use it in a martini or gimlet or whatever, but Reyka really shines as a vodka that you can sip on its own. I know that the bottle I got disappeared way too fast.
Anyhow, in addition to being the best vodka I've ever tasted (and I've had a lot of vodka in my day) it is also a "green" vodka that is distilled using geothermal heat. Plus Reyka and Iceland Naturally are sponsoring a contest where 1 lucky winner and 9 friends can fly to Iceland for three days and 2 nights of partying, soaking in the Blue Lagoon, and seeing the Iceland Airwaves Music Festival which runs from October 17-21 and whose lineup includes: Bloc Party, Of Montreal, !!!, Best Fwends, Mum, Bonde do Role, Annuals, and more. In one word, "Wow!"
So grab a bottle of Reyka Vodka and enter the contest. Any US or Canadian resident over 21 can enter to win.
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Here's another round of MP3's from the artists scheduled to play Lollapalooza 2007. Look for more info on places to eat, drink, sleep, and play while you are in Chicago for Lollapalooza or even P4K coming soon.
I recently got the latest album Transmit! Transmit! from Tampa, Florida's New Bruises and although it was released about a year ago, it has been in constant rotation for the past week or so.
The band (like many of its peers in neighboring Gainesville) belts out heartfelt and emo-tinged punk rock in the vein of Hot Water Music, D4, and Digger. You know, catchy punk rock anthems that just scream, "Sing along with me," before they pummel you. The lyrics are also great and are clever and political without being preachy. And even though I generally despise long-winded song titles, I love the album opener "Homogenized for Mass Consumption or How My Youth Was Watered Down and Sold For Profit."
Transmit! Transmit! is solid from front to back and is totally worth your hard-earned $9. The band (notably) also features ex-members of Mid Carson July, Grey AM, and The Holy Mountain.
Yes folks, it is that time again. Lollapalooza 2007 is right around the corner. The 3 day music festival will once again invade Chicago's Grant Park so mark your calendars for August 3/4/5. Three day tickets are $195, but with that many great bands playing I'd say its a good value.
This post begins my MP3 preview of Lollapalooza 2007 artists as I try to compile songs from all of the 120+ artists scheduled to perform. I am pretty excited about the lineup this year and think that it has the potential to be better than last. You can find the entire schedule here.
More than just about anyone else, I'm totally looking forward to seeing Daft Punk this year plus I think that the aftershow at Metro with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Elvis Perkins, and Cold War Kids is one you don't wanna miss either. I mean, the next 6 weeks can't fly by fast enough. Anyhow, here is part one of the Can You See the Sunset From the Southside Lollapalooza 2007 MP3 preview.
Have you heard the latest from Mocean Worker (pronounced Motion Worker)? Well, on Cinco de MOWO! (his fifth album as Mocean Worker) producer Adam Dorn takes upbeat jazz, funk, and big band brass stabs and adds hip-hop style beats and production to create a danceable fusion of old and new sounds.
The grooves are tight and Dorn's samples intertwine effortlessly with the killer chops of of such jazz notables as Rashaan Roland Kirk, Herb Alpert, and Marcus Miller. It is an all-out party album that is full of life and sounds just like a sweaty summer night. Cinco de MOWO! will be released tomorrow via MOWO's own label.
Zach Braff is on SNL tonight and unless my ears don't work, they just name dropped Pitchfork in the last skit. I now believe that the world is probably ending.
Hey everybody out there. I just wanted to drop a note that this site will be a little bit of a work-in-progress for the next few days. I've just changed the layout of the page and attempted to streamline the coding. Right now I'm just working through some of the HTML and CSS bugs that inevitably come with a change like this.
The tabs for Archives and Stuff point to dead links and the About tab brings you to the old layout. I think this new page is looking good so far. I'd love to hear your comments.
Hi there. How have you been? I've been good but quite busy. Between being out of town for almost a week and (now) finishing up the final touches on a new site design, I've been posting a little less these days, but fear not.
I'll get back on track. I promise. Here are a few tracks to keep y'all satiated in the meantime. All good stuff.
For the unknowing, Only Crime is a punk rock super group of sorts that features Russ Rankin (Good Riddance) on vocals, Bill Stephenson (Descendents/All/Black Flag) on drums, Aaron Dalbec (Bane/Converge) on guitar, and brothers Zach and Donivan Blair (both of Hagfish) and guitar and bass respectively. Based on the the group members' other projects, it should be pretty easy to discern that the band plays some hard-hitting punk that hearkens back to the glory days of West Coast punk. If you like that sort of stuff then Only Crime's latest album Virulence will not disappoint.
On Virulence the band sounds heavy and angry and although the album is melodic it sure ain't poppy. Only Crime even manages to include some dissonant moments that border on being avant-garde (for punks at least) and avoids simply sounding like a rehash of the past. In addition, Virulence features some of Rankin's best lyrics in recent memory that paint a bleak picture of the world and the hopeless future that awaits us. Luckily for us, Only Crime shines brightly as a punk rock beacon. Virulence is out now on Fat Wreck Chords.
As true in modern music as it is in nature, we must evolve to ensure survival. With his latest album Asa Breed, Detroit's micro-house wunderkind Matthew Dear has just guaranteed his survival for now by crafting an album that (while a bit of a departure for him) is something that I just can't get enough of.
Matthew Dear's music has always had a little more pop structure than your typical dance fare and (for that reason) it has always resonated with me. I've been a fan since his 2003 debut Leave Luck to Heaven and 2004's Backstroke. Asa Breed finds Dear pushing his aesthetic vision even further outside the micro-house template he stared working with. His incorporation of African-sounding rhythms, guitars, and droning buzzing synths spins this into something that sounds natural, organic, and (at times) almost tribal. Those elements along with the prominence of Dear's low and multi-tracked vocals make many of the songs on Asa Breed more akin to something from TV On the Radio or Caribou rather than what might be universally perceived as"dance music."
With his strictly techno records being released under his Audion moniker, Matthew Dear seems clearly focused on exploring a different path with the albums released under his own name. The dark and dimly-lit textures that illuminate Asa Breed are surprisingly melodic and listenable in a way that would appeal to fans of Junior Boys and other like-minded artists. Asa Breed is out now on the Ghostly International label.
I just finished reading the excellent book Redemption Song: The Ballad Of Joe Strummer by Chris Salewicz and thought it would only be appropriate to post a of The Clash's (and Joe Strummer's) songs. The book was a bit too academic but awesome nonetheless. Despite the excellent post over at Berkeley Place, this is (IMHO) I've collected a pretty nice supplement of cover songs. Awhile back I also did a post of various versions of Jimmy Cliff's "Pressure Drop" which was covered by The Clash as well. If you'd like a repost of that one, just ask.
Kinetic Stereokids come straight from the mean streets of Flint, Michigan and they meld hip-hop with indie rock in way that is similar to what Beck did with Mellow Gold. You know, loosey-goosey rapping with samples, folk-rock guitars, and all the trimmings that's taped and glued together with 4-track production values. Their debut Basement Kids is a mellow and somber affair and it's out now on Overdraft.
Last fall my brother got married and the first song that he and his new bride danced to was the Rhett Miller tune "Question." It was the perfect song for the perfect moment. They played the version that appeared on his excellent 2006 album The Believer. The new version has keys and synths in all the right places and is a little more polished than the Old 97's version (which is just Rhett and an acoustic guitar) that was on their 2001 album Satellite Rides.
"Question" is (without question) a perfect little love song. All this is only fitting since we are back in Pennsylvania for Amy's brother's wedding. These songs are for Kenny and Sarah on their big day today.
I'm writing this from the garage steps of my mother-in-law's house in Central Pennsylvania and I'm desperately trying to make the most of this spotty unsecured wireless network that I am (gladly) able to (barely) connect to.
Anyhow, most people like pandas and think that they are cute little animals. That really isn't relevant to this discussion except that I'm talking about a wonderfully awesome Perth, Australia group called The Panda Band whose new album This Vital Chapter is equally as wonderfully awesome. They manage to make a uniquely original brand of indie pop that smacks itself down somewhere between classic (but adventurous) psychedelic tendencies of Sgt. Peppers and an almost alt-country sound that reeks of an off-kilter doo-wop Modest Mouse or perhaps a jazzy big-band incarnation of The Flaming Lips. This Vital Chapter is a damn fine album of interestingly great Aussie indie pop.
Epiphanie is the debut full-length from French electro producer Para One. It is full of excellent dancefloor-ready and Atari-inspired IDM freakouts. Recommended for fans of Justice (they're so hot right now), Daft Punk, and the like. Get out your jogging suits and headbands and guzzle down some Sparks. It's on.
What is that thing? That (my friends) is a cicada and right now in the Chicago area they are everywhere. There are places (such as where the pictures here were taken) that you can find up to 1.5 million of these insects per acre. (1.5 million!) Luckily for us here in northern Illinois, these cicadas are of the genus of 17 year periodical cicadas of eastern North America called magicicadas. They are often called the "seventeen-year locust", but they are not locusts.
The group of cicadas that is invading right now can be further classified as brood XIII or the northern Illinois brood which emerge every 17 years to mate, lay eggs, and then (in a few weeks) die. No worries as the red-eyed insects don't sting or bite. They just buzz. It can be (however) almost deafening at times and drown out lawnmowers, motorcycles, and make it almost impossible to even have a conversation outdoors. Ravinia (an outdoor concert venue) in Highland Park has even moved the date of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert into July to accommodate the noise of the cicadas (story here). Heck, people have even been eating cicadas.
Instead of recipes for cicada tempura, here are some of the cicada-related songs I've come across recently. There are many.
So I did get the iPod/Zune/MP3 auxiliary input installed in the car last night and it sounds pretty good. Here is an abbreviated shuffle mix of what was playing last night as I removed the center console and disconnected the negative battery terminal. Maybe we'll replay it at the garage sale this morning.
And then there was the scuffle between Chicago Cubs catcher Michael Barrett and pitcher Carlos Zambrano. Well, since the Cubs (in my book) have officially begun their implosion, at least they are proving to be somewhat entertaining. I just wonder when Lou Pinella's head is going to pop off his shoulders like a little dandelion? Happy (feet) Saturday.
So this afternoon we took our little one Hailey (who is now 19 months old) to see her first rock concert. One of her (I mean our) favorites, The Terrible Twos (ex-Get Up Kids singer Matt Pryor and his New Amsterdams mates), played a kid-friendly matinee show at Schubas. It was pretty cool. One band for about an hour was just about all most of the kids there could handle (Hailey included). By the end of the Terrible's set, she had removed her socks and shoes and was doing that high-pitched scream that little girls can do.
It was a really fun show though and I know she enjoyed it. We (by we I mean Amy) got the guys from The Terrible Twos to autograph a CD for us to give away. So here is the deal. Head over to Amy's site Mums the Wurd to enter the contest. And tell 'em CYSTSFTS sent you!
Erik Mongrain is a self-taught French-Canadian guitar player that absolutely shreds. On his recently released debut full-length Fates Mongrain demonstrates the percussive two-handed tapping technique he calls "air-tap" that makes an acoustic guitar emit tones I never thought it could. Its like Van Halen meets James Taylor; furious but soothing. Fates is an album brimming with virtuosic performances, but for all the technical wizardry demonstrated by Mongrain, he also knows when to slow down and let his music and the melodies breathe. I could get lost in it and (IMHO) that's the most impressive part.
Check out this You Tube clip below of him playing in his signature air-tap style. As a guitar player myself, I think it is pretty amazing. Fates is due out June 27th on Propahse Music/ MVD and is something you need to check out.
TGIF in a big big way this week. We got a new (old) car this week and all it has is the radio and a cassette deck. I'm waiting for the aux input we ordered to arrive (hopefully tomorrow) and since I haven't bothered to dig out any old tapes I've been stuck with the radio all week long. It hasn't been all that bad though. Here are three songs that I heard yesterday which restored my faith in the radio (well some of it at least). Thanks 89.1 WONC.
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