The Magnetic Fields

The Magnetic Fields is New York City band fronted by singer-songwriter Stephin Merritt.Their albums consist of synthesiser popish music in a somewhat 80s style infused with pretty clever lyrics, usually about love, that are at times ironic,with some bitter overtones and even some humor at times.

The band began as Merritt's studio project, with Merritt playing all instruments. With the help of friend Claudia Gonson, who had played in Merritt's band The Zinnias during high school, a live band was assembled in Boston, where Merritt and Gonson lived, to play Merritt's compositions. The band's first live performance was at TT the Bear's Place in Boston, MA in 1991 where they played to a sparse audience expecting to see Galaxie 500 spinoff Magnetophone. The live performance sounded nothing like the recordings, which continued to be true for the band until recent years when the two sounds - studio and live - began to converge.

Their most significant, popular, and critically-acclaimed album to date is the triple album 69 Love Songs. It showcased Merritt's powerful songwriting abilities and the group's musicianship, demonstrated by the employment of unorthodox instrumental arrangements (including ukulele, banjo, accordion, cello, mandolin, piano, flute, xylophone, Marxophone, and various percussion instruments, in addition to their usual setup of synthesizers, guitars, and effects). The album also features guest vocalists Shirley Simms, Dudley Klute, LD Beghtol and bandmember Claudia Gonson - each of whom sings lead on six songs as well as various backing vocals - plus Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket) on accordion, and longtime collaborator Christopher Ewen (of Future Bible Heroes) as guest arranger/synthesist. Violinist Ida Pearle makes a brief cameo on the popular Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side

Here is the first of three songs i wanted to share by the band, the first "All My Little Words" show the bands talent and style singing about, love, loss and perhaps humanities ability to pick up the peices of a broken heart and move on.



This second song "I don't Believe you" is a more first person narrative about love and I think a far more personal offering then earlier work from the band.



The last song "California Girls" is one of those songs to listen to on those long lonely nights when you just need time to yourself to reflect on things. This song is also totally disturbing. It is taking an idea that many find obnoxious (i.e. young, shallow people) and then seeing that idea as an extremely personal offense to oneself. I think the song perfectly captures this sentiment, especially when the singer thinks she is special enough to feel personally judged by these countless and anonymous blondes, but it makes me highly uncomfortable because of the thick vein of realistic representation running through it....enjoy

Martha and the Muffins

Based in Toronto, Martha and the Muffins comprised Martha Johnson (vocals, keyboards), Martha Ladly (vocals, keyboards, trombone), guitarist Mark Gane, bassist Carl Finkle, drummer Tim Gane and saxophonist Andy Haas. The group formed in 1977 and, on the strength of their debut independent single, "Insect Love/Suburban Dream," were signed by Virgin U.K. to a contract. The band's debut album, Metro Music, appeared in 1980. After 1981's This Is the Ice Age and Danseparc two years later, Johnson and Gane moved the outfit to England and recorded Mystery Walk (1984) and The World Is a Ball (1986) as M+M. Martha and the Muffins were resurrected for 1992's Modern Lullaby.

The Like

In September, 2001 a young band from Los Angeles, USA came together when the teenage daughters of three rock industry types found a shared passion for music and vegetarianism. Childhood friends Elizabeth 'Z' (pronounced 'zee') Berg, Charlotte Froom and Tennessee Thomas had grown up together, their parents moving in the same music industry circles. As such, all the girls had been immersed in rock from a very young age and it wasn't too long before it was discovered by their fathers that 'Z' had been writing songs and was interested in joining a band.


Our dads were at a party and Charlotte's dad was like, 'My daughter's band is looking for a singer-slash-guitarist!' And my dad said, 'My daughter's a singer-slash-guitarist!'
- Z
After a little helping hand from their enthusiastic and music industry savvy parents, the new band soon developed their own unique sound. It would be easy to slot this sound into the 'indie' bracket, but apparently there is much more to the band than that. The girls describe their music as:

An 'early clue' to 'the new direction'. Melodic, hot, precocious, purple, blue and silver, with an undertone of peach and maroon. It looks like periwinkle, it smells like lavender, and it tastes... kind of like blueberry ice cream.
Others have likened The Like to late 1980s/early 1990s 'alternative' rock band The Sundays, and have even referred to their style as 'angry-girl' music. A simpler pigeonhole for The Like would be 'rock', but arguments over their sound aside, they are remarkably talented and energetic musicians - and fun to listen to, dispelling the critics' cries of nepotism and favouritism due to their fathers' backgrounds.

Like, you know?

Naming a band is often a very complex and difficult procedure, taking into consideration many factors such as its 'coolness', originality, marketability, and whether it rolls off the tongue or sticks in the craw. However, with the girls it was simple. Tennessee's mother suggested that they call themselves after the thing that all three of them dropped into their conversations, the habit of saying 'like' all the time. So, you know, the like were like, pretty soon, The Like


On September 18, 2009, The Like posted a message on their MySpace page introducing new members Reni Lane and Laena Geronimo. The blog was entitled 'The Like 2.0'. They also posted a link to a free download of their new single, 'Fair Game'.

Below is the link to thier myspace page

http://www.myspace.com/thelike

THE ETTES

Wanted to talk about a band I have kind of listened to off and on for the last couple of years. Formed back in 2004, The Ettes are a really beat-punk inspired group that when you listen to their songs, you can hear the influences from the Ramones, Rollin Stones and Blondie which they make into their on unique sound.

They have been compares to Blondie, along with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Strokes. The performances, which you can see below, are really full of energy and it will leave you wanting more. When they get asked at live shows for an encore, the band normally replys "If we're all still standing and the gear can still make noise, we'll do it.".........god you gotta admire the group........

So check out the music below to hear The Ettes insistent and irresistible sound that will take you into new music territory for a real revitalized wall of sound.

Sally Shapiro

Whispery sopranos and gentle pulsations of wistful warmth is the best way I could describe the music of Sally Shapiro. The pseudonym of a swedish singer, Sally Shapiro takes her influences from what I can really only describe as a cross between Italian disco and eurobeat.

One item that makes Shapiro stand out from the crowd is the fact that she shuns publicity. She does not perform live, give live interviews nor has she ever given out her real name. Her first album, Disco Romance, from 2007 got good reviews and her latest release , My Guilty Pleasure, follows in the same footsteps, much to the joy of her fans.

I have provided a couple of her songs below that show off her delicate and sensual vocals, along with the vintage 80's feel that her producer/writer Johan Agebjorn brings and I am sure you will be able to hear the influence that Kraftwerk and Katy Grey have provided.

Enjoy.....





Music start about 30 seconds into the video

A blast from the past

I know I normally talk about newer indy groups, but today I was listening to a band from the 90's that someone felt was not much of a band..........today I want to show a little love to that band..........Toad The Wet Sprocket.......

Named in honor of a sketch by the Monty Python comedy troupe, Toad the Wet Sprocket became one of the most successful alternative rock bands of the early '90s, boasting a contemporary folk-pop sound that wielded enough melody and R.E.M.-styled jangle to straddle both the modern rock and adult contemporary markets. Singer Glen Phillips, guitarist Todd Nichols, bassist Dean Dinning (the nephew of '50s hitmaker Mark "Teen Angel" Dinning), and drummer Randy Guss formed the group in 1986 in their native Santa Barbara, CA. After honing their sound in local bars, the bandmates entered a nearby studio in 1988 and recorded their debut LP, Bread and Circus, in eight days at a cost of $650. Originally sold as a homemade cassette in Santa Barbara record stores, the album eventually made its way to the Los Angeles offices of Columbia Records, which signed Toad only after agreeing to the band's request to reissue Bread and Circus in its original form, without any alterations or remixes.



The somber Pale, produced by Marvin Etzioni, followed in 1990. After years of persistent touring, Toad the Wet Sprocket's commercial breakthrough followed with 1991's Fear, as the single "All I Want" -- quite nearly left off the album -- became a Top 20 hit. Another single from the LP, "Walk on the Ocean," fared similarly well, and the combination pushed Fear to platinum sales. Three years later, Toad returned with Dulcinea, which generated a third Top 40 hit with the single "Fall Down." While "Fall Down" seemingly catered to the grunge generation with its minor-key riffs and anxious vocals, the bulk of Dulcinea emphasized Toad the Wet Sprocket's acoustic craft, and the band scored another hit with the mellow "Something's Always Wrong."



In Light Syrup, a collection of unreleased material, appeared in 1995. Although it contained the hit song "Good Intentions," the album didn't sell nearly as well as its predecessors, possibly due to the inclusion of "Good Intentions" on the popular Friends soundtrack. Coil, Toad the Wet Sprocket's fifth proper LP, followed in 1997 and suffered a similar fate, yielding one single ("Come Down") but failing to command the attention of Toad's earlier work. Faced with a dwindling stream of hits, the group ultimately split in July 1998, with the compilation album P.S.: A Toad Retrospective surfacing in 1999.



Glen Phillips launched a solo career several years after the band's breakup. He remained the most visible member of the group, collaborating with Nickel Creek and issuing a string of solo releases during the early 2000s. Toad the Wet Sprocket reconvened for several tours during the decade's latter half, with Phillips often serving as the band's own opening act. Apart from the concert recording Welcome Home: Live at the Arlington Theatre, Santa Barbara 1992, however, they failed to release any material

Spiral Beach

Here is what the music scene is saying about Spiral Beach, a new band with a great sound that is just now starting to get some major hype.

The next 12 months could prove to be the year of Spiral Beach. Too much hype can be a dangerous thing for an up-and-coming group, but anything less than shouting praise for these wunderkids from downtown rooftops wouldn't do them justice.
- Eye Weekly

Outta-control art rock threats are on a collision course with success. They have the ambition and ability to explode big, and an unself-conscious spark that makes you want to covet the band as your own personal diamond-in-the-rough discovery.
- NOW Magazine


We've been together with these four members the whole way so far, and have made every decision ourselves, so why throw that power away? Theres a whole lot more we can do together. Daniel and his brother Airick form the songwriting core of the band, which started backstage at folk songwriting festivals around Ontario where bassist David Woodhead was a constant presence. At their parent’s annual New Years Day party they befriended fellow folkie offspring Maddy Wilde, and in February 2003 a permanent lineup was solidified with bassist Dorian Wolf, a transplant from New York City and school friend of Daniels.

Ball's release comes on the heels of the band's first cross-Canada tour, a journey that Daniel describes as mind-expanding. However, this isn't the band's first major outing, as they've already toured in the United States with fellow Torontonians the Hidden Cameras last November, and again with Sloan this past spring.

These successes on the road haven't kept the band from finding a place for itself in Toronto's thriving music community, where their shows have become notorious for the raw energy and surprising musical ability that seemed to draw both young and old crowds. Definitely playing Elvis Mondays was a really important step for us Daniel recalls, referring to the free Monday nights at the Drake held by longtime Toronto music maverick William New. The band played his shows weekly surrounding the release of their 2005 independent self-titled debut. They drew bigger and more energized crowds with the visuals that now form an important part of their stage show, as well as introducing chaotic improvised sections into their sets, a move that never ceases to startle audiences into further appreciation of these young players natural charisma and enthusiasm onstage.

In December of 2006, the band was featured on the cover of NOW Magazine, and has enjoyed the favour of music critics across Canada, with feature reviews in Exclaim, Eye Weekly, the Ottawa Express and popular music BLOG I (heart) music. A last-minute appearance on MTV Canada Live in July 2007 received praise for the band's apparent disregard for the show's sterile aesthetic, bringing a vibrant and much-needed splash of excitement to the typically tame studio taping.

After spending much of the fall and winter on the road, Spiral Beach relocated to a converted barn outside Hamilton in February 2007 to record the material they had been touring, recruiting Hidden Cameras cellist Mike Olsen to co-produce and engineer. The well-rehearsed material was recorded live off the floor. It was like a document of what the band actually sounded like at that moment - we just wanted to perfect the sound we already had says Daniel. After a week in New York City mixing with Medeski Martin & Wood producer Scotty Hard, the band literally went broke, returning to Toronto to let Airick and Daniel finish the project themselves.

BALL is a collection of songs that musically reflect the kaleidoscopic live show full of ideas and textures, that the band translates to the stage with expertise. The visual and sonic aspects of the band compliment each other perfectly. A genuine air of excitement surrounds this band, and their ambition and potential seems limitless.

Dum Dum Girls

The DUM DUM GIRlS, is really just one girlm a librarian named Dee Dee, she has kind of join this resurance of 80's indie pop music that seems to be coming back........kinda like a rebirth of pixie'ish bands that are crawling out of the woodwork lately. i can say though that, that Dee Dee, recently signed to the SubPop label, has a great sound.


Here are a couple of her racous little songs I think you will enjoy. "Jail LA LA"

the horrors

The Horrors have their origin in the early 2000s where they became interested in obscure vinyl and DJing. During trips to London and on the Southend circuit, Rhys "Spider" Webb met Faris Badwan (Faris Rotter)and Tom Cowan (Tomethy Furse), who had attended Rugby School together, through their shared interests in '60s garage rock, and in 2005 the three formed a band with Joshua Hayward (Joshua Von Grimm) and Joseph Spurgeon (Coffin Joe). The band formed around Junkclub, an underground club founded by Oliver Abbott and Rhys. Their first rehearsal consisted of two covers: The Sonics' "The Witch" and Screaming Lord Sutch's "Jack the Ripper" (heavily influenced by previous cover versions by The Fuzztones, One-Way Streets and The Gruesomes) - the latter would later find itself as track one on the band's debut album.The Horrors made their first ever live performance at The Spread Eagle on Kingsland Road in London on 16 August 2005 at a night they put on themselves under the guise of The Brothers Grimm. They played with one other band, London's new wave punk pop band LR Rockets.

The Horrors first gained noticeable exposure thanks to their first single "Sheena Is a Parasite." Their second release, "Death at the Chapel," a high-profile show at London's 100 Club in July 2006, and an appearance on the cover of the NME in August, greatly increased their profile. As a result of this exposure, the band played the NME Awards Indie Rock Tour in early 2007 along with Mumm-Ra, The View and The Automatic which helped them to gain further publicity.

Here are a couple of thier songs........enjoy

Best Coast

There seems to be a new musical movement happening across this fair land. This movement consists of laid back lo-fi sun-drenched melodies meant to bliss you out.

Ok, in fairness, that sound's been happening forever (like way back in the cavemen days of the '60s!), but only recently does this sound seem to be catching on with the cool concert kids.

Anyway, Best Coast is comprised of principle singer/songwriter Bethany Cosentino. Now because of all the laptop-meets-guitar-meets-lo-fi layers going on here, it's hard to decipher exactly what Cosentino is singing about. But if I had to venture a guess, I'd say it's all about weed. But again, that's just a guess (based on the title "Sun Was High (So Was I)" and a picture on Best Coast's MySpace page of a mountain of --- weed).

On that same MySpace page, Cosentino lists Connie Francis as her influence. And we totally hear that! So think of Best Coast as that "Who's Sorry Now?" song meets Real Estate (or Ducktails) meets haze meets sun meets the wacky tobaccy.

The Rutles

With so many Beatles alums and box sets getting released and rereleased, I wanted to share with you a band that...given a better world.......could have been even greater then the Beatles........but like many bands, the excesses of the biz took a heavy toll.Here is their story and a few videos.........

On January 21, 1959 the Rutles story began at 43 Egg Lane, Liverpool, where Ron Nasty and Dirk McQuickly first bumped into each other. Ron invited Dirk to help him stand up. Dirk, merely an ameteur drinker, agreed and on that spot a legend was created, a legend that will last a lunchtime. They were soon to be joined by Stig O'Hara, a guitarist of no fixed hairstyle, but it would be another two years before they found their regular drummer, Barrington Womble, hiding in the van. When they did, they persuaded him to change his name to save time and his haircut to save Brylcreem. He became simply Barry Wom.

They gained their first manager, Arthur Scouse, as part of a bet (which they lost). So impressed was he with their music that he sent them immediately to Hamburg. Thinking that Hamburg was just outside Liverpool they accepted. It turned out to be not only in Germany, but in the very worst part of Germany. The Reeperbahn Hamburg is one of the naughtiest streets in the world. This is where they ended up, far from home, and far from talented.

In those days there was a fifth Rutle, Leppo, who mainly stood at the back. He couldn't play the guitar, but he knew how to have a good time, and in Hamburg that was more difficult. For five hungry working class lads there are worse places than prison, and The Rat Keller Hamburg is one. For fifteen months, night after night, they played the Rat Keller before they finally escaped and returned to Liverpool. In the rush they lost Leppo. He had crawled into a trunk with a small German Fraulien and was never seen again. (This inspired Nasty to write the song "Goose-Step Mama".) His influence on the Rutles was so immeasurable that no one has ever bothered to measure it.



The Rutles returned hungry to Liverpool full of experience and pills. They persuaded the manager of the Cavern to let them play there by holding his head under water until he agreed. Very soon their music began to create no small interest. In fact, no interest at all.

In October 1961 Leggy Mountbatten, a retail chemist from Bolton, entered their lives. Leggy had lost a leg in the closing overs of World War Two and had been hopping around Liverpool ever since. One day he accidentally stumbled down the steps of a dingy disco, what he saw there was to change his life: a sailor who told him about the Rutles. It was a dank, sweaty, basement cellar, torrid and pulsating with sound. Leggy hated it. He hated their music, he hated their hair, he hated their noise: but he loved their trousers. In his autobiography, A Cellarful Of Goys, Leggy tells of timorously approaching Ron Nasty and asking him what it would cost to sign the Rutles. "A couple of jam butties and a beer" was Nasty's reply. Next day Leggy sent them a crate of beer, two jam butties and a fifteen page contract. The Rutles, instinctively trusting this softly spoken, quietly limping man, signed immediately.



Leggy's effect on the Rutles was immediately apparent. He put them into suits, he made them turn up on time, and he took their photgraphs and tapes to London.
Archie Macaw was the first A&R man to take an interest in the Rutles. He offered to record the Rutles and recommended Leggy to Dick Jaws, an unemployed music publisher of no fixed ability, who signed them to a publishing contract for the rest of their lives.

Elated, Leggy put the Rutles into the studio. Their first album, Please Rut Me, was made in twenty minutes. Their second took even longer. Success was only a drum-beat away.

In 1963 Rutlemania hit England. It seemed that the Rutles could do no wrong. A string of hits - Rut Me Do, Twist and Rut, Please Rut Me - brought unprecedented scenes of mass adulation.

By December they had nineteen hits in the top 20. Even the queen was impressed when they played before her at the Royal Command Performance.



In 1964 the Rutles made their all-important breakthough in America, when Hold My Hand, the Rutles' first single on Capatol Records, became a big hit. When they travelled to America for the first time, 10,000 screaming fans were at Kennedy Airport to greet them. Unfortunately the Rutles arrived at La Guardia.

Nevertheless the next day 73 million people watched them perform live on the Ed Sullivan Show. To all intents and purposes the Rutles had captured the world.

On their second visit to the States in early 1965 they played the world's first outdoor rock and roll concert at Che Stadium (named after the Cuban Guerilla leader Che Stadium). As a security precaution the Rutles arrived by helicopter a day early. This enabled them to be safely out of the place before the audience came in. It was a brilliant public relations coup. The kids were screaming so hard that thousands never noticed the difference. Promoter Syd Bottle described it as the most exciting twenty minutes of his life.

Inevitably the Rutles turned to films and conquered that medium too with the help of zany Rutland director Dick Leicestershire.

In 1966 the Rutles faced the biggest threat to their careers. Nasty in a widely quoted interview had apparently claimed that the Rutles were bigger than God, and was reported to have gone on to say that God had never had a hit record.

The story spread like wildfire in America. Many fans burnt their albums, many more burnt their fingers attempting to burn their albums. Album sales sky-rocketed. People were buying them just to burn them.

But in fact it was all a ghastly mistake. Nasty, talking to a slightly deaf journalist, had claimed only that the Rutles were bigger than Rod. Rod Stewart would not be big for another eight years, and certainly at this stage hadn't had a hit. At a press conference, Nasty apologized to God, Rod and the press, and the tour went ahead as planned. It would be the Rutles' last.



A year later the Rutles were caught up in another scandal. In the heady atmosphere of San Francisco of the mid sixties, Bob Dylan had introduced the Rutles to a substance that was to have enormous effects on them: Tea. They enjoyed its pleasant effects, despite warnings that it would lead to stronger things, and it enormously influenced their greatest work, Sgt. Rutter's Only Darts Club Band.

The release of this album, a millstone in pop music history, contributed greatly to an idyllic summer of bells, flowers and tea drinking. But it was not to last. Under questioning Dirk refused to lie to the British press and admitted to not only taking tea and enjoying tea, but biscuits too. The press, always envious of the Rutles, leapt at this oppurtunity to have it both ways. They grabbed the wrong end of the stick and began beating around the bush with it. In the ensuing confusion many pop stars were arrested for using and possessing tea. Nasty himself was busted by Detective Inspector Brian Plant, who brought his own to be on the safe side. There was an immediate outcry against this police persecution. The Times carried a full page ad calling for the legalisation of tea, and the general feeling was that police should stick to their proper job of collecting bribes from photographers and protecting the Royal Family from their subjects

Stig meanwhile had fallen under the influence of Arthur Sultan, the Surrey mystic, and he had introduced Stig to his Ouija Board work. Sultan now invited the Rutles on a get away from it all table-tapping weekend near Bogner. As usual the press followed.

But while the Rutles sat at the feet of the Surrey mystic seeking spiritual enlightenment at his hands fate dealt them an appalling blow. It was at Bogner that they learned the shocking news of the loss of their manager Leggy Mountbatten. Tired and despondant over the weekend and unable to raise any friends, Leggy had gone home and, tragically, accepted a teaching post in Australia. It was a bombshell for the Rutles. They were shocked.



The news was not entirely unexpected. Leggy's recent behavior had been giving grounds for concern. He had been investing heavily in Spanish bullfighters and in California he had been arrested for giving the kiss of life to a rubber raft. But he had for many years held the Rutles together, often forcibly. Now he was gone.

The Rutles first major flop The Tragical History Tour immediately followed the loss of Leggy. It was not the stongest idea for a Rutles film, four Oxford History Professors on a walking tour of English Tea Shops, and it was slammed mercilessly by the critics

In 1968 Dirk and Nasty flew to New York to announce the formation of Rutles Corps, their aim, as Nasty put it, "to help people help themselves". Unfortunately Rutles Coprs did just that, people helped themselves for years. So many parasites jumped onto the band's wagon that at one stage they were losing money faster than the British government.



The pilfering from Rutle Corps was on a monumental scale, typewriters, TV sets, telephones, cars, even offices disappeared overnight.

During this time, Dirk married Martini, a french actress who spoke no english and precious little french. When they married in London, the service was conducted in Spanish, Italian and Chinese, to be on the safe side.

Nasty, meanwhile, vistied an exhibition of broken art at The Pretentious Gallery in Soho. The art had all been dropped out of tall buildings and put on display. Amongst the little piles of rubble, Nasty found the artist herself, Chastity, a simple little german girl, who's father had invented World War Two. Chasitity fascinated him with her destructo-art. They talked all though all the night, while she outlined her plans to drop artists out of planes. Nasty adored her. They announced their engagement next day, at a press conference held in his shower.



Stig, meanwhile, had hidden in the background so much that in 1969 a rumour went around that he was dead. Stig was of course, far from dead. Although not far from London. He had fallen in bed with Gertrude Strange, a large-breasted, biologically accomodating American girl who's father had invented the limpet mine. When Stig met her it was lust at first site. They retired to his bungalow where he woke up exhausted a year later to find that Gertrude was gone, leaving only some crumbs in the bed and a lot of torn sheets. She left no forwarding address, no farewell notes, but also luckily no children.

Barry meanwhile had also spent a year in bed as a tax dodge. Eric Manchester, the Rutles press agent, thinks that he either had appalling financial advice or he was deperately trying to start a "Barry is also dead" rumour. When he finally got up to answer the telephone, Rutle Corps was in a perilous financial state.

Nasty had flown back in a hurry from his honeymoon to meet Ron Decline, the most feared promoter in the world, in an attempt to settle Rutle Corps' appalling financial problems.

Unfortunately, Stig was now accepting the financial advice of Billy Kodak, Dirk had hired Arnold Schwarzenweisengreenenbluenbraunenburger to handle his end of the name, and Barry was consulting the I Ching every three and a half minutes.

In the midst of this public and legal wrangling Let It Rot was released as a film, an album, and a lawsuit. It showed the Rutles as never before; tired, unhappy, cross, and just like the rest of the world.

In December 1970 Dirk sued Stig and Nasty, Barry sued Dirk, Nasty sued Stig and Barry, and Stig sued himself accidentally. It was the end of a golden era, and the beginning of another one for lawyers everywhere.

The Dodos

The Dodos are an American indie rock band consisting of Meric Long and Logan Kroeber.

The Dodos began playing music together in 2005, when Meric Long, who had been gigging steadily in San Francisco as a solo singer-songwriter, was introduced to Logan Kroeber through a mutual friend (a college acquaintance of Long's that happened to be Kroeber's cousin).

The Dodos are known for using an alternate instrumental approach. Logan Kroeber plays on a drum kit without a bass drum, playing often on the rims of the drums. During live performances they have a third member playing a vibraphone, a drum and two cymbals placed on each other (like a hihat). Meric Long plays mainly acoustic and semi-acoustic guitars during performances, but he also owns a Springtime and a Tafelberg drum guitar built by Yuri Landman.

Here are a couple prime examples of their musical stylings. enjoy.......

Lissy Trullie

Last night's show felt like a big deal, with a massive mob clamoring for the door-girl's attention outside Le Royale before prettier-in-person fasionista-cum-songwriter Lissy Trullie took the stage. There was an elegance about Trullie's simple aesthetic, from the unadorned guitar work to her coy but monosyllabic lyrics, and she exuded a captivating vulnerability when her boyish voice grasped at higher pitches. Guitarist Eben D'Amico, formerly the bassist of New Jersey emo legends Saves the Day, colored Trullie's straightforward tact with clever but careful lead work. Pre-selected CMJ fave "Self-Taught Learner" was a highlight, as was a brisk take on Hot Chip's "Ready for the Floor".

Vivian Girls

The Vivian Girls started in Brooklyn, NY in March 2007 as the trio of Cassie Ramone (guitar/vocals), Kickball Katy (bass/drums/vocals) and Frankie Rose (drums/bass/vocals).While only a band for a short while, they recorded a demo CD-R which included five original songs and a Wipers cover, and began to play locally in Brooklyn and Katy and Cassie's home state of New Jersey.Within the first couple of months they had already developed a strong local following, supporting acts like Jay Reatard, Sonic Youth and the King Khan & BBQ Show as well as finding kindred spirits in other locals like Cause Co-Motion!, Crystal Stilts, and Woods, with whom they’ve shared many bills and helped develop a local scene. In March 2008 they released the "Wild Eyes" single on the Plays With Dolls label.With very little promotion and distribution the single became an underground indie hit as it charted on many college radio playlists and garnered positive reviews on the internet.Recorded in the same session, their debut self-titled LP was released by the Mauled by Tigers label, whose initial pressing of the LP sold out in ten days.During this time, the group signed with In The Red Records who released a new single in August 2008.In The Red re-released the Mauled by Tigers record on LP and CD formats in October 2008. In July 2008 the band underwent a lineup change with new drummer Ali Koehler replacing Frankie Rose.

The band's name comes from a mammoth written work by outsider artist Henry Darger, called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion.

Meaghan Smith

Meaghan Smith, a young Canadian chanteuse looks like and sounds like she just walked out of one of those Debbie Reynolds movies such as, Tammy’s In Love. She exudes a wholesomeness which infuses her music, in a way that is far from being syrupy, but it is magical, because it recreates a sound that is often lost on many of today’s artists. Smith is attracted to vintage jazz, and she reaches back to the sounds of the 1920’s and ‘30’s to reinvent a vintage ambience in which to wrap her warm, heartfelt lyrics. In early November, Smith who is signed to the Sire Records, an imprint of Warner Music, will have completed an arduous, but rewarding cross continent tour, which saw her perform thirty-one concerts in numerous major cities, both in the United States and Canada. At many of those gigs, she opened for iconic singer / songwriter Ron Sexsmith. Operating on almost no sleep, as she and the other members of both her band and Sexsmith’s band, had driven many miles, from their gig the night before, Smith was generous with her time, and thoughtfully answered my questions concerning her EP The Cricket’s Quartet, which serves as an appetizer for her full length album The Cricket’s Orchestra, which will be released in 2009.

Chew Lips

Chew Lips are a South London based dance-pop trio, formed in spring of 2008. They consist of singer Tigs, and multi-instrumentalists Will Sanderson and James Watkins.

After forming in early 2008, and writing ten songs in their first rehearsal session,the band played its first gig at a friends' house party in New Cross on May 10th 2008.After performing fourteen live shows, they were asked by BBC DJ Steve Lamacq to feature on the BBC Introducing stage at the Electric Proms in October 2008Their name comes from a character in the Brendan Behan book Borstal Boy.

Chew Lips has been described as "minimal dance-pop" and "coupling techno beats with smart-mouthed edgy vocals", influenced by LCD Soundsystem and Prince and "Classic Pop".

Here is their first official video for "Salt Air"......enjoy

She & Him

She & Him made their debut record as a love letter to the musicians who inspired it. Volume One (Merge Records) introduces a boy and girl choir hell-bent on making music the old-fashioned way: by hand - and with as few machines as humanly possible.

The She & Him story begins when in 2006 , renowned one man band M. Ward, recorded a duet with a girl named Zooey Deschanel. A delightful recording session, the experience lead to a dialogue between the two about collaborating further. This, in turn, led to Deschanel admitting to secretly making dozens and dozens of home demos and hoarding them like acorns for the winter. Sick and tired of being stingy and secretive about music, Deschanel realized that if songs were acorns then this was indeed her wintertime: she sent the recordings to Ward and these demos became the basis for their first record, entitled Volume One.

Ward’s unique arrangements and virtuostic guitar playing paired with Deschanel’s affinity for vocal harmony give Volume One its characteristic sound . Ward and Deschanel share a mutual affection for the songs they grew up hearing on Los Angeles radio stations - and keep in their hearts the records that most DJ's aren't playing anymore: Les Paul and Mary Ford, The Ronettes, Nina Simone, Chet Atkins, Linda Ronstadt, the Carter Family and about a hundred others. Aiming to achieve the warmth and charm of pop and country records from the early and mid part of the twentieth century, Ward, who also produced the record, and Deschanel, who wrote most of the music, called upon the help of a number of extraordinary musicians including: Rachel Blumberg, Adam Selzer, Mike Coykendall, Tom Hagerman, Peter Broderick, Mike Mogis, and Paul Brainerd. Without whom this record would just be two people with no drums, bass, strings or pedal steel.

California-raised and Portland-based, M. Ward has released 4 records with Merge, his latest was "Post-War" (2006). He has collaborated with the likes of Neko Case, Conor Oberst, Jim James, Nels Cline, and Jenny Lewis. California based Deschanel spent much of her early life singing in choirs, which is probably why she likes harmonies so much. She also enjoys reading, dancing and playing the piano. She & Him have performed together on occasion over the last year and enjoyed it very much.





Here is a song of thiers I like called "When I get to the Border", it is about that part of the American Dream called Unrequited Love.....and we can all get it, provided we are will to cross state lines......

The Temper Trap

Ok, here is some on a new group I have been listening to call The Temper Trap, tey are getting ready to be featured on the film "500 days of summer" coming out in a few weeks, but below is what wiki says about them and then i added a video of a great song of theirs.

The Temper Trap is a rock band from Melbourne, Australia. It is noted for its atmospheric sound, featuring grand guitars set to pulsating rhythms.

Here is the video of my fav song from them called "sweet disposition"




see what did I say......is that great or what!!!!!

Conor Oberst

Conor Oberst writes and sings for the folk-rock band Bright Eyes, a college radio favorite since the late 1990s. Oberst began writing and recording his own songs just after he hit his teens. By the time he was releasing Bright Eyes records in the late '90s he'd already released two records with the band Commander Venus and started his own label, Saddle Creek Records. Recording as the band Bright Eyes he has released a string of singles, EPs and full-length albums that caused American rock music critics to break out in choruses of "the next Bob Dylan!" The pained adolescent poetry of his early records earned Oberst a crowd of loyal fans, and his doe-eyed, fashionably shaggy look made him a heartthrob of the indie rock set.

His best-known songs include "Lover I Don't Have to Love," from 2002's Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground; "At the Bottom of Everything" and "First Day of My Life," from 2005's I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning; and "Four Winds," from 2007's Cassadaga. He released a self-titled solo album in 2008, his first in ten years, and in 2009 he released Outer South with the Mystic Valley Band.

A Camp

A Camp is the solo side project of Nina Persson, vocalist for the Swedish indie/pop band The Cardigans.

A Camp was formed during The Cardigans' break after several years of touring and recording albums, the last of which was (at the time) Gran Turismo.

A Camp's debut album, the self-titled A Camp, was originally recorded with Niclas Frisk of Atomic Swing, before Persson teamed up with Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse to re-record it. In doing so he also contributed some new songs to the album.

Nina had been a long-time fan of Sparklehorse and has referred to them as "the best I've ever heard". After a gig in Lund, Sweden, Persson gave Linkous a cassette of all the demo A Camp songs. When they met again during the recording of his most recent album, Persson mustered the courage to invite him to produce her project. Linkous listened, liked the songs, and agreed.

The debut album released the singles "I Can Buy You" and "Song for the Leftovers". These country-inspired selections later seemed to have inspired The Cardigans' following album, Long Gone Before Daylight, which was released in the UK summer 2003, and the USA in May 2004.

Nouvelle Vague

Nouvelle Vague is a French musical collective led by musicians Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux. Their name is a play on words, meaning "new wave" in French. This refers simultaneously to their "Frenchness" and "artiness" (the '60s new wave of cult French cinema), the source of their songs (all covers of punk rock, post-punk, and New Wave songs), and their use of '60s bossa nova-style arrangements ("bossa nova" being Portuguese for "new wave").

On their first album, Nouvelle Vague, the group resurrected classics from the New Wave music era, and reinterpreted them in a bossa nova style. The songs were stripped back to acoustic arrangements with lithe shaker rhythms achieved by gathering a parade of chanteuses from all over the world (six French, one Brazilian and one New Yorker) to cover bands including XTC, Modern English, The Clash, Joy Division and The Undertones. The various female singers on Nouvelle Vague only performed songs they had never heard before, to ensure that each cover would have a unique quality.

Their second album, Bande à Part, includes versions of "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)" by Buzzcocks, "Blue Monday" by New Order, "The Killing Moon" by Echo and the Bunnymen and "Heart of Glass" by Blondie.

Members, former members and contributors include many French artists who are now very well known on their own and considered as part of what is now called the "Renouveau de la chanson française" (the "Renewal of French chanson"): Anaïs Croze, Camille Dalmais, Phoebe Killdeer, Mélanie Pain and Marina Céleste

THE BEETS

Explaining what the Beets are not is easy. They’ve got nothing to do with PETA, the raw food movement, or the animated quartet featured on the TV show Doug. But getting at what, exactly, they are is a bit more difficult.

The New York City-based band's brand of woozy ‘60s rock might have something to do with it; it manages to be both messy and completely controlled at the same time. The trio sounds like a pack of drunk rats singing along to The Modern Lovers, plays like a preppy version of the Velvet Underground, and looks like the boys of the Wonders after they pulled an all-nighter. (The Beets even have their very own Shades.)

And though most of the songs on their debut album, Spit In The Face Of People Who Don’t Want To Be Cool, barely clock in at two minutes, they’re unbelievably catchy. “I Think I Might’ve Built a Horse” features a sing-along chorus, “For You” is their version of a feedback-heavy lullaby, and “Cold Lips” chugs along like it was made to be played on repeat on your record player.

Which, up until now, was your only option. But the Beets just released their album digitally, via emusic.com, so you can listen to it on your way to a bar—or, more fittingly, as you stumble home after.

Gone Troppo

Here is a bit about what I think of as a much overlooked album.......


Gone Troppo is an album by George Harrison recorded and released in 1982. It would prove to be Harrison's last studio album for five years, wherein he would largely take an extended leave of absence from his recording career, with only the occasional soundtrack recording surfacing.

By 1980, Harrison had been finding the current musical climate alienating. His commercial appeal had dwindled, with 1981's Somewhere in England failing to go gold (despite featuring the John Lennon tribute smash hit, "All Those Years Ago"). With one album left on his current recording contract, Harrison decided to get it over with and recorded Gone Troppo (an Australian slang expression meaning "gone mad/crazy") and released it without participating in any promotion, so disenchanted he was with the state of the music industry.

Gone Troppo - with its busy artwork by friend "Legs" Larry Smith (formerly of Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band) - was considered by most to be a flop, reaching a #108 in the US and never even touching the UK charts. It became the worst selling studio album Harrison released.

In 2004, Gone Troppo was remastered and reissued both separately and as part of the deluxe box set The Dark Horse Years 1976-1992 on Dark Horse Records with new distribution by EMI, adding the bonus track demo version of "Mystical One".

Johnny Flynn

Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit are an English folk rock band signed to Lost Highway. They are fronted by Johnny Flynn (also known as Joe Flynn), an actor, poet and songwriter who cites W.B. Yeats and Shakespeare among his influences. He is a member of the 'Propeller' theatre troupe, acting in several plays including Twelfth Night. Band members of 'The Sussex Wit' include Matt Edmonds, Adam Beach, Joe Zeitlin, Lillie Flynn and Johnny Flynn.

Living Things

Thought I would talk about a somewhat local regional band called "living things", thought about how i saw them a couple years back and thought would give them some props out here.

Living Things are an American alternative rock band from a St. Louis, MO.
The band, who perform using stage names, consist of chief provocateur singer/songwriter/guitarist Lillian Berlin and his two siblings Eve Berlin (bass guitar) and Bosh Berlin (drums), along with childhood friend Cory Becker on guitar. Singer Lillian Berlin is extremely outspoken about what he refers to as the The Blackout Generation.

Here is the video for a song of theirs I really enjoy called "let it rain", I hope you enjoy it

The Postal Service

Was listening to "The Postal Service" while typing out my other blog and thought they would make a good edition to this blog.

The Postal Service is an American electronic indie pop band composed of vocalist Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and producer Jimmy Tamborello of Dntel, Headset and Figurine.

The group formed after Gibbard contributed vocals for a song called "(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan" from Dntel's album Life Is Full of Possibilities. The song sparked an EP of remixes by other artists, such as Lali Puna, The Flaming Lips, Safety Scissors, Barbara Morgenstern and Superpitcher, and was so well received that the two artists decided that further collaboration was in order.

The band's name was chosen due to the way in which they produced its songs. Tamborello wrote and performed instrumental tracks and then sent the DATs to Gibbard, who edited the song as he saw fit (adding his vocals along the way), sending them back to Tamborello via the United States Postal Service.

ludo

Ludo is an alternative rock band from St. Louis, Missouri. Ludo's origins can be traced to songs written while Andrew Volpe was still in high school at John Burroughs School in Ladue, Missouri. While sitting in his car in the local Schnucks supermarket parking lot after class, Volpe penned songs that would become some of Ludo's first, including their local breakout radio hit "Hum Along". After his sophomore year at Washington University, Volpe decided to form a band with fellow John Burroughs graduate Dave Heltibrand. The two began seeking a guitarist, and Saint Louis University High School graduate Tim Ferrell took them up on the offer while home on break from the University of Notre Dame on summer break.The three adopted the name Ludo after a character in the film Labyrinth.

THE PAINS OF BEING PURE AT HEART

Here is a little ban I recently ran across while listening to some indie music and i thought they were blog worthy.

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart are an indie rock band from New York, NY.Their first album was a self-released EP which came out in 2007 through the Painbow label. Their debut self-titled full length album was released on February 3, 2009 via Slumberland Records.The band name comes from an unpublished children’s story that a friend of singer Kip Berman wrote of the same title.[4] In Spring, 2009, the band released a second single, "Young Adult Friction" from their debut album and plan another non-album release in Summer 2009 with an 'a' side is called '!03'

Jack Off Jill

Jack Off Jill, one of my fav's of all time, but these four bitches could not hold it together, to much fighting to not break up........and a shame really cause they had a fantastic sound.

Jack Off Jill was an alternative rock band from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, formed in 1992 by Jessica "Jessicka" Fodera, Tenni "Ah-Cha-Cha" Arslanyan, Robin Moulder, and Michelle "Michelle Inhell" Oliver. Though these four young women were the initial founders, twelve members rotated through the group in its life span, including Scott Putesky, guitarist and co-founder of Marilyn Manson. The band lasted eight years, with only Moulder and Fodera remaining through all its lineups: Moulder wrote the bulk of the music, Fodera all of the lyrics and melodies. The group toured and performed with Marilyn Manson a significant number of times. Like Manson, they were known for raunchy shows. Despite this, the group bore a greater resemblance to riot grrrl groups, some of their songs in particular being musically comparable to riot grrl band Bikini Kill.

Here are a couple of my favorite songs from them, first is 'vivica' awesome song and then 'devils fuck and angels kiss' another great one......enjoy.....

Pretty Girls Make Graves

Here is a bit about a band i have been listening too lately, they are really a sound that takes a few listens too, before you really dig what they are doing.

Pretty Girls Make Graves was an art punk band, formed in Seattle in 2001, named after The Smiths song of the same name (which itself was named after a quote from Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums, which Kerouac took from a correspondence between Alan Ginsberg and Bob Dylan). Andrea Zollo and Derek Fudesco had played together previously in The Hookers, as well as The Death Wish Kids and Area 51 along with Dann Gallucci, with whom Derek had formed Murder City Devils. Not long before the Murder City Devils disbanded, Derek and Andrea formed Pretty Girls Make Graves along with Jay, Nick and Nathan. They played the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 2004.

Pitchfork Media announced that the band was breaking up on 29 January 2007. Their final two shows were 9 June 2007, in Seattle

Here is a video of their song Nocturnal House that I really like and just love the video. It reminds me a lot of the group Jack Off Jill.

Enjoy......

PLASTISCINES

New group I have been listening too lately called Plastiscines.

Plastiscines are Katty Besnard (singer/guitar), Marine Neuilly (guitar), Louise Basilien (bass), Anaïs (drums) and former drummers Caroline and Zazie Tavitian. They formed in 2004 after Besnard, Neuilly, and Tavitian, all of whom were at school together, met Basilien, originally a harpist, at a concert by the English band, the Libertines.Their talent was recognised early on by Maxime Schmitt, producer of the German band Kraftwerk, and they were signed by EMI for the Virgin France label in October 2006.

In addition to the Libertines, the band's influences include the White Stripes, the Strokes and, from an earlier generation, the Kinks and Blondie.Their name derives from the phrase, "plasticine porters with looking glass ties" in the Beatles' song, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", on the 1967 album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Plastiscines have been critical of French retailing of rock music. Louise Basilien has remarked that she learnt about rock 'n' roll through her parents, the Internet and by reading books: "the generation before us could not learn about rock 'n' roll because the stores here were rubbish".In consequence, the French rock scene in 2006-7 was seen by many as fresh and exciting, even though the requirement that forty per cent of songs broadcast on radio in France should be in French continued to militate against bands who wished to perform in English (which, because of its American origins and British dominance in the 1960s, has always been the prime language of rock 'n' roll).

Here is the video of thier song Barcelona that i really dig......enjoy......

My Little Lisa Loeb

Ok, as I have written before I have this thing for Lisa Loeb. Not sure what it is, maybe her voice, her personality, her cuteness, maybe even the glasses, but there is something about her that is really hot. Also readers will know that at the salon where my stylist Joanna makes me look good, there is another stylist who has a bit of a lisa loeb thing going on or maybe it is that lisa loeb has a bit of a envy stylist thing going on. Either way, it is all for nothing, as she is married, although I hear perhaps there is trouble there.

Anyway, I was off today and coloring my hair, which got me thinking about the salon, and some shampoo I have to pick up after work friday and that of course ade me think of that hot little stylist and that made me think of lisa loeb and this this blog.

Here are a couple of her early videos, and before you say, wow brad likes them young.......the truth s, these are old video's and in reality, lisa is a couple of years older then me...........so enjoy the tunes

Waterloo Sunset

I know I normally chat about more independant groups, but today, i wanted to blog about a song by the Kinks that most people today have never even heard.

"Waterloo Sunset" is a song released as a single by The Kinks in 1967, and featured on their album Something Else by the Kinks. It was composed and produced by The Kinks lead singer and songwriter Ray Davies and is one of the band's best known and most acclaimed songs.

The lyrics are from the point of view of a solitary man on the south bank of the Thames watching (or imagining) the romantic encounters of a couple at Waterloo Underground, then crossing Waterloo Bridge. Davies, in his 1996 autobiography X-Ray, says the inspiration for the song came from an incident when he was hospitalized as a boy. On the BBC radio show The Davies Diaries, Davies stated that "I can't tell you who they are because they're good friends of mine". In a 2008 interview with Spinner Magazine, Davies stated "it was a fantasy about my sister going off with her boyfriend to a new world and they were going to emigrate and go to another country."

The couple - "Terry" and "Julie" - mentioned in the lyrics are widely reported and presumed as being British film stars of the time Terence Stamp and Julie Christie but Davies, in a 2004 interview, denied this, saying: "No, Terry and Julie were real people. I couldn't write for stars."

The recording features Davies' first wife Rasa on background vocals. “When the record was finished and it was coming out", Ray Davies remembered, “I got my wife Rasa to drive me down to Waterloo Bridge to see if the atmosphere was right… I’ve never worked with a song that has been a total pleasure from beginning to end like that one”.

I have included two versions of the song for you to compare. The first a live performance by the Kinks and the other a cover from elliot smith, just to see the different interpetations........enjoy

La Roux and random thoughts

random thoughts first...........

well i saw the new terminator movie today and it was fairly good,ut not what i would call a mega blockbuster, but still good. to be honest though, Bryce Dallas Howards character is really not needed and if she had been left on the cutting room floor, nothing would have been missed. Shame though as I think she is a good young actress.




Here is the band I am talking about tonight......"La Roux"

Meaning "red-haired one" in French, La Roux is the synth pop project of flame-haired singer/songwriter Elly Jackson and keyboardist/producer Ben Langmaid. Before they collaborated, Jackson grew up listening to folk legend Nick Drake, and drew inspiration from his sound for her early music. Meanwhile, Langmaid went to school with Faithless' Rollo Armstrong, and the pair recorded as house duo Huff & Puff in the mid-'90s; Langmaid also recorded as Atomic and as one half of Huff & Herb for Armstrong's label, and was a songwriter for the group Kubb. Jackson and Langmaid began working together in 2006, when they were introduced by a mutual acquaintance. Initially, they called their project "Automan" and wrote largely acoustic music before scrapping that name and sound for the sleek, Prince, David Bowie, and the Knife-inspired style they pursued as La Roux. Their debut single, "Quicksand," was released by Kitsune in fall 2008, and earned the band acclaim from the BBC and the Guardian. La Roux supported Lily Allen on her 2009 U.K. tour and were expected to release their first album later that year.

Here is a video of their song Bulletproof.........enjoy

country music confession

It is well known that I am really not into country music at all. Many a night as I sit drinking in some dark alley bar in the heart of hong kong, I can be heard to say "What do they call that type of country music that really sucks ass? O'h yea, that's right, they call it country music.".

But I have a confession to make, the type of deep dark confession that is built upon years of denial, you see in the late 90's, I was given a copy of an album called "Music for all Occassions" it was a country cd, so as i stood there kicking the person who gave me the album in the stomach and cursing their birth, I decided to at least give the cd a listen.

Well i was shocked, this was one of the best cd's I ever had listened too and even today, I count this album as one of the few that you can listen to front to back. So I have over the years purcased all the cd's from this group called The Mavericks.

The Mavericks was a Grammy Award-winning alternative country music band founded in 1989 in Miami, Florida, United States. Between 1991 and 2003 they recorded six studio albums, in addition to charting fourteen singles on the Billboard country charts.

Enjoy the two somgs below...............

Mraz

Here is a somg by Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat that I like called "Lucky". Pretty clear what the song is about, funny story on the writing. Mraz states that he wrote this with friends as a game with everyone just throwing out lyrics to see what would happen..........well you can see what happened.



here is a bonus video of some guy doing a pretty damn good boston cover

Mandolin Rain

Well, my hair has been styled and profiled(shout out to joanna,nice job, best stylist in the city) and it was pouring rain while i was getting all fixed up. I will pause here to say that "crazy bitch" from my last blog entry has her hair all fixed up with sexy dark curls and was sporting the lisa loeb glasses.........she was looking extra extra hot, and although i have never spoke to her, she seems like a really nice person. Then again, everyone down there at the salon is really nice, but damn she was smoking tonight...............love a chance to curl those toes........

anyway walking out it was pouring rain, real wrath of god type stuff and it got me thinking about the song Mandolin Ran by Bruce Hornsby. In this song the narrator is listening to a bluegrass band and it takes him back to a time in his youth when he was in a relationship with a girl. Basically Hornsby paints a picture of a band playing in a tent by a lake i.e. very traditional folk america and couples it with pain we all feel about that first love which got away. I think that the nostalgic image of old America - bluegrass, steamboat - ties in brilliantly with nostalgia for young romance.

I was very young when this song came out but it lodged in my subconsciousness. When i heard it again for the first time in my early 20's i actually cried, it triggered something in me. Cheers Bruce, one of the best musicians of our time.

Haircuts and Hair Stylists

Was sitting at work today thinking about blogging and what group or song I was going to throw on here tonight, when it dawned on me that Friday right after work, I have to get my hair cut and styled. I go to a shop called "ENVY" where my stylist, the ever lovely Joanna will style my hair into a vision of perfection. Envy is a salon that when I started going(followed Joanna from another place, and had followed her from that place from even another one)and it is all hot female hairstylist(ok well they have recently hired a dude, but I try to block that out). And by hot I mean they are really smoking and of course there is one that stands out from the rest, at least to me. I think she does because.......one.......she is really attractive........and two..........Joanna keeps telling me what a fucking crazy girl she is............and for some reason, to me, the phrase "fucking crazy girl", just makes her all the hotter. I guess it is that added element of danger, that unknown 'X Factor", where you have the hottest, most intense sex of your life with her, an then an hour later there is a chance that she is throwing a bucket of gasoline on you and tossing a lit match.

I think that what is really happening is that everyone at some point in their life has to date that one person who seems great at first, but turns out to be a completely nutjob, a fucking "bunny boiler"(if you know the reference), and I have not met my "bunny boiler" yet............so since i have been trying to date around a bit now, I am assuming the first person i do try to be serious with, will be the 'bunny boiler".............of course if the chick from Envy gets available.................I think I could change her.........yep, I bet I could......she just needs a nice guy..........a guy who will treat her with respect, compassion and love.....................yea that is what she needs...............(I am going to break the fourth wall here for a min and just say that, the last few lines I know is what a lot of people say, about someone who has a problem...in this case the problem is "crazy bitch" and they waste months/years in a relationship thinking they wil change and never do)............but still, I bet i could rock her world BIGTIME........at least until I catch the smell of gasoline:-)


anyway I seem to have strayed a tad off the original intent, that was to say that when I remembered the hair appointment, it made be think if the rock group "pavement" and the song/video below

Pavement was an American indie rock band in the 1990s. Although they experienced only moderate commercial success, they achieved a significant cult following[1] and were one of the more popular and influential lo-fi rock bands of the 1990s. The video below is for a song of thiers from 1994 called "Cut Your Hair"

Enjoy

Falling in Love at the coffee shop

The song "Falling in love at the coffee shop" is a song from a young artist from the great state of Tennessee. I can say the state is great because, it is were I am from too. Anyway the artist is Landon Pigg(yes I know brutal name), he is a quirky little indy singer that I have been listening too since he came onto the scene in 2006. But, who now,(thanks to and AT&T commercial) will probably become really well know and lose his indy cred.

The video I attached is not the official video, but one that some guy made for a woman he loves, so I used it because........one, the song is about love and two.....the guy did a fantastic job and I can only imagine how great the girl this was intended for felt when she saw it.

As for the songs meaning, at first it seems to have self-explanatory lyrics....about falling in love with someone slowly, while spending time with them at low key places like a coffee shop; and then it suddenly hits you that it's the person that made all those simple things seem so special.

But sometimes I actually think that these lyrics arent so self-explanitory. "i've seen the paths that your eyes wander down, i want to come too". i think he is longing for this amazing girl that he sees in a coffee shop and other miscellanious places...
he wants to get the nerve to admit to this girl how wonderful she is and how much she has changed his life...
its a slow, beautiful, and clean love. something that is hard to come by nowadays.


Anyway, I could be wrong,maybe Landon wrote the song while drunk one night and it really has no meaning to him.............but for me, it is a song that really expresses how love should be.

Thursday's Child

Wanted to share a song from the coolest dude on the planet.......David Bowie.....Thursday's Child, off his "Hours" album from 1999 is my favorite Bowie song.

It seems to me that this song is about Bowie himself, saying that he always felt slightly out of place. He was a person with gifts and potential who never quite got off the ground, breaking his life in two (into the man he had potential to be , and the man he actually became), he feels like he was born in the wrong time, etc.

Then, he speaks of something that gives him hope. A reason that he no longer regrets his troubled life. He says "throw me tomorrow", as if tomorrow is a life preserver thrown to rescue a drowning man. For all of the hardships of his life, comparing himself to a Thursday's Child, he is now glad to be here because of his love, (the girl).

Also I think there is a component that speaks to age as he looks in the mirror. Yeah, he's getting old, but that is the past and he has new life now with his love.
Also, it may be that his song playing on the radio represents the success he's had in this life, but he knows it's really superficial (Mirror symbolizes this), and it doesn't satisfy him in a deeper way like the love he has with his girl, who is the focus of the video.

"Thursday's Child" does indeed mean "One that will go far". In this song, he reflects on his entire career, and his mistakes. He's telling himself (in the video, he tells a younger-looking Bowie he sees in his reflection) that no matter the mistakes he's made in his career, he's gone far, and he doesn't regret it.

Anyway watch the video and then draw your own conclusions

weight loss up date and pics

Hereis the latest photographs of the diet, first is my before pic and then is the most current pic.......you can really tell I have dropped weight.


before


after

Rain Dogs

Having trouble sleeping so i thought I would toss out a quick blog and talk about the Album "rain dogs" from Tom Waits. Released in the mid 80's, "rain dogs' was somewhat of a concet album about urband life in the rundown depressed sections of new york city. The whole album has a very natural, almost organic sound, when at the time most artists were using synthesizers and whatever other synth machines they could get there hands on. This was the first album of Waits that I took notice of as a teenager, prior to it's release, I had only ever really listened to a few of his songs and found him to be a somewhat, dragging lounge act, but with "rain dogs" I saw Waits take a step out of the lounge and really let in a bit of the 80's sounds. I was one of lie 7 people that bought this album, and now all these years later, it is consider one of the best albums ever recorded...........

Here below is my favorite song from the album.......it is ....."downtown train".....Waits was the origninal artist on this one..........it would be just four years later that Rod Stewart would cover the song and make it a major hit........I never cared for stewarts version........it always, at least to me, lacked the passion of Waits honest and simplistic style..........enjoy

London's Brilliant Parade

Normally I talk about indy music groups on this blog, but tonight i want to share an Elvis Costello song that I have always like. London's Brillint Parade was from his Brutal Youth Album from around 1994,it was an album where he got back together with The Attractions and Nick Lowe to produce an album that shelves the sweeping ambition that marred other albums like Spike and Mighty Like The Rose, and lets his songs breathe in minimal, cleverly detailed musical settings of real genius.

Please watch the live perfroamce below, but pay attention to the lyrics, they are clever, and really quite striking in their simplistic realism.

big news and a new band

Well, I joined a singles site and met a nice women, she seems smart(of course she is talking to me so maybe not so smart), witty and is cute as a button. we have just been kind of talking and well I will just see what happens, if anything, but it is funny being back out there again after a very very long hiatus.


Anyway here is a video of "The THRILLS" doing a song of theirs called "Big Sur", they are an indie pop band from dublin Ireland that i have been listening to since 2003. Check out the video below and then check them out on youtube. They get some inspiration from the beach boys........which you can really tell when you here this song. I hope you enjoy it