I recently wrote about a dude who plays under the name Love Lake, I included his track ‘Curses’ on my Birthday Mix, well he sent me over another track and it expectedly rules. The song is called ‘Ghost’ which sounds like it borrows a little from Spoon or Nada Surf, with a sixties pop sound.
If these tracks are any indication of his upcoming LP, he’ll likely be a regular on here. I hate using the word catchy, but hell, isn’t it?
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The Great Deceivers is something I haven’t heard in a while, it’s that post-emo rock that I loved so much back in high school and college, bands like Cursive, (earlier) Brand New, Saves the Day- it’s a bit off key, a bit slow and brooding but it’s still considered pop. This band revives those nostalgic elements with tracks like Curses and Strange Death. So if you’re feeling a little emo-tional I suggest you pick up this album, check out their bandcamp for more stuff.
[warning: the following is crass, and not for the sensitive nor is it the crybabies, please do not email me about your distaste for profanity]
The Mel Gibson of music journalism, Rolling Stone’s Chris Weingarten, is best known for his profane rants against music bloggers, calling it the end of valid cultural criticism, calling it the “bland middling taste of the internet mind hive”. Or more accurately, “the ugliest, most insidious Ebola virus”, and that “you’re gonna want to shoot yourself in the fucking face”. I run a music blog and sure, I have my own criticisms of the incessant parade of claiming “firsties” on an artist, all of this chillwave obscurity, and hearing myself sound like an asshole when I start talking about RSS feeds and Google Analytics. But I also see it as the DIY culture saying “fuck you” to the so-called Tastemakers in music journalism who are propelled by publicists who shove artists’ campaigns down their throats because their publications are on their last leg. Ahem, Rolling Stone. I wouldn’t even put blogging and journalism in the same category, mostly because I don’t care about what it is, but that it’s an evolution of the way we consume music so you’d be wise to stop whining and embrace it.
I finally realized I’d arrived when I was invited to a Music Blogger’s Luncheon last week, with the likes of such mythological bloggers as Frank Yang of Chromewaves, Chris Budd of Indie Music Filter, and infiltrated by a few folks at the Globe and Mail, National Post, Spinner, MSN, and some publicity companies. I was going only to confirm that Yang was real, because I always saw him as this sort-of Wizard of Oz, operated by a small staff that claimed they were just but one Asian dude in his bedroom. Put it simply, I’m consistently in awe of him. I was bringing a publicist friend and told him not to embarrass me in front of my new friends by trying to pitch his artists. Forcing these people into social situations is no small feat, so I wanted to document it by pulling out my recorder and let them talk it out. The result was an messy conversation with two many voices that didn’t translate all too well in terms of flow, but I got a few interesting insights from it. Continue Reading »
Cotton Jones‘ new album Tall Hours in the Glowstream just came out the other day and it is fantastic! You really feel like you’re listening to a piece of Americana lost and buried in a pile of old vinyl, only to be dug up by you and only you, and you think to yourself, geez, those were the days. The days when twangy country, and dreamy folk were real and true. Michael Neu and Whitney McGraw are like magic together with tracks like Glorylight and Christie. It’s a little gospel, a little honky tonk, a bit campy, but all thoroughly enjoyable. There is nothing quite like the voice of Michael Neu, it’s got that pastoral buttery sound. Makes me miss the South.
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Ricky Eat Acid is not only a sweet band name, but a coastal lo fi trip into summer serenity with tracks like Hhhhappy and Balloons. Although I can’t say I’ve ever eaten acid, I have been indulging in some late-night snacks lately, sugary enough to induce some real hyperactive dreams. You know the kinds that don’t make any sort of sense and you really begin to question your subconscious and what the hell must be swimming in your brain to produce such states. Maybe I’d be a little more calm with these songs to lull me to sleep. There is a peacefulness in them, they’re easy to consume and soothing to the soul. And they’re free! So go to the bandcamp and grab em.
Ricky Eat Acid posts some little descriptions to go with his tracks, this one really jumped out at me. I feel this way often, taking the hard road and really living this life to arrive to your salvation kicking and screaming, all dirtied and exhausted from the trip, but glowing with satisfaction.
“I stood in front of her with dirt in my hair, dirt on my clothes, dirt beneath my fingernails, dirt in my eyes and my mouth, my shirt ripped from the branches constantly entangling me, and my eyes filled with tears.
“You don’t know what I went through to get here.” I said.”
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I recently did a piece for Vice about a Backyard Axe Throwing League which should be up tomorrow and it was a sport invented by a bunch of Canadian axe-slingers that had an affinity for beer, too much time on their hands and a backyard. This spurred the genesis of the BATL. I feel like had J. Tillman been around, he would’ve slung an axe or two because he just seems the type. He’s categorically Canadian simply by the coarse beard he wears, on top a wrinkly flannel. He’d be the kind of quiet and composed man with little words, but swift manly accuracy, at least in my mind. His new release, and 7th full length record, Singing Ax out September 14th was recorded in three days (see? swift!) in February of this year.
To me, Tillman can do no wrong, much like previous Messiahs of acoustic, blues and folk like the great Bazan. There is an aesthetic in his voice and style that he’s built that nearly guarantees a certain beauty to all of his songs. There is holy silence that permeates so that you could clearly hear the words, “who would love a loveless thing?” and the pain just hits you square in the chest with unbelievable aim. He is unlike any other songwriter out there trying so fiercely to emulate the natural prose that leak out of him, unstoppable. This record is expectedly full of the kinds of songs you’re going to want to listen to alone. So that you can bathe in them, soak them in and perhaps even catch a glimpse of that truth that he sees and writes about.
Tracklist:
01 Three Sisters
02 Diamondback
03 Love No Less Worthy
04 One Task
05 Our Beloved Tyrant
06 Tillman’s Rag
07 Mere Ornaments
08 Singing Ax
09 Madness on the Mountain
10 Maria
11 A Seat at the Table
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I’ve been meaning to write about unouomedude ever since I included one of his tracks on my birthday mix but I just haven’t gotten the chance. I fucking love the song Buildings and consider it one of my favorites of the summer, so I checked out his bandcamp and it was more of the same breezy, echoey stuff that makes me want to eat popsicles and burritos all day. For those of you who are having a hard time trying to say the name think- you know you owe me dude. Which is what I say to every artist that so passive aggressively makes me write about them. KIDDING! He’s also got a pretty kick-ass tumblr you should follow because it’s full of mixtapes and nice photos.
This is Craft Spells, this is not Cast Spells as I first thought. I thought, wow this sounds NOTHING like Cast Spells. Oh right, because it’s not. His 7″ Party Talk is coming September on Captured Tracks. Check out the track below:
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If you look up “NYC UFOs” on Google you get some pretty interesting results. Strange phenomenons and mystical universes, ET-esque Coast to Coast kinda stuff. But then you’ll find the bandcamp for NYC UFOs and you’ll fight the urge to make lame jokes like, geez, this is outta this world! So, I’ll resist. NYC UFOs recently reached out to me and after checking out their free 10-track demo I was so thoroughly impressed but what I found.
They’ve got a decent amount of that psychedelic garage rock sound that sounds a little like Wavves or Harlem, but then you’ve got these folk-tinged tracks like ‘Teeth’ and ‘Little Bird’ and you’re hit with this nostalgic, Cat Stevens, Stillwater sound that is just absolutely gorgeous. I’ve been playing Little Bird a lot lately, how on earth is this just a demo? It’s too good.
This is the kind of stuff that still gets me excited to write about music and share it with all of you. I urge you to grab this one:
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FWBA are a collective of friends bullied by Nada Alic. Co-existing in both Toronto and San Diego among other places. All music is for sampling purposes only. Please continue to support artists, buy merch, keep them fed etc. If you are an artist/manager and have concerns about the music that we post, please contact us for swift removal, we shall oblige.
I recently wrote about a dude who plays under the name Love Lake, I included his track ‘Curses’ on my Birthday Mix, well he sent me over another track and it expectedly rules. The song is called ‘Ghost’ which sounds like it borrows a little from Spoon or Nada Surf, with a sixties pop sound.
