Can you really fall in love at first sight, or is it just infatuation? Romeo thought he was in love when he first saw Juliet: “Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! / For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” I’m feeling a little loopy myself after hearing “S.O.S.” from San Francisco’s LoveLikeFire. The song blows open like a track from Bossanova, or Trompe Le Monde, then settles into a nice Cure-esque riff (“A Forest?”) and finally into a breathtaking chorus where singer Ann Yu sounds like a more forceful Siouxsie. I love LoveLikeFire like I love all of the above. No, I know it’s just infatuation. I don’t have a long relationship with LoveLikeFire. I haven’t put in hours and hours of intense listening. I haven’t dreamt or loved along with their music. It sure feels like love though. Call it what you will; I’m going to let myself wallow in the butterflies I get from LoveLikeFire.
Squalls
It’s been a whirlwind of a week; my wife and I took our 1.5 & 4 year olds to New York City, and you know how that is. We met up with 3hive’s Lisa at the Pink Tea Cup, rode the Staten Island Ferry, wandered the neighborhoods and Central Park, hung out at Coney Island with my friend Matt and his 4 year old, etc. (Speaking of Matt, his band Gift Shop has just relesed a new album. If I could figure out how to link to songs on MySpace, I’d be posting them today.) And once I got home, I found out my friend Cheech is coming to Michigan to visit Zingerman’s deli on his Eat American tour. In honor of all this… experience, I’m posting a band dear to my heart, Athens, GA’s long-defunct, early-80s, totally awesome (and please don’t wreck this aspect for me) Squalls. They had the opening track on the Athens, GA / Inside Out soundtrack, which was MY soundtrack and hairstyle guide for my senior year of high school. Anyway, in these low quality live tracks, you’ll find pleasant, Talking Heads inspired pop, but really, that’s not the point. This is the good stuff, no matter how it sounds, and I want you all to have a little taste.
Licorice Roots
Let me preface Licorice Roots by saying they’re an acquired taste. I admit I almost didn’t last twenty seconds into their record. Their wobbly, off-kilter sound knocked me off balance at first. At first. But I held strong and as soon as I ventured four tracks deep, their song “Hey There Little Love” saved the CD from certain eject-death. I learned to appreciate Licorice Roots for their peculiar low-fi-ness. It’s as if The Seeds were playing underwater, with a sprinkle of attitude courtesy of Ween. My swimming trunks are on and I’m in mid-cannonball, ready to take the Licorice Roots plunge! P.S. If the vocals are a bit much for you, check out the title track “Caves of the Sun.” It’d make a great soundtrack to a SpongeBob SquarePants Spaghetti Western.
Mono in VCF
To make up for a few posting days I’ve missed during my move to Cali, it’s two-for-one day.
Recalling a simpler time with simpler pop, Mono in VCF have graduated from the University of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood (school mascot: The Some Velvet Mornings) magna cum laude. Okay, that was lame, but these songs are so fresh and clean and original (in a 2007 way) that they are completing enthralling, and you should just download now. An MP3, like a picture, is worth a thousand words.
Easy Anthems
I sometimes wonder how couples who do their art together pull it off. I mean, it seems like the creative tension would lead to realtionship tension and it would all be so… personal. Easy Anthems, Vanesa and Philip Jimenez, sort of exemplifies what I’m talking about. From their website: “We broke up, and we made music, and we got back together, and we made music, and we got married, and we made music, and we broke up, and we made a kid, and we got back together, and we made music.” Yeah, I just don’t think I could handle all that. Thankfully, all that matters is that the Jimenez family can, and do, and make some fine music to narrate the saga. Their entire debut album of country-tinged, pleasantly melodramatic, ear-friendly pop therapy sessions is available as one big old free download on their aforementioned website; the four songs below are a nice sampling of what you’d get.
Headlights
My dear friend Seth rarely pushes anything on me. He believes strongly in free will and all that jazz. He might occasionally make a gentle suggestion that I might enjoy a book, or ask me if I’ve heard of a band (knowing that I will lie and say yes and then immediately run to my computer and discover who they are). But he never pushes. (Except for his very favorite book, Winters Tale by Mark Helprin, which he pushes on everyone, but no one ever reads.) So, in rare form, Seth pressed on, asking me again and again if I had listened to the Headlights song. Lesson? When Seth makes an enthusiastic recommendation, a girl should listen. In any case, I’d say more about the music, but I’ll have to let the music speak for itself as I am walking out the door to go meet fellow ‘Hiver Joe for the very first time!
Beat Radio
Beat Radio have managed to bend several ears here at 3hive, so it’s always nice to get an email from Brian cluing us to new tracks, in this case the well-arranged and optimistically emo stylings of “What I Love the Most.” It’s even nicer when the track is a preview of not just an LP on the way, but an LP/EP superset, The Great Big Sea + Miracle Flag EP, which will be available in the coming weeks from CD Baby and iTunes. Plus, I just noticed that you can get a ton more free music than what’s below by just clicking over to the band’s website. Listen now, buy later, know that you’re doing it the way 3hive intended.
Sam’s original post from Sept. 2005:
Beat Radio spin wistful melodies with subtle, vulnerable lyrics in the same vein as Luna or Sebadoh’s more tender moments. Their songs have a radiant, familiar quality that grows on you with each listen. In fact, I’ve included two versions of “Treetops” — the 4-track demo version from earlier this year and a more polished version from the forthcoming EP — for this very reason. Much like a frayed blue blankie I once loved, I don’t know if I’m ready to let go of the demo version just yet. While the EP version is by no means overproduced, it seems so in comparison. But I’ll let you decide for yourself.
Crystal Skulls
In the summer, songs have to pass a test. At least in my world. Each new track must be played at full volume in my car while driving on a relatively empty highway at (or slightly over) the speed limit and said song must make my head and/or butt bounce (depending on bassline, ‘natch), make me smile and think “its summer!” and, finally, make me want to listen again. Unfortunately, my car is presently residing in my Grandmother’s driveway due to the difficulty of being vehicular in NYC. However, I feel more than confident that Seattle five-piece The Crystal Skulls are more than strong enough to satisfy the car test requirements. (They did manage to replicate the experience in the nearly equivalent “peach-jam-making music test”.) Its an easy, breezy pop they sing, just the right kind of music for the mid-summer pause– when the novelty is over and all one really wants to do is find an outdoor space, grill up what there is to grill and just be mellow. And am I alone in noticing a little Steely Dan in “Cosmic Door”? But that would make sense since “Deacon Blues” will always, always pass my summer music test.
Ryan Ferguson
Alright, I’m super-geeked for this one. “Only Trying To Help,” Ryan Ferguson’s first solo album is out in just about a month, August 21st, on Better Looking Records. Ferguson continues to shape his songs around the acoustic guitar, but he fills in the surrounding space with plenty of electric guitars, piano and xylophone, fully fleshing out tracks. Compared to his more stripped down EP (which is still available in its entirety below), Ferguson had the time and the room to see his songs through and add the proverbial bells and whistles. The three tracks offered here are just the beginning of his spot-on songwriting. His attention to hooks paired with an intensity, just this side of his No Knife days, make for an entirely re-listenable record. “Only Trying To Help” is what “pop-punk” should be.
Remission [MP3, 4.5MB, 192kbps]
X’s and O’s [MP3, 3.9MB, 192kbps]
Kill My Confidence [MP3, 4.5MB, 192kbps]
The Drawing Board
In the late ’90s I became briefly obsessed with Ednaswap, the L.A.-based group fronted by Anne Preven and known less for their own well-crafted pop gems than for what other people did with said gems (Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” was originally Ednaswap’s). It made sense that the daughter of composer Andre Preven would have an impeccable sense of composition herself, and that’s exactly what otherwise inexplicably kept me and my former-college-football-playing roommate wailing along to Ednaswap’s catchy heartbreakers like a pair of teenage girls hooked on Dashboard Confessional. That’s not to say that The Drawing Board, the Austin-by-way-of-L.A. group sounds like Ednaswap, but what they share with my former obsession is an undeniably intelligent take on pop music. Think of Elvis Costello or Ben Folds and you’ll get a good sense of how The Drawing Board is mature, engrossing and hummable. Better yet, download “The Writer,” a bouncy little ditty whose playful piano belies its nihilistic lyrics. Still sound too cerebral? Don’t worry, just disregard this writer’s pedantic take, download the rest and you can trust the music.