When CoCo B’s dropped their new tracks into our mailbox I experienced a spell of flashbacks: me and Matt from The Bronx hauling out to Anaheim every Sunday night, Alberto’s burritos in hand, along with crates full of CDs from Orange County bands. This was back in 2002, before Indie 103.1 was around, and a small staff of music-heads were running a great alternative station with a stupid name: Cool 94.3. Matt and I produced and hosted a (four hour!) local show called Go Loco and CoCo B’s track “Big Okie Dokie” was practically our theme song. I haven’t heard anything from them until now.
It appears CoCo B’s have been laying low, working day jobs, taking lots of time to record their new album. Alex Newport mixed the record. Sounds like the band has pulled out all the stops. Compared to the small, hushed strains of “Big Okie Dokie,” their new songs, like “Modern Lover,” are built to rock The Pond without losing their uber-indie cred. Kevin’s vocals are the American, sweeter, less monotone version of Mark E. Smith—which, ironically, make them sound nothing like Mark E. Smith if that makes sense. Gentler than The Replacements, less drugged out than The Lemonheads, CoCo B’s wear their fuzzed-out pop anthems on their sleeves as they shoulder their way through the crowd of bands hoping for their fifteen minutes. This review outta be good for .001 seconds. At least.
CoCo B’s are playing May 10th, with Ima Robot at Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa.
Joe is reigning king of the mix tape. While most of us have grown lazy (just look at our sporadic podcast output), Joe still makes mixes — most often on CD-R these days — with little more impetus than capturing a theme or mood: spring songs, road songs, grading papers songs, cooking songs, songs featuring a particular girl’s name… The latter prove to be the most difficult (unless your name happens to be Baby), which is why Utah Carol’s latest album, Rodeo Queen, reminded me of Joe. Among the 13 rich country pop songs we have “Kimberly Smiles,” “I’m Sorry Maria,” “Sam’s Ranch,” and, featured here, “Ruby” and “Come Back Baby” (see, they even have Baby covered). Utah Carol, named after a traditional song about a cowboy who dies trying to save his friend from a stampede, are in fact the Chicago-based JinJa Davis and Grant Birkenbeuel. They take country and pop influences with equal weight, producing precious harmonies, delicate instrumentation, loping rhythms, and memorable lyrics. Hit record, Joe.
At the risk of sounding like one of the tools in an Astrid Swan song, there’s nothing more alluring than a complex female musician. Of course, the Finnish singer/songwriter is all too aware of this, as the title alone of “They Need You If They Think You Love Them†makes clear. So, perhaps I think she loves me, or perhaps I just like the sharp wit of her lyrics and the tender knowing of her vocals. Think Tori Amos in moments of levity or Aimee Mann at the piano. It’s something lovely, if heartbreaking, if totally intoxicating.
We’ve had so many requests to post CocoRosie that I don’t even know who to thank for the suggestion. What do these fans dig so much about CocoRosie? How about: cool beats & fractured rhythms, sonorous atonality & coherent dissonance, pageantry & experimentation, mythology & realism. Sierra and Bianca Casady — Rosie and Coco — do their own thing (that is, that thing that good artists do). This can be heard on their latest album, The Adventures of Ghosthorse & Stillborn, out now on Touch and Go Records.
Last year, on March 8th, Ted Leo was playing in Ann Arbor, at a show I really wanted to see. There was something more important to do, however, and instead of catching Ted live, I saw my son enter life, a little early but more than ready. Not long before the delivery, my wife asked to hear her favorite TL song, “Me and Mia,” and the lyrics were just right: “Do you believe in something beautiful? Then get out and be it.” Maybe this is a good message for today, too, considering Blacksburg. It seems to me that the families of the victims, the students, those in grief and mourning need all of us to be more beautiful, to be better. I haven’t heard the new Ted Leo/RX album Living with the Living yet, but I’m hoping its filled with the powerful songwriting found on “Me and Mia” or “Ghosts” or “Biomusicology” — honest, straightforward and necessary examples of compassion, anger, hope, righteousness. 
Hey Lover is the latest boy/girl duo to be covered here on 3hive. So while Hey Lover proves the genre is still going strong, with plenty of opportunity in the single guitar and drums space, this Portland band is also the most likely to destroy their kit with their frantic punk-pop pounding. And that’s a good thing.
The Metasciences = super-duper lo-fi, boy-girl, brainiac geek-themed pop. There are folks out there who love this already, without even downloading a track, and you know it. The entire Pencils Down album is available for free download (of course) and a fine interview with the band (Ruth Barabe and Daniel Kibbelsmith) is up at 
Swedish is a beautiful language, quiet as it might be kept. With it’s rolling “r”‘s, tonality and it’s quirky idioms (i.e. “not for all the milk in SmÃ¥land”, which is meant to say that there are a lot of cows in the SmÃ¥land region and many Swedes who would rather not do many things, not even for all the milk those crazy SmÃ¥land cows make). But I digress. The point is that for all the Swedish exports that we here in the states are receiving — not nearly enough of them are sung in the nation’s mother tongue. Enter Vapnet–with all the same poppy, magical goodness of their Swedish-made but English-speaking brethren, but with all the pluck and grace of the oft-maligned Swedish language. Where Peter, Bjorn and John might say ” Vapnet? Very good!”, Vapnet says (with pride) bara bra! Finally, we at the ‘Hive can’t always find you a download of our very favorite songs (oh how we try), but I would highly recommend a visit to the Vapnet myspace page where you can find a brand new track featuring the lovely Mr. Jens Lekman.
The name might lead you to believe you’ve discovered a bedroom-dwelling nocturne with a sampler and a laptop, but in fact it’s an apt choice for Robert Harrison’s (Cotton Mather) lilting latest project. Harrison is a friend of the gee-tar, which makes sense for an album recorded outside of Austin. But he’s also a purveyor of all the little things that make for twinkling psychedelic pop. Floating through these catchy songs about SubUrbia and jumping from Harrison’s Lennon-esque tongue are touches of bouyant pop maestros past and present: the Beatles, Flaming Lips, Beach Boys, Mercury Rev, Wilco, and Austin’s own 13th Floor Elevators. Not that you need such name-dropping to ride Future Clouds and Radar’s wave, but you may as well know ahead of time that you’re in for an aural vacation as well as a trip.
Barn-storming pop from the Fake Fictions, full of handclaps, shouted whiny choruses, and jangly guitars interrupted by intermittent fuzz. Welcome to spring!