I love it when I walk into a record store, hear something playing and am curious enough to buy it. It doesn’t happen often enough. And when I find myself bopping to something I’ve never heard despite an apocalyptically foul mood–well, shoo-oot, bring it on! Well, Welcome was that band for me this past weekend. These folks are a girl and boy band, of Seattle, and to me they sound like the English or maybe a little Twee-ish or, wait, is that some pixie-ish guitar? I have no idea. But it’s a happy mish-mash of influences that I was glad to add to the soundtrack of my downer day. The bummer? Not available stateside until March, so I didn’t get to buy it. But the rest of the world is currently enjoying it now. Can you say import? Oh and be sure to check “This Minute†on the myspace page when you are done with what is here.
Boy/Girl
Wow. It’s not hard to see why members of the JSBX seem to be fighting each other over getting the chance to produce Boy/Girl. Hmmm, who would win Judah Bauer vs. Russell Simins? The straddling-the-line-between-lo-and-no-fi fuzzed-out blues-inspired duo-rock of Boy/Girl interprets what the JSBX would have been like on downers.
Bridges and Powerlines
NYC style power pop, a touch of 80s British post-punk rock with driving Strokes-like sensibilities, courtesy of Bridges and Powerlines. For fans of The Rakes, We Are Scientists, and like-minded bands. So that’d be me, a fan, then.
Rickie Lee Jones
Rickie Lee Jones with a free & legal MP3. That’s fun. Yeah, I know it’s cool to be all indie and stuff… I promise next week to post some band that no one has ever heard of. (Or, maybe I’ll post Tom Waits and bring this old couple back together. There are some free tracks of his over at the Anti website.) “Elvis Cadillac,” off the forthcoming The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard, offers a taste of an album on which all of the songs are inspired by Jesus. While I’m not exactly the religious sort, if the rest of Sermon is as smooth and becoming as this song, Rickie Lee might make a believer out of me yet.
The Black Lips
Lester Bangs’ favorite song was “96 Tears†by ? and the Mysterians. John Peel’s favorite was “Teenage Kicks†by the Undertones. Both were love songs by garage bands that could barely play chords and likely couldn’t read music any better than I can. The message is clear: for the most vaunted of audiophiles, “bad†is the best kind of rock music because the whole point is that it’s supposed to sound bad to somebody, hopefully your parents and/or local law enforcement officials and church leaders. By those standards, the Atlanta group Black Lips is pretty damned good. Granted, their really-old garage sound is slightly more preening than authentic, but that seems to be purely a matter of birthdates. You don’t get the sense that they’re being anything but their goofy-ass selves when they sing about having a bad day or set off on some epic live shows of Brian-Jonestown-Massacre proportions. For that, we salute them.
Missing Numbers
Happy New Year from 3hive!
So as I was reviewing songs I had downloaded in 2006 but never posted—you know, just to see what I forgot about last year—I came across the Minneapolis band Missing Numbers hiding on my hard drive. Haunting, dark, moody, suspenseful, and darn catchy. So much music, so little time…
Uzeda
I was listening to my iPod last night on the way home and had a distinct sense of déjà vu. This sound, this Uzeda, may be from Sicily but that pummeling rhythm, freeform guitar and piercing vocals could have been coming directly from Chicago in the mid-‘90s. And for good reason: Not only are they on Touch and Go and have been since the mid-‘90s, but Steve Albini is their recording engineer. So not only do Uzeda shake the paint off the walls, but they do it in a supersonic way that only Albini can conjure. Oh, to be young and insatiable once more…
Aimee Mann
Out here on the fringes—that’s where we are, blog readers, the fringes—it might not be cool to cop to liking the Christmas standards. Then again, maybe I’m alone on that one and there’s no chip on anyone else’s shoulders. There certainly isn’t one on Aimee Mann’s. The reigning champion thinking girl’s singer-songwriter-goddess offers up an album of standards with some awfully fine originals in-between, making it a Christmas album that your mother will love as much as you do (although we make no recommendations on how to get her off Mannheim Steamroller altogether). Since there’s only one weekend left, shoppers, hop on over to your friendly neighborhood online music store and pick up the album. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” will give you just enough of a taste to hold you over until your download is complete.
Takka Takka
So I have this friend who is pretty much the indie rock grinch. You can throw on the newest.freshest.latest and he’s all BAH! INDIE BY NUMBERS!! Off with its head! It’s a battle you can’t really win. If he hears so much as a hand clap, a trace of irony, or god help you, whistling – it’s over. Enter exceedingly indie, uber DIY, outer-borough band (specifically: Brooklyn, Queens): Takka Takka. Hand clapping? Oh yeah. Whistling? Totally. Irony? Much. And they’ve got a country twang that’s not living in Mississippi. They are the arch nemesis of my hater friend. But that is his issue, not mine. Despite some musical tics that might seem a bit obvious, there’s just something about these boys that resounds with me. It’s a kind of clapping that I can get down with clapping along with. And who doesn’t like something catchy to whistle along with. Indie by numbers, it’s possible, but Takka Takka are also doling out some solid, catchy pop too. And after forming a veritable trifecta of oddness when they joined forces with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Architecture in Helsinki for a recent tour, the proof is in the pudding – silly/weird/random can be some good stuff.
The Red Faced Laughter
I think I can safely speak for all of us here when I say we’re suckers for a great pop song. We’ll even settle for a relatively good pop song. By pop I mean a song that begs to be sung along to. Occassionally, however, it’s good to drop in and turn up music that you can crash a car to. Enter The Red Faced Laughter. A Texas trio that excels at mangling things up a bit. This is a complete EP, Brokenear #4, released on the German net label Broken Ear Records. They remind me a lot of Sunny Day Real Estate, the vocals mostly, but with a more noisy, improvisational style of playing. This one’s for everyone who likes their coffee black—no cream, no sugar, no fluffy latte—this is the stuff that Will Farrell’s character in Elf was so excited to share as “The World’s Greatest Coffee.”