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.”
Kunek
Tim Ortopan is back for another guest DJ session. About 9 months ago he brought us Joseph Arthur. Now we have Kunek. O:
I went to high school with a kid named Kunec and at first I wondered if there could be any connection to the band Kunek. They sound like they could have been the socially awkward students sitting alone at lunch reading computer magazines that I remember. Could he have produced these beautiful songs of loneliness and sadness? It seems unlikely as I did not go to high school in Oklahoma nor could the student that I remember ever be described as “a delicate intersection of science and emotion—at times organic, dynamic, buoyant or ethereal.†I hope things are going well for the Kunec that I remember, but I know you will enjoy this Kunek straight from the flowering Oklahoma art-rock scene.
Mitch Easter
I recently rekindled a new friendship after googling an old friend. Except this wasn’t a friend from high school or college, it was a friend from the old hi-fi: Mitch Easter. Mitch Easter gained recognition for his production skills in the early ’80s producing R.E.M.’s first single, “Radio Free Europe,” and their first two LPs with Don Dixon. And thinking back to my own history as a music fan I don’t remember which came first for me, R.E.M. or Mitch’s band Let’s Active. I do remember that Let’s Active played a key role in formulating my taste for pop music. Smart, snappy, and cheerful without being sappy Let’s Active helped forged the template for American indie pop while flying mostly below the radar. Constant line-up changes, usually coinciding with changes in Easter’s relationships, occurred throughout the band’s one EP and three album history. Mitch has kept busy over the years as producer, working with everyone from The Connells, Dinosaur Jr., Superchunk, engineer, Pavement and Ride, and as guitarist extraordinaire (the two tracks from Shalini feature Mitch on guitar. Shalini currently plays bass in Mitch’s band). Coming across brand new music from Mitch Easter was an unexpected and thrilling surprise. He’s still got it. He’s like the King Midas of pop music. Everything he touches sounds like gold. Watch for his first release in eighteen years, Dynamico, in the next couple months on 125 Records.