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.
The Toy Guns
The Toy Guns are (mostly) British, yes; but no, this is not a Joy Division cover. “Transmission” is a rip-roaring little post-punk number that, like the best of the genre, clocks in at just over two minutes. It may be a less-then-ideal 96kbps, but if listened to loud enough in the car while playing the air guitar, you can barely notice.
Podcast #23 Is Go
Aesop Rock
I’m hesitant to file Aesop Rock under “rap” because I’ve learned that you’re statistically less likely to listen to it if I do (shame on you). That said, he does rap…but his music draws on influences ranging from art pop to beatnik jazz to first-wave electro and so on. Just depends at what moment you catch him. The only constant is Aesop’s dizzying flow and fertile narratives.
These two tracks will give you a taste of how his work has evolved over time: “Basic Cable” comes from his first label-released album and “None Shall Pass” is the single from his brand-new album. However, if you’re looking to start your Aesop Rock collection, I still recommend 2001’s Labor Days.
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!
Part Chimp
I just returned from a rousing and refreshing vacation to various parts of Utah. One stop took us to a Trappist Monastery in Huntsville, where we had the chance to catch the resident monks chant their songs of praise. As we walked up to the chapel, my 7-year-old son, who apparently misheard us, said, “I don’t want to listen to the chimps sing.” Silly kid: monks sound nothing like chimps, and chimps sound nothing like monks. And Part Chimp sound nothing like monks or chimps (unless they’d developed an affinity for Sonic Youth and Mogwai) — but what they do is rock hard. For the record, my son likes Part Chimp’s music better than the monks’ chanting but prefers the monks’ artisan honey to, well, just about anything.
Artanker Convoy
The best way to describe Artanker Convoy is downtempo funk jams. Slowed-down grooves that go on and on as if the earth’s rpm’s have dropped down a notch and no one’s in a hurry to get anywhere or do anything but c.h.i.l.l. An air of improvisation takes center stage as each member of this Brooklyn sextet lays down their perspective track, often tinged with the music they’ve been listening to lately whether it’s east Asian dub, Nashville soul, jazz, Bowie or The James Gang. Their new album (pictured), out now, features a DVD with videos of live performances, animations, and abstract op-art by art collective MUX, who frequently perform live with the band. Most of the MP3s here are unreleased demos, but still offer a good idea of what Artanker Convoy is all about. As a point of band history, Arthur (aka Artanker), drums and percussion, used to rock out in the early ’90s with James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, in the Jinx Clambake Explosion. Drop that bit of knowledge at your next soiree for major indie-cred points.