New MP3 and EP from The Long Winters
New Album and MP3 from Album
Beat Happening
Two bands in my heavy rotation right now: Beat Happening and Lync. With our late autumn here, until the cold hit this morning, what better songs to celebrate the warmth than those of Beat Happening’s “Indian Summer” (and the excellent cover of this song by Spectrum, aka Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3) and Lync’s lovely album These Are Not Fall Colors, also on K Records many years ago. Plus, Calvin Johnson, indiedom’s Barry White (for the baritone, not the love songs), founder of K Records, member of Beat Happening, the Halo Benders, and Dub Narcotic Sound System, is playing in town tomorrow night with Tender Forever. Sure, some of the offerings below are a crappy 56kbps, but with music this good and already this lo-fi, who cares?
New Donna Regina MP3
Speaker Speaker
I thought I’d impress the lady and take her up to L.A. to see a rock and roll show. It’d been too long since we’d got our rock on. We were on the guestlist and everything. We had a babysitter and everything. As we were getting on the 405 at 7pm on Friday night I knew we were in trouble. Traffic. Long story short: missed the show, did a quick shopping spree at Amoeba, replaced a Housemartins (The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death) CD that we’d lost, and sang-along to it all the way home while sucking down milkshakes from In ‘N’ Out. Not a bad night after all. Probably, because, unlike Speaker Speaker, I was right when I picked my girl. We still share a similar taste in music years down the road. And like you, it’s safe to assume, we’re still listening to music fanatically when many of our friends have given up on it, or somehow, unexplicably, started listening to Top 40 Country radio. Speaker Speaker shares The Housemartins and Joe Jackson’s youthful exuberance that too many people lose when they hit their late 20s/early 30s. Don’t let it happen to you.
Dog Traders
Drew is from Columbus, Ohio. He draws comics (Toothpaste for Dinner) and makes music (Dog Traders). You probably already know that. Prior to Jason B.’s suggestion, I may have been the only American of my particular demographic to have slept on Drew’s wicked ballpoint funnies. I may be in broader company by saying I’d never heard his sandblasted garage pop either. But that, too, has changed and I’m a better man for it. Drew’s distant, mumbled vocals remind me at times of J. Mascis or Michael Stipe on REM’s circa Murmur. His lyrics are as odd, clever, and compelling as you would expect from the man who brought you this. Not only is the music good, it’s free. All of the songs on Dog Traders’ A Panic in a Pagoda is available as a downloadable .zip file on Drew’s site (though at $7 I’d recommend buying a copy of the packaged CD, if only to get your hands on the lyrics).
Podcast #11 Is Up
Twink
Boston native Mike Langlie, a.k.a. Twink, has quite the collection of toy pianos and he’s not afraid to use them — the last six tracks here are proof of that. On his new album he picks apart the childrens’ records he’s used over the years as inspiration for their melodies and moods and rebuilds a dusty, playful romp.
DJ Format
Today is my birthday. And, as Birthday Boy, I command anybody with a funky and/or funny bone in his or her body — nay, anybody with ANY kinda bone in his or her body — to listen to the UK’s finest, DJ Format, and his Canadian pals Abdominal and D-Sisive. At least once. Then you must watch the video. Then this one. Then you must buy Format’s two fine albums: If You Can’t Join ’em, Beat ’em and Music for the Mature B-Boy (I know they’re imports…just trust me). Then, and only then, you can have a slice of birthday cake. Birthday Boy has spoken.