If you’re not familiar with WOXY.com, start listening TODAY. They’ve been setting the musical standard for alternative radio for 20+ years. Program Director Mike Taylor and I recently traded a couple music tips. I turned him onto Giant Drag, and he pointed me in the direction of Jeniferever: slow, sparse, and epic rock ‘n’ roll.
The Octopus Project
My 4-year-old son is obsessed with marine life of all kinds, to the point where a recent visit to the London Aquarium nearly resulted in a restraining order. It seems he couldn’t keep his hands out of the manta ray tank (to be fair, it was marked as a “petting” exhibit). He also recently informed me that he wants a pet octopus. My subsequent research led to this surprise discovery: some killer deadpan glitch funk from Texas — at a fraction the cost of a real octopus!
The Mary Janes
Janas Hoyt’s beguiling voice mirrors the sliding strings and pedal steel guitar so prevalent on these tracks from Flame, The Mary Janes’ second album. Not to give further life to a country music stereotype, but the title track, included below, really does seem like an ideal theme song for driving a pick-up.
Snowglobe
Remember those “Dirty Boys” mentioned in Wednesday’s Of Montreal post? Oh, how we loved to tease them by calling them hippies. Well, a few of them make up the band Snowglobe. No surprise then that Snowglobe is heavily influenced by the sounds of Elephant 6. Warm, poppy, psychedelic-y, and even a little bit hippy. They also blend in shades of jazz and hard rock, with touches of horns, strings, bells, whistles, and whatever else was lying around the house to create a masterpiece of music that’s all their own. Damn hippies…
Fairmont
Can’t tell if that fuzzy sound is a low bitrate or an honest-to-god garage band ethic from Jersey. Either way, fuzz sounds good today.
Marah
So, I was cleaning out the closet in my old bedroom at my mom and dad’s house and I ran across a bunch of Marah singles from about 1984 or ’85, old 45s to play on the Panasonic turntable I got for my 13th birthday. Actually, that’s not true at all, but it should be. Marah sounds like middle school, all big guitars and big hair and rock ‘n’ roll, baby! It’s like late ’70s Springsteen demo tapes with someone else singing, or Bon Jovi a little less high-pitched. You can tell me that “The Rough Streets Below” wasn’t recorded in 1983, but I won’t believe you. Not even you, Tim O. (Thanks for the tip!)
Of Montreal
There’s something about good music where you can always remember the circumstances when you were first introduced to it. More than a few years ago, my brothers and their friends, collectively known as the “Dirty Boys” for their fear of bathing, would gather for weekly soccer games while they were still in high school. I always played with them, despite being the only one who owned a proper pair of soccer boots, and boy did we have some good games. After one of those games, we having defeated a neighborhood Hispanic team who just showed up that day, BW Appleseed, as Brian was called, pressed into my hand a Holly Johnson tape. Holly Johnson?!! Well, on one side was handwritten “The Minders,” and on the other was scrawled “Of Montreal.” Of Montreal have their roots in Athens and the Elephant 6 collective, and they make just wonderfully eclectic pop. And I’ve still got that tape.
El Ten Eleven
First, a quick comparison. Tortoise meets The Cure (at least on this track). Now, the instructions. Step one: listen to “Connie.” Step two: stream a few more tracks off their myspace page. Step three: see them live. Finally, step four: be amazed that El Ten Eleven consists of two musicians, and they pull this stuff off live.
Pine Marten
Another offering from the California music collective The Ship, Pine Marten has a sparse and creepy sound that knocks around inside my head (not running into much, eh?) long after their songs end. For example, I tend to get lost in the five and a half minutes of “Hey Misty, What Do You Think?” and alternately think the song either just started or has been playing for an hour. I guess I kind of like that feeling.
Blanket Music
Hush honcho, and artist extraordinaire, Chad Crouch, thinks vocal comparisons to Stuart Murdoch (Belle & Sebastian) have worn thin. I hate to perpetuate the problem, but the similarities are quickly apparent. Reminds me as well of a not-so-cynical Stephen Malkmus. More important, however, is the wonderful, and varied, pop sounds he and fellow Portland pals put together in his basement. Blanket Music is a pop Sno Cone to which brightly colored flavors are added: jazz, country, bossanova, and funk. You’ll have to pick up their new album, Cultural Norms, to taste all the flavors.