Favorite new song alert! As soon as I heard their new single, “Dream About Me,” I rushed to alert my friend Chet who’s a big fan of Ocean Blue and Prefab Sprout and while he hasn’t reported back yet, I expect to hear that The Depreciation Guild is right up his alley. The band’s sound transports me back to the early nineties, the years Chet and I were in radio together. The band takes the lush, dreamy pop sounds of early 4ad bands and distresses them a bit with fuzzy electronics and gentle reverb. Lots of other folks are taking note as well—they’ve sold out of their new single and Kanine records just reissued their 2007 album. Speaking of friends who’d like this band, I’m surprised our own Clay Calloway didn’t beat me to the punch on this one, especially considering two-thirds of the band also play in The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, one of Clay’s recent crushes he’s gushed about on this site. The moonlighters will be extra busy as both bands head over to play the UK later this month. The band has some Midwest and East Coast dates before then, so if you like what you hear do some homework and catch them live, geography permitting.
Sean and I were just trading jabs this week on Facebook regarding MBV comparisons on these pages. So it’s ironic that I’m gonna keep it going.
Hopefully this 3some will become a regular feature here. That’s the plan. The idea is to share more music more often and to do so in fun party packs, organized and gathered around some similarity, theme, sound, or anything else our pea-brains might dream up. First up, three takes on flames, fire and heating up, which the weather in L.A. threatens to do again this week, just as the Station fire is about to be contained. Inevitably, and regrettably, such weather brings out murderous kooks and their matches.
At 28, Dan Haug, aka Ruckus Roboticus, is the youngest DJ to be inducted into the elite forces of Solid Steel, Coldcut’s famed radio programme (as they spell it in the UK) and podcast…if my math is right. One thing I’m sure of, he’s the only DJ from Dayton, Ohio, to roll with Solid Steel. I discovered him in catching up with my podcasts and his last session (featured below) is utter dopeness. Listen to any of his smiles-a-minute dance mixes — most of which are free for the downloading on his newly refurbished site — and you can see what all the hype is about. He takes this body moving seriously. And, after you fall in love with his ability to work with other people’s music, be sure to purchase his equally infectious LP of original tunes, 2007’s Playing With Scratches, using the convenient e-commerce links below. It’s a quirky and sample-tastic romp in the vein of 
Well if this ain’t the musical equivalent of the Three Amigos. Three musical desperados gathered on the West Coast to create aural havoc and obviously had the time of their lives. The parties involved include: Money Mark, Tommy Guerrero, and Shawn Lee, three “sound scientists” who’ve all made their own marks flying below the mainstream radar, carving out a groove amidst all that is going to be cool tomorrow. Both Mark and Guerrero released music early on through Mo’ Wax and Shawn Lee recorded for Talking Loud and Wall of Sound early in his career. “Dirty Loco” is one of the two songs that serve as the dark heart of the record. The comparison is a bit ludicrous, but it sounds like a track off The Cure’s “Pornography” record if Robert Smith had grown up in Southern California, raised on funk and soul. The rest of the album is full of laid back, easy-listening funk tracks, improvised, trippy, and generally cheerful. Dare I say it, Lord Newborn is a rare-groove jam band that I’d be happy spending a summer or three trucking around the country following their wake.
Who says you can’t judge a book by its cover? Basic Black is not only the title of Jimmy Ohio’s first EP, but a fitting description of the raw, bluesy, and timeless rock ‘n’ roll found therein. Last year, the Brooklynite flew back to his one-time home of Detroit and holed up in a former Baptist church for four days with some old pals, Dan Kroha (The Gories, Demolition Doll Rods), Trevor Naud (
The Radio Dept started a journey a number of years ago, a pop voyage (pronounced French-style) if you will, that has started a new leg. The fuzzed out bliss pop seems so very long ago, as they enter an orchestral funk pop phase, still framed with their signature techniques. Regardless of the destination, the fun is in getting there.
I feel like a schlub because I missed the screenings of Thomas Campbell’s new surf film 
This song may not have even won my attention during a recent listening binge if my nose hadn’t been buried in a particular book. “Bastard Out of Carolina” by Dorothy Allison is that particularity. An insightful young lady, Ruth Anne “Bone” Boatwright narrates the novel, telling the story of growing up poor in the South amongst a colorful cast of aunts and uncles. The rhythm of the language is pure music, while Ruth Anne’s life is pure hell. Besides a couple aunts who come to her rescue, the closest thing that brings solace to Ruth Anne’s life is gospel music. Julie Peel doesn’t play gospel music in the traditional sense, but her soulful voice, and the deep strains of cello echo the yearnings of one searching for some sort of salvation. I assume Peel’s song “Unfold” is about the loss of a lover, but its lyrics and theme resonate acutely with Ruth Anne’s loss of motherly love. Even though that book and this song are filled with grief, discovering them together has been a pleasant harmonic convergence.