Asking me to pick my favorite track off Magic Monday is like asking me which child I love the most, or which food I love the most. Ask me on any particular day and I’ll have a favorite, sushi for instance, in fact I’ll be enjoying my favorite faux-sushi of all time, the Bungee Roll, this evening. Actually I wouldn’t do the same with my children. My favorite quote from Michna himself comes when his label’s owner asks him to list the samples he’ll need to clear, to which Michna responds, “What samples?” I’d like to hope Michna’s reply represents a new, knowing artistic naïvety in which a new generation moves past the plundering of hip-hop’s history and forges on with their own original beats and breaks (not that there’s anything wrong with samples!). He’s been paying his dues DJing parties in New York with tapes (yes!) and cutting remixes for Diplo (with his previous Secret Frequency Crew), Bonde Do Role, and surprisingly Jandek. Made playful by his trombone playing and use of found sounds (especially the answering machines, air hockey, and skateboards) his bass heavy pastiche work remind me of our old friend Alan Sutherland aka Land of the Loops (where ya at Al?). If you’re in the market for a good slow and steady, fun groove: Michna’s your man.
Freedy Johnston
Not being especially tech savvy, I kind of freaked out a few minutes ago when I checked the web for an article I’d written about Freedy Johnston for the old Salt Lake City-based music monthly grid. (Disclosure: about half of the 3hive crew were employed by grid.) Google says opening the defunct magazine’s website might “harm your computer.” Yikes! The article was called “Hoboken Dreaming,” and it profiled Johnston’s 1997 album Never Home. If I remember right, my interview with the NJ pop singer wasn’t half bad. Anyway, the track available here comes from a disc full of covers — in this case, one by Marshall Crenshaw — released in 2008 called My Favorite Waste of Time. It’s full of the kind of pop songs that Johnston’s been offering up for years, tracks by The Eagles, Matthew Sweet Paul McCartney and Tom Petty, among others. And while these songs don’t necessarily have the geographic specificity of some of his own work, he still plays them like he owns them.
Loyal Divide
This makes me sick! (Well, the sick feeling probably comes from the dizzying bout of Neuritis I’ve been battling for the past week. Makes typing a bit tedious.) Peeved may be a better word. Either way, I can’t believe I let 2008 lapse without mentioning my favorite EP to come our way at the end of the year. Chicago’s Loyal Divide is at once cold and earthy, shoe-gazey and trip hop, Nine Inch Nails and Autolux, Laurie Anderson and Portishead. Your not so typical post-industrial-shoe-goth if you don’t mind me taking such liberties. “Labrador” is tethered to time as the track unwinds into a chugging locomotive pace, driven by Can’s tribal basslines, until ethereal vocals hauntingly give way to a languid narrative about a dog with “blackest eyes and softest mouth / she buried her bones behind the house / she grabbed a bird trying to steal my food / she squeezed its head until it cooed.” The vocals float along through punchy bass-lines and electronic tickings and tweets as everything but the bassline drop out, then rush back in. The Loyal Divide creates the most compellingly textured music I’ve heard from a new artist in some time.
Quintron
It’s time once again, for a number of reasons, for Mr. Quintron to appear on our fair pages four years to the day since he first featured. The biggest reason being his new album that came out two months ago on Goner Records, Too Thirsty 4 Love. Recorded on 2 track, it’s Quintron playing his custom Hammond/Rhodes combo organ with working headlights and utilizing his Drum Buddy creation, in his native New Orleans with his partner in crime and puppet shows, Miss Pussycat. The other reason: I needed something to help me get over some High School Musical-inspired, Disney Channel-ish, over-produced, over-scripted, pre-teen/teen flamboyance. Let’s just say Mr. Quintron came through for me.
Original Post: Jan 5, 2005:
This one is for Sean. Over the years, Sean and I have recommended bands to each other, with limited success. It all started back in 1993 when I went into the music store where Sean worked and told him I was bored with everything in my music collection. He handed me a Green Day CD which I traded in shortly thereafter, despite the rocking cover of the Who’s “My Generation.” Sean, a la Ronald Reagan, says he “cannot recall” handing me Green Day, but I assure you it happened. Another notable moment was in 2000, when he and I (and Sam) were in San Francisco at Ameoba. I recommended Jessamine to Sean; he bought a CD, and probably traded it in shortly thereafter. But it all finally came together, thanks to 3hive, when Sean posted Louis XIV. I just love “God Killed the Queen.” Success! I then hipped him to an early ’90s British band, Five Thirty, whose mod, power pop, blues, fuzzed-out wah stills gets my feet shakin’. Another success! So after our little fun with The Herms yesterday, I wanted to post Mr. Quintron for Sean. Mr. Quintron is a one-man band and organist extraordinaire, who has also invented the Drum Buddy (see below). It is to my great shame that this New Year’s Eve I missed Mr. Quintron playing “Grandfather Time” at the stroke of midnight at the Hi-Tone in Memphis, just 12 minutes from my house.
Kathleen Edwards
Happy New Year! In an auspicious start to 2009, I had one of my old musical wishes granted, that is, sharing with you all a free MP3 from Kathleen Edwards. Not exactly new to the scene, this Canadian country crooner’s 2003 debut Failer had some of my all time favorite lines (“Wanna go get high? / The Mercury is parked outside under the lights”). She’s been pretty quiet since the mid-point of the decade, with Asking for Flowers coming after a three year break. The title track, available here, offers a perfect glimpse of what she has to offer — smooth and subtle vocals, an easy roots foundation, lyrics that offer a deeply personal narrative. And for this Midwesterner, something much better than watching Big 10 football teams getting creamed in the Cali sunshine.
Fredrik
Frederik, yet another musically gifted Swede brings us tunes we love. Na Na Ni varies from quiet, dark and pretty instrumentals to more pop-ish songs with quirky lyrics–he does them both well. And for that very reason, this December, whether on bus, train or subway, Frederik was always in my headphones, never leaving my side. The album varies from quiet, dark and pretty instrumentals to more pop-ish songs with quirky lyrics–he does them both well. Frederik has become my own personal patron saint of public transportation–always making what was happening outside my headphones prettier, more magical, less annoying. I’ll be listening tonight and, again, tomorrow while I’m turning twenty-AHEMPH. I think the record makes a delightful beginning AND end of a year. Happy New Year’s kids.
Unlearn
Adding to our slowcore archive always delights me. Sometimes something really mellow is exactly what you need. Right around New Year’s seems to be one of those times. There’s always so much going on around the holidays and then there’s a brief moment of reflection around the new year just before you jump back into your daily grind. Unlearn encourages us to do otherwise. Unlearn the daily grind. Un-do bad habits. Add constructive ones. Don’t speed back up. Make time to experience the unexpected, the new, the mundane. Seattle’s Unlearn create epiphanic post-rock songs, much like Sigur Ros or the quieter moments of Mogwai, songs that build slowly, extend those moments of reflection, and spark new connections in our paved-over synapses.
Times New Viking
Times New Viking sure make a whole lotta racket for only three people. The fuzz, the pounding, the screeching organ; it’s like The Velvets on speed, the Velvets how they sounded in the earphones of the young, impressionable future members of Times New Viking.
Neil Halstead
Today’s Christmas special comes courtesy of Brushfire Records. Looking for last minute Christmas music? Download this festive collection and 25% of the profit goes to support children’s music education. Lots of stocking stuffers here from Matt Costa, Money Mark, Rogue Wave, and of course Jack Johnson, but I can never pass up Neil Halstead’s toe-tapping authenticity song, so I’m passing this one along to you. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Cheers.
The Man in the Santa Suit [MP3, 3.8MB, 160kbps]
A Block of Yellow
Not only does “Are You Sure?” take the prize for being the sunniest song about winter I’ve heard all year, it also wins the best Beulah song since Beulah broke up four and half years ago. It also happens to be one of my favorite songs of the year. A Block of Yellow’s bright melodies come directly from the Elephant 6 Collective songbook and the general ’60s garage pop sound. A Block of Yellow chased with a hot cup of cocoa will run the chill right out of your fingertips and toes this winter.