This track is a gem among gems on the new Accidental Rhythm compilation curated by Jason Eldredge and Jeremy Wineberg, a couple L.A. lads who are all that and a bag of chips. Hickory BBQ, my current fave. Need to spice up your life? Then boogie on down to this saucy track. This thing is all groove: brown chicken, brown cow! (What’s the lead-in to that punchline?) and as classic as anything off Thriller, without all that Neverland baggage. Instead you get the gorgeous and sultry Liz Wight. Priceless. I should stop gushing now. If you’re in L.A. you can judge for yourself—they’re playing the Echo the next two Fridays.
Honey Claws Album + MP3
Lykke Li
Now that Santogold can be heard on light beer commercials, I’m ready for another obsession (I’m not that fickle, I just need to back off from my one-a-day dosage). 22-year-old Swede Lykke Li might just be the answer. Her songs ooze modernity and warmth — restrained rhythmic backdrops meshing seamlessly with her instrumental lyrics. And then there’s her voice, that entrancing siren call… It may be too early to call her My Angel of Stockholm based on a debut album alone but dang diggity if she doesn’t melt my ears and heart.
(Thanks to JM3 for the suggestion.)
RIP Levi Stubbs
Avoidance Theory
My parents put a pool in their backyard recently, years after my brothers and I moved out. Kind of a jip, except they did give us a key and the code to the pool cover. So I can’t really complain. Do you know how good it feels to relax in a warm, bubbly hot tub on a brisk fall evening? Really good, right? The simple, quiet, lovely melodies from the Avoidance Theory provide that same cozy feeling. As a matter of fact, when I put my feet up to the speakers I get that same jet-blasted massage from these songs. Recommended if you like warm baths and a more ethereal, trippy Dean Wareham sound.
The Gay Blades
Clark from The Gay Blades sat down and recorded this song a few days after he heard that Paul Newman had passed away. He, like myself and many others, thought Paul Newman was about as good as actors, and men, got. Perhaps he just wanted to remember Newman or perhaps he wanted to offer a eulogy. Whatever it was, he picked well. In Cool Hand Luke Newman sang “Plastic Jesus†to mourn the death of his mother. Clark sings it as much more of a celebration, which you get the feeling would have suited Newman just fine.
Another single from the Ettes
Lone
Bless Sean West’s (Dealmaker Studios in Nottingham) email earnestness and his consistant harping on us all summer, trying to open our eyes and ears to Lone. We’re listening! and loving it! Lone is one Matt Cutler, beat-maker, audio-cut-and-paster, and all-around sonic-magician. Cutler lays down hip-hop beats then layers the tracks with illusory flourishes, broken chords, and dream-inducing 8-bit melodies. This is the music I heard in my head when I read the Chronicles of Narnia (before current literature to screen trends began destroying young imaginations). This is the music I imagined the band of lizards playing in Daniel Pinkwater’s Lizard Music. Give it a try. Do your own mini mash-up of Pinkwater Vs. Lone to see what I mean. Youthful, imaginative, and sweetly psychedelic Lone will likely conjure up visions of rainbows, sparkly unicorns, Mozart playing lizards, magic wardrobes or any other mystical apparitions floating around in your subconscious.
+/- (Plus/Minus)
+/- has always given me the impression that they know exactly what they’re doing. Even as their catchy pop has matured, like the members themselves, their songs are still crafted in fine detail; there is no filler, no fluff, and definitely no songs that were mere afterthoughts meant to only take up space. Now that is not to say that there is no passion in +/-. Au contraire, they’re only showing us the passion that they want us to see, dispensing their drug in controlled doses. Xs for Your Eyes, their new LP. will be out October 21st.
Original post from June 30, 2004:
Continuing our tour of former members of the late great Versus (and 3hive’s tour of bands with non-alphabetic names), we now hit +/-, a.k.a. “Plus Minus.” Combining the finer points of electronica and jangly (even emo) pop with their well-honed skills of crunching guitars, +/- purvey a progessive indie rock that’s catchy, hooky, and rockin’.
Paul Westerberg
I’m sorry, but I get so sick of new music sometimes. It’s not that I want to live stuck in the late ‘8os or ’90s, enveloped by the past, but I need to see where I’ve been. Not to get all Nick Hornsby here, but I want access to the personal history that comes with MY music. Case in point: Sam and I went to see The Wedding Present on Thursday night in Pontiac (where, apparently, Elvis split his pants playing at the Silverdome), and it was awesome. David Gedge has been making music since 1985, and we’ve been listening to it for almost long, and it felt so good to hear him rip through “Kennedy” and screw up the lyrics to “Crawl” and play half of the Seamonsters album and turn “I-5” into the most intense therapy session. So with this post, I wanted to tap into similar memories, like walking up the Lake Michigan bike path from Hyde Park to Grant Park to see Paul Westerberg play the 1996 Chicago TasteFest wearing a bright yellow suit. I’ll keep the rest of my stories of Westerberg and The Replacements to myself, and let you know that, 1) Paul has been recording and releasing single, studio session length MP3s recently, and 2) a bunch of Replacements albums were remastered and rereleased a week or two ago. Also, for anyone still reading, I can offer one of the best songs ever recorded in the whole history of music (“We May Be The Ones”) and a handful of other tracks kindly provided by Vagrant Records, so you start making some of your own history.