Sometimes I like to follow links from the websites of bands I enjoy to see where I end up. That’s probably how I found Blackwater, but heck if I know exactly how I got to this Native American hard rock outfit. I will say that, after teaching about the Holocaust and the atomic bomb on consecutive days, “Mean Things Happening in this World” seems a totally appropriate song. I’d say that about the recent Michigan primary, too, but then the song would be about stupid things instead. Anyway, go ahead and get a bit heavy with this Woody Guthrie cover offered up by Navajos (hey, I taught about the code talkers, too!) Jeneda, Clayson and Klee Benally. And if you’re looking for more, on the family website you can check out their political action, past albums, multiple awards for Native artists and more downloads.
Kickstart
A wise colleague recently said of the advertising industry, “deep down inside we all just want to be rock stars.” I’m sure he’d also agree with Kickstart’s corollary that “rock ‘n ‘roll is never easy.” Kickstart plays raw and relentless barroom brawl music. Frontman Eric Strickler lights up each anthemic number with gravelly vocals and guitar licks to match. Oh, to be a real rock star.
Biirdie Takes Flight
Wire
So I was just talking in the past week with a rather new friend about our top 5 albums. So I made my list after much internal debate, and when it came to adding Wire, one of my favorite bands of all time, I had such trouble deciding between their albums Pink Flag and Chairs Missing. I ended up going with the former, but Wire is not just musical nostalgia; the old lads are still making music, as heard in the song “23 Years Too Late” below from their November 2007 release Read & Burn 03. Many more free songs available from their website.
Oh Astro
Caution! These songs may induce seizures or stuttering. My dad used to stutter severely. Up into his early 20s he could barely get out name out. He passed it down to his sons, although we never stuttered to the extent my father did. I remember going to speech therapy when I was in elementary school. They’d encourage me to stutter away. Talk right through the anticipation, the fear of stuttering. It worked for me. On rare occasions I still stutter, but it doesn’t bother me at all. With apologies to those who struggle with dysfluency, stuttering reminds me of a remix, of turntable scratching. It artfully strips down language to its phonemes. And it can be rhythmic. The sample-tastic duo Oh Astro shares my interest in stuttering. On their new album, Champions of Wonder, they strip down existing songs down to individual notes, mash in a few other songs or vocals, and freshen up or create entirely new interpretations of those source works. Said re-workings are wonderfully bumpy and jumpy and bravely taunt copyright restrictions. Oh Astro’s label, Illegal Art, “claims Fair Use for all of its releases and has professional legal counsel nearby if needed.” Smart move. A stream of the entire album is available via Oh Astro’s ecard and I highly suggest you follow along with their sample notes as you listen.
Canon Blue
You diehard 3Hivers (we love you!) will recall that Canon Blue was originally posted just three months ago. But Daniel James is giving away the new Halcyon EP for free, and it’s so lovely (especially the title track) that I felt it deserved a little more plug time. Unzip and enjoy! Canon Blue is the creation of Daniel James, a Nashville-based do-everything musician who came to my attention not through any tangential southern connection but through his European label Rumracket. That could be because he’s not your typical Nashville kind of dude. Or is he? James may prefer digital to analog, keyboards to six-strings, drum machines to high-hats, but at heart he’s a singer-songwriter in a town that cultivates and nourishes them. Good thing because Canon Blue’s helium-filled harmonies, industrial beats and sweet falsetto deserve all the cultivation they can get.
The Hermit
I found out about The Hermit after checking up on
Paper Moon, one of my favorite Canadian bands. The brainchild of musical experimentalist/drummer Hamish Thomson, The Hermit also features — with greater prominence on their most recent release, Turn Up (the Stereo) — the alluring voice of Allison Shevernoha from the aforementioned Paper Moon. Samples from the new spin can be heard over on MySpace; I like “Si vous me quittez” a lot. The tracks available here are winners from a remix contest, based on The Hermit’s 2005 album Wonderment, and they are sweet and pleasant things to listen to.
Daft Punk Giveaway
Malajube
Sometimes one’s computer dies. And it takes with it thousands of un-backed-up songs, hundreds of un-backed-up pictures and well, your whole electronic life from the past 5 years. We’ll skip past my stages of grief, denial and rage and go direct to the fact that I have many kind friends to thank for an influx of mix cd’s, emails with links to things to cheer me up, It mostly cheers me up. Amongst these desperately needed donations, Malajube turned up. And while it seems to me that there are many a sound that could be described as belonging to Montreal (lo-fi loveliness like the Unicorns; gorgeous string infused songs for depressives like Owen Palette; etc.)–the one I need right now in this moment of return to my 1999 boom box is this one: scratchy guitared, French-Canadian, happy, bouncy indie-pop. In French. I need a little bum-bum-bum-budumpbadum in my life. Don’t we all?
Ben Benjamin
I’ve been busy the last two weeks. Busy doing nothing. It’s been nice, but it’s time I start catching up on a few things. First up, outta Sam & Joe’s hood, more or less, from Ypsilanti, Michigan give it up for Ben Benjamin. Formerly of Midwest Product, Ben Benjamin, AKA Ben Mullins, splits his time between this solo project and PostPrior, his neu-wavish duo also out on Ghostly. Between his myspace and Ghostly pages you can get a good feel for his debut full-length, The Many Moods of Ben Benjamin Vol. 1. “Selective Periphera” showcases Mullins strength—his ability to elaborate, with both electronic and organic instruments, on a simple riff for an absolutely hypnotic effect. Run this track into your skull and your life, regardless of how mundane it may be, will resonate with cinematic panache.