Some wonderfully ragged and raw honky tonk from L’ville, Kentucky, for your Monday morning… It’s hard to put a finger on their secret blend of 11 herbs and spices, but Katie O’Brien’s slurred, gravelly vocals and Alison Lee-Whitney’s emotive sax work are at least two key ingredients. Finger lickin’ good, y’all!
Woody Whatever
Athens, Ohio’s Erik Schmall has been recording frayed, cuddly lo-fi at a blistering pace. He’s already released over 100 songs since he first started in 2001, at age 17. Like many prolific bedroom songwriters, or any prolific songwriter for that matter, not every track will blow you away. But these ones here do, and I’m sure I’ve overlooked a few. If you’re looking for a good place to get started, hop (Happy Easter!) over to the lovely blog/netlabel Beat the Indie Drum to download Woody Whatever’s Big One Shout Out EP that just came out in March 2006.
The Spectacular Fantastic
Sean accused me of being a squatter the other day in his Tessitura post, and he’s not wrong. Silly me, I just forgot about these folksy, rocking, old-fashioned easy-to-sing-along-with tracks from The Spectacular Fantastic. With a name as superlative as that one, you’d think it’d be hard to do — anyway, it won’t happen again. Start with “60 Cycles” and “I Love You,” (both from a fully-downloadable EP on the band’s website), then check out “Winter Song” and “You” (from a split single with the previously-mentione Tessitura). Then, in gratitude for all the free music, shell out a few bucks for The Spectacular Fantastic Goes Underground and start singing along yourself.