Friday Morning Music Shuffle - Chauldron Mix

Man, we are just having stellar weather here in Nashville (even if it is way too hot for the season).  Save the date: April 21st is Record Store Day.  Visit your local brick and mortar record emporium.  Here in Nashville, Grimey's always puts on a great show.  Even if you aren't a vinyl junkie - ready for this years cream of the crop RSD releases, you should still get your butt to support real world stores. You know, I love the convenience of download sites like Amazon or iTunes, but it's hard to throw a bash on either of those sites like they do at record stores across the country on Record Store Day.

Here we go with a wild and crazy list:

1.  Black Hippy - is kind of a hip-hop supergroup of sorts. They've put our a number of singles on various solo projects of the band members, and they are prepping their first album.  The collective recently appeared at South by Southwest.  Zip That Chop That was posted just before SXSW over at Stereogum - here


Here is another track, Rolling Stone, from Black Hippy member,  Schoolboy Q's solo album.

 

And finally a video of today's track:

My daughter wore this song out when she was little. Perspective #1 - it's a catchy, innocuous pop song - just sit back and remind yourself of the early 2000s.  Bye Bye Bye - N*Sync
Perspective #2 - Ear to the Ground, N*Sync, really!?  Perspective #3 - Justin Timberlake is a talented guy, Peter Case once posted  an unironic (I think) defense of N*Sync on Facebook (or else his account had been hacked...

Delta Spirit have been appearing quite frequently.  Today we have a mellower side of the band with My Dream from 2010's The Waits Room EP.

 

 

And finally, Ryan Adams is tearing it up with his latest release Ashes & Fire ($5 from Amazon - as of 3/30/2012) using the link below.  Today's song is Chains of Love:

 

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Links of Interest:

Schoolboy Q We believe it is important to preserve what makes music special, and make it easy to craft listening experiences. At MOG, browse millions songs and play them instantly. Or just turn on radio where you can stop and replay songs. You can also create playlists for any occasion, and even download songs to your mobile. We are dedicated to employing the cleanest but most powerful technology so you can enjoy music as much as ever.

An Off the Record Guide to Boy Bands: New Kids on the Block, Backstreet Boys and 'n Sync Read about the most popular boy bands of the 1990's - New Kids on the Block, Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync. Learn about each member in those bands and what they are doing today.This book was created and put into distribution by a team of dedicated editors using open source and proprietary publishing tools. One of the advantages to the way we publish books is that our content is up to date and written by dedicated subject matter experts from all over the world. By adding a layer of screening and curatorial attention to this material, we are able to offer a book that is relevant, informative and unique.

Middle Brother - Middle Brother - MP3 Download This Middle Brother download is available in DRM-free, MP3 256kbps format. Middle Brother MP3's will play on iPod? and all MP3 players. Individual tracks and samples of the songs from this album are available by clicking on the product image on the left. Need help? Click here and search for "downloads" to learn more.

Music in High Places: Ryan Adams - Live in Jamaica The Music in High Places series of videos combines travel footage with music. Each edition in the series follows a music star traveling to exotic locations, learning about the place, and then performing. This chapter finds alt-country star Ryan Adams as h

Some random video linkage...

Hey ho!  I've been out of pocket today, so no music shuffle, but I couldn't let a day go by without subjecting you... er treating you some music that's been going through my mind...


First a teaser: one of our earlier Band's of the Week: Elika are back with a new album that just dropped this month.  I've got my grubby little paws on it, and it's sweet stuff.  A more in-depth discussion is to come, but below is a bit of a tease.

Finn Bonel is a singer-songwriter from South London.  More on his music to come. Here is a video of his called Wedding Song.

The Mobbs were the first annual Band of The Year at Ear to the Ground.  They are planning a U.S. tour for the fall - so stay tuned to this space for more later.  Here is the official video for Jolly Good!  Jolly Good, indeed!

Off topicish, but we've lost a couple of greats this week.  Here's a video of a recitation of Adrienne Rich's poem 'song'.  Adrienne Rich died this week at the age of 82.

Earl Scruggs died yesterday at the age of 88.  A true pioneer and innovator of contemporary bluegrass music, his storied career as placed him beside many great musicians of the past several decades.  His work with Bill Monroe and later Lester Flatt are beyond legendary. Here is a selection from Mr. Scruggs...

Wednesday Morning Music Shuffle - Stumble Mix

Mid-week and it all goes by too slow and too fast at times and here we go....

SONG #1: Okkervil River - Wake and Be Fine from I Am Very Far

The Austin, Texas based band with a song from last spring's album. 

Someone said to me, "I'll come into your dream and speak it to you." I already knew. I found her in the attic where, dramatically, she leaned into me, and she whispered these lines: "Wake and be fine. You've still got time to wake and be fine."

  

(I Am Very Far by Okkervil River - Amazon)

(Wake and Be Fine via Youtube)

SONG #2:  Ubiquity Machine  -  A Beautiful Girl 

Our good friends Ubiquity Machine with their stellar track, A Beautiful Girl

"God gave me knowledge to open up my mind, but the devil gave me loneliness so I'd leave it all behind."

(A Beautiful Girl via Soundcloud)

SONG #3: Joe Jackson - Look Sharp! (Title track to album of the same name)*

*redundancy intended... :-P

A legendary performer, a classic album, a great song!  

Okay, what you say
Tell me what they're wearing this year
Go on and laugh at me cause you don't see
That I got something going right here
Say I'm just a dreamer
Say I'm just a kid
Well ace, shut your face
Maybe you will see or hear 

 

(Look Sharp! by Joe Jackson - Amazon - Dig those shoes!)

(Look Sharp! live via Youtube)

BONUS SONG:  

I'm in love with the girl who works at the store
where I'm nothing but a ...

(Customer live via Youtube)

==========================================================================

Affiliated Links:

Okkervil River - Wake And Be Fine b/w Weave Room Blues - MP3 Download This Okkervil River download is available in DRM-free, MP3 256kbps format. Okkervil River MP3's will play on iPod? and all MP3 players. Individual tracks and samples of the songs from this album are available by clicking on the product image on the left. Need help? Click here and search for "downloads" to learn more.

Joe Jackson: Steppin' Out - The Videos - The Very Best of Joe Jackson Pop star Joe Jackson has perfected a polished sound that alternates between ska, swing, cabaret, and straightforward pop. STEPPIN' OUT is a compilation of Jackson's music videos and concert performances. All digitally remastered, the videos for Jackson hits including Is She Really Going Out With Him?, Steppin' Out, and I'm the Man. The two live performances included were filmed in 1986 at a New York venue.

Tuesday Morning Music Shuffle - Tiger of Manhatten Mix

I'm currently reading Jonathan Lethem's rather trippy novel Chronic City (and yes the titular Chronic is what you think).  I'm a big Jonathan Lethem fan, and so far I'm enjoying the book, but I'm just about half way through - it's very long.  Anyway, there are lots of interesting occurrences and references in the book. The novel falls into the classification of what I like to call hyper-realism, which for me means a view of the world which is skewed from what most of us perceive as reality.

****

We are in a daze, a haze, a maze

we are amazed

we meet an icon and are surprised

to find the truth behind

their facade

And then we are overtaken with joy

and laughter fills the air around our ears

We look around and fine ourselved

unimpressed

****

Our list today features music added into the MP3 for the month of March - it's our last adds for March.

Here is today's list:

 

Dancing Daze is  from The Avett Brothers' 2006 album Four Thieves Gone: The Robbinsville Sessions  which was recorded in 10 days in early 2005.

 

"Mean" Joe Green comes from recent Band of the Week, Calicocat off of their 2011 set, Unnatural Oasis.

  Couldn't find a video of the band doing this song, so here is the classic Coca-Cola commercial of Mean Joe Greene.

 

The Way You Laugh is by Dawes off of Nothing is Wrong.

 

And finally, we have our brand new Band of the Week, Northbrook Garage with their song  So What.

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Affiliated Links:

Chronic City The acclaimed author of "Motherless Brooklyn" and "The Fortress of Solitude" returns with a roar with this gorgeous, searing portrayal of Manhattanites wrapped in their own delusions, desires, and lies. Chase Insteadman, a handsome, inoffensive fixture on Manhattan's social scene, lives off residuals earned as a child star on a beloved sitcom called "Martyr & Pesty." Chase owes his current social cachet to an ongoing tragedy much covered in the tabloids: His teenage sweetheart and fiancee, Janice Trumbull, is trapped by a layer of low-orbit mines on the International Space Station, from which she sends him rapturous and heartbreaking love letters. Like Janice, Chase is adrift, she in Earth's stratosphere, he in a vague routine punctuated by Upper East Side dinner parties. Into Chase's cloistered city enters Perkus Tooth, a wall-eyed free-range pop critic whose soaring conspiratorial riffs are fueled by high-grade marijuana, mammoth cheeseburgers, and a desperate ache for meaning. Perkus's countercultural savvy and voracious paranoia draw Chase into another Manhattan, where questions of what is real, what is fake, and who is complicit take on a life-shattering urgency. Along with Oona Laszlo, a self-loathing ghostwriter, and Richard Abneg, a hero of the Tompkins Square Park riot now working as a fixer for the billionaire mayor, Chase and Perkus attempt to unearth the answers to several mysteries that seem to offer that rarest of artifacts on an island where everything can be bought: Truth. Like Manhattan itself, Jonathan Lethem's masterpiece is beautiful and tawdry, tragic and forgiving, devastating and antic, a stand-in for the whole world and a place utterly unique.

Mean Joe Greene and the Steelers' front four This book is in Used condition

Band of the Week: Year 2, Month 4, Week 4: Northbrook Garage

"I don't mind other guys dancing with my girl
That's fine, I know them all pretty well
But I know sometimes I must get out in the light
Better leave her behind with the kids, they're alright
The kids are alright"  - The Who










And yes, the kids are alright....

We were first introduced to  Northbrook Garage by way of their cover of Big Star's Thirteen from this years Couch by Couch West Festival.  In case you missed it, here it is:

The cover was inspired by the band's recent sessions at legendary Ardent Studios in Memphis where Big Star and front man (the late) Alex Chilton recorded (plus many others).  

The most obvious thing you notice about Northbrook Garage is that they are young - like young, young.  I mean, the older I get the older "young" becomes, but Northbrook Garage are in their early to mid teens. But, putting that aside for a minute, because c'mon One Direction are young teens, but the comparisons end there. ***Bloggers Note*** I can honestly say I know absolutely nothing of any substance about One Direction, so this last statement is a huge assumption.  ***End Note***

One can't help but have expectations about what a band of cute kids from the suburbs of Chicago will be and sound like, but this band blows all of those expectations out of the water.  They groove deep and they've got the chops to carry off the music they take on. From their originals to their eclectic and sometimes surprising mix of cover tunes.  They have caught ear of many who know more than me what soulful music is... Read this quote and then watch this video:

“The babies are bringing back soul! Ain’t that something!” - Sharon Jones (of Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings)

You can grab the bands debut single from Amazon - click on the pic below:

Northbrook Garage on Facebook

And on Twitter

Finally on You Tube

Obviously these kids are just starting out, and only time will tell where their musical journey will take them.  For now, us jaded old folks can just sit back and marvel and dig the grooves they're laying down.... I'll end with one final video - a cover of Bob Dylan's Make You Feel my Love:

 

Monday Morning Music Shuffle - In Dreams Mix

I feel like I've been gone forever.  Was off the grid most of the weekend.  I had hoped to write the Band of the Week entry before I left, but time got away from me, so I will try to finish that today.

On to our playlist for today:

   

The New Pornographers are up first with Crash Years for the bands 2010 album, Together. 

Former Band of the Week - Citizen Smith are up next with their cracking song, Uncle Jack.

 

Next we have The Replacements with Merry Go Round from their final Studio album All Shook Down. Although, I freely admit that The Replacements were at their best between Let it Be and Pleased to Meet Me, and that for all intents and purposes, the band was finished by the time of All Shook Down, the album does show off Paul Westerberg's maturing song writing skills.   On another note, I was noticing that there were just 9 years between 1981's Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take out the Trash and this final album.  Just shows that 9 years is a lifetime for a rock and roll band.

 

Pennsylvania singer/songwriter Kurt Vile is our final track of the day with Jesus Fever which is off of his 2011 album Smoke Rings for my Halo on Matador Records. 

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Affiliated Links:

Kurt Vile We believe it is important to preserve what makes music special, and make it easy to craft listening experiences. At MOG, browse millions songs and play them instantly. Or just turn on radio where you can stop and replay songs. You can also create playlists for any occasion, and even download songs to your mobile. We are dedicated to employing the cleanest but most powerful technology so you can enjoy music as much as ever.

The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting: An Oral History At the dawn of "Morning in America"--a period that would nurse the rise of suit-and-tie culture--there emerged a national network of anti-corporate record shops, college radio stations, fanzines, nightclubs, and entrepreneurial record labels. In the watershed year 1981, this "indie" scene fostered several seminal releases. Among recordings by bands such as Sonic Youth, Black Flag, Husker Du, The Minutemen, and R.E.M. was an album called "Sorry Ma . . . Forgot to Take Out the Trash," recorded by a scruffy, flannel-clad quartet from Minneapolis called The Replacements. Now, for the first time, all of the hearsay, half-truths, legends, and allegations associated with this maelstrom of a rock & roll band are unraveled in this oral history by longtime Twin Cities music journalist Jim Walsh. Through interviews with family, friends, and fans; former manager Peter Jesperson; Twin/Tone record label cofounder Paul Stark; and musicians around the nation influenced by the band, Walsh lays bare with painful clarity a tale that unfolds like a tragic comedy in three perfect acts. Celebrated by national publications, "the Mats" often seemed more hell-bent on sabotaging their status as critical darlings than parlaying it. With their markedly apolitical stance amid their decidedly political peers, their uncool embrace of "classic rock" influences like KISS and The Faces, and their Dionysian appetites (and the resulting tendency to literally fall on their own faces), The Replacements lasted 12 years despite themselves. From the bands founding to their rise through the local and national club circuits, their major label deal in 1985, and the slow and painful implosion that followed, "The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting" lays down the gripping oral history behind the little band that could--but didn't.

The New Pornographers We believe it is important to preserve what makes music special, and make it easy to craft listening experiences. At MOG, browse millions songs and play them instantly. Or just turn on radio where you can stop and replay songs. You can also create playlists for any occasion, and even download songs to your mobile. We are dedicated to employing the cleanest but most powerful technology so you can enjoy music as much as ever.

Friday Morning Music Shuffle - Hills are Alive Mix

Good morning, I've got a lot to do and not a little bit of time to do it so let's get to today's list:

___________________________________________________________________________________

 

Dawes are back on our playlist with a track from their  2009 album North Hills:  Love is All I Am

___________________________________________________________________________________

  

Delta Spirit have also come back to our list.  Today's song is on Ode to Sunshine (although our version is

from the I Think I Found It -EP which we got from Noisetrade) - People, Turn Around!

___________________________________________________________________________________

  

Americana-Country-Folk band Folk Family Revival are from Texas and they are Chasing a Rabbit  from their 2011 album Unfolding.  Check them out:

___________________________________________________________________________________

  

And we'll go out today with North Carolina's The Avett Brothers with a rollicking number off their latest I and Love and You - Kick Drum Heart .

_________________________________________________________________________________

Affiliated Links:

KOL Drum Kick Canada Jr. Tee This Kings Of Leon Jr. tee features the Canadian KOL logo on front. White 100% cotton.

Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels: Rabbit, Run, Rabbit Redux, Rabbit Is Rich, and Rabbit at Rest When we first met him in "Rabbit, Run" (1960), the book that established John Updike as a major novelist, Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom is playing basketball with some boys in an alley in Pennsylvania during the tail end of the Eisenhower era, reliving for a moment his past as a star high school athlete. Athleticism of a different sort is on display throughout these four magnificent novels--the athleticism of an imagination possessed of the ability to lay bare, with a seemingly effortless animal grace, the enchantments and disenchantments of life. Updike revisited his hero toward the end of each of the following decades in the second half of this American century; and in each of the subsequent novels, as Rabbit, his wife, Janice, his son, Nelson, and the people around them grow, these characters take on the lineaments of our common existence. In prose that is one of the glories of contemporary literature, Updike has chronicled the frustrations and ambiguous triumphs, the longuers, the loves and frenzies, the betrayals and reconciliations of our era. He has given us our representative American story. This Rabbit Angstrom volume is comprised of the following novels: Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit is Rich; and Rabbit at Rest.

Love Is All I Am We believe it is important to preserve what makes music special, and make it easy to craft listening experiences. At MOG, browse millions songs and play them instantly. Or just turn on radio where you can stop and replay songs. You can also create playlists for any occasion, and even download songs to your mobile. We are dedicated to employing the cleanest but most powerful technology so you can enjoy music as much as ever.

People, Turn Around We believe it is important to preserve what makes music special, and make it easy to craft listening experiences. At MOG, browse millions songs and play them instantly. Or just turn on radio where you can stop and replay songs. You can also create playlists for any occasion, and even download songs to your mobile. We are dedicated to employing the cleanest but most powerful technology so you can enjoy music as much as ever.