So much going on, and yet I find myself constantly pressed for time. So here is a quick and dirty, non-complete run down of some things which have crossed my mind, my desk or my social media filters....
1. RIP Patty Andrews - the last surviving member of the Andrews Sisters.
2. The Great American Novel have released a new single...
3. Couch by Couchwest is about a month and a half away. Bands: Submit your videos to Couch by Couchwest - "Where the beer is cheaper and the only hipster is you."
Most of Nashville and the surrounding area woke up around 3:00a.m. to tornado sirens, high winds, and all manner of alarms going off. An apparent EF-2 tornado touched down just outside of Nashville, and a man was killed by a falling tree just north of downtown. For most of us it was just the inconvenience of having our beauty sleep interrupted. It was kind of interesting reading the live tweets. In addition to updates from the local news outlets, I read a fair number of tweets from Nashville-area songwriters, musicians and venues.
Seemed like an appropriate time to post this... The Doors' Riders on the Storm digitally altered from the Minor Key to the Major Key.
And now, a shuffle - after the jump:
Of late, our Morning Shuffles have increased from about 4-6 songs per shuffle to around 10. While I love being able to present more music, the posts have been taking way more time than I actually have. So, I'm going to try something new... we shall see..
1. Song: Living In The 80's Artist: Zero Boys Album: Decade of Disaster - The Toxic Shock Years (Originally released on Vicious Circle (1982))
Old school punk from Indianapolis
2. Song: Heart is Strange (Active Child Remix) Artist: School of Seven Bells Album: Disconnect from Desire (orginal verison on this album) (2010)
First of two remixes in a row. School of Seven Bells is an indie rock band from Brooklyn. Active Child is an electronic music artist named Pat Grossi. The Amazon widget actually includes a different remix of the same song.
3. All to All (Spirit If Remix) Artist: Broken Social Scene Album: Forgiveness Rock Record (original version) (2010)
Okay let's get this straight. All to All is a song by Broken Social Scene from their record Forgiveness Rock Record. Spirt If... was a band presented solo record by Kevin Drew of BSS. This remix was done by Kevin Drew and Ohad Benchetrit. The used the name of the solo album for this radical remix. The remix is not on the Spirit If.. record. Got it?
4. Song: Is that Clear Artist: Nick Waterhouse Album: Time's All Gone (2012)
Jazzy R&B from the full-album debut of this talented L.A. musician.
5. Song: Trees and Parks Artist: The Hunting Accident Album: Trees and Parks (2012)
A Band of the Week in 2011. Made up of members of Piebald and Arlo. L.A. indie rockers.
6. Song: Ten Commandments of Love Artist: Bob Marley Album: Trenchtown Days: The Birth of a Legend (orginally appeared on The Wailing Wailers (1965) )
Do-Wop originnally by The Moonglows. A great history lesson on the early career of this music legend.
7. Song: Wet and Rusting Artist: Menomena Album: Barsuk: 2009 Amazon Digital Sampler (orginally on Wet and Rusting EP (2006))
Portland Oregon indie rock band
8. Song: Shanghai Cigarettes Artist: Caitlin Rose Album: Own Side Now (2011)
Flat out one of the best songs ever. Nashville's own. I saw her at Grimey's Record Store Day celebration this past spring.
So, what can I say, it's late January, and the high today is supposed to peak above 70 - followed, of course, by a night of storms and then cooler weather. Still and all, it's still mid-winter, and I'm still kind of suffering through some S.A.D.-like symptoms, but as always, we press on...
Today, we are trying something new. It's partially out of necessity, but I'm pretty psyched about it. At Ear 2 the Ground, we usually focus on the Morning Shuffle which allows us to bring you a good cross-section of our eclectic musical tastes. We will continue to do that. Recently, however, I have been reminded of an e-mail conversation I had with a few friends who are more knowledgeable about music than I am (but they don't write music blogs - so there). But anyway, this was a few years ago, just before all of us were on Facebook, so we mainly had these discussions over e-mail (we are spread across the country). We were talking about the rise of the MP3 Player/iPod or whatever. On the plus side, it sure makes it convenient to have at least a large chunk of my music collection at my fingertips, but I wondered if somehow, the concept of a record album might be lost. In the end, I concluded that art is enduring and adapts to whatever changes in medium come along. But, I still believe in the power of the album as a cohesive form of expression. So, we do the shuffle, but I always like to point you, dear reader, to the source album, in the hopes (unspoken usually) that if you hear something you like you will check out the album as a whole.
It is on rare occasions when we do a full-fledged record review, and of late, due to some unforeseen circumstances, I have been unable to doing many posts outside of our daily shuffle. So, when I was recently asked to write about a new record, I was excited, but the current state of my life and technology and time made it difficult to do what I so wanted to... That's when I came up with this idea. With my extended listening time in the morning, I usually end up with between 7-10 songs in the morning shuffle. Coincidentally, that is the approximate length of many albums. So, I pulled up the record I wanted to review, turned off the shuffle function (so I could hear the record in the order intended) and voila. We have the first ever Morning (Non-Shuffle) Album review, and it's a great one... keep reading after the jump:
Well, it's Thursday. Life continues to be busy which I am considering a good thing, but it is sometimes hard to get done all the things I want to get done. When I got my 32gb card for Christmas, I hastily loaded about 20gb of music from my computer onto the card. Being semi-technologically impaired, I wasn't able to sync iTunes which I had been working for months on organizing and therefore I ended up using Windows Media Player. Well, lo and behold, somehow a bunch of songs got duplicated and I still occasionally find one I have deleted.
On the plus side, some really cool music that I hadn't heard in a while or which never got added to my old card due to storage capacity limitations has come up and I've discovered or rediscovered some cool songs and bands.
On the negative side, a bunch of recently added music got left off the initial load of the card. Then we began preparing for a move and are now in the post-move recovery period, and as a result, I haven't had a chance to mess around with the music on the card. Basically, that means, my memory card which I use for my Morning Shuffles is missing some great music including some recent stuff that I really want to get into the mix. But all in good time.
Have you bought the Sandy Hook single yet? Proceeds go toward the community through a couple of great agencies.
Here we go... I'll plug the Sandy Hook single again. Really, check this out and buy it. $1.29 - just don't super-size your fast food meal for one day. ;-)
Our shuffle is all over this this a.m. - check it out - after the... wait for it... jump:
ICYMI - please check out Sandy Hook: Somewhere Over the Rainbow featuring the Children of Newtown along with Ingrid Michaelson which was produced by Chris and Tina of Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club renown.
It continues to be winter here in Nashville, but we press on... Let's shuffle - after the jump:
The Children of Newtown are joined by Ingrid Michaelson for this version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. The track was produced by Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth (Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club). Music heals people. Go buy! (You can also get it on Itunes if that is how you roll).
Well, the first week of the new year has come and gone. We've been busy with some transitions here on the E2TG homefront, and next week, posting will be spotty at best, but we have big plans in store of 2013 and some new features and all sorts of assorted goodness. One feature we're playing around with is kind of a weekly recap of neat-o stuff, we've come into contact with musically speaking. Although, we're still not sure how this is going to work, we've never let that stop us before, and we are not going to start now. First up is a segment we are calling - good news from good friends... but we'll probably think of a better name. Here's the deal - we love it when bands/artists we love turn us on to music that they love. For us that is part of the connections we talk about sometimes. Everything is connected. But it also points to something else. It seems in many aspects of the world including the business side of music, there is a philosophy that some people have that operates under the assumption that there is only so much success to go around and that you better grab as much as you can get for yourself. I tend to believe in a philosophy of absolute abundance. The way I try (emphasis on TRY) to live is to put the focus of helping others to succeed - even if they could be considered competition. Whatever... the music... Ear to the Ground favorites The End Men have been hinting at some big news for 2013. New album, maybe a Nashville date???!!!!!, so when I got a tweet from them that said something like, "Here it is" ... I thought it was news about The End Men, but rather it was to turn us on to a great band... this is not the first time The End Men have done this and I suspect it will not be the last. (By the way, The End Men are seconds away from reaching 600 likes on Facebook. So, go do yourself a favor and "like" their page.)
So.... without further ado, Ear to the Ground presents (via The End Men)- a great band from Kansas - Jesse Harris and the Gypsy Sparrows with a song called "Bound".
Something else we do here at Ear to the Ground is feature bands in segments like Band of the Week, Featured Artists of the Month. The thing is, we are very possessive of the band's we feature. We do our best to keep up with them (and offer tools like THIS or THIS where you can, too). So, when a band we featured does something amazing or noteworthy, we take great pride in telling you about it).
Which brings us to our next segment which we are calling (go back and put in segment name later)... isn't that great name!
Well, whatever we call it, this week, we have a live performance of a brand new song from The Foresters - new motto "when you need that extra push over the cliff, you need a band whose average age is 11." (this is not an official band motto - unless they like it). As you know, these three brothers from Connecticut know how to ROCK. For me, listening to their music fills be with such hope. Not just for how good there are... and they are good, but for the potential... So, the band played a gig January 3 and this video of the new song called "Big Mountain Fudge Cake" was released, and behold the signs of a band on the rise. The soon to be legendary lore (is that redundant?) tells how these brothers went to a Green Day show with their father and came home wanting to play music. The band's music that I've heard so far has been clearly drawn from the Pop Punk well-spring that Green Day helped to launch. Don't get me wrong, it is good Pop Punk with a hint that these kids weren't going to be content with any such limitations.
Here we see growth - probably equal to or greater than the physical growth common in kids of their ages. This is heavy stuff and be sure to check out bass player Hayden's work on this song.
That's it for now, stick with us as we make our way through this challenging but exciting week in our non-blogging lives and we promise great things to come..
" It's a
little known fact that smartest animal is a pig. Scientists say if pigs
had thumbs and a language, they could be trained to do simple manual
labor. They give you 20-30 years of loyal service and then at their
retirement dinner you can eat them." - Cliff Clavin Well, well, well... it's 2013. So far here, it's been a rainy and cold new year, but this year is going to rock so hard...so there. We have coming up our first Morning Shuffle of the new year... sort of... it appears on my new phone, when you "shuffle all" it really just begins playing at a random place and if the shuffle feature is not turned on, it just plays songs in alphabetical order from that point. I discovered this in the midst of my morning commute, and turned the shuffle feature on. So the first part of the list is not a true shuffle, but the last part is... you'll figure it out... after the JUMP!
