Topical Thursday Morning Shuffle - An Artist Man Mix

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I need to start by saying cancer sucks... I hate it!  Rest in Peace to Grant Hart (Husker Du).  Along with The Replacements and Minutemen, Husker Du were part of the holy trinity of great American post-punk bands on the 1980s.

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Whew... I am somehow still functioning (at least as good as I normally function).  So far this week, I've seen somewhere close to 15 hours of live music (with 7-8 more on tap tonight), worked my regular schedule, posted my normal blog posts, recorded a radio show, run into a ton of good friends, strategically managed to drink quite a bit for a fraction of the cost ;-), posted on Instagram for the radio station, danced at 1:00am at The Family Wash, and even got to sleep - just a little.

Last night, I saw the amazing Bonnie Whitmore, K. Phillips (who co-wrote the Erica Blinn song we premiered last week), and the always enchanting Amelia White.

Tonight: As if the case almost every day/night this week, there is a ton of amazing music.  I plan to start my evening at The 5 Spot.  E2TG Favorite Mark Robinson Band.  This is Mark's fifth year running of holding down the Thursday early slot at The 5 Spot. This year, in addition to hi stellar band, he will be joined by Dave Coleman (who I saw playing with Amelia White last night), and one of my favorite local songwriters Kevin Gordon (according to my Facebook memories, two years ago, I was attending the City Winery CD Release show for Gordon for his most recent album).

Speaking of City Winery, their lineup tonight includes, Robyn Hitchcock, Dave Alvin, Tony Joe White and more.

If all goes as planned, my evening will end with North Mississippi All-Stars and Blackfoot Gypsies at The Beast.

Meanwhile, I have Shuffle to present.  It somehow is Thursday, and that means today's shuffle comes from the special E2TG Topical playlist... featuring songs from across the six year history of this blog.

Let's shuffle!

Tuesday Morning Music Shuffle - ♥ Mix

"You'd think that people would have had enough of silly love songs."

It's Valentine's Day.  So whether you're feeling the love or whether you fall of the J. Geils Band's side of things: "I've been through diamonds/I've been through minks/I've been through it all/Love stinks"

Here at Ear to the Ground we have you covered.  Honestly, I don't know if any of the songs on today's list qualifies as a love song, but I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder.  I love all these songs.

First up is some Brazilian Post-Rock goodies from former Band of the Week From the Outside.  The Prosecutor another track off the new Sound of Motion album offers crunching guitar and what I assume is "found"dialogue and ends with some electronic sounds.

Next we shift gears (and probably strip a few in the process). We have the opening number from the 1986 London Cast recording of Cabaret. Wilkommen takes us into the Kit Kat Klub in Berlin in 1931.

Next up is the late great Etta James doing The Rock and you can't help but feel the pain.

Finally, a track by a great band from Saratoga Springs, New York, Skeletons in the Piano.  The song is called The Price Put on You Here is the video: And here is a ReverbNation widget of the song:

 

And here is an Amazon link to the band's fabulous Stranger on a Damned Staircase album.  

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Band of the Month - The Polls are Open!

It's time to let you, dear readers, decide which of the great Bands of the Week from January will be the 2nd ever Band of the Month.  I'm glad it's not up to me...




We began the new year with a band from Brooklyn. The End Men - blew me away when I first gave a listen.  Since then, I've been trying make sure everyone knows about this amazing band.  Here's a taste. Click here to read the Band of the Week feature for The End Men.



 The next band, MAKAR, had come to our attention some time back and their song, I Hate My Job played constantly on the MP3 player of my mind.  The bands latest Funeral Genius is pure... eh-um dare I? genius.  Here's a live performance from the show they did on my birthday.  How nice of them... Here is their Band of the Week page


 We leave the Big Apple (does the term Big Apple cover all of the boroughs or is it just Manhattan?). Fine - we leave the New York City area and head up to Canada - The Kirby Sewell Band play a silky smooth form of  the blues.  You can read what I wrote when I named them Band of the Week - here:



 Our last Band of the Week for January comes from Brazil and makes amazing electronic noises with some propulsive guitar work to boot. From the Outside is one guy making some amazing music. For us with poor short-term memory (or *gasp* those who might not read every freaking word I write). Here is the Band of the Week feature for From the Outside:



 You can vote now on the left side bar of the blog.


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Tuesday Morning Music Shuffle - To and Fro Mix

I added some new music last night - I'm having some technical difficulties, but whatever...

 A very cool mix this morning so sit right down and let me tell you all about it...

First up is a track from the latest twitter discovery... It's Big Mosey who hail from Brooklyn, New York. Head over to their site for a free download of today's featured song, Harold Called in the Morning, and keep your ear to the ground for more from these guys.

Check out the band's EP - Homeward at Daybreak which you can get for a song* at Amazon by clicking on the album cover below:

*a song in this case equals just under $4.00

 Next up is another fine track from the amazing Bang Bang Boogaloo: Beyond Beyond is Beyond compilation. This comes to us from a band called Conspiracy of Owls  a Detroit band - the song we have is one the band's 2010 self-titled album, and is called The Lesson.


Click on the kinda scary picture below to go to Amazon and get your own copy of Conspiracy of Owls for under $9.00.





Next the first of two tracks without vocals... from our current Band of the Week - From the Outside comes this propulsive number called Don't Look Back which is off of the brand new The Sound of Motion album which you can get for name your own price using the widget below (via Bandcamp)

  Next comes a track by Jonti who comes from Sydney, Australia and is on the Stones Throw label in the U.S. - he's just come out with a collection called Sine & Moon (The Album) which includes today's track, Nagoya Train Station 3AM. Click on the album title to grab a free download of  the album.

If you like what you hear, click on the album cover below to get Jonti's October release Twirligig for just under $9.00.

 And finally, we've let too many days go by without a track from MAKAR ;-)  So, here goes one we've featured before, but it's a good one... called In the Know from Funeral Genius.






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Sydney Culture, Including: Sydney Opera House, Opera Australia, Culture of Sydney, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, Sydney Push, Hephaestus Books represents a new publishing paradigm, allowing disparate content sources to be curated into cohesive, relevant, and informative books. To date, this content has been curated from Wikipedia articles and images under Creative Commons licensing, although as Hephaestus Books continues to increase in scope and dimension, more licensed and public domain content is being added. We believe books such as this represent a new and exciting lexicon in the sharing of human knowledge. This particular book is a collaboration focused on Sydney culture.

Orquestra Sinfonica e Coro do Estado de São Paulo: São Paulo Samba Orquestra Sinfonica e Coro do Estado de São Paulo: São Paulo Samba

Band of the Week - Year 2 - Week 8 or 9 - From the Outside

For our newer readers, who may be quick to point out that From the Outside is one person, I will point to our long and storied history of Bands of the Week which includes many fine one-person bands and at least one small pony.  Except not the small pony part....  But anyway, as you study this long and illustrious list, you will see that we are dedicated to introducing bands, regardless of genre or geographic locale, who we dig and think some of our readers might dig, too.

From the Outside, based in Sao Paulo, Brazil,  is already part of the extended Ear to the Ground family... yes, I said family... too weird?  whatever... We featured them in an earlier Ear to the Ground Recommends post (or whatever I called it).  But, Rafael Veiga who is From the Outside just released a new full length album, and we gave a listen last night and loved what we heard.

From the Outside does Electronic/Post-Rock stuff, and The Sound of Motion demonstrates a diversity of cool sounds.   The Sound of Motion is a follow-up to the Matching Opposites EP which was released way back in September of 2011.




If you like what you hear, download those two releases via Bandcamp (Name your price), and get all social media-like and connect at Twitter and Facebook.  Or even You Tube.

I'll leave you with a video of a song from the new one....

Storm's a Brewin' - Ear to the Ground Recommends

Volume 2 of  a new feature as we present some of the music that has come across our screens recently:


In time for the holiday season, newlywed, husband and wife folk duo Forest Mountain Hymnal have a Christmas album up on Bandcamp.  Check them out using the widget above.






From the Outside, is the recording name of Rafael Veiga from Brazil. He has a EP out called Matching Opposites which you can check out above. It's a nifty bit of electronic, post-rock and just really cool sounds.

MAKAR play folksy rock and they come from New York - above is a nifty video for a song I can relate to sometimes.... 

From Midnight On comes from Dayton, Ohio.  The acoustic rock duo is made up of brothers Damian and Gabriel Moorman.  You can check out some of there music above via a ReverbNation widget.


That's it for now, keep you Ears to the Ground and your head above your heart or something like that.