Featured Friday Music Shuffle - Territories Mix

Guess what - it's time to vote for your band of the month:  Go here to vote!


Today we shuffle up songs from the final three of our featured Artists.  The other 7 appeared on the previous two Feature Fridays.  Here and Here .

This week we turn the spotlight on three very different bands with a shuffle that highlights the diversity found here on Ear to the Ground:

Galen Wade is a mid-day DJ on Radio Station WSBS in Massachusetts.  When he's not spinning tunes, and giving away food-based prizes, he's making tons of great music.  Here at Ear to the Ground, we've followed Galen around for some time and have had music he's worked on in our morning shuffles a time or two.  He primarily releases music via Soundcloud, and it through that site that he hooked up with Wade Walker. Thanks to the marvels of this magical age, the nearly two thousand miles that separate the two Wades, they have come together to form The Holograms who are not to be mistaken for Holograms - the Swedish band.  Today we have Make Believe, a nifty instrumental with cool electronica mixed with a bit of hip-hop sounds.  Check it out:




Next, we have a epic sounding indie-rock ballad from Germany by way of Canada. Rooftop Runners - Streets off of the band's We Are Here (from earlier this year) offers brilliant, passionate vocals combined with music that brings us all down to the Streets.

 

   

And finally, SIRS are a hard rocking band with a great sound, who come from Chicago.   Boo Hoo is the title from the band's EP which was released just about a year ago.  

 

Here a video for another song from the EP

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VOTE NOW: BAND OF THE MONTH - AUGUST 2012

Go here to find out more about these great bands - then vote, vote, vote and spread the news!

Thursday Morning Music Shuffle - Granny Glasses and a Cardigan Mix

Many, many exciting things are happening around the Ear to the Ground studios*.  And, I'm not just saying that.

Next week, we are looking forward to bringing you a video premier from one of our Featured Artists (Cosmonauts). That is on Tuesday.

The Americana Music Conference and Festival is just weeks away, and Ear to the Ground will be your ear on the ground with highlights and who knows what else.  

June Featured Artist Jo Wymer is coming to Nashville for the Americana shindig, and she will be playing a show at the Red Rooster on Wednesday of that week.

Another featured Artist, The Raindoggs are going to hit Memphis in November.

A Band of the Week alumnus and great friends of the blog are plotting out a tour for early 2013, and we have fingers crossed for a Nashville stop.  We will have lots more on this when it becomes available.

Today is the 35 anniversary of the day Elvis died. 

I will be unveiling the Band of the Month poll soon - I promise.

In the meantime, we have a morning shuffle to get out - so let's not delay any more....

First up, we have Party Generation from Dar Williams' 1997 album End of the Summer.  I don't have much hope that we are actually at the end of this summer, but we are experiencing some cooler than normal temps, so it's not impossible to imagine the end of this season.  

  

For the second day in a row, we have an Athens, Georgia band doing a cover song.  This time, the cover stays much closer to home. The live record is called Finest Worksongs: Athens Bands Play the Music of R.E.M. Yesterday's coverers, Five-Eight are on this collection, but the track we have today is by The Observatory - a band made up of members of the Elephant 6 collective.  Do some Googling to find out more about that group.  In any event, the song is one of two songs left off the cover tracklist on R.E.M.'s fourth album Lifes Rich Pageant.  Underneath the Bunker, the brief, odd song that closes the Dinner Side of the Record.

 

 And finally, we close out the day with a famous song which comes from Coldplay's 2008 fourth album, VIva La Vida or Death and All his Friends. Viva La Vida is the song. Do I need to say more?

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Wednesday Morning Music Shuffle - Black House Mix

Good Morning American how are you? Here we are at the mid-point of the month of August.  Very soon now, I will be posting the Band of the Month Poll. Stay tuned for that one.  We have ten great Featured Artists this month, and I hope we can have some spirited competition. 

We continue to spin some of the newer tracks added to our Playlist in August.  This are brand new songs, newish songs and older songs. Today, we have a plethora of goodies for your listening enjoyment.  Let us get to the Shuffle now!

We begin today with part of the split 7" we've mention a time or two before.  Nashville bands Turbo Fruits and Bad Cop teamed up with Jeffery Drag Records also from Nashville to release a split 7" single which is tons of fun.  Bad Cop contributed the song Wet Lips while Turbo Fruits have contributed their ode to the burgeoning local scene here which is called Love Tennessee. The Turbo Fruits track is in the shuffle today.
 

 

Here is a Turbo Fruits powered Crawfish Boil - Nashville style

Athens Georgia band Five-Eight are up next with an awesome cover of Neil Young's classic, The Needle and the Damage Done which the band released on their 1993 album The Angriest Man.

Here's Five-Eight doing Sitting Still with a couple of blokes who might know that song pretty well.

And here is Neil Young's version this time from the Johnny Cash Show.

Next we have June Featured Artist, Tipi Valley with a track from his latest EP, Into the Woods which you can head over to Bandcamp to pick up.



 

And finally, we have an ironically danceable track from the 2006 album Ta-Dah by New York band Scissor Sisters in collaboration with Sir Elton John.  I Don't Feel Like Dancing brought me into my office and closed out the morning shuffle.

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Five Eight Five Eight

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Tuesday Morning Music Shuffle - Yellow Nuclear Submarine Mix

Hey you guys, the week is off to a rousing start, or else it had better be because I'm really sleeep.  If I drift off, please poke me................


Let's get to it.

First up with have Mike Watt (Minutemen, fIREHOSE, Stooges) with a 2007 cover of the 1981 Blue Oyster Cult song Burnin for You. The song is on the 2007 compilation called Guilt By Association.  The compilation features Indie/Alternative/whatever artists covering Pop, Hard Rock and R&B songs.  Watt's association with Blue Oyster Cult is long standing and well documented. 

 

 

Next up, we have Featured Artists The Imperial Rooster with the last song on their outstanding Decent People album.  Suzie Anna Riverstone offers the band's trademark stew of American roots music - this time taking a darker turn down a miry creek. Don't forget your raincoat.

 

Next up, we have a fun song from the Liverpool Horror Rock band, Zombina and the Skeletones.  Nobody Likes You (When You're Dead) is off 2002's Taste the Blood Of... for a reference think about if The Misfits were reincarnated as a 60s era "girl" group. 

 

 

 And finally, we have track called There Goes My Freak by L.A. Indie band Panic Movement from their 2010 album Sensation Generator.

 

 Here's a Live clip of Panic Movement

 

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Monday Morning Music Shuffle - Landing Craft/Search Party Mix

Here we go... the Olympics are over, the work week has begun again, and here I am ready to ease your transition with a tasty musical shuffle for a Monday morning.

When July had ended, we had over 80 songs left which we had added to our playlist, but which we had not been able to present to you.  So, this morning, we turn the way-back machine to a couple of weeks ago, and shuffle up the remaining songs added in July.  

First up, we have some perfectly obnoxiously cool punk rock sounds of Girl Scouts who are a band from the Philadelphia area.  We stumbled across them as we were digging around the Bandcamp site.  Superbowl Birthday Party is an fun track which you can check out using the Soundcloud widget below:

Next up, we dig deeper into the excellent Pure album from Nashville Rock supergroup, The Bluefields. Done features Dan Baird on vocals.

 

Here's an early promo video of the band and the album

Next up, we have the classic song, Who's Sorry Now recorded and released by Connie Francis in 1957 and is actually a cover of a 1920s song.  

 

And finally, we have a track from the new project of July Featured Artist, Brian Bergeron.  The band is called Mr. Kind, and their debut release is OK.  Today, we have Take Care from that record.

 

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Featured Friday Music Shuffle - Insider Parades

Blah... Morning Music shuffle is back after a brief interlude due to a bit of the mid-summer blahs. 

And, it's time for our Featured Friday edition - week 2 for August, as we delve into some music from our Featured Artists of the Month.  We have a plethora of great music, so let's get to it.

First up, we have a pleasant little serial killer? folksy-ballad from Loners Society. It's called Jersey Devil, and I'm digging the sound of this one.  Just give a listen, but if you are someone who needs a frame of reference, Blitzen Trapper is the band that first came to my mind when I heard this song.  But, whatever, it's a nifty song...  Jersey Devil is the b-side to the Pinstripes 7" which you can grab right here:

 

Here's the video of the A-side, "Pinstripes"

 

Next up, we shift gears and come up with a searing, soaring rock instrumental from the band, Traverse the Skies.  Grey Knight has a larger than life feel to it, and it made a great accompaniment to a cloudy walk up the hill.  

 
 I hope you are buckled in, because our wild ride takes up down to New Mexico, and a song by our new friends The Imperial Rooster - DWI Marijuana Blues.   Would it be totally inappropriate for me to say that this song could be dedicated to Randy Travis?  If it is inappropriate, remember, I said it, not the Roosters!  Anyway, the song is a rollicking, amped up foot-stomper of a song, and like everything I've heard from The Imperial Rooster, it's a helluva good time.  It's another fine track from their Decent People album.

 

 

Next up we have the hit single from The Danbury Lie's self-titled album, Morbid Becoming. Robert from The Danbury lie is a long-time friend of EttG favorite Don Ryan.  Musically speaking, that set my expectations pretty high, and I have to say The Danbury Lie live up to those expectations.  Morbid Becoming, as the title implies, has a bit of a dark, backwoodsy feel to it. In an inexplicable way, it also brings to my mind the old band, The Balancing Act. If you are not familiar with The Balance Act - google them.  The Danbury Lie are not exactly like The Balancing Act, but sonically, vocally... something reminds me of them, and that is definitely not a bad thing.  

And finally, we close today's Featured Friday shuffle with a song from Pony Boy. We presented Saints and Liars by Pony Boy before, but this gorgeous example of West Coast bluesy, Rock is worth hearing again.  

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