[New Music] Too Much to Name, Part 1

Damnit Anna, don't you give me away ...
You know very well you say you got a soul to sell
but if you want to meet the devil you've got to go to hell...

Now that I've distracted you with the Morning Benders, who were going to be my birthday concert until I realized the Nurses and the Tallest Man on Earth were actually in town on my birthday (April 20) - perhaps you haven't noticed that I've been lapsing back to atrocious corresponding in this digital medium? Not distracted? Well...



Yes, I posted this on Facebook 'ere long ago... but god I love this video. In fact, I am totally in love with the Tallest Man on Earth (aka Kristian Matsson) and grateful to one of the slowest texters in the world for introducing me to him. And since I would otherwise write about either super creepy things -- the email from my Ex asking me to show up scantily clad to pick up very stray mail (?!), running into my Moroccan stalker at 2am at 14th Street after hours of (surpisingly sober) Pac-Man -- or some super sweet things that I don't want to pluck out of my brain just yet (flutter), I'm going to catch up on my music.

There's a lot of catching to do... if I can remember all the delicious music goodness I've been gathering around me.

To wit (which it becoming my new favorite way to begin): Starfucker!



Starfucker is from Belgium and they currently live in my head. They have supplanted Ra Ra Riot (who broke my heart at BAM a couple of weeks ago with poor concert showing - how I once loved thee, Wesley Miles) much to my surprise and delight. Which reminded me of how absolutely awesome the Antlers were (and with a concept album, no less):



And then there's Brooklyn's A Million Years. I had a first (and what should have been the only) date at a concert - but at least I found a new, awesome band. Incandescent (their EP) is available for free download at their Myspace. I particularly love "Incandescent" itself - because of the line: a mathematic mind loses its cool. But this band rocked - and I don't mean that lightly. The best thing ever is when my heart vibrates against my ribcage because of a thick and heavy wall of bass - and damme, but A Million Years just about tore out my chest. And they're playing on March 4! I'm seriously there.

Next... the Rosebuds. In particular the song Unwind, which I am addicted to.



If you'd ever unwind,
and relax then maybe
we could have a good time
this would help

Fanfarlo! A British band that makes me smile a lot. And again with the Swedish lead vox.



Oh no oh my:



the bus driver laughs and he shakes his head
says, "You're okay, I drive this route everyday"
you're uneasy and you say you're scared
and if I die at least you'll die too

Coconut Records (seriously, these Schwartzmans are kind of amazing, even if they are Wes Anderson in music):



The Rural Alberta Advantage (tasty Canadian-ness, as always):



And since I could do this indefinately, Broken Bells! I mean seriously Danger Mouse (of Gnarls Barkley) and the Shins' James Mercer? How the hell can that not be all kinds of awesome. In fact, I think it might be absolute magic. The real kind that doesn't stalk you at 14th street/Union Square.

Snowed In! The blogpost

Because I have been snowed out today - even before the snow came down - with a gallon of hot assam black and sushi I walked ten blocks for, I thought I would update my blog.

Firstly, I am going to make a shirt that plays lip-service to the doomsayers of NYC:



It is cold, though. And I've been warming up with Farscape - wondering what I was smoking in 1998 when I forsook that spectacular series for Lexx on Friday nights (outside of how incredibly good looking Michael McManus as Kai is) - and some more new musics. And my very first naughty phone call! When I figure out how to get it off my cell phone voice mail box and into a format I can share with the world, I will do so. This is even better than the three foot menorah car and the spaceship I thought I saw last night. And unlike either of the aforemention, far far more portable.

On Thursday and Friday, my associate in cataloging crime, Miss L and I were busy shifting books and recompiling databases and drinking earl grey tea while listening to Pandora. Miss L has, by means accessible to the world at large, created two really awesome playlists. But one of them based on Say Hello to Your Mother (who I thought was Bright Eyes for a while) spawned the song "Photograph" by Adam Payne. I love this song. I can't find it in any sort of shareable media. I finally found it on Reverbnation and highly, highly recommend listening to it.

I liked the lyrics (as in really feeling for the plight of Adam Payne's protagonist): I don't want to hear about the guy you met last night, how you believe this has got to be the one. You don't want to hear about the dream I had last night. About the two of us, you know I'll have another one.

Miss L and I discussed Kierkegaard (the philosopher) and how weird it is to be involved with people we like like (i.e. love, or some sort of thing we think is love) despite there being no reciprocal liking. It was very interesting as apparently Kierkegaard was a victim to this same complaint (loving someone who had married someone else - but continued to have a pseudo-relationship with) and created a whole philosophical system on it! I am not nearly that ambitious. Mostly 'cause if someone told me they didn't like me (by word or deed) I would move out of their lives posthaste (ironically, this is my theme of 2009!).

I am also pondering whether I can morally buy this shirt from Threadless despite my one person boycott until they print something by queenmob. I think if I just think about John Crichton, I should be ok, despite the fact that the shirt inspired this guy to wield a chainsaw!!!

And festively here is one of my favorite Xmas songs:



I like this version because she is the only one who sings the line, "until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow." I've always thought it was more true than other Christmas songs - if that means anything.

[New Music] The Republic Tigers & The Stereotypes & Rocky Votolato

Recuperating from NaNoWriMo (and having actually written 5K more words on a project I was on the fence about completing, *oh well*) and listening to lots of Pandora.

Because I'm inundated with new music all the time, I thought I would throw up three of my latest finds so I don't forget about them (and hope to get an iTunes gift card for Xmas although I don't deserve one).

Firstly, Toto-incarnate: The Republic Tigers. Like the Kooks, I'm not keen on all of their stuff, but I was listening to Buildings and Mountains and got this whole Toto Africa vibe from them. As Toto's Africa is my absolute favorite song in the history of songs, they didn't need to do much else to win me over. Listen for yourself:

And Toto:

Next is San Diego's The Stereotypes. Particularly the amazing, amazing song All My Life. I can't find it on YouTube, but their MySpace has the song. Apparently, they are singlehandedly fronting all the music for TV - if their page is to be believed. Ironically, however, when seeking it out, I found a song I used to listen to in Japan (Japanese MTV was a crazy and awesome thing - particularly as it was filtered via Australia to my ADSL box at the time):

And lastly Rocky Votolato - who I was pretty sure was going to end up being from New York with a surname like Votolato. Instead, a Seattle institute of sorts. A very nice voice. And apparently every song I end up liking on Pandora is his.

For example:

This is probably the most fragmented blog entry ever, but I'm a little typing-ed out. I promise to do better at an undefined point in the future.

[New Music] & [NaNoWriMo] Day #22

I'm taking a moment here - at 38,165 - to watch an episode of Murder She Wrote, ponder proto-Colt percussive flintlocks (my most valued possession is a book with pictures of how they work!) and listen to new music.

For some reason, my Imeem has been taken over by constipated sparkly vampires. I will take this moment to point out that while I have been occasionally guilty of writing Twilight FanFix, I cannot bear the movies. Strangely, I can overlook Emma Watson's stiff and overacted turn at Hermione Granger (HP 5 was particularly bad) - but I can't handle the steroid-softness of Taylor Lautner's voice as Jacob Black or fathom how a pack of hideous albinos aren't caught out in High School. I have patchy reminisces of high school and although I don't remember sparkling on purpose, I know it was never an institution of understanding. Which is to say, I found new music today purely on accident (although I suddenly realized that Lena is going to think I was looking for New Moon stuff on purpose! *laughs*)

Now I can add Sea Wolf to my Sufjan Stevens writing music. Although I've been listening to lots and lots of Romantic Era classical music lately, 'cause lyrics keep ending up in my narrative if I listen to anything with vox.

Anyway, back to writing. I want to clear 40K before I pass out tonight. Although I have a horrible feeling that even 50K of text isn't going to be enough to actually find some sort of suitable denouement of events. Particularly as I suddenly have five hot guys in the story and a hero who has probably said four words in 38,000 words (which has never happened before). I suck at this novel writing thing. But I'm having fun regardless - which I guess is the main idea.

[New Music] Sharon Van Etten (and where I fawn over Hey Rosetta)

Last night, I went to the best show ever (well, at least until the next awesome show rolls around) at the Mercury Lounge.

I will admit, I wasn't actually there for the main act -> Josh Mease. I'm sure he was great, but Michelle and I had to ditch prior to his taking the stage.

I was there in my capacity as an Hey Rosetta! addict.

Things I intrinsically know about Hey Rosetta!: (1) they are, as my conspirator in cataloging would say, "full of Win," (2) they are Canadian, from Newfoundland, (3) 2008's Into Your Lungs (and around in your heart and on through your blood) is seriously one of the tightest, lyrically awesome and best albums ever made, (4) their live show absolutely rocks, and (5) apparently boys grown in Canada are statistically hotter than anything American made (I am currently researching the veracity of this statement - more research required, however).

Seriously, go out and buy this album. Go see them live. Rock out with your iPod on the train in the wee hours of the morning or with the window down in rush hour traffic. You should trust me 'cause the only thing that I ever learned is when trusting a stranger your trust will be returned ('New Goodbye').

But the main thrust of this entry is Sharon Van Etten - who took the stage just before Hey Rosetta!. Oh my very goodness - she had me from the first lilting arch of her amazing, amazing voice. Of course, then she jumped into my head and pulled out the lyrics (admittedly more concise and better scribed): You're the reason I'll move to the city, or why I'll need to leave ('Give Out').



I bought Because I was in Love (2009) and have it in heavy rotation... along with Hey Rosetta! Apparently, I frightened several very conservative passerbys in my 'Hood last night as I walked home from the F singing 'Black Heart' at the top of my lungs.

Not everyone is as comfortable with my spectacular dorkiness as I am.

As an aside, very weirdly for New York, I actually saw one of my interviewers for a position in the City I unsuccessfully applied for yesterday. Do you know how random that is in this large city? Although I'm beginning to believe that the Chinatown area (I'm sure it has an official name, I just don't know it) is where everyone I ever met in NY exists when I'm there. Creepy.

[New Music] The Kooks

I absolutely cannot get enough of this song. It's like my personal obsession of late:



A little disappointed by the remainder of the album, as it veered a little too closely into Oasis territory (and secretly, the only song I ever liked by Oasis was the verbally awkward Other Gallagher number off their self-titled album of ages past - but on trying to find it, realize that all of the songs suck ass). And really, is a tight shiny shirt a good choice for a dude looking to score?

So ranting: whatever happened to the blisteringly angry, furious Brit of ages past? Am I missing something... like some guitar action? Has everything been diluted down to the Arctic Monkeys and Oasis?

Although on this tangent, I caught a really finely produced Thistle & Shamrock podcast from the Perthshire Amber Festival (Scotland) where either Dougie McLean or Andy M. Stewart brought up the salient point that guitars were not indigenous to British music - folk or otherwise, which could explain much. --> Program 1358: Reunion (part 1) (June 4, 2009) Week 23, http://thistleradio.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=45&Itemid=77/

More please...

[New Music] The National

While having to move my car yet again to avoid another parking ticket in the desolate streets of Bensonhurst, I caught a couple minutes of a song by a group called the National. Caught by the way Matt Berninger's voice dropped on the line: think I better follow you around, I started a frenzy of trying to find out what the song was.

Luckily, bestowed with keen librarian skills and a modicum of socialization, I managed to find it as the National's Brainy. I love Berninger's voice. Deep, understated - to the point where when the song shifts, it makes a sweet little aural impact that to my imagination (which is quite active, I'll admit) made it sound as if it were an admission pulled unwillingly out of the singer. Nice.

Here is the song:



And the lyrics:

I've been draggin around from the end of your coat for two weeks
everywhere you go is swirling, everything you say has water under it

You know I keep your fingerprints in a pink folder in the middle of my table
you're the tall kingdom I surround
think I better follow you around

You might need me more than you think you will
come home in the car you love, brainy brainy brainy
****

On a second (hundred) listen, I was struck by how much Berninger
sounded like Springsteen.  Curious and curiouser.

[New Music] Throw me the Statue

I found Throw me the Statue's track Ancestors on Insomnia Radio --> http://insomniaradio.net/2009/06/29/throw-me-the-statue-ancestors/ and like, like the band.

Listen also here:



[From their label Secretly Canadian's website: http://www.scjag.com/mp3/sc/ancestors.mp3/. I'm assuming, from my recent spate of music research, that that means they're Secretly Awesome, owning to the awesomeness of Canadian music.]

[New Music] The Bloodsugars

While I would never, personally, vouch for breakfast on the BQE, this band is my newest find! Sweet Brooklyn goodness. I caught this on an Insomnia Radio Podcast (http://insomniaradio.net/).

Check out the tunes at --> http://www.myspace.com/bloodsugars/



The aforementioned tune has a very sweet, lyrically loopy, poppiness that reminds me of Ra-Ra-Riot (which, being one of my favorite bands in the world with a new album out very, very soon, is not a bad thing at all).

And speaking of music craziness, this true event happened today:

My computer was cycling through the mangled vestiges of my playlist (most of my music is on an external HD, since mp3s and their assorted siblings multiply like madness when I'm involved) while I was getting ready for work. From the next room, I heard the Paper Route turn into R. E. M's Driver 8. There is no earthly way that my computer could have cycled through that particular tune, owning to its being on the external HD and the XHD was not plugged in at the time.

REM's Driver 8 was the song my Uncle Jace and Rich Henricks played at my Dad's funeral last September. My theory of the moment is that my Dad was complaining about my pseudo-electronic-rock and putting on something more pleasing to his ears. Supernatural critics!

[New Music] Twilight Sleep

I've been working on a couple of mixes for myself and my Mom rather diligently of late, and came across the band Twilight Sleep --> www.myspace.com/twilightsleep/

I have realized that I have some deep, inchoate love of lyrical intensive electronica and have decided to just give into the desire. I'm glad I did when I stumbled across this (disregard the video itself, per favore, as its lameness is intense):




Vocalist Tracy Marcellino has a wonderful breathy huskiness that pulled amazing things out of the simple, but intense lyrics. I am not usually partial to female lead vox, but I seriously had to reevaluate my stance.