This is pre-destined to be your summer jam if you let it. Soaked in lethargic ennui, Conspiracy of Owls "Ancient Robots" milks 90s indie throwback in the very best way. Bobby from The Go's new-ish project; look for the LP out on Burger Records soon.
MP3: Conspiracy of Owls :: Ancient Robots
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A highlight from the seminal Girls In The Garage compilation, the Beatle-ettes "Only Seventeen" kicks off a twenty track, all girl-group, mixtape I crafted out of sand, spirit gum and some driftwood awhile back (entitled, wink wink, Where The Boys Aren't). I'll most likely get around to cleaning it up and posting it on here this summer, but in the meantime have been airing bits and pieces on Friday's radio programme. Here's a taste.
MP3: The . . .
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There's a rolling highland, green as it is unceasing, billowing like yeast in and out of a stand of sugar maple and yellow birch. The dense wood tapers to a thicket lining before a velvet grass thins it out. At the base of a quiet knoll, an indistinguishable one of many, sits a modest timber-frame cottage with mossy rocks stacked to its shingles on one side. Smoke is quickly swept from a chimney into a brisk air that scurries through the glen, and as the whistling wind passes, it makes the faintest call, transforming for a moment into . . .
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No Jacket Required returns this Friday at the Grandstar in Chinatown with a triple bill of Wounded Lion, So many Wizards and Woah Hunx. Come hang. I'm the DJ that night with a stack 'o new rekkids I'm looking forward to hearing over the PA. Bonus treats: there's free Firefly Vodka from 8 . . .
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New Orleans, this Friday night Aquarium Drunakrd presents a double bill of labelmates Roadside Graves and Futurebirds at One Eyed Jacks on Toulouse St. in the quarter. If you read the blog of the regular then you're well aware of my affection for both. Roadside are kicking off their North American tour and Futurebirds are presently on the road in support of Hampton's Lullaby, their debut, which . . .
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The thing that makes John Carpenter’s music so easy to absorb is its ability to tap into more genres than you could ever imagine while still sounding like he’s a complete stranger to modern rock, pop and psych from the past five decades. I’m not sure how this happens, but the L.A. artist has an impressive aural resume (Bandcamp page) that offers several releases in demo, single and EP format. And while those are brilliant in their . . .
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Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 26 (SIRIUS), and channel 43 (XM), can now be heard twice, every Friday - Noon EST with an encore broadcast at Midnight EST.
SIRIUS 149: Jean Michel Bernard - Generique Stephane ++ Tune-Yards - Sunlight ++ No Age - It's Oh So Quiet (Bjork) ++ Bonnie "Prince" Billy - It's Expected I'm Gone ++ Arthur Russell - Make 1, 2 ++ David Bowie - Fashion ++ The Morning Benders - All Day Daylight ++ Fang Island - The Illinois ++ Magic Kids . . .
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(As subject material goes, violence, in songwriting, is about as seminal as they come. In light of the recent outcome of the Oscar Grant case J. Neas reflects on similar past events and the songs they inspired. Chime in below in the comments.)
Oscar Grant, a 22 year-old black man, was fatally shot on New Year's Day, 2009 during an altercation with the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Police Department in Oakland, California. The United States has an unfortunately long history of questionable altercations between police and citizens where people wind up dead or injured. Whether it was the rioting that followed the 'not guilty' verdict in the case surrounding Arthur McDuffie's death in Miami in 1980, the similar riots that occurred in Los Angeles following the verdict in the Rodney King case in 1992, or the protests that have followed the 'involuntary manslaughter' ruling on July 8th in the case of Grant's death, public outcry, in various forms, is never far away.
By virtue of the fact that he was unarmed at the time he was shot, Grant's death has earned some uneasy comparisons to the deaths of Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond who were shot to death by members of the New York City Police Department in 1999 and 2000 respectively. The officers involved in both cases were acquitted of all charges.
A mere three months after the officers in the Diallo case were exonerated, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band rolled into New York for a ten night stand at Madison Square Garden. It was here that they would play, for only the second time ever, a new song called "American Skin (41 Shots)." The song had been debuted at a show in Atlanta, Georgia right before the New York shows and it takes a mesmerizing and heartbreaking look at the Diallo case. The officers involved had fired 41 shots at the unarmed man and it's this phrase that becomes the repeated mantra for the song. The song is not, despite the protests that were mounted by police organizations, a blatantly anti-police song. It delves into the shades of grey of the case and even sympathetically portrays one of the officer's reactions immediately following the shooting. Ultimately Springsteen bemoans the fact that whatever American skin you wear, whether it's the officer's uniform or the immigrant's work clothes, it's possible that you could be killed for it. "We're baptized in these waters and in each other's blood...you get killed just for living in your American skin."
Continue Reading After The Jump....
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Tomorrow, during the first hour of the AD show, we are airing the Deadly Syndrome's Aquarium Drunkard session. Highlighting yet another side of the Los Angeles based group, the three tracks are available for download below with the videos after the jump. Be sure to catch their contribution to L'Aventure as well.
MP3: The Deadly Syndrome - Wingwalker (AD Session)
MP3: The Deadly Syndrome - Deer Trail Place (AD Session)
MP3: The Deadly Syndrome - After Work (AD Session)
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The Deadly Syndrome - Wingwalker - Aquarium Drunkard Session from The Deadly Syndrome on Vimeo.
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I nicked this Grizzly Bear cover of Paul Simon's "Graceland" several weeks ago from the gents over at IGIF. Here, in place of Simon's mid-80s Soweto fetish, we have Daniel Rossen's multi-tracked rendering that falls more in line with haunted Dixieland gothic than Manhattan world beat. Listening to this reminds me that while Grizzly Bear can wait, right now I'm ready for a new Department . . .
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Inhabiting a zone somewhere between the Band, Bill Murray, Crazyhorse and early Jacket, "Johnny Utah," the first track off Futurebirds' Hampton's Lullaby (out July 27th), finds the band continuing down the path of their self-released EP, tempering some of the noise, sweet enough to make your mama cry. Futurebirds are presently on the road continuing their never ending tour...dates after the jump.
MP3: Futurebirds :: Johnny Utah
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Ron Davies "It Ain't Easy" --- accept no substitutes. Often covered, but never topped. Kicking off Davies 1970 LP Silent Song Through The Land, the track, aided and abetted by Leon Russell, begins the mysterious, and brief, career of the, then, twenty year old Davis. The A&M Records' Silent Song Through The Land, and it's follow up U.F.O., are back in print via limited edition Japanese pressings featuring the original tracks packaged in a paper sleeve.
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"If you like Andy Warhol and say that you don't like pop country, you're kidding yourself." An odd statement, I realize, but a touch of context: my friend Jonathan was espousing his respect for modern pop country music as slavish devotees to the perfect pop song. "Verse, a sweet chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus and maybe the chorus again if it's really good." And thus his comparison to Warhol - pop über alles.
"I won't argue with you," I said, "but I can name one particular way in which pop country songwriters can go wrong . . .
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That hair...those suits. Freely giving fashion tips to Elvis (yes, you can applaud/blame Wayne for the whole jumpsuit/cape era) perhaps Cochran really was the White Knight of Soul. And even if he wasn't, he came damn close as this collection (at 24 tracks) suggests.
MP3: Wayne Cochran :: Sleepless Nights . . .
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Betty Davis's funk banger "If I'm In Luck I Might Get Picked Up," culled from her 1973 self-titled LP. I caught this jam at a party last weekend, hearing it for what must have been the first time in over a year. There is a reason Betty, Miles Davis's second wife, is credited with greatly influencing her husband's funk trajectory---that reason can be heard within this . . .
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