Grizzly Bear and the Los Angeles Philharmonic

Talk about the ultimate indie rock date night! I'm really excited for this show, it should be something special. The only other time I've been to the Disney Concert Hall is to see Brian Wilson perform SMiLE and that was just about as good as it gets. The sound quality there is nothing short of amazing, it's almost as if you can hear every individual note. Information and ticket links below.

Disney Concert Hall

Ticket Link - Hopefully this one works, it may be one of those randomly generated ones.

Beulah - Handsome Western States

So my friend Abed gave me this album a while ago and I FINALLY got around to listening to it and now it's all I can listen to! Well this and the new Gram Parsons & Flying Burrito Brothers release. In any case, this is Beulah's first album and it's pretty much a straight listen through, yep, that's right, you won't be needing that skip button once this is on. According to allmusic this is their lowest ranked album so I'm psyched to check out the rest of their albums because if that's true I'm in for a real treat. But that can't be true, this album is too good for that to be true. It's out of print, so unless you're prepared to pay upwards of $40, here's a link to the Amazon download. Here's my favorite two tracks from Handsome Western States so far, now get your NoCal on!

Pre-Fergie Black Eyed Peas

There was a time when I actually got really excited about a new Black Eyed Peas single instead filled with dread of having whatever new gimmick track Will.i.am. cooks up being shoved down my throat for 15 months, (except I do actually have a soft spot in my heart for Clumsy I must admit, but that's the exception that proves the rule ya see). B.E.P. Empire is one of my favorite tracks from their golden era, and even the crap festival their music's become doesn't tarnish it's shine. The video is excellent as well, but time has added a layer of irony to it that makes it even better. Watch as the Black Eyed Peas poke fun at how commercial rap was becoming only to become the ultimate target of their own venom a few years later.

Black Eyed Peas - B.E.P. empire

Side Selecter

Side Selecter is my friend Kyle's excellent weekly music blog where he posts sweet mixes of what he's been listening to, and he listens to some really cool stuff. You can stream the mixes right on the website or download them for portable listening. Personally, the shuffle function on my iPod has been collecting dust since he's started posting these. This week I did a guest set for him, so go over there and have a listen!

Dan Deacon / Ultimate Reality

I went to the Dan Deacon / Ultimate Reality / H.E.A.L.T.H. / Abe Vigoda show at the El Rey last night and it was really awesome, but the biggest surprise was Ultimate Reality. They were the only band in the show I hadn't heard of before and they completely blew the crowd away. From what I can figure out, they're sort of an extension of Dan Deacon's music, but I can't find any albums under that moniker. I'll try to describe it as best as I can, but it really has to be seen to be believed.

Two drummers sit motionless and expressionless in front of a projection screen while a Deacon created loop plays hypnotically. Text scrolls on the screen, and a guy comes out and does his best to read it as fast as he can, it is a prologue to a nonexistent movie that mashes up the plots of Terminator, Kindergarten Cop, Junior, and some other Schwarzenegger movies. That guy leaves, the loop grows more intense, and suddenly without warning the two drummers break into perfectly synchronous drum activity while behind them distorted images from the various Schwarzenegger movies play in sync with the music. And it never stops, it just keeps building and growing.

Truly amazing stuff. I grabbed this off of Deacon's myspace page, it's some of the visuals from the Ultimate Reality set, so you can get an idea. Don't miss this show!

Vote The Rock

Hey I know you guys are all responsible citizens doing your research on all the candidates, but if you also happen to dig The Fiery Furnaces, you should definitely go over to their website today so you can cast your vote for what their next opus should be in their comments section. There are some really solid album ideas up there, but this one was my favorite:

Archer Ave. Cupid’s Corner
Chicago Fall album. (The band and the season (the band The Fall and not the band Chicago).) Music in imitation of the early 80’s, double-drumming Fall, but the ensemble consisting not of that sort of band but, instead, a 18th-century-performance-style outfit like the old Il Complesso Barocco or La Petite Bande. (Though with rock drum kit also, often.)

Not bad eh? Also, I finally picked up Widow City and it's fantastic! (Side note, it's cheaper at Best Buy than at that Amazon link.) Here's my favorite song from the album below!

Go To This Blog Immediately!!!

Lost-In-Tyme Go! Go! Go!

What are you still doing here? Alright, I'll tell you real quick why you need to go. This blog is amazing! Whoever he/she/they are they post links to really sweet hard to find and out of print albums where you can download them in their entirety. Everything up there looks pretty sweet, but I can recommend right off the bat you get the The Temptations' Psychedelic Shack. Ok, seriously, you have to go now...

Radiohead Covers Smiths and New Order

Wow!!! This may be old news to around 100,000 people or so, but I just had a look at these Radiohead covers of The Headmaster Ritual and Ceremony and they're absolutely amazing. They completely destroy (in the good way) both songs! It's really great to see these guys play straight ahead rock when they're not busy transcending it. Enjoy the videos below!

2007 Top Ten List

Here's my top ten releases for this year. If you haven't heard some of these try to check them out! There was a lot of great music this year and this to me was the cream of the crop.

1. Panda Bear - Person Pitch
2. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
3. Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
4. Radiohead - In Rainbows
5. Dan Deacon - Spiderman of the Rings
6. Caribou - Andorra
7. Elliot Smith - New Moon
8. Studio - West Coast
9. Madlib - The Beat Konducta: India
10. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

Honorable Mentions: Jay-Z - American Gangster, Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Beirut - Flying Club Cup, Spoon - gagagagaga, Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala

Albums that might be in the top 10 had I had a chance to hear it: The new Fiery Furnaces, New Ween

For your iPod listening pleasure here's a zip of all the tracks posted this week, enjoy!

Zip!

"Beginnings"

Sticking with the theme of songs you can’t vanquish from you head, here’s a little ditty from (apparently) Joe Mantegna’s favorite band Chicago. You know it, I know it, they know it, Beginnings rules and if you can’t bring yourself to admit that I feel sorry for you. I love this song, (and a lot of their other songs) because it really represents a type of music that’ll unfortunately probably not be making another trip to the mainstream any time soon. I’m talking about pure, sappy, straightforward songs with lots and lots of horns. Hey I love Grizzly Bear and Animal Collective as much as the next blogger, but what would their experiments with song structure mean without the solid foundation laid by hard working bands like Chicago. Chicago is to music what Ringo was to The Beatles: a dude keeping the beat with a big smile plastered on his face while the geniuses shined in the spotlight. If you say you don’t like Chicago, you’re basically saying you don’t like Ringo and I know that’s not true. Now turn up the volume and start singing “woah woah woah woah woah woah woah woooooooooaaaaaaaaaahhhhhohohohohohoh”.



Get Chicago's Greatest Hits here!

"The Ruling Class"

The Ruling Class is probably one of the catchiest songs Jeff Tweedy has ever penned and that’s saying a lot because the guy’s got great songs coming out of his ears. This tune appeared on Loose Fur’s last album Born Again In The USA, which on the whole is a little uneven but still very much worth a listen. As an added bonus I’m posting a solo performance by Tweedy (with about 5 extra minutes of crowd work) from a charity show he did in April and a really sweet performance of Passenger Side from the same show. Now enjoy whistling for the rest of the day…

Yesterday's Originals

Yesterday I posted a couple of covers by Pavement but didn't have the originals handy, but now I do and here they are...

File Under Easy Listening

If anyone out there dug those Eleventh Dream Day tracks I posted a while back, make sure you check this album out. Sugar’s File Under Easy Listening is a little bit misleading as a title, but given who it’s coming from, it kind of makes sense. This collection of songs is not nearly as hard rocking as most of Bob Mould’s discography, but it is by no means easy listening in the traditional sense. The thread of Mould’s seasoned songwriting is what holds together an album that sometimes bleeds distortion and feedback and sometimes relaxes into easy going jangle tunes. Enjoy two of it’s finer songs…

*By the way, for those of you in the LA area, I saw a stack of these for a buck each at Amoeba just last week.

Built To Spill Still Got It

Clearly I’m on a “founders of indie rock” kick today, which is why I’m posting a couple tracks from Built To Spill’s last release You In Reverse. I really didn’t see this album coming at all. I picked it up cheap at a clearance sale and popped it in and was blown away by how great it was. Doug Martsch and company sound as energized as ever and there are several truly inspired tracks here. The two I’m posting, Liar and Goin' Against Your Mind are on par with the best the band ever released. Can’t wait to see what they do next.

2 Covers By Pavement

For those of you who can’t wait for the re-release of Terror Twilight, which should be here in four years or so (because we still have Brighten The Corners to look forward to first) here’s a couple of excellent covers from the Major Leagues EP which will probably appear on that release: Echo & The Bunnymen’s Killing Moon & The Fall’s Classical. As they always do, Pavement makes them completely their own and goes well beyond doing justice to the originals. Unfortunately, I don’t have the originals on this computer, but I’ll put them up tomorrow!

The Blue Ridge Rangers

While I rarely reach for a Creedence Clearwater Revival album, I always turn up the volume when they come on the radio and think of Vietnam movies. But one album I do go to plenty is John Fogerty’s first solo effort, The Blue Ridge Rangers. On this album Fogerty masks his presence by never putting his name or photo anywhere on the cover (that's it pictured above) and liner notes, opting to create an anonymous five-member band instead. The reality is that this album is nothing but Fogerty. He produced every track in addition to singing and playing all the instruments. The resulting twelve covers are a beautiful ode to the country tradition of which Creedence owed an incredible debt.

Madlib Goes To India

I grabbed Beat Konducta Vol. 3-4: India at the record store the day after I saw Darjeeling because I was fiending bad for some Indian music. Not really knowing anything about Indian music, I figured who better to get me started than the ultimate music guide himself, Madlib. I really liked The Beat Konducta Vol. 1-2, but I never got hooked on it the way I’ve been hooked on this one. It’s really addictive and unique. Most of the tracks groove really well, but these are two I always look forward to.

"Any Day Now"

What makes Scott Walker the most interesting crooner to me is that unlike Sinatra or Dean Martin (or any other crooner for that matter) he doesn’t ooze self-confidence in every note he sings. Many of his songs have his characters exposing their most vulnerable neurotic thoughts. Any Day Now has Walker awaiting the end of a relationship he dearly wants to hang on to. Don’t fall for it’s cheery flute and it’s boom-snick-booms, this is not a happy song. The only place I was able to find this song on CD was on The Collection, but if you’re going to start investigating Scott Walker start with Scott 3 & Scott 4, there’s a lot of gems there.

Mull Historical Society

Mull Historical Society is one of those bands that is really one guy, but you can’t have a sweet name like that and not have a sweet photo of a bunch of 70’s historians to go with it, so I went ahead and posted one, (for the record that’s the San Joaquin County Historical Society pictured above). But had I not posted that picture, you’d be looking at a Scottish guy named Colin MacIntyre who writes some of the most beautifully arranged songs you can find in the echoed hallways of indie rock. You can hear traces of ABBA and Brian Wilson in his songs, and I’m sure I don’t need remind you that that’s a GOOD thing. He has a great habit of starting his songs small and then letting them flourish as they progress until they seem like they’re about to burst. The only album of his I own is 2001’s Loss, and I highly suggest you own it as well. Here’s a couple of tracks to persuade you…