I Heard It. Let Me Tell You.

...and a lasting finish.

2010-03-08T13:05:00.000-08:00

I was coaxed out the other night by my friend Kelly to go and see The Cyrus Grape Orchestra @ The Know. I've gotten to know a couple of the guys from the band on a personal level and was excited to hear what TCGO was all about.

I did a little research before I went and found that on their website they were offering a free e-copy of the new album Modern Man to anyone with an email address. I got it and gave it a listen. Wading through liltingly solid melodies and wavy falsetto-style vocals reminiscent of Jeff Buckley, I came to what I consider the best song on the album; Naked Birth. It has just the right amount of build and repetitious hook to hold you throughout.

The show was solid with pretty good sound mixing and all around a great set. There was definitely a sense that they were having a great time up there and it carried over to the audience. Especially when frontman Nate Bech (TGCO is his brainchild) joined Nicolas Von Pless, bass in this current TCGO incarnation, on a single tom to pound out a drilling rhythm near the end of title track Modern Man. With a large response from the crowd that was the climax of the show. Zaven Papakhian is a phenom behind the drum set and Von Pless & guitar/keyboard solid man, Daniel Hornbeck, well round out the jazzy, prog. mod. fusion of Cyrus Grape.

I hear a little Sky Cries Mary, and a Jeff Buckley influence even though they weren't listed on their MySpace under influences. Whatever. I heard it. I'm telling you.

Go get the new album Modern Man <----here or check 'em out on MySpace first by clicking the album artwork below.

How thick the veil for dust refusal.

2009-07-28T18:56:00.000-07:00

When I gave Dustveil my first listen I was kind of confused. I didn't know exactly what to make of them or their sound. There are some 60's pop moments with fits of post-jazz arrangements. Sometimes they moved right into a dark indie/emo sound while still keeping the melodies and whatnots respectable to the rest of the jam.
Dustveil is out of The Russian Fed. and seem to be doing something right. Most of the other music I have heard from that region lately is sub-par or copycat of other mainstream American stuff. I was refreshed and surprised by this find. I hear a little bit of Slint, LCD Soundsystem et al.

The album worth a listenin' to is Sentimental Lies.

Click the pic to the right to go to their MySpace page and the pic @ top left to go to "their" site. You may want to take advantage of Google Translator if you want to try and traverse that site 'cause it's in Russian.

Not the pig silly!

2009-05-05T21:51:00.000-07:00

As promised I am including the first recommendation from my recent international findings. Momo "Wandel" Soumah died in 2003 but he left a legacy of music that knows no classification. In the nostril of the African continent is the country of Guinea, a developing West African nation. Best know for its drilling drums and dancey chants, traditional Guinean music has changed significantly after jazz was brought over during WWII. Whatever, enough of the history lesson.

Soumah released Afro Swing in 1999 near the end of his life but it is not lacking life. His grunt-growl of a voice is definitely the forefront of this album but the drum melodies and sudden bursts of alto sax is peppery spice on the mid range of these songs.

I could go on for hours about this album but I won't. Get it. Turn it up really loud. Be surprised. Dance.

Coming Soon!

2009-04-27T13:22:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been lacking time and gumption (sic) to keep up on this blog for the last..however long...but I have been getting loads of international music lately due to research I'm doin' for a Geography class this term. I will share soon. I promise.

Dear Readers?

2009-03-06T18:05:00.000-08:00

Hey, if anyone is reading this and enjoy it or find any amount of it informative please comment or follow or something. I might have more motivation to keep up on it. I'm still finding the musics and I can still tell you about them. I just haven't really felt the get-up-and-go again like I did when I started. Help me help you, dear reader..?

What the Eff is Slipshod Neo-Marquee Anyway?

2009-02-15T00:31:00.000-08:00

I went to the Delta Cafe with my friend Devo a while ago (4 or 5 years back) and there was this interesting band playing called Trashcan Joe. I couldn't stop listening to them. They had this new roots vibe that meshed with a garage parts sound that begged to be appreciated. I did. One guy had a banjo that seemed to be made out of a trashcan lid and there was also a singing saw that added to the already dreamy set. Recently, my buddy Luke came to town and we went to The Moon and Sixpence to see them, which is their regular gig every Wednesday night, and they had really come into their own. The sound was perfected. Every nuance of their live set was fun and inclusive. Their rendition of Pure Imagination (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) had every one's ear bent to the mobile troubadour that skipped happily along in suspendered plaid pants playing the crowd as he sang beautifully.

If I had to give them a genre I would make up a new one that would include Trashcan Joe and most of Quackhammer's stuff (Coming to this Blog soon) called Slipshod Neo-Marquee.

They have a new album called Real Life. <----Click here to buy it.

Chutzpah. That's what deez boys have got.

2009-01-29T14:03:00.000-08:00

I came across a punk band randomly one day called Dustin's Bar Mitzvah and I absolutely loved them. They were really hard to place in time. I couldn't tell if they were from the '70s, '00s or what. They sounded like the Ramones or The Killers from song to song. They have now since gone on to do other projects. Three of the guys from Dustin's Bar Mitzvah started The Von Erich Family named after the famous pro-wrestling family. I only found three songs as this incarnation. I think it was short lived because when I tried to go to their MySpace page I found they were called The Beetles now. The Google search for them was hell because a lot of people spell The Beatles wrong. Numbskulls. I listened to The Von Erich Family stuff and it sounded like they went pop punky for a minute and then The Beetles comes back to their real punk sound and I was very happy about that. It's great to find punk bands that are actually from England and not some popular band that tries to sound like they are from England in their vocals. (I won't name names here, Billie Joe! Ahem!)

I suggest getting the release of singles mainly released in Japan if you can get your hands on it. It is called Dial "M" For Mitzvah. It was my jam when I was closing The Filcks kitchen in Boise. Great stuff.

<--This is a drawing of the band as the von Erich family of wrestlers. Funny guys.

The Beetles on MySpace.

Who is this man they call Portugal?

2009-01-26T09:46:00.000-08:00

I went to a concert with my buddy Austin a few years ago @ the Holocene with Grizzly Bear headlining. The opening band was a band that Austin knew and had been doing some design work for, Portugal. The Man. I was impressed with Portugal. The Man's sound. The studio work was great and I could only listen to Austin's advance copies of the mp3s for now but I was hooked. Soon they released Waiter: "You Vultures!" to the public. I got a copy of it and listened to it non-stop. Austin designed the album artwork and the b-sides LP and did a fantastico job!

The description of their music on Wikipedia is great and it sounds like it was written by one of it's members, so I am just going to cite it here:

Musically, Portugal. The Man's style is varied. Their style is rooted in indie,

but their songs also contain elements of soul, blues, and folk music. At times,

the band chooses to utilize drum machines and/or synth loops to anchor their

songs, while at other times, the band chooses to use the more conventional

guitar, bass, and acoustic drum configuration characteristic of rock music. The

band also utilizes keyboards in much of its music. In addition to their instrumentals,

[Lead singer John] Gourley's distinctly higher-pitched vocals add to Portugal. The

Man's unique sound. Lyrically, Gourley provides the band with abstract and/or

enigmatic lyrics that rely heavily on imagery. Gourley's verses are usually

delivered in the first-person singular or plural. (Wikipedia.com)

Waiter: was released on Fearless Records as was their second full-length album Church Mouth which the band themselves "leaked" on the internet before it's actual release. Last September Portugal. The Man released their third full-length on their own independent label, Approaching AIRballoons. My sources tell me that they are currently working on their fourth album and the beloved designer of their first album will be back and awesomer.

Click the covers to visit their site. Love them. They will love you back.

Say Yea!

2009-01-25T19:43:00.000-08:00

Yeasayer are four guys based in Brooklyn that describe themselves as "middle eastern-psych-snap-gospel". Their 2007 album and only record that I can find is entitled All Hour Cymbals. I feel like their description does the sound justice. It does have a lot of middle eastern qualities yet blends with their vision of indie music. Very smooth recording value for being their first album. The song 2080 has a great chanting bridge that says: Yeah Yeah we can all grab at the chance and be handsome farmers/Yeah you can have twenty one sons and be blood when they marry my daughters/And the pain that we left at the station will stay in a jar behind us/We can pickle the pain into blue ribbon winners at county contests.

Fantastic. Great album. Give it a listen. Click the album cover to go to their website. Go to their label site here. We Are Free Records.

They cut off the last half of this picture for their album cover. Probably to make it marketable but I found this on their website. I think it's artistic splendor should not have to be censored so I am posting the whole thing here.

M M M M Thanks to Alliteration

2009-01-24T13:46:00.000-08:00

Tally Hall can surprise you around every corner of every melody. They emulate a number of sounds that are current and past. The music stylings range from punk to ska to calypso to indie to beatboxing emcee to bluegrass. I can hear Polyphonic Spree, Ben Folds Five, and Sublime among others while listening to these guys. It is very varied and at times too much but overall they are a lot of fun and since their diversity crosses so many genres it appeals to so many different audiences. I have the album Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum and I like it. Listen to it.

Click the album cover to go to their MySpace page or the pic above to go to their band website. They are on the Quack! Media label.

Those Dancing Days Are Here Again.

2009-01-22T12:08:00.000-08:00

I was searching for some Swedish artist and I came across this website that featured videos of bands playing a song in a setting they would not normally play in, (outside, in an empty room, in a train station, etc.), and I found a song by Those Dancing Days called Home Sweet Home. I loved it so much I downloaded the album In Our Space Hero Suits which had that song on it. The sound of the song in the video and the studio recorded stuff was completely different but it didn't matter I liked it just the same. The album has a drum-driven punky-pop treble-emphasized sound that is very "get up and dance".

I'm going to post the video for y'all to watch 'cause it's great. This is an all female band and they seem like they love what they do which is very refreshing to see.

You can go to their label site Wichita Recordings here or click the album cover to go to their MySpace page.

I failed.

2009-01-22T10:11:00.000-08:00

In my first post I set a goal to talk about an Artist/Band every day for thirty days but I failed to write one yesterday due to my bad day. (See B.logging L.eaves O.ne G.lib) I'm just going to try and get up new posts as often as I can. I have realized that going to school full time and trying to set aside an hour to do the posts well is too ambitious.

No Acid In This House

2009-01-20T18:12:00.000-08:00

The Acid House Kings are a perfect example of the style of pop music coming from Sweden right now. Everything I've heard from the Swedes lately have been reminiscent of some indie bands in the U.S. mixed with a new pop feel that seems to work somehow.

Mondays are like Tuesdays and Tuesdays are like Wednesdays is very lazy, light and breezy I see lots of bright colored laundry blowing in the wind as a picnic is being set up throughout the majority of this album. It is almost a throwback to sixties innocence before acid use exploded heavily on the scene. This Love Is All We Need is a quiet gem that can at times sound like Frente mixed with Kings of Convenience.

Their latest album, Sing Along With The Acid House Kings, is the graduation and culmination of what they've been doing all along. The melodies are smoothed clean and the progression of each individual song seems like it does exactly what it should do next. Near the end of Sing Along the Nick Drake feel of Will You Love Me In The Morning is placed well between Sleeping and A Long Term Plan. Their titles are just part of the story they tell throughout this cutesy pop diamond. Listen to it as you walk down the sunny street and I guarantee a head bop or two.

Click the album cover to go to their MySpace page or click the pic above to go to their band site.

Smalc Yob Elbatalfni?

2009-01-19T15:57:00.000-08:00

No recollection of how I came across Inflatable Boy Clams. They are completely in a class all their own. When searching for information about them I found other people talking about how obscure and cool they were and called them post-punk. What does that even mean anymore? Anyway, IBC is humorous, kooky, simple, complex, creative and annoying. I love it. Most people I introduce it to have a hard time getting through two songs in a row. Skeletons is the first track on their self-titled double 7" and it is a jumpy, tooting, whiny song that has an on the verge of being annoying melody that is provided by something that sounds like a synth pipe organ and a synth sax. Snoteleks is right after it and as it's name suggests it is Skeletons backwards. No really. It is the song Skeletons played backwards. It gives a whole new dimension to the forward version. The other track worth mentioning is called ImSorry. ImSorry has some haunted chanting in the background while there are stories told about how one of the members did something horrible to another member and they are nonchalantly sorry about it at the end of the statement. The horrible things keep getting worse throughout the song and they are hilariously delivered. It almost seems like they are improvising in this funny deadpan way trying to outdo each other each time. Please listen to this album @ least once. It's worth it if you can.

Click the album cover to go to their MySpace page or the photo to go to their website.

The Grates are great!

2009-01-18T19:38:00.001-08:00

I was watching TV late one Friday night and this show came on that showcased bands as they played in a studio with horrible sound production and a cramped little black space to play in. One of the bands showcased that night was The Grates. They played this punky little ditty that sounded good, even though the recording was sub-par, and it stuck with me. I couldn’t remember which song it was or who was in the band or any real details but it didn’t really matter. I ended up downloading one of their albums and an EP and they are all great punky little ditties with the occasional slower song that has a waltz beat or a nice melody to mix it up on the album. At times I heard bits of L7, The Breeders and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs sneaking in but I think they have their own unique sound that shouldn’t be labeled by sounding like other bands. Then why the hell did you compare them you ask? Reference points I guess. If you like anything about those bands you’ll probably like The Grates. Check out Gravity Won’t Get You High or The Ouch, The Touch EP. Some of the songs are on both but the differing versions are good all their own. Unfortunately one of my favorites on their EP, the last track called Wash Me, is only 2:15 long and it is not repeated or extended on the album. Oh well. I like ‘em.

Oooh, I just found that they have a new album called Teeth Lost, Hearts Won. I'm downloading it now and I can't wait to hear it. Turns out they are a three piece from Australia on the Dew Process label. Click the covers to go to their MySpace page. Click their name to the right under Artist/Band for info.

The Felice Brothers and their folky Splendor

2009-01-17T11:18:00.000-08:00

I heard of The Felice Brothers a year or two ago in a funny only on the internet kind of way. I was Googling my brother, (That sounds worse than what it actually is doesn't it?), Greg Farley. I found out there was a solo artist with a MySpace page with the same name. A click or eight later and I was listening to the transportive roots folk of The Felice Brothers. It turns out Greg Farley was playing a gig or two with them and has been part of the band ever since. They are currently a quintet touring extensively and released their first label album (self-titled) in 2008. Band Members Are: James Felice on accordion & vocals, Simone Felice drums & vocals, Ian Felice, vocals & guitar, Christmas on bass and Greg Farley on vocals, fiddle & washboard.

(I'm not going to focus on the artists too much because you can link on the right hand side of this page under Artist/Band Links and learn all about them.)

Tonight At The Arizona starts off with Roll On Arte, a swaying tune of coming home to change and the inertia of the need to leave your hometown . The second track Ballad of Lou the Welterweight is a fantastically written song about a boxer's story that has great lyrics like: Powder your nose/Pull off your pantyhose/Let me love you from behind/My darlin'. This album is filled with dusty, glimmering tracks that recognize the importance of Americana story-telling and real lyrical tales. The final song on this album Take This Hammer is in honor of the brothers' "daddy", a carpenter, and has a mention of the southern dish cornbread and molasses. This may be a tribute to Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee who sang of Cornbread, Peas and Black Molasses in one of their collaborations or maybe they just didn't want any of the "goddamn" stuff.

The newest album by The Felice Brothers is self-titled and released on the Team Love record label co-founded by Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst. I've only given it one listen so far but it has just as much whiskey, guns and broken hearts as Arizona with a sleeker production value. Their wall of sound has been fleshed out with some horns and a piano on select songs. It is definitely worth adding to your collection for multiple listenings.

I'ma gonna try

2009-01-16T18:19:00.000-08:00

This here blog is dedicated to sharing knowlege of music that I have heard recently. I come across a wide range of genres every day and I don't really have time to tell anyone about all of it. I'm going to try this method. Goal: to tell you about an artist/band a day for one month. I am going to school full time so this may be a bad idea. We'll see.
I got this idea from going on too long about a band on my other blog and I thought I should devote this one to my music musings and make the other one more personal.
This starts my first artist/band post because I'm just going to paste what I said over there on here since I have other shit to do.

Animal Collective, New Album-Merriweather Post Pavilion
I don't know much about the personal lives of the members of the Collective but I do hear some hints to their musical influences in their body of work. Personally I hear the Beach Boys, Slint and the occasional solid hoedown beat coming through when I give Sung Tongs and Feels a listen. In some of their more "noise" based albums like Hollindagain and Here Comes the Indian and even in the melodic percussives of Strawberry Jam it sounds as if every utencil, appliance and common household item comes alive for a few minutes to attempt a conversation that sometimes ends in an argument where there is no winner. That is if your house is filled with disembodied hands clapping at will and vocal chords that take drifting canoe rides at sea not caring if there is a storm a blowin'. All in all I feel like their music has a purpose and a story to tell me. I find it very listenable (mood dependent of course) and have liked 90% of their work.
Merriweather is no different it is very approachable and I think I may like it just as much as I loved Sung Tongs when I first heard it.

Anyway, check it out. I like it. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion
Click their name above to go to their label wesite.(Paw Tracks)

Or click the album cover to go to a kooky page----->