Time to put my favorite discovery of 2012 on your radars again. The Wind-up Birds have a new single out (note to other bands: you see? Two songs is a single, not an EP): “The Mild Awards” b/w “Some Gimmicks for You”. The two songs together form a set piece, commenting on the carefully calculated path toward mediocrity that so many artists seem to take in pursuit of attention and validation. Oh yeah, and the songs sound great, “The Mild Awards” punctuated with grand horns while “Some Gimmicks for You” employs some new wave pop keys.
Not to mention the video put together for “The Mild Awards” which had me not just LOLing but actually laughing out loud.
Pick up the single through the Wind-up Birds’ Bandcamp site in either digital download or limited-edition 7″ vinyl (you know you want cover puppy Royston in your collection).
As people continue to salvage their homes and lives, life in New York continues on. (You may slow New York down, but you will not stop it.) And this Sunday, November 11, the Bobby Bare, Jr., documentary Don’t Follow Me (I’m Lost) will be seeing its NYC premiere as a part of the DOC NYC festival.
The film will be screening at 9:30 p.m. on November 11 at the IFC Center and will include a Q & A with Bobby Bare, Jr., and director/producer/director of photography William Miller. You can purchase tickets here.
There will be an additional screening at the IFC Center on Thursday, November 15 at 9:00 p.m. Tickets are available here. Bobby Bare, Jr., will not be at this second screening, but he will be playing a show down the way at the Mercury Lounge. (Note: the show is a separate ticket.)
A portion of the proceeds for the Don’t Follow Me (I’m Lost) screening will go to Sandy disaster relief. For more details, e-mail bbjrdoc@gmail.com
Your teeth are diamond studded
You’re always smilin’ at me
When I ain’t got any teeth
Happy Voting Day, friends! This lyric from the Mutts song “Washington (Still) Owns People”, from their album Separation Anxiety, seemed like an appropriate way to start this Election Day post.
I’ve been putting this post off for a while because I’ve had a difficult time getting a handle on exactly how to talk about their music. I was intrigued by the album from the start – it’s hard not to be when an album starts with a rhythmic, imaginative gem like “So Many, So Many” that makes you want to find a bucket and a wooden spoon so you can beat along.
But then they bring in the amped instruments, and things get complicated. Elements of rock, hardcore, progressive, thrash, funk, blues all throw in together for a meaty stew in songs that lyrically explore subjects from politics to religion to maintaining a romantic relationship as a touring musician.
It’s a compelling mess (and I mean that in the best way) Mutts are making here, never falling into cookie cutter parameters or imitation. Many of the elements used are familiar, but the direction these elements are taken is not, and that keeps your attention, wondering where Mutts will go next.
My favorite song on the album is the title/closing track that leads in like a raise-the-rafters gospel stomper, but then devolves into a drunken, shambling barroom sing-a-long.
The digital version of Separation Anxietyis available on a name-your-price basis, and CD and vinyl version are available for just a little scratch, including the beautiful “Mending Wall” LP.
Now here’s the part that really excites me: Separation Anxiety was funded in a Kickstarter campaign as part of a double-album deal. The second album, Object Permanence, will be an acoustic album and a sampler listen shows the album running in a vein similar to “So Many, So Many” and “Separation Anxiety”, so keep your ear to the ground for that one.
Fiachna Ó Braonáin of Hothouse Flowers has been cultivating a television and radio career the past few years, and he’s currently hosting a great weekly program on Irish radio station 100-102 Today FM called Poetic Champions Compose. Each program focuses on a classic Irish album and includes interview clips and background stories as well as music. Featured artists include the Pogues, the Boomtown Rats, Thin Lizzy, My Bloody Valentine, and more. You can listen via the web every Sunday through December 2, and past programs are being posted to the site.
The Dad Horse Experience recorded a Daytrotter session! I’m so excited to see one of my favorite NTSIB discoveries getting coverage in the wider world.
Not that either the Black Keys or RZA need my help with promotion, but I couldn’t resist sharing the fantastic new video for the song “The Baddest Man Alive” from RZA’s upcoming directorial debut, The Man with the Iron Fists.
A wonderful lullaby, here’s Glen Hansard singing the traditional Irish song “The Parting Glass”. Hansard has said he might like to record an album of traditional songs someday, and I hope he does. His strong, pure delivery makes me want to dig out my Dubliners album.
It’s Fifty Shades of Come Make Fun of Us for What We Listen to When No One Is Looking for FBFY this month. I tried to save a little face with my entry.
“Embarrassed by some of the music that you love? October is for you! Honestly, I was expecting more bad country music submissions for this month, but we got a nice variety. And by nice I mean embarrassing. Your favorite bloggers, twitters, self-important a-holes on the internet, and other jokesters present 50 Shades of Feel Bad for You: Guilty Pleasures Edition. Thanks to @philnorman for the killer cover art.”
1. Title: Killer Whale
Artist: Underground Resistance
Album (year): 1992
Submitted By: Slowcoustic
Comments: I don’t want to say this is a “guilty pleasure” as much as it is a genre that most folks are surprised that I really really love (once and awhile). Early Detroit Techno. The “techno” today tends to be a bit too shiny for me and I am just too far removed from any sort of scene now to get the good stuff I guess. So, like every other aging dude who used to like metal or techno while growing up – I will always enjoy the classics as a guilty pleasure. I am pretty sure I owned the white label vinyl for this track back in the day – sold from a DJ from the trunk of his car…obviously…
2. Title: Planet Earth
Artist: Duran Duran
Album: Greatest Hits (1998)
Submitted by: Simon
Comments: Time to confess I guess, I’m a bit of music snob, sometimes I may voice an opinion on my good ladies choice of music, most times my comments are frowned upon or brushed off with more than a little disdain, in truth I’m lucky I don’t get a punch in the nose for my generally scurrilous commentary, in my defense I am often tortured by Absolute 80′s on the radio and Now That’s What I Call Music Volumes 1 to 6 on the stereo, so my choice is a real guilty pleasure – hopefully I’ll get away with it….
3. Title: Here For The Party
Artist: Gretchen Wilson
Album (year): Here For The Party (2004)
Submitted By: BoogieStudio22
Comments: Shut up! I told you it was a guilty pleasure.
4. Title: I’m Raving
Artist: Scooter
Album (year): Wicked! (1996)
Submitted By: tincanman
Comments: I know this is a sacrilege, so no need to rub my nose in it . Scooter’s fast tempos and happy melodies are infectious and this is one of their signature covers. You just gotta get over being a big ole stick in the mud to enjoy it.
5. Title: Que Veux-Tu
Artist: Yelle
Album (year): 2011
Submitted By: @scratchedsoul
Comments: I have no idea what this song is about as my French isn’t that strong. I just hope they’re not singing about fascist topics. Listening to dance/pop songs in a foreign language is much easier because you don’t have the insipidness of the lyrics distracting you from the catchiness of the song.
6. Title: The Background
Artist: Third Eye Blind
Album (year): Third Eye Blind (1997)
Submitted By: Trailer
Comments: This whole album is a guilty pleasure for me, full of ridiculously catchy pop-alt-rock, but it’s this tearjerker about a hospital-bound ex-lover that always gets me.
7. Title: Greatest Night
Artist: Vulture Whale
Album (year): Bamboo You (2010)
Submitted By: TheOtherBrit
Comments: I don’t usually condone singing with a fake British accent, but this Vulture Whale album is awesome.
8. Title: Extraordinary
Artist: Liz Phair
Album (year): Liz Phair (2003)
Submitted By: hoosier buddy
Comments: I’m a process guy, so I started with a list of about twenty “possible” artists, then chose three representative songs from each artist to review. I rejected Lily Allen (too obvious), Delerium (pointless), and ¡Bowling for Soup! before landing on this rough gem from Liz Phair. I am a Phair fan, and I respect her songwriting abilities. She’s made some important contributions to pop music, including Exile in Guyville. But I digress…
“Extraordinary” was manufactured to be like the girl all the bad guys want. But even made up like a teen beauty pageant contestant by über-pop producers The Matrix, this pop-rocket failed in its mission to penetrate the chart stratosphere. It landed with a critical thud. But, as a guilty pleasure, it delivers in spades on both counts. Listen to that industrial-strength garbage can guitar tone, the Johnny-Barbata-drum-school dropout drumming, the Nutrasweet-cum-Chipmunks backing vocals, and you know this is the one you want to take home from the dance. Phair sings these cringe-worthy lyrics lustily, and you can hear the self-image crisis (average every day sane psycho supergoddess) within the this-is-almost-a-relationship crisis within the what-are-the-chances-of-getting-radio-airplay crisis – the Russian dolls of pop angst! This is what a plaisir coupable should be: more pleasure than guilt.
9. Title: Joyride
Artist: Roxette
Album (year): Joyride (1991)
Submitted By: Ryan (Verbow @ altcountrytab.ca)
Comments: When I think guilty pleasures, I think of bands/songs that you would be completely horrified to have your friends find out about. What better guilty pleasure, then, than an early 90′s crap pop song from a Swedish crap pop powerhouse? Ladies and gentleman – “Joyride” by Roxette. I want to hate myself for liking this song, but I can’t. I will sing it at the top of my lungs any time I hear it, unless I happen to be within 100 feet of another actual human being who may hear me and judge me for my forbidden love. I’m so sorry for this.
10. Title: Toxic
Artist: Nickel Creek (covering Britney Spears)
Album (year): live (2005?)
Submitted By: April @ Now This Sound Is Brave
Comments: This tune is such a guilty pleasure for me that I can’t even bring myself to submit the original, so I’m hoping to preserve a modicum of respect with this Nickel Creek cover, serendipitously recorded at the House of Blues (blech) in Cleveland (yay). I’ve never been fond of Spears’ work, but the unique instrumentation and the abjectly sexual vibe of this song hit me in an irresistible spot.
11. Title: I Believe In a Thing Called Love
Artist: The Darkness
Album (year): Permission to Land (2003)
Submitted By: @philnorman
Comments: I love the complete campy perfection of this song, from the falsetto hook to the hair band homage video complete with Ghostbusters photon streams shooting from the guitars. My life as the singer in a party cover band will be complete when we do this song.
12. Title: Shakin’
Artist: Eddie Money
Album (Year): the 80′s
Submitted By: Truersound
Comments: I really struggled with this submission, normally my go to for “guilty pleasure” is Alabama, but those guys are like classic country now I suppose. There were others I considered but did not really feel guilty about enjoying (such as The Eagles), many nostalgia and irony laced acts and then there were many that I enjoy when I hear them on the radio or in a store (such as I Saw The Sign or You Belong To Me) but I don’t actively seek out to listen to. That led me to this, of which I have an Eddie Money greatest hits tape in the car and I genuinely dig. I only feel partially guilty though, and that’s only because I also once enjoyed a scene on King Of Queens featuring this song. For the record Eddie Money’s best song is “Gimme Some Water,” but I have zero guilt about that one.
13. Title: Hit the Switch
Artist: Bright Eyes
Album (Year): Digital Ash in a Digital Urn
Submitted By: Rockstar Aimz
Comments: I am completely embarrassed to admit that I like Bright Eyes. Go ahead. Judge. I can take it.
14. Title: Dirty Song
Artist: Cars Can Be Blue
Album (year): All The Stuff We Do (2005)
Submitted By: annieTUFF
Comments: This was a hard decision for me! Uh, don’t listen to this song with any kids around.
15. Title: Hand Me The Crown
Artist: The Dirty Urchins
Album (2011): Just In Time
Submitted By: @popa2unes
16. Title: Second Chance
Artist: .38 Special
Album (1988): Rock & Roll Strategy
Submitted by: TheSecondSingle/Beldo
Comments: This was tough for me. There were a lot of songs I considered: “Love In The First Degree” by Alabama, “No One Is To Blame” by Howard Jones, “Live To Tell” by Madonna. Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows I have a soft spot for guilty pleasures. Sometimes the guilty pleasures override the respectable pleasures, but I digress….38 Special released what is easily one of the wussiest monster ballads of the ’80s and definitely the wussiest song by a band named after a gun, but you know what? I don’t care. Cause this song rules. It has kick ass harmonies and a killer chorus. It also sounds nothing like the shit kickers who recorded “Caught Up In You.” It sounds like Richard Marx. I also recommend checking out the video for the director’s hilarious attempt to try and make a bunch of mulletted Florida rednecks look sensitive by filming their mullets in black & white: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRkaPdfjzEk
Brendan Toller, who brought us I Need That Record!, has a new documentary in the works about musical jack-of-all-trades Danny Fields (it’s difficult to encapsulate Fields’ career because he’s done so much, but he had a hand in the careers of the Doors, Iggy Pop, the Ramones, the MC5, Lou Reed, etc.). Read about the film here and follow the production progress on Facebook.
In 1977, Marc Bolan (T. Rex) had a short-lived music variety show on British television. Marc ran for six episodes, kicked off with a performance from the Jam, included awkwardly-choreographed dance routines, and was overflowing with glitter and lip-syncing. Stuepfaction has gathered all six episodes for you to watch.
File under: Really? Here’s footage of a collaboration between Liam Ó Maonlaà of Hothouse Flowers and Joe Elliott of Def Leppard, circa the early 1990s.
As to collaborations that have been proven good, RZA and the Black Keys have come together again to produce a track for RZA’s upcoming directorial debut The Man with the Iron Fists. You can listen to “The Baddest Man Alive” at Fuse.
If you’re into toys, Mike Watt has been added to the Aggronautix “throbblehead” line, which also includes the likes of Roky Erickson, J Mascis, GG Allin, Keith Morris, Handsome Dick Manitoba, Jello Biafra and more.
The Savage Heart, the new album from the Jim Jones Revue, is streaming at Q.
There’s an hour of recorded-for-television concert footage of Thelonious Monk on YouTube. This past Wednesday, October 10, would have been Monk’s 95th birthday.
Learn about Cleveland-born, world-famous Screamin’ Jay Hawkins in the documentary I Put a Spell on Me.
It’s been a short work week in much of the U.S. and Canada this week, which means it actually feels like a longer week. You could use a break. Why don’t you, circumstances permitting, pour a little cocktail and enjoy some songs and some chat as the charming Two Man Gentlemen Band sit down with Serious Business on BTR.
. Scooter’s fast tempos and happy melodies are infectious and this is one of their signature covers. You just gotta get over being a big ole stick in the mud to enjoy it.