7/30/2007
Monday Music Memorandom
Tiny Masters of Today: Radio Riot (Mute Irregulars)
1. They're from Brooklyn, New York.
2. Brother and sister duo: Ivan is 13, Ada is 11.
3. David Bowie says: "Used to be you had to be well into your teens to develop this kind of attitude. Genius."
4. Guests on album include Karen O (Yeahs Yeah Yeahs), Fred Schneider (B-52's), Gibby Haynes (Butthole Surfers), Kimya Dawson (Moldy Peaches).
Devendra Banhart: Tonada Yanomaminista (XL)
1. He was hatched on Planet Texas in 1981 and raised in Venezuela, but now calls LA home.
2. His band, currently known as Power Mineral, renames themselves wherever they feel like it, and has previously been known as Fried Hummingbird, Hairy Fairy Band, Hairy Fairy and First Woman Millionaire, Las Putas Locas, Stoner Boner, and Bathhouse Of The Winds, among other names.
3. The new album hits on September 25.
Against Me! - White People For Peace (Sire)
1. Founded in 1997 by singer/guitarist Tom Gabel at age 17 as an acoustic solo act.
2. Accused unfairly of "selling out" by voracious fans after signing to Sire Records, much to the indifference of the band, who say they just want to reach as many people as they can.
3. New album, their third full-length, is a classic political punk masterpiece and was produced by the legendary Butch Vig (Nirvana, Garbage, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth).
4. "Protest Songs in a response to Military Aggression. Protest songs to try and stop the soldier's gun."
Beep Kitty: According to Plan (unreleased)
1. Best synth pop act in Walla Walla, Washington!
2. Brother and sister duo: Jeff and Elizabeth Knight.
3. So far, they've only released music on cassette format.
4. http://www.myspace.com/beepkitty
Labels: David Bowie, Devendra Banhart, imeem, Music Reviews
7/21/2007
Summertime Dance Discombobulation
Drop these bum-shakers at your next Summer hula and watch the hips fly!
M.I.A. - Boyz
What's in the water there in Miss Maya's home of Sri Lanka? Purple microdot? Her last album Arular was totally coconuts and from the sound of her new single, the next one will be totally pineapples. She spills Rum and Berry Blue Kool-Aid on her sampling unit until it glitches pure hot funk and ponders that eternal summertime quandary: "How many...boys there?"
Eartha Kitt & Bronksi Beat - Cha Cha Heels I always loved that this high camp 1988 classic was written for Divine to sing but the poor dear dropped dead before they had a chance to record it. The lyrics were inspired by Divine's films as well, and I can envision his voice instead of Eartha's in my head singling lines like: "Going back to Boise / I'm itching for a fight / I'm looking for a lover who loves my dynamite." However, Eartha makes it all her own, complete with the requisite Catwoman purrs and snarls.
Cazwell - Watch My Mouth Ex-New York club kid and best friend of extremely botoxy model/transexual Amanda Lepore, Cazwell claims to be America's first gay white-boy rapper. As unpromising as that might sound, Cazwell transcends the novelty and throws down some seriously catchy and terrific floor-fillers in classic NY style, drawing comparisons to Deee-lite and even Prince. Plus, he's so hot you could lick him.
Labels: Audio Flashback, imeem, Music Reviews
7/14/2007
Music Is A Hot Mashed Rutabega
Prince: Guitar
The Purple One is causing yet another uproar in the music industry by giving away copies of his new album Planet Earth free with a UK newspaper. I have to admire his complete and utter disregard for an industry that has been cheating music artists and the general public for years. His UK label pulled his contract, and labels around the world are freaking out in fear that other artists will follow suit and start giving away albums left and right. It's a brilliant publicity stunt; he certainly doesn't need the scant money CD sales bring in these days, and he's a hero among his fans, who get his new album for free. Even better is the rumored news that ex-Revolution ladies Wendy & Lisa make some sort of return appearance on Planet Earth. Is the water warm enough? First single, "Guitar" has a nice fuzzy groove but offers nothing really earth-shattering. In fact, the melody line kept nagging at me: where have I heard this before. I realized it was another Prince song I was hearing in there, "Girls and Boys" from 1986's Parade album. Can he sue himself for plagiarism? Prolly not.
Siouxsie: Into A Swan If you head over to the website of Siouxsie's new label, W14, you'll be able to hear short previews of nearly every track on her forthcoming solo debut album, Mantaray, which will have every old goth's knickers in twist when it is set forth upon the world in August. Actually, it's a pretty raw sound for Sioux, a return to the harder sound of the early Banshees a bit with a touch of Marilyn Manson glam, and she's likely to pick up a whole new generation of fans. Early reports are that lyrically, she is more personally revealing than ever, and that the Ice Queen may finally be melting a bit. Her longtime Banshees and Creatures sidekick Budgie is nowhere to be found on Mantaray, sparking rumors among fans that they're also personally separated, which lends to the long held theory that they were just "beards" for each other, and that "Into a Swan" is Siouxsie's big "coming out" moment. I dunno about that, but the song itself is a delightfully brain crunching epic. Also, I have to say she is looking absolutely hotter than ever, not bad for a 50-year old punk.
Erasure: Sunday Girl (12"Mix) Erasure might not always be at the top of the cool list, but I've been a fan since 1985, when "Oh L'Amour" made me swoop and swoon on the Club Mario's dance floor, and my love just grows stronger with each album. There was a mild rough patch during the Cowboy / Loveboat / Nightbird string of records where maybe the ideas were running a little thin, and the overall tone was on the depressing side, but even still, I loved them. The new album Light at the End of the World is a massive return to form, and to me the 2nd single "Sunday Girl" ranks up there with their best and biggest hits, a thumping, disco-riffic Abba-goes-Electro classic complete with octave bass lines and Andy Bell in full drama diva mode. The 12" mix differs only slightly from the version which opens the album but stretches it out a little, adding a few new sections that add just enough something special to make it a highly repeatable pop stomper.
Swivek: Flirt I've been wearing my record producer hat this week, having fun adding some keyboard lines to a track emailed over to me by Bradley aka Swivek. I always like using his tracks to do remixes and I've even recorded entire music tracks for him to sing atop, but this is our first "true" collaboration in a way. I think it turned out pretty swell, a nice and sassy summer pop ditty. I'm releasing the EP via my Flexible Records net label on this coming Tuesday, but here's a preview for y'all:
Siouxsie: Into A Swan If you head over to the website of Siouxsie's new label, W14, you'll be able to hear short previews of nearly every track on her forthcoming solo debut album, Mantaray, which will have every old goth's knickers in twist when it is set forth upon the world in August. Actually, it's a pretty raw sound for Sioux, a return to the harder sound of the early Banshees a bit with a touch of Marilyn Manson glam, and she's likely to pick up a whole new generation of fans. Early reports are that lyrically, she is more personally revealing than ever, and that the Ice Queen may finally be melting a bit. Her longtime Banshees and Creatures sidekick Budgie is nowhere to be found on Mantaray, sparking rumors among fans that they're also personally separated, which lends to the long held theory that they were just "beards" for each other, and that "Into a Swan" is Siouxsie's big "coming out" moment. I dunno about that, but the song itself is a delightfully brain crunching epic. Also, I have to say she is looking absolutely hotter than ever, not bad for a 50-year old punk.
Erasure: Sunday Girl (12"Mix) Erasure might not always be at the top of the cool list, but I've been a fan since 1985, when "Oh L'Amour" made me swoop and swoon on the Club Mario's dance floor, and my love just grows stronger with each album. There was a mild rough patch during the Cowboy / Loveboat / Nightbird string of records where maybe the ideas were running a little thin, and the overall tone was on the depressing side, but even still, I loved them. The new album Light at the End of the World is a massive return to form, and to me the 2nd single "Sunday Girl" ranks up there with their best and biggest hits, a thumping, disco-riffic Abba-goes-Electro classic complete with octave bass lines and Andy Bell in full drama diva mode. The 12" mix differs only slightly from the version which opens the album but stretches it out a little, adding a few new sections that add just enough something special to make it a highly repeatable pop stomper.
Swivek: Flirt I've been wearing my record producer hat this week, having fun adding some keyboard lines to a track emailed over to me by Bradley aka Swivek. I always like using his tracks to do remixes and I've even recorded entire music tracks for him to sing atop, but this is our first "true" collaboration in a way. I think it turned out pretty swell, a nice and sassy summer pop ditty. I'm releasing the EP via my Flexible Records net label on this coming Tuesday, but here's a preview for y'all:
Labels: Erasure, imeem, Music Reviews, Prince, Siouxsie Sioux, Swivek
6/29/2007
Audio Flashback: 1975
I got in trouble for posting my Get Out columns here on my blog on Fridays, a day before they hit the actual newspaper. Apparently they think if my articles leak early, nobody will buy the paper on Saturday, since that's all they really want a copy for anyway (AS IF). Fair enough, I can wait until Saturday mornings to post them here. Meanwhile, I had a new idea to fill the space on Fridays from now on. I'll pick a random year and highlight a couple of albums that came out that year that I love and discuss them a bit as well as post some songs using my totally neato imeem music player thingie. I'm pretty sure every year has had it's great moments in popular music. Let's go right for the meat of the matter and start with the wonderful, woozy mid-70's.
David Bowie: Young Americans
This is a bit of a transitional album for Mr. Jones, released after the glittery death of the Ziggy Stardust persona and before the art-cocaine madness of the Berlin era albums. Remarkably, it was the album that finally broke Bowie into the big BIG time in the US, with the title track and the John Lennon collaboration "Fame" becoming colossal hits. White boy soul was literally invented on this album and tracks like "Fascination" and "Right" predict the disco craze that would soon take over the world. David's voice is different here than on previous albums, deeper and careening melodramatically from high to low like an art-damaged lounge singer. He swoops and soars impressively on his heartbreaking cover of The Beatles' "Across the Universe", which I always thought was such an unusual choice for this album. Somehow, it fits. The presence of a very young Luther Vandross and a set of soul-sister backup singers injects some real fever into the recordings, making this one of Bowie's most "human" sounding records. The recent deluxe anniversary edition adds two brilliant studio outtakes to the original 8 tracks, as well as the disco-fried and very rare single "John I'm Only Dancing (Again)"
Kraftwerk: Radio-Activity
Their previous album Autobahn was the one that perked up ears around the world with it's exclusive use of primitive synthesizers and Teutonic Beach Boys schtick. However, Radioactivity is the record that would serve as the brittle blueprint for the rest of their groundbreaking catalog of electronic pop. This album has a spooky, otherworldly quality with it's beeping geiger counters, hissing radio signals, reverberating synth effects and tinny machine percussion. Like all Kraftwerk albums, it has a theme and here it's "the miracle of radio". 1975 seems a little late to be tripping out about such notions, which lends the album a weird retro-futuristic quality, like some fusty artifact discovered in your crazy great-uncle's workshop. Florian, Ralf, Karl, and Wolfgang lay down some darned chilly soundscapes here with electronic music machines that were barely just invented - I can only imagine how foreign and freaky this music must have sounded to people when it came out. Even all these years later, it has still been known to cause extreme reactions.
Abba: Abba
When this album came out, Abba were huge all over the globe, everywhere except the US, where this album reached a meager #174 on the Billboard charts. It saw the Swedish foursome making a blatant attempt to harden up their sound, and while Abba is not exactly known for it's hard rocking, tracks like "Hey, Hey Helen" and "Rock Me" are at least as hardcore as say, Elton John was at this point. "Mamma Mia" and "SOS" are now classics, although most people never make it beyond those songs' presence on Abba Gold. Out of all of the original albums, this has the most variety; they try out reggae on "Tropical Loveland" and torch polka on "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do". Bjorn and Benny had already perfected their full-to-the-brim, high-gloss production methods and Anni-Frid and Agnetha harmonize like only they can, creating that unmistakable, irreproducible Abba sound we love so much. The CD reissue includes THE most insane Abba recording ever, "Medley: Pick a Bale of Cotton/On Top of Old Smokey/Midnight Special". It's never been explained to me why Abba would stitch together a slavery-era relic, a children's standard, and a current pop hit, but if anybody ever accused Abba of being humorless, this proves them way wrong. Aw, Lawdy!
David Bowie: Young Americans
This is a bit of a transitional album for Mr. Jones, released after the glittery death of the Ziggy Stardust persona and before the art-cocaine madness of the Berlin era albums. Remarkably, it was the album that finally broke Bowie into the big BIG time in the US, with the title track and the John Lennon collaboration "Fame" becoming colossal hits. White boy soul was literally invented on this album and tracks like "Fascination" and "Right" predict the disco craze that would soon take over the world. David's voice is different here than on previous albums, deeper and careening melodramatically from high to low like an art-damaged lounge singer. He swoops and soars impressively on his heartbreaking cover of The Beatles' "Across the Universe", which I always thought was such an unusual choice for this album. Somehow, it fits. The presence of a very young Luther Vandross and a set of soul-sister backup singers injects some real fever into the recordings, making this one of Bowie's most "human" sounding records. The recent deluxe anniversary edition adds two brilliant studio outtakes to the original 8 tracks, as well as the disco-fried and very rare single "John I'm Only Dancing (Again)"
Kraftwerk: Radio-Activity
Their previous album Autobahn was the one that perked up ears around the world with it's exclusive use of primitive synthesizers and Teutonic Beach Boys schtick. However, Radioactivity is the record that would serve as the brittle blueprint for the rest of their groundbreaking catalog of electronic pop. This album has a spooky, otherworldly quality with it's beeping geiger counters, hissing radio signals, reverberating synth effects and tinny machine percussion. Like all Kraftwerk albums, it has a theme and here it's "the miracle of radio". 1975 seems a little late to be tripping out about such notions, which lends the album a weird retro-futuristic quality, like some fusty artifact discovered in your crazy great-uncle's workshop. Florian, Ralf, Karl, and Wolfgang lay down some darned chilly soundscapes here with electronic music machines that were barely just invented - I can only imagine how foreign and freaky this music must have sounded to people when it came out. Even all these years later, it has still been known to cause extreme reactions.
Abba: Abba
When this album came out, Abba were huge all over the globe, everywhere except the US, where this album reached a meager #174 on the Billboard charts. It saw the Swedish foursome making a blatant attempt to harden up their sound, and while Abba is not exactly known for it's hard rocking, tracks like "Hey, Hey Helen" and "Rock Me" are at least as hardcore as say, Elton John was at this point. "Mamma Mia" and "SOS" are now classics, although most people never make it beyond those songs' presence on Abba Gold. Out of all of the original albums, this has the most variety; they try out reggae on "Tropical Loveland" and torch polka on "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do". Bjorn and Benny had already perfected their full-to-the-brim, high-gloss production methods and Anni-Frid and Agnetha harmonize like only they can, creating that unmistakable, irreproducible Abba sound we love so much. The CD reissue includes THE most insane Abba recording ever, "Medley: Pick a Bale of Cotton/On Top of Old Smokey/Midnight Special". It's never been explained to me why Abba would stitch together a slavery-era relic, a children's standard, and a current pop hit, but if anybody ever accused Abba of being humorless, this proves them way wrong. Aw, Lawdy!
Labels: Abba, Audio Flashback, David Bowie, imeem, Kraftwerk, Music Reviews
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