Thursday, June 25, 2009

Fierce Critters

Dirtnap Records has announced the vinyl release of There Are No Answers, the second album by Houston trio Something Fierce. (Oddly enough, not the first band by that name.)

Dirtnap calls Something Fierce "Unbelievably catchy, well written, well played ... poppy punk with heart, brains, and hooks. If there’s a catchier band in the current American punk underground, they should really send us their demo!" Dirtnap is the label of the Exploding Hearts, the Marked Men, the Ergs, and the Girls, so they know whereof they speak.

Order the LP here and look for Something Fierce on tour in July and August (July 25 in Atlanta at the Drunken Unicorn). You can stream the album here.

Something Fierce: Teenage Ruins

6/25/2009 08:06:00 AM 0 Comments

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Haberdashery vs. Millinery

Travels with Myself and Another, the second album from Future of the Left, came out this week to excellent reviews. If you don't already have it, you can stream the album here. And you can download a free WOXY session with Future of the Left here (a tip o' the haberdashery to Gimme Tinnitus).

You can get a copy of Future of the Left's live CD, Last Night I Saved Her from Vampires, for less than $10 postpaid from Insound. In the end, everybody wins!

Speaking of live radio sessions, the band Obits performed at WFMU the day after my birthday, and you can download that set from the Free Music Archive.

6/24/2009 04:05:00 PM 0 Comments

Saturday, May 30, 2009

You Cannot Contend with the RPM

Another new record that's rocking my socks off these days is Hey Everyone! That's the title of the full-length debut by Scottish six-piece Dananananaykroyd. They put the sex in sextet, and they endeared themselves to me by having two drummers (an exciting feature shared by the Butthole Surfers, MX-80 Sound, Beachbuggy, and the Fall circa 1983; as well as Adam Ant, Gary Glitter, the Allmans, the Dead, and the new Southern metal band Kylesa).

I've read comparisons between Dananananaykroyd and Los Campesinos, but I don't hear it. To me, Dananananaykroyd sound a bit like McLusky and FOTL (especially on "Black Wax"). But the mood is more giddy than angry, except on "One Chance", which is straight-up 1980's hardcore. There is also a touch of Ponytail in Dananananaykroyd's ecstatic sound: the lead guitarist is brilliant, and the songs on Hey Everyone reach crescendo after crescendo. "Watch This!" is their statement of purpose: like an attention-seeking hyperactive child, the song packs in every R-O-C-K signifier from pick slides to rim shots. I think my favorite song is "Some Dresses", which fills the void of awesome songs about tailoring women's clothes.

If you've been following Dananananaykroyd's history (haven't you?), you may notice some overlap between the songs on the new LP and their previous EP's. Early classics like "Totally Bone" have been rerecorded and amped up. The two drummers are captured distinctly, and the album sounds great at loud volume. I've taken the unprecedented step of adding Dananananaykroyd to my sidebar as one of the Greatest Bands of All Time. In the words of Bryan Evening, it's THAT GOOD.

Dananananaykroyd: Some Dresses

5/30/2009 09:00:00 AM 5 Comments

Thursday, May 28, 2009

A.Camp Tours U.States

Nina Persson's band A.Camp released its second album, Colonia, last month. The album is an intelligent set of orchestral pop, anchored by the pure tone of Persson's voice (which is not unlike Karen Carpenter's). To most American listeners, she may forever be known foremost as the singer of "Lovefool", but there is nothing lightweight about A.Camp's music. Highlights for me are "I Signed the Line" (which seems to address both recording contracts and marriage), and "Golden Teeth And Silver Medals", a duet with Nicolai Dunger that breaks down the fourth wall of the recording studio ("I'm so glad I met you in this song").

A.Camp's first tour of the US started this week in NYC. The two week tour continues through Boston, DC, Philly, Chicago, MPLS, KC, Denver, Seattle, Portland, SF and LA.

A.Camp will release a covers EP next month, featuring "Us and Them" (Pink Floyd) and "Boys Keep Swinging" (Bowie). Watch A.Camp perform "Love Has Left the Room" on WFMU here.

5/28/2009 11:46:00 AM 1 Comments

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Another Green Mess

Oh no, blog neglect! Better post something before blogrot sets in... Sometimes I wonder why I pay attention to the hype on new bands, because the music is often disappointing. I hate to sound like an old crank, but the amount of new music out there has increased exponentially in the last two decades, and the quality can't possibly equal the volume. I guess I worry that I will miss something good if I don't try to keep up.

One pearl among the swine is the British trio Johnny Foreigner. I overlooked their album Waited up til It Was Light when it came out last year. I got it about a month ago and have been playing it almost daily since then. Each of the songs has been my favorite at one time or another. It's a frenetically noisy record (albeit very well-produced), so it takes a few listens before the songs sink their hooks into your brain. I soon found myself singing along with such unlikely phrases as "one green mess to another green mess" and "mutton dressed as mutton dressed as mutton dressed as lamb".

Singer/guitarist Alexei Burrows yelps like Black Francis or David Gedge, and singer/bassist Kelly Southern (who must inevitably suffer comparisons to Kim Deal) has a pleasing voice and a vicious scream. Burrows is an inventive guitarist (he often creates interesting melodic patterns by tapping the fretboard), and Junior the drummer is great too. The band won me over by quoting the dEUS classic "Hotellounge" on the ballad "Absolute Balance". There's a great fan site here, co-authored by the music writer J.Breitling.

Johnny Foreigner: Eyes Wide Terrified

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5/21/2009 03:08:00 PM 1 Comments

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Every Day Should Be Record Store Day

Last year, a couple months before the first Record Store Day, my favorite Atlanta record store closed. (Yes, I'm still grieving.) It happened again this year: Ella Guru closed in March. But there's also good news for record store shoppers. Reactionary Records reopened in East Atlanta (at 465a Flat Shoals Avenue, across from the EARL). As a service to Atlanta visitors, here are the remaining independent retailers of CD's and vinyl in the ATL area:

Audio Alternative website
Book Nook review
Circle Sky myspace
Criminal Records website
Decatur CD website
Fantasyland review
Full Moon Records review
Low Yo-Yo Stuff myspace
Moods Music website
Reactionary Records myspace
Records Galore review
Rock Star Gold myspace
Secur Music website
Stickfigure website
Wax N Facts myspace
Wuxtry website

And don't forget these Atlanta based online retailers: Earwax, Joe Rockhead, and Stickfigure . Ella Guru may re-emerge online.

Check out this documentary about Rough Trade, founded on the idea that (in Geoff Travis' words) "a record shop could be a lot more than just a place where you bought records". The film is about the birth of independent labels, and about the contradictions between idealism and commerce. I love the part when Mayo Thompson muses that Rough Trade's ambitions to balance the two may have been a case of "drinking too much of your own piss".

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4/22/2009 09:10:00 AM 3 Comments

Monday, April 13, 2009

Legacy Management: Mixtape '08

After much deliberation (and no small amount of procrastination), I finished a mix of my favorite new songs from last year. Download the zip file here.

1. "Archaeologists" - Wintersleep
2. "Konny and Jim" - Love as Laughter
3. "Lucky Lucky Luck" - Evangelista
4. "Come to New York" - Paramount Styles
5. "Volatile" - The Old Haunts
6. "I Admit My Faults" - Eddy Current Suppression Ring
7. "She Doesn't Belong to Me" - Pete and the Pirates
8. "Can Can Summer" - the Fall
9. "This Is Not for You" - Blood Red Shoes
10. "Enraged" - Girl Loves Distortion
11. "Living in Lines" - Statues
12. "Sleet" - the Futureheads
13. "Speak" - Dark Captain Light Captain
14. "Shovel to Ground" - the Colour Revolt
15. "Giving Up & Getting Fat" - You Am I
16. "Fish to Fry" - the Jim Jones Revue
17. "Marathon Mansion" - Pegasuses XL
18. "Count It Off" - the Saturday Knights (featuring the Dap-Kings)
19. "Life Is Better" - Q-Tip (featuring Norah Jones)

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4/13/2009 12:56:00 PM 1 Comments