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Shownotes:

Art in Manila "The Abomination" (from their label site. Click on artists, find their listing, then click on downloads on their page)

Now It's Overhead, "Let Up" (Also from Saddle Creek, see above)

The Good Life, "Heartbroke" (wow, we can see which music website I spent the most time at this week)

Tegan and Sara, "I Hear Noises" and "Walking With The Ghost" (The Rentals Mix), from their site.

Mercy Creek, "Ms. Virginia" (from their site)

Thank you! Next podcast in two weeks.

Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By

Just a reminder: I will not be posting next weekend. I will be in Atlanta, wearing what I hope will pass for a Renaissance-style costume, and possibly stalking Claudia Black.


The Lodger, "Let Her Go" (From Audiofile)

Pop music is considered trifle in the U.S. by more "learned" people. I will say that I hate most American pop (I.E. manufactured crap), but British pop music mostly isn't manufactured (exceptfor the kind that's made with spice). It's organic, self-sufficient and usually born out of someone's flat--in this case someone else's flat, hence the name of the band. This is what I would consider good pop music. Yes, it'll lodge in your head, but it's much better for a good song to lodge itself in your brain rather than a crappy one (any song made by one of the dozens of American pop princesses). Of course the danger with even good pop music, is that occasionally the songs can sound similar. I listened to a few other songs of theirs before I played "Let Her Go", and when that song was done, my boyfriend turned to me and said "you know, that song was less annoying the third time you played it". I started laughing when I told him I'd only played it once--the songs he'd heard before had all been different songs.

Website
Myspace
Label Site


The Lodger

The Rentals, "The Man With Two Brains" (from their Myspace).

I wish I could've posted all of their songs,because they're all great. Unfortunately, I only found one legal download, so I was limited. However, the radio station WOXY posted the full version of The Rentals in-studio session. I wanted to post "Last Romantic Day" because it sounds like The Lightning Seeds doing a Ballboy song, but that can be streamed on Myspace. In fact, I made it the song on my Myspace page. I was happy that "The Man With Two Brains" was available for download, though. It's eerily creepy in all the right places. It's got a robot-y, space-agy new wave synthesizer and deadpan, quasi-speaking vocals that make it sound like a Borg-assimilated rap song.

Myspace
Website



Nobility, The Halleluiah Chorus (from their site)

Well, this song is positively rousing. I listen to a lot of music that could be considered "energized" (as well as music that could be considered coma-inducing), but this is one of those rare songs that actually make me want to get up and do something. Maybe clean the apartment (okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves), or just move around in a frenzied manner meant to imply dancing. I don't know what, but it makes me want to do something. It makes me want to whistle. Seriously. Too bad I can't whistle (or maybe that's the way it should be, for humanity's sake).

Website
Myspace


The Nobility point the way to the nearest fruit juice stand. They didn't bring any water, and biking is exhausting work.

Videos for songs I couldn't get MP3s for:

The Editors, "Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors"
The Editors live on KCRW

Jen Chapin, "Let In Show"

Website
Myspace

Bonus:

This group of singers, Trio Mediaeval, is so awesome it's indescribable. I couldn't find any mp3s for their songs, but you can listen via Amazon.

Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By

Before I start, let me go ahead and tell y'all that I'm not going to post on Labor Day Weekend. Yes, I am skipping a week. Taking a vacation. Going to Dragon*Con! Whoot hoot!

This isn't for another two weeks, so there will be a post next weekend. This won't affect the podcast schedule, either, because the podcast is scheduled for next weekend anyway, not Labor Day weekend.

I'm really mentioning it now in case I forget next weekend :)

Art in Manila, "Set The World On Fire"

I may not have heard of this band until recently (in all fairness, they didn't exist until recently), but I'm certainly very familiar with one of it's members, Orenda Fink. She used to be in a great two-woman band called Azure Ray with another of my favorite musicians, Maria Taylor. There's no bias, either, since they're from my adopted hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, and they made a lot of their music in my real home-state of Georgia. There's no need for bias when the talent is so immense. Both women went on to very fruitful, very creative solo careers, and Orenda solidified her touring band into a full-fledged band, first called Art Belle and recently changed to Art in Manila. The album, sharing the same name as this song, was recorded in Athens, Georgia by another of my favorites, Andy LeMaster of Now It's Overhead. Orenda's considerable talent, the talent of the band she's put together and the producer she chose, pulses through this song, setting a fire wherever it plays.

Myspace
Label Site
Orenda's Website (no site listed for the band)


Art In Manila

The Good Life, "You Don't Feel Like Home To Me"

Weird coincidence: members of Art in Manila have played with The Good Life. Okay, not-so-weird coincidence since they're all on the same label, Saddle Creek. This song is haunting and sad as only a song released by Bright Eyes' home label can be. Haunting and sad can make beautiful music, though, and in this case it makes an elegantly jaded yet imploring swan song to a love he can't go home to.

Label Site (no band website listed)
Myspace


The Good Life

Tegan and Sara, "Back In Your Head"*

Yay! My favorite Canadian lesbian twin sisters recorded a new album! Okay, so I've only heard one song from it (too poor to buy it, too quasi-honorable to just downright download it. I'm sure I could piece it together here and there until I can buy it, though.) This song is just as (I'm sure many people cringe at this word) infectious as all of their previous unbelievably catchy and quirky tunes. This time the catchiness doesn't come from the crank of loud guitars; this song relies on a quirky piano refrain to lock in all of its boppiness. Of course, Tegan's (Sara's? I think Tegan's) voice is as charming as ever, bringing most of the personality evident on the song. It wouldn't be a Tegan and Sara song without that voice, so easily recognizable to any fan.

Website (lots more mp3s from previous albums available here)
Myspace
Video for "Back In Your Head" (and no, I haven't seen that haircut since the early 90's, either. I love you, Tegan, but...)


Tegan and Sara (or maybe Sara and Tegan, I'm not sure)

Also, Tegan and Sara are featured live on The Interface.

*Goodbye Audiofile. I'll remember you always.

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Shownotes

Noctilucent Valleys, "Arms of the Mountain" (playing during the introduction)

Label Site
(No Myspace listed)


Vampire Weekend, "Walcott (Insane Mix 2)"

Website
Myspace


Good news--we finally got iTunes to recognize my podcast again. Finally! After almost two months! We're working on getting it to come up in the directory, also. We're thinking it may've worked; we're just waiting for iTunes to update.


Cloud Cult, "Pretty Voice" from KEXP

Website
Myspace

Black Moth Super Rainbow, "The Afternoon Turns Pink" from Fanatic Promotions (mp3 made available directly to podcasters)

Website
Myspace

The Little Ones, "Oh, MJ"

Website
Myspace

Tribeca, "Solitude"

Label Site
(No Myspace listed)

Maps, "Elouise"

Myspace
(no website listed)

Thanks for listening and have a great two weeks!

Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By


Derek Webb, "This Too Shall Be Made Right" (live, courtesy of Relevant Media)

This song is a plea. A very forceful, very moving and very strong plea. It's not a mealy-mouthed, watered down, new age singer-songwriter-y plea, though. He's got a force behind him that only comes from true conviction. He's begging us to pay attention to the world around us. He doesn't let himself off the hook: he includes himself when he says "we're trading comfort for human lives. That's not just murder, it's suicide." His message gets through not only because it's a very real, very relevant message, but because it's also encased in a gorgeous song: a plaintive, desperate voice begs us to wake up and realize there's a world in pain around us. He unleashes his frustration through his music--not so much strumming his guitar as repeatedly striking it until his conviction is borne out through the music, as much as through his vocals.

Website
Myspace


Derek Webb looks so serene. His guitars, however, are cowering in the corner, and I don't blame them.

Future of Forestry, "Love Waits" (courtesy of Relevant Media)

Sometimes a song is so pretty I don't have words for it. It's too beautiful to try to condense into a paragraph. Maybe that's why I never pursued music journalism :) I obviously have limits. I'm not going to let my limitations degrade something as incredibly special as this song, though. This is the kind of song that becomes a description for the way you feel. When you think about the way love feels, you may start to think of this song.

Website
Myspace


Contemplating the Future of Forestry

Iron & Wine, "Boy With a Coin"

This song has every thing I've come to love about Iron and Wine's music--inventive music (in this case Spanish-style guitar with a bit of steel pedal) and gauzy, streaming vocals. There are even hand claps if you listen closely. Sam Beam, the person behind Iron and Wine, has always seemed like he could be the American version of Badly Drawn Boy, drawing his hazy melodies out of a Florida swamp instead of an English lake.

Website
Myspace
More songs on the Sub Pop media page


Sam Bean of Iron and Wine knows he looks like that guy from Sideways.

Podcast Saturday night or Sunday!

Bonus:

These are videos for songs I love that I couldn't find the mp3s for.

Remi Nicole, "Go Mr Sunshine" (video only)



Myspace
Website

Scott Matthews, "Elusive"



Website
Myspace

Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By: The Half-Ass Edition

This has been the most horrible day I've had in a few years.

Worse than when I found out my cat had cancer? Yes, because at least then I had love in my heart, mixed with fear--not absolute loathing and a deep urge to maim.

I just spent a very ill-advised 24 hours with my mother. It ended with me yelling at my mother that I wanted to go to bed and forget this horrible existence.

So, the point of me telling you this is I hope you understand why I just want to get drunk and watch Independence Day at 7 p.m.

I also forgot to buy cat food, and I don't have a car to go get some. I have enough for maybe a day.

This will be a short post; I don't have it in me to attempt to think of clever things to write, much less succeed in writing clever things.

The Mary Onettes "Lost" (Direct Link)

Their Website
Their Myspace

(Their label, Labrador has a 68-song sampler featuring various artists available for free download)


The Mary Onettes

The Broken West, "Down In The Valley"

Their Myspace
(Their website is under construction. It's broken-ha ha.)


The Broken West

Stephen Malkmus, "Us"

Website
Myspace


Why, no--I'm not a professor of ancient art. Why do you ask that? Stephen Malkmus in front of some dragon-looking statue.

It's time for Independence Day.

Mazel Tov. (I'm drinking Manischewitz wine because it's good, it's cheap, and it'll get meh drunk).

Okay, this made me laugh:

(Blogspot cuts it off: Here's the full picture)