Sweep the Streets

This song is cool. The first time you hear it, it'll be weird. The next time, it will be hilarious. Then you'll like it after that. They are playing Saturday at Treasure Island. Check it out:



My favorites from the new AFI album. The first one is going to be the next single, is my bet. Beautiful Thieves:



And Sacrilege:



Finally, another sweet one from The Morning Benders:

Few Randoms

Couple of random songs for you guys.

Snoop Dog goes Country


Jus' Jack: Smoke


Talib Kweli: Ms. Hill

This song is by the beatles too???

The Aggrolites end their always-awesome show with "Don't Let Me Down," and I just now figured out that was a Beatles song...oops. Anyways, it's an awesome song, really lends itself to the dirty reggae treatment, check it out below, and check out their live show...you won't be, well, let down.

Look into my soul...

Going back '98, maybe '96, a couple of hits... Anyone who wants to truly understand me should listen to this CD front to back. It not only contains my favorite song by my favorite artist on my favorite album. For me, Jay-Z Reasonable Doubt is the one cd i have been listening to years and you can always find in my cd player in my car. This Jay-Z is a lot edgier and some might argue this was back when he had something to rap about. However he has stood the test of time. Listen to the last song for an interesting interpretation of the rap game over the past 15 years. Real cool song off his new album. Lyrics are pretty sick.

Favorite song:
D'Evils
"Granted Nine to five is how you survive- I ain't trying survive I'm tryin to live it to the limit and love it a a lot"


Feelin' It


Can't Knock the Hustle feat. Mary J Blidge
-Words to live by-


A Star is Born (From the Blueprint 3)

Whale of a Buildup

Check out this sweet song from Modest Mouse's B-Sides album from this year. It's essentially a 6-minute buildup, and the creepy bending sound of the guitars awesomely evokes whales...talking?

Its All About Location Location

As a Utah native, I am happy to present some local color for your listening pleasure. Location Location is comprised of Marcus Bently and Cam Runyan.The group cites several new wave phenoms as influences but the group's sound definitely capitalizes on the trend toward more complex synth-based sounds. I've had a crush on Marcus since about the 6th grade, but it sounds like partnering with Cam has really helped him find his sound. I knew Marc in his Americana days and I can't stress how good the electronic shift has been for his vocals. On top of that, Marcus is a beautiful lyricist, making Location Location one of the few electronic groups with substantive lyrics. Oh, and did I mention that they work with Kaskade? I guess that's kind of important.

Location Location doesn't play much outside of SLC, but download their EP on iTunes and maybe you'll feel like making a trip:http://www.myspace.com/locationlocation

Check out this little tunepak I've crafted for you:

http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/1810610

Can we talk about automatic satisfaction?

So this isn't a post on Unwritten Law, but nonetheless, I've learned a very valuable lesson in the past 3 days-- I suck at waiting. I'm chronically terrible at being patient, to the point of neurosis. When it comes to music, if I find something I like I have to have it RIGHT NOW. The iPhone has been good for me in that sense, but no iPhone can help you when iTunes tells you that the best it can give you is a pre-order on an album you're lusting for.

The Big Pink is an electro-rock duo from London, England and their debut album, A Brief History of Love, is set for release September 11, 2009 -- 3 days and counting. Though the band's name hearkens back to the Bob Dillan set, member Mike Cordell runs the label that put out Crystal Castles and the band's sound reflects a similar aesthetic.

The group will make its way out to San Francisco in mid-November... more waiting for me I guess.

Teeegoooooooooo- Puertorican Reggaton

So I just got back from a weekend in Puerto Rico. While I was there, we got to go to a VIP party at Casa Bacardi celebrating the crowning of the best Bacardi Mojito on the island. Dancing Reggaton and getting free drinks until 2am was a def highlight to the trip. There was a DJ at the Party and then a private concert with Tego Caldron who is supposed to be top five reggaton artists in PR. The crowd was crazy singing his songs so I thought I'd post him. Tengo un obsession por Reggaton y Electronico.

My Latest Jones

I have a major hard on for Gold Panda at the moment.

Maybe its because I walk through China Town every day, I don't know. The UK-based group is touring the EU at the moment but I'm keeping my fingers crossed they'll make it across the pond shortly. According to a fellow music blogger, "Gold Panda dips their hands into God's Black Binliner of Music, pulls out the scraps most people would leave behind, and forces them to coagulate into something smooth, soft and surprising. A bit like a deep-fried Mars Bar." Whatever dude, these tunes are just an f'ing good time.

My favorite at the moment:

Farewell, Pennywise

For a long time, I had zero interest in music. I was forced to play the piano and forced to listen to smooth and big-band jazz in my dad's stereos growing up.

One of my friends had his own stereo, though, with a 3-disc changer, which he would never turn off...the volume would go up when we were in his room, and down upon leaving. One day I just went and bought all 3 albums in his changer, Blink, Offspring, and Pennywise, and it jump-started my love of music and shaped my musical preferences for years afterwards. They were also the first punk concert where I got my ass kicked, which, in high school, I thought was pretty cool. Driving ourselves all the way to LA and get stage-dived on was amazing to a teenager, and their show was my first major experience with it.

Even though they are continuing on as a band, it won't be the same without Jim, vocalist and 1/2 of the songwriting power of the band. But who knows, Blink came back, right?




Statement from Pennywise Regarding Jim Lindberg Leaving Band 08/21/09
“After 20 years with Pennywise, Jim Lindberg has decided to step down as lead singer. Pennywise has long stood behind the motto that you should always follow your heart and pursue what makes you happy, and we wish Jim the best of luck in his new ventures. Pennywise has become a way of life for a lot of people, and has definitely become a way of life for us. As the three remaining members of Pennywisewe feel that we are not done delivering our message to our fans. ”The band has always been about moving forward in life no matter what obstacles stand in front of you. We will begin our search for a new singer immediately. We will continue to tour the world and we are looking forward to writing new music. We've had a lot of good times and survived the hard times thanks to the undying support of our fans. We're looking forward to what the future may bring." Sincerely Fletcher, Randy, and Byron

Vocalist Jim Lindberg leaves Pennywise 08/21/09
“After 20 years, nine albums and thousands of shows around the world, my time in Pennywise has come to an end. Being the singer for this band has been an amazing experience, and along the way we made some of the best fans anyone could ask for. I want to express my deepest thanks to all of you for sticking with us over the years, especially through the passing of Jason years ago. It's your support and encouragement that kept me going this long. There are few things that made me more proud than seeing people at our shows singing our songs. I would also sincerely like to thank everyone who helped us along the way, in every capacity, we never could have done it without you, and I wish everyone in the Pennywise family the best of luck and continued success. Yours truly, Jim”

Hey Reinvented 90's Bands

Just in time to follow Chris! post on Pearl Jam are Weezer and AFI, bands with solid roots in the 90's, with sweet new singles that only loosely resemble the stuff that made them famous...Weezer doesn't often sound this swing-songey (their X-mas specials have the cutesy melodies, but not the snap-your-fingers beat) and I have never heard Davey Havok sing this low before. Check out both below:


Weezer

AFI

Speaking of Davey H., he was a guest at the Rise Against show I saw a month or two ago...it was awesome. They covered Minor Threat, and Davey's pipes blew Tim's (Rise Against) away:



Went to Outside Lands yesterday, surprise awesome performance was The Dead Weather, Jack White's new band. Not generally my kind of music, but it was just an awesome show. Jack plays the drums in the band, but did a guitar solo to please the crowd, and it was awesome. Plus, the singer is kind of a babe, and watching her throw herself around on stage was, by itself, enough to keep my attention.



These guys were cool too:



Other highlight: the bad religion drummer was drumming for Tenacious D which made my day.

Speaking of BR, it is the 20th anniversary of their awesome classic album No Control...here's a live version of the best track:



Someone just sent me this Girltalk song; have no idea if it's new or old. But I love the start of it...the contrast between the words in the background and foreground songs is amazing...it's hilarious because the guy made the music fit together so well but the ideas of the songs couldn't be more different.

Don't get in this guy's car...

Well, it's my last day of work and I needed a post worthy of that. Alex requested this song when we began this blog so I've been holding on to this gem for a while... I think today is an appropriate time to release it. (Sorry about the sketchy singer, but hey its a sketchy song)


SINKER:

Girl Talk as a Music Video

Build your own custom video playlist at embedr.com

I found this online and decided it needed to go up on the blog. It's a compilation of Girl Talk's last album "Feed the Animals" if the entire thing was one giant music video. Awesome.

Will Smith Should Have Headlined Lollapalooza

MCA has cancer. It sucks. Especially if you bought tickets to any festival this summer where the Beastie Boys were inevitably going to blow your fucking brain wide open. All Points West festival in New Jersey replaced him with Jay-Z. Outside Lands chose Tenacious D. Austin City Limits and Lollapalooza both chose the Suck Suck Sucks (Yeah Yeah Yeahs). But that's probably because C3 Presents, the company that puts on both festivals, also owns the PR company that used to rep the band... eeeek corporate-ness!!!

But we had a big group at Lolla and all of us decided that we needed a new hip-hop headliner in place of the Beasties... not just some indie-shit two person band who sucks. I'm sorry if any of you like them, but they fucking blow.

So anyway, what became a big joke all weekend was how we needed a hip-hop headliner, but someone that was a total throwback to the 90s when Lolla was the big dog on the festival scene. What we need is a real American Hero. What we need is Will Smith.

I enter unto the editorial staff here exhbits of utter rockness. The first one that tells me that you wouldn't want to see this man live and in concert is the first one I say has no soul.

PARENTS JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND


WILD WILD WEST


FRESH PRINCE THEME


WELCOME TO MIAMI


SUMMERTIME


MEN IN BLACK


GETTING JIGGY WITH IT

So... tell me you wouldn't go see that in concert. I mean, shit. That would be fucking awesome. I say we start the petition. Get that man on stage. I saw Seven Pounds. That movie sucked, dude needs a blockbuster where he can write the theme song again.. it's worked in the past. And I feel 9pm at Lollapalooza is the best time to debut it. Let's shoot for 2010.

New Pearl Jam!!!!!

I just had a beer with Alex tonight and he reminded me that we had this awesome blog where we shared music with each other and discussed how great tastes we all had. I'm sorry. I suck.

BUT WAIT!!!

New Pearl Jam has come out and I want to tell you all about it. So, Eddie Vedder and his band of merrymen have a new album coming out next month called Backspacer. And while I have only heard the first single, "The Fixer", I already think we can tell something special is here. You have a band that rocked our faces off in the 90s... but how do you adopt to the current culture? I say the answer is Melody. The other weekend, Mark and I rocked out 15 rows back at the Kings of Leon's Friday night headline spot at Lollalapalooza (word to wise: if you can, see those guys live. awesome.) There's a band that has the same love of a 90s-rock band, but with the cool bass grooves and melodies that we've all come to expect from new artists. If you're Pearl Jam, an album of 15 tracks of what has worked before will be nothing more than a Greatest Hits record. You have to reinvent yourself. And I think they have.

"The Fixer" has the same feel as any track off of Only By Night, but with some more 90s-rock influence. Hell, I hear a bit of Third Eye Blind on this track when it jumps from the verse to the chorus. I'll be honest, that gets me physically excited. I am halfway erect right now. It's 90s-rock to the T. And it is awesome. If the song being great isn't enough, the video was directed by Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous) and is totally reminiscent of old-school live-show Pearl Jam videos when MTV still knew what the "m" stood for. I know I posted that thing a few weeks back about how there has in fact been stand-out bands since 1980 and Billy Bob Thorton just sucks... but if there was any doubt if 90 bands had staying power, I think Pearl Jam just debunked that shit. I heard next week Vedder is taking on gravity. Newton, watch your shit.

RataRemix

I know I have posted on Ratatat already but this is a little different. Check out Ratatat Remixes Vol. 1&2 The title explains the project and well… I have talked about Ratatat before, so on to the Music. You don’t get hook, line, sinker on this one because it doesn’t really make sense.

Put the stereo on 11 for these…

Rad: Notorious B.I.G. – Party and Bullshit
Ill: Beanie Sigel & Jay-Z – Glock Nines
Dope: Memphis Sleek – Alright



Glock Nines

The Way We Were

Ok, first things first, I know that I've been MIA. The school year is back in swing here in San Francisco and I have young minds to corrupt. While drafting up tomorrow's lesson plan I got to listening to some of my favorite tunes and it occurred to me:

Every school year there are students who don't come back. Some of these kids go on to amass what amounts to a pre-tween cult following as their former classmates busy themselves speculating as to what really happened to them.

In the music world, this phenominon presents itself when bands who were really great simply stop making albums and disappear. We have to convince ourselves that they have left us dejected, musically unfulfilled and considerably less cool because they are off doing something very, very important. In my mind, these three bands are curing cancer, creating an AIDS vaccine and erasing the collective conscious of the Bush presidency. They are THAT good:

The New Radicals

The New Radicals were an American rock band active in the late 1990s, centered on frontman Gregg Alexander, who wrote and produced all of their songs and was the sole constant member.

Tired of touring and promotional interviews, Alexander disbanded the group in mid-1999 before the release of their second single.

The Format

The Format was an indie pop band formed by Arizona natives Nate Ruess and Sam Means. The band announced a hiatus on February 4, 2008.

Tsunami Bomb

Tsunami Bomb was a punk rock band from Petaluma, California that formed in 1998 and broke up in October 2005.

Atmosphere

Yeah, you all know them. This is my favorite version of my favorite song off the most recent album. It's a live version of "Music Box," and I think the pace of the live performance really makes it - the recording doesn't have enough in it.

What a cool performance...it just drips real, from the bare-bones performance to the story in the song (you know this little girl). Awesome.

No Posin'

My friend representing the big A in Altavista sent me this artist Matt Posner today. I don't know too much about him except he is from Southfield MI. Its a mix between pop and hip hop. Overall from what i've heard it seems pretty upbeat and good feel good party music. On March 1st 2009, Mike released his first mixtape, A Matter of Time, with DJ Benzi and Don Cannon. This one goes out to the Conductor.

Cooler than Me


Evil Woman

Throw Stones At Glasvegas

Oh hell, I’m bored and feeling generous today.

Check out Glasvegas…

The album get monotonous but these two standout.

Discover Discovery

Last night I was out at a little house party, yes, I was out on a week night. ..

Side story: It is “beer and nachos week” at the boathouse, which means going out every night and compromising all the training we have done in the last year. It is always the week after Canadian Henley

Anyways… so back to the party, this chick puts on her iPod and a song comes on that I know all the lyrics to, but still have no idea what it is. I finally give in and look at the iPod. I’ll have you know I hate doing this; hate, hate, hate it!!! I want people looking at my iPod! Guess what, I still have no clue who it is. Then another song comes on by the same band and I know all the lyrics again, but don’t know how. So I send a quick text to myself of the band so I can do some research at work. The next morning I searched in my iTunes for the band and nothing came up, so then off to the great internet I went. The second I saw the album art I remembered… When I was in my huge Vampire Wknd kick I wanted more music by them and I discovered this young side project called Discovery with the guys from Ra Ra (just checked my gmail and I was sending the link around in Febuary). At the time it was just a few demos (which is what I heard on the iPod) and now it is a full album. Granted the demos ended up being the best part, I still think it is worth to post here.

Discovery – Self Titled

Hook: Osaka Loop Line
Line: Orange Shirt
Sinker: So Insane

Can You Discover? Is a cover of Ra Ra’s Can You See? Kinda funky.

Amp and Del

Here is a quickie for missing last week. I was up in Canada, giving them some U.S.A. lovin’
Amplive remixed Radiohead’s “In Rainbows”, the album is free in the website
http://www.onesevensevensix.com/amplive/
First time I heard this remix I was instantly blown away… plus it has Del, and well, he is just rad.

Amplive - Video Tapez

Matt & Kim

This song is "the one from the Bacardi commercial" and is awesome.

Matt & Kim - Daylight

My Favorite, though, is definitely "Yeah Yeah;" check it out below:

It's From Some Movie

My friend was watching me try to write for this thing and suggested her new favorite song of the moment; it's from some movie apparently. Give it a little time to build up, and it's not bad at all...check it out:



This next one was in Rolling Stone and actually turned out pretty good...reminds me of The Shins:



Have I posted this one yet? Cuz it's awesome:

Bang!

While I feel like I am constantly telling you to, “go see this band!” If Bang Camaro ever plays near you and you don’t go, I will duct tape headphones to your ear playing Creed on repeat. Formed in the city by the dirty water (AKA Boston), their uniqueness spawns from the chaos that is there vocals, if you want to call it that. The bands forming members are shredding metal heads and rather than taking a back seat to some glam rocked singer, they put the singer in the back of the stage, behind the drummer, 12 of them… So here is your layout: two leads out front wailing away, standing on the monitors, bassist chillin on the side and drummer in the center. They then take their buddies from college or even from opening bands and have them do the vocals chorus style. It makes for an AWESOME show.

Hook – Push Push Lady Lightning
Line – Bang Camaro
Sinker – Swallow The Razor

Their second album is good, doesn’t offer anything new, which is good!

Videos are just to illustrate what the shows are like...

Madcon: Norse Hip-Hop?

I apologize for not being up to date with this stuff, crazy work schedule this month. Fun stories though: watched former Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White do a hand-stand, found a place in Chicago that makes amazing crab cakes, and met 1980's rockstar Eddie Money... and in case you were wondering, the guy can still rock. But I also happened upon this great band that you all need to listen to.

Their name is Madcon and they're from Norway. I'm not sure how stacked the Norwegian music scene is, but apparently these guys are sitting at the top of it. If you've been watching HBO recently, you might recognize their single "Beggin'" which has been featured in their summer advertising and is how I first heard them. The song is infectious.

Wikipedia says the band has been around since '92, so something tells me there is more to the band's discography than the 4-song EP. But if you're looking for some chill summer hip-hop, I suggest checking it out. As for the whole Norway thing, I honestly thought it was Will.I.Am when I first heard it, so I will go ahead and assume that all Viking Hip-Hop sounds like this.

BEGGIN' VIDEO

Where's the music???

No ipod or hard drive, and my internent is broken...the joys of moving. The sad part is that it has been about 3 weeks.

What surprised me, though, was how cut-off from music I feel without those things; all I have is...the radio!

We all know how much songs on the radio can suck, but there have been a few good ones recently, thanks to Frisco's 105.3, as good of a modern rock station as I have ever come across (although there are TONS of commercials).

Anyways, here are a few good ones pulled off the airwaves:

Manchester Orchestra - Friends

Perfect for a summer day with the windows down

Anberlin - The Feel Good Drag

Not the biggest fan of this band, but this song rocks

Metric - Help I'm Alive

Dear Rob, sorry they are on the radio

Rise Against - Savior

Favorite of the newest album. Sorry for the cheese-faced vid

Order of the...

During my trip down south (to NY) last weekend, my ears had the pleasure of happening upon this band. They are still new to me and I have yet to explore their previous albums (’04, ’06) which were released abroad, but so far so good. It is a pretty easy listen and a solid album all around, good for pressing play and walking away from your stereo, not worrying about ruining your hook up session with a weird spoken interlude or some experimental track. Phoenix hails from France but sounds a lot like a fusion of The Shins and The Sounds (maybe some vampire too...). Did I mention that I cant distinguish between their live and studio recordings...

Pheonix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (2009)

Hook: 1901
FUN REMIX
Line: Listomania
Sinker: Girlfriend