For Memorial Day I'm drinking, singing along with my speakers, and reflecting on some of the finer thangs. Booze, kicks, and televised sporting events. RIP Blackhawks and Brewers. These trifles often pale in comparison to the finest jams.
Sorry Mr. Dylan, I'll get to you some week. No rush. My ears were busy digesting (or being digested by) the White Album. It's been years since my first listen and the revival has been a mind-bending pleasure. Dopeness. Do do do do do do, oh yeah.
Dank nugget of wisdom from Wikipedia/Rolling Stone:
According to Lennon, the title came from the cover of a gun magazine that producer George Martin showed him: "I think he showed me a cover of a magazine that said 'Happiness Is a Warm Gun.' It was a gun magazine. I just thought it was a fantastic, insane thing to say. A warm gun means you just shot something."
Hailing from the land down under comes the Avalanches A mix up band bringing pleasure to your ears. Often the music reminds me of sitting around in the Carribean enjoying the sunlight.
I've written reviews of new releases a few times on TSAD (here, here, and here), but today I'm upping the ante. A bunch of great/interesting music has been released since last Friday, so let's begin.
Passion Pit - Manners Say hello to 2009's version of MGMT. We may be the last music blog on earth to write about these guys, even though their album just came out on Tuesday. Passion Pit's deeply textured electro-pop first caught the industry's attention with their release of the EP Chunk of Change last year. Manners features fast paced beats, solid bass lines, high pitched vocals, and hooks that will have your head bobbing within seconds (sound familiar?). But this is not a retread of MGMT's Oracular Spectacular. It's more focused, sticking to the electro-pop and not descending into weird psychadelia. Sure it's a little goofy, but I can't get enough of it. And at the end of the day, wouldn't you rather listen to catchy electro stuff instead of hookless stuff from Animal Collective and TV on the Radio? I know I would. Listen to the first two tracks and I think you'll agree. If you only check out one album that I write about today, make sure this is it.
Eminem - Relapse Eminem is back with his first new release in nearly five years (disclaimer: I am huge fan of Eminem's first three albums, I think they are as good as rap gets). The title of this release gives you an idea of what's to come. Em spends a lot of time discussing his valium addiction while still staying true to his roots: violence, crazy stories, and celebrity bashing. The beats are great (dre never disappoints), the flow is still tremendous, but I just can't get past his delivery on this album. WTF is he doing with his voice on so many of these tracks? That weird Jamaican wannabe voice sucks. Eminem's regular delivery is second to none, he has no need to do this weird shit. What happened to this guy? There are some highlights: Crack a Bottle is a great party song and will be on my next playlist, and Bagpipes From Baghdad, Stay Wide Awake and a couple others are listenable. But Stay Wide Awake is a perfect example of his delivery problems: the parts where he raps with his normal delivery are great, the other parts, not so much. At the end of the day, Relapse is better than Encore but not even in the same ballpark as Slim Shady, Marshall Mathers, and Eminem Show.
Iron & Wine - Around the Well Around the Well is a double disc release of rarities, b-sides, and songs that got cut from Sam Beam's albums to date. More Iron & Wine is never a bad thing. The album has a nice symmetry: the first disc is comprised of older Iron & Wine tracks from their lo-fi days, and the second disc features their more recent work. Serious Iron & Wine fans (and I'm one of those) will recognize a few tracks. Hickory is a classic track from their lo-fi days, Such Great Heights is a Postal Service cover that appeared on the Garden State soundtrack, and The Trapeze Singer is often the pinnacle of Iron & Wine's live shows (and my favorite song by them, it's great to see this song make it onto an official release). Some guitar riffs on the album are very similar to other songs that actually made the previous releases, which is probably why these tracks were left off. That doesn't make the songs bad though. Sam Beam never disappoints. If you like Iron & Wine, this is a must have.
Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood - Live at Madison Square Garden The Blind Faith band mates reunite at MSG to play tracks from their 1969 self-titled release as well as tracks from both artists' extensive libraries. Putting one of the great rock guitarists on stage with one of the great rock keyboardists (and my personal favorite singer) can't be bad, right? It isn't.
Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown Green Day's latest release following the widely beloved American Idiot. I personally am not a big Green Day fan, but I can tell that this is an album that will be well liked by people who are into their stuff. Not as strong as American Idiot, but good stuff nonetheless.
A shorter post this week to get you to the long weekend that seemingly will never come. Meet Antoine Dufour, an artist on Candyrat Records, and arguably one of the best guitarists I've come across, and most talented that I've had the pleasure of seeing live.
Thanks to YouTube, you can see him live too. Here are some stellar videos to enjoy this Thursday:
And what I believe to be his most technically difficult song:
I’d like to keep the bluegrass train rollin’ right along this week with one of my favorite small-time bluegrass bands. I’ve seen the Hackensaw Boys several times in concert, and from what I can tell they are six young guys who really love the music they play and have a lot of fun playing it. They’re a lot of fun to watch and I think their nicknames give good insight into the type of fellas they are (Cousin Spits, Baby J, Salvage, Mahlon, Four, and Plang Tang). Last time I saw them they all jumped down off of stage and finished off the set playing amongst the crowd, even letting audience members help out a bit. They are all very talented, and put on a very high energy set. It doesn’t take them long to get the whole crowd dancing. They have been around for a while and have put out a number of albums. I’ve only got two of then, but enjoy them both.
...This is a great recording from one of their live shows, absolutely love it!
Festival campsites and concert parking lots are prime locations for finding new music. The sheer volume of like minded people you are bound to run into means that your odds of hearing something new and interesting are extremely good. It is also very likely that there will be a handful of diligent promoters, artists and street teamers at these places handing out samples of their band's music.
An encounter with one of these folks at my second 10,000 Lakes Festival in the summer of 2004 facilitated the discovery of a band called New Monsoon. The disc was a recording of their performance earlier that year at Last Concert Cafe in Houston, TX. After plugging it into the CD player right then and there it didn't take long for us to realize that these guys had something special going.
In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a big fan of jam bands and New Monsoon fits that niche extremely well. But that's not all they have going for them. I also really enjoy bluegrass and occasionally play some banjo. My favorite New Monsoon songs are mostly banjo driven and adopt the best elements of bluegrass to create upbeat, extremely danceable music.
A great example of that fusion is the song "Daddy Longlegs", which also happens to be the first New Monsoon song I ever heard. Here is a two part video of them performing it.
Like any good jam band, however, New Monsoon also like to groove. Here is an older performance (2003) of an excellent song "Double Clutch".
My favorite commercial release of theirs is their "Live at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival" recording and is definitely a good introduction to the energy and versatility of the band. The opening track, "Mountain Air" definitely rips and can be heard by clicking below.
Next would have to be their most recent studio album "V" which is their best in studio work to date. One of my favorites from that album is "Romp" another high energy instrumental that you can hear by clicking below.
For more songs these guys, check out the plethora of tracks that are available at lala.com below.
Some albums get you every time, no matter how many times you've heard it. For me, that moment happens each time I rediscover Pink Floyd's 'Animals.' I rediscovered 'Animals' last week and needed to take the chance with my Monday spot to either help others rediscover or discover, depending on your level of Floyd experience, what is my favorite Floyd album.
Comprised of only five tracks total, I have included all of them with this post. Exceptional work in my opinion work on this 1977 release, as this is their final release pre-Wall.
Have a listen to the album in it's entirety below, although Dogs is split due to length. If you only have time for one, go with Pigs (Three Different Ones)
