Saturday, May 18, 2013
Oceansize - One Day All This Could Be Yours
My friend Jacob just got me into Oceansize. This particular track struck me - as I was listening to it the very first time - as amazing.
The Game of Love - Michelle Branch and Carlos Santana
Most would laugh to know I really dig this song, however I have two words in my defense: New Radicals. What the hell does the short-lived project of producer/songwriter extraordinaire Gregg Alexander have to do with this? Well, I too have biases against both the self-indulgent noodler Carlos Santana and Disney chick Michelle Branch, but suspend those biases for a moment and listen, really listen to the song (if you're a New Radical fan - if you're not go ahead and laugh at me and skip the rest of this entry 'cuz none nothing here is going to help). Sound familiar? That's because Alexander wrote this song and it sounds exactly like something that could have been on the New Radicals one and only masterpiece album Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too. Sure Ms. Branch's voice is great but a bit sugary, and Carlos does the whole na-na-na, na-na-na thing, but the New Radical's imprint is there. I believe there's a version of Alexander doing this floating around on the youtubes, but it's stripped back demo production does it no credit. This is the kind of thing that, if not full-out produced by that man, needed to be put through the pop machine.
Queens of the Stone Age - My God is the Sun Music Video
I'll admit, at this point I'm barely listening to these Queens tracks, as I sorely want ...Like Clockwork to be an album experience and all of these early released tracks are working against that. Smart in the age of itunes and youtube, but I'm old school and very album-centric, thus I'll post these for others' listening pleasure, but I'm trying (very hard might I add) to abstain from consuming any of this until I hold the record in my hand, can sit down with a good head of smoke and critically listen to this thing from start to finish. A friend messaged me recently saying he'd heard a leak and, to quote, "nothing can prepare you for it." I'm also not one for leaks or torrent sites, so I'm biting my nails and grinding my teeth until June 4th - which really isn't so very far away in normal time.
However while waiting for a new Queens of the Stone Age record, it might as well be A MILLION FUCKING YEARS!!!
Z-Rock Hawaii
Earlier in the week Mr. Brown sent me a text alerting me to the fact that Dick Trickle passed. He spurred me to dig into the Ween catalogue and pump Stroker Ace - the song that really is the only reason why I know who Mr. Trickle was. This put Ween back in my thoughts, and led to my breaking out some White Pepper as I lay around reading on this lazy afternoon. While browsing through my nearly twenty Ween CD's (proper releases, odds-n-sods assemblies I made back during the Napster days and all of their Chocodog releases. I think the only two things I'm missing is, inexcusably, the proper 12 Golden Country Greats - which I always forget I'm missing until I go to listen to it because I have a demo version - and the Kostars record they contributed to with members of Luscious Jackson) and I come across Z-Rock Hawaii, the record the Ween Brothers made back in the day with Japanese insanity enclave The Boredoms. The entire thing is a masterpiece from a different world, but these are my two favorite songs from it.
People of the North (Oneida)
There are a ton of great band's I got into through my wife when I first met her. Helen Stellar, The Coral, 16 Horsepower, Add N to X, White light Motorcade to name a few. Oh, and Oneida, the shifting, guttural attack on order and sanity that gave us modern classics such as Enemy Hogs and A Place Called El Shaddai's. I've lost track of Oneida in recent years, so it was with great interest that I stumbled upon People of the North, an Oneida off-shoot band who are prepped to release new record Sub Contra on June 11th via Thrill Jockey.
People of the North are Kid Millions and Bobby Matador, and while I couldn't find any tracks from Sub Contra the above track is from 2010's Deep Tissue by the band. Nice. Also, here's an oldie but a goodie from Oneida:
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