An amazing transformation

It is true that many artists through the ages have radically redefined themselves, yet I believe that none have quite as profoundly as Alex Ebert. A few years ago, I had the fortune of seeing Ima Robot (a poppy dance rock band) live. Fast forward to this fall, at the treasure island music festival, and I'm watching Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, what I can only explain as a hippie commune that decided to write and play songs together. And then - here's the punchline - I discover that the frontman for both bands is...the same man! This long-bearded, dread-locked hippie is the pop-rocker I had seen just 3 years ago. And the music is just as different as Alex Ebert's appearance. And I just happen to be obsessed with both bands right now.

As per our new blog rules, I will not post links to the youtube videos. But I strongly encourage you to look them up yourselves and witness this astounding transformation for yourselves.

Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros - Home

Ima Robot - Creeps Me Out

And just for good measure, I'm also currently obsessed with Thao with the Get Down Stay Down:

Thao with the Get Down Stay Down - Bag of Hammers

Shake! Shake! Shake!

Every Woman, Every Man

Ooh I have stage fright, there's members of the public watching (or not). Will we show up on Hypemachine do you think? I imagine my first song to be quite Hypemachine-y, it's very avant garde in its way, vocally like White Magic but without the mysticism. I could listen to it on repeat all day. Brendan will no doubt accuse me of being a hipster (again) for posting it.

Tune-Yards – Sunlight (Bird-Brains, 2009)
"I could be the sunlight in your eyes." Kills me that line.
Buy it.

There was an earlier mention of Discovery, whose album I love very much in a way that has surprised me. I had considered doing my post-before-last solely on them, but when I couldn't even decide on three songs to post let alone one, I gave up. So here I go again:

Discovery – Can You Discover? (Discovery, 2009)
Buy it.

I'm a real sucker for harmonies, I'm talking anything with more than two vocal parts - choirs, barber shop quartets, jingles, The Andrews Sisters, Motown, Queen, and as I recently rediscovered, The Housemartins' 'Caravan Of Love'. I saw the frankly quite odd music video on late-late-late night TV and went out and bought a beat up record for twice what it was worth ($4 as opposed to $2). I've decided to learn all the words and sing it to my kids one day...

The Housemartins – Caravan Of Love (Caravan Of Love, 1986)
Buy it.

The people speak, I hear them say "you won't last another day"

Autumn aka "Fall" seems to always make me think of this band:

Acid House Kings - Do What You Wanna Do

Secondly, I had the grand pleasure of seeing the Happy Boys live in concert the other weekend. They have a great new website now - here. In this way I discovered that they have several songs that I'd never heard before. This is one of my favs:

The Happy Boys - Back In Time

And, of course, it's just been Halloween. This is my current fav Halloween song. Written by Burt Bacharach:

The 5 Blobs - The Blob

Fresh Up Outta Gary, Indiana

Seeing as we just went public and I've been guilt-stricken by my not posting anything except ridiculous/amazing sand-art clips in clear violation of policy, I'm gonna come correct with three amazing songs by one amazing rapper.
Freddie Gibbs is a weed-smoking, gun-totin' gangsta rapper without a major label deal. This places him in the 2nd percentile in terms of 'chances of being amazing', but he's defied the odds and is clearly the messiah.
He's put out a few mixtapes, and the two I've heard have been just perfect. The first is called (and this you have to respect just for its cock-eyed audacity) The Miseducation of Freddie Gibbs, and follows a fairly trad mixtape setup, in terms of being a mix of original tracks and some versions on other beats. I'm mainly totally in awe of it because it opens with a song called GI Pride which is basically an enormous jack of the triumphant chords of What a Feeling, bka the theme from Flashdance. He tells this incredible gutter history of his piece-of-shit town (called Gary. Gary!) over the most aspirational white soundtrack, the same one which launched Bruckheimer/Simpson onto an unsuspecting world. it's too cool. Anyone who's ridden around in a car with me lately knows how it goes. I probably haven't listened to any single song more this year.
Even better than Miseducation... is its follow-up, entitled Midwestgangstaboxframecadillacmuzik. It's still resolutely unglamourous (guests with names like D-Edge, Pill and California Pudd help with that). This time there are no re-cuts, instead the beats are slowed to a crawl like your mind fogged up with good weed. County Bounce is pretty much perfect, nostalgic, hazily twinkling its way amidst a sea of bass and falsetto vocals. But Freddie's a hard man, so it never loses its anchor in the streets and corners of a dead end town.
Last up is a pretty dirty rap over the immortal '93 Til Infinity instrumental. It's not so great as the first two, but shows what a fantastic rapper he is when the BPM rises, and I could listen to that beat roll forever. Freddie Gibbs. Remember the name, dudes. And if you like it go get Midwest... here. It's free and legal, unlike almost anything described within.

Freddie Gibbs – GI Pride

Freddie Gibbs – County Bounce

Freddie Gibbs – How We Do ('93 Til Infinity Freestyle #3)

Direct proper downloads using opendrive.com. Seems very good thus far.

Initial Public Offering

People.

Due to overwhelming albeit not-quite unanimous opinion, this blog shall be a public blog effective immediately. tell your friends, tell you grandparents.

Other things that I've heard, and I tend to agree, are that:
-this is a blog about music. Post mp3s, not links to YouTube videos (please). (Unless of course it's youtube in addition to an mp3, in order to emphasize the point, a la this post..)
-this is a blog about music. Post links that with one click will allow one to download a track, not a link to another site that will allow one to download a track after one waits for 30s or pays some money (please).

I won't be enforcing the latter two particularly, but please. It's not hard to do this. As has previously been mentioned, DropBox (https://www.getdropbox.com/ ) makes it ridiculously convenient to do this. Admittedly it requires some software installation so may not suit everyone. Alternatives to DropBox include (and here I'm just checking old posts from the blog):
-storing it on the RealGroove website
-OpenDrive (formerly boxstr)
-and i'm sure there are others. ...

ANYWAYS

RAD I LOVE YOU ALL,
keep on blogging
,b

P.S. I strongly believe that a site like this will encourage people to explore more music and discover new artists so if any artist or the people at Blogger think differently please contact me first before suing me or taking down this blog! (brendankayes at gmail)

all up in the blogs

Indefensible delay, but here’s three for august, september and october:

Metronomy – Not Made For Love

After totally ruining any chance of balance in my favourite songs of last year list (heartbreaker/a thing for me/my heart rate rapid) metronomy came out from some sort of retirement break up scandal with a total 2009 classic. This song is every reason why i love the XX album – but no matter how good that album might be, no individual song reaches these depths of r&B indie (without the fake folk) synthetic depression optimism amazing. When we were on the beach that night...

Not Made For Love.mp3

Mariah Carey & Gucci Mane – Obsessed

SO DAMN MASSIVE. With some kind of liquid swords synth stabs meets trunk rattlin’ ciara at her most thrilling. Who would have thought a Mariah Carey diss song on Eminem would be anything other than unbearable rubbish rather than the most exciting thing you will hear in a club this year. And it definitely helps that Gucci mane gets all jah rule nonsensical barking over the chorus. Lyin’ that you sexin’ me...mariah you on fire.

Obsessed _Feat Gucci Mane_.mp3

Vybz Kartel - Yuh Love

I don’t know if this is quite the pick from what has been a documentary worthy return to form for vybz kartel in 2009 – but this typically weird love song is definitely on serious repeat. Of course vybz hides his least misogynistic rubbish lyric (not saying much) on a production by the relatively unknown brooklyn producer dre skull rather than waiting approximately 2 days for the next big jamaican production from stephen “di genius” mcgregor or russian. You and me baby, it ain’t no lie...

Yuh Love.mp3