our new home

http://thefridge.org/

The future is here, my dear

Ok, so I trust that we can all agree that Band of Horses is band of the decade, Infinite Arms album of the year, and Blue Beard song of the month, but I can't just keep blabbing on about them indefinitely.

Therefore, I would like to be the Yang to Leonie's Yin, and offer some fairly epically non-morose songs for your listening pleasure.

The Melodians - You Have Caught Me

(Ben King and) Grand Rapids - Black River

Spoon - You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb

Infinite Arms/Infinite Light

I know I haven't shown nuff love for ComeinThrees these last couple months, not that I haven't been reading and digesting, but it sounds like we're over huh B-Diddy?
So I'll post one last time, and make it a double barkeep. Yes they mostly err on the side of epically morose, but you know. C'est la vie pour moi, c'est pas une grosse affaire.

Bye bye, it's been fun!

"you are the starshine, do you realise? are you the girlfriend of boys who tell you lies?"
Redd Kross – Pay For Love (Phaseshifter, 1993)

"to be of use, to be of some hard simple undeniable use"
Smog – To Be Of Use (Red Apple Falls, 1997)
Buy

"what a way to start a fire, what a way to break it in! your kiss could have killed me, baby"
Scout Niblett ft. Bonnie Prince Billy – Kiss (This Fool Can Die Now, 2007)
Buy

"all my life where I can't take you on my own, I always told you I'd be here."
Warpaint – Krimson (Exquisite Corpse, 2009)
Buy

"your careful calculations keep us riding in the wind"
Lightning Dust – Waiting On The Sun To Rise (Infinite Light, 2009)
Buy

"and something happened on the night I last drank beer with you in the neon glow."
Band Of Horses – Blue Beard (Infinite Arms, 2010)
Buy

Fixin' a drink in the morning, / with the way things are

Check it out:

http://stream.bandofhorses.com/

P.P.S. I think I'm gonna take a break from this gig for a bit. My DropBox account got shut down for too much use, presumably Chinese (see comments on recent posts) internet-crawling mp3-downloading spam bots. Plus I was recently put onto last.fm, and lastpandora.com, which kinda seem game-changing. I need to rethink things a little bit. In the meantime, I'm gonna listens me to a lot of Band Of Horses...

i knew that this was cursed

so after being suitably suspicious of the fake folk brooklyn indie attack over the past few years. i fall head over heels (at least this month) for the seemingly intolerable art students do southern 60s twee pop whatevs. secretly hawt like true blood.

you can download the whole 3 track EP for free at http://cults.bandcamp.com/album/cults-7

or here at comeinthrees.amazing

1. Go Outside

2. Most Wanted

3. The Curse

It began in Africa-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca

Highlight of this month in the sonics department was attending the MtyMx festival in Mexico. Highlight of the MtyMx festival in the sonics department was Andrew W K. Why didn't anyone impress on me the urgency with which I ought to seek out his music, a ComeInThrees post perhaps? Probably because no one's posting anything at all of late (a single tear trails down his cheek).* Ready To Die, I Love NYC, Party Hard, the list goes on and on... It's the most relevant electronic-keyboard-hard-rock I've heard in a long time.

But today I want to talk about something else. Duncan once hassled me that I ought to change my name to "The Very Best Of Paul Simon", after I opened one of my few live performances with Paul Simon's "The Boxer". After Scottie B and King Tut came out with their amazing Baltimore club version of Paul Simon's You Can Call Me Al, Dunc suggested that my version of Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes would not be long in following. But a couple of weeks ago at a club with Rudy, I discovered that it's already been done, actually way back in 2006. "She makes the sign of a teaspoon, he makes the sign of a wave", indeed...

The second track I have for you is from a compilation I found out about while at the MtyMx festival mentioned above. I quite like it, but otherwise don't know anything about the artist.

Thirdly, and edging out Andrew W K for the win, this track by The Killers has been floating around in my head, recently, not totally sure why, maybe something about the line "under the heat of the southwest sun".

Enjoy!

Tangoterje - Diamond Dubs

Los Amparito - Por Medio De La Lectura ("I Have A Photogram Of You" At-At Records compilation available for free download)

The Killers - Neon Tiger (buy Day & Age)

*P.S. Seriously tho, I'm trying not to let this blog die, I think it's fun and several of you have told me that you think it's a good idea. But the stats kind of speak for themselves:

Month: Posts:
Dec 09 - 2
Jan 10 - 2
Feb 10 - 2
Mar 10 - 2
..
i.e. if you read this blog please post to this blog! It'll make it way better! thanks

When Faceless and Anonymous come to beat down your door...

Ok now we're down to business

I recently realized that Neil Young has released two albums since his massive Living With War. Where have I been? To save you the trouble, I'd say that Fork In The Road is definitely better skipped, but Chrome Dreams II actually has quite a lot of depth to it, quite liking it. This track appears on my upcoming California Soft Rock mixtape, if I ever get around to finishing it :)

Also recently bought the Monsters Of Folk (a collaboration between My Morning Jacket, Bright Eyes, and M. Ward) album, that's also growing on me like crazy. I think I was listening to it when I got my first speeding ticket ever recently, so unfortunately it kind of reminds me of that. But I love this track.

Last but not least, Mike Stinson just released his third album! Heaven.

(I hope you like mopey country/folk music)

Neil Young - The Way (buy Chrome Dreams II)

Monsters Of Folk - Magic Marker (buy the album)

Mike Stinson - Square With The World (buy The Jukebox In Your Heart)

choon

so for quite a while i've been secretly into this music coming out of the deepest darkest clubs of sheffield. or at least that's the way that bassline/niche has been sold on wikipedia. actually wikipedia says the scene is associated violence and gang culture, which is hard to believe for music that is basically super slow R&B vocals and ridiculously heavy sped up basslines. can't really imagine people getting violent while "baby, can you kiss me?" blares across the speakers.

"bassline (dance music)" feels slightly like a guilty pleasure and reminds of reggaeton in it's lazily repetitive (hypnotic) formula - but you also get the sneaky suspicion that one or a couple of tracks could blow the whole thing up rather than consign it to the damned history of weird uk club sub-genres. or at least it's worth keeping an ear out for so you might just end up with a hell of a night out dancing in the right london club.

here's some recent songs, at least one of which shows some promise to stray from the formula:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/73328588473bd01a/

1. Addictive - Candy Rain

2. Addictive - Right There (Burga Boy Remix)

3. TS7 - End with Goodnight

4. Delinquent - Playing Around (Dub)

Campus A Low Hum 2010

Hi all, apologies for the delay.

At the end of January I had the grand pleasure of attending Campus A Low Hum 2010. I can't say enough good things about it, and you should definitely try to attend next year, if you have any way of getting to New Zealand, etc.

A couple of highlights:

Gaywyre

The heaviest of metals, from Wellington, New Zealand

So So Modern

This was one of the first songs I heard when I got to the Camp. It made me think of what it might sound like if Justice did a cover of Eye Of The Tiger. They're also from Wellington, New Zealand

AND - (not related to Camp a Low Hum)

I just last night was told about a band called Surfer Blood. They are literally blowing my brain right now...

Gaywyre - Battleshark (buy the EP)

So So Modern - Berlin (apparently "Crude Futures" is not yet available in the USA. But do buy it if you're in NZ or the UK)

Surfer Blood - Swim (buy the album)

Best albums of the decade?

My friend Dan S. (danschwartzblog.com) is wondering what people's top 10 albums of the years 2000-2009 are. Comments please

If your brother won't rock then your sister will

I've had a song from Dan's Rock & Roll mix (http://danschwartzblog.com/post/192889087/rock-roll) stuck in my head for maybe two months now. Well overdue for posting here. (Wo, that makes me feel old - Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Cochran - tells me that Eddie Cochran died at the tender age of 21! Also of note is the fact that Dave Dee of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick, and Titch, learned to play guitar on the guitar of Eddie Cochran's that was impounded after his death by automobile accident).

It somehow makes me think of a 1950s Ramones, I guess it is Rock & Roll after all so shouldn't surprise me so much. Consequently I am drawn to the melodic similarities between C'mon Everybody and I Wanna Be Sedated.

Eddie Cochran - C'mon Everybody (buy it)

The Ramones - I Wanna Be Sedated (buy it)

...and a new one just begun

In Josh K-sky's minimalist format:

Elephant Man - Sorrow to the World (edited short by yours truly because it's funny only at first)

Micachu - Calculator
(Buy it)

and, not least,

The Books - Take Time (look out for their track "A Dark Freezing Night" when their next album arrives)
(Buy it)

The Books are a guitar and cello and found sound duo from the northeastern USA that I find strangely relaxing, like riding on a train. They take audio and/or video footage, which they (digitally) cut up and splice, and combine with their own cello/guitar/vox, to create new experiences. As such, their stuff forms a considerably more coherent whole when you watch the video along with the audio:



anyways,
hope you all have fun new years'

Christmas

This time, you really did it.

Making believe He was just another baby boy.

Even so...

I don't intend to spend Christmas without you.

(see also)

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

A most excellent cover

Kylie makes this song her own, yet retains the spirit of the original. Good job.