BLOGSCHU

Eclectic Music Monday Mix

Here's an eclectic mix of tunes for your Music Monday enjoyment...

“Belong” from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart reminds me of the pop songs that I used to enjoy in the 90’s. You can download a free session from this NYC indie group over at Daytrotter.

For the last few months, I’ve been hearing about Motopony from some of my trusted resources for indie music. This group definitely falls under the “folksters from the Northwest” category but there is something about their sound that is distinctive. Their self-titled debut album drops tomorrow but you can download this gem, “King of Diamonds,” from their MySpace page or from iTunes Indie Spotlight. I think this is one of those albums that I am going to be enjoying from beginning to end.

Brooklyn hip-hop collective Nine 11 Thesaurus released their debut album, Ground Zero Collectives, on April 26th. This group grew out of an innovative project called "Representing NYC" that pairs Brooklyn public-school students with independent musicians. You can download “16 Bars” from SPIN Magazine's Free June Download on iTunes.

The prolific artist Moby has just released his latest album, Destroyed, which he describes as "broken down melodic electronic music for empty cities at 2 a.m." The album is part of a multimedia art project documenting the isolated life of a traveling musician. This song “Lie Down in Darkness” certainly captures that wistful, nostalgic feeling. If you like Moby, you will also enjoy his recent Guest DJ stint on NPR's All Songs Considered.

KCRW, our local independent radio station here in LA, is such an incredible resource for music. I subscribe to their “Today’s Top Tune” service which delivers a free song directly to my email inbox every day. I don't always love the song choices but they do expose me to music that I otherwise wouldn't find on my own. Such is the case with this last song, “Representing Memphis” from soul legend Booker T. Jones' new album The Road From Memphis. On this song, you'll find Matt Berninger, singer for The National, and Sharon Jones of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. The Roots provide back up on the entire album.

I'm going to be out of town celebrating my sister's baby shower with my entire family next weekend so I will be taking a break from Music Monday. I hope that you enjoy the inauguration of summer over the Memorial Day Weekend. The next time you'll be hearing from me will be post-Huichica. I can't wait!

Can't see the playlist below? Click here.

Legal Lyrics

I’m not typically a lyrics gal. When listening to music, I respond more to the melody of a song rather than to its words. That being said, sometimes I want to know what a song is trying to convey beyond the musical notes or I want to get the words right when I sing them in the shower. And let me tell you, this extra level of confirmation is sometimes critical; I won’t humiliate myself here by telling you what I USED to sing to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” There’s a reason Al Yankovich made a parody of the song’s slurried lyrics. 

I miss the old days of music packaging when record and CD liner notes included all of the lyrics. I distinctly remember sitting on the floor by our record player listening to the entire side of an album while reading along with the words printed on the record sleeve. Nowadays, it’s not quite so easy. When I buy a song on iTunes, it downloads with only basic information and the album artwork--no lyrics. To add them, I have to manually enter the words into the empty “Lyrics” section that can be accessed through the “Get Info” command. Tedious! I usually end up searching for the lyrics online where I am directed to an amateur website with incorrect or incomplete lyrics and pop-up ads promising to help me lose my tummy fat. I have often wondered why iTunes doesn’t simply embed the lyrics directly in the metadata of the song.

The answer is pretty simple: lyrics are protected by copyright law and you must have the copyright-holder’s permission to reproduce them, even Steve Jobs can't trump that. Lyrics are to a downloaded song what words are to a published book: I can’t post a copy of “The Shining” on my website and I can’t post the lyrics to “99 Luftballons” there either. For years, songwriters and their publishers have battled to shut down websites that illegally make money posting lyrics. Unwittingly, I have contributed to that by using some of those very sites myself. And I'm not alone, "lyrics" is one of the most searched-for terms on Google. Now I know to use LyricFind or MetroLyrics because copyright holders accrue royalty revenue when their work is displayed on websites that use these services.

I feel better knowing that I can legally find the lyrics to songs. I hope that you’ll do the same. Or maybe we can just do what Noah Lennox from Animal Collective advises in a recent interview for New York Magazine: “One of the reasons that I don’t often release lyrics, at least not right away, is that when you don’t have meanings shoved in your face, you find your own way to it.” There is something to be said for that.

I hope that you'll find your own way thru the Music Monday picks this week:

It’s been awhile since I’ve mentioned it but hopefully you have not forgotten that HUICHICA is just around the corner! Yesterday, GunBun tweeted an exciting announcement: Daytrotter will be recording and filming this year’s festival. This is a big deal for Huichica. Daytrotter is a unique and fantastic website that provides minimalist recordings from popular and upcoming indie music acts. You can read more about it here and here. This Monday's first song is from one of my favorite bands right now, Dawes. This recording of “Western Skyline” was performed in a freezing cold, open-air barn as part of Daytrotter’s “Barnstormer” tour in October 2009.

“Circuital” is from the forthcoming album by the highly regarded, country-rock band My Morning Jacket. This band puts on an incredible live show - just ask anyone who was at their epic, four-hour, thirty-five song Bonnaroo set in 2008. If you want to experience them for yourself, you should check out their upcoming touring schedule. 

The band Ivan & Alyosha takes its name from characters in Dostoevsky’s “Brother Karamazov” but don’t worry, their music is much more approachable than their esoteric namesake implies. “Fathers Be Kind” is from this Seattle-based group's second album.

The cover for the upcoming debut album from Washed Out (aka Ernest Greene) is quite striking. Greene was discovered by music bloggers a few years ago after releasing music he produced in his bedroom on MySpace. He was recently signed to Sub Pop and “Eyes Be Closed” will be released on Within and Without July 12.

This last song was sent to me from a friend in London. At first, “Another Lost Apache” sounds like a Beach Boys song but just wait, the Fixers make it their own. Their album, Here Comes 2001 So Let’s All Head For The Sun, is not available in the US yet but you can listen to it on their Soundcloud page.

Can't see the playlist below? Click here.

Fifth Decade Excuses

Q: What happens when you combine your brothers and great friends flying into town to completely surprise you + an epic 40th birthday party on the rooftop of a kickass Hollywood hotel?

A: Your Music Monday blog post goes up on a Wednesday instead of a Monday.

Sorry about that! I was simply going to bypass this week entirely but I have been listening to so much good music, I couldn't help myself. I promise a more enlightening post next time but for now my brain cells are still recovering from ushering in my fifth decade. Hope that you enjoy some of my favorite tunes from this past week:

The Antlers' new album Burst Apart dropped this week and it has been garnering positive reviews all over the place. I am a huge fan of their 2009 album Hospice and I'll bet that this one ends up on many Best of 2011 lists. "I Don't Want Love" is about the push and pull of emotions that can torture you in an intense relationship.

The cello is a beautiful, haunting instrument and Ben Sollee has been combining it with his expressive voice and talented song writing skills ever since he was a teenager. Sollee is classically trained but you can hear that he is deeply connected to the mountain music of his hometown in Kentucky. Fun fact: In 2010, Ben and his band launched on a "Ditch the Van" tour where they carried their gear and instruments across the country on bicycles. "Embrace" is from Sollee's new album Inclusions.

When my daughter asked me for some "Numbers in Action" (aka: can I have some money?) I knew that she was a fan of this song that I have been playing around the house. Wiley is a prolific music producer, rapper and recording artist from the UK who is credited as a pioneer of the Grime music genre that is an English derivation of hip hop. The video for this song is quite imaginative.

If you know anything about my musical tastes after a few months of my Music Monday posts, you'll know that I am a sucker for folksy harmonies. Sorry, can't help it. The Wilderness of Manitoba, a band hailing from Toronto, is no exception. I think this song "Summer Fires" is just beautiful. Their first full-length album When You Left the Fire just dropped this week here in the US.

The last time we saw Ra Ra Riot on this blog, they were performing at Gundlach Bundschu! More recently, they remixed the Freelance Whales' song "Hannah" on the Benefit for Japan EP. 100% of the funds raised from the album will be donated to the Japan Society Earthquake Relief Fund. If you'd like to contribute you can purchase it here.

This last song Jack Sparrow is very silly but it made me laugh - especially when I watched the video version from last week's SNL. The Lonely Island (and its most recognized member Adam Samberg) is responsible for one of the few comedy skits that still cracks me up on that show: the hilarious, fake hip-hop digital shorts. Lonely Island's new comedy album Turtleneck & Chain is streaming on NPR and is now available for sale on iTunes and Amazon.

Can't see the playlist below? Click here.

The Beatles' LOVE

It's surreal to be composing this blog post while watching the breaking news that Osama Bin Laden has been killed. Brian Williams on MSNBC just noted that Hitler's death was announced exactly sixty-six years ago on the same day, May 1st. My thoughts are with the thousands of people who lost their lives on 9/11 and the military troops all over the world who continue to fight the wars that were brought on by it.

A big "thank-you" to Jeff for covering Music Monday for me last week. As he noted: yes, I was in Las Vegas but no, I was most definitely not seeing Celine Dion (shudder). Instead I had the pleasure to experience my first Cirque Du Soleil show, The Beatles LOVE. Words cannot begin to express how incredible this show is, I feel like I have discovered The Beatles all over again. The music, the acrobatics, the staging, they all magically combine to whisk you through The Beatles' biography and brilliant musical catalog.

LOVE arose from a personal friendship between George Harrison and Cirque founder Guy Laliberté, though Harrison sadly died before the show was ever performed. The gala opening of LOVE in 2006 drew the biggest reunion of the remaining Beatles "family" since the band broke-up in 1970. At the end of that performance, Paul McCartney went onstage and requested that the crowd give one special round of applause "for John and George." It makes me tear up just thinking about that. If you find yourself in Las Vegas, do yourself a favor and SEE THIS SHOW! 

Is there a current band whose story and catalog could be turned into a Cirque-like show 40 years from now? I have been racking my brain but no one stands out. What do you think? Let me know in the comments section. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

A quick note about my post two weeks ago about airplanes: I am pleased to see that the great comedian Louis C.K. shares my enthusiasm for the miracle of flight. 

Another quick note: the new album Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes drops this Tuesday. It's gonna be a good one. 

Here are some tunes that have been getting heavy rotation on my playlist recently: 

Sorry Foo Fighters, The Beatles' LOVE album has replaced Wasting Light as my "go-to" album this past week. Sir George Martin, producer of nearly all of The Beatles' records, and his son Gils Martin compiled and remixed all of the music for the Cirque show, augmenting the well-known songs with additional instrumentation and vocals taken from original multi-track tapes. This track is a combination of the ode to loneliness Eleanor Rigby and the song Julia that John Lennon dedicated to his mother who was killed by a drunk driver when he was 17. Bummer - due to super stealthy copyright issues Playlist.com wouldn't let me post this song!

This next song, "I Need Your Company," sounds like it comes from the same era as The Beatles but its performer is so new-to-the-scene that he doesn't even have a Wikipedia page! Michael Kiwanuka is a 23-year old Londoner currently supporting another young UK star (Adele) on her summer tour. Kiwanuka's debut album Tell Me a Tale will be released this summer. 

"Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair" is a song from the upcoming album Suck It and See by the Arctic Monkeys. You may remember this band from their meteoric, internet-driven rise after the release of their single "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor." To this day, they hold the record for the fastest-selling debut album for a band in the UK.  

I've been listening to this song by Metronomy for quite some time but now that it's gaining steam on the UK charts, I think I better post it here! There's something about this song The Look that had me dancing around from the first moment I heard it. 

I was watching Conan O'Brien a few weeks ago and I saw the Belgian women's choir Scala and Kolacny Brothers perform this cover of the Radiohead song "Creep." I knew that I had heard it before and a quick Google search revealed that David Fincher used it in the trailer for the movie "The Social Network." This stripped down version of the song, with the background trace of Belgian accents, is haunting.

Can't see the playlist below? Click here.