New Sleater-Kinney

I've been kind of wary of Sleater-Kinney for some time now. I really didn't like the last two albums at all, and I was starting to wonder if they'd lost whatever it is that made me like Dig Me Out and The Hot Rock so much. If the MP3 on the Sub Pop website from the new album The Woods is any indication, though, it seems that I might be in for a pleasant surprise. The song is way more rocking and less stilted than anything off of the last two albums and has a kind of anger/urgency that was also missing. The album is set to be released on May 24.

Sleater-Kinney - Entertain

Dave Barclay found teen agnst at 21

I have a sweet tooth. I can't resist a good pop song. This is why I was incredibly excited when the new Diskettes album Weekends at Island view Beach arrived in my mailbox. I got my first chance to see them when Dave Barclay spent last summer being a Physics nerd in Vancouver. I took this slightly blurry photograph during a house show that summer. The Diskettes tip their hats to Phil Spector groups, doo-wop the Beat Happening, "world music" and the Beach Boys but what makes them interesting(and also makes P:ano interesting) is that they manage to make something new and interesting rather than perfectly recreating their influences, which is more than I can say for a good deal of the 70's rock revival bands that seem to be a hot item lately.

Get! Together! My first selection has great percussion, I really love the sound of the bass drum. I've found that I've been particular drawn to percussion lately. This song is also incredibly short running only 1:14 in length. I like short songs too. The xylophone and vocal moment at 0:46 is also smile inducing.

The second song I chose End Points is a live recording it is a great call and response number that I can't get enough of. I love the sound of the recoding, it is sort of washed out and distant sounding with appropriate audience "wooos" at just the right point. Really this song's strong point is that it has the sort of lyrics that call for "wooos"

Get! Together!

End Points

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In Other news I'd like to welcome all the Said the gramophone readers, and thank Sean for the kind words. As a side note I'd like to say that I was really enjoying your tour or Europe posts!
(Also thank you to Neale at Whimsy Inc for the same).

I like cars more than telephones...

My very first (belated) contribution is an Arcade Fire song that is about six years old - timely now only because this band has been hyped up to the maxx of late. A friend sent me this song last year and it's since made it way all over the place. At a past Arcade Fire show this title was shouted out and the band just seemed perplexed and confused as to how the song ended up revisiting them; now it's part of their set!

I've loved this song since I first heard it. The lyrics are sweet and captured my feelings of wanting to spend time with someone who was living too far away. I admit that I purposely brought it along to listen to on a drive to Montreal to visit, then drove home as the sun was coming up with it playing again.

To help satisfy the new fans I'll share this song, Cars and Telephones, and I'll throw in another oldie recorded at the same time, Sonata.

For their album, Funeral visit Merge Records.


If you're impressed with their (EP) cover art visit Montreal's Serigraphie Populaire.

Arcade Fire - Cars and Telephones & Sonata

Leaves when I want her to and stays when I am glad

I was born in Portland, Oregon on March 20th 1986. I grew up there and with wet feet found the music, climate, people, coffee, doughnuts, and other stuff of the Pacific Northwest to be very inspiring. We have very nice waterfalls, campgrounds, hiking trails, mountains, wind chimes, beaches, birds and infinite other wildlifes I was lucky enough to be able to spend time with growing up, despite living in the city. -Adrian Orange

Adrian orange is a wonderfull young man, full of creativity and joy. He is the youngest member of a new west coast bohemia sporting rainbow flip-flops and their hearts on their sleeves. The other members include the likes of Little Wings and Phil Elvrum, so he is in good company. Awkwardly towering at over 6 feet tall, Adrian's unique live performances that at times boarder on performance art are worth attending.

The first selection, The Closer That I Come, From the album nothing is the song that made me fall for the genius of Adrian's music and is in my mind a perfect song. It is clearly about something, yet exactly what it is about is left up to you. At 1:55 we are treated with a blissful ending that plants a smile on my face every time. All this and he was only 16.


The second song is pulled from a more recent effort Welcome Nowhere that was made with the help of Phil Elvrum. It sounds older, and maybe a little less full of joy....

The Closer That I Come

Money

elsewhere:
Jordan at Said the Gramophone recently posted an unfinished song by Montreal's Crackpot. This song has been stuck in my head for days. The opening line "Everything you say is wonderful that is why you are so fuckable" need I say more? Go listen.

p.s
Thank you to Lori at Outfox for doing the popsheep illustrations!

Great Lake Swimming

The Great Lake Swimmers are a band from Toronto that I really don't know much about aside from what I've read on their website. I'm pretty sure that it's mostly a solo effort with a few other guest musicians. I bought the debut album on impulse because it has really great album art with a half handmade, half manufactured look to it. The album turned out to be a kind of melancholy, stripped down folk/indie rock – I don't know how to describe it, except that it's precisely the kind of music I'm usually a sucker for. I guess comparisons could be made with the Red House Painters/earlier Will Oldahm/Smog or something like that, but I wouldn't take my word for it.

Best of all is that the album was recorded in an abandoned grain silo! Not so much a gimmick, the recording space seems to have given the whole thing a really warm, natural reverb. The song linked to below is filled with references to Toronto geography, with the chorus consisting of the names of four consecutive subway stops being repeated along with the lyrics 'I will never see the sun/one for nothing, all for one'. Although more upbeat than the rest of the album (seriously), this song's subterranean theme fits in very well with the overall melancholy tone of the other songs on the album.

Great Lake Swimmers - I will never see the sun

P:ano music

I'm not sure if we have a readership, but if we do and you happen to be from vancouver please pay attention to this important announcement. P:ano will be playing with Blackavar at Blim this Sunday at 9:00pm. This is important because P:ano is one of the best modern bands performing. Blackavar is also not to be missed(I'll try and get a recording of them soon). Aside from the music, Blim is one of my favorite venues for live music in the city.

The now released Brigadoon and the upcoming ghost pirates without heads eclipse P:ano's previous albums. They have finally managed to get the energy and quirkiness of their live performances onto a record. Brigadoon is a bridge from the new to old, with more polish and flourish, while ghost pirates gets by with perfect simplicity. For both of these albums the band decided to play everything on the album, rather than rely on a long list of guest musicians(there was about 20 on last year's album The Den). They were also recorded in a shorter amount of time, I believe ghost pirates was done over a few days, rather than the regular P:ano multiple month production.

It has been hard to chose some songs to let you sample this album as it all works together so well and I think it is the sort of album where everyone will have their own hit list.

Covered Wagons

Light O' Love

Non-Metal Dude Wearing Metal

Trolling around the internet, looking for free MP3s for Laural so she can continue keep her bandwidth at a minimum while still sporting a fancy 'Craft Soundtrack', I found this amazing resource of Sonic Youth MP3s. All of the songs are B-sides from various singles and cover most of the band's career up to the Washing Machine album. Like most Sonic Youth B-sides, the later era ones are hit and miss. The good ones, however, are particularly good. I'm partial to the extended version of the Diamond Sea, which is already one of my favorite songs but seems even better at more than 25 minutes long. The covers of the Ramones and the Carpenters are also pretty great.

Diamond Sea

Superstar

Non-metal dude wearing metal tee

Halloween II

Love like yours will surely come my way

Buddy liked Angel. He was a wild boy for the women. One time we were playing at the Paramount Theater and Buddy came into my dressing room while I was jacking off with Angel sucking my titty. Angel had the fastest tongue in the West. Well, she was doing that to me and Buddy took out his thing. He was ready, so she opened up her legs and he put it in her. He was having sex with Angel, I was jacking off, and Angel was sucking me, when they introduced his name on stage! He was trying to rush so he could run on stage. He made it, too. He finished and went to the stage still fastening himself up. I'll never forget that. He came and he went.!
-Little Richard 1984

This completely shatters my childhood image of a wholesome nerd from Lubbock singing sweet love songs. I also can't believe Little Richard said 'my titty'. What it doesn't ruin is the beauty in the simplicity of my favorite Holly song everyday. Beginning with Jerry Allison slapping his knee for percussion and the chimes of the Celeste played by Norman Perry's wife. Acoustic guitar and bass are also subtly present in the song as Buddy optimisticly croons away.

Everyday

More Like the Moon

Back in the day, after buying the Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album, I was rewarded by the band with a bonus EP available to download from their website with proof of purchase. Not only did this make me feel better about my original purchase of the CD, which I already was quite fond of, but I was doubly rewarded by the fact that the EP was also damn good. I would even go so far as to say that I like a few of the songs better than those on the YHF album. Anyhow, now the EP in question is available as a free download for anyone, whether they bought the album or not, on the Wilco Website. If you go here, you can download the whole thing, multiple versions of the cover art and all.

These are arguably the two standout tracks from the EP. The first is my favourite of the bunch, and sounds a lot like its namesake in a good way. I find myself listening to it quite often, even these many years later. The second is also quite good, and is in the same downtempo folk vein as the first but with more instruments and a guitar solo that I actually don't hate (which is rare).

Wilco - Bob Dylan’s 49^th Beard

Wilco - More Like the Moon

Black and Brown Blues

I saw the singer of Herman Dune warming up for, and performing with, Julie Doiron last Fall and for once I actually benefited from showing up unnecessarily early to shows . His set was a good mixture of accent-heavy lyrics, Swedish (?) ESL stage banter, ukulele and silly/sappy ballads. The full band seems to consist of three Herman Dune Brothers and a bunch of guests (including Julie Doiron), and the new album Not on Top is being released on April 18 on Track and Field Records. Fluxblog recently posted the MP3 for the title track and I’ve been listening to it constantly. If I can find it, I'm hoping to pick up the album next time I’m at the record store.

Anyway, the track below is one of the many awesome MP3s on the Herman Dune website and is Herman Dune lead singer David-Ivar doing a kickass cover of the Silver Jews via voice and ukulele accompaniment.

David-Ivar Herman Dune – Black and Brown Blues

Hoochie Coochie Man

I was shocked to find out that so many of the Chicago blues songs that I loved were all written by a man that I had never heard of. Willie Dixon never really made much of a name for himself as a performer but as a songsmith and producer he is unmatchable.

When I first heard Otis Rush's version of My love will never die I had to keep playing it over and over, absorbing its pure brilliance. Not only the song itself, but the amazing production, it was what I wanted an electric blues song to sound like.

Dixon also wrote a string of hits for Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley and many others. Additionally, Led Zepplin's Whole lotta love was a direct uncredited rip off of Dixon's You Need Love. Creepy art by Tim Hooper.

My Love Will Never Die

Krayons

I've recently been enamored with the Red Krayola(sometimes Crayola). This song is from the Album Kangaroo? with art and language that is full of many weird and bizarre songs about Lenin! Unfortunately this album is one of the more difficult of the Red Krayola catalog to find. I love the brass in this song.
An Old Man's Dreams

Daddy's Hands

Here is a song recorded at the hive studios at the middle point of Daddy's Hands career. These recordings never saw the light of day, which is a shame as they are much better than the versions that came out on the cd.
Ghost on the flies