Bulldog

I've missed this journal! Those last three videos you posted were absolutely stellar. Like you, I've had Youth Novels gathering dust since I bought it ages ago, but I still haven't given it a proper listen. Quite a bizarre song, as you say. It's the kind that's been cobbled together from a small collection of such simple ideas, yet sounds like so much more when it's executed properly. Like the other two, it goes to show how astounding minimalism can be when it's placed in the right hands.

Gavin B.

Not Music, the New Stereolab Album Due Out Next Week


Hit This Link To Listen to Not Music In It's Entirety

Stereolab has been my most beloved music band since their 1992 debut album Peng!. Stereolab's switched on dense wall of analog synthesizer sound has been widely imitated since, but the band's group's droning, hypnotic rhythm track overlaid with melodic, mesmerizing singsong vocals remains Stereolab's own unique signature sound. The earliest Stereolab albums sounded like those 60s hi-fi test recordings complete with "transient random noise bursts and announcements." Stereolab along with their music peers Massive Attack & Saint Etienne laid the foundation for much of today's post-rock, pop electronica movement in the early 90s.



If you are familiar with well tweaked but organic sound of Stereolab's 2008 release Chemical Chords then Not Music will be familiar territory for you. In fact Not Music was recorded at the same marathon recording session as Chemical Chords. Don't despair... Not Music is not outtake content from Chemical Chords but was originally recorded for a 30 song, double album release of Chemical Chords which was scaled back to a 14 song single album release. Not Music is completion of the original 2008 double album version of Chemical Chords as it was intended to be released. All the songs match up to the high quality of Chemical Chords which is good news for Stereolab fans. The bad news is that 5 singles from the Chemical Chords sessions will not be found on Not Music and will probably be released in the EP format at some unknown future date.

I'm grateful for the release Not Music and hope Stereolab soon ends their current three year hiatus from recording and performing. I was disappointed in with the music on Laetitia Sadier's much ballyhooed solo album, The Trip which was released in September. Stereolab has no plans to tour in support of the release of Not Music. So it will be at least another year before we get a brand new Stereolab album release, but this worthy companion album to Chemical Chords will make the wait a little easier.

I leave you with the original Stereolab video to their 1993 song Ping Pong which is one of the most brilliantly ironic pop songs ever written. Laetitia Sadier's revolutionary Marxist lyrics playfully subverts the lilting, "don't worry, be happy" melody of Ping Ping. It took me awhile to realize that Ms. Sadier's lyrics provided a succinct explanation of the very complicated economic theory of the boom or bust cycles of free market capitalism. Laetitia's childlike, sing song vocal performance which reveals the harsh political realities of capitalism, is in the agit/prop tradition of the musical theater of Bertolt Brecht. Read the lyrics while playing the Ping Pong video to fully appreciate the irony of the lyrics.

Lyrics to Ping Pong

It's alright 'cos the historical pattern has shown
how the economical cycle tends to revolve
in a round of decades three stages stand out in a loop
a slump and war then peel back to square one and back for more
bigger slump and bigger wars and a smaller recovery
huger slump and greater wars and a shallower recovery
you see the recovery always comes 'round again
there's nothing to worry for things will look after themselves
it's alright recovery always comes 'round again
there's nothing to worry - things can only get better
there's only millions that lose their jobs
and homes and sometimes accents
there's only millions that die in their bloody wars,
it's alright
it's only their lives and the lives of their next of kin
that they are losing
it's only their lives and the lives of their next of kin
that they are losing
it's alright 'cos the historical pattern has shown
how the economical cycle tends to revolve
in a round of decades three stages stand out in a loop
a slump and war then peel back to square one and back for more
bigger slump and bigger wars and a smaller recovery
huger slump and greater wars and a shallower recovery
don't worry be happy things will get better naturally
don't worry shut up sit down go with it and be happy
dum, dum, dum, de dum dum, de duh de duh de dum dum dum... ah ah
dum, dum, dum, de dum dum, de duh de duh de dum dum dum... ah ah

__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Gavin B.

Warpaint Delivers On Highly Anticipated Debut Album


Warpaint- Reverb soaked psychedelic music with ethereal female vocals

Last year the Los Angeles based quartet (until recently a trio) Warpaint released Exquisite Corpse, an EP of hypnotic, reverb soaked, dirge tempo neo-psychedelic music with ethereal vocals by three female members of the band. Exquisite Corpse was a self produced effort which created enough buzz to land Warpaint a contract with Rough Trade. Warpaint developed a cult following outside of their own So-Cal regional base with a regional Northeastern tour with Beach Fossils, the Brooklyn based haze pop crew.

Neither Exquisite Corpse or their highly anticipated Rough Trade debut The Fool (released on October 26), fully captures their brain-melded live performances in which their delicate and ghost like vocals float in a fine mist of guitars. On stage, each song reinvents itself within a constantly shifting array of tempos & themes.

To be honest, Warpaint's Rough Trade debut, The Fool doesn't open up any new musical ground or deviate from the script of the Exquisite Corpse musical project, but more of the same from Warpaint is a good thing. I'm a true believer in the band and I've given their two recordings a humongous amount of airplay on my college radio show.

In today's musical environment of low-fi man-with-a-laptop performers, Warpaint challenges the notion that rock music bands are only recycling old trends. Post rockers argue that earlier generations of rock musicians closed down the creative frontier by claiming all of the available space. Over the past five years, we've seen a fearless vanguard of visionary artists (often female & often without a record label) prove that the creative boundaries of rock music are only limited by the imagination of the those who play the music.

The first video is an impromptu performance of Undertow by Warpaint for BBC 3 at Reading. A studio recording Undertow can be found on The Fool, their newly released debut album.



The next video is a parking lot acoustic performance Billy Holiday from their Exquisite Corpse EP, released in 2009. Notice how the song mutates into spooky version of My Guy, Mary Wells' 1963 Motown hit single.



Elephants is also from last year's Exquisite Corpse EP and gives you a better idea of Warpaint's plugged in live sound.



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__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Flower Child

If only we really had this kind of music on the prairie.

Thank you.

Gavin B.

Noteworthy Artists from International Pop Music Scene


Lana Mir is a Ukrainian singer whose debut album was released in August


Scarboro Aquarium Club- Drinking the Poison

This beautiful song from the widely ignored Ontario based band, Scarboro Aquarium Club is one of my favorites. It sounds like a lost Roxy Music song from the early 70s. "Drinking the Poison" is about as close to perfection as pop music gets. The group only has two albums. SAR is fronted by a guy named Corey Schmidt but there are a number of female vocalists doing duty on the album as well.

The song embedded below is from Poisoned, their 2002 debut release. SAC made a second album in 2006 called Black Swan Days but I've never been able to find it online or at any retail or used record shop. I'm not sure if SAC is an operating band but I came across some unreleased studio tracks the band recorded in 2008 and those songs were magnificent. Poisoned is still available at Amazon in the cd format for $15.64 or as an MP3 download for $8.99. Poisoned is an essential album for fans of glam rock and especially fans of Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music.




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Melpo Mene- Holes

Melpo Mene is yet another Swedish indie pop band. Sweden seems to be cultivating a limitless supply of talented musicians who are influenced by 60s era baroque pop bands like The Beach Boys, The Free Design, Sagittarius, and Parade. The band's rather offbeat name may be inspired by the goddess Melpomeni, who was the ancient Greek mythical muse for musicians.



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Lana Mir- I Wanna Be Adored

Lana Mir was born and raised in Kiev, Ukraine, and based now in New York. After coming to New York and stuggling to make ends meet, Ms. Mir found her way to a group of local musicians at a Russian-American cafe who taught her jazz and bossa nova, where she eventually secured a weekly gig. Her self produced video in which she langorously covers the Stone Roses' classic I Wanna Be Adored has received a modest amount of YouTube buzz, but the dozen original songs on her self titled debut album (released in August 2010) and Goodbye Girl EP (released in February 2010) are a showcase of her considerable talents as a singer/songwriter.

__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

someonecompletelyrandom

I'm loving this stuff. This journal blows me away, to be honest.

Gavin B.

Thanks for your kind words. Since my blog is a labor of love, compliments are better than money. Glad to see all of those Townes Van Zandt songs in your queue. Townes is one of the best songwriters of the previous century and deserves to be included in the same conversations about brilliant songwriters like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.

================================

Now onto a completely different subject... my long list of notable album releases of 2010.

Since my photogenic memory is a thing of the past, I keep an open computer file of notable album releases which I add to as the year progresses, so I don't leave out any of the good ones. About 20,000 new album releases come across my desk in of the course of the year & there's only time to listen to a select group of releases that make through my own highly selective screening process.

Usually by Thanksgiving, I have a pretty good idea of which albums will make my year end long list because December is a notoriously dead month for new releases. Christmas season is when the recording industry pushes those horrifying Christmas album releases, deluxe reissues of old albums, and expensive box set retrospectives of best selling artists. The only highly anticipated studio releases left in the year 2010 are Duffy's new album, Endlessly (due out on December 7th) and III/IV and double album set of additional songs recorded by Ryan Adams & the Cardinals during their six month marathon recording session at Electric Ladyland Studios NYC in 2007.

This year I was stunned to find that my "2010 notable releases" file contained over 250 albums. Don't listen to those chronic complainers who tell you that there wasn't any good music released this year, because I had to make some tough choices to winnow the list down to the 80 or so albums that make up my long list of notable albums. For better or worse here's my own personal A to Z long list of notable album release for 2010:

Gavin B.'s A to Z Portable List of Notable 2010 New Album Releases

#
The1900s- Return of the Century

A
Adrienne Pierce- Oh Dear
Against Me!- White Cross
Ariel Pink's Haunted Grafitti- Before Today*
Anais Mitchell- Hadestown
Armin Van Buuren- Mirage
Avi Buffalo- Avi Buffalo*

B
Band of Hourses- Infinite Arms*
Beach Fossils- Beach Fossils
Beach House- Teen Dream*
Belle & Sebastian- Write About Love*
Best Coast- Crazy For You
Blitzen Trapper- Destroyer of the Void
Broken Bells- Broken Bells

C
Carebears on Fire- Get Over It
Carolina Chocolate Drops- Genuine Negro Jig
Charles Lloyd- Mirror
Citay- Dream Get Together
Club 8- The People's Record*
Corrine Bailey Rae- The Sea
Crystal Castles- Crystal Castles (II)

D
Delorean- Subiza*
The Drums- The Drums*

E
Ed Harcourt- Lustre

F
Foals- Total Life Forever*
Freeway- Stimulus Package

G
Get Back Guinozzi!- Carpet Madness*
Gotan Project- Tango 3.0*

H
The Hepburns- How the Mighty Have Fallen
Horse Feathers- Thistled Song

I
Isobel Campbell- Hawk

J
Jamey Johnson- The Guitar Song
Janelle Monae- Archarachnoid*
Jesca Hoop- Hunting My Dress*
Jj- Jj No 3*
Jon Langford & Skull Orchard- Old Devils
Jukebox the Ghost- Under the Sun

K
Kula Shaker- Pilgrims Progress*

L
Laarks- An Exaltation of Laarks
Lightspeed Champion- Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You
The Like- Release MeI
Lissie- Catching A Tiger
Little Boots- Hands
Local Natives- Gorilla Manor*
Love Is All- Two Thousand & Ten Injuries

M
Mackintosh Braun- Where We Are
Mary Gauthier- The Foundling
Massive Attack- Heligoland*
Matisyahu- Light
Merle Haggard- I Am What I Am*
Mountain Man- Made The Harbor*

N
The National- High Violet*

O
The Octopus Project- Hexadecagon
OK Go- Of the Blue Colour of the Sky

P
Phillip Selway- Familial
The Pipettes- Earth vs. the Pipettes*
Port O' Brien- Threadbare*

Q
Quantic Presenta Flowering Inferno- Dog with a Rope

R
The Radio Dept.- Clinging to A Scheme
Red Horse- Red Horse*
Reflection Eternal- Revolutions Per Minute

S
Samantha Crain- You (Understood)*
Sara Bareilles- Kaleidoscope Heart
Saravah Soul- Cultura Impura
Seal- 6: Commitment
The Secret Sisters- The Secret Sisters
Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings- I Learned the Hard Way*
Sharon Van Etten- Epic
Shrag- Life! Death! Prizes!
Sia- We Are Born
Ska Cubano- Mambo Ska*
Sleigh Bells- Treats
Stars- The Five Ghosts
Stereolab- Not Music
Surfer Blood- Astro Coast

T
Tallest Man on Earth- King of Spain
Tindersticks- Falling Down A Mountain
Toro Y Moi- Causers of This
Tracy Thorn- Love and It's Opposite*
Tunng- And The We Saw Land
Tricky- Mixed Race
Twin Shadow- Forget

U
No notable albums...Maybe Uncle Tupelo or the Undertones will do a reunion album in 2011.

V
Vampire Weekend- Contra*
Villagers- Becoming A Jackal*
The Volbeats- The Volbeats

W
Warpaint- The Fool*
Wildbirds & Peacedrums- Rivers*
Wild Nothing- Gemini*

X
No notable albums...I had the space reserved for XX's sophomore album but we'll have to wait until 2011 for that one.

Y
Yeasayer- Odd Blood*
YACHT- See Mystery Lights

Z
Zach Hll- Face Tat



A star (*) indicates a personal favorite of mine. Over the next four weeks I'll winnow the list down to 30 or so albums the represent the best of each respective musical genre & post it here.

__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Gavin B.

Lost In the Black Sea of Neo Psychedelica


This eye jiggling psychedelic design appeared on the cover of the Black Angel's 2008 album, Directions to See a Ghost.

I love psychedelic music and have a large collection of vintage vinyl psychedelic albums from the Sixties & early Seventies by bands with odd names that nobody's ever heard of. When I moved to Boston in the Seventies, I became a big fan of garage rockers like DMZ, the Lyres, the Modern Lovers and Willie Alexander. So I also have a slew of cds by neo psychedelic and garage rock bands the dates from the mid-Seventies right up to 2010. Here a four of my favorite bands.

The Chesterfield Kings- Up and Down

The Chesterfield Kings have been around forever and are arguably the ground zero band of the early 80s garage band/neo psychedelic revival. Nearly every album they make is a classic in the neo psych genre. Musically, the Chesterfield Kings are a one trick pony but they that trick better than anyone else.



===========================

The Pillbugs- 4 Sec Nightmare in A 5 Sec Dream

The Pillbugs may give sitars, pianos, farfisas, strings, and even some quaint backwards tape a workout, but they're unlike most Americans heading thataways--it isn't American/Nuggets psych-pop that inspires them. OK, there's a little Love ("Make Like Arthur Lee"), Byrds ("Hold Me So Near"), and Left Banke, but mostly their music is a beautifully British-inspired concoction.



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The Warlocks- Come Save Us

"The Warlocks" had been a moniker that had been previously used by early incarnations of both the Velvet Underground and the Grateful Dead. While no one will mistake this Los Angeles based band for a Deadhead band, the Warlocks' earliest recordings do often sound like they're channeling a fever-soaked Velvet Underground (circa White Light, White Heat), while drawing further influence from space rock, prog, and Krautrock bands (including Neu! and Hawkwind). I've seen these guys live and they are insanely good.



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The Black Angels- Telephone

The Black Angels have gotten a great deal of internet buzz as of late. The Black Angels have been on the Austin Texas music scene for about five years and on their latest album Phospehene Dream, the Angels sound like the house band at Pandora's Box on Sunset Strip in 1966.


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I'm working on a list of essential neo psychedelic and garage band albums which I'll print on this blog in the near future. If you have any bands or albums to suggest please leave a note on the thread.

__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Gavin B.

Adrian Edmondson: Bad Shepherd Gone Punk


"I did genuinely think Johnny Rotten was mesmerising and brilliant. It's a regret of mine to know he would hate me. I'm exactly what he hates. I'm a middle-class wanker playing at it"

Adrian Edmondson is a UK comedian, actor, director, writer and musician. He is probably best known for his comedic roles as Vyvyan Basterd in The Young Ones (1982–1984), and Eddie Hitler in Bottom (1991–1995), which he also wrote together with co-star Rik Mayall, his long-time comedy partner.

Edmondson has directed pop videos for Fiesta (1988) by The Pogues, Prime Mover (1987) by Zodiac Mindwarp, Like The Weather (1988) by 10,000 Maniacs, Please Help The Cause Against Loneliness (1988) by Sandie Shaw, and Hourglass by Squeeze (1987).

Edmondson is a long time fan of the eccentric Sixties group, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, Edmondson performed vocals with them as part of their 2006 reformation and countrywide tour, and contributed vocals and writing for their 2007 album Pour l'Amour des Chiens.

In 2008, Edmonson went punk, so to speak, a formed a traditional Celtic band called the Bad Shepherds to do covers of his favorite punk songs.
Together with Maartin Allc0ck, Andy Dinan, and Troy Donockley, Edmondson founded the band The Bad Shepherds and last summer the Shepherds played to wildly enthusiastic audiences on the UK festival circuit. Maartin Allc0ck has played with Fairport Convention and Jethro Tull, Troy Donockley renowned for his work with Iona, Maddy Prior and Midge Ure.


Adrian Emondson - Anarchy in the UK

This first video is a solo performance of Adrian doing a scat vocal along with trumpet fills in a hilarious swing version of Anarchy in the UK.



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Adrian Edmondson & the Bad Shepherds- God Save the Queen

This video is from the Bad Shepherd's performance at the Dent Folk Festival in the UK.



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Adrian Edmonson & the Bad Shepherds- I Fought the Law

The final video was produced by the brilliant animation artist, Crazy Girl.



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__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt

Gavin B.

It Had To Happen: A Band Name Generator!


Band Name Maker solves the existential dilemma of what name to call your band

Best of the Generated Band Names:

The Black Delusion

Angry Mantra

Albino Recoil

Carnival Erotica

Astral Bison

Primitive Missle

Your Riot

Borderline Ferry

Requiem Of The Outlaw

Automatic Scalp

My personal favorite: Sex Cult Of The Double Iguana

http://www.bandnamemaker.com/

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__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt