Watching Midnight Movies

Midnight Movies is back with their second album, with a few new members to add to and enhance their sound: bassist Ryan Wood and drummer Sandra Vu. It's titled Lion the Girl, and it's scheduled to be released April 24th.

Having not heard their previous release, I can't offer a comparison. What I can tell you about though is the sound that this album kicks out: fuzzy buzzy guitars, dense tapestries of sound to wade through, and the darkly alluring vocals of Gena Olivier (which remind me of Margo Timmins, of the Cowboy Junkies). Another band which comes to mind is Darker My Love, although Midnight Movies backs away a little from the psychedelic buzz and instead shifts towards a little cleaner rock sound in some places on the album (Coral Den for example, below), and a little dreamier places in others (like the song Ribbons below).

When asked about the album, Gena says, "It's an album about pure love. A recurring theme in the album is the longing for or celebration of truth and those rare but vital glimpses of pure love." Ah, that Holy Grailish quest for pure love. Give the album a listen and try to find it for yourself... (And if you're lucky enough to live on the West coast, check them out on tour with the Raveonettes!)


Midnight Movies - Ribbons : Lion the Girl


Midnight Movies - Coral Den : Lion the Girl

Visit their website, their label New Line Records, and become their friend on MySpace.

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Cowboy Junkies - Come Calling (live) : WXRV Presents Live From The River Music Hall Vol. 1

Midnight Movies Tour Dates

April
19 - Portland, OR - Wonder Ballroom *
20 - Vancouver, BC - Commodore Ballroom *

May
3 - Pomona, CA - Glasshouse ^

June
1 - LA, CA - Spaceland #
2 - San Francisco, CA - Cafe Du Nord #
4 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge #
5 - Seattle, WA - Triple Door #
7 - Costa Mesa, CA - Detroit Bar #
8 - LA, CA - Echo #
9 - San Diego, CA - Casbah #

* w/ Blonde Redhead
^ w/ Autolux
# w/ The Raveonettes

The One AM Radio Contest

You might recall me talking about The One AM Radio's latest release, This Too Will Pass, back in the beginning of February. You might even recall me talking about seeing them live in Boston back in the end of February. If you still haven't picked up the album for yourself, here's a chance to score a vinyl copy of your very own along with a signed poster (exhibit A to the left) and a super-chic Dangerbird Hoodie to flaunt your indie sensibilities with (Exhibit B below).

All you need to do is leave a comment (or e-mail me) with your name, e-mail address, and your opinion as to which is better: AM, FM, or satellite radio, and you'll be in the running. I'll pick a random winner sometime next Mondayish and notify the winner pronto.

The One AM Radio - Lest I Forget : This Too Will Pass

In the meantime, check out The One AM Radio website, their label Dangerbird Records, and become their friends on MySpace.

Dangerbird Records have been putting out some other great stuff, besides The One AM Radio, over the last year including:

All Smiles - Summer Stay : Ten Readings of A Warning

Darker My Love - Opening : Darker My Love

Silversun Pickups - Little Lover's So Polite : Carnavas

It's Mainstream's birthday!

It's hard to believe that one year ago today I wrote my first post for the world to see. I didn't even tell any of my friends about it until a week or two later because I wasn't sure if it would last that long. But here we are, one year later and one year older. By this point I'm sure the number of my regular readers has increased by at least 300% (going from 2 to 6 at a minimum)! Along the way I've been able to share some music with all of you, and discovered some new music for myself as well. I'll skip all the flowery sentimentality and just say - thanks for stopping by.

Anais Mitchell - One Good Thing : Hymns for the Exiled

Au Revoir Simone - The Lucky One : The Bird of Music

Ben Harper - Burn One Down : Live In Cambridge, MA 6-20-03 (studio version on Fight For Your Mind)

Camera Obscura - Number One Son : Underachievers Please Try Harder

Feist - One Evening : Let It Die

French Kicks - One More Time : The Trial of the Century

Johnny Cash - One (U2 cover) : American III: Solitary Man

Magnetic Fields - The One You Really Love : 69 Love Songs, Vol. 1

Sleater-Kinney - One Song For You : The Hot Rock

Smashing Pumpkins - I Am One : Live in Den Haag, Holland 1-19-92 (studio version on Gish)

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - The Anointed One : Hearts Of Oak

New Grace Potter

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals are working on their latest album, This Is Somewhere, scheduled to be released sometime in August. Here's the first available song from the record: Ah Mary. If you still haven't checked out their last release, Nothing But the Water, do so now if you know what's good for you.

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals - Ah Mary : This Is Somewhere

Visit their website, their label Hollywood Records, and become their friend on MySpace.

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Some Live Grace Goodies
(maybe songs from the new album?)

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals - Ain't No Time (live) : Live at the Boarding House Park in Lowell, MA 8-5-06

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals - Ticket To The Show (live) : Live at Artscape in Baltimore, MD 7-23-06

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals - Take It All Away (live) : Live at Wakarusa Music Festival 06-08-06

All tracks courtesy of the Internet Live Music Archive; head there for the complete shows.

The Chrisopher Blue Blues

It's taken Chrisopher Blue quite a lot of time and effort to do so, but he's finally putting out a full length release that might actually get heard by a number of people. It's titled Room Tones, and it will be officially released April 17th on Sarathan Records.

You may or may not have heard Chrisopher's name before. He's been floating around the west coast music scene for quite some time - wandering between Seattle and Mendocino, California. He's worked with John Cale and previously fronted the band 10 Minute Warning (which included Duff McKagan who had been an original member of the band pre-Guns N' Roses and then returned after the group self destructed). After 10 Minute Warning folded, Chrisopher went on to form Sensation Junkies. This also failed to launch, so here he is, alone and still hungry for success, and this struggling yearning is apparent in the album.

Chrisopher has an appropriate last name: his life has had its share of ups and (mostly) downs. For a while he was living out of the back of his Dodge Neon. Do I need to go any farther than that? The album most certainly expresses this: it's got a bluesy grain to it that complements Blue's gritty voice well. “A lot of the lyrics are about squandering relationships with beautiful women,” says Blue. “It’s about my inability to love without the fucking ugliness attached to it.”


Chrisopher Blue - Ghost In the Night : Room Tones

Chrisopher Blue - Disquietude : Room Tones

Visit Chrisopher's website, his label Sarathan Records, and become his friend on MySpace.

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Some More Blues

Eric Clapton - Walkin' Blues : Unplugged

G. Love & Special Sauce - Blues Music : G. Love and Special Sauce

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Blues X Man : Orange

The Western States Motel - The New E Blues : The Western States Motel

Bessie Smith - St. Louis Blues : The Beauty of the Blues

The great Goldrush of '07

Not to be confused with the Californian Gold Rush of the mid 19th century, Goldrush is a quartet that hails from Oxford, England who have been putting out music since 2002 with their debut release on Truck Records titled Extended Play. Since then they've put out a second album (Ozona) and just released a third, The Heart Is the Place, yesterday.

Robin Bennett of Goldrush says about the album: "By the time of the Truck Festival, when our small village becomes Woodstock for a weekend, we were spending all our time building stages, and the record was still being worked on. I noticed things creeping in - other worlds past, future and supernatural, magic realism. These were literary influences that I could no longer avoid. A character, or series of characters, seemed to move through the songs in a ghostly way. Our music was no longer set in America, or its music. It was in our own location and our own minds. The record became about all these things, and the relation of love to mental collapse… A battle against material constraints and shallow emotions.’ DH Lawrence. Aldous Huxley. Jack Kerouac. But, especially, a strange charity shop book called 'reflections on life after life', by Raymond A Moody MD, an American doctor dedicated to researching near-death experiences and detailing regular themes. Recurrences such as a warm bright light, a city of light. A presence of love."

I couldn't have said it better myself Robin. Anyone who name-drops the great beatnik Kerouac deserves to have their album prosper in an anti-materialistic sort of way. So throw on your beret, grow out your goatee, and go forth and buy (or go forth, click, and buy). And is it just me, or does their album cover remind you of the cover for Radiohead's single, High and Dry?


Goldrush - Goodbye Cruel World : The Heart Is the Place

Goldrush - Heaven's My Destination : The Heart Is the Place

Want to hear more? Stream the entire album on the band's Myspace page.

and here's one from their last release...

Goldrush - Wait for the Wheels : Ozona

Check out their older material on eMusic.

Visit their website, their label Truck Records, and become their friend on MySpace.

Death Proof Contest

WIN this...

and this...

Yesterday I babbled about Quentin Tarantino's new movie / soundtrack, Death Proof. Today, I'm giving you the chance to win both a poster and a copy of the soundtrack for your very own! Simply leave a comment (or e-mail me) with your name, e-mail address, and favorite Tarantino film, and you'll be in the running. I'll choose a random winner sometime around next Wednesdayish.

Pacific Gas & Electric - Staggolee : Death Proof Soundtrack

Tarantino - King of Soundtracks

Not everyone might agree with me on this, but I'll propose that Quentin Tarantino revolutionized the art of the soundtrack with his release of the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack. I could be mistaken by this, but as far as I know, he was the first to intersperse dialog taken from the movie between songs. Quentin also masterfully brings classic songs out of the past and reclaims them for the present. With the release of Death Proof, he's done it again. Take a walk done memory lane with me...

Who ever saw this movie coming? One minute movie making made sense and there was a lack of senseless violence, then... WHAM... here comes Reservoir Dogs. If you saw this before Pulp Fiction, your entire schema of movie watching had to be re-wired. If you decided to see it after Pulp Fiction, it was a little easier to comprehend. The story took more jumps and twists than a William Faulkner novel. The soundtrack was just as revolutionary. Woven into the story is Steven Wright in the background as a radio DJ on KBILLY - The Home of Rock, who plays much of the music featured on the soundtrack.

George Baker - Little Green Bag : Reservoir Dogs Soundtrack

Film Dialogue - Let's Get A Taco : Reservoir Dogs Soundtrack


This was the film that brought Tarantino into the public's consciousness and resuscitated John Travolta's acting career. After Pulp Fiction, there would be no going back. What's to say about this movie? The only way you haven't seen it is if you've been wandering around the Amazon jungle for the last 15 years. Go out and rent it tonight.


Dick Dale & The Del-Tones - Pumpkin & Honey Bunny (dialogue)/Miserlou : Pulp Fiction Soundtrack

Film Dialogue - Royale With Cheese : Pulp Fiction Soundtrack

This wasn't nearly as big a hit as previous films, but Jackie Brown still produced an enjoyable soundtrack. Although not completely blood free, this film sported must less violence than previous productions. Quentin takes a turn from the usual clasic rock and instead included a lot of Motown / Funk inspired music on this album.



The Delfonics - Didn't I Blow Your Mind This Time : Jackie Brown Soundtrack

Film Dialogue - Melanie, Simone and Sheronda : Jackie Brown Soundtrack

And now available is the latest chapter: Death Proof, one half of a double release accompanying Planet Terror. I haven't seen the movie yet so I can't comment on its cinematic merit, but the soundtrack is just an enjoyable as previous releases.





April March - Chick Habit : Death Proof Soundtrack

Film Dialogue - Whatever-However : Death Proof Soundtrack

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Head here to win a copy of the soundtrack and a poster.

Egg-cellent

Here's hoping all of your Easter Egg hunts are successful beyond your wildest dreams!

The Essex Green - Rabbit : Cannibal Sea

Magnetic Fields - Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits : 69 Love Songs, Vol. 1

Monty Python - "A Foul-Tempered Rabbit" : Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong - I'm Puttin' All My Eggs In One Basket : The Complete Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong on Verve (Disc 2)

Son, let me tell you about the bird and the bee...

No, I'm not about to give you that talk one of your parents hopefully had with you when they realized puberty had hit and you were scoping out the other team. I'm talking about the duo of Inara George and Greg Kurstin, otherwise known as the bird and the bee.

Inara and Greg both bring strong musical backgrounds to this, their debut album. Inara is the daughter of Lowell George, frontman of the 70's southern rock band Little Feat, and she started her career playing in several bands in the Los Angeles area. Greg was a jazz piano prodigy and studied with Jaki Byard, best known as the pianist for Charles Mingus (famous hard bop jazz bassist and bandleader). The two put their heads together, with Inara focusing on vocals and Greg on the instrumentation. "Melodies would dictate chord progressions, or sometimes vice-versa, depending on where the vocal part wanted to go," recalls Inara. "The writing was almost improvised in nature."

With the album being put out be Blue Note Records, one would expect heavy jazz influences. Although there are some hints of Greg's early piano tutelage under Byard, the duo's music transcends the jazz genre boundaries. Inara's vocals sound delicate and sometimes, but not always, childlike. Many of the lyrics focus on relationships and loss, but the tone belies the unhappiness hinted at. Supporting her, and sweeping along the lyrics with sometimes organic, sometimes electronic arrangements, Kurstin adds a light touch with his melodies. The mixture of the two remind me very much of Au Revoir Simone's latest, The Bird of Music (which I've also been listening to lately and enjoying).

Their debut self-titled album was released back in January, and if you hurry, you can catch them on tour with Lily Allen.


the bird and the bee - Again & Again : the bird and the bee

the bird and the bee - I'm A Broken Heart : the bird and the bee

Visit their website, their label Blue Note Records, and become their friend on MySpace.

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Charles Mingus - Better Git Hit In Your Soul : Mingus Ah Um

Au Revoir Simone - Sad Song : The Bird of Music

Limbeck - Just Country Enough

Although I've been a Johnny Cash fan for quite a while, I tend to approach straight-up country music with some trepidation (although I wouldn't pigeon-hole Cash in this category - he's much more of a genre of his own). Sure I listened to Uncle Tupelo and Cracker back in the early 90's, but since then my boots haven't taken me down the alt-country road all that much. In the last year I've been taken in by Neko Case's music, but that's a story for another post.

With that disclaimer out of the way, let me get onto Limbeck. The band formed back in 1999 in Orange County, California and has since released a couple full length albums as well as some EP's and singles. On April 10th, the band is poised to release their third full length album, the self-titled Limbeck. Although classifiable as alt-country, instead of just sticking to the twangy cowboy sound, their album employs ukulele, bar chimes, vocoder, horns and strings to bolster the melodies. Sure there are a couple tracks that just scream "play me in a Ford F-150 with an extended cab and a shotgun rack in the back window," but there are also some tracks on the pop end of the spectrum as well. Although both tracks below fall inbetween, "Big Drag," the first track below, drifts toward F-150 country, and "Let's Get Crazy" appeals more to the top 40 crowd. Enjoy both and then pick up the album when it comes out on the 10th.


Limbeck - Big Drag : Limbeck

Limbeck - Let's Get Crazy : Limbeck


and here's one from their last release...

Limbeck - Let's Talk About the Weather : Big Drag

Visit their website, their label Doghouse Records, and become their friend on MySpace.

The band is kicking off a MASSIVE tour schedule. Head here to see if they're playing near you.

Full-time Fool

Aretha Franklin - Chain of Fools : The Very Best Of Aretha Franklin


Beulah - Fooled With the Wrong Guy : Yoko


Cinderella - Nobody's Fool : Night Songs


Eleni Mandell - I've Been Fooled : Afternoon


Ludacris - Act A Fool : 2 Fast 2 Furious Soundtrack

(In the spirit of today, I was deviously thinking about having the links go to random places, or having one song's link download a different one, but common sense intervened when thinking about angry comments possibly being left.)