Sade, Soldier of Love
Benyaro, Eureka
Natalie D-Napoleon, You Shook Me All Night Long
Meklit Hadero, Call
Static of the Gods, True North
Quitzow, Let Out All the Crazy
Parallels, Find the Fire
Static of the Gods, Rest Your Head
Love Is All, Bigger Bolder
Cate le Bon, Sad Sad Feet
Las Rubias del Norte, Porque Te Vas
Claps, Fold
Slow Club, Giving Up on Love
Haight-Ashbury, Freeman Town
River on Extension, Mexico
The Mood Swings, Nothing New
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Joel’s Hit Show, Episode 63, May 16 2010 Playlist
May 16, 2010Episode 1393 is up
May 14, 2010Undersea Poem “Undersea Poem”
May 13, 2010Wow. Real singing! Real guitar and keyboards! And it’s all balanced nicely. Picture Alphaville with a woman singing. That’s just the beginning. And all the songs are really short so you can treat them like a bowl of m&m’s. Listen to a handful; they won’t mind.
The short tracks can serve as an advantage when they play live, I bet. Oftentimes when this music gets ethereal in nature, they get long in the tooth, and after six minutes of the same bassline, you’re staring at the floor, trying to stay awake. I’m looking at you, A Girl Called Eddy.
“Makes Me Happy” — do I have to say it? The singer sounds like the singer of AM60, but I know I use that one a lot. I just really enjoy that sound. Sue me.
Musically, many of these tracks go off on that Mazzy Star vibe. It’s a smorgasbord of delectable music. And there’s stuff in Spanish, too. Check out “Te Encontrar,” which means “to find you,” I suppose. Usually the reflexive, or whatever it is, shows up appended to the infinitive, but what do I care? The song sounds great.
“Leon Come Home” stands out on an album of standout tracks. Simply beautiful, as is “Driving Song.” I wish I hadn’t taken the train to work today, because then I could listen to it in the appropriate venue right now! “Come So, Morre So” sounds exactly like an AM60 song, to the point that I think it is a cover. Ditto for “You You You.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it’s the same people.
This is another top 5 nominee.
Crazy Mary “Water on the Moon”
May 13, 2010When I was a kid I had a cat named Mary, and we would sometimes call her “Crazy Mary” because she would do crazy things like sit on top of a ladder and sniff my hair. And her nose was always wet. I’ll never forget that.
So despite having a dog on the cover art, I took this CD because of the band’s name. The music is standard rock ‘n’ roll, and the singing is clearly not the focus of the record. It sounds like a bunch of friends decided to make an album, and now I have to listen to it. I was expecting something with a little bit of an edge, and instead I got another Mary band, Seven Mary Three, only with a female singer. If you’re over 40, this album is perfect for you. It just screams “Generation X.”
“Orgasmic Annie” has one of those hey-look-at-me titles, but like Primus’ “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver,” it’s just a clever name. Well, I suppose Primus wrote a clever song to go with it, but all their songs were clever. Everything in life is relative. I guess if you’re going to pick a song to like, you might as well pick this one, but don’t get your hopes up.
“Way Too Freaky” is a little better but still sounds something you would hear at the Atlantis in Reno while playing Pai Gow Poker. “Soul Survivor” and “Sun Is Coming Up” are awful and serve only to make it an LP.
Night Driving in Small Towns “Serial Killer”
May 13, 2010Yeah, this is my kind of record. It’s an upbeat Azure Ray-sounding thing, only the other woman is a guy. “February,” a great title for the second track, is the first track, and it has a beautiful combination of guitar and synths to get the job done. “Barstool” is a dead ringer for something Rilo Kiley would do, and I bet they hear this all the time. Maybe the lead singer was in a movie as a teenager about a new game for the Sega Master System.
“Come & Tell Me” has a light layer of syrup, just enough to make this ballad taste better while letting diabetics partake as well. Talk about being sensitive to today’s youth! And that’s what the band is going for here. This is what the kids like. Sure they may remind you of acts from the past decade, and sure some of the chords remind you of other songs (“Get Free” vs. “All Apologies” by Nirvana), but there is just enough of an adaptation that keeps the sound new and fresh. This album is as much a breakthrough as Damone’s “From the Attic.” It’s about making the right record at the right time, and Night Driving in Small Towns have done it.
“All Together Now” puts it all together. This whole record fucking rules. If this does not end up in my top 5 for 2010 then this is going to be one hell of a year for rock music.
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