The Shadowboxers

The internet and twitter wormhole led me to JT's twitter page and he tweeted about this video, appreciating the band's cover of his song "Pusher Love Girl". I was also blown away even though I've never heard the song before. This cover is damn good. And then I listened to JT's original, and sorry JT but these guys did a better version (as if JT would ever, ever, ever read this).

Anyway when listening I was impressed by how much the lead singer sounded like Justin. Have a listen:

And then I found another cover the band did, this time, its TLC's "Creep". And that same singer pulls off sounding like the original singer, this time T-Boz, to very amusing effect. So I guess he can pull off sounding like different vocalists. Anyway, this cover is also great, and hilarious:

I listened to one of their original songs and they reminded me of a nicer, less disturbing Maroon 5. I'm not a Maroon 5 fan, at all, but I do like the covers these Shadowboxers here did. Maybe I'll listen to more of their stuff.

If you like the band/fancy the band, they're from Atlanta, here's their site.

Tickled

Time for a long overdue post.  Sorry about the lack of words, but I've been hearing things here and there that I've enjoyed in one way or another and I thought the least I can do is compile them all on our dear old blog.  So that's what I'll do!

On Radio 6 this morning I heard this and found it rather pleasant:

I wasn't a Pavement fan when they were around but I was lucky enough to see them for free at the Virgin Freefest a couple of years go and liked them.  I like this too, it's got a nice warm indie sound to it.  And so does the video, particularly the end of it.

I also heard this on the radio today and it seemed very familiar, particularly the instrumental breakdown.  Not sure where I've heard it before, I feel like it's been sampled.  And if you're sick of Christmas music, my apologies, but this isn't really what you'll hear playing at the mall now is it?

Sorry about the video but, you know, just don't watch it -- most of the time music is better without visuals anyway.

And now, aah yes, Arctic Monkeys, I'm into them right now.  I just saw them play three songs on Jools Holland and they were all good!  Plus the band have a good vibe about them, particularly Alex Turner, the man has some snake hips nowadays.  They're full of confidence, which makes for good performances.  I'd like to see them live but for some reason they're skipping DC and playing Richmond, VA only -- my guess is cos they must have hit this place up when they toured with the Black Keys.  Turn this up (no really, the sound isn't very good in this video) and do watch the video:


Burial's got a new EP coming out, you can hear it all online:
http://www.avclub.com/article/burials-new-rival-dealer-ep-is-already-streaming-o-106418
I'll have to give the tracks a few more listens but... I don't know if they're for me.  I remember when I first heard of Burial in 2007 (that was thanks to the Boston Phoenix, where I also heard of Ellen Allien and Dixon, thanks to their CD reviews; Dixon's Body Language mix is well worth a listen, and I went on to see Ellen Allien in NYC).  At that time it was still really hard to look up and hear his music -- I think it was months before his first CD showed up for sale online at a reasonable price.  Now his new EP is news for basically every music site and blog on the web, including the AV Club!  Bit of a change.  It's nice that good music is easily accessible and artists like Burial are getting more attention but at the same time there was definitely a certain pleasure that came from feeling "in the know", when there was still a music underground.

You  may recall that I saw Four Tet live a little while back and thought he was brilliant.  Well, he's put a live set up on soundcloud now so you can decide for yourself.  Check it!


I'll end with this.  I actually came across it thanks to comments on the Burial tracks left at Fact.  There's nothing I can say about it.  Just watch it:

Morrissey Writes! (about himself)

He's back in the news, number 1 in the charts, but not in the singles or albums charts that he's accustomed to; Stephen Patrick Morrissey is number 1 in the book charts in Europe with the fastest selling musical memoir ever.  Unfortunately the book's not out in America yet (but will be coming out on December 3rd) but somehow my brother managed to get me a copy for my birthday which I have just finished reading.  Here's my succinct review:

First off, it's written in quite an odd manner (no chapters), especially the first 150 pages or so (457 pages total).  Morrissey writes in a lyrical, almost poetic way at times which can be hard to grasp but is enjoyable nevertheless.  However, for someone like me, things get more tasty as his career takes off and he starts writing in a more normal way about his time with the Smiths and his solo career.  There's also a lot of stuff in there about his influences (particularly the New York Dolls) and the horrible time he had at school.

The Smiths section is distressingly short but that makes sense when you consider how long their recording career was (1982-1987), especially when compared to Morrissey's much longer solo career (25 years and counting).  There's a large section on the Smiths' court case in which the Smiths' drummer, Mike Joyce, successfully sued Morrissey and Marr for 25% of the Smiths' recording royalties in 1997.  After that Morrissey writes at length about his post-Smiths career and his contentment with his solo records and tours.  By all accounts it's a satisfying read and one that I highly recommend to fans of the Smiths and Morrissey.

Side Note: NME names "The Queen is Dead" as the greatest album of all time.

the Power

I still get amazed sometimes when I hear something cool that I've not heard before and it's all thanks to the whims of a radio DJ.  I don't know if online streaming services can be as eclectic as an actual DJ can be, since they supposedly cater to what they know of your tastes.  Hard to say really, but I came across some music on Radio 6 the other day that I'm pretty sure I'd never have heard otherwise.  It's a collaboration from 2003, so not even new, I just never knew about it.  The collaboration is between Terry Hall & Mustaq.  You may be thinking "who?".  Well, Terry Hall is a founder member of the Specials, a classic UK ska act.  I've liked Hall for a long time and I'm not sure if it started with the Specials cassette I bought or when I heard a song of his as a solo singer.  Mushtaq I'd never heard of but it turns out he's a member of Fun-Da-Mental.  Now, I could probably write a whole other post on Fun-Da-Mental, but I won't, I'll just keep it short, but looking into them for this post again also displays the power of radio to remind us of things we'd forgotten, and how it exposes us to massive amounts of random music.  Fun-Da-Mental are a multi-ethnic UK group who are anti-racist and quite pro-Islam.  They were using and singing about these topics back in the 90's, way before 9-11, when wearing  your Muslimness on your sleeve wasn't even a thing!  They basically started with a combination of Asian sounds and hip-hop, and their Asian/Muslim identity was pretty mind-blowing to me when I first came across them as a teenager in Wales (though not mind-blowing enough to get me to hear anything else by them for nearly twenty years).  Very interesting group, definitely worth a further read upon.  Anyway, back to the main topic; Terry Hall & Mushtaq put together an album called 'The Hour of Two Lights' which is a great blend of Hall's singing with Arabic instrumentation -- you can hear it all here.  It reminds me of a bit of some Gorillaz stuff, and it turns out that Damon Albarn had some involvement and put it out on his Honest Jon's label -- hmm.  The song I heard, and that  piqued by interest, is below:

something something ketchup

It's been a pretty long break since proper postings so here I am.  Not that the interim has been spent in an audio-less vacuum, not at all, just didn't feel like blogging for whatever reason, but there are many sounds and links that have accumulated during my time away.  I will attempt to summarise forthwith; please don't get annoyed at the length of the post, it's all good stuff.

First up, Daniel Avery, an electronic musician who's probably very well known, but not by me, not until now anyway.  I heard of him through this Guardian video and then looked him up and was pleased I did.  His sounds are excellent and I'm planning on picking up the album and the Fabric mix in one form or another.  You can hear loads of things on his Soundcloud page, including this:

Next, some video links, and I don't mean music videos.  I don't have the time or patience to really use Youtube to it's full potential, but there are definitely some gems on that site, including a couple of great documentaries I've come across recently.  One is all about Bjork, and I think it was originally on the BBC.  You can watch it here.  The other documentary is about dance music, a kind of general overview, and it's narrated by Idris Elba with his full-on, I'm-actually-from-London-mate geezer accent.  Here you go.  

Washington's version of City Paper had a good write-up recently on the 20th anniversary of a local music venue, the Black Cat.  I've been to the venue a fair amount of times (to see Mum, Ash, Bonobo, and M83 to name a few), and while it's not one of my favourites, it's definitely not the worst venue in DC (that honour is reserved for the Rock n Roll Hotel, which is the worst venue I've been to around here anyway), and they do have a great booking policy -- in fact, I'm going there tonight to see Mount Kimbie.  I found the write-up quite interesting, maybe you will too -- check it out here.  

Lastly, I really like this Arctic Monkeys track, it's got a great groove to it:

  

Only the Lonely

My sister just sent me a forward from Ben Watt's email list that linked back to his website and I came across an interesting little post he's got up.  It's him talking to a sound engineer about Vinyl vs CD's and the whole debate about which sound better, etc etc.  In the end it's a relatively minor concern but still makes for interesting reading if you're into that type of thing.  You can check it out here.  I would say I don't really have a real preference -- vinyl seems a bit cooler, and I like the size of it, but it's also more expensive.  I usually end up going for whatever option seems economically reasonable, but there are some purchases where the vinyl stands out a bit more to me -- the Smiths boxset, for instance, is something that, to me, just seems cooler to have on vinyl.  Or cassette.  Something about the object that is a CD just doesn't appeal.  Plus my main hi-fi doesn't have a CD player on it.  

Pop!

Most people wouldn't guess that I'm a fervent fan of (good) pop music.  Many think I'm just some sort hipster obscurist, but it's not true I tell  you!  I like a good pop tune as much as anyone, but perhaps my definition of good is a bit stricter?  Today, there are a couple of tracks I'd like to write about that I consider to be very poppy, but I'm going to start with a classic from the 80's.  In many ways, the 80's seem like the golden age of pop to me, but I think that's mostly cos the 80's is when I was a little kid.  It was a good time for synth-driven music though, and a lot the poppy music I like now also has a synth-fuelled sound.  Here's some Howard Jones:



Last night I went to see a far newer pop act, AlunaGeorge.  I was in two minds about going to the show, mostly cos I didn't have anyone to go with, it was on a work night, and the band weren't due on til 11.15pm.  I also wasn't sure how AlunaGeorge's pop sound would transfer to a live setting -- I was pretty wary of just watching someone press play on a computer and then have some singing over the top.  I ended up going though, and I'm glad I did, as it was a very good gig.  It was at U Street Music Hall, which has been a consistently great venue in my experience -- good sound, good acts, and a great crowd who are more than happy to get into things and dance.  There's always a good energy there and the acts really seem to feed off of it; last night was no different.  AlunaGeorge are Aluna Francis, singer, and George Reid, producer, but for their live act they also brought along a drummer and bass player.  I love electronic music, but I do think when you go to see someone live it's nice to have some more traditional musicianship on the stage too, and not just a lot (or even worse, a little) electronic equipment.  This way you know that some of what you're hearing is truly live, and you're getting a unique experience, different from what you'd hear just by listening to recorded music.  Of course, there are solo electronic acts who do a great job of transferring what they do onto stage, even while being all by themselves (Shigeto and Four Tet come to mind), but there also those whose "live" sound is so perfect that it's like karaoke (cough cough, Disclosure and Simian Mobile Disco).  Sorry, but a nice light show doesn't make up for that.  Back to the sold-out show -- again, it was a pretty great gig and I'm going to finally say that I'm impressed by DC crowds.  The kinds of electronic shows I like seem to consistently sell out here and at venues like U Street I can't say that the crowd is just full of in-the-know posers who want to be seen at the right place.  Last night's crowd, similar to the one at Bonobo a few months ago, was really into AlunaGeorge's music, so much so that the cliched act of holding the mic out to the crowd really worked well!  People knew the songs, the lyrics, and they really got down in a nice happy way.  Here's the track they ended the show with -- a show that didn't flag by the way, helped by the fact that is was only 45 minutes long, but that length actually felt perfect -- long enough to have a good time, short enough to not get tired or bored.



My last pop-post is by the very non-Icelandic-sounding but apparently Icelandic singer Emiliana Torrini.  Heard her on the radio, this track specifically, and liked what I heard.  A slightly different sound that is still very pop, I think.  I hope she comes to DC.