12/4/15

Post "Coming Home" New Found Glory records are all sort of a noisy blur to me, I never paid much attention, but I am unashamed to admit how much I enjoy it when "Vicious Love" comes on YouTube. Impossible-to-ignore chorus, solid harmonies and those sweet, sweet Chad Gilbert progressions. (Also, how have I never, in all these years, tagged New Found Glory before?!)



"I could have given up a thousand times
In the past that was so easy
When the thought came to my mind
There was no convincing me
Plant my feet to face it all
Side by side or a phone call
Living in tension with you
Still feels better
Better than I’ve ever known.

We’ve got a vicious love
We mix our tears with blood
No clock will stop for us
It ticks by
We fight as hard as we love
We’ve got a vicious love."
~Vicious Love
New Found Glory, Resurrection

11/25/15

I don't like Adele. I don't! Never have. Found her annoying from the start. But, she's apparently the newest record-setter for album sales, I don't really care for her voice, or her sap, but goddammit if I wasn't hypnotized by this performance (which I only found because I was reading about a producer on The Fader during my lunch break).



I gotta give it up for this. And I have to watch it again. Her vocal ability is spot-on as she nails every high note and run-on melody. The song is less annoying lyrically than some others, and the setting of simple gutiar parts and back-up signers in the studio is exactly the way ballads should be recorded live. I also love the little two-note guitar part that starts before the pre-chorus, the way it builds into something more. Her change-up of lyrics it the final chorus has a peel-back-the-curtain effect. And, in full disclosure, earlier today I saw a recording of her performing that too-ubiquitous "Hello" single w/Jimmy Fallon and The Roots as one of their rather clever classroom instrument renditions, and it was pretty impossible to not enjoy it, if only for noticing the great instincts and reactions of the band around her song and performance.

Ugh, so, am I changing my tune on Adele? Meh. I am not going to purchase "25." I'm not!! But maybe I won't mind as much when she comes up in random playlists, knowing that her performance skills are so incredibly strong, and her sense of romance in her lyrics maybe isn't all radio cliches after all.

"Let me photograph you in this light
In case it is the last time,
That we might be exactly like we were
Before we realized
We were sad of getting old
It made us restless
I'm so mad I'm getting old
It makes me reckless
It was just like a movie
It was just like a song
When we were young."
~When We Were Young,
Adele, 25

8/18/15

Listening The Frames is such a gift for your ears. Knowing they've been around since the mid-90s, their catalog has a nostalgic quality, but the songs themselves feel timeless in structure and supreme melody. They're often incredibly sad and heartbroken, but nonetheless alive, with a hunger for feeling, even in desperation.

I came across this performance in a YouTube spree this evening, and the refrain has slipped from my lips ever since. It's the kind of song that makes me want to pick up a guitar and play something simple, find a full band to chime in and send the message through. Not only is this a beautiful song, and an impressive performance with one hell of a referential interlude and mash-up ending, but Glen Hansard's opening monologue is too charming for words. Tough to beat those final harmonies too, from a song I never heard til now, the kind that are soft, subtle and haunting just before the applause cuts in and the lights come up. Those moments on stage, the kind that are so full of fleeting magic, are what can make a 16-year-old song sound fresh and familiar, wonderful and warm.

"Star, star, teach me how to shine, shine
Teach me so I know what's going on in your mind
'Cause I don't understand these people
Saying the hill's too steep, well
They talk and talk forever
But they just never climb

Falling down into situations
Bringing out the best in you
You're flat on your back again
And star, your every word I'm heeding
Can you help me to see?
I'm lost in the marsh

Star, star, teach me how to shine, shine
Teach me so I know what's going on in your mind
'Cause I don't understand these people
Saying the world is sleeping
They toss and turn forever
But no rest will they find

Star, teach me how to shine

Star, star, teach me how to shine, shine
Teach me so I know what's going on in your mind."

~Star Star

The Frames, Dance The Devil

6/15/15

I first heard this song on a long drive back sometime this spring. From where, I don't remember, but I was heading in some direction on the Turnpike, and when I drive the those kinds of highways, I often like to listen to the radio. Whatever market it is, I just pass the time by sipping coffee and scanning the stations. So much through the midstate is country or Christian or talk radio. I wind up listening to NPR a lot, and on this particular occasion, the program had an interview with PHOX and played their single "Slow Motion."

I enjoyed it - her voice especially, and that banjo riff - and then I found myself wondering about all the little bands out there with their new, derivative sounds, and could this one cut through the noise? It wasn't until this played during a set change at a local rock show last night and I recognized the hook that I remembered them. In the past two days, I've played it about eight times.

From the creator's perspective, you always strive for your work to be memorable. In the highest of daydreams, your work connects to others in a way that inspires them, that heals them, that gives them better perspective to understand the world or their lives or our times. But this goal is also really flexible. Just giving someone an enjoyable few minutes is success. The next listen, or the next listener, becomes a better marker for how well the work connects overall. That lasting potential is the elusive ingredient.

I'm feeling a weird listener's guilt for enjoying this song earlier and then not checking out the band further, as is my usual mode of finding new music and enjoying artists. But, since it came back around and I recognized it, I'd say PHOX did their job. Tough to not like that hook. I've decided it's a sweet new tune to kick off a week of muggy, wet summer, something to interrupt the daily doldrums and constant mental maladies. It is not quite happy, but it is perceptive and wandering and patient, and full of air and lightness.

I'm surprised I like this. I don't love this formula. And I usually hate whistling in songs. Like really hate it. It's kitschy as hell. But I don't mind it here, it works - maybe because it's followed by such a heavy, up-front bass, and the banjo is charming, and the oboe solo (!!!) before the bridge is pretty magnificent and rich and unexpected. I really appreciate the fullness this song builds to, and the skill required to make it sound cohesive with so much going on isn't nothing. Bands like this can get so overanxious and obnoxious with too many elements weaving in and out of another, but this builds really well, like a long and winding road, with honeysuckle vocals and blue bonnet bells dotting the path.

I checked out some of their live material on YouTube and found it really interesting. Better playing than expected, and a bluesy vibe lurking under the strings. While that interest may rise and fall, or pass with time and other surprises, I feel it is worth recognition, if just  the lesson: one simple - albeit instrumentally complex! - song can be heard once and promptly forgotten for a myriad of reasons, and then catch you off-guard as a perfect fit. No matter how long it lasts.

"Everything I do, I do in slow motion
I don't know what to say
Everywhere I fall, don't know name or location
Baby, I'll just find my way, I'll find it
Heavy is my sleeping, terror is my dreaming
While you are pretty through the night
You may taste the salt that rolls off my cheekbone
But you don't know why I cry."

~Slow Motion

PHOX,PHOX

12/19/14

I generally enjoy listening to music on YouTube because it allows multitasking. I get to find out about new bands and random songs through playlists that keep me from toggling back and forth between tabs all day at work. Today, I realized "Hey, maybe I wrote off The Story So Far too soon," because I figured they were one of those annoying newish pop-punk bands that was all image and no substance....and maybe that is what they really are, I don't really know any of their songs, but I do know I heard this and it is all I want to listen to right now, it is rather beautiful, and these are my favorite chords.

"I think you'll notice when things become different
The good vibes in our lives won't feel so consistent
And less becomes more cause the weight is too heavy
I swim in the water that's breaking your levy

The way that you left me is alright, it's alright
If I argue the point then we yell and we fight
And I won't be home for the rest of the night
You might hate my words but you know that I'm right
You know that I'm right.

This is your life there's no way to run from it
The doubt in your brain or the pain in your stomach
I only have but one complaint at the moment:
Don't paint me black when I used to be golden.

The way that you left me, is alright it's alright,
If I argue the point then we yell and we fight,
And I won't be home for the rest of the night,
You might hate my words but you know that I'm right,
You know that I'm right.
Don't paint me black when I used to be golden."
 ~Clairvoyant,
The Story So Far, Sitck to Your Guns Split

11/12/14

Nothing but Northstar. So much good new music has come out in recent weeks and I've got a backlog of thoughts to think and musings to post, but for daytime listening lately I keep coming back to these Glamour Kills YouTube videos from four years ago of Nick Torres acoustic. I would do bad things like take candy from children and cut off an old woman on the sidewalk if I meant I'd get an hour of songwriting with this guy.And I would like to turn around and scold all those folks chattering too loud during a too-good performance.

Torres's post-Northstar project, Cassino, said earlier this year they'd have new music by the end of the year. So that's something to look forward to. I'm counting down the days to the unknown.



"So this is how it ends, toxic and deliberate
She’s blood red at the neck boiling off fingerprints
This hospital love is making death seem elegant
“Just don’t breathe and we’ll stop time”
She said...
“I got this delicate lisp that speaks in tongues and upper lips”
Your silhouette's my favorite
I'm not letting go of it
I'm not letting go of it
She’s got a leash that grips my teeth
That cleans the air I breathe and
It’s wrapped around this city
You look so lovely running through my fingers
Running through my fingers
Where everything’s always felt right
You look so lovely running through my fingers
Running through my fingers
Where everything’s always felt right
So she glides off the bed with unflinching relevance
and completely motionless
You’re so heavy, you’re so warm
Just a pillow I've used a thousand times before
Wrapped in velvet and filled with thorns
I’ve got this weakening grip around her arms, around her hips
Your silhouette's my favorite
I’m not letting go of it
I'm not letting go of it
She’s got a leash that grips my teeth
That cleans the air I breathe and
It’s wrapped around this city
You look so lovely running through my fingers
Running through my fingers
Where everything’s always felt right
You look so lovely running through my fingers
Running through my fingers
Where everything’s always felt right"
~Pollyanna
Northstar, Pollyana

12/13/12

"Come gather 'round people wherever you roam/And admit that the waters around you have grown/And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone/If your time to you is worth savin'/So you better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone /or the times, they are a-chang - in'/Come writers and critics who prophecies with your pen/And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again/And don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin/And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'/For the times they are a-changin'/Come senators, congressmen please heed the call/Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall/For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled/The battle outside ragin'/Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls/For the times they are a-changin'/Come mothers and fathers throughout the land/And don't criticize what you don't understand/Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command/Your old road is rapidly agin'/Please get out of the new one if you can't lend a hand/For the times they are a-changin'/The line it is drawn the curse it is cast/The slow one now will later be fast/As the present now will later be past The order is rapidly fadin'/And the first one now will later be last/For the times they are a-changin.'"

~The Times They are A-changin'

Bob Dylan, The Times They are A-changin'

EDIT: I guess I was a little inspired/moved/whatever, because I'm having trouble handling how the world can be such an awful, terrifying place sometimes.

11/28/12

Love the sounds in this song, a YouTube find from earlier today that I put on repeat a few times. Something very different. Something new but nostalgic. There lots of picking on string instruments I can't identify, and brushed percussion for a real soft muffled sound. Then, a little past halfway, you get some real natural strumming melodies that took just long enough to arrive, making you realize it wasn't in the rest of the song despite the typical order of things...very inverted in that way.

Good message, too. It's so simple to say things are complicated, but it's not too tricky to drill past the surface, either. You either want something or you don't, and if you're not sure, it's probably because you're afraid of what the answer means.

"And there’s a shelf where you keep old stuff
A bottom step where we once made love
And there are words we don’t say enough, 

And there are words we don’t say enough

Like, 'Hey, what are you doing tonight?
We could share a bottle of wine if you like.'
But time takes it’s toll when we fight
Now we’re just two things that don’t move in the night

You’re really gonna hate me now, but you will see I set you free

You’re really gonna hate me now, but you will see I set you free

You’re really gonna hate me now, but you will see I set you free

You’re really gonna hate me now, but you will see I set you free

Well did you mean it? 

And if you didn't, 

why'd you say it?"

~Things That Don't Move in the Night

Edward Turner, night EP

10/4/12

Found this song on a mix recently, love it more now than I did then. Sort of bummed I can't find a video with the album version, because I love the production and it sounds so good at the last couple lines...but this version has fun solos, even if the audio sucks and it cuts off super abruptly at the end. YouTube, I expected more from you.



I never really listened to Mae after "The Everglow," probably should check it out for kicks. Their songs have a consistent frankness about the consistent perils love and want and life...and yet their songs exudes positivity, for an early 2000s scene group, anyway.

"She greets the day with her hair wet
She asks them to vacate the building
Because she's got a plan they don't know yet
And if it goes wrong, there'll be no one to see
If she could just get the word out
God knows she's trying
They're watching her with eyes closed
She's always stuck with the old route
Does anyone knock when they barge in to beat her down?

Will you come back?
It's all she wants to know,
She knows she's part of the problem too.
Could she let it go?
It'd take a miracle,
So that's what I'm praying for.

No one can know just how she feels,
She won't use the phone, she's too tired to pick it up.
She's going back to the old way,
She sits in the classroom to learn with the others.

Please don't give up when it's easy
Don't you know that me and Jesus will cheer you on?
He's the only one that will be constantly everything you need

Will you come back?
It's all she wants to know,
She knows she's part of the problem too.
Could she let it go?
It'd take a miracle
So that's what I'm praying for.

She lives on Tisbury Lane
She lives on Tisbury Lane"

~Tisbury Lane 

Mae, Destination: Beautiful

Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated Mae's album "Destination: Beautiful" as "Embers and Envelopes," which is actually the name of the first track. The sleepy author regrets this error, because "Destination: Beautiful" is a great album title.

9/25/12

Probably the best use of garden-variety keyboard beats I've seen ever maybe.



Also, shaker egg! Really fantastic harmonies. Easy to love, sort of makes you want to dance. But beneath all the twirling auxiliary, and those wonderful mandolin strings, there's a really lovely song, an assertive, berated yet dignified love letter. Something very 19th century about it that is refreshing, charming.

It's a well-crafted structure, in the sense it's very even and that's not something everyone can do, as it can be tough to find the right words that are also the right number of syllables and rhyme enough. Sure I love something asymmetrical, that's certainly interesting, but something this steady is simple, and simple works more often than not.

Some friends of mine played with these guys back home last night. Interesting in checking out their album...would've been so cool to see that show! Alas.

"When I was a boy of nine
I loved you with all my mind,
all my heart, all my soul,
Love me now or lose it all.

Your sister Jean and Anne Marie
say that you're in love with me.
Is there something I can't see?
Love me now or leave me be.

Down by the river on past the creek,
all me way to Widow's Peak,
proclaimed my love but you didn't speak,
love me now or hold your peace.

The baker and the butcher's wife
say you lead a lonely life,
need a man to stand beside,
love me now or stand aside.

Darling, it's so plainly true,
even I get lonely too.
When my heart is set on you,
love me now or leave me."
~Boy of Nine
Buxton, Nothing Here Seems Strange

9/17/12

You know that feeling you get when you think you have a great idea, only to find it's been done? Not only that, but been done well? It's that mix of feeling disappointed and unoriginal, embarrassed by your own foolishness in thinking maybe you got something cool going on after all. But, after, there's also a wave of self-satisfaction, a bit of a kudos to the instinct.

That's how I felt after I heard this...:



...at the store the other day, and thought "Man, it would so rad to to make this into a sad acoustic cover!" only to hear this...:



...on a Pandora station today. Fun little arpeggio motif, West-Coast-cool vocals, and an unidentifiable instrument and/or pedal holding down a simple and effective rhythmic line. It thoroughly modernizes a classic, a little more depth and a little less pep, though it doesn't completely sacrifice the innocent charm of the original.

Secretly wish I was around for the Ed Sullivan days. Back when even the bad-side-of-tracks-greaser-rock-n-roll boys wore suits and ties and had clean hair, it seems. I have to believe everyone used to have better manners than they do today, where most people treat everyone else like yesterday's trash and think nothing of it. Still, I bet some people were still jerks. Jerks are as timeless as a crush-inspired love song.

Whatever. I still could figure out my own (sadder) version of this tune, maybe. But now I'm just YouTubing a bunch of Buddy Holly videos and making my cat hang out with me. What kind of life am I trying to lead, anyway? Really thought I'd have that worked out by now.

"Everyday it's a-gettin' closer
Goin' faster than a rollercoaster
Love like yours will surely come my way
Hey, hey-hey"

~Everyday 

Buddy Holly and the Crickets, B-Side on "Peggy Sue"

7/22/12

Newly added to the repertoire.

"Go 'way from my window
Leave at your own chosen speed
I'm not the one you want, babe
I'm not the one you need
You say you're lookin' for someone
Who's never weak but always strong
To protect you and defend you
Whether you are right or wrong
Someone to open each and every door
But it ain't me, babe
No, no, no, it ain't me babe
It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe.

Go lightly from the ledge, babe
Go lightly on the ground
I'm not the one you want, babe
I will only let your down
You say you're lookin' for someone
Who will promise never to part
Someone to close his eyes for you
Someone to close his heart
Someone who will die for you and more
But it ain't me, babe
No, no, no, it ain't me babe
It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe.

Go melt back into the night
Everything inside is made of stone
There's nothing in here moving
And anyway I'm not alone
You say you're looking for someone
Who'll pick you up each time you fall
To gather flowers constantly
And to come each time you call
A lover for you life and nothing more
But it ain't me, babe
No, no, no, it ain't me, babe
It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe."
~It Ain't Me, Babe
Bob Dylan, as heard by Fleet Foxes on YouTube

7/11/12

If Jimmy Eat World can capture one feeling with unmatched purity, it's the pang of lingering affection. Also, they have a tendency to fill an album closer with all the best things: heart, tension, poignant lead guitar, and the delicacy of the final fingers brushing away from the last and grasp. "Dizzy" measures up on both counts.

Sidenote: Audio is surprisingly awesome for what looks like a cell phone vid. Thank you, Internet.

"All talk and not a lot to think, we were living dreams

And shame never crept close to our naked feet
If there's something left to lose,
Then don't let me wear out my shoes
I'm still walking.

I tried, but it rang and rang, I called all night
On a payphone, remember those from another life?
If everything I meant to you,
You can lick and seal then fold in two
Then I've been so blind.

Respectfully, so honestly I'm calling out
Do you hear the conversation we talk about?
Back away to the safety of a quiet house
If there's half a chance in this moment
When your eyes meet mine, we show it off."
~Dizzy
Jimmy Eat World, Chase This Light

3/25/12

Apparently Look Mexico is into hunting, subject matter suitable for the video to their first track of their 2010 release, which is in my daily rotation. Illuminating the everyman, he who hangs with friends and kisses hounds, it makes the band seem pretty fun. But I think there's more to say for this song than the video says, though.

There's fed-up anger here, and it speaks to me in time signatures.

"When you live out your time/In hope of impossibility/We stripped down lies/We treated you like family/Credit where credit is due/Now the bureau is looking for me/So as you thank us for our patience/Expect something else, not a thing/and I thank you/I'll thank for/Thank you for absolutely nothing"
~You Stay. I Go. No Following
Look Mexico, To Bed, To Battle

Literary worlds are inflamed wtih income inequality tales, academic journals are quick to point out problems and debate each other's solutions. Everyone's talking. But where's the music on this? It's there in a pop track or two, an occasional reference to money or fame ("I Wanna be a Billioniare," that damn song) or escape (think Coldplay's "Paradise"). Fleet Foxes did a pretty good job capturing the feeling of it all on "Helplessness Blues," but commentarywise, the album speaks to the individual far more so than the whole of the culture or its direction.

One of the constant drawbacks of pop culture is it's always trying to define itself into what it wants to be, rather than be what it is. Underground, you find the antidote. Underground, you can call the spade a spade. But I've yet to come across a force inspired recent events in recent years, unless I'm forgetting somebody.

Essentially, where is my Guerilla Radio about derivatives?

5/18/10

I've been listening to random playlists on autoplay on YouTube lately, leads to good background music, and good re-discoveries. I've been in UK band mode lately......Travis is a throwback to high school, sad I sold that record. So good for rainy days.



"Every day I wake up and it's Sunday
Whatever's in my eye won't go away
The radio is playing all the usual
And what's a Wonderwall anyway

Because my inside is outside
My right side's on my left side
Cause I'm writing to reach you now but
I might never reach you
Only want to teach you
About you
But that's not you

It's good to know that you are home for Christmas
It's good to know that you are doing well
It's good to know that you all know I'm hurting
It's good to know I'm feeling not so well

Because my inside is outside
My right side's on my left side
Cause I'm writing to reach you now but
I might never reach you
Only want to teach you
About you
But that's not you
Do you know it's true
But that won't do"

~Writing To Reach You,
Travis, The Man Who

2/24/10

Sweeeeeeet.



And this video made me laugh. There is whole Beatles community on YouTube that could keep me here till 3 a.m....so many videos....

2/8/10

Never an overrated song, was only familiar with The Beatles and Smokey Robinson versions but I like this one, too. So sweet, and it sneaks up on you with patience and delicacy.

Obviously I love both M.Ward and Zooey Deschanel, how can anyone not? A fittingly talented pair of songwriters and performers, She & Him is just a good example of a certain kind of music that just ran rampant the past few years, I think they just hit that soothing, quiet, sad folk nail on the head. They got great style, too, pop appeal like crazy but it didn't detract from the product. New album alert: March 23!!!

Also, the labeling tool won't let me put the ampersand in the "She & Him" label. I've half a mind to complain to Blogger.

I don't understand this video, something about love, loving and food? I'm missing something, but the guy at 2:35 made me laugh. So, do I sing this to my food? I don't understand.

11/24/09

Christmas came early for me this year. I found a brand new, unclaimed purse in my closet, had half a Schwartzkoff and.....listened to Them Crooked Vultures!

I don't even know where to begin! The time has finally arrived, and it's everything I hoped for and more. Well, maybe I'm being melodramatic, but come on, it's pretty much three of the coolest, dirtiest, talented, dedicated bunch so of course it's gonna be good. Grohl-Homme-Jones. Giddy-up!



Crazy. That was all scary and apocalyptic and shit.



^Not only is that the start of one of my favorite tracks on the album, but the comments are ridiculous, Nirvana vs. Zep and who is better and matters of opinion. <3 youtube.

Their forceful, loud, dense and dark but so swift and just the right attitude. Great arrangements of instruments, great layers, just awesome.



Favorite tracks include: New Fang, Elephants, Bandoliers, Reptiles, Warsaw Or The First Breath You Take After You Give Up.

9/12/09

That fuckin Kings of Leon song, 'Use Somebody,' I can't tell you how much I love it. It's such a good song. In the way that Snow Patrol and Sigur Ros and Coldplay are good, that kind of patient tension building quality. Loveeee. Heard a couple covers and remixes, some I could take or leave but some are really great.

The more I check out music videos on YouTube, by searching for certain popular songs and whatnot, the more I realize how manyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy people put up videos of themselves playing. This is a question no one seems to have a real answer for, other than "They're all trying to get famous." But are they really? What defines famous? Lots of hits? Lots of 'net friends? A record deal? Or is just because you can, you can put yourself out there and do your music with relatively few consequences and expenses. It's a free expression community park, somewhere on the virtual plane between the MySpace ghettos and the Facebook towers.

7/9/09

I love this song. Also, I like this video, think it does the song justice.