NURSES-“Apple’s Acre” . . . And some other stuff, too!

Posted on August 23rd, 2009 by ekko

“Apple’s Acre” is weird. That’s right, weird. It’s weird like Deerhoof and Deer Tick. It’s weird like Yeasayer and Portugal. The Man (only weirder). It’s weird like raw, experimental indie folk/rock is supposed to be.  Nurses’ latest album may give you a fragment of harmony or melody (“Technicolor”), but it’s just as likely to give you a waltzy whine (“Mile After Mile”), a whistling whirligig (“Caterpillar Playground”), or a bouncy jig that’s (gasp!) almost hummable (“Apple’s Acre”). Let’s just say, if you listen to this record and you’re bored then you probably don’t have ears.

I can’t say that this entry in the trend of underproduced, anti-song pop is revolutionary, or even that this genre is one that I can connect emotionally with, but I do enjoy listening to it. It’s almost visual or mathematical, the way that so many dissonant, uncoordinated sounds and melodies come together to form something like a composition but more like improvisation.

But hey, even if they are playing with the same ideas as Yeasayer, or Portugal. The Man, or Deerhoof . . . This is good company to keep.

Apple’s Acre

THE DONNNAS COVER THE SWEET

I love The Sweet (Love is Like Oxygen, Ballroom Blitz . . . What’s not to love?), so when Retro Music Snob posted this cover by The Donnas, I was psyched.  I would have linked to their post, but for some reason they don’t have their blog set up to allow links to individual posts.  But check the site out. Lots of cool stuff there.

BROOKLYN!

So there’s this band called “The Library,” right?  Terrible name, but they’re from the BK.  Dude in it used to be in The Comas.  They do shoegazery stuff, and want to give you their EP for fee.

The Life and Times of Rosa Lee (direct link mp3)

Get the whole thing here.

AND FINALLY . . .

The award for most tasteless self-promotion goes to . . . AC!  I do like the guy’s flow, but come on . . .

(blog)ROLLIN’ ROLLIN’ ROLLIN’

Posted on August 23rd, 2009 by ekko

1.  I’m updating my blogroll. If you’re a blogger and want to trade links, hit me!  As long as your site doesn’t completely suck or advocate murdering babies by feeding them to dogs you’ve starved by chaining in your basement and taunting them with kittens, we’re probably cool.

2.  Stop Okay Go has a weird song.    It’s called “Surfing or AIDS (I’ll take Surfing).”  Haven’t heard it yet, but you bet I’m gonna.

3.  Transmission (Joy Division cover)-Smashing Pumpkins.

4.  Rock N Roll Star has a buncha stuff about Dead Weather.  I’m not feelin’ this iteration of Jack White.  What about you guys?

5.  Interview with the Fruit Bats.

Tags: Go away

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Posted on August 23rd, 2009 by ekko

Time (Pink Floyd cover)-The Killers

Tags: Messiah, Picture of the day

CORNERSHOP-”Judy Sucks a Lemon for Breakfast”

Posted on August 22nd, 2009 by ekko

Cornershop has never been quiet about the debt they owe to The Beatles, and their latest, “Judy Sucks a Lemon for Breakfast,” continues in that grand tradition, with plenty of pop sitar, short and tight tunes, and 1960s riffs.  Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres are one of the best songwriting teams around today, as evidenced by this great-from-beginning-to-end release. I even enjoyed the upbeat cover of Bob Dylan’s “The Mighty Quinn,” notwithstanding that it sounds a little like The Grateful Dead’s own cover of that song and really doesn’t break any new ground.  But the real tour-de-force is the 16-minute “The Turned-On Truth,” which tranforms the “Brimful of Asha” riff into a gospel tune, occupying simultaneously rock and roll sounds perfected by Van Morrison, George Harrison, Curtis Mayfield, Joe Cocker, Merle Saunders, and, of course, Cornershop themselves.  (They’ve been around for almost two decades, so why shouldn’t they now be considered influential?)

If you’re one of the fans who was eagerly awaiting this release, be happy.  If you’ve never heard Cornershop before (or are only familiar with “Asha”), be very happy.  This will be a record you’ll want to experience again and again.

Chamchu

Waterloo Sunset (Kinks cover) (Bonus live track)

BONUS!

Brimful of Asha (Fatboy Slim remix)

Tags: Covers

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Posted on August 22nd, 2009 by ekko

Tags: Picture of the day, Weenies

MARVEL: DARK UNIVERSE

Posted on August 21st, 2009 by ekko

If you go to my comic shop, you’ll find an entire section devoted to Dark Reign books.  Many (most) are a complete waste of time.  Like the recent Green Goblin one, which was basically just a reprint of a couple old Amazing Spider-Man issues that have been reprinted many times before.  Or the Young Avengers one, which takes a book that was once great and further grinds the youthful, optimistic concept under the cynical boot of Joe Queseda.  (The ruination of that innovative and interesting band of youth began with a depressing Civil War tie-in.)  Dark Reign seems like an excuse to create B-versions of A-heroes, and pit them against each other.  Just like Civil War was just an excuse to have heroes fight each other for a prolonged period.  Usually they just fight each other the first time they meet, for a few pages, y’know.  Civil War didn’t suck, but it wasn’t great.  It turned our heroes from good folks we good aspire to be and showed them to be petty, risking the security of their ideals just get government jobs.  Iron Man deserved better.  So, of course, did Captain America.

In addition to this degrading pessimism, the Marvel U is cursed with a zillion books about the same groups of characters.  How many things can Wolverine possibly do in one month?  And with his recent appearance in Ms. Marvel and his mediocre mini-series “Merc With A Mouth,” one begins to wonder the same thing about Deadpool.  Deadpool’s own book is sheer genius, a bright spot in the Marvel Universe precisely because it does what most other Marvel books do not: It tells jokes and doesn’t take itself so damn seriously.

The ubiquity of characters throughout various titles, and the incessant cross-overs and tie-ins, makes it nearly impossible for new readers to jump on and punished people who are on a budget.  I count at least five Avengers books (Ultimate, New, Initiative, Dark, and Mighty), not including the Pet Avengers and the half-dozen spin-offs (such as the Dark Reign books), as well as the solo books of the characters in the various groups.  Enough!  And Marvel seemed to understand, with Amazing Spider-Man: Brand New Day, that some readers just want to be entertained without spending $20 a week or more just to be able to understand what the heck is going on.  But gradually, Dark Reign has been infecting that book as well.  Thankfully, the writing for the most part has stayed self-contained and relatively upbeat, but there are signs for concern.

I used to love D.C.’s relaunch of the Teen Titans, until they started breaking the team up and adding a whole bunch of characters that nobody cares about (Miss Martian?  Kid Devil?) and sacrificed the humor and loving relationships between a group of not-so-side sidekicks for dark and convoluted stories about treachery and Ravager, Terminator’s daughter.  They killed the book for me.  Marvel has much better quality overall than D.C., but the entire Universe is showing signs of wear.  First, they kill Cap and turn Iron Man into a fascist with The Civil War.  Then they (lamely) rip off Battlestar Galactica by placing skrulls throughout their books, increasing our distrust of the stories and characters.  Then Dark Reign comes, and we are supposed to believe that this entire country, which recently elected its first African American president and appointed its first Hispanic Justice, is so blindly fearful and bigoted that we’ll just embrace known evildoers and allow them to establish a police state in every state.  I just don’t buy it.  I was hoping that the rebirth of Captain America would be a step towards lightening up and returning heroes to their proper place, but it’s not looking good.

After all, we read comic books to be inspired, to escape.  If I want to crack open something as depressing as real life, I’ll read the latest People Magazine article about Kate plus 8.  I’m not saying every book should be like Marvel Adventures, but we can’t we have a few more Deadpools and Amazing Spider-Mans (and the wonderful Oz series), and a few less Dark Reigns, Dark X-Men, Dark Dark Dark books?

Tags: Spider-Man, Superheroes

THE RETURN OF GUILTY PLEASURES!-Careless Whisper

Posted on August 21st, 2009 by ekko

In 1984, a chickie ballad called “Careless Whisper” dominated the radio, featuring a sexy (but unimaginative) sax solo and George Michael’s “I’m about to cry–my voice is about to break” delivery. It was also one of the few (two, actually) Wham! songs that Michael co-wrote with Andrew Ridgeley. You remember the two of them, right?

I remember seeing them on the cover of Star magazine, with one of them wearing a wedding dress.  None of that stopped the song from becoming a monster hit, though.  As soon as those opening lines began . . . “I feel so unsure as I take your hand and lead you to the dance floor/As the music dies, something in your eyes/calls to mind the silver screen, and all it’s sad goodbyes” . . . women (and men) all over the world starting wetting themselves from various orifices. A gay duo performing a song that is about as gay as humanly possible.

And although you claim not to like it, people as cool as Beth Ditto and Ben Folds have made it their own.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Rufus Wainwright and Ben Folds’ version

The Gossip’s version

My Morning Jacket’s version

Seether’s version (live):

Tags: Covers, Guilty Pleasures

THREE FROM THE MAILBAG!

Posted on August 20th, 2009 by ekko

THE BEATINGS-”Late Season Kids”

Coming on Sept. 15, 2009, is the 6th record by Boston’s The Beatings, “Late Season Kids.” I have to admit, I’ve never heard the band before this, but they’re surprisingly good. The vocals are like a young, versatile Warren Zevon, and the music is like late ’90s REM. Is this a fresh or innovative musical experience? No. Does that matter? Again, no.  The songs are all well written and very well performed, and the album never gets weak.  All meat!  No filler!

Good stuff, perfect for a kegger.

Bury You

WENTWORTH KERSEY-”ep”

A formal one-sheet that says “File under: Psych-Folk/Americana/Avant Garde” came accompanied by a handwritten, in crayon, sheet of graph paper with a picture of a crayon hoping I “will enjoy our bootgazing sci-fi folk.” I do.

Wealth

BLACK MOLD-”Snow Blindness is Crystal Antz”

I’m a big fan of songwriter Chad VanGaalen, the man behind the electronica “band” called Black Mold. Be warned: It’s very, very weird.  But you’d expect nothing less from him, eh?

Metal Spider Webs

Tetra Pack Heads

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Posted on August 20th, 2009 by ekko

Tags: Picture of the day, Weenies