Ted Leo @ the 9:30

The Ted Leo & The Pharmacists show at the 9:30 Club on March 29th is available here (right click, save as), from the NPR Live Concert Series.

Abange Ab'eno

This is music from the hearts and spirits of Ugandans who have struggled and made significant strides against AIDS in their country. The songs onSinging for Life: HIV/AIDS, Music in Uganda are deeply affecting.

Meeting Point Kampala - Abange Ab'eno (Is Someone There?) (mp3)

Vilimina Nakiranda and the Bakuseka Majja Group, Kibaale Village - Olembe Lubiibe (Death Is Bad) (mp3)

Nellie McKay Live

The Nellie McKay concert at the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA, originally broadcast on NPR on Tuesday, is available for download here (right-click, save as). The Good, The Bad, and The Queen's 9:30 Club show (14 March) is also available for download, here. The Ted Leo 9:30 Club show, broadcast last night, sounded magnificent, and should be up in a few days.

Get Nellie McKay's Pretty Little Head, The Good, the Bad & the Queen, and Ted Leo and The Pharmacists' Living with the Living.

I Love You, Imaginary You

Mike Semple, the songwriter/musician behind Secretary Bird, has the vocal delivery to make you believe anything he has to say, lyrics that will stick to your brain like little tacks, and chord progressions to hammer down the points. And how about that friendly brass at the end of Imaginary You, and the annihilating guitar at the end of Cornerstone.

Secretary Bird - Imaginary You (mp3)
Secretary Bird - Cornerstone (mp3)

Here's the self-titled Secretary Birddebut. You buy.

Kings of Leon on Letterman

Kings of Leon performed on Letterman on Monday night. Please take the time to thank them for the inspired guitar solo, which the late shows could use more of these days...

Kings of Leon - On Call (Live on Letterman 3-26-2007) (mp3)

Because of the Timesis a preorder steal from Amazon.com for a mere $7.99.

Toys to Boys.

As children in Chicago's south side, Jeanette, Wanda, and Sheila Hutchinson were originally known as the Hutchinson Sunbeams, with humble beginnings in church choirs and basement practice sessions. Eventually, they changed their name to The Emotions, and their number-one single "Best of My Love" spent five weeks at #1 on the U.S. pop chart. These songs are less popular, but it's clear that the sisters carried a little bit of that sunbeam along with them throughout their career.

The Emotions, from Chronicle: (mp3s)

From Toys To Boys
My Honey & Me
Runnin' Back And Forth

Arcade Fire In An Elevator

Have you seen Arcade Fire's Neon Bible, as performed in an elevator, with torn magazine pages as percussion?

Watch it here at blogotheque. Go to about 4:50 in.

Georgie James - live, acoustic, on WTMD

Laura on the keys

One day this year, Georgie James will release their full-length. Until then, I'll just have to keep e-stalking them, just like this.

A little over a month ago, they stopped in the WTMD studio for a live acoustic performance on Baltimore Unsigned. Even with just the two of them, the pop is catchy, the soul is deep, and the vocal harmonies are bliss.

Georgie James, Live, Acoustic on WTMD 1-30-2007 (mp3):

Look Me Up
Cake Parade
You Can Have It
More Lights

SoKo

On Monday, Dan from Said The Gramophone posted SoKo's tender love song called "I'll Kill Her." I thought it was just beautiful, and it reminded me of a scene from Memories of My Melancholy Whores, in which our hero goes into a jealous rampage over the beautiful young prostitute he frequents, and the brothel's Madame laments that she wishes that someone in her lifetime loved her as much. Kinda makes you want to cry, doesn't it.

Anyway, here's the video for the SoKo song. You're gonna love it.

Soko - I'll kill her
Uploaded by Rkst

Grizzly Bear on Carson

Grizzly Bear played Knife on Carson last Thursday, and their bittersweet harmonies left their fans thirsting for more. As for the Say Anything fans in the Carson crowd (from the Grizzly Bear blog):

Carson <3’s Grizzly
March 13th, 2007

Just kidding! He essentially had no clue who we were, but his music booker did and she was real nice. So to prep for our first ever late night TV appearance, I decided it was time to blog about it.

...

So here we are playing our SECOND song for Carson, the first “Knife” went over pretty well, considering we were a last minute fill in for an Emo band I’d never heard of called “Say Anything”. Needless the say, Say Anything’s fans were slightly confused, if not shocked and bewildered by the time the middle of “Lullabye” kicked in. Of course they clapped and hooted because there are about 3 stage dudes telling the crowd to cheer and for how long, and how loud. We were inwardly dying of laughter.

Grizzly Bear - Knife (Live on Carson, 3-15-2007) (mp3)

Own Yellow House.

Also, download or stream videos of six songs, including Knife and He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss), from a recent performanc in Minneapolis, here.

Okkervil River, Live at SXSW on KEXP, 3-16-2007

If you don't already subscribe to the KEXP Live Performances Podcast, now's the time. They've got SXSW performances up from Earl Greyhound, Ghostland Observatory, Apples in Stereo, Peter Bjorn & John, Beirut, and many other great shows, including this performance from Okkervil River, with essential versions of The President's Dead and Okkervil River Song.

Okkervil River, Live at SXSW on KEXP, 3-16-2007 (mp3s):

The President's Dead
The Latest Toughs
Life Is Not A Movie
Westfall
For Real
Okkervil River Song

Own Black Sheep Boy: Definitive Edition.

Tuesday's New Music Releases

Big decision day here in the U.S. tomorrow for music fans, with highly recommended releases from Andrew Bird, LCD Soundsystem, and Modest Mouse, as well as buzzworthies from El-P, Panda Bear, and the totally sexy Ponys, Willowz and uber-babe Joss Stone. Hope you saved your money.

Adult. - Why Bother
Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha
J Dilla - Ruff Draft (Dlx)
El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead
Kieran Hebden & Steve Reid - Tongues
I'm From Barcelona - Let Me Introduce My Friends US release; already out in Europe
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Living With the Living
Low - Drums & Guns
Jesse Malin - Glitter in the Gutter
Willy Mason - If the Ocean Gets Rough
Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
The Ponys - Turn the Lights Out (Dig)
Radical Face - Ghost (Dig)
RTX - Western Xterminator
Joss Stone - Introducing Joss Stone
Tracey Thorn - Out of the Woods
The Willowz - Chautauqua
Young Buck - Buck The World
The Zincs - Black Pompadour

Andrew Bird, Live at SXSW, on MPR, 3-16-2007

Andrew Bird played three songs from SXSW for Minnesota Public Radio' The Current on Friday. He scintillates live. I can't wait to see him this year.

Andrew Bird, Live at SXSW, on MPR, 3-16-2007 (mp3s):

Plasticities
Imitosis
Scythian Empires

Sit down with Armchair Apocrypha.

The Good, The Bad, and The Queen: Live on Letterman and NPR

The Good, The Bad, and The Queen "project" played at the 9:30 Club this week, and the nice people at NPR have made the entire show downloadable as an mp3 here (right click-save as).

The project also played a song on Letterman the night before last.

The Good, The Bad, and The Queen - Herculean (Live on Letterman 3-13-2007) (mp3)

Own The Good, the Bad & the Queen.

Earl Greyhound @ SXSW, Live on KEXP, 3-14-2007

Long live the gargantuan guitar amp and drum. Long live epic rock.

Earl Greyhound @ SXSW, Live on KEXP, 3-14-2007 (mp3s):

Monkey
Yeah, I Love You
Fashion
It's Over
Good
S.O.S.
Interview

Own Soft Targets, and get yourself to their live shows, of which The New Yorker's Sasha Frere Jones wrote “Whether or not Earl Greyhound are the Next Big Thing is irrelevant—watching them will convince you that they are,” and “Ricc Sheridan is the most exciting drummer in New York. His arms are as big as fire hydrants, his timekeeping is implacable, and the force of his playing would make any reasonable drummer cry.”

The Indie Rock May Be In Austin

...but today we're bringing you red-hot soul from Houston. Come on, now. Let's do the Football, baby. Move those shoulders, baby.



Acres of Grass - Football (mp3)
Charles Berry and the Cherries - Ain't That Something (mp3)
Ovide All-Stars - One Number Cancels the Other (mp3)

You gotta move to the sweaty southern funk on Funky Funky Houston.

Amy Winehouse, Live on Letterman, 3-12-2007

Amy Winehouse performed Rehab on Letterman last night. She appeared more conservative than I expected in her U.S. live television debut, but her voice was spot-on.

Amy Winehouse - Rehab, Live on SNL, 3-12-2007 (mp3)

Own Back to Black.

Grinderman.

File this under testosterone.

Nick Cave has had a long creative affair with the primeval, the base instincts of man. He is a primate's primate, and his music projects the depths he channels. Wit Lyre of Orpheus/Abbatoir Blues, he's nearly perfected the art of bringing forth the animus, and his latest project, Grinderman, kicks it up a notch, and grabs hold of those dark corners of the mind with rusty grappling hooks and yanks them into clear view.

It all starts with Nick Cave calls "a lament for the messianic rock 'n roll hero," the startler Get It On, "a statement of intent" that conjures images of mice, dogs, baboons, and an primitive, unrefined animal born of the primordial ooze of early blues. Cave's guitar appropriately grinds and howls throughout.

The ubiquitous No Pussy Blues follows, beginning, like its predecessor, with a stream of consciousness presented as an announcement, delivered like a preacher: "My face is finished. My body's gone and I can't help but think standing here in all this applause and gazing down at all the young and the beautiful with their questioning eyes that I must above all things love myself, that I must above all things love myself..."

Electric Alice (mp3) slows it down for a moment, but the song is still in the wilderness. A nod to the improvisational wonder Alice Coltrane and to Larry Young, the song wanders and veers, a semiconscious dreamscape meandering, or a midnight lamentation, or maybe both.

Fast forward to Honey Bee (Let's Fly To Mars)(mp3), which Cave describes as "Joseph and Mary's flight into Egypt, but you know, reworked." Listen to the guitars wail as Cave buzzes with stinging fury, the narrator begging them to carry him away, "literally repulsed into orbit by the banal horror of the world..."

Others have posted Love Bomb, because it's certified badass, propelled by demonic rage. Or something similar.

Own Grinderman by clicking on the link to the right under "The Smudge Recommends."

New Figurines Vid - Back In The Day

Here's a new video for the Figurines' Back In The Day. It's the album cover come to life, spare and mysterious.



And two reasons that I still love Skeleton:

The Wonder MP3
Rivalry MP3

Still Beat.

Check out this brilliant, eerie yet comforting video from Harlan. According to promo notes, "the guy behind the band basically left his job in NYC and moved to a small cabin in the hills of his native Kentucky to paint and write music."

Respect.



The LP comes out next month. The pop dreaminess sounds like this:

Computer Games Under The Sun
Days of Delirium
Sons and Daughters

Be the first to own the Still Beat Lp.

Midlake, Live, KEXP, 3-7-2007

Yesterday, KEXP aired four songs that Midlake performed for them on the 7th. This is an unusually lush, rich, and full in-studio.

Midlake, Live, KEXP 3-7-2007 (mp3s):

Bandits
Van Occupanther
Roscoe
Head Home

Own The Trials of Van Occupanther.

Ted Leo, Live, WOXY's Lounge Act, 2 March 2007

Ted Leo played some songs in a great performance for WOXY's Lounge Act last week (the podcast is available here).

Ted Leo, Live for WOXY's Lounge Act, 2 March 2007 (mp3s):

Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone?
The "Nice People" Argument
A Bottle Of Buckie
- interview -
The Living Kind
Me And Mia

Own Living With the Living, and for a limited time, get a five-song bonus EP.

Je Suis.

Delphine Desyeux unconvincingly sings of being a tigress. But you know what? Look at that photo down there. She can be whatever she wants to.

Delphine Desyeux - Je Suis la Tigresse (I'm a Tiger) (mp3)



And Christine Pilzer, whose tone is less innocent, sings of Café Crème, because she just enjoys that warm milk in her coffee.

Christine Pilzer - Café Crème (mp3)




These songs and more are on the impressive Swinging Mademoiselles: Groovy French Sounds from the 60s