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Echoboy in studio

Echoboy - Kit And Holly (mp3)
Gonzalez - Real Motherfuckin' Music (mp3)

From the Uncut Unconditionally Guaranteed 2000.3 (April) compilation.

Viva Voce's Rose City

This is one of 10 reasons Viva Voce's Rose City is one of my favorite albums of this year's banner crop of solid releases. Die A Little could be a track from Beck's Modern Guilt, spared the Danger Mouse production, and with approximately 150 percent more lean, hard muscle, and drums that are not only present, they're the attack. Between their last (and also excellent) album and this one,the band grew from a pair to a foursome, and so they have some new tricks - there's some cutting piano dissonance and echoes of Drugstore in Midnight Sun's vocal harmonies, and subtle hints of new-school Brazil in Flora. Still, the songs get their strength from Anita's guitar and Kevin's beats, most pronounced in Devotion, Die A Little, and Rose City. Oh, and let me not forget the hooks, which end up filling every nook of the brain. This ain't your twee teen's indie.


Viva Voce - Die A Little (mp3)
Viva Voce - Devotion (mp3)

M. Ward, Live on The Current, 4-25-2009

Love it.

Wave of Rhett Miller.

I've always been a serious Pixies/Frank Black fan, and she's more into Old 97's. So this should be just the thing, right?

Rhett Miller - Wave of Mutilation (Pixies)(mp3)

From Harp Magazine's Shout It Out Loud Music compilation, Vol. 1 (2008).

Andrew Bird's Armchair Apocrypha - $1.99

Get Andrew Bird's acclaimed Armchair Apocrypha
as an mp3 album for $1.99 on Amazon.com, today only.

M. Ward, Live in Austin, 3-20-2009 (KEXP)

Broadcast and recorded by KEXP during this year's SXSW. Download here (mp3).

Phones and Machines and Daniel Johnston

This formed from the ether. You will have to go into the ether to get it.

B. Fleischmann - Phones and Machines and King Kong (Daniel Johnston)(mp3)



From B. Fleischmann's Angst Is Not a Weltanschauung!

Maria Taylor on The Current, 4-22-2009

A Heightened State of Derby.

These songs were made for open car windows on an endless road trip on a summer night, designed to stir the blood from one rest stop coffee to the next. Roll 'em down and turn it up.

Derby - All Or Nothing (mp3)
Derby - Streetlight (mp3)

From Derby's Posters Fade.

Sweet Sweet Heart

Glitterbest: 20 Pre Punk 'n' Glam Tyerrace Stompers is all kinds of fun, with sound quality.

Despair - Sweet Sweet Heart (mp3)
Streak - Bang Bang Bullet (mp3)

Hey, I didn't say what kind of sound quality.

Moonpools & Caterpillars

Back when people still traded mixtapes, I ceaselessly listened to cassettes with Moonpools & Caterpillars while in Uganda, in 1995, at night, during the bat canopy, when I wasn't listening to the birds sing. Listening to them now takes me back.

Moonpools & Caterpillars - Heaven (mp3)
Moonpools & Caterpillars - The Buick (mp3)

Both songs are part of Lucky Dumpling.

So Sick of the 21st Century

Radical Sons just took pretense and strangled it with a steel guitar string.

We were 40 years too late
Oh, my brother told me so
'Cuz I'm feelin' nostalgia for
Things I've never known

And all those records you lent to me
I can't tell you how much those meant to me
'Cuz I'm so sick of the 21st Century.

Radical Sons – I’m So Sick Of The 21st Century (mp3)

St. Vincent's Actor, streaming on NPR tonight.

Starting at 11:59 tonight, you will be able to stream St. Vincent's hyped Actor on NPR.

Bob Marley's Live at the Lyceum, $1.99 mp3 album

Bob Marley's Live At The Lyceum is available on Amazon.com for $1.99, until midnight tonight.

Raving: A short film directed by Julia Stiles, starring Zooey Deschanel and Bill Irwin

From Crackle: Raving

David Bowie's Remastered Heroes mp3 album: $1.99

Perhaps this is sacrilege on Record Store Day, but the kids should know that David Bowie's Heroes is available on Amazon for $1.99, today only.

Short Fat Woman Vs. Whole Lot Of Man

Mp3 matchmaking is fun. Here's a cute rare soul couple.

Greater Davis - A Whole Lot Of Man (mp3)
Doug Lane and the Soul Swimmers - Short Fat Woman(mp3)

From The Sound Stage Seven Story and The Bullet and Sur-Speed Records Story, respectively.

Deep Sea Diver's New Caves

You might recognize Jessica Dobson from Beck's Modern Guilt tour...if you need a refresher, here she is, on guitar, on the left:


And here she is with Beck on KCRW:


Yeah, I think so too - all kinds of stage presence, which is why the camera, i.e. the eye behind the camera, betrays its weakness for her magnetism.

She has a new EP called New Caves, and its only fault is that it has only six songs. New Caves is direct and bare, delivered with all the rawness of P.J. Harvey, yet each song is a little spell, channeling Jeff Buckley's chiming chord sincerity. She shows us that rock doesn't need power chords--chords played right, and in the right places, have their own power, and more muscle than maxed-out sound levels. And like Buckley, Dobson is the kind of performer that you just want to sit there and listen to, and let the talent sweep you up and away as you try to take it in. She laments in the closing track, Pillars Of Fire, "I Wish I Was Under Your Spell." New Caves is still in my CD player, and I remain under its spell.

Deep Sea Diver - Snowed In (mp3)

You can get a copy of New Caves on the Deep Sea Diver MySpace. Highly recommended.

Finally, a video of her recent performance of Hangin' On at The Art Theater in Long Beach:

Ra Ra Riot, Live on The Current, 4-15-2009

Alderaan Chunks Everywhere

Dinner With Vader.

Andrew Bird Live On The Current, 4-13-2009

Funkadelphia

These are from The Uplook Records Story, a 21-song Funkadelphia Records compilation of late 60's Philly soul rarities.

Charles Mintz - Give A Man A Break (mp3)
Teddy Pendergrass - Angel With Muddy Feet (mp3)

Beck - Teenage Wastebasket

A glorious minute and twenty-seven seconds of out-of-tune acoustic guitar from the forthcoming reissue of One Foot In The Grave, on Beck.com (scroll to bottom right). Essential as air, seriously.

New The Streets mp3: "I Love My Phone"

Right here, as tweeted on skinnermike 2 hours ago.

The English Beat, Live on The Current, 4-10-2009

Wow. It has been forever.

What's Classy.

Some days you visit an mp3 blog and you get something classy. Other days, and this is one of those, you visit the same mp3 blog and you get something really classy.


Dan Melchoir und Das Menace - Stacked Sally Plumber (mp3)
Psychedelic Horseshit - Meditation Skateboard No. 16 (mp3)


From The World's Lousy With Ideas series.

Neko Case 9:30 Club Show Up On NPR.

Mp3 here. Also, stream the concert, including Will Sheff's opening performance, here.

Van Halen II: $2.99, Stevie Wonder's Music of My Mind: $5

Van Halen II and Music Of My Mind have a lot in common: okay, not really. They're on sale today, though, on Amazon (the Stevie Wonder will remain on sale through the weekend).

Neko Case, Will Sheff, Live at the 9:30 Club, 4-9-2009

In case you missed it, NPR webcasted the audio from both Neko Case's and Will Sheff's sets. The entire show should be available here as an mp3 podcast in a few days. Here are a few highlights.

Neko Case - People Got A Lotta Nerve (live)(mp3)
Neko Case - This Tornado Loves You (live)(mp3)

Will Sheff - Unless It's Kicks (live)(mp3)
Will Sheff - Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe (live)(mp3)

Neko Case's Middle Cyclone is $8.99 as an mp3 album on Amazon, and only $7.99 for the superior CD format! Okkervil River's The Stand-Ins CD is available for 8 bucks used, plus shipping.

Bat For Lashes, Live on BBC Radio 1, 4-9-2009

She played Daniel and Kings of Leon's Use Somebody. Audio, video, and photos here.

Neko Case, Live on KUT, 4-7-09

Neko Case, the tornadic enchantress, contained the gale with this live acoustic in-studio set on KUT this Tuesday night, before kicking off her Middle Cyclone tour.

Tonight, she plays the 9:30 Club in D.C., and Okkervil River's Will Sheff will replace Crooked Fingers as the opening act, due to a scheduling conflict. I'm not complaining...Tonight's wet dream will be a Sheff-Case duet.

Mates of State, NPR Live Concert, 9:30 Club

Glee, from this past Saturday night (4-4-2009). Download the entire concert as a happy little podcast here (mp3), or stream it here.

ACE.

There should be a Rock Band or Guitar Hero edition with nothing but dusty old soul & funk songs like these Ace Records sparkling faux gems. Imagine the possibilities for that video game party.

Phillip Mitchell - If We Get Caught, I Don't Know You (mp3)
Ray Godfrey - I Gotta Get Away (From My Own Self)(mp3)

The Spring Story: Essential 70s Soul has 20 songs like these, and you can get the mp3 album for $8.99 on Amazon.

Fleet Foxes' Sun Giant EP: 99 cents

Today only - get the Fleet Foxes' Sun Giant (mp3) EP
for $.99 on Amazon.com.

The Ting Tings, Live on The Current, 4-6-2009

Headless Heroes - True Love Will Find You In The End (Daniel Johnston)

There are a few things you will need to remember if you want to cover a Daniel Johnston song, and intend to preserve its Daniel Johnston-ness. First, you'll have to keep your delivery innocent, allowing the song to impart its sweet tragic wisdom on its own. Second, keep the sounds plain. Finally: don't leave out the hope. The lyrics will preserve this along with the wisdom, but still...something like a dire, personally apocalyptic shoegaze number won't do. I suppose it would help to have natural freak-folk tendencies, but not everyone is blessed with those.

Here's a Headless Heroes cover of one of my favorite Daniel Johnston songs, True Love Will Find You In The End (mp3), which always reminds me of his own unrequited love, and his sweet, stubborn hope. The slide guitar and Alela Diane's vocal delivery add something new and right, without compromising the song's integrity.

From Headless Heroes' The Silence of Love, an album of covers, also including Jesus & Mary Chain's Just Like Honey. Stream it here.

Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks, Live From the Central Presbyterian Church (stream)

From NPR's All Songs Considered, posted today.

Grizzly Bear's stunning Veckatimest is available for pre-order.

Get Your Crap Detectors Here.

WFMU's Terre T has been playing selections from the We Went And Recorded It Anyway compilation of pop-punk and power pop rarities for weeks now. And so I bought it, and love it. Kinda makes ya wanna cry, doesn't it?

Crap Detectors - Intellectual Moron (mp3)
The Nervebreakers - I Love Your Neurosis (mp3)

Calico Horse: 4 new songs.

Stop multitasking. Get out of your performance groove, your heightened state of Wednesday productivity, your automatic movemovemove mind. Put down the Blackberry, turn off the monitor. Let the tension leave your neck, face, shoulders, and back. Now you're ready for these four new songs from Calico Horse.

Jill Song (demo)(mp3)
Overthrow (demo)(mp3)

Autoharp (mp3)
Newest Song (mp3)