Electric Owls - A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off (Magnetic Fields)

Here's a rare look at Electric Owls, who covered a Magnetic Fields classic recently. Electric Owls, The Comas' Andy Herod's current project, have been showing up here and there, but there is no tour schedule, and their page on the Vagrant site is gone. Let's hope they stick around for a while. Ain't Too Bright was great stuff, and Andy is captivating live.

Electric Owls - A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off (Magnetic Fields)(mp3)

Senryu - Inklings

Knoxville's Senryu are releasing Inkling on April 13th. Ariel Saldivar, who performed with Polyphonic Spree and Broken Social Scene, sings on this one. Spare-lush-spare is the new loud-quiet-loud, and this title track holds out until about the three minute mark. I'm perfectly happy with the charm and simplicity of its beginning, and the song would be just fine without blooming into sonic multilayers, but I'm not complaining. That minute colors the song jubilant.

Senryu - Inklings (mp3)

Listen to more Senryu here.

Sebastian Blanck feat. Carolyn Polachek - Thunder

This is from Sebastian Blanck's forthcoming Alibi Coast, out June 22nd. The warm fingerpicking signals spring. I has a melancholic brightness, like a firefly in a jar, or the afterimage of a candle. It's one of those songs that begs for similes, and campfires. Sign me up.

Sebastian Blanck "Thunder" feat. Caroline Polachek by rare book room records

St. Vincent - Your Lips Are Red (Live @ Black Cat DC)

Sonic Youth - Pay No Mind (Beck)(youtube stream)

Just a quick reminder. Record Store Day is not forever from now. Time to start scoping future rarities.



And here's a reminder of how MTV used to be, with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore skillfully extracting Beck's deepest philosophies and insights before the Mellow Gold release date.

Charlotte Gainsbourg - Trick Pony (Live on Letterman, 1-22-2010)

Complete with werewolf.

Cowboy Junkies with Vic Chesnutt - Postcard Blues.

R.I.P. Vic Chesnutt. Not everyone noticed on Christmas day, but those of us that did felt it, and maybe even more now that the holiday haze has cleared away. May you float weightlessly and write unconstrained in heaven.

Cowboy Junkies with Vic Chesnutt - Postcard Blues (mp3)

From Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Revisited [CD/DVD].


Vic Chesnutt Store

Dex & Cat, Love Letters.

Chan Marshall sings with Flat Duo Jets' Dex Romweber in this great classic song of longing, "Love Letters," from the Dex Romweber Duo's Ruins of Berlin. It might have been done best by Ketty Lester, see the video below, but the warm tone color in Chan's voice is perfect for yearning.

Dex Romweber Duo, featuring Cat Power - Love Letters (mp3)

Will Kimbrough - Goodnight Moon

Some of the Oxford American magazine's Southern Music compilations are fetching ridiculous sums. I saw one of the comps, I don't remember from which year, for over $120 on Amazon.com. Crazy, since they're free with a $15 subscription. I have several of the compilations, and I get a more mileage out of them than an old rusty pickup. The last song on the 6th CD in the series is a lingering and proper farewell: a musical version of the classic children's book that has been read to you in dim, flickering light.

Will Kimbrough - Goodnight Moon (mp3)

The song is also available on Will Kimbrough's 2000 album, This.

Boy Eats Drum Machine

Hoop + Wire is the forthcoming (early March) release from Boy Eats Drum Machine, the brainchild of Jonny Ragel, the prolific composer from a basement in the landlocked nation of Portland. Here he takes straight progressions, preserves them, and yet disjoints them with stop-and-go syncopated rhythms and echoes. Stumbling hasn't been this charming since They Might Be Giants. Plus, there's something about the solo ethic that makes the music feel personal and real, like a home cooked meal by a grandma versus a chef's specialty prepared by a disciplined team. The critics-be-damned, this is how I like to make my dish mentality. Who doesn't relate to that?

Boy Eats Drum Machine - Hoop & Wire (mp3)

Mp3 Blogging is Therapeutic, And So Is This.

Sometimes I think of music bloggers as warped Seussian Hortons, holding out fuzzy pink flowers to imagined masses, insisting that here, right here on this little pink fuzzy, is something that exists and might enchant you and color your world if you will just have a listen. Meanwhile, the imagined masses seek out the things that they already know and love, too busy to stop at every snotty trunk-gripped flower that is rudely shoved in front of their faces.

So I've been busy with new challenges, neglecting the community of Who-ville, though like the tree that fell in the forest, I didn't really make a noise anyway.

Although my studies are only about to intensify, I still have my own ears, and I can at least try to remind myself that I exist. And so I'm going to start posting again, for no other reason than "It feels good."

Here's a little pink flower with Marie "Queenie" Lyons. She was a soul singer in the 60's, who worked with the great James Brown (R.I.P.), and made one LP and a few 45's. After Soul Fever was released in 1970, she disappeared. But unlike "The Smudge of Ashen Fluff," she made a noise.

Marie "Queenie" Lyons - See And Don't See (mp3)

Also listen to "A Minute of His Good Time" and "We'll Cry Together" on Sir Shambling's Deep Soul Heaven.

...& the second best video is Charlotte Gainsbourg with Beck.

Charlotte Gainsbourg - Heaven Can Wait from Charlotte Gainsbourg on Vimeo.

Ramona Falls - I Say Fever (video)

The video for Ramona Falls' "I Say Fever" is my favorite of the year. Maybe all time.

Daniel Johnston - You've Got To Hide Your Love Away

Here's Daniel Johnston doing the Beatles from this year's Austin City Limits. If you can imagine there's a heaven, that's where John Lennon is also covering Daniel Johnston songs.

Daniel Johnston - Live at Austin City Limits (10-2-2009)(mp3s):
You've Got To Hide Your Love Away (Beatles)
Speedy Motorcycle

Daniel Johnston's latest album is Is and Always Was.

Free Songs From 4AD

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Elliott Smith - Cecilia/Amanda

Kill Rock Stars is reissuing Elliott Smith's Roman Candle and From A Basement On A Hill in April of next year. Roman Candle will also be released on vinyl for the first time in the U.S.

Until then, they're celebrating by offering up the previously unreleased Cecilia/Amanda (mp3) as a free download, which was "recorded at Jackpot! Recording Studio in 1997 by Larry Crane. An earlier version of this song was initially written and recorded by Elliott's high school band, Stranger Than Fiction, and was known as "Time is Ours Now". "Cecilia/Amanda" is a reworking of that song with almost completely different lyrics."

Also, the entire Elliott Smith back catalog is on sale at http://www.buyolympia.com/killrockstars/

Meat Puppets, Live on KEXP, 9-23-2009

As someone we know once introduced them, "These are the brothers Meat Puppets. We're big fans of theirs."

Meat Puppets - Live, Acoustic, on KEXP 9-23-2009 (mp3 podcast)

Rain Machine (TVOTR's Kyp Malone), Live on The Current

Rain Machine, Live in The Current Studios, October 16, 2009 (audio stream).

Without Love (There Is Nothing)

Nothing, I said.

Oscar Toney, Jr. - Without Love (There Is Nothing)(mp3)

Thank you, Oscar Toney, Jr., for the lift.

From Take Me To The River: A Southern Soul Story 1961-1977, which has 74 more songs like it.

Ben Gibbard and Jay Farrar - Live on KCRW, 10-23-2009 (video)

Video is up for Friday's KCRW in-studio. Watch the gents, on guitar and on Kerouac.