I have been working on making some solid goals for myself in work and life. The best means of doing so I have come across thus far is to plan waaaaaaaay out, and work your way backwards. Set some goals or decide where you want to go, look at where you are now and then develop a plan to connect those dots. One common suggestion on goal planning and living a good life is to go right to the end and imagine what your funeral would be like. Who do you want there? What do people say about [...]

I love when bands fuck with Wikipedia . The Brooklyn base band, VietNam, list their names as; Joshua "Exploding Motorcycle" Grubb on Lead Guitar and Vocals, Michael "Jesus Beard" Gerner on Guitar and vocals, Ivan "DJ Dolphin" Berko on Bass and Harp and Michael "Flaming Locks" Foss on Water Harmonica and Drum. The Bio goes on to say that Vietnam first appeared on YouTube, where their cover of Janet Jackson's hit single "Love Will Never Do (Without You)" , received over 1 million views. VietNam falls into the psych-rock category. Their [...]
I'm sorry there's a bit too much plugging going on at the moment and not enough actual music talk. I promise no more plugs for the rest of the week after this, but I thought I might remind you of my second show on Fresh Air, Edinburgh's student radio station will be on tonight [...]
So in three days I will finally get to witness Black Mountain live. I am quite excited!!!!
This is simply a number of songs that I either listened to plenty while working on this blog and or my own plans in the past year wondering why the powers that be couldn't get their heads out of their collective asses and embrace some change. Consider it this week's more music mondays post! The Pink Mountaintops [...]

20 SONGS (139MB) I generally dislike these mega posts because the overload of mp3s encourages picking and choosing, whereas ideally I like to think that people might listen to all the songs I post on this blog at least once. (Perhaps that's just a deluded fantasy of mine. Probably.) But, anyways. . . it's been a long time and I have some catching up to do. So here's a bunch of great tracks that I've come across over the last month. And here's all of them in a 139MB zip file . [...]
Pink Mountaintops - "Single Life" A car with tambourine wheels pulls jagged out from under the rising blue garage door. In it rides a rich-looking chauffeur and God's Forgotten Son. The rich-looking chauffeur takes his orders from no human in the world, instead he reads The Bible like a road map, bike lanes be damned. Meanwhile God's Forgotten Son sits shotgun and bounces his knees nervously, arms crossed and eyes ringed darkly, feathers from his coat whisking his pale pale face. The rich-looking chauffeur stops for a 2L Coke and a bag of [...]

Bear with me. One last baby-related post, before I get back onto proper bands and reviews and things. I sort of need to get all the pink out of my system. You see, you get a lot of pink when you have a baby girl. And not all of it is desired either. Not that Mrs Growl and I are opposed to pink per se – not even baby pink. But the surfeit of pink that has enveloped our house in the last few weeks is something else. My parents came from [...]

I know very little about the band Pink Mountaintops . I know that they just finished a big tour with the Cold War Kids, and I know that the band has put out a few releases on the constantly impressive Jagjaguwar record label. Jag has recently brought us Okkervil River, Sunset Rubdown, and The Besnard Lakes, among others. Pink Mountaintops play music that is something along the lines of hippie-rock-blues, and their latest release Axis of Evol " pulses like a black-light lava lamp inside a stoner's soot-covered conversion [...]

this is some very cool news. the day after his show at the 40 watt on july 9, jason isbell will be throwing the record release party for his solo debut, sirens of the ditch, at the earl in atlanta on july 10. from there he's got a shitload of dates spanning the country so check out his new site or myspace page for further details. one of my favorite records of the past couple of years is black mountains self titled debut. black mountain is [...]

Okay, I'm a bit skitterish about this one, so please bear with me. Back in early December, I went group-by-group, song-by-song through a long list of artists I found at the 2006 South-by-Southwest festival website . I sampled every song I didn't already know and prepared my own list of the ones I liked best, old friends and new. For various reasons totally uninteresting even to myself I've just never posted a big bloc of the songs, some of which are by some of my favorite current artists. Soooooo, I'm simply [...]
CSS - "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above" I find getting dressed to be pretty erotic. I think it's something to do with the idea of "suiting up", like somehow our clothes are our only weapons, and every morning we choose the shirt with the most ammo, or the right arc of fire. It's extremely sexy to me to think that someone put on what they're wearing to make me attracted to them. Just their face, as they pick it off the floor wrinkled, and press it against their chest, a tiny smirk, "this'll get 'em." [Buy] [...]
1. ESPERS - Espers II Que puis-je dire de plus sur ce groupe, sur ce disque ? Il y a quelque chose dans cet album, et dans le rapport que j'entretiens avec lui, qui se refuse à l'explication, un part de mystère impénétrable mais magnétique, qui m'envoûte et me subjugue à chaque écoute. C'est un paradoxe : sa force me parait aussi évidente que terriblement insaisissable. Ce qui n'est pas pour me déplaire. Chef d'?uvre absolu (et encore, le terme est un peu faible pour dire à quel point j'aime ce disque (...)
End of year smorgasbord of the best 'MS Picks' of last year continues! Sunset Rubdown - "Us Ones in Between" "Has there been a more hauntingly beautiful song released this year?" // Original Post Sunset Rubdown - "Three Colours II" "[Spencer Krug] sings in breathy run-on sentences, a quivering desperation complicating the jangly guitar. The sonic results are impressive as SK's voice takes on an [...]
Let me second Mark's sentiment below; this was a great year for music. Many established favorites came out with some excellent material, and a lot of new bands gave it everything they had. Surprisingly, selecting this list was easier for me this year than ever before. These are my picks for the top 10 tracks of the year. Happy 2007 kids! 10. My Brightest Diamond - "Golden Star" / Download I don't quite know what to make of My Brightest Diamond vocalist Shara Worden . [...]

Pink Mountaintops were originally set to tour with Wolfmother in September but then one of the members of Wolfmother had to go back home for the birth of his baby boy. Finally, however, they have rescheduled a couple of dates in December, scattered in the middle of a Pink Mountaintops West Coast tour. Check it. Dates: 12/06/06 Sacramento, CA - Fools Foundation 12/08/06 Tempe, AZ - [...]
There is a lot to be said on motivations behind bands covering songs. Truth is that even though we (the critical masses) think we know everything, only each artist can say for sure why he or she decided to cover a particular song. Some songs get covered by everyone ("All Along the Watchtower"). Some songs get covered it seems as a cry for help, or in hope that a blog will pick it up. How else would anyone have found out that James Blunt played a Pixies song at Coachella ? I guess it doesn't matter either [...]
The following mp3's are all from the Artrocker site and they're all alright songs, some of them are a bit old/you might already have them, but it's for the punters. The one's I've picked are the best ones... Download - 'Chargr' by Bearsuit Download - 'I Knew' by Comanechi Download - 'We Start The Fires' by Tiger Force Download - 'Do I Have Your Attention?' by The Blood Arm Download - 'Sinking Hearts' [...]