Spack Rock is kickin it Paper Street style over at Transit on this evening, along with a cavalcade of disc jockeying who's-whos. We're talking Dave P, Lowbudget, Sweeney, and so on and so forth. Open bar from 10-11, and guest listed types save a cool crisp Lincoln at the door...
I'm still exploring bands that I've known for years and that I wish everyone blased from their car while cruising around the city; my favourite of those is certainly Tahiti 80, a French band that's been going since 1993 (longer than Air!) with un-ironic pop songs that should be on the radio. You might remember their hit single "Heartbeat" from back in the day: Since then they released two more

I blogged about them before , but their third cd 'Fosbury' got its official release finally in the US this week, so I thought it'd be nice to hype them up again and share a couple of great songs. So Tahiti 80 is an alternative band hailed in Paris who sings in English and they make this kind of upbeat indie, electronic-tinged pop with soul tendencies. Current single ' Changes' is my fave song off the new album. With lyrics about the rules of life, the song's as upbeat and catchy as they can get. The [...]

TAHITI 80 - CHINATOWN "You make me feel lost" After raving about the album yesterday, I felt the need to post a track from Tahiti 80's most recent release, Fosbury . Chinatown is actually one of the U.S. only tracks on the album, and one of the best pop songs the band's ever written. Opening with a ridiculously catchy riff that reminds me of The Mo's Bring Me A Spotlight (yes, I will mention The Mo whenever [...]

What was I going to talk about in this entry? (pauses to think for 60 minutes about it, sifts through the pile of CDs and mp3s trying to find the specific album planned for the day, and finally figures it out by complete accident of seeing the band's name mentioned on an unrelated webpage) ... TAHITI 80! YES! THAT'S IT! And now I've wasted way too much time to write a great entry. So this will be a more mediocre and shorter discussion than I originally had planned. Before I started up this music [...]

Not much time to write so I'll be brief. DELTA SPIRIT [MP3] Delta Spirit - Tom Gerald Delta Spirit will be the Monday Night Resident at Club Spaceland For December. Not bad for the San Diego act. Stay tuned for a friggin sweet contest we will be running with them in the next week or so. BRIERTONE [...]
Tahiti 80 Gift For You Here's the download for " Happy Together " - Tahiti 80 version! =) --- The Panic Divison Update The Panic Divison will begin recording their new album in mid-January with Zack Odom and Kenneth Mount ( Cartel, All Time Low ). [...]

This week's releases contains three of what will probably be in my end of the year list that i'll start compiling sometime soon. I'm sure everyone knows of the masterpiece that is Joanna Newsom's Ys . It's finally here and like I said in a previous post, it's absolutely flawless. The string arrangements from legendary Beach Boys collaborator Van Dyke Parks are absolutely amazing and pretty much killed me upon listening. Despite being only five tracks long, each are of the highest quality with [...]

Back in the 1960s, there were several methods of getting over the bar for the high jump, in track and field. There was the Eastern Cut Off , the Scissors , the Western Roll , and of course the always dangerous Straddle . A 16-year old Portland, Oregon athlete named Dick Fosbury , found all these too complicated, and started working on his own method, which involved leaping backwards over the bar. Fosbury honed this new method and reached new heights, winning gold in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. The [...]
French pop artists Tahiti 80 release their first album in America today, Fosbury , through The Militia Group (well, it's actually a re-release). It is their third release but America is a little late to the party. Lots of pop with lots of soul that is almost expected from a four-piece band where three of the members do vocals together. And yes, they sing in English. It's a great indie pop album that deserves more attention here in the states and so to [...]

Unfortunately it's import-only at this point (with no US date in sight), but I'm still excited about the solo debut of Jarvis Cocker ...er, I mean simply "Jarvis." More gushing accolades about the former Pulp frontman after the jump. Also, let the holiday greatest hits/best of/box set bonanza begin! Jarvis - S/T (Rough Trade) I'm totally biased because I'm a big fan of Pulp and Brit Pop in general, but I'd say this is one of those releases that's worth shelling over the import cash for. Or, because the high price of the [...]
In another case of the everyone else getting all the good stuff first, the latest album from French popsters Tahiti 80 is coming out in North America next month, more than a year after its release across the pond. This would explain the slew of North American dates coming up soon, which has me interested; we don't have a whole lot of bands over here powered by disco beats and falsettos anymore, not that Tahiti 80 are the second coming of the Bee Gees or anything. Though listening to "Big Day" off the aforementioned Fosbury, maybe the comparison [...]
The French have become cool again. Vitalic, Justice - now Tahiti 80 . They may not be DJs like the rest of their mates who have started to make it in America, but they are fresh enough to have attracted the attention of The Militia Group , the label who has been reinventing itself lately with artists like The Appleseed Cast and Denison Witmer. TMG will be releasing Tahiti 80's third album, Fosbury , on November 14th with a bunch of exclusive goodies (two unreleased tracks and a US exclusive [...]

This summer is going by with the quickness. It's hard for me to believe that the event I've been basing the whole summer on -- next weekend's Lollapalooza concert in Chicago -- is just around the corner. Since it's the only real vacation I've planned, it kind of bums me out that, considering how fast the rest of this season has gone by, it will soon be over. I have mixed emotions about summer. While I have great memories of family road trips to the East Coast and endless days at Elmwood Pool in [...]