A pair of duos top this week's list of new releases. Baltimore's Beach House (Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand) have undoubtedly the most anticipated release out this week, if not this year, with their second Sub Pop released LP, and if you thought 20102s Teen Dream was beautiful, wait until you hear Bloom . Our Music Director, Don Yates, calls it a "breakthrough" with its "gorgeously layered, reverb-drenched sound combining celestial keyboards, shimmering guitars, ethereal vocals and sublime pop melodies into heartbreakingly beautiful pop songs." For more "heart-tugging, mostly melancholy songs," check out the latest [...]
About a year or two back, I became enamored with a defunct Seattle indy label called Green Monkey Records. Issuing a string of cassettes, then vinyl, then CD's in the mid-80's to early '90's, Green Monkey occupied a rare space between the death of the new wave scene and the birth of grunge in Seattle musical history. And what a label they were! With a hearty sense of humor and a 6 foot tongue planted firmly in their over-sized cheek, Green Monkey released seemingly incongruent, occasionally random singles and albums from a circus full of performers. [...]
Forged in 1984 by a reverence for the Beatles' 1966 single "Rain," the Green Pajamas have pretty much stayed within the friendly confines of psychedelic/folk rock for most of their storied career. Until now. For the past decade, Pajamas founders Jeff Kelly and Joe Ross have been kicking around the idea of doing a country [...]
I have been amassing a ton information that has come to the tipping point where I have to let it out. Some of this may have been tweeted, but who remembers anything they read on Twitter? You possibly have heard half of it, but then maybe you haven't. Here's the mid-summer digest of the finest kiss music news. Allo Darlin' set to release new single Last week Allo Darlin' announced the release of a brand new single due in August. You can hear it and pre-order it over at their [...]
Green Pajamas – The Red, Red Rose I'd already professed my admiration for Jeff Kelly , both for his solo work and his work with the Green Pajamas . Now let's add "moved" to the list of adjectives to describe how I feel about his music. When Massachusetts high school student Phoebe Prince committed suicide in January 2010 rather than face another day of bullying from her classmates, Jeff recorded "The Red, Red Rose (Song for Phoebe Prince)" . Employing his trademark, sly psychedelic pop, "Red, Red Rose" is a heart-rendering, pain-laid-bare [...]
Don't get me wrong. It's not that I'm jaded, but having been doing this Ripple thing for the better part of three years, I've heard a lot of music come through the Ripple doors. And while a good chunk of that music's been pretty good, not much of it has been surprising. Most of it just fits nicely into the preconceived notions of genre and category. That was until the Green Monkey Anthology came through my door. To put it bluntly, I expected one thing and got another thing entirely. [...]
Music history is littered with eccentrics. Personalities just --or way-- left of center. Visionaries who doggedly pursue their own sound or vision despite the mountainous odds against them. Despite an overwhelming lack of public acceptance. Often times despite any reasonable sense of financial reward. And thank God for them! Often it's in these way-right-hemisphere thinking individuals that real creativity is borne. Whether or not it's appreciated in their lifetime is another matter. I may have been too late for the first lifetime of Green Monkey Records, but damn [...]
Touring the U.S. in the chill of December is always problematical, unless you've decided to play only in Florida and California and have access to dad's Learjet to get from the land of orange juice to the Golden State. You'd think MAGNET's Jud Cost, a grizzled veteran of the music wars, would have figured that [...]
Touring the U.S. in the chill of December is always problematic, unless you've decided to play only in Florida and California and have access to dad's Learjet to get from the land of orange juice to the Golden State. You'd think MAGNET's Jud Cost, a grizzled veteran of the music wars, would have figured that [...]
The reclusive Green Pajamas have a couple upcoming gigs, one in Portland and one in Seattle this weekend. The long-time Seattle band are masters of the psychedelic tempest in a teacup otherwise known as plain old psych rock, or for you 80's o'philes the paisley underground. The band only ever play one or two 2 gigs per year so these back to back dates could be construed as a full blown tour. They may be agoraphobic when it comes to playing live, but when it comes to putting out records they turn into in [...]
Lots of new releases this week, but none that I'm particularly excited about. Though, I am a little intrigued with A Camp , a collaboration between Nina Persson of The Cardigans , and Niclas Frisk. At this point, I will pretty much listen to anything Persson is involved with. Some other notable releases include Bob Dylan's Together Through Life (his 46th album!), Thee Oh Sees' Help , Immaculate Machine's High , Still Flyin's Never Gonna Touch The Ground , and Japandroids' [...]
Though I thoroughly enjoyed Kevin's entry last week, and I sincerely thank him for stepping in and guest-writing my weekly Hodge Podge, I must say that it's good to be back as king of all things TGIF. I've been back home in Chicago for the better part of a week now, and I think that I am almost fully recovered from my visit to Cleveland (I bet that picture makes a lot more sense now, huh). As such, I want to take a few minutes to fill everyone who wasn't there, which would be, well, almost all of you, in [...]
I am one of very few that thinks U2 really isn't that great, other than The Joshua Tree and a few other random songs. The fact that Rolling Stone gave the new release five stars pretty much guarantees I won't like it. But Neko Case ... ohhh Neko Case. If only you were ten years younger. Anyway, you already know I like her new album , so there's that. Wild Light 's debut is catchy, but I bet the feeling won't last long. We shall [...]
Parasol welcomes Chicago folk-rock act Cameron McGill & What Army. Their new album, Warm Songs for Cold Shoulders, is set for an early April release on Parasol Records. Lots of touring in support. Veteran Seattle psych-pop band The Green Pajamas' gorgeous new album, Poison In the Russian Room, is set for an early April launch. This is their 7th release for Hidden Agenda Records. Hometown heroes New Ruins' second album, We Make Our Own Bad Luck, will be released by Hidden Agenda this Spring. Rootsy folk-rock haunted by rural spectres. LP in March, CD in [...]
ein paar reminiszenzen an die achtziger gefällig? auf folgende seite gilt es Euch zu verweisen, die Euch mit auf eine reise in die vergangenheit nimmt und eine menge gelungener coverversionen bereithält. ich 'zitiere' einige hier, den rest grabbelt Euch doch selbst. Au Revoir Simone - Here Is The News (ELO cover) Amiina - Souvenir (OMD cover) [...]
Saturday night in Seattle is looking like it could be a logistical puzzle without a solution. There are no less than four shows that I can highly recommend. I'd like to be at all of them, but physically and chronologically I don't think it's possible. Option 1 : The Green Pajamas at Jules Mae Saloon Starting down in the south end at Jules Mae Saloon in Georgetown, the Green Pajamas , one Seattle's most [...]
The Purrs at Neumos, Seattle | 21 June 2008 Green Pajamas at King Cobra, Seattle | 21 June 2005 Saturday night up on Capitol Hill the Paisley Underground came to life again for a brief fantastic moment. Not that any of those seminal Los Angeles bands like the Rain Parade, Three O'Clock, or the Long [...]
The great thing about Time Travel Tuesday is that we can go anywhere we want to, including the current year. I don't put my cats in Halloween costumes. They don't let me trim their toenails, so I know I don't stand a chance of getting little hats on them. I can't even imagine how these cats' owner got them to sit next to each other in a row long enough to take a photo. Gandalf-Cat on the left looks like he's about to take off any second. [...]
Here we are again with a new week and another avalanche of new album releases. Starting off with some notable solo efforts with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth , Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene , and Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam all releasing albums this week. Other highlights this week include albums from Rogue Wave , Les Savy Fav , Akron/Family , and Ben Lee . Most of which you can samples for below. What else is out this week that I may [...]
Welcome. <--MONO (The Sounds of) Kaleidoscope - My Electric System mp3 - Thanks to Jared at 5 Acts . The Lionheart Brothers - Lead Me to the Waters wma The Green Pajamas – All the Lost Kisses mp3 [...]
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Eating the Animal Kingdom : Enchanted Pork Fist
