Good friends Gina and Eric just had a baby named Nora. I don't know any songs about babies named Nora or even people named Gina and Eric, but I do have in my possession a number of songs about babies - or at least, with the word babies in the title. I'm sure that Nora is much more attractive than Neko Case was as a baby. When I Was A Baby Separately, is this album out yet? What about now? Now? Sigh.....NOW? [...]
Headed out to Florida for a wedding. Hope it's not too humid. Leavin' y'all with this R.L. Burnside tune because it seems appropriate. Goin' Down South
This is a song for anyone who has ever lived along the F train's route in B'klyn. I lived on this accursed train line for more than a year, and when I moved, one of the reasons was to get away from it. It was shortening my life. I still can't talk about it without turning red in the face. This song doesn't quite feel like it's closely acquainted with the F train. For one, it's way too cheerful; a song about the F train should be much angrier. For another, Mike Doughty talks about the [...]
In school a friend, Dave, had a weekly blues show on the college radio station. One night he played this Muddy Waters song that I loved instantly. It had piano and harmonica and a jiggy little beat and bragging lyrics about gypsy women and sexual prowess, which is really all you need for a rollicking good blues song. The next week I called up and asked Dave if he'd play the song again, but I didn't know the name of it, so I says, says I: "Dave, you played this song last week by Muddy Waters, I don't [...]
July 4th. How to celebrate the holiday when one despises one's government? By eating as much as possible, of course! I'm going to spend my day hunting for the perfect burger, perhaps taking a trip to Cones on Bleecker Street (hmmm, tiramisu or coconut?), and doing something somewhere close to the water. Fireworks? Who needs 'em? I've had fireworks out back my building all night for the past week. But before all that, I will listen to this song on repeat for at least half an hour. Hot In The City
Perusing the ads in alt-music magazines will usually tell you only a) about bands you already know about, b) about bands you don't want to know about, or c) that you have too much time on your hands/are avoiding something else you really should be doing instead. But occasionally you can find out about d) a new tune that kind of rocks. I'm from a smallish town near Memphis, which is a good thing, cuz otherwise I never would have had the patience to navigate this nearly unusable Memphis record label's Web site after seeing an [...]
This is a song by the Dirtbombs. Because this (finally) not-humid, not-yet-raining, loud construction noises at 7 in the morning, sit in Prospect Park for 4 glorious hours summer N.Y. day seems to call for it. If you feel like listening to them in a club that sounds like a bathtub, they are playing at Maxwell's on July 29. I Can't Stop Thinking About It
I often get suckered into buying magazines that offer me "free" CDs, which recently happened with this magazine called "The Believer." I'd never heard of it, but clearly that's because I've been living under a rock; it has some stuff by some awfully good writers, like Nick Hornby and Sarah Vowell. The CD includes tracks by long-time faves Calexico, bands I've heard of but haven't really gotten into like The National and Destroyer, and folks I've never heard of at all, like Neung Phak. I've gotta say, the same rock that has hindered my awareness of this [...]
I'm a sucker for the sound of a silvery guitar, so Film School is a favorite band. I associate Film School indelibly with San Francisco. That's where they're from, but the link runs deeper: I first heard them on the rental car radio while sitting in a parking lot waiting for a friend to fetch See's Candy to take back home. Liked them enough to wait through several more songs to hear who they were. Heard them again by random chance on another radio show later that day. Several years later, bought [...]
Andrew Bird is an excellent musician, yes. But forget all that for a moment, and instead focus on his eyebrows, which are the most expressive ones you'll ever see. OK, back to the music. Many indie music fans will know his album Weather Systems from a couple of years back. It's atmospheric, moody, great for listening to on a rainy, blustering day. At a concert in NYC well before he released this album, Bird played one of the songs from it, called "I," which I hearted. When the album came out, I was surprised and [...]
Zdob Si Zdub is the only Moldovan band I've ever heard of. But even if they were, say, the 5,000,000th Moldovan band I'd run into, I'd still like them the best. After all, they have such a cool drummer. Lots of Western pop music is derivative, and Eastern European music can be even more so, since it's basically imitating the Western derivative stuff. Not so with these guys. Sure, they may have learned their guitar techniques from Deep Purple, but there're all these folksy, homegrown tunes and instruments and other elements in [...]
The Gloaming
Bison - Quill
Neutral Milk Hotel- Aeroplane Over the Sea
Shinichi Osawa – Big Beach Mix 2012
Mr Fogg - Eleven
