These Animals are a four piece band from Brooklyn who make lovely 60s inspired pop music. The four creators of this artful music met, appropriately enough, at art school and they have released two solid EPs in the last two years, including 2011's Souvenir Sessions. If you're in NYC, catch them Saturday night at Bowery Electric. It's also worth mentioning that they offered me gift certificates to the Olive Garden in exchange for this blog post. While I am a HUGE fan of the Olive Garden, I wrote this strictly because I liked their music a [...]
Let's break it down. It's 2012. Apparently mainstream music has made an amazing "comeback" - however that is possible for something that is "mainstream" I find questionable - and the music blog? Dead. RIP. But then along comes a band like Cambridge Massachusett's natives You Won't to reassure me that there are still musicians out there for us bloggers to embrace. Bands that are keeping things simple while still challenging us and who don't need David Guetta to make an impact (not that I have anything against David Guetta, his stuff is mad catchy). With their [...]
Just when you thought maybe - just maybe - I would just post a top 25-11 favorite albums and come back to this in February or maybe never - HERE IT IS YOU GUYS. Also this blog has now been around for close to 9 years. HOW CRAZY IS THAT? How old AM I (ahem not that old)? Thanks to the five people or so who still read this, and to the great bands and awesome publicists who email me even though I don't always (ever) write most of you back. My gmail still reaches [...]
Getting close to the top 10 here: 11. Hooray For Earth - True Loves SONG: No Love 12. James Blake - James Blake SONG: Limit To Your Love 13. The Rapture - In The Grace Of Your Love SONG: Children 14. Oh Land [...]
16. The Dodos - No Color SONG: When Will You Go Home 17. Das Racist - Relax SONG: Girl 18. Boy & Bear - Moonfire SONG: Feeding Line 19. Tom Vek - Leizure Seizure SONG: Someone Loves You [...]
Seriously, it's weird, but this list was in some ways harder to build for me than any other year. Was it that there was so much amazing new music this year? I'm going to say.. kind of but not really. You'll see a lot of my top 10 list is going to be made up of personal favorites and everything else was pretty DARN GOOD. Not mind blowing. Not 'meh' inducing. What I'm saying is: it was a year of good music and these are my favorite albums. Please note I'm not a paid [...]
Remember that time you danced around your laundry room seductively wearing nothing but a one piece bathing suit? Laundry days will do that to you. Topspin has a new MillionYoung Remix EP, which you can download here. MillionYoung - hailing from Southern Florida - will be realeasing a second full length album in early 2012 to satisfy all of your electronic dance needs.
Future This, the second album from The Big Pink , will be released on 4AD on 16/17th January 2012. The Big Pink - Hit The Ground (Superman)
My CMJ this year was pretty uneventful to say the least. Or maybe underwhelming is a better word. It seems as though the entire "festival" has become far more of a fun social networking activity than an opportunity to get turned on to a lot of great talent. Not to say that I didn't see some awesome bands (the showcase I put on with Battering Room and Hilly Town was full of them!) and a lot of the new artists I saw were good, but not really great or OH MY GOD I NEED TO TELL EVERYONE AND [...]
22 year old Trevor Powers has the kind of sensitive withdrawn genius that makes for immensely compelling bedroom music projects - and that's exactly what you find in Youth Lagoon's debut album The Year of Hibernation . Powers wrote the album about all of the things he has a hard time expressing because of his anxiety - talking about it, he felt he wouldn't make sense to people, but musical expression was the perfect outlet for him. "For my whole life I've dealt with extreme anxiety." he says. "Not anxiety about passing a test [...]
Here it is, you guys. My CMJ showcase this year, presented with the always awesome Battering Room and HillyTown ! Head on over to Facebook for all of the details and I'll be previewing each of the artists playing over the next couple of weeks.
Neon Indian "Polish Girl" from their sophomore effort Era Extraña, available now Fanfarlo "Replicate" from forthcoming album (title TBD, to be released in 2012)
The video above is of Tally Hall singing "Because" by The Beatles with tour mates Casey Shea and Speak , and it's just a lovely sampling of the special magic the band will bring to their upcoming Bowery Ballroom tour date . Tickets are still available but their Boston show just sold out so act fast!
Just a friendly reminder that at 1pm EST , Strange Talk will be premiering their video for "Climbing Walls" on their YouTube channel. You can click through the video every day to find new FREE ITEMS for you to win! And yes, that's right, the video will update daily so if you see something you definitely want, but you can't get it today, make sure you come back tomorrow. Smart, right? Also check back here later this week to win all of the fun Mystery Box items that I have to giveaway to [...]
Hey hey - just a reminder that I'm djing Saved By The Bellhouse - an ALL 90s party!!!! - tonight. I'll be in the main room playing between the amazing sets of cover band Bayside Tigers . I first saw them play back in February at the first version of this event and seriously they blew me away - I've never seen a group of girls go more insane for pretty much anything than their cover of "Semi-Charmed Life." Info and link to buy tickets here!!
To continue yesterday's story: Max and I tore open the second mystery box to reveal... a wild smorgasbord of fun and funny items. Being the good sport that he is (I swear I didn't pay him to do this or anything!) Max happily modeled all of the items simultaneously. I don't know if I necessarily recommend this look, but the awesome news is that everything pictured above COULD be yours and more! Aside from the remarkably 80s-tastic pink cropped top shirt and leggings combo, and those spiffy tube socks, there are also two [...]
Wednesday night I was a little bit more than giddy to finally get to see Aussie five-piece Boy and Bear play to a fairly packed room at Brooklyn's Knitting Factory. I've been hardcore crushing on their EP With Emperor Antartica for months now, but had missed their last US jaunt and was bummed about it to say the least. But finally everything came together, and they definitely did NOT disappoint. If you're a fan of bands like Local Natives and boys who rock jorts and cute accents to boot, Boy & Bear are more than just a little [...]
What the cray cray, Oh Land. I love this.
One of the perks of being a blogger is that sometimes awesome stuff happens to you. After writing this site for 8 years, I have been fortunate enough to experience amazing concerts, travel to new places and meet some of my favorite bands. I also get a lot of mail, both digital and real, full of interesting goodies for me to sample and hopefully fall in love with. Some of the stuff I get is weirdly random, some of it is just plain crazy, but it's all in good fun, which leads me to: The other [...]
It has been a slow summer, you guys. Pretty much the calm before the (gulp) CMJ shit storm I suppose. I have a lot of inbox wading to do, although all I really feel like doing lately is eat ice cream and post photos of cats on Tumblr. What can you do. Anyways, let's talk about one good thing that has hit my nearly maxed-out mailbag lately, which is music from a very new Brooklyn band called Honduras . Here's the background I could dig up: Formed in February [...]
i rock i roll
![Fanfarlo - Replicate [OFFICIAL]](http://cdn.elbo.ws/youtube/iZT2M3YM3PA_130.jpg)
Miike Snow – Paddling Out (Jacques Lu Cont Remix)
