Impression - Young Adults A beautifully prepared slice of post-punk noise, guitars that dance on the end of hooks like they're being battered, snarly vocals, and all of this drenched in a sort of washed-out almost shoegazy blend of reverb and carefully plucked notes. Young Adults manage to accomplish the difficult feat of sounding like about a million other bands but still being just a little bit ineffable. So, if you like the Pixies or Nirvana or Dinosaur Jr. or basically any garage rock band ever you're probably going to like these [...]
Someday Maybe - City Light It's a pretty easy path to my heart if you've got band members from both Seattle (my home-ish town) and the Bay Area (where I'm living these days). It also helps if you can write a great hook. And even more if you can breathe a little bit of life into what often promises to be a stale and worn out genre. City Light manages to check all those boxes. The basic riff that drives "Someday Maybe" is clean and bright, but they douse it in enough [...]
Armour - Uber Glitterati You miss the 80s? So do Uber Glitterati . But unlike you, where nostalgia only generates an impulse to watch re-runs of Alf, they're actually doing something productive. "Armour" would sound perfectly at home on an OMD record, with all the gentle pop sensibility that implies. They've really captured the sensation of gently undulating synths which hold aloft vocals that hint at silky smoothness but offer just enough ethereal movement to keep you guessing. Check out a bunch more tracks from Soundcloud .
Will My Feet Still Carry Me Home - Elf Power Check out the new digs. I finally bit the bullet and made the switch over to Word Press. The always looming threat of getting my service yanked by Blogger was just a little too much to bear. Potential problems: I really have no clue about graphical design and so the more 'powerful' system here in some ways is going to create more problems than it will solve. Bear with me while things go through the housecleaning stage. Also, importing the old posts from Blogger seems [...]
The Concurrence Of All Things - Big Tree It doesn't sound like anything 'natural' but there's definitely something strangely organic going on here. The folk undertones give it a sense of personality, while the jazzy movement translates personality into something far less coherently situated. And the bridge ascends to a post-rock plateau that lets you look back down on the miles and miles of undulating waves. The composite product is a wonderfully poppy little slice of odd time-signatures and jittery bumps and dives. This song is from their [...]
J.K. Rowling says she's happy to pay taxes, because of a commitment to the welfare state. Matt Yglesias responds : I’ve seen this quoted on a number of progressive sites, but you’ve got to wonder how real the second reason really is. Suppose Rowling moved to a tax haven, hired an accountant to tell her how much money that would save her, and committed to donating the savings to Oxfam. Would that be contemptible? Would it do less good for the world? Of course it really is contemptible for multi-millionaires to take action designed [...]
My Eyes To See - Alcoholic Faith Mission With a name like Alcoholic Faith Mission you know this band is going places. And this song provides solid evidence for that thesis. It starts like a cool, misty night with distorted pianos and a background of cracks and hisses. As the mood is just starting to turn - growing softer and more gentle - the song proper kicks in. Driven by an insistent drum line that calls to mind The National, and suffused with guitars that rise and fall like flares [...]
In the grand scheme of things it's probably not the most important thing to be worried about, but... I'm really angry at how the tea partiers have ruined the ethos of tea for the rest of us. I read today that there's a new term floating around: " coffee conservative ." The basic idea is that "you can't be a screamer, a name-caller, a loud-mouthed zealot or somebody whose idea of politics translates to jabbing a sign in the air, red in the face." As in, you can't be a tea party conservative. [...]
Gah. It's been a disastrous couple of weeks for posting on the blog, and given how busy my upcoming 14 days are, I can't imagine it's going to improve much. Still, in the interest of not completing abandoning y'all, here is a great song that I have been listening to more or less constantly for the past week or so. Right Direction - The Dirty Diamonds I'm not usually one to quote a press release, but this one so perfectly encapsulated the sound of this record that it convinced me to [...]
So health care reform actually made it. I feel like I should write something about how great this is, some ebullient prose in honor of the biggest legislative accomplishment of my lifetime. But I feel like it's all been said already. It's not a perfect bill by any stretch. But it is a very good one. And it lays the groundwork for putting together a reasonably universal approach to health care, helping to drag this country into the modern world on that subject. There is one thing to the post-reform coverage [...]
Now - Bill McGarvey Today's the big day it seems like. Even Stupak is now on board, so all the pieces seem to be falling into place. But I'm not going to feel confident until I see a 216 show up on the big board. Watching things on CSPAN right now, I'm reminded of how ridiculous our formal structures of government are. We've got 18th century habits for a world full of X-boxes and punk rock. When it's all said and done - if everything does work out - [...]
I Can Make the Pain Disappear - Fear of Tigers Synths, the pitter-patter of heels on a dance floor, big pop hooks, and crystallized droplets of sound. What else can you ask for? The band is Fear of Tigers and you can download their whole record at their Facebook page . You want more? Well how about a remix of a Fear of Tigers track by Yes Giantess. In spite of my general antipathy to remixes, it's hard to argue with this one (made available via [...]
Man, Bart Stupak is a real character isn't he? Today, he made the cardinal mistake of politics and accidentally told the truth, namely that the health care bill is a good idea and is already extremely restrictive on abortion even without his stupid amendment, but that he still isn't going to vote against it. Why? It's a matter of principle of course. "Principle" in this case is code for: "people with vaginas aren't people. Unless they're fetuses. In which case, they count double. Also, people with terminal diseases aren't people, either. Oh, and [...]
I have no interest whatsoever in defending the latest round of ridiculous buck-passing going on in the House. The idea, apparently, is that they're going to pass the raft of fixes to the health care bill and simply 'deem' the Senate bill passed. Somehow this is supposed to reduce process-based attacks from the Republicans. The mind boggles. Sometimes you wonder how the Democratic Party hasn't self-immolated yet. We're talking about an absolute core principle of the party. If you aren't interested in trying to get millions of more people [...]
Begging to Bleed - Foundation The reason I like this song is that it really reminds me of "Let My Love Open the Door," except with a folksy style that reminds me a lot of the Billy Bragg/Wilco project. If that sounds appealing to you, then you'll probably like this one a lot. If not, well, I warned you. The album is called Chimborazo , and it came out last year.
Are House Republicans really going to try to run ads accusing the Democrats of voting for unpopular parts of the Senate bill like the ‘Cornhusker Kickback’? Really? I know political attention spans are often as short as goldfish, but surely the counter-ad “I voted for a bill to ensure that the Cornhusker kickback was removed, while my opponent voted AGAINST that bill” would be pretty damning. Unless the Republicans are planning on voting for the patch – and thus completely ruining their “Obama = health care = teh [...]
Okay, so they're not reuniting. But they ARE playing a show together in July. And (for all the people who have lamented being unable to actually obtain their music after hearing me rave about them), they're re-releasing their albums through my new favorite record label, Hardly Art . In addition, they've got a compilation coming out on July 13, called They’ll Only Miss You When You Leave: Songs 1996 – 2003. My only complaint on that front is that it's got only a couple tracks from [...]
Jonathan Chait is weirdly puzzled over the lyrics to "You're So Vain" by Carly Simon (which is not about David Geffen , despite what you may have heard). Chait says: "[N]othing about the song makes any sense. She's giving an extremely detailed description of a former lover, but insisting that his being able to recognize the description is evidence of vanity." But that's why it's clever! The whole point of the song is that the person is vain, smug, self-satisfied, thinks the world revolves around himself...and is wholly justified in thinking so. [...]
Puppets - Jose Vanders The puzzlingly named Jose Vanders (as in, she's a she) is embedded firmly in the grand tradition of waif-voiced folksy women playing sweet songs about love and life and growing up. Think of a young Regina Spektor with a bit of the Kate Nash snark. I realize that for some people that might not sound like an endorsement - in which case you're probably better off just passing through. But for those who like a little bit of sweetness in their lives, give this one a listen. [...]
Fit - Windmill (from Puddle City Racing Lights ) Perfect Fit - Laurel Music (from This Night and the Next ) So I'm thinking about buying a new car. This is a pretty major deal since I've been driving the same Dodge Caravan for about 12 years now. And while I love the old minivan, the recognition of rising gas prices and the initial investment required to buy a car designed for a family leads me to believe I really ought to buy a nice little fuel-efficient car. [...]
Heartache with Hard Work
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Billboard Music Awards 2013, vincitori: Taylor Swift, Gotye e Rihanna i più premiati
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Bravo: Ready, Set, Go EP
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