Of the slew of quotable lines in the 1996 movie Swingers, there is one in the beginning casino scene where Vince Vaughn's character Trent tells a cocktail waitress, "I want you to remember this face, here. Okay? This is the guy behind the guy behind the guy." That line might be the best way to introduce you to Jonathan Wilson , who over the last few years has been "that guy," working with an impressive laundry list of musicians as both a side man and a producer, while helping to revitalize the Laurel Canyon music scene. [...]

Well I told you all about the Beyond Beyond is Beyond psych comp already. And it's available in all its magical musical glory as a free digital download over at Bang Bang Boogaloo. And the comp release show at Shea Stadium in Brooklyn last night was mind-blowingly killer, with next-level sets from The Zabalas , Woodsman and Hopewell . If you haven't seen any of these bands live...well, do it soon! And big cheers to everyone who came out. As I put this comp together [...]

It finally happened. Winter arrived. Snow fell and we woke up this past Sunday with about three inches of the stuff. I'm glad it didn't arrive earlier, as Friday saw me at KSVR for a four hour stint of music. The first two hours flirted with folk music and the latter half was full-on garage rock, garage pop and psychedelic pop. Much of the 10 to midnight show came courtesy Finest Kiss , who posted some great 2011 lists. Taking [...]

The Chocolate Robots, comprised of Matt, Mutt and Marco Giresi, probably find themselves at Giresi's Pizza Factory in Sarnia, Ontario more often than they want to. Afterall, it is the pizzeria that their parents own and the one that all three work at. Along with their uncle, the three brothers man the kitchen meaning getting out and gigging can be difficult (no restaurant boss would want to give three of their finest kitchen workers off at the same time). Giresi's Pizza Factory has been around since 1976. Matt, Mutt and Marco's parents started it after getting married. Mike's [...]
It has been a while my friends... The holidays and the end of year just kind of flew right by me. I hate when the holidays come to an end. There is the calm after the storm feeling which is always a little depressing. There are also these few weeks where the music industry kind of comes to a slow crawl, and I am not really done digesting 2011 so it is a limbo. Which is exactly where I am at right now. Change is hard... The new year transition can make me cling to the past. Although I am [...]

Editor's Note Happy New Year! Some of you are probably wondering what happened to us. Well work, family, and of course organizing our little (not so little anymore) variety show Snob Theater has taken quite a bit of time away from the website. We've had probably the best year so far and I'm happy to announce my favorite records of 2011 to launch the reboot of Kata Rokkar. I don't review albums at all but i do listen to a shitload and it's been a great and surprising year for new music. [...]
Even though 2011 is officially history, we still have plenty of 'best of 20112 music posts in the works to be published in the coming weeks. For the past couple of months, we've been digging through our post archives and putting together Best Songs of 2011 mixes by month. This installment is focused on the [...] Read more, get songs or stream the entire mix on Indie Rock Cafe

Teníamos pendiente hacer un post con listas de los mejores discos del 2011 para algunas de las bandas que aparecen en nuestro Top 10, tarea que no ha resultado fácil ya que en muchos casos ha sido imposible contactar con los protagonistas y obtener una respuesta por su parte, algo que sin embargo Treefight For Sunlight , The Demos y Smile si nos han proporcionado con gran amabilidad y se podría decir que en exclusiva para. este blog, algo que agradecemos enormemente. Es además bastante intersante, al tratarse de grupos con estilos diferentes, ver [...]

I'll never stop loving the beauty of a physical album; everything from the scent of a new vinyl, to the magic of reading the lyrics and seeing the images inside the insert, to the touch of the glossy, matte or recycled paper, and the most important factor - the cover art of the actual overall masterpiece. Here is some of the best album art of 2011. It's easy to see in all of these artists, that there was an actual thought to the structure of not only their music but how it visually sounds. Enjoy! [...]
Just when you thought the best of 2011 lists were over, we went ahead and did it. I now hate lists and hate myself for posting this. But it must be done. This is a starting point, so leave your favorites in the comments and I'll keep adding mine as a run across 'em. Woody and I threw this list together over IM one day, so I"m sure plenty of good tracks are missing, but here were some of our favorite songs last year. Hands down, my favorite track of last year is "Boeing 737." I [...]

Image edited by Ben Kramer We at Rollo & Grady are excited to announce our 3rd annual feature in which we ask some of our favorite artists to list their top 10 albums of 2011. Be on the lookout tomorrow for our "Top 10 List" featuring selections from music bloggers, music supervisors, journalists, DJs, and other music industry professionals. JOHN DWYER - THEE OH SEES total control - henge [...]

Live This Month: January 2012 (Podcast #268) In Live This Month , we sample some of the great local and out-of-town bands performing in the coming month in the San Francisco Bay Area. If the beginning of January feels a little slim on the live music front, things should ramp back up into the usual overwhelming number of interesting shows by the month's end. Several young local bands recently came onto our radar - including Churches, Poor Sons, and Primitive Hearts - and they're all partaking in locals-heavy bills in the next [...]

As I wrote just over a year ago in a 2-part feature on How To Be A Coverblogger [ Pt. 1 / Pt. 2 ], keeping a coverblog requires a touch of obsession, an itch to live the writing life, and a willingness to keep a keen eye on a select handful of trusted sources. But though we watch the other coverbloggers carefully throughout the year, we are folkies first and foremost here at Cover Lay Down. And - as we noted atop our year's end mix - some of the [...]

Seleção feita pelos californianos da banda Fool's Gold. As dicas ficaram por conta dos líderes do grupo Luke Top e Lewis Pesacov. Sem dúvidas a lista mais interessante até agora. LEWIS PESACOV BEST ALBUMS Bombino - Agadez Stream Here " Amazing young rebel guitarist from the deserts of Niger! [...]

A volte, anche se sai benissimo che stai leggendo la stessa mail che hanno ricevuto centinaia di altri blog, ti prendi in simpatia la band. Per esempio, le righe che mi hanno mandato questi sciabolati canadesi Chocolate Robots (ma che razza di sito hanno messo in piedi) sembravano fatte apposta per essere messe su così, come un post già pronto, e il suono stasera mi prendeva bene (Strokes + Vampire Weekend? Perché no!), e poi a un video del genere non ho saputo resistere. Pizza per tutti. Hi Polaroid! We're [...]

After surveying a variety of sounds coming from the Bay Area this year, we're ending our look back at 2011 with the world of indie rock, indie pop, singer-songwriters and folk-rock. While there were a lot of Bay-based success stories this year, no artist probably had a better year than tUnE-yArDs, and w h o k i l l is an innovative, ultra-catchy collection of experimental pop deservedly revered as one of the year's best albums. Beyond tUnE-yArDs, however, the list of big names releasing strong records this year shows why the Bay has the [...]
Vandaveer – Dig Deep DownDownload "Concerning Past & Future Conquests" Chad VanGaalen – Diaper IslandDownload "Sara" Vetiver – The Errant CharmDownload "Can't You Tell" and "Wonder Why" Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring for My HaloDownload " Jesus Fever" and "In...
![[MP3] Old Soul – "Blackbird Calling"](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/3953681_lg.jpg)
dreaming of something, something no one knows ♫ Old Soul - Blackbird Calling It's always pleasant when you are surprised by a band. Old Soul caught me off guard, and the description of the making of their debut album was just too good to pass on sharing: We quit our jobs, fired up the wood stove and hunkered down for a month to make our debut album. Think lazy folk rock along the lines of Vetiver, A.A. Bondy, and M. Ward. Now [...]
Årets skivor: 1. The Middle East – I Want That You Are Always Happy Årets kanske mest negligerade skiva är också årets bästa. Så här mörkt, skarpt, svidande och glittrande, med just det här djupet, vemodet och exakt den här frostiga känslan av avrivna plåster, feber och otillfredsställd stickande hunger – precis så skulle Fleet Foxes ha behövt låta 2011 för att fortfarande besitta någon sorts relevans. Istället kom den här skivan från ett australiensiskt kollektiv som var tusen gånger bättre än Seattlesönernas, utan att få ens så mycket som en smal tårtbit [...]

Image By Banksy edited By Kramer 1. CHARLES BRADLEY - NO TIME FOR DREAMING Label: Dunham Records Charles Bradley - The World (Is Going Up In Flames) 2. WHITE DENIM - D Label: Downtown Records White Denim - River to Consider 3. MEGAFAUN - S/T [...]