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Wylde Stuff

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RIYL48

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the nine-year-old's got the strep, but the four-year-old hasn't been keeping things down too well. We're in Day Two of this and it's getting sadder by the moment. Today I stayed home with the little guy and he has been a trooper through it all. I'm perhaps the absolute worst sick person - especially when I'm losing my lunch - but I haven't seen this guy even cry since I got home from work yesterday. I know some of it comes from being too worn out to even whine, but somehow that never stops me. Hopefully this is one of those 48-hour things.

Well, now that I bummed everyone out, on to the music!

Grant Lee Phillips Strangelet I've been doing these lists so long that artists are starting to show up on them a second time. Last June I wrote about erstwhile Grant Lee Buffalo leader Grant Lee Phillips and his ability to write some pretty powerful pop songs. Unfortunately, at that time he had put aside his songwriting talent to record an uneven album of eighties covers. No, really. This time he's back to his own stuff, and pretty much playing and doing everything on the disc (Peter Buck helps out on "Soft Asylum," but that's about all the outside help he gets). The four songs he's streaming at myspace - including the aforementioned "Soft Asylum" - sound mighty good.

Kaiser Chiefs Yours Truly, Angry Mob Jeez, first riots, now angry mobs. The best proof that the Chiefs were a throw-back to the early Clash sound was that if you didn't know the title of the band's debut hit "I Predict a Riot," you wouldn't have been able to decipher them singing it. But you probably still would have sang right along anyway. Fun, roll-down-the-windows post-punk. "Ruby," from the new album is a bit more understandable, but should still satisfy fans of "Riot." It and another new song is streaming at myspace (along with a live "Riot") and the entire new disc is streaming at AOL this week.

Bryan Ferry Dylanesque Google Ferry or his former band Roxy Music and you'll find an unusually high number of fan sites. All this fan love must be the reason Ferry feels comfortable tackling a project as risky as an album full of Dylan covers without putting any samples out on the web (even Amazon doesn't have their usual thirty-second clips). Either that, or it's so bad that he'd rather you not hear it before you buy it. As much as I liked Roxy Music, I would have guessed that the latter was the reason. Ferry's suave, and suave and Dylan aren't two words that you see together very often. But this disc is getting fairly good reviews precisely for Ferry's smooth take on Bobby's songs. Dylan may not be smooth, but Ferry's not the first to realize that his songwriting's strong enough to work in other styles. I just wish I could hear some of Bryan's take on it.

This week's list:

1. ANDREW BIRD Armchair Apocrypha
2. MODEST MOUSE We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
3. KAISER CHIEFS Yours Truly, Angry Mob
4. GRANT LEE PHILLIPS Strangelet
5. TRACEY THORN Out of the Woods
6. ROSIE THOMAS These Friends of Mine
7. SON VOLT Search
8. THE SHINS Wincing the Night Away
9. AMY WINEHOUSE Back in Black
10. RICKIE LEE JONES The Sermon on Exposition Blvd.
11. CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH Some Loud Thunder
12. PETER BJORN AND JOHN Writer's Block
13. THE POSTMARKS The Postmarks
14. KRISTOFFER RAGNSTAM Sweet Bills
15. THE AUTUMN DEFENSE The Autumn Defense
16. ERIN McKEOWN Sing You Sinners
17. ALBERT HAMMOND, JR. Yours To Keep
18. JILL CUNNIFF City Beach
19. PATTY GRIFFIN Children Running Through
20. MARK KNOPFLER & EMMYLOU HARRIS Real Live Roadrunning
21. OVER THE RHINE Discount Fireworks
22. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
23. BRYAN FERRY Dylanesque
24. GRAHAM PARKER - Don't Tell Columbus
25. MATT & KIM Matt & Kim
26. VARIOUS ARTISTS Endless Highway: the Music of the Band
27. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
28. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
29. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
30. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly

Dropping off the list this week:

• MITCH EASTER Dynamico
• RY COODER My Name Is Buddy
• HAIL SOCIAL Modern Love & Death

RIYL for the week beginning March 26, 2007. Backstory here.

Local Time

Regular readers of this blog might see my posts about all the WXPN Free-at-Noon shows that I've attended and think that I'm some cheapskate that only goes to free Friday afternoon concerts. This simply isn't true. Just this week I attended a WXPN-hosted Philly Local concert. Sure, it was still a free show, but it was on a Tuesday night, not a Friday afternoon. Big difference.

The night started off with Sharon Little and Scott Sax. Little is a strange mix of bluesy folk singer and jazzy torch singer, and Sax's backing guitar moved between the two styles right along with her. I had never heard this duo before - and they both seemed very talented - but the attempt to combine two very different styles sounded disjointed and just didn't work for me.

Next up was long-time 'XPN favorite John Flynn. Flynn is folk singer born ten or twenty years too late. He writes songs about politics and the current state of the world that are devoid of any cynical irony at a time when that's just not done anymore. Perhaps some coffeehouse folkies also attempt this, but John's the real deal and he was very good. He's also quite funny, and the ladies in the audience seemed to like looking at him.

After Flynn was the band I came to see, the Swimmers. It seems like I've been waiting forever for their first album to be released (now expected in May), but I've had a few of their mp3s for a while now and they've been streaming their album on their website since Christmas-time, and I can not imagine these guys (and gal) not making it big. They write great songs full of catchy hooks that just transcend anything else that's out right now. And now I know that they're also great live. I brought my brother with me to this show primarily to hear the Swimmers, and he was extremely impressed. I think they're going to have that effect on a lot of folks.

Following the Swimmers (or maybe right before?) was a surprise visit by a South Jersey singer who has already gotten quite a bit of national notice, Amos Lee. I remember seeing Lee open for someone at a little neighborhood concert in the next town over a few years ago, but that was before he signed with Blue Note and put out a couple of critically-acclaimed albums. It was also before he started hanging out with folks like Norah Jones. I've never been all that impressed with Lee, but I have to admit that he sounded very good Tuesday night. He looked very confident and comfortable on stage, and that made him sound much more mature and authentic then I remember him being last time I saw him.

Hail Social was the night's headliner. The band's second album, Modern Love & Death, was released that very day but if they were excited about that it certainly didn't show in their performance. They looked like they were just going though the motions, and their music sounded like it was doing the same. They weren't bad, but they we're offering anything that hasn't already been done several times over. There didn't seem to be any chemistry between the band members, nor was there any interaction with the crowd. Coming on so soon after the very energetic and happy-to-be-there Swimmers didn't help their act much either, and so my brother and I decided to beat the traffic after the third song.

Photos from the show are posted over at my Flickr page. WXPN plans on having the next Philly Local show sometime in June.

Cephalalgia, Gorgonzola, Miscellania

A few bullet points while I try to figure out how one of the station wagon's strut springs could just snap in half like that, and how much it's going to cost me to replace it.

• The Headachy One is back! As usual, she's not very happy with me.
• Check out this blog post from Philly's premier cheesemongers and try to guess who they're talking about. That's a lot of cheese.
  
• Someone finally recognized the enormity vastness of my musical knowledge, took a chance on a disc I recommended, and  - lucky for me (and her!) -  actually liked it! I only skimmed the post, but I'm pretty sure that the writer refers to me as "the Greatest." That sounds about right.
• Everybody got their first-day-of-Spring free iced coffee yesterday, right? No? How about your first-day-of-Spring free wooder Italian ice? Oh. Perhaps next time I should mention these offers before they're over.

I'd say "Happy Spring," but that would just remind me of that damn broken strut.

RIYL47

Going to a rare Tuesday night concert (who am I kidding, a concert on any night is rare for me), so I'm going to have to outsource the RIYL blurbs this week.

Modest Mouse We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

Musically “We Were Dead” is about as clangorous as you might expect — “Steam Engenius” works hard to deserve its mechanistic lyrics — but it also has more of a pop sensibility than previous Modest Mouse efforts. - New York Times

[Full album streaming at AOL]

Modest Mouse - "People As Places As People" [mp3]

Hail Social Modern Love & Death

The vacant souls drifting through Dayve Hawk’s surreal songs tend to find only trouble, but the listener gets a much better deal, swimming happily in shiny synthesizers and spare, dynamic pop topped by teen-idol vocals. - Philadelphia Weekly

 [Hail Social is one of the bands I'm going to see tonight, but I don't know a whole lot about them. Myspace page here.]

Hail Social - "Heaven" [mp3]

Rosie Thomas These Friends of Mine

[A]n album that brims with introspective beauty and exposes Thomas’ song writing ability. Her voice is sweet, clear and perfectly offset by the playful contributions of [long-term collaborator Denison] Witmer and [celebrated folkster Sufjan] Stevens. - BBC

Rosie Thomas - "Much Farther to Go" [mp3]

Tracey Thorn Out of the Woods

Working with Ewan Pearson and other computer-friendly producers, Ms. Thorne [one half of Everything But the Girl], 44, created a sumptuous album full of propulsive dance tracks and mournful ballads, many of which are both. “It’s All True” is a plushly upholstered club track, driven by a robotic bass line and drums as sharp as needles. - New York Times (again}

[Tracey Thorn's Myspace page is here]

This week's list:

1. ANDREW BIRD Armchair Apocrypha
2. MODEST MOUSE We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
3. TRACEY THORN Out of the Woods
4. ROSIE THOMAS These Friends of Mine
5. SON VOLT Search
6. THE SHINS Wincing the Night Away
7. AMY WINEHOUSE Back in Black
8. RICKIE LEE JONES The Sermon on Exposition Blvd.
9. CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH Some Loud Thunder
10. PETER BJORN AND JOHN Writer's Block
11. THE POSTMARKS The Postmarks
12. KRISTOFFER RAGNSTAM Sweet Bills
13. HAIL SOCIAL Modern Love & Death
14. THE AUTUMN DEFENSE The Autumn Defense
15. ERIN McKEOWN Sing You Sinners
16. ALBERT HAMMOND, JR. Yours To Keep
17. JILL CUNNIFF City Beach
18. PATTY GRIFFIN Children Running Through
19. RY COODER My Name Is Buddy
20. MARK KNOPFLER & EMMYLOU HARRIS Real Live Roadrunning
21. OVER THE RHINE Discount Fireworks
22. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
23. GRAHAM PARKER - Don't Tell Columbus
24. MATT & KIM Matt & Kim
25. VARIOUS ARTISTS Endless Highway: the Music of the Band
26. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
27. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
28. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
29. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly
30. MITCH EASTER Dynamico

Dropping off the list this week:

• THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE QUEEN The Good, the Bad and the Queen
• THE FRAMES Cost
• SONDRE LERCHE Phantom Punch
• LUCINDA WILLIAMS West

RIYL for the week beginning March 19, 2007. Backstory here.

RIYL46

Some old, some new, some new that sounds old, but, alas, no old that sounds new.

Amy Winehouse Back in Black Much like Lauren Hill when she channeled Supremes-era Diana Ross, Amy Winehouse could easily pass for a jazzy sixties R&B singer in the Etta James or Nina Simone mold. Winehouse sometimes distracts from her retro sound with ill-fitting modern day musical interruptions, but the songs that do stay true to that old time vibe are amazing enough to make her album worthwhile. This disc came out back in December, but MSN is streaming some of its songs this week (they claim to be streaming the whole disc, but don't you believe them).

Mitch Easter Dynamico With a certain band from Athens, Georgia entering the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this week, the time is perfect for Mitch Easter - who produced that band's earliest albums - to drop his own album. Unlike REM, Easter has stayed true to that early eighties sound and ends up with a disc that sounds like something the db's might have released back in the day. Interesting, but not very original sounding twenty-five years later, even if Easter and his band at the time, Let's Active, were one of the sound's original purveyors. He's got a few songs going at his myspace page.

Mitch Easter - "Sudden Crown Drop" [mp3]

Graham Parker - Don't Tell Columbus Graham Parker comes from a time before REM & Let's Active, but his sound has evolved along the way. Gone is the angry young man with the angry young voice; he's been replaced by someone who sounds a lot like a chipper British Bob Dylan. While Parker's still writing some angry words, he doesn't seem as interested in sounding as pissed as he once did. His new tunes are nowhere near as good as his old stuff, but they are a heck of a lot catchier.

Graham Parker - "Stick to the Plan" [mp3]

Peter Bjorn and John Writer's Block And now for this week's Swedish band. Why are the Swedes so successful at making good ol' American pop? I don't know enough about Sweden to answer that, but I will use what little I know of that country to review the PB&J sound: it's like IKEA's kids' furniture - colorful and fun, but well-built. Except this stuff's already built for you. They too have a myspace page.

Peter Bjorn and John "Young Folks [ft. Victoria Bergsman]" [mp3]

Matt & Kim Matt & Kim Matt & Kim are a couple of crazy kids from Brooklyn (okay, I'm not sure they're really, actually, certifiably "crazy," but I do know that they are from Brooklyn). If you like the offbeat male-female interactions of Mates of State, you should like these two just fine. Obligatory myspace page here.

Matt & Kim - "Yea Yeah" [mp3]
Matt & Kim - "No More Long Years" [mp3]

The Postmarks The Postmarks It doesn't take long to figure out that the Postmark's lead singer, Tim Yehezkely, isn't a guy. She's got a soft but peppy little voice that glides over sounds straight out the Burt Bacharach songbook (is there anyone out there not cribbing from Bacharach these days?). You can hear the whole album at the band's website or go to their... wait for it... myspace page and download the song "Goodbye" (if you can get a myspace download to actually work, something I usually can't do).

Dang, that a lot of music.

This week's list:

1. ANDREW BIRD Armchair Apocrypha
2. SON VOLT Search
3. THE SHINS Wincing the Night Away
4. AMY WINEHOUSE Back in Black
5. RICKIE LEE JONES The Sermon on Exposition Blvd.
6. CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH Some Loud Thunder
7. PETER BJORN AND JOHN Writer's Block
8. THE POSTMARKS The Postmarks
9. KRISTOFFER RAGNSTAM Sweet Bills
10. THE AUTUMN DEFENSE The Autumn Defense
11. ERIN McKEOWN Sing You Sinners
12. ALBERT HAMMOND, JR. Yours To Keep
13. JILL CUNNIFF City Beach
14. THE FRAMES Cost
15. SONDRE LERCHE Phantom Punch
16. PATTY GRIFFIN Children Running Through
17. RY COODER My Name Is Buddy
18. MARK KNOPFLER & EMMYLOU HARRIS Real Live Roadrunning
19. OVER THE RHINE Discount Fireworks
20. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
21. GRAHAM PARKER - Don't Tell Columbus
22. MATT & KIM Matt & Kim
23. LUCINDA WILLIAMS West
24. VARIOUS ARTISTS Endless Highway: the Music of the Band
25. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
26. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
27. THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE QUEEN The Good, the Bad and the Queen
28. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
29. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly
30. MITCH EASTER Dynamico

Dropping off the list this week:

• JOHN HAMMOND Push Comes to Shove
• JOE ELY Happy Songs from Rattlesnake Gulch
• HARRY CONNICK, JR. Oh, My Nola
• KRISTEN HERSH Learn to Sing Like a Star
• SAM ROBERTS Chemical City
• RON SEXSMITH Time Being

RIYL for the week beginning March 12, 2007. Backstory here.

 

Good Advices

Me, (09.29.2004):

... U2's upcoming CD How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb is everything R.E.M.’s new stuff isn’t. It rocks, it’s fun (right from the uno dos tres catorce count-off), and it’s completely different from anything they’ve done before. Someone should send Michael Stipe a copy.

Billboard, (04.09.2007):

R.E.M. will record its 14th studio album this spring with Irish producer Jacknife Lee, best known for his work on U2's "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb"...

Coincidence? I think not.

Sky Blue Sky Mining

Last time, I got the email to late to give anybody the heads-up, but this time I can:

Wilco has announced that, once again, they will be streaming their forthcoming disc, Sky Blue Sky, on their website. This time you can check it out (pretty much) all day Sunday, 10am-10pm. Plus, while you're there, you can also download one of the album's tracks, "What Light."

I highly recommend giving this disc a listen, even if you're not as huge a fan of Wilco as I am. It's a beautiful album that deviates a bit from the band's last few albums. In fact, it sounds a lot more like what the band members have been doing on their side projects, like Loose Fur and The Autumn Defense.

Anyway, 10am - 10pm Sunday (Eastern Daylight Savings Time), right here.

RIYL45

A busy day week month at work and I feel a headache coming on, so this might be short.

Son Volt Search Best to just re-read my write-up of their free-at-noon concert, but I will say that I'm really impressed with the energy on this record. Jay Farrar sounds reinvigorated and willing to try new things. If you go to the band's website you're greeted by the  horns (Horns! from Son Volt!) of "The Picture." Stick around to hear a few more streaming songs.

Kristoffer Ragnstam Sweet Bills Is it me, or is a lot of good music coming out of Sweden lately? Ragnstam's a bit offbeat in a Beck sort of way, but he puts out Rock and Roll that's got a good beat and you can dance to. What more could you ask for? He's streaming a couple new songs at myspace, with "Breakfast by the Mattress" the better of the two.

Kristoffer Ragnstam - "Breakfast by the Mattress" [mp3]

Ry Cooder My Name Is Buddy The album has something to do with a talking cat or something, but whatever - the versatile Cooder takes on the dust-bowl era here and from the few short samples on his website it sounds like one part Woodie Guthrie, one part Garcia/Grisman bluegrass, and one part... Warren Zevon? I'm not sure what the rest of the album sounds like, but those three little samples make me want to find out.

Andrew Bird Armchair Apocrypha This is an case where I do know what the whole album sounds like, since I've actually got it on my computer. Bird seems to break out of his lo-fi shell a bit here (get it? Bird? shell?) but still keeps the overall sound on the quiet side. He slips in and out of a few different genres and while not all of them work, the one's that do sound great and the others are growing on me. There's nothing here as brilliant as his previous album's "A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left," but "Heretics" comes close.

Andrew Bird- "Heretics" [mp3]

Albert Hammond, Jr. Yours To Keep A full debut album's worth of catchy pop from the guitarist for the Strokes, who also happens to be the son of the guy who gave the world "It Never Rains In Southern California" (try not to hold that against him). A fun disc that covers the entire pop music spectrum, and the whole thing is streaming at Hammond's myspace page.

Well, that took a lot longer than I expected (just like it always does). Time to get some sleep.

This week's list:

1. ANDREW BIRD Armchair Apocrypha
2. SON VOLT Search
3. THE SHINS Wincing the Night Away
4. RICKIE LEE JONES The Sermon on Exposition Blvd.
5. CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH Some Loud Thunder
6. KRISTOFFER RAGNSTAM Sweet Bills
7. THE AUTUMN DEFENSE The Autumn Defense
8. ERIN McKEOWN Sing You Sinners
9. ALBERT HAMMOND, JR. Yours To Keep
10. JILL CUNNIFF City Beach
11. THE FRAMES Cost
12. SONDRE LERCHE Phantom Punch
13. PATTY GRIFFIN Children Running Through
14. RY COODER My Name Is Buddy
15. MARK KNOPFLER & EMMYLOU HARRIS Real Live Roadrunning
16. HARRY CONNICK, JR. Oh, My Nola
17. OVER THE RHINE Discount Fireworks
18. RON SEXSMITH Time Being
19. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
20. LUCINDA WILLIAMS West
21. VARIOUS ARTISTS Endless Highway: the Music of the Band
22. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
23. JOE ELY Happy Songs from Rattlesnake Gulch
24. KRISTEN HERSH Learn to Sing Like a Star
25. SAM ROBERTS Chemical City
26. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
27. THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE QUEEN The Good, the Bad and the Queen
28. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
29. JOHN HAMMOND Push Comes to Shove
30. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly

Dropping off the list this week:

• THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
• THE HOLMES BROTHERS State of Grace
• CHARLIE LOUVIN Charlie Louvin
• LUSCIOUS JACKSON Greatest Hits
• BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try

RIYL for the week beginning March 05, 2007. Backstory here.

 

Nothing But Blue Skies

You know, not all my email comes from angry gods. Some of it comes from the bands I like to listen to. Like just last night, I'm checking my inbox and I see this:

That's right, Wilco was streaming their new album - which isn't scheduled to come out until the middle of May - on their website last night. So right about 10pm Central Time (which around these parts is what we call 11pm Eastern Time), I plugged my cheap headphones into the laptop, clicked on over to the Wilco site, and listened to the new disc in its entirety. And then I listened to it again.

I didn't listen to it twice so that I could write up a nice little song-by-song preview of it on this here blog, I listened to it twice because it sounded so good. It's a beautiful album that builds on their recent Yankee Hotel Foxtrot / A Ghost Is Born sound. There's much less of the sonic discord, a lot more melody, and writing that seemed less abstract than it was on those albums. Plus, Jeff Tweedy's voice sounds stronger and clearer than it's sounded since Wilco's early stuff.

And it's not that I minded the sonic discord or abstract lyrics of recent albums, but the reduction of both on Sky Blue Sky makes it more than just Yankee Hotel Foxtrot 3. Where A Ghost is Born sounded to me like a continuation of the YHF sessions (not that there was anything wrong with that), Sky Blue Sky strikes me as a refinement of that sound, and a bit of a move away from it at the same time.

I think I'm writing way too much here about an album I only listened to twice, but I'm very excited about this release and I'm happy that I got to hear a sneak preview. I'm even happier that it sounded so good.

[I apologize for not posting about the preview before it happened, but there wasn't much time between me opening the email and the start of the preview. If you're really into Wilco, I would suggest signing up for their emails (there's a link at the bottom of the page). They do a lot of cool things with them.]

RIYL44

Do you hear that? If you listen real close you'll hear the sound of crickets [not really, so you can stop upping the volume on your computer now]. Metaphorically speaking, that's the sound coming from the new release bin this week. So, like I did with The Band tribute that I talked-up pre-release, I'll spend this down week pointing out another upcoming tribute album.

This one is a song-by-song recreation of the Clash's much-maligned three-platter (and in more recent times two-disc) Sandinista! Personally, I'm one of the many who think the original could have been whittled down to one really great album.

With Sandinista!, the Clash were coming off the brilliantly diverse London Calling [it's only the greatest record ever made] and they were in full experimental mode. Some of the ideas work, most don't. There's a lot of goofing off on the record, and if you're not in the right mood it's pretty annoying. If you are in the right mood, it's kind of fun for a while before it becomes annoying.

That said, Sandinista! contains some of the Clash's best songs, including what might be my favorite non-London Calling track, "Hitsville U.K.," so perhaps it's worthy of another look.

The Sandinista! Project has a different artist or band cover each of the original's thirty-six songs. None of the artists are A-list and some are complete question marks (at least to me), but there are some names I do recognize, including Pittsburgh rocker and FOB (Friend of Bruce) Joe Grushecky doing a pretty good job with "The Magnificent Seven," one of the six songs I was able to find an mp3 of.

The album is due to drop on May 1 and has its own blog. Complete song list after the downloads. [album info via Some Velvet Blog].

"The Magnificent Seven" - Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers [mp3]
"Lose This Skin"- Jim Allen [mp3]
"Charlie Don't Surf" - The Crunchies [mp3]
"Let's Go Crazy" - Storybox [mp3]
"Look Here" - Jim Duffy [mp3]
"Washington Bullets" - Phill Rockrohr and the Lifters [mp3]

1. The Magnificent Seven, Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers
2. Hitsville U.K., Katrina Leskanich
3. Junco Partner, Jon Langford and Sally Timms with Ship & Pilot
4. Ivan Meets G.I. Joe, Jason Ringenberg and Kristi Rose
5. The Leader, Amy Rigby
6. Something About England, The Coal Porters
7. Rebel Waltz, Ruby on the Vine
8. Look Here, Jim Duffy
9. The Crooked Beat, Wreckless Eric
10. Somebody Got Murdered, Matthew Ryan
11. One More Time/One More Dub, Haale
12. One More Time (One More Time), Ted Harris
13. Lightning Strikes (Not Once But Twice), London Calling of Chicago
14. Up in Heaven (Not Only Here), The Smithereens
15. Corner Soul, Ethan Lipton
16. Let's Go Crazy, Storybox
17. If Music Could Talk, Steve Wynn
18. The Sound of the Sinners, Bill Lloyd
19. Police on My Back, Willie Nile
20. Midnight Log, Soul Food with Mick Gallagher
21. The Equaliser, Sunset Heroes
22. The Call Up, The Lothars
23. Washington Bullets, Phil Rockrohr and the Lifters
24. Broadway, Stew
25. Lose This Skin, Jim Allen
26. Charlie Don't Surf, The Crunchies
27. Mensforth Hill, Bee Maidens
28. Junkie Slip, Mark Cutler
29. Kingston Advice, Camper Van Beethoven
30. The Street Parade, Dollar Store
31. Version City, Tim Krekel
32. Living in Fame, Lou Carlozo
33. Silicone on Sapphire, The Blizzard of 78 featuring Mikey Dread
34. Version Pardner, Sally Timms and Jon Langford with Ship & Pilot
35. Career Opportunities, Sex Clark Five
36. Shepherds Delight, The Hyphens

This week's list:

1. THE SHINS Wincing the Night Away
2. RICKIE LEE JONES The Sermon on Exposition Blvd.
3. CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH Some Loud Thunder
4. THE AUTUMN DEFENSE The Autumn Defense
5. ERIN McKEOWN Sing You Sinners
6. JILL CUNNIFF City Beach
7. THE FRAMES Cost
8. SONDRE LERCHE Phantom Punch
9. PATTY GRIFFIN Children Running Through
10. MARK KNOPFLER & EMMYLOU HARRIS Real Live Roadrunning
11. HARRY CONNICK, JR. Oh, My Nola
12. OVER THE RHINE Discount Fireworks
13. RON SEXSMITH Time Being
14. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
15. LUCINDA WILLIAMS West
16. VARIOUS ARTISTS Endless Highway: the Music of the Band
17. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
18. CHARLIE LOUVIN Charlie Louvin
19. LUSCIOUS JACKSON Greatest Hits
20. JOE ELY Happy Songs from Rattlesnake Gulch
21. KRISTEN HERSH Learn to Sing Like a Star
22. SAM ROBERTS Chemical City
23. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
24. THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE QUEEN The Good, the Bad and the Queen
25. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
26. JOHN HAMMOND Push Comes to Shove
27. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly
28. THE HOLMES BROTHERS State of Grace
29. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
30. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try

Dropping off the list this week:

• SERA CAHOONE Sera Cahoone
• NEKO CASE Live from Austin, Texas
• YOUTH GROUP Casino Twilight Dogs
• CROWDED HOUSE Farewell to the World
• THE BROTHER KITE Waiting for the Time to be Right

RIYL for the week beginning February 26, 2007. Backstory here.

High Voltage

This week's WXPN Free-at-Noon concert was Uncle Tupelo offshoot Son Volt.

After a strong debut, Son Volt put out a few very good records that didn't differ very much in their sound. The band's creativity seemed to hit a plateau (albeit a very high plateau) and they kind of got lost in the shadow of that other Uncle Tupelo spinoff, Wilco.

With 2005's Okemah And The Melody Of Riot, however, Farrar pumped some new life into the band and got people talking about them again. Judging from this concert (and samples from their upcoming release that you can hear at their website) Son Volt's energy seems to have gone up yet another level. Farrar has found a way to expand his alt-county sound while at the same time staying true to his Uncle Tupelo era Americana roots.

A quick (eight nine songs crammed into about thirty minutes, plus a couple off-the-air encores) but impressive concert.

More shots from the concert over at my photoblog.

Update: I forgot to mention that, as always with the Free-at-Noon shows, a stream of this concert is available at NPR's website.

Jesus & Jones

A few weeks ago I mentioned that Rickie Lee Jones had a new release [I also chastised her for not having some sample songs on the web, but that turned out not to be true, thus marking the first time I have ever been wrong]. Since then I've gotten a copy of the album, The Sermon on Exposition Blvd., and it sounds really good. It's quieter than her past stuff but there's still enough nuance there to keep your attention and Rickie Lee's powerful voice is still available when required.

And then there are the lyrics.

To be honest, I've been listening to the disc on my work computer - not the best place to ponder over song meanings. But the liner notes explain that the inspiration for the album came from a book called The Words, which takes Jesus' words from the Bible and sorts them by theme, sans annotation (the book doesn't seem like it's still in print, but it is available for free at the author's website). But I wouldn't call Sermon a "religious" album. Even at the times where Jones is speaking more than singing (sounding a bit like a female Van Morrison when he does the same), there's no "grand message" being propagated. That's not to say that Jones' lyrics lack any depth, they just allow each listener to interpret their meaning differently - which isn't exactly the norm for religious music.

Now, if you're still so interested in this that you've made it down to the third paragraph, you may want to check out an interview Jones did for Urge, a music service dreamed up by MTV and Microsoft (sort of like iTunes, except that no one's ever heard of Urge).

 [Oddly, it's not an audio interview - you read it on your Windows MediaPlayer.]

In the interview you get Jones' take on Christianity, from the perspective of a liberal. Liberals, as you know, hate Jesus and all he stands for:

All that matters to me is the profound kindness of the words that he had to say; pretty wonderful, very simple. If you wanted to try to live by them, you wouldn't be a worse person for it. But as far as going around and hitting people on the head that they have to believe what you're saying, I think this is a terrible sin, and its kind of the antithesis of what it seems like Christ was.

She goes on in the interview a little more about this subject, but she also talks pretty frankly about her never quite reaching the popularity she had with her debut album and its hit single:

It was as if, for that small period, whatever I did seemed to be met with disapproval. And I think it's because everything I was doing was measured against the phenomenon of "Chuck E.'s In Love," as if nothing I could do, everything I would create, would never be enough.

It's an interesting read, and Urge has a lot more interviews with other artists that don't normally get much press. Urge is a free download, but it's also bit of a pain to install (you must first install Urge and then the latest version of MediaPlayer) On the other hand, there's a lot of exclusive content that might make installing it worth your while. [That said, if you're having trouble installing Urge - or just don't want to install it - but still want to read the interview let me know and I'll email it to you.]

Boy, if you've made it all the way down to paragraph then I should also tell you that Rickie Lee Jones is the guest on this weekend's episode of PBS's Soundstage. It first airs Friday night here in the Philadelphia area, but you might want to check your local listings. I've always wanted to say that.

RIYL43

A bunch of new releases this fine Shrove Tuesday [mmm.... pancakes...] and one I forgot to mention before.

Jill Cunniff City Beach & Luscious Jackson Greatest Hits On the same day that Capitol Records releases the best of Brooklyn's long-gone, all-girl, sass-and-soul, named-after-a-former-Sixer Luscious Jackson, one of the band's founders drops her first solo album. Folks stuck listening to her former band's last album, Electric Honey, for the past seven years, rejoice! And if you liked Electric Honey (or even Fever In Fever Out) you should enjoy City Beach just fine. This is the smooth side of the LJ equation. There's still a bit of funk in there - as well as a little of a bossa nova beat - but most of LJ's trademark sass has been replaced by a more laid-back vibe. The perfect disc to listen to while you try to figure out just how you're going to afford that week downtheshore this summer. AOL is streaming LJ's Greatest Hits this week, and Cunniff is streaming a couple songs at her myspace page and her whole album at her website.

The Frames Cost Did you know there are good Irish bands other than U2? It's true. Now that you know that, image a talented Irish band that features songs that go from quiet to soaring without its lead singer having to getting all bombastic and melodramatic. It exists, I tell ya. The Frames have been around for a while now, but haven't gotten much attention over here (not that I'm way ahead of the curve on this one, having only heard of them last year). It might finally happen with this release. Lead singer Glen Hansard somehow does the whole broken-hearted troubadour thing that the ladies like so much without getting annoying, which in itself is worth a listen. Their label is serving up a couple free downloads.

The Frames - "Sad Songs" [mp3]
The Frames - "Falling Slowly" [mp3]

Charlie Louvin Charlie Louvin I know I give artists grief for not putting some samples on the web, but I'm going to let country legend Charlie Louvin slide, seeing how he's older than my mom and she only just got her myspace page going a couple of days ago (that's a joke, or at least I pray to God it's a joke). Uncle Tupelo has a song called "Acuff-Rose" that celebrates that Nashville duo's songwriting abilities, but I'm betting that Jeff Tweedy, along with a bunch of other alt-country folks, were listening to the Louvin Brothers, too. Now they all come back and play with their Americana muse. Tweedy joins Charlie on his "Atomic Power" (which was on Uncle Tupelo's first disc, I believe), Will Oldham's here helping out, as is Tift Merritt, Elvis Costello, Bobby Bare, Sr. and some guy named George Jones. I would love to hear what this album sounds like, but all I've got to work with are the thirty second samples at Amazon.

The Autumn Defense The Autumn Defense Remember how I wrote about that America comeback/tribute a few weeks ago and I was all like "eh"? Maybe that's because while I don't necessarily have a problem with softer, gentler seventies-style music, I also don't think you should have to go back to the original source to get it. Two guys from Wilco, John Stirratt and Pat Sansone, have proven me right (I love when people prove me right). Working as the Autumn Defense, they provide perfectly pleasant - beautiful even - music without the polyester flashbacks. They give you plenty of opportunities to download stuff from their past releases at their website, but you'll have to settle for a myspace stream for songs ("Canyon Arrow" and "Winterlight") from the new album.

This week's list:

1. THE SHINS Wincing the Night Away
2. RICKIE LEE JONES The Sermon on Exposition Blvd.
3. CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH Some Loud Thunder
4. THE AUTUMN DEFENSE The Autumn Defense
5. ERIN McKEOWN Sing You Sinners
6. JILL CUNNIFF City Beach
7. THE FRAMES Cost
8. SONDRE LERCHE Phantom Punch
9. PATTY GRIFFIN Children Running Through
10. MARK KNOPFLER & EMMYLOU HARRIS Real Live Roadrunning
11. HARRY CONNICK, JR. Oh, My Nola
12. OVER THE RHINE Discount Fireworks
13. RON SEXSMITH Time Being
14. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
15. LUCINDA WILLIAMS West
16. VARIOUS ARTISTS Endless Highway: the Music of the Band
17. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
18. CHARLIE LOUVIN Charlie Louvin
19. LUSCIOUS JACKSON Greatest Hits
20. JOE ELY Happy Songs from Rattlesnake Gulch
21. KRISTEN HERSH Learn to Sing Like a Star
22. SAM ROBERTS Chemical City
23. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
24. THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE QUEEN The Good, the Bad and the Queen
25. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
26. JOHN HAMMOND Push Comes to Shove
27. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly
28. THE HOLMES BROTHERS State of Grace
29. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
30. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try

Dropping off the list this week:

• SERA CAHOONE Sera Cahoone
• NEKO CASE Live from Austin, Texas
• YOUTH GROUP Casino Twilight Dogs
• CROWDED HOUSE Farewell to the World
• THE BROTHER KITE Waiting for the Time to be Right

RIYL for the week beginning February 19, 2007. Backstory here.

Here I Come Again And I'm Bringing My Friends

Looks like I've hit the Americana exacta today. I received news about both of the bands that came out of the Uncle Tupelo breakup:

• Wilco has released the "probable" song sequence for their new album Sky Blue Sky, scheduled to come out on May 15. I already knew the release date, and it's not like knowing what songs are going to be on the album or what order they'll be in was going to make me want the album any more or any less - I was already planning to be at AKA Records right on May 15 (probably waiting for them to open the doors) - but still, this reminds me that it's less than three months until NEW WILCO.
• The WXPN newsletter I got this week (and finally got around to looking at today) let me know that next Friday's Free at Noon concert is going to be Son Volt, the other half of the UT split-up. It's not on their website yet, but you can sign up for tickets here (and yes, I've got mine already). This will be so very cool, seeing them in such a small venue. I'm not as fanatical about Jay and the Boys as I am about Jeff and the Boys (though right after the split I though Son Volt's stuff was better than Wilco's, but that only lasted for their first albums), but that doesn't mean that I don't still like them an awful lot. And hey, it looks like there'll be NEW SON VOLT coming out soon, too.

Outtasite.

RIYL42

After a couple Tuesdays that were full of new releases, the recording industry must be catching their breath this week. I'm only noticing one worth mentioning, but it's a good one.

Lucinda Williams West She's only offering abbreviated samples at her label's website and four streaming songs on her myspace page, but I like what I'm hearing. The lyrics aren't as strong as on her past recordings, but what she lacks in words she more than makes up for in sounds.

By inviting folks like jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, uber-session-drummer Jim Keltner and the Jayhawk's Gary Louris (for backing vocals), Williams has assembled a quiet and beautiful background to complement her trademark rough vocals. It's a perfect mix of Frisell's creativity and Williams sparseness and I would guess that it's the most attention Williams - who usually gets praise for her vocals and lyrics - has given to her music in a long time.

This week's list:

1. THE SHINS Wincing the Night Away
2. LUCINDA WILLIAMS West
3. ERIN McKEOWN Sing You Sinners
4. CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH Some Loud Thunder
5. SONDRE LERCHE Phantom Punch
6. PATTY GRIFFIN Children Running Through
7. MARK KNOPFLER & EMMYLOU HARRIS Real Live Roadrunning
8. HARRY CONNICK, JR. Oh, My Nola
9. OVER THE RHINE Discount Fireworks
10. RON SEXSMITH Time Being
11. NEKO CASE Live from Austin, Texas
12. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
13. VARIOUS ARTISTS Endless Highway: the Music of the Band
14. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
15. JOE ELY Happy Songs from Rattlesnake Gulch
16. KRISTEN HERSH Learn to Sing Like a Star
17. SAM ROBERTS Chemical City
18. YOUTH GROUP Casino Twilight Dogs
19. CROWDED HOUSE Farewell to the World
20. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
21. THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE QUEEN The Good, the Bad and the Queen
22. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
23. JOHN HAMMOND Push Comes to Shove
24. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly
25. THE HOLMES BROTHERS State of Grace
26. THE BROTHER KITE Waiting for the Time to be Right
27. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
28. RICKIE LEE JONES The Sermon on Exposition Blvd.
29. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try
30. SERA CAHOONE Sera Cahoone

Dropping off the list this week:

• BLOC PARTY Weekend in the City

RIYL for the week beginning February 12, 2007. Backstory here.

Verve Griffin

Another Friday, another 'XPN Free-at-Noon concert. This week it was Maine singer-songwriter Patty Griffin. When I got to World Cafe Live, I was a little surprised to see that Griffin pulled in a full house for the concert. Not that she isn't talented enough to draw a crowd, but she's never really gotten the attention she deserves.

That should change with her new album, Children Running Through. In the past, Griffin's been willing to try all kinds of musical styles - soul, folk, jazz, rock, country - and sounded comfortable with each of them. From what I heard at the concert, her new stuff has a little taste of everything and an overall sound that's fuller than anything I've ever heard from her.

Griffin played quieter songs on the piano and some harder hitting songs on guitar. Her backing band complimented her very well, resulting at times in a sound that seemed to swirl around the room. Hard to explain, but it sounded just great. Patty also brought a lot of energy to the show. For a woman who looks like she weighs about eighty pounds, she plays a mean guitar. And she's got such a strong voice.

As always, NPR has the concert at their website. I only took a few shots - we weren't supposed to take any, but towards the end people started whipping out cameras and Patty didn't seem to mind, so I snuck a few. Shhh....

"Take It Sleazy" Or "Leechful Queasy Feeling" or "Life In The Aghast Lane" Or ...

Desperate-o:

"My father was a small-business man after he got out of World War II," [Don] Henley said. "He despised chains, the big guys, who eventually helped put him out of business."

Now the son is in business with Wal-Mart, the biggest of the big guys. The Eagles, the rock band that claims the bestselling album in the history of American music, will soon release their first studio album since "The Long Run" in 1979, and, if you want to buy it, you'll have to get in line at Wal-Mart or wait 12 months to get it elsewhere. "They will have an exclusive on it for the first year," Henley said, explaining for the first time a core part of the "strategic partnership" announced in late October.

"A lot of the people who have criticized us are obviously unaware of what Wal-Mart is doing in overhauling their operation," he said, rattling off the company's well-publicized initiatives to open eco-friendly "green stores," reduce packaging and use its market share to pressure vendors into pursuing environmentally conscious approaches.

Ugh, Don and the boys need to catch up on their reading.

Not that I was ever going to buy the new Eagles CD, but still.

RIYL41

I've been doing these RIYL thingies for about [hold on, let me look at the post title] 41 weeks now, and there's only been a few times where I didn't listen to at least part of an album before writing up a little blurb for it. Each time it was from being so busy that I barely had time to look for new music, let alone listen to it. This week I've got a new excuse: nobody is putting their music out there to listen to.

Okay, maybe not nobody - AOL is streaming the new Fall Out Boy release, but I'm nowhere near being interested in that disc. Beyond that, good luck.

Rickie Lee Jones The Sermon on Exposition Blvd. Mark Twain famously commented on the phenomenon that makes your parents grow wiser as you yourself mature. Well, Rickie Lee Jones voice hasn't really changed from the one that used to really annoy me, but as I gotten older I'm astonished at how much better she sounds. Her willingness to try diverse music styles makes her releases somewhat hit-or-miss, so I'd really like to hear this new disc she has out today.

Except you know what you get music-wise when you go to Rickie Lee's website? Nothing. And you know what you get when you go to her MySpace page? "Chuck friggin' E.'s in Love." Thanks, Rickie, nothing tells us what you've been up to better than a twenty-eight-year-old song.

[Update (02.07.07): Today I received an email from New West Records letting me know that Rickie Lee does indeed have some of her new songs posted on her official myspace page. That settles it, I'll never understand myspace.]

Patty Griffin Children Running Through Patty's better known for providing songs for folks like the Dixie Chicks, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Emmylou Harris but, like so many other singer-songwriters, it's often best to go back to the original source.

Now, I don't need to be convinced that Patty Griffin's a great singer, but hearing some of the stuff from her new CD might make me more willing to buy it. Oh sure, Barnes and Noble has a free stream of her sounding very Bonnie Raitt-esque on "Heavenly Day," but that's little more than a tease. Being able to stream the whole new disc would certainly make me that much more excited about seeing her at this Friday's WXPN Free-at-Noon concert.

Joe Ely Happy Songs from Rattlesnake Gulch Someone else I saw live on WXPN's dime was Texas singer-songwriter Joe Ely. About ten years ago I scored a pair of tickets to see him in the Philly 'burbs at the old 23 East Cabaret. Ely was/is also part of the Lubbock supergroup (there's two words you wouldn't expect to see together) the Flatlanders (whose album, you might recall, was my very first Amazon purchase), and I'd be very interested in hearing what his new disc sounds like but, alas, there's nothing at his website. The Philadelphia Inquirer seemed to like it, though.

Sondre Lerche Phantom Punch A friend gave me Lerche's (pronounced "Lerk-Aye") 2003 debut Faces Down a while back and it didn't take long to get hooked. It reminded me of Elvis Costello's late-career take on the cool Burt Bacharach sound, except Sondre was only nineteen when he recorded Faces Down and hadn't spent his youth abusing his vocal cords like Costello did. Now I hear that his new album has him rocking a little more than he usual, but unfortunately he only has a couple short samples streaming so I can't be too sure.

Bloc Party Weekend in the City Okay, Bloc Party does have their new disc streaming over at AOL, but to be honest with you I'm still on the fence when it comes to these guys. I liked a few songs from their first album, Silent Alarm, well enough but I didn't hear anything that made them stand out from the millions of other indie mp3s I have shuffling on my iTunes. Plenty of other people thought it was outstanding so I'm willing to give their sophomore attempt a few tries (though reviews of that one seem more mixed) and maybe I'll figure out what it is that I'm missing.

Over the Rhine Discount Fireworks This Ohio husband-wife duo have always been very generous with the mp3s. They don't have many of the songs from this new best of disc available for free, but they still have enough other songs to get a good-sized sample of Karin Bergquist's Maria McKee-meets-Amiee Mann vocals.

And yes, this is the band that brought you "Poopsmith," the potty-training ode that still brings more visitors to the Long Cut than any other Google search. That song's not on the new disc or even available on their website anymore, but I'm happy to report that "All I Need is Everything" is available on both the CD and from their website.

Over the Rhine - "All I Need is Everything" [mp3]

This week's list:

1. THE SHINS Wincing the Night Away
2. ERIN McKEOWN Sing You Sinners
3. CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH Some Loud Thunder
4. SONDRE LERCHE Phantom Punch
5. PATTY GRIFFIN Children Running Through
6. MARK KNOPFLER & EMMYLOU HARRIS Real Live Roadrunning
7. HARRY CONNICK, JR. Oh, My Nola
8. OVER THE RHINE Discount Fireworks
9. RON SEXSMITH Time Being
10. NEKO CASE Live from Austin, Texas
11. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
12. VARIOUS ARTISTS Endless Highway: the Music of the Band
13. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
14. JOE ELY Happy Songs from Rattlesnake Gulch
15. KRISTEN HERSH Learn to Sing Like a Star
16. SAM ROBERTS Chemical City
17. YOUTH GROUP Casino Twilight Dogs
18. CROWDED HOUSE Farewell to the World
19. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
20. THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE QUEEN The Good, the Bad and the Queen
21. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
22. JOHN HAMMOND Push Comes to Shove
23. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly
24. THE HOLMES BROTHERS State of Grace
25. THE BROTHER KITE Waiting for the Time to be Right
26. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
27. RICKIE LEE JONES The Sermon on Exposition Blvd.
28. BLOC PARTY Weekend in the City
29. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try
30. SERA CAHOONE Sera Cahoone

Dropping off the list this week:

• CALIFONE Roots & Crowns
• CENTO-MATIC Fort Recovery
• MARGOT AND THE NUCLEAR SO AND SO'S The Dust of Retreat
• THE CAPITOL YEARS Dance Away the Terror
• MADELEINE PEYROUX Half the Perfect World
• NEKO CASE Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

RIYL for the week beginning February 5, 2007. Backstory here.

RIYL40

Another good week for purging some of the older stuff from the list.

Harry Connick Jr. Oh, My Nola At the risk of losing any hipster cred I may have accrued, I'm going to admit that I've always liked Harry Connick Jr. He's never quite matched Sinatra, Toussaint, or Rebennack, but he's still got plenty of talent and, well, I think he's fun to listen to - especially when he's doing his New Orleans thing. Nothing spectacular (or even unexpected), but still a lot of fun.

This disc is, of course, a tribute to his hometown and the Habitat for Humanity down there will be getting a portion of the profits. You can head over to his website and hear the tracks streaming for free, but you won't experience the self-righteousness that comes only with actually buying the disc (and yes, I have already bought the disc). Connick also releases a mostly-instrumental album today, Chanson du Vieux Carre, and it too will help fund to the rebuilding of homes in New Orleans. [The accompanying photo is for the benefit of the missus. Personally, I really don't get what she sees in the guy - he looks kind of dorky sitting there. Now his wife, on the other hand - hubba hubba.]

Erin McKeown Sing You Sinners I meant to mention McKeown's latest album last Tuesday when it came out, but it somehow got lost in all the other new releases. Since then I got the chance to see her live (I've got the pictures to prove it) and now I'm even more into this disc. Everything I said about the concert goes for this album of old-timey tunes as well - unique, enthusiastic and a whole lot of fun. You can hear tracks from the disc at her website, and you can download the following song from it too, courtesy of her label.

Erin McKeown - "Melody" [mp3]

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Some Loud Thunder As if my little Harry Connick admission wasn't bad enough, the world of hipsters already seem poised to be so over this band, and yet, here I am still liking them. What drew me to their first album was their early-Talking Heads sound, a sound that all but disappeared once David Byrne fell hard for the Brazilian beat. CYHSY (nobody spells it out more than once) doesn't sound as much like Talking Heads on their second release, but they do share that band's willingness to let their sound evolve (at least until they discover the samba). Still, if you didn't like Alec Ounsworth's voice before you're not going to like it any better now. Two free mp3s to help you decide if he and his band are still relevant.

CYHSY - "Love Song No. 7" [mp3]
CYHSY - "Underwater (You and Me)" [mp3]

Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of U2 No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Just no. And that goes for your Radiohead and Metallica ones, too.

Youth Group Casino Twilight Dogs Honestly, I'm not too familiar with this band, but apparently they're big with the O.C. crowd (or what remains of the O.C. crowd). All I know is that I've had their "Sorry" mp3 on my iTunes for a while and it's one catchy tune. I added their "Dead Zoo" mp3 today and it turns out, while it isn't quite as catchy, it too sounds pretty good. And look, I've provided downloads for both songs. How very nice of me.

Youth Group - "Sorry" [mp3]
Youth Group - "Dead Zoo" [mp3]

Various Artist Endless Highway: The Music of the Band I wrote about this tribute album a few weeks ago. Just letting you know that it finally hit stores today.

This week's list:

1. THE SHINS Wincing the Night Away
2. ERIN McKEOWN Sing You Sinners
3. CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH Some Loud Thunder
4. MARK KNOPFLER & EMMYLOU HARRIS Real Live Roadrunning
5. HARRY CONNICK, JR. Oh, My Nola
6. RON SEXSMITH Time Being
7. NEKO CASE Live from Austin, Texas
8. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
9. VARIOUS ARTISTS Endless Highway: the Music of the Band
10. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
11. KRISTEN HERSH Learn to Sing Like a Star
12. SAM ROBERTS Chemical City
13. YOUTH GROUP Casino Twilight Dogs
14. CROWDED HOUSE Farewell to the World
15. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
16. THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE QUEEN The Good, the Bad and the Queen
17. MARGOT AND THE NUCLEAR SO AND SO'S The Dust of Retreat
18. THE CAPITOL YEARS Dance Away the Terror
19. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
20. JOHN HAMMOND Push Comes to Shove
21. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly
22. THE HOLMES BROTHERS State of Grace
23. MADELEINE PEYROUX Half the Perfect World
24. CENTO-MATIC Fort Recovery
25. THE BROTHER KITE Waiting for the Time to be Right
26. CALIFONE Roots & Crowns
27. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
28. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try
29. SERA CAHOONE Sera Cahoone
30. NEKO CASE Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

Dropping off the list this week:

• THE A-SIDES Hello, Hello
• BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
• PAGE FRANCE Hello, Dear Wind
• SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN Broom
• JOSH RITTER The Animal Years

RIYL for the week beginning January 29, 2007. Backstory here.

Thanks For The Boogie Ride

Yesterday's lunch was spent at the Tin Angel here in Philadelphia. WXPN was hosting another of their "Free-At-Noon" concerts and this time instead of me having to go out to them, they brought the concert to me. The Tin Angel is a tiny second-floor club in the Old City section of Philly, about a half mile from my office. It was wicked cold on Friday but the noontime artist, Erin McKeown, was well worth the trouble.

McKeown has a new album, Sing You Sinners, that's full of bluesy, jazzy, swingy songs from the first half of the last century (some standards like "Paper Moon" and some not-so-standards, like the song I took for the title of this post). It's hard to explain her unique interpretation of these songs, but you definitely wouldn't call it polished. She described it as going for something so carefree and reckless that it sounded like it was "thrown down a flight of stairs" (or something like that). It was a cool, confident and loose sound that seemed made for being played in tiny clubs, and McKeown and her bandmates put on a super performance. McKeown's voice is strong, but so is her guitar playing. Her attitude and ability reminded me of Stray Cats-era Brian Setzer, back when he was still cool.

Her enthusiasm and energy made for a real fun show. I'm not sure the full effect comes through away from the club, but there's a good review of McKeown's Friday night show in the Inqy, and the noontime show is available at NPR's website. Also, I've got a dozen photos from the show over at the Ipso.

RIYL39

My RIYLmusic Top 30 list [where I get to pretend I'm a program director at my very own hip radio station (full story here)] - for the week beginning January 22, 2007.
---------------------------------

Finally, finally, finally! Some new releases (and a couple old releases that were somehow overlooked) to kick the cobwebs off the ol' list. Lots of albums to cover, so I'll be brief. Or at least brief for me.

The Shins Wincing the Night Away Perhaps the most eagerly awaited release of the week. The Shins first album in nearly four years is their first release since the film Garden State got everyone humming their "New Slang" [by law, every review of this album - and all future Shins albums - must mention the movie Garden State]. High expectations seem to be met as the band takes some chances without ever abandoning their you'll-never-get-them-out-of-your-head harmonies. The first single is available from the band's label, Sub Pop.

The Shins - "Phantom Limb" [mp3]

Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris Real Live Roadrunning This live companion disc/DVD to the not-as-unlikely-as-it-would-seem duo's studio set comes highly recommended. Some would say almost fanatically recommended. Free samples are hard to come by (and the DVD isn't available at NetFlix), but any set that includes Emmylou's "Red Dirt Girl" (one of my favorites) and Knopfler's "Romeo and Juliet" has got the be good. You can hear a beautiful version of Dire Strait's "Why Worry" over at Emmylou's website.

[Okay, this is already taking too long. I've got to make these a lot shorter. Your on your own for samples.]

The Holmes Brothers State of Grace The Blind Boys of Alabama already did it, now it's the Holmes Brothers turn to put their gospel spin on some unexpected covers (like Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me" and Nick Lowe's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?").

John Hammond Push Comes to Shove Blues legend Hammond turns to Philly's own G. Love (as producer) to put some kick back into his sound and ends up with a hard-rocking and gritty disc. Includes five new songs from someone who usually leans on the blues classics (though there's plenty of those here, too).

Crowded House Farewell to the World The band's 1996 farewell concert finally gets released. Just in time for their reunion tour.

Kristen Hersh Learn to Sing Like a Star Throwing Muses' Hersh tends to put out hit-or-miss releases, but the hits are usually worth putting up with the misses for.

The Good, the Bad & the Queen The Good, the Bad and the Queen Blur/Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn is one of those artist that never seem to have enough bands. For this one he teams up with the Clash's Paul Simonon and that right there makes it worthy of a listen, right? [Just say "right."] Bonus points for the band's awesome name.

I think that should hold you over for now.

This week's list:

1. THE SHINS Wincing the Night Away
2. MARK KNOPFLER & EMMYLOU HARRIS Real Live Roadrunning
3. RON SEXSMITH Time Being
4. NEKO CASE Live from Austin, Texas
5. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
6. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
7. KRISTEN HERSH Learn to Sing Like a Star
8. SAM ROBERTS Chemical City
9. CROWDED HOUSE Farewell to the World
10. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
11. THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE QUEEN The Good, the Bad and the Queen
12. MARGOT AND THE NUCLEAR SO AND SO'S The Dust of Retreat
13. THE CAPITOL YEARS Dance Away the Terror
14. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
15. JOHN HAMMOND Push Comes to Shove
16. PAGE FRANCE Hello, Dear Wind
17. SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN Broom
18. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly
19. JOSH RITTER The Animal Years
20. THE HOLMES BROTHERS State of Grace
21. MADELEINE PEYROUX Half the Perfect World
22. CENTO-MATIC Fort Recovery
23. THE BROTHER KITE Waiting for the Time to be Right
24. CALIFONE Roots & Crowns
25. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
26. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try
27. SERA CAHOONE Sera Cahoone
28. THE A-SIDES Hello, Hello
29. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
30. NEKO CASE Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

Dropping off the list this week:

• AMERICA Here & Now
• MATES OF STATE Bring It Back
• BOB DYLAN Modern Times
• CAMERA OBSCURA Let’s Get Out of This Country
• THE BE GOOD TANYAS Hello Love
• JENNY LEWIS WITH THE WATSON TWINS Rabbit Fur Coat
• THOSE TRANSATLANTICS Knocked Out

RIYL38

My RIYLmusic Top 30 list [where I get to pretend I'm a program director at my very own hip radio station (full story here)] - for the week beginning January 15, 2007.
---------------------------------
I think I'm starting to get this whole music industry thing down. I understand not releasing new stuff right before Christmas - giving an untested disc as a gift is risky, best to stick with the greatest hits compilations the record companies so conveniently put out during the holiday season. And I understand not releasing new stuff right after Christmas - everyone's still trying to listen to all the music they downloaded with their iTunes gift cards. But when, when, will it finally be the right time for new music by noteworthy artists to finally come out?

Well, not this week. This week we have to settle for interesting music, as in, "well, that's... um... interesting."

America - Here & Now Indie bands, take note: being one of the cool bands these days demands name-dropping a seventies act as an influence, and doing it with sincerity - none of that irony you kids like so much. And you better had pick one soon, because there's only so many good ones to go around. After that you'll be forced to take those guys who sang "Sister Golden Hair." Oops! Too late! James Iha of the Smashing Pumpkins and Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne already beat you to it. Not only have they named the band as an influence, they've even produced the band's latest album.

The mix of new originals (some written by the band, some by Schlesinger) and covers of current indie favs make the band sound like they're out to prove something. They're all like: See how we sound just like a softer Fountains of Wayne? That's because we were doing this before there even was an Adam Schlesinger, punk. And then they're like: Just listen to us sing My Morning Jacket's "Golden" (with MMJ's Jim James on guitar, even). No, no, we don't sound just like them - they sound just like us! If we could just find something to play this old 8-track on we could prove it to you.

Well, kudos to Schlesinger and Iha for properly schooling us. To those too young to know who America are, most of these songs could pass for the retro soft-rock sound of current indie bands. To those of us who somehow never forgot a single word of "Horse with No Name," these songs give the band enough cred to justify proudly humming along to "Ventura Highway" next time you're at the dentist.

I'm not sure these songs are so great that you should give up on the would-be K-Tel stars of today, but most of them are good enough to merit a listen. Lucky for you, MSN is streaming the disc (and a bonus disc of America's classics played live) for free this week. If I had to guess, I would peg their fairly decent take on Nada Surf's "Always Love" as the first single.

The Smithereens - Meet the Smithereens Have you always enjoyed the Beatles early stuff, but felt that it would be much better if it were performed by four lads from North Jersey? Well, you're in luck.

For their first album in eight years the Smithereens, never ones to hide their influences, have chosen a song-by-song take on the Beatles' first "offical" American release. They did this because... because... I have no idea why they did this. What they have on their website sounds a little edgier than the originals, but not enough to justify the project (or its inclusion on this week's list). Speaking of which...

This week's list:

1. RON SEXSMITH Time Being
2. NEKO CASE Live from Austin, Texas
3. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
4. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
5. SAM ROBERTS Chemical City
6. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
7. MARGOT AND THE NUCLEAR SO AND SO'S The Dust of Retreat
8. THE CAPITOL YEARS Dance Away the Terror
9. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
10. PAGE FRANCE Hello, Dear Wind
11. SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN Broom
12. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly
13. JOSH RITTER The Animal Years
14. MADELEINE PEYROUX Half the Perfect World
15. CENTO-MATIC Fort Recovery
16. THE BROTHER KITE Waiting for the Time to be Right
17. CALIFONE Roots & Crowns
18. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
19. THOSE TRANSATLANTICS Knocked Out
20. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try
21. SERA CAHOONE Sera Cahoone
22. THE BE GOOD TANYAS Hello Love
23. JENNY LEWIS WITH THE WATSON TWINS Rabbit Fur Coat
24. THE A-SIDES Hello, Hello
25. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
26. NEKO CASE Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
27. BOB DYLAN Modern Times
28. CAMERA OBSCURA Let’s Get Out of This Country
29. MATES OF STATE Bring It Back
30. AMERICA Here & Now

Dropping off the list this week:

• JIM NOIR Tower of Love

Outlandos d'A Snore

Hey, remember when Sting used to be cool?

And on Thursday night at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Sting dedicated a lute version of “Message in a Bottle” to the pair of former comrades [Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland] who happened to be seated in the auditorium.

Yeah, me neither.

RIYL37

My RIYLmusic Top 30 list [where I get to pretend I'm a program director at my very own hip radio station (full story here)] - for the week beginning January 8, 2007.

We’re back! The first RIYL list of the new year and there’s real live actual new releases coming out today! Okay, so one of them is from a three-year-old concert and the other’s been available in Canada for about a year, but to paraphrase NBC, “if you haven’t heard it, it’s new to you!” (yes, Wikipedia has a list of old NBC slogans. What did we ever do before the Wiki?).

And since she’ll be expecting it, a big Happy Birthday to frequent Long Cut commenter and longtime sister Donna, who will always always always be a decade older much wiser than me. In honor of Donna's turning really old another year wiser, we'll start with a fellow redhead this week.

Neko Case Live from Austin, Texas Neko’s Fox Confessor Brings the Flood ended up being my second favorite album of last year, but really it was pretty much a toss up between her and Cat Power for the number one spot. This CD (which is also being released as a DVD) is from Case’s 2003 visit to PBS’s Austin City Limits, and while it only contains one song that would end up on Fox Confessor (“Maybe Sparrow”), fans of that album will find a lot to like here, too.

Case isn’t as pure country as Loretta Lynn, but she continues to remind me of her. The Amazon review of this disc notes the similarities between Case and k.d. lang while she was still in her Patsy Kline mode, and now that I think about it, I would say that’s an apt comparison, too. I can still remember how hooked I was the first time I heard lang’s confident yet affecting voice on her Absolute Torch and Twang (to this day still one of my favorite albums), and Case’s voice has had the same effect on me. No free downloads, but Neko has offered up a stream of the first five songs (and a video!).

Ron Sexsmith Time Being Nobody exemplifies “but he's huge in Canada” like Ron Sexsmith does. The guy wins all kinds of awards up there but get hardly any airplay south of (his) border. This album was released last March in Sexsmith’s frigid homeland but is only coming out down here today (rescued and released by fellow canuck Keifer Sutherland). I first heard Sexsmith on the Ray Davies tribute disc This is Where I Belong, where Sexsmith got to do the title track. That was a hit-or-miss collection of songs, but Sexsmith’s contribution stood out for his perfect take on Ray’s lazy “Sunny Afternoon” vibe. Turns out it wasn’t just an act - Sexsmith’s own singing style closely matches that of Davies, and his songwriting ability isn't that far from Ray's either.

Sexsmith is playing this week’s XPN free-at-noon concert, but I’ll be stuck at work for a very important “getting to know you” meeting with my new executive director, who happened to be my division director for the last twelve years but apparently still doesn’t know me.

Sexsmith is stingy with the downloads, but that always reliable music blog Fingertips tracked one down for us (and seriously, if you want three worthwhile songs delivered once a week, do yourself a favor and check out Fingertips – the guy’s got an ear for finding good, under-appreciated music).

Ron Sexsmith - “And Now the Day is Done” [mp3]

This week's list:

1. RON SEXSMITH Time Being
2. NEKO CASE Live from Austin, Texas
3. SAM ROBERTS Chemical City
4. JOSH RITTER The Animal Years
5. MADELEINE PEYROUX Half the Perfect World
6. CENTO-MATIC Fort Recovery
7. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
8. MARGOT AND THE NUCLEAR SO AND SO'S The Dust of Retreat
9. THE CAPITOL YEARS Dance Away the Terror
10. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
11. PAGE FRANCE Hello, Dear Wind
12. SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN Broom
13. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly
14. THE BROTHER KITE Waiting for the Time to be Right
15. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
16. CALIFONE Roots & Crowns
17. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
18. THOSE TRANSATLANTICS Knocked Out
19. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try
20. JIM NOIR Tower of Love
21. SERA CAHOONE Sera Cahoone
22. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
23. THE BE GOOD TANYAS Hello Love
24. JENNY LEWIS WITH THE WATSON TWINS Rabbit Fur Coat
25. THE A-SIDES Hello, Hello
26. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
27. NEKO CASE Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
28. BOB DYLAN Modern Times
29. CAMERA OBSCURA Let’s Get Out of This Country
30. MATES OF STATE Bring It Back

Dropping off the list this week:

• CHRIS DIFFORD South East Side Story [as per Karen]
• TOM WAITS Orphans

Bob There, Dylan That

[No RIYL post this week - the RIYL folks took last week off without telling me(!), so last week's list is this week's list and this week you'll have to settle for a music post about a different kind of music list.]

If the first of January is when I write about my camera, then the second of January must be the day I set aside to slam the WXPN's of the year's fifty best albums (no, wait, two years ago I didn't start complaining until the third).

Anyway, here's how the WXPN Top 50 Countdown works: I send in (and post) my top ten discs of the past year. A bunch of other listeners who don't know squat about good music send in their lists. At the very end of the year (and, recently, into the new year a little) 'XPN plays back the top fifty vote-getters.

Then I start listening to the countdown full of sunshine and happiness and, very early into the list (say, by #49), an album good enough for me to put in my top ten (say, Alejandro Escovedo's The Boxing Mirror) shows up. I then spend the rest of the countdown complaining as every lame album (say, Nightcrawler) by every Adult Alternative Radio prettyboy (say, Pete Yorn) does better than my pick. This? I say. This is better than my pick?

You get the idea.

First, here are my top 10 albums of the year (and how they did on the countdown):

1. Cat Power The Greatest. WXPN rank: Did Not Rank

2. Neko Case Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. WXPN rank: 29

3. The Pernice Brothers Live a Little . WXPN rank: Did Not Rank

4. Bob Dylan Modern Times. WXPN rank: 1

5. Birdie Busch The Ways We Try . WXPN rank: Did Not Rank

6. The Capitol Years Dance Away the Terror . WXPN rank: Did Not Rank

7. Bruce Springsteen We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions . WXPN rank: 6

8. Alejandro Escovedo The Boxing Mirror . WXPN rank: 49

9. Neil Young Living With War . WXPN rank: 45

10. Beth Orton Comfort of Strangers . WXPN rank: 38

Now here are 'XPN listener's top ten albums of the year:

1. Bob Dylan Modern Times. I can't complain too much about this one, since I put it at number four. Still, it would have been nice to have the top disc be somewhat of a surprise.

2. Gnarls Barkley St. Elsewhere. I think this guys are very talented, but they didn't have a whole album's worth of talent. I can't blame voters for rewarding them for the few songs they did well, but number two?

3. KT Tunstall Eye to the Telescope. I saw this one coming, too. Everybody seems to be big on the sassy KT, but it's not my type of music. I will say that she's a hell of a lot less annoying than hearing XPN play Sheryl Crow for the hundredth time.

4. Beck The Information. I'll just repeat what I said when Beck's Guero showed up at number three last year: "Look, I love Beck's music and see him as a musical genius but this disc didn't do much for me, especially coming right after the terrific Sea Change. I'm all for him going back to the funkier stuff but this album just didn't connect with me." (I do think The Information is an improvement over Guero, mainly because it incorporated some of that Sea Change vibe. It still didn't connect with me much.)

5. The Decemberists The Crane Wife. No argument here. I didn't put them on my top ten, but each time I listen to this I like it a little more.

6. Bruce Springsteen We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. I kind of expected this to hit the top three. Springsteen took what could have been a dry history lesson and turned it into a hootenanny.

7. Ray LaMontagne Till the Sun Turns Black. I actually copied this from a friend, so I got to listen to the whole thing a few times. Better than his last album, but I still don't fully get the LaMontagne mystique.

8. Citizen Cope Every Waking Moment. Fun, but not top ten fun. Belongs maybe in the forties?

9. The Raconteurs Broken Boy Soldiers. I don't think the Raconteurs would put this in the top ten. If it was for best song of the year for "Steady, As She Goes," I'm with you, but the rest of the album is filler.

10. Amos Lee Supply and Demand. Amos is a local folkie, and I was somewhat okay with him hitting number six last year, but enough is enough. He's not that good. And if it's for hometown pride, there are plenty of other Philly acts to honor. If only XPN would play more of them.

So that's it. The combination of too many bad picks and the countdown being played over several days made me not care so much about hearing it this year. I liked it much better when they played all 50 albums back-to-back, rather than three or four here and there.

I think the fact that four of my picks didn't rank just shows that I get my music from places other than 'XPN. As long as 'XPN quarantines much of the interesting and risky music to the nighttime and continues to add more and more classic rock to their daytime programming, the less and less I'll be getting my new music tips from them. There is no excuse for my number one pick, Cat Power's unbelievably good The Greatest, to not even show up. I think if 'XPN went deeper into albums by younger artists, as they used to do, their listeners would have been impressed. Instead they played the title track and little else.

'XPN's still the best radio station in Philly, but they have to realize that there's plenty of places to get music these days other than the radio. Otherwise, pretty soon these lists aren't going to mean anything to anyone anymore.

RIYL36

My RIYLmusic Top 30 list [where I get to pretend I'm a program director at my very own hip radio station (full story here)] - for the week beginning December 25, 2006.

It's the time of year when wiser bloggers say "see you next year." I'm not what you would call wise, so you're still stuck with me. And that means that my RIYL posts roll on. Sorta. I'm still posting them, but it is supposed to be quality family time around here, so instead of doing my own writing I'm just going to lift some reviews from other sources.

These are discs that are showing up on people's year-end lists but somehow never showed up on the Long Cut. Some of them are kind enough to provide free downloads and others are streaming songs (or whole albums) at their websites. All of them are recommended.

Madeleine Peyroux - Half the Perfect World "Jazzy, smooth, and a little blue: when listening to Madeleine Peyroux, one cannot help but think of Billie Holiday’s effortless brilliance. With songs by Johnny Mercer, Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and even Charlie Chaplin, Peyroux’s new album takes a leisurely stroll down a tree-lined boulevard with a glass of champagne." The Santa Barbara Independent

[Peyroux is streaming her whole album (click on "media"), song by song. She may be the first artist to ever do a good job covering Joni Mitchell's "River."]

Josh Ritter The Animal Years "Josh Ritter reaches back to folk-rock that was invented before he was born - not just for its sound, but for its ambitions. He openly draws on Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, the Band and Simon and Garfunkel. And like them, he sets out to carry a world of ideas on a few basic chords. Love and war, faith and music, restlessness and a longing for home pervade his new songs, which might turn pretentious if they weren't so grounded in folky melody." - New York Times

[Ritter offers up a couple downloads. "Girl in the War" sounds like young Springsteen, minus the growl. "Thin Blue Flame" is loooooong (over nine minutes), but worth it.]

Josh Ritter - "Girl in the War" [mp3]
Josh Ritter - "Thin Blue Flame" [mp3]

Sam Roberts Chemical City "Roberts's new one could be a Ryan Adams record if Adams saved up his good songs for a single release." - City Pages (Minneapolis/St. Paul)

[Roberts has an audio player set up to play four new songs. They're all great, but try "Bridge to Nowhere" first.]

Centro-Matic Fort Recovery "Tunes like 'Triggers and Trash Heaps,' Patience for the Ride,' and 'Monument Sails' recall the stately yet rootsy side of Neil Young. Keyboards, violin, and vibraphone give the album a chamber-pop filter that makes it extraordinary. Ultimately what makes Fort Recovery a success is Centro-matic's ability to make distinctively American music with uncommon fervor and without cliché." - The Austin Chronicle

[Centro-Matic offer free downloads of a couple of their songs. Don't be fooled by the band's futuristic name, they're Americana through-and-through.]

Centro-Matic - "Triggers and Trash Heaps" [mp3]
Centro-Matic - "Calling Thermatico" [mp3]

This week's list:

1. SAM ROBERTS Chemical City
2. JOSH RITTER The Animal Years
3. MADELEINE PEYROUX Half the Perfect World
4. CENTO-MATIC Fort Recovery
5. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
6. MARGOT AND THE NUCLEAR SO AND SO'S The Dust of Retreat
7. THE CAPITOL YEARS Dance Away the Terror
8. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
9. PAGE FRANCE Hello, Dear Wind
10. SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN Broom
11. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly
12. THE BROTHER KITE Waiting for the Time to be Right
13. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
14. TOM WAITS Orphans
15. CALIFONE Roots & Crowns
16. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
17. THOSE TRANSATLANTICS Knocked Out
18. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try
19. JIM NOIR Tower of Love
20. SERA CAHOONE Sera Cahoone
21. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
22. THE BE GOOD TANYAS Hello Love
23. JENNY LEWIS WITH THE WATSON TWINS Rabbit Fur Coat
24. THE A-SIDES Hello, Hello
25. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
26. NEKO CASE Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
27. BOB DYLAN Modern Times
28. CAMERA OBSCURA Let’s Get Out of This Country
29. MATES OF STATE Bring It Back
30. CHRIS DIFFORD South East Side Story

Dropping off the list this week:

• MIDLAKE Trials Of Van Occupanther
• SUFJAN STEVENS Songs for Christmas
• NELLIE McKAY Pretty Little Head
• TERRY ANDERSON AND THE OLYMPIC ASS KICKIN' TEAM Terry Anderson and the Olympic Ass Kickin' Team

It's Christmas! Let's Be Glad!

"It's Christmas! Let's Be Glad" - Sufjan Stevens [mp3] [buy it here]

Since it's Christmas, let's be glad,
Even if your life's been bad,
There are presents to be had.

Take a walk out in the snow,
And hear Santa's "Ho Ho Ho,"
He's got a million miles to go.

La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
La, la, la, la.

Sing a carol to your mom,
'Cause she knows what's going on
And she knows if you've been bad or good

If you get what you deserve
To be graded on a curve
Oh, you've got a lot of nerve

La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
La, la, la, la.

Since the year is almost out,
Lift your hands and give a shout,
There's a lot to shout about, today.

Since it's Christmas, let's be glad,
Even if the year's been bad,
There are presents to be had.
A promotion for your dad,
Don't be angry don't be....

RIYL35

My RIYLmusic Top 30 list [where I get to pretend I'm a program director at my very own hip radio station (full story here)] - for the week beginning December 18, 2006.

Cookies, people. Seven days left and it's still all about the cookies. It certainly isn't all about the new music, that's for sure. There ain't none, I checked.

So, while I usually only mention music that's already available, this week I'm going to point out a tribute album that's due out next month. It's called Endless Highway: the Music of the Band and I'll wait until it hits the street before I actually add it to the big list, but the whole album is already streaming at this website. To hear all the songs, skip that little radio on the front page and click on the "music" tab instead. That will also allow you to only play the songs you want to hear, so you can easily skip right over that Blues Traveler cut.

Oh sure, Jakob Dylan is on it too, but they've also rounded up plenty of good artists. Joe Henry! Roseanne Cash! The Roaches are a perfect choice for "Acadian Driftwood" and Gomez does an exceptional job with "Cripple Creek." My Morning Jacket seems to have the first single off the album - it's already getting some indie airplay and sounds pretty good (but perhaps they played it just a wee bit too safe?).

Tell you what, I'll just list the tracks and let you decide. I've got snickerdoodles to bake.

"I Shall Be Released" - Jack Johnson
"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" - The Allman Brothers
"Rocking Chair" - Death Cab For Cutie
"It Makes No Difference" - My Morning Jacket
"The Weight" - Lee Ann Womack
"Acadian Driftwood" - The Roches
"Whispering Pines" - Jakob Dylan
"Up On Cripple Creek" - Gomez
"King Harvest" - Bruce Hornsby
"Unfaithful Servant" - Rosanne Cash
"Rag Mama Rag" - Blues Traveler
"Bessie Smith" - Joe Henry
"This Wheel's On Fire" - Guster
"Chest Fever" - Widespread Panic
"Ain't No More Cane" - John Hiatt & North Mississippi Allstars
"Look Out Cleveland" - Jackie Greene
"Ophelia" - Animal Liberation Orchestra
"Stage Fright" - Steve Reynolds
"When I Paint My Masterpiece" - Josh Turner
"The Shape I'm In" - Gov't Mule
"Life is a Carnival" - Trevor Hall

Not too shabby.

This week's list:

1. SUFJAN STEVENS Songs for Christmas
2. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
3. MARGOT AND THE NUCLEAR SO AND SO'S The Dust of Retreat
4. THE CAPITOL YEARS Dance Away the Terror
5. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
6. PAGE FRANCE Hello, Dear Wind
7. SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN Broom
8. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly
9. MIDLAKE Trials Of Van Occupanther
10. THE BROTHER KITE Waiting for the Time to be Right
11. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
12. TOM WAITS Orphans
13. TERRY ANDERSON AND THE OLYMPIC ASS KICKIN' TEAM Terry Anderson and the Olympic Ass Kickin' Team
14. CALIFONE Roots & Crowns
15. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
16. THOSE TRANSATLANTICS Knocked Out
17. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try
18. JIM NOIR Tower of Love
19. SERA CAHOONE Sera Cahoone
20. NELLIE McKAY Pretty Little Head
21. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
22. THE BE GOOD TANYAS Hello Love
23. JENNY LEWIS WITH THE WATSON TWINS Rabbit Fur Coat
24. THE A-SIDES Hello, Hello
25. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
26. NEKO CASE Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
27. BOB DYLAN Modern Times
28. CAMERA OBSCURA Let’s Get Out of This Country
29. MATES OF STATE Bring It Back
30. CHRIS DIFFORD South East Side Story

You Mean You Forgot Cranberries Too?

December 15th and I have yet to hear the Waitresses' "Christmas Wrapping."

What's up with that?

RIYL34

My RIYLmusic Top 30 list [where I get to pretend I'm a program director at my very own hip radio station (full story here)] - for the week beginning December 11, 2006.

A couple of serendipitous finds:

Page France Hello, Dear Wind Why do some obscure indie bands become big while others remain, um, unbig? Who knows? Thankfully, there's the Internet, where I can listen to a college station 3000 miles away and find out about bands like Baltimore's Page France (why I had to go 3000 miles to hear a band from right down I-95 from me, I don't know). This band has everything needed to achieve indie cred - slightly nasal vocals, sunny harmonies, touches of both the Beatles and the Beach Boys, a glockenspiel - and still I'm willing to bet you've never heard of them. They have a glockenspiel, people! What more does it take?

It's Indie-folk that's cheery without being twee, and it's definitely worthy of greater attention. In addition to these downloads provided by their record company, a couple other songs of theirs are streaming at their purevolume page.

Update: these mp3 links were broken earlier, but they should work now.

Page France - Junkyard [mp3]
Page France - Bush [mp3]

Margot and the Nuclear So and So's - The Dust of Retreat Personally, I think the quirky name works against them, seeing how there's no one named Margot in the band, and the lead singer in a guy - which only adds to the confusion. But it's okay, because Margot sounds good enough to succeed despite their mystifying moniker. With Richard Edward's easy on the ears vocals and the band's covertly catchy hooks, they sound like they're poised to take over indie radio, and "Skeleton Key" could easily be the song that opens the door to success. Get it, get it? Key? Door?

Margot and the Nuclear So and So's - Skeleton Key [mp3]
Margot and the Nuclear So and So's - Barfight Revolution, Power Violence [mp3]

This week's list:

1. SUFJAN STEVENS Songs for Christmas
2. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
3. MARGOT AND THE NUCLEAR SO AND SO'S The Dust of Retreat
4. THE CAPITOL YEARS Dance Away the Terror
5. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
6. PAGE FRANCE Hello, Dear Wind
7. SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN Broom
8. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly
9. MIDLAKE Trials Of Van Occupanther
10. THE BROTHER KITE Waiting for the Time to be Right
11. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
12. TOM WAITS Orphans
13. TERRY ANDERSON AND THE OLYMPIC ASS KICKIN' TEAM Terry Anderson and the Olympic Ass Kickin' Team
14. CALIFONE Roots & Crowns
15. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
16. THOSE TRANSATLANTICS Knocked Out
17. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try
18. JIM NOIR Tower of Love
19. SERA CAHOONE Sera Cahoone
20. NELLIE McKAY Pretty Little Head
21. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
22. THE BE GOOD TANYAS Hello Love
23. JENNY LEWIS WITH THE WATSON TWINS Rabbit Fur Coat
24. THE A-SIDES Hello, Hello
25. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
26. NEKO CASE Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
27. BOB DYLAN Modern Times
28. CAMERA OBSCURA Let’s Get Out of This Country
29. MATES OF STATE Bring It Back
30. CHRIS DIFFORD South East Side Story

Dropping off the list this week:

• YO LA TENGO I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Kick Your Ass
• JED AND LUCIA Candles In Daylight

Choice Cut: The Best Albums Of 2006

[Choice Cut is my clever little name for the Long Cut year-end series chronicling the best of everything for 2006.]

Just in time for the WXPN 2006 best album of 2006 poll (lists are due midnight tonight). Mucho cribbing from my RIYL write-ups, where available (I didn't start writing those things until April).

10. Beth Orton Comfort of Strangers

Orton avoids staleness by dropping her usual electronica-lite backgrounds for folk-lite backgrounds on this disc that came out earlier this year. The new sound seems to highlight her angelic voice better. I'm a sucker for angelic voices. [RIYL 12]

09. Neil Young Living With War

Neil puts a big ol' boot in Dubya's ass and manages to make quality music while he's at it.  [RIYL 3]

08. Alejandro Escovedo The Boxing Mirror

It was a sound that just hit you like a truck - absolutely amazing all-out rock and roll. For the second half of the show Escovedo switched to an acoustic guitar and the viola and violin were used to support some beautiful Chicano-influenced ballads. While the music was quieter, the sound of band remained strong. [From my review of his Free-at-Noon concert back in June, which featured songs from this album.]

07. Bruce Springsteen We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions

      This one pre-dated my little RIYL descriptions, so I'll try to think of
      something to say about it now:

Every once in a while, it seems Springsteen likes to take a step away from his more mainstream stuff and do something a little different. After the top-40 friendly The River came the quiet masterpiece Nebraska, and after the bigger-than-life Born in the USA came the softer, more personal Tunnel of Love. After the heavier The Rising and Devils and Dust, Bruce put out this rollicking collection of Pete Seeger "inspired" covers this year. Filled with old-timey odes, ballads and protest songs, Springsteen makes an album that sounds like it was recorded back in the days of 78's, yet never sounds dated and never gets old. Fun stuff.

06. The Capitol Years Dance Away the Terror

Pure pop still exists Philadelphia, even if the Hooters no longer do. [RIYL 21]

05. Birdie Busch The Ways We Try

The sound is crisp and original and the lyrics are full of fleshed out stories that never become overwrought. What really makes the music stand out, and what gets it stuck in you head, is its playfulness. The band sounds like it had a ball making the record - most of the songs sound as though they are being sung through a smile - and that fun is infectious. A real change of pace from ordinary folk music. [RIYL 27]

04. Bob Dylan Modern Times

Other than a few feisty numbers, the disc is filled with beautiful old-timey laid-back slow blues. Even the peppier songs have that very un-modern touch; sounding at times like they could have come from the Sun Studio vault.  [RIYL 19]

03. The Pernice Brothers Live a Little

Most [of my downloaded] mp3s will kind of just play in the background until one pops up that gets my attention so much that I have to stop and take a peek to see who it's by. That seems to happen a lot with the Pernice Brothers songs that are on my hard-drive. They excel at melodic pop songs, and I'm a sucker for melodic pop songs. [RIYL 24]

02. Neko Case Fox Confessor Brings the Flood 

      Another one that I've never written anything about:

I'm really surprised this one ended up so high on my list, but week after week I found that I liked Case's sound too much to take her album off of my RIYL list (one of a handful of discs that have been on every one of those lists). At a time when everyone seems to be channeling Loretta Lynn (see: Lewis, Jenny), Case is the only one whose voice commands your attention the same way Lynn's does (Loretta's Van Lear Rose was my #1 album of 2004). They say that Case's lyrics are a bit out there, but I'm too busy enjoying her singing to listen to the words.

01. Cat Power The Greatest

      Yet another album lacking the Long Cut RIYL treatment:

How appropriate that my number one pick of the year is already titled The Greatest. This disc came out in January, and right from the start this top slot belonged to Cat Power (aka Chan Marshall) until something greater than the Greatest came along. But in the end, nothing came close.

It doesn't surprise me that Marshall went down to Memphis to record with some of that city's great backing musicians of the past, because the result reminds me very much of Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis. Dusty wasn't afraid to belt out some of her Memphis tunes, but Chan (she pronounces it "Shawn," by the way) gets her message across in a whisper. The results the same though: beautiful and heartbreaking music that demands your attention.

The near misses of 2006:

My Morning Jacket Okonokos, Steve Wynn and the Miracle 3 ...tick...tick...tick, Yo La Tengo I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Kick Your Ass, Jed and Lucia Candles in Daylight, the Heavy Blinkers The Night and I are Still So Young, Mates of State Bring It Back, and Jenny Lewis Rabbit Fur Coat.

Friday Random Ten: (A Very Small Fraction Of) Everything Must Go!

Making a rare FRT appearance to share about 1/100th of the great free [and legal!] music I've downloaded lately. They're all good, but if you're only going to listen to a few of these songs, I highly recommend 02, 03 and 06 (and then you should come back when you have more time and download 07, 08 and 09).

[Truth in advertising disclaimer: these were the first ten songs iTunes spit out that I could still track down the source of.]

01. "Roselin" - Maia Hirasawa [mp3]

"'Roselin' starts daintily enough, heading almost but not quite towards preciousness, but right away with a great melodic sensibility. And I'll tell you where it just slays me... is in the chorus, which has as winsome and plaintive a melody as I've heard in a long time: notes that sound ancient and familiar and fresh and coy; as a bonus it's got a touch of early Jane Siberry about it, adding to the depth and charm." [Fingertips]

02. "Breakfast By The Mattress" - Kristoffer Ragnstam [mp3]

"Critics are calling Kristoffer Ragnstam the 'Swedish Beck,' and on Ragnstam's U.S. debut, Sweet Bill, he's got a unique sense of melody and along with some Beck-ism's, Ragnstam pulls up some old school Prince like falsetto singing and funky beats." [WXPN Blog]

03. "Skeleton Key" - Margot and the Nuclear So and So's [mp3]

"Full of quiet harmonies and pop hooks." [3hive]

04. "Enough To Choke A Cold Air" - Candy Bars [mp3]

"Warm up under the blanket of enchanting sounds of Candy Bars. Call it dream pop or chamber pop or whatever you want." [WXPN Blog]

05. "Starsign" - Over the Atlantic [mp3]

"The bonus with Over The Atlantic is their skills are those of a songwriter twice their age, yet they fill their hooks with youthful exuberance." [3hive]

06. "Cinematic" - The A-Sides [mp3]

"Check out this swirling storm of electric guitarism beauty." [Some Velvet Blog]

07. "Lonesome Warrior" - Eric Bachmann [mp3]

(Chromewaves year-end Top Ten pick). [Chromewaves]

08. "Replace You" - Jay Bennett [mp3]

"A straightforward rocker from ex-Wilco member Jay Bennett's new solo record, garnished nicely with a selection of organs and plinking pianos and ducking all too briefly into a tender and vaguely psychedelic bridge before heading back into bar- band chug." [Salon Audiofile]

09. "Phantom Limb" - The Shins [mp3]

"Mercer's ability to write subtly beautiful melodies becomes another alluring feature of his songwriting. To think of his songs simply as 'catchy' sells Mercer way short, because he's doing much more than writing songs to hum after one listen." [Fingertips]

10. "Try Again" - First Coat [mp3]

"First Coat is a band that keeps getting better and better. This improvement could be due to maturity or significant line-up changes, but either way, their newest work is confident and well-constructed." [3hive]

RIYL33

My RIYLmusic Top 30 list [where I get to pretend I'm a program director at my very own hip radio station (full story here)] - for the week beginning December 4, 2006.

Here at Long Cut Central, we're all about the funny band names this week:

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin Broom Take an overly upbeat romantic indie-pop band. Then front it with someone who sounds an awful lot like Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst, only this Conor Oberst actually, you know, enjoys living. It doesn't sound like a combination that would result in anything worthwhile, but Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin proves otherwise.

A lot of the jangly pop bands I like listening to use bands from the 60's and 70's, like the Kinks and the Beach Boys, as inspiration. But SSLYBY is clearly influenced by bands of the 80's and 90's like the dB's and Fountains of Wayne. So they're inspirited by the bands who were inspired by the bands that I grew up listening to, which makes me feel really, really old. Their website makes no mention of what Vladimir Putin thinks of the band.

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Oregon Girl [mp3]
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - House Fire [mp3]

Terry Anderson and the Olympic Ass-Kickin' Team Terry Anderson and the Olympic Ass Kickin' Team Just when you thought no one was going to out-do Yo La Tengo's I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass, comes a band that's not afraid to take their ass-whoopin' up a notch.

Terry Anderson is responsible for the catchy lyrics of the Victor Borge-like "I Love You, Period" on Georgia Satellites frontman Dan Baird's first solo album - and that's pretty much all you need to know about him and his world-class team of ass-kickers. I don't mean that as a put-down - the world needs bands like the Georgia Satellites and George Thorogood the Destroyers and even the Black Crowes (for that first album, anyway). It's not rocket science, but well-played roots rock plus clever lyrics adds up to a lot of fun. Sometimes (like, say, once every four years), it even adds up to Ass-kickin' fun. The band's website offers plenty of Olympic fanfare, some short samples, and zero free downloads.

This week's list:

1. SUFJAN STEVENS Songs for Christmas
2. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
3. TOM WAITS Orphans
4. THE CAPITOL YEARS Dance Away the Terror
5. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
6. SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN Broom
7. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly
8. MIDLAKE Trials Of Van Occupanther
9. THE BROTHER KITE Waiting for the Time to be Right
10. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
11. TERRY ANDERSON AND THE OLYMPIC ASS KICKIN' TEAM Terry Anderson and the Olympic Ass Kickin' Team
12. CALIFONE Roots & Crowns
13. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
14. THOSE TRANSATLANTICS Knocked Out
15. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try
16. JIM NOIR Tower of Love
17. SERA CAHOONE Sera Cahoone
18. NELLIE McKAY Pretty Little Head
19. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
20. THE BE GOOD TANYAS Hello Love
21. JENNY LEWIS WITH THE WATSON TWINS Rabbit Fur Coat
22. THE A-SIDES Hello, Hello
23. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
24. NEKO CASE Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
25. BOB DYLAN Modern Times
26. YO LA TENGO I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Kick Your Ass
27. CAMERA OBSCURA Let’s Get Out of This Country
28. MATES OF STATE Bring It Back
29. JED AND LUCIA Candles In Daylight
30. CHRIS DIFFORD South East Side Story

Dropping off the list this week:

• LOS LOBO The Town and the City
• M. WARD Post-War

I Don't Know How-ow-ow You Were Inverted

I know that it's getting a lot of positive press, but I've now heard quite a bit of the Beatles remix album, Love (samples here), and I have to say, I'm not buying it. I'm not buying the disc, I'm not buying its sound, and I'm not buying the concept behind it.

The album is a collection of 26 remixes by Beatles producer George Martin and his son, Giles, that also acts as a soundtrack for the latest Cirque du Soleil show, also called "Love."

Martin certainly has the credentials, as well as the okay of all the Beatles and Beatles estates on the project. And I don't have any problem with music remixes or mash-ups, nor do I see the Beatles' work as off-limits just because of their legacy - the Verve label has done plenty of great remixes of classic jazz performers like Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington without any disrespect to their legacies. Even Elvis has had some life pumped into his lesser works somewhat successfully.

Love, though, has the feel of doing something just to do it. Critics have been praising the disc (building it an impressive 86/100 score on Metacritics), but I don't hear a whole lot of clever ideas on it. Some of the songs have been striped back to alternative takes from the Apple vaults, but they're closer to demos than remixes.

Then there are the true mash-ups, but they're too safe to make them any fun. Instead, when a couple seconds of one song shows up on another they don't seem fresh, just annoyingly out of place. I'm sure a lot of that is due to us all growing up with the originals and hearing them over and over again, but it's the job of the producer Martin - just like any remix producer - to overcome that familiarity and make it sound fresh.

I'm especially bothered by the new tinkered-up version of George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." This song, which I think is the first release from the disc, has been getting a lot of praise for it's raw, stripped back mood. My ears, however, only hearing what's missing. I'll admit that having George's voice stand out makes for a pretty strong vocal, but the original already have a pretty strong vocal and was lush to boot. Now when I hear it, I wonder why they bothered removing the other tracks.

Beyond the music on this disc, I'm surprised by the lack of outrage at the songs of the Beatles becoming background noise for a Las Vegas circus show. This is the same band that got Nike in so much trouble for using one of their songs in an ad years ago, right?

RIYL32

My RIYLmusic Top 30 list [where I get to pretend I'm a program director at my very own hip radio station (full story here)] - for the week beginning November 27, 2006.

Ugh. Every day this week I'm in a conference, training, meetings, or some combination of the three. On top of that I feel like I'm dangerously close to an all-out throat infection and my laptop's acting all weird. I'm cranky, and since I've been complaining that nothing but box sets and Christmas albums have been released lately, I'm figuring I should just save us all some trouble and write about a box set full of Christmas songs.

Sufjan Stevens Songs for Christmas The man who has promised to record an album for each of the 50 states (just 48 more to go!) takes a break from that never-ending project to give us all the Christmas music we'll need for this season and maybe even part of the next: 5 discs worth. 42 songs, all yours for under twenty bucks. Or if you're really cheap, like me, you could just go to his record company's website. They're streaming the whole thing, disc by merry disc.

It's not your usually bombastic Christmas collection, but it's not at all downbeat either. It's just a fine collection of classic and original songs that ought to put a smile on your face while you're wrapping up all those gifts you got me. I mean, only a Scrooge would hate a song titled "Get Behind Me, Santa" [If you're not hip enough to get that, looky here]. Plus it comes with a whole bunch of extras like a songbook and nifty holiday stickers.

This week's list:

1. SUFJAN STEVENS Songs for Christmas
2. TOM WAITS Orphans
3. THE CAPITOL YEARS Dance Away the Terror
4. THE BROTHER KITE Waiting for the Time to be Right
5. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
6. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
7. NELLIE McKAY Pretty Little Head
8. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly
9. MIDLAKE Trials Of Van Occupanther
10. CALIFONE Roots & Crowns
11. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
12. THOSE TRANSATLANTICS Knocked Out
13. LOS LOBO The Town and the City
14. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try
15. YO LA TENGO I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Kick Your Ass
16. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
17. JIM NOIR Tower of Love
18. SERA CAHOONE Sera Cahoone
19. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
20. THE BE GOOD TANYAS Hello Love
21. JENNY LEWIS WITH THE WATSON TWINS Rabbit Fur Coat
22. THE A-SIDES Hello, Hello
23. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
24. CAMERA OBSCURA Let’s Get Out of This Country
25. MATES OF STATE Bring It Back
26. NEKO CASE Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
27. M. WARD Post-War
28. CHRIS DIFFORD South East Side Story
29. BOB DYLAN Modern Times
30. JED AND LUCIA Candles In Daylight

Dropping off the list this week:

• THE HEAVY BLINKERS The Night and I Are Still So Young

RIYL31

My RIYLmusic Top 30 list [where I get to pretend I'm a program director at my very own hip radio station (full story here)] - for the week beginning November 20, 2006.

Finally! After weeks and weeks of nothing but greatest hits and box sets there are new cds with new music on them! Three new discs, in fact. Three artists who... wait, all three are from one artist? Seriously? Tom Waits put out a triple-album? Dang, that's impressive. But it also means that I'll have to dip into my iTunes, again, to find some more artists who should be on this list but aren't.

Tom Waits Orphans Despite a title that suggests a collection of leftovers and passed-overs, this release contains three full discs of new music from the gravel-voiced Waits. Like the Brooklyn Chocolate Stout I recently reviewed, Waits music is something I tend to enjoy more in small doses - his songs are great, they just get a bit too intense for me after a little while. And 54 songs last a little more than a little while. Still, it's hard to pass up new music from someone so unique and so talented. Just don't attempt to do it all in one sitting. AOL is streaming the the whole thing this week and Pitchfork had recently posted the following three downloads:

Tom Waits - "You Can Never Hold Back Spring" [mp3]
Tom Waits - "Road to Peace" [mp3]
Tom Waits - "Bottom of the World" [mp3]

Bill Ricchini Tonight I Burn Brightly Look around the Internets and you'll find lots of writers coming up with lots of artists who they think Ricchini sounds like: the deep and introspective (Elliott Smith, Ron Sexsmith), the Sixties popsters (Kinks, Zombies) and of course the usual suspect (Brian Wilson). I agree with most of them (though I don't find much of a Wilson vibe, and I tend think that everyone sounds like Wilson), he does sound like a whole lot of artists. But at the same time he doesn't sound like any single one of them. If you want to link his soft, smooth, ultra-cool and straight out-of-the-Sixties pure pop sound to one person, I would say it should be Burt Bacharach. Whether they're romantic or fun, the songs on Ricchini's sophomore album seem to sweet talk their way into your head - never overbearing and never insincere - and isn't that the Bacharach way?

The Philly-based Ricchini has a few free downloads on his site (where he is also streaming a few songs), but he certainly doesn't make them easy to get to (they're on a flash page under "mp3" and they download as zip files that have to be unzipped to get to the songs - troublesome but worth it). Meanwhile, download.com has a free download of the poppiest (and best) track from the album, "I Just Can't Fall In Love" that's slightly easier to access.

Those Transatlantics Knocked Out She lacks her British accent and her love of the Cuban beat, but as the female lead of Those Transatlantics, Kathleen Bracken still very much reminds me of the late, great, Kirsty MacColl. Just as Kirsty somehow made rainy England sound sunny, the Trannies (as they unfortunately refer to themselves) make their chilly Detroit sound like a day at the beach. Fun and clever lyrics backed by a tight band bringing an unconventional sound. They're streaming some stuff at their website and their label is offering some downloads:

Those Transatlantics - "In Your Neighborhood" [mp3]
Those Transatlantics - "The Other Cheek" [mp3]
Those Transatlantics - "Boys and Children Sing for Summer" [mp3]

This week's list:

1. TOM WAITS Orphans
2. THE CAPITOL YEARS Dance Away the Terror
3. THE BROTHER KITE Waiting for the Time to be Right
4. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
5. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
6. NELLIE McKAY Pretty Little Head
7. BILL RICCHINI Tonight I Burn Brightly
8. MIDLAKE Trials Of Van Occupanther
9. CALIFONE Roots & Crowns
10. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
11. THOSE TRANSATLANTICS Knocked Out
12. LOS LOBO The Town and the City
13. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try
14. YO LA TENGO I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Kick Your Ass
15. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
16. JIM NOIR Tower of Love
17. SERA CAHOONE Sera Cahoone
18. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
19. THE BE GOOD TANYAS Hello Love
20. JENNY LEWIS WITH THE WATSON TWINS Rabbit Fur Coat
21. THE HEAVY BLINKERS The Night and I Are Still So Young
22. THE A-SIDES Hello, Hello
23. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
24. CAMERA OBSCURA Let’s Get Out of This Country
25. MATES OF STATE Bring It Back
26. NEKO CASE Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
27. M. WARD Post-War
28. CHRIS DIFFORD South East Side Story
29. BOB DYLAN Modern Times
30. JED AND LUCIA Candles In Daylight

Dropping off the list this week:

• THE LEMONHEADS The Lemonheads
• WILLIE NELSON Songbird
• BADLY DRAWN BOY Born in the U.K.

On The Other Hand, Most Of Us Don't Know How Many Shopping Days Are Left Before Our Birthday

Occasional Long Cut commenter and longtime sister Terry - whose birthday falls on December 25 - will sometimes express the shortcomings of being born on Christmas (and by "sometimes" I mean every chance she gets). She's not the only one with this problem, of course - in fact, there's a whole website dedicated to these whiners folks.

Luckily for her, and everyone else whose party always gets crashed by Baby Jesus, the Boston band The Slip has finally put her lament to music (and pretty good music, too). With Thanksgiving fast approaching, I thought I'd offer a download of the song in time for the holiday season, just so we don't forget those for whom "Noel" often means "no gift."

So here it is, just for Terry. (And Baby Jesus, of course - can't forget him.)

The Slip - "Children of December" [mp3]

All the parents of the children of December
Have a clutch
'Cause their birthdays are the hardest to remember
When you're born on Christmas
Or the day before new year's
They can sing out your birthday
But but but nobody hears
I was lucky I was born in the summer
Nineteen seventy five
It was as hot as an oven
Families that were lovin' each other in November
By April were planning all the new family members
But save one for the empirical boy with his empirical toys
The hots wheels the autobots and the deceptions
Everyone's waiting to see what he's worth
But he is invincible like a breeze on the earth

I was holding something
In my hands so tightly
I was afraid to let it go
I was afraid to even know
I was holding something
In my heart so tightly
I was afraid to let it go

Oh when you're born in December
It's hard to remember
Well the 90s have ended
So what do you call this decade?

I hold every person I meet like a treasure
I defend the ones I love to whatever the end is
And that's why I take it to you through the music
'Cause when the music's connected it's like everyone's protected
January is for Rosie
God bless Rosie
And February is for Tim
We all know about him
March is for my mama still winin' and dinin'
And April is for my my my my pop
May give to Jonas some
June is for the bass
Mine's July July July July July

All the parents of the children of December
Have a clutch
When you're born in Christmas
Or the day after new year's
They can sing out your birthday but but but but but but but
Make a little noise
Make a little sound

Oh when you're born in December
And no one remembers
Well the 90s have ended
So what do you call this decade?

And before a certain other Long Cut reader and longtime sister asks - if there's ever a song about having your half-birthday fall on Christmas, I'll post that one too.

RIYL30

My RIYLmusic Top 30 list [where I get to pretend I'm a program director at my very own hip radio station (full story here)] - for the week beginning November 13, 2006.

The long box set and greatest hits march towards the holidays continues on this week, once again dominating the new release pile. So I'm going to do what I did last week and dip into my iTunes to find a couple artists who should be on this list but aren't. Both of these were recommended by Long Cut readers, who obviously have impeccable taste.

The Brother Kite Waiting for the Time to be Right TwoBusy over at TwoBusy recommended this disc way back in September, calling it the best thing his ears have encountered all year. I've spent way too much time trying to write something up about it without mentioning Brian Wilson or Phil Spector and dammit, I just can't do it. I know the band is young and this is only their second release and they're not the geniuses those two men are (were?), but they may well be on their way.

On Waiting they have created their own version of Spector's legendary "Wall of Sound" by leaving very few moments where you are not engulfed in a sonic mix of guitar, keyboard, and drums. Engulfed, but never smothered - just as the vocals and harmonies, even at quieter moments, avoid being overtaken by the music. Those harmonies owe a lot to Brian Wilson's Pet Sounds work, as does the band's willingness to experiment with some non-traditional instrumentation. The result ends up sounding like a power pop collision of the Flaming Lips and Matthew Sweet. Here's their website, and here are some of the sunnier songs from the album:

The Brother Kite - Waiting For The Time To Be Right [mp3]
The Brother Kite - Get On, Me [mp3]
The Brother Kite - I'm Not the Only One [mp3]

Califone Roots & Crown While Califone's laid-back pace is light-years away from the Brother Kite's fuller sound, the two bands seem to share the same goal of keeping it interesting (as well as an obvious Brian Wilson influence). Since Califone has been around since 1989, it's a little unfair to compare them to a few acts they predate, but fellow Phillies fan Adam only just this week suggested I give them a listen, so I'm going to compare away, timeline be damned.

Califone's got the fluttering vocals of Jeff Tweedy's side project Loose Fur, the sparse sound of Calexico (minus the Tex-Mex influence) and the folkiness of Samuel Beam (better known as Iron & Wine). Why they don't have even the slight recognition that these other artists have, I don't know, but something tells me their obscurity isn't going to last much longer. Plenty of free downloads at their website/blog (on the discography page). Here are a couple from their newest disc:

Califone - Spider’s House [mp3]
Califone - The Orchids [mp3]

This week's list:

1. THE CAPITOL YEARS Dance Away the Terror
2. NELLIE McKAY Pretty Little Head
3. THE BROTHER KITE Waiting for the Time to be Right
4. CALIFONE Roots & Crowns
5. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
6. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
7. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
8. MIDLAKE Trials Of Van Occupanther
9. JIM NOIR Tower of Love
10. SERA CAHOONE Sera Cahoone
11. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
12. THE LEMONHEADS The Lemonheads
13. WILLIE NELSON Songbird
14. LOS LOBO The Town and the City
15. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try
16. BADLY DRAWN BOY Born in the U.K.
17. YO LA TENGO I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Kick Your Ass
18. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
19. CHRIS DIFFORD South East Side Story
20. BOB DYLAN Modern Times
21. JED AND LUCIA Candles In Daylight
22. THE BE GOOD TANYAS Hello Love
23. JENNY LEWIS WITH THE WATSON TWINS Rabbit Fur Coat
24. THE HEAVY BLINKERS The Night and I Are Still So Young
25. THE A-SIDES Hello, Hello
26. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
27. CAMERA OBSCURA Let’s Get Out of This Country
28. MATES OF STATE Bring It Back
29. NEKO CASE Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
30. M. WARD Post-War

Dropping off the list this week:

• WAYNE HANCOCK Tulsa
• JERRY LEE LEWIS Last Man Standing

RIYL29

My RIYLmusic Top 30 list [where I get to pretend I'm a program director at my very own hip radio station (full story here)] - for the week beginning November 6, 2006.

A day late and a couple senate seat results short, I'm here with this week's new picks. Except there really isn't anything new coming out this week. A lot of reissues (was anyone clamoring for a Duncan Sheik retrospective?). I'm starting to get worried that box sets and greatest hits discs are going to be the only things released from now until Christmas. Ugh.

So this week I dipped into my iTunes and found a couple artists who should be on this list but aren't. And there's a connection between them, so it's like a two-fer.

Band of Horses Everything All The Time They lack their country twang and non-jam-band jams, but it's hard not to think of My Morning Jacket when you listen to Band of Horses. They share the same Neil Young inspiration and love of the echo-y vocal. Band of Horses isn't quite as impressive as MMJ - mainly because they don't seem as willing to step too far outside their comfort zone (which is essential if you truly want to emulate Mr. Young) - but they're still pretty good, and they make it easy to give them a chance by posting four downloads on their website.

Sera Cahoone Sera Cahoone Cahoone - who played drums on parts of the new Band of Horses album - isn't as generous with the downloads as that band is but she's still worthy of your attention. Actually, she's even more worthy since she is willing to take chances, making it tough to define her sound (and therefore making my job here that much harder).

NPR, which chose her "Couch Song" as their song-of-the-day a little while back (as did KEXP, where I first heard her), describes her as "channeling Patsy Cline by way of Neko Case." Eh. Case is a pretty good comparison for Cahoone's voice, but I'd say the country groove that drives her sound is closer to the comfortable and intimate music of Gillian Welsh (though not as bluegrassy) than the fuller and more emotive music of Kline. See, I told you Cahoone's sound was tough to define, which probably explains why I've found it so impressive. Your best bet to hear Cahoone (other than buying her CD, of course) is on her myspace page.

This week's list:

1. NELLIE McKAY Pretty Little Head
2. LOS LOBO The Town and the City
3. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try
4. BADLY DRAWN BOY Born in the U.K.
5. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
6. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
7. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
8. JIM NOIR Tower of Love
9. SERA CAHOONE Sera Cahoone
10. BAND OF HORSES Everything All the Time
11. THE LEMONHEADS The Lemonheads
12. WILLIE NELSON Songbird
13. YO LA TENGO I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Kick Your Ass
14. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
15. CHRIS DIFFORD South East Side Story
16. THE CAPITOL YEARS Dance Away the Terror
17. BOB DYLAN Modern Times
18. JED AND LUCIA Candles In Daylight
19. THE BE GOOD TANYAS Hello Love
20. JENNY LEWIS WITH THE WATSON TWINS Rabbit Fur Coat
21. THE HEAVY BLINKERS The Night and I Are Still So Young
22. THE A-SIDES Hello, Hello
23. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
24. CAMERA OBSCURA Let’s Get Out of This Country
25. MATES OF STATE Bring It Back
26. MIDLAKE Trials Of Van Occupanther
27. NEKO CASE Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
28. M. WARD Post-War
29. WAYNE HANCOCK Tulsa
30. JERRY LEE LEWIS Last Man Standing

Dropping off the list this week:

• STARSAILOR On the Outside
• FLAMING LIPS At War With The Mystics

RIYL28

My RIYLmusic Top 30 list [where I get to pretend I'm a program director at my very own hip radio station (full story here)] - for the week beginning October 30, 2006.

How was your Halloween? Because let me tell you, mine was exhausting. I had the day "off," but it was spent walking and walking and walking some more (as well as eating and eating and eating some more). Add to that a five mile run and a couple school parades, and you can see why I'm about to fall over.

I don't want to shirk my RIYL duties, but I haven't had the chance to listen to a whole lot of new music lately, and I certainly didn't get the chance to today. So I'm going to cheat a little by posting what others have said about some recent albums that I've been interested in but haven't heard much of. Since my list has long been in need of a serious shake-up, I'm going to use this lazy excuse of a post to add a whopping five new discs to it. I can't guarantee that these are all winners, but I think they all deserve a listen.

Nellie McKay Pretty Little Head "Whether crafting stone-faced chamber pop or flitting around on pink sheets singing bedroom torch songs, McKay shows she's got versatility in bunches on her second album. But even though she's cut down on the snarky commentary, one can't shake the feeling that she's putting more of her head in the music than her heart [...] but it's the brains in her pretty little head that make McKay worth paying attention to." - Pitchfork [A couple downloads here, a few songs streaming here.]

Badly Drawn Boy Born In the U.K. "[Badly Drawn Boy's Damon] Gough is a fine storyteller and pop craftsman clearly trying to explore his most mainstream instincts. When they work, Born In The U.K.'s charming songs breeze by like the best '70s soft-rock: "Degrees Of Separation" chimes and glides in all the right places, the winsome piano ballad "Nothing's Gonna Change Your Mind" could sound great performed by anyone from Elton John to Jeff Tweedy, and "Without A Kiss" feels, like Gough's early greats, refreshingly unforced." - The Onion's A.V. Club [Streaming at his website]

Willie Nelson Songbird "Songbird, a collaboration with Ryan Adams (who produced and lent his backing band) is Willie Nelson's finest in a decade. The sound is burly, surrounding his inimitable lilt with shuddering electric guitars. But the slow and stately stuff really sparkles, such as a weirdly menacing cover of ''Amazing Grace'' and the new Nelson composition ''Back to Earth,'' which proves the old troubadour can still write the best weepers around." - Entertainment Weekly [Videos and some samples at his record company's site.]

Los Lobos The Town and the City "A subtly excellent album, with tracks becoming distinct and special with repeated listens. [...] Piece by piece, the album becomes rich, complex and beautiful." - Offbeat [Streaming at the band's website.]

The Lemonheads The Lemonheads "This may not be fair, but it needs to be said: “Black Gown,” the best song on the Lemonheads’ self-titled comeback, isn’t as good as the worst song on the band’s 1992 college-rock classic It’s A Shame About Ray. Still, it’s tough to simply dismiss anything Evan Dando does based on his peak performances, and The Lemonheads features enough solid, backward-looking pop to please anyone who graduated high school between 1990 and 1998." -Magnet [Some streams here.]

This week's list:

1. NELLIE McKAY Pretty Little Head
2. LOS LOBO The Town and the City
3. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try
4. BADLY DRAWN BOY Born in the U.K.
5. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
6. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
7. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
8. JIM NOIR Tower of Love
9. THE LEMONHEADS The Lemonheads
10. WILLIE NELSON Songbird
11. YO LA TENGO I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Kick Your Ass
12. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
13. CHRIS DIFFORD South East Side Story
14. THE CAPITOL YEARS Dance Away the Terror
15. BOB DYLAN Modern Times
16. JED AND LUCIA Candles In Daylight
17. THE BE GOOD TANYAS Hello Love
18. JENNY LEWIS WITH THE WATSON TWINS Rabbit Fur Coat
19. THE HEAVY BLINKERS The Night and I Are Still So Young
20. THE A-SIDES Hello, Hello
21. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
22. CAMERA OBSCURA Let’s Get Out of This Country
23. MATES OF STATE Bring It Back
24. MIDLAKE Trials Of Van Occupanther
25. STARSAILOR On the Outside
26. FLAMING LIPS At War With The Mystics
27. NEKO CASE Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
28. M. WARD Post-War
29. WAYNE HANCOCK Tulsa
30. JERRY LEE LEWIS Last Man Standing

Dropping off the list this week:

• NEIL YOUNG Living With War
• SNOW PATROL Eyes Open
• GREG BROWN The Evening Call
• CRACKER Greenland
• G. LOVE Lemonade

As If Pancakes Weren't Awesome Enough Already

I tell you, the luckiest kids in the country live in Washington, DC. That's where Pancake Mountain - the coolest kids show ever - airs.

Even cooler than Amy Sedaris on Sesame Street?

See for yourself:

Built To Spill Rocking On Pancake Mountain

Flaming Lips singing karaoke songs with a puppet

X [friggin' X!] on Pancake Mountain

And this last one's so cool I'm just going to embed it right here [try not to miss the kid in the Superman shirt poppin' and lockin']:

I don't recall anyone like Jenny Lewis ever showing up on the Electric Company when I was a kid. What a great way to get kids into some real music.

RIYL27

My RIYLmusic Top 30 list [where I get to pretend I'm a program director at my very own hip radio station (full story here)] - for the week beginning October 23, 2006.

An extremely slow week for new releases, dominated by greatest hits discs for those who like to get their holiday shopping done early. Aimee Mann has even started the season by releasing her Christmas album today, but it's way too early to think about that, let alone add it to the playlist.

Birdie Busch The Ways We Try Here's a CD that's been out for a little while, but that I first heard only a few weeks ago. A co-worker of mine let me borrow his copy of the disc and I was immediately impressed by it, just completely floored. Birdie (nee Emily) is from nearby Collingswood, NJ (so nearby that it's where I pick up the train every morning) and has quickly made an impression on the Philly music scene with this debut album. I wouldn't be at all surprised if her fan base soon outgrows this region.

Birdie's website says the album "was created somewhat the opposite of how songs are usually recorded, with two guitars leading the rhythm, bass and drums chasing off-kilter meters, and piano and organ coloring the lyrics and adding width and depth to the melodies." When all of that backs up a folk singer and her guitar, it's what the kids call "neo-folk."

Whatever you call it, Birdie's music certainly stands out. It a rare style of folk that doesn't get bogged down in either its words or its music. The sound is crisp and original and the lyrics are full of fleshed out stories that never become overwrought. What really makes the music stand out, and what gets it stuck in you head, is its playfulness. The band sounds like it had a ball making the record - most of the songs sound as though they are being sung through a smile - and that fun is infectious. A real change of pace from ordinary folk music.

In addition to her website and her myspace page (which offers streaming music and downloads), Birdie also has a short World Cafe concert that's been archived at NPR's website.

This week's list:

1. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
2. JIM NOIR Tower of Love
3. BIRDIE BUSCH The Ways We Try
4. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
5. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
6. YO LA TENGO I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Kick Your Ass
7. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
8. CHRIS DIFFORD South East Side Story
9. THE CAPITOL YEARS Dance Away the Terror
10. BOB DYLAN Modern Times
11. THE HEAVY BLINKERS The Night and I Are Still So Young
12. THE A-SIDES Hello, Hello
13. JED AND LUCIA Candles In Daylight
14. THE BE GOOD TANYAS Hello Love
15. WAYNE HANCOCK Tulsa
16. JERRY LEE LEWIS Last Man Standing
17. G. LOVE Lemonade
18. M. WARD Post-War
19. CRACKER Greenland
20. CAMERA OBSCURA Let’s Get Out of This Country
21. MATES OF STATE Bring It Back
22. MIDLAKE Trials Of Van Occupanther
23. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
24. STARSAILOR On the Outside
25. GREG BROWN The Evening Call
26. FLAMING LIPS At War With The Mystics
27. SNOW PATROL Eyes Open
28. NEKO CASE Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
29. JENNY LEWIS WITH THE WATSON TWINS Rabbit Fur Coat
30. NEIL YOUNG Living With War

Dropping off the list this week:

• BECK The Information

It Ain't Him Babe

Well, WXPN has finally finished its 885 Greatest Artists of All Time Countdown. I wasn't crazy about this countdown before it started and my feelings haven't changed now that it's over. The parameters were too vague, which would explain why Johann Sebastian Bach (#125) was seen as being more talented than Otis Redding (#126), but not as great a genius as Todd Rundgren (#124) - which, come to think of it, I would have to agree with.

Votes for individual artists were split from their bands tally, so Paul Simon (#20) did well, but Simon & Garfunkel (#51) didn't. The Who (#12) probably would have done much better if they weren't competing against Pete Townsend (#211). And then you got that whole Crosby Stills and Nash (#103) / Crosby Stills Nash and Young (#34) / Neil Young (#8) / Stephen Stills (#628) / Graham Nash (#659) / David Crosby (#726) / Bing Crosby (#632) mess.

Plenty of the picks were just awful - there's eclectic and there's downright unlistenable (are there really that many people who still see Kansas (#339!) as one of the greatest artists of all time?). Far too many of my breakfasts last week were ruined by sets of heavy metal - downright Rancid (#409) heavy metal at that.

Rather than spend so much time looking back, XPN would better serve their listeners by playing up-and-coming artists. They do play a more eclectic mix than any other station in town, but it's been the same safe boomer-based eclectic sound for quite a while now. They need to shake things up by highlighting those artists that are getting plenty of love on the Internet but still aren't getting any airplay.

As they got closer to the top of the list it got harder and harder to argue with the picks. It would have been nice to see more artists that are still making music up near the top - Led Zep at #6? - but it wasn't too bad.

There were bands up there that I agreed with, like Dylan, that I didn't put in my top ten because I knew they would already be well-represented (I listed Bobby as one of my ten "honorable mention" picks, which the station also asked voters to list). I do feel bad for forgetting all about Joni, as well as Todd Rundgren. But not Kansas.

Well, anyway, I could have sworn Dylan was going to top this list, but - surprise, surprise - the Beatles beat him out. I think Dylan deserved a little more credit seeing how he's still putting out quality music. I also was holding out hope that Springsteen would sneak in there and steal the top pick. Oh, well.

Here are WXPN's top ten, followed by my top ten:

Their list:

1. The Beatles
2. Bob Dylan
3. The Rolling Stones
4. Bruce Springsteen
5. U2
6. Led Zeppelin
7. Grateful Dead
8. Neil Young
9. Pink Floyd
10. Joni Mitchell

My list (and where they finished):

1. Bruce Springsteen (#4)
2. Wilco (#59)
3. Big Star (#487)
4. Clash (#24)
5. Kinks (#52)
6. Replacements (#106)
7. Paul Simon (#20)
8. REM (#17)
9. Neil Young (#8)
10. Lucinda Williams (#66)

My runners-up:

• Bob Dylan (#2)
• Rolling Stones (#3)
• Elvis Presley (# 19)
• Al Green (#229)
• Stevie Wonder (#22)
• Van Morrison (#13)
• Steely Dan (#27)
• Lou Reed (#139)
• Joe Jackson (#145)
• My Morning Jacket (#208)

XPN has now done the 885 greatest songs, the 885 greatest albums, and the 885 greatest artists. What's next? The 885 greatest instruments? Album covers? Record companies? Roadies? Whiny music bloggers?

I Went To A Boxing Match And A Wilco Concert Broke Out

Wilco's Jeff Tweedy put the hurt on an unwanted guest at their concert Monday night (about one minute into the video below). Jeff's side of the story is on the Wilco website (scroll down). [Via AOL's Indie Blog]

Related: NPR has an archived stream of Wilco's Thursday night concert from DC, sans fisticuffs.

Friday Random Ten - The "Mmm... Free" Edition

Shuffled just the "Free Download" folder this Friday.

RIYL26

My RIYLmusic Top 30 list [where I get to pretend I'm a program director at my very own hip radio station (full story here)] - for the week beginning October 16, 2006.

Just one new entry this week - I've got playoff baseball to watch, people.

Jim Noir Tower of Love It would seem that Jim Noir likes 60's music. A lot. And he's not picky about what style of 60's music, either - folk, psychedelic, Beatlesque, Brian Wilsonesque, maybe even a little crooning.

Noir's debut album, Tower of Love hits them all, switching from the Raspberries to Simon & Garfunkel to the Kinks to "Quicksilver Girl" -era Steve Miller. Noir's melodic vocals tie all the different moods together, somehow managing to avoid any awkward transitions between the (slightly) divergent styles.

Even with all his nods to other artists, Noir manages to pack plenty of originality onto the disc, and ultimately it's Noir's unique take on retro power pop that make the album something special. By putting his own touches on a classic sound, Noir makes himself more of a contemporary to his influences than an imitator of them.

I couldn't find an mp3 of a my favorite song from the album (currently streaming at Noir's website), which is "Eanie Meanie," but you can see the video here. The songs below are pretty good, too.

Jim Noir - "Key of C" [mp3]
Jim Noir - “The Only Way” [mp3]

This week's list:

1. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
2. YO LA TENGO I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Kick Your Ass
3. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
4. CHRIS DIFFORD South East Side Story
5. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
6. JIM NOIR Tower of Love
7. THE CAPITOL YEARS Dance Away the Terror
8. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
9. BOB DYLAN Modern Times
10. THE HEAVY BLINKERS The Night and I Are Still So Young
11. BECK The Information
12. THE A-SIDES Hello, Hello
13. JED AND LUCIA Candles In Daylight
14. THE BE GOOD TANYAS Hello Love
15. WAYNE HANCOCK Tulsa
16. JERRY LEE LEWIS Last Man Standing
17. G. LOVE Lemonade
18. M. WARD Post-War
19. CRACKER Greenland
20. CAMERA OBSCURA Let’s Get Out of This Country
21. MATES OF STATE Bring It Back
22. MIDLAKE Trials Of Van Occupanther
23. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
24. STARSAILOR On the Outside
25. GREG BROWN The Evening Call
26. FLAMING LIPS At War With The Mystics
27. SNOW PATROL Eyes Open
28. NEKO CASE Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
29. JENNY LEWIS WITH THE WATSON TWINS Rabbit Fur Coat
30. NEIL YOUNG Living With War

Dropping off the list this week:

• UNCLE TUPELO No Depression

National Treasure

The documentary of Jeff Tweedy's solo tour comes out next Tuesday. And buying it lets you download the songs from it. And it includes him doing solo, Wilco, Uncle Tupelo, and Loose Fur songs. And Amazon is taking pre-release orders now. And it's already on my wish list. And Christmas is only 71 days away.

RIYL25

My RIYLmusic Top 30 list [where I get to pretend I'm a program director at my very own hip radio station (full story here)] - for the week beginning October 9, 2006.

I'm a day late with the riyl thing this week. Posting my brilliant playoff picks has got me all screwed up - just like my baseball predictions!

So, what new discs should be added to the list this week? There’s the “new” Rod Stewart, who seems to have finally gotten past destroying the classics and moved on to destroying classic rock. Or there’s Sting teaming up with - this can’t be right – a lutist? Or there’s the new country-ish Jimmy Buffett album, which I’m sure will make people forget all about that one song of his, something- something-ville.

You know what, hows about instead of old-timers, we go with old-timey?

The Be Good Taynas Hello Love I recommended Jolie Holland's disc a while back, so I guess I should do the same for her former band. I can’t say I’m real familiar with the Taynas beyond their chirpy (in a good way, if you can imagine that) “The Littlest Birds (Sing the Prettiest Songs).” What I’ve heard of Hello Love doesn’t sound nearly as peppy as that tune. In fact, the stripped-down traditional sound reminds me very much of fellow Canadian Margo Timmins' earlier work with the Cowboy Junkies.

There’s a few covers on Hello Love, including Neil Young’s “For the Turnstiles” and, as a hidden track, a... um... very interesting take on Prince’s “When Dove’s Cry” that probably should have remained hidden. Not much by way of samples beyond what Amazon offers and the mp3 I've posted below, which was lifted from their label’s website (their own website is woefully outdated).

The Be Good Taynas - "Human Thing" [mp3]

Wayne Hancock Tulsa Shelton "Hank III" Williams may be following in his grandfather’s hard-drinking rebel footsteps, but it’s Wayne Hancock who has inherited the original Hank’s sound. Like Hank the Third (who has recorded some of Hancock’s songs), Wayne “the Train” isn’t out to just imitate that old-time honky-tonk sound and he’s certainly not interested in toning it down to make it more palatable to “country radio” (a term that currently requires quotes around it each time it's used).

His mix of rockabilly and honky-tonk yodeling isn’t for everyone (and even for those who do appreciate it - like me - listening to more than a few songs in one sitting might be a bit too much), but the authenticity in his work earns him at least one listen by those interested in real country music. As with the Be Good Taynas, Hancock is a victim of a less-than-fresh website (these artists need to think of these things before releasing new albums) and a lack of song samples, but his label did offer up the download provided below.

Wayne Hancock - "Shooting Star From Texas" [mp3]

This week's list:

1. THE DECEMBERISTS The Crane Wife
2. YO LA TENGO I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Kick Your Ass
3. MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos
4. CHRIS DIFFORD South East Side Story
5. THE PERNICE BROTHERS Live a Little
6. UNCLE TUPELO No Depression
7. THE CAPITOL YEARS Dance Away the Terror
8. THE HOLD STEADY Boys & Girls in America
9. BOB DYLAN Modern Times
10. THE HEAVY BLINKERS The Night and I Are Still So Young
11. BECK The Information
12. THE A-SIDES Hello, Hello
13. JED AND LUCIA Candles In Daylight
14. THE BE GOOD TANYAS Hello Love
15. WAYNE HANCOCK Tulsa
16. JERRY LEE LEWIS Last Man Standing
17. G. LOVE Lemonade
18. M. WARD Post-War
19. CRACKER Greenland
20. CAMERA OBSCURA Let’s Get Out of This Country
21. MATES OF STATE Bring It Back
22. MIDLAKE Trials Of Van Occupanther
23. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
24. STARSAILOR On the Outside
25. GREG BROWN The Evening Call
26. FLAMING LIPS At War With The Mystics
27. SNOW PATROL Eyes Open
28. NEKO CASE Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
29. JENNY LEWIS WITH THE WATSON TWINS Rabbit Fur Coat
30. NEIL YOUNG Living With War

Dropping off the list this week:

• THE BLACK KEYS Magic Potion
• THE RACONTEURS Broken Boy Soldiers

Friday Random Ten: Don't Call It A Comeback

A rare FRT sighting here at TLC. Back in April when I started posting my RIYL lists every Tuesday, I thought that two music lists a week would be a bit much, so I stopped doing the randomizer thing.

But: a couple weeks ago I picked up a sweet 160 GB external hard drive for just $50 (after a $70 rebate!), mostly to backup our photo and music files. I wasn't comfortable with so much of my music sitting on my computer at work since, you know, technically it's not my computer. And I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to use "their" computer for "doing" some "work."

Whatever the reason for this musical consolidation, having all thiese songs in one place should make it easier to load up my sweet 1 GB mp3 player (picked up the same day as the hard drive - $50 after $30 rebate!).

Long story short(ish): all seeing this music (5871 items, 15.2 days, 20.74 GB according to iTunes) in one place cried out for a FRT. But don't go getting used to it.