Coldplay: Violet Hill

[Download Link]

Thoughts in comments, please. My first impressions include Fleetwood Mac and Billy Joel...not a good thing.

French Kicks: Abandon

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Myspace]
[Band Wiki]

Yo La Tengo: From a Motel 6

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Myspace]
[Band Wiki]

More Adorable Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Caleb sends along some nice Adorable features from his site, Webcuts Music:

New interview with all four ex-members to celebrate Footnotes:
http://www.webcutsmusic.com/news54.html

New Pete specific Interview (talks about Adorable, Polak and his solo album):
http://www.webcutsmusic.com/news55.html

Pete interview from 1998 (Adorable and Polak):
http://www.webcutsmusic.com/news59.html

Footnotes Review:
http://www.webcutsmusic.com/news42.html

Listen to "Vendetta":

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Myspace]
[Band Wiki]

Glide: You Were Always More Than A Trick To Me, Ray

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]

Stereolab: Wow and Flutter

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Myspace]
[Band Wiki]

Promo:

Thoughts on:The Notwist--The Devil, You + Me

Somewhere around 2003-4, I looked at the excellent latest release from Germany's The Notwist ("Neon Golden") and a mind-bendingly good album from Denmark's Mew ("Frengers") and predicted the next rock revolution might come from Central Europe.

As far as brilliant forecasting goes, it ranks up there with my obviously spot-on prediction that Coldplay wouldn't break America because they released "Clocks" as the second single off "A Rush of Blood to the Head": Mew made a disastrous follow-up album full of prog-rock tripe; The Notwist, meanwhile, pretty much disappeared. There was the puzzling collaboration with Themselves, a group of insect-rapping Californians. Notwist frontman Markus Acher released an excellent record with his other group Lali Puna (2004's "Faking the Books"), but that too failed to register outside of hipster circles in New York, LA, and London.

Why was the bar so high? You see, with 2002's "Neon Golden", The Notwist rewrote the rules of merging rock with electronic music. After a decade of the music industry telling us the future was sweaty American jerks using drum loops to underpin grunge dirges, The Notwist took tasteful laptop textures and merged them with delicate rock songs in an utterly beguiling way. Acher's voice, reminiscent of Belle and Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch, floated ethereally above a bed of music that sounded like New Order for the 21st century.

Listeners have waited six years for "The Devil, You + Me", and although it's not entirely clear what took them so long, there are plenty of fine moments on this record. Maybe expectations were simply too high, but what they've basically given us is "Neon Golden 2". Opener "Good Lies" is fantastic, with a circular melody repeating and reinforcing the key lyric: "Let's just imitate the real until we find a better one". Being German, Acker's unusual delivery gives lyrics that might sound cliche coming from a native speaker a decidedly uncanny quality . "Good Lies" also reveals the band's new secret weapon: the acoustic guitar. Whether it's the descending chords in that track, the Teutonic Bossa Nova of "Gloomy Planets", or the space-age blues of "Gone Gone Gone", this post-modern band using the most traditional of instruments results in added warmth and texture.

"Where in this World" Promo:

The morbid "Where in this World" seems like an odd choice for a lead-off single; more obvious choices would have been the upbeat "Boneless" or the part-jittery/part-shimmering "Gravity". A June release also seems like a curious move, but maybe that just means people will be rediscovering "The Devil, You + Me" in the fall when the weather becomes more suitable for this kind of thing.

So while one shouldn't expect a new rock revolution from mainland Europe any time soon, with "The Devil, You + Me" The Notwist have continued their quiet insurgency to redefine and recontextualize rock n' roll. This is thoughtful and evocative music that deserves your attention.

Listen to "Good Lies":

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Myspace]
[Band Wiki]

120 Days: Keep on Smiling

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Myspace]

From Dead Flowers to SXSW

Here's a cool development: Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth fame played the 'new' Velvet Underground song, "I'm Not a Young Man Anymore" at South by Southwest. The song was originally brought to wider attention on this very blog in February. You have to love technology.

Listen to "I'm Not a Young Man Anymore":

[Download the MP3 Here]
[See the Original VU 'Live at the Gymnasium' Post]
[Velvets Wiki]

Bonobo: Recurring

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Artist Website]
[Artist Myspace]

Martyrs to the Cause

Here's an interesting, if somewhat callous, piece from The Guardian about the legacy of those who died too soon:

Thom Yorke doesn't like me very much. Big deal, I hear you say, there must be a lot of people that don't like you. And there are. But Thom Yorke doesn't just dislike me. He wants to kill me. Or at least he wanted to. He once spent a sizeable chunk of an Uncut cover story saying as much. And a few years back I had a very unpleasant encounter with the great (small but great; well, great-ish) man in the lobby of the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles, during which he made known his feelings towards me in front of the rest of Radiohead, who seemed to find the whole scene as embarrassing as I did. The reason for his latent homicidal tendencies? When I was at Melody Maker, we put Yorke's face on the front of the paper, to go with an in-depth interview, next to the immortally provocative question, printed in big, bold type: "Is This the Next Rock Martyr in the Making?"

This rock martyr farrago was in 1995, around the time of The Bends. More pertinently, it was just after the death of Kurt Cobain and disappearance of Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers. There was a lot of talk about rock star depression and self-harming fans in the air. And we at the paper, perhaps like many of the readers, were wondering, I guess, whether Yorke would be the next to go - to buckle under the weight of expectation, to recoil from the pressure of being everybody's favourite tortured rock artist. To commit suicide. We thought it was a fair question. Yorke didn't: he thought it was irresponsible; that we were somehow suggesting that the logical extension of, and final solution to, his downcast worldview was to take his own life; that we were taking a sort of perverse delight in it all, almost encouraging him to absent himself forever because we thought it would be cool. Because, in rock'n'roll, there is nothing cooler than a premature death, especially when it's at the hands of the person dying.

We were only saying what people have been saying for years: that dying young, even if it's not the result of living fast, can be a good thing, if you want to preserve the integrity of your art. Come on, we've just experienced two years of Joy Division mania during which Ian Curtis has been canonised as the patron saint of despair. Can we finally accept, now that he's dead and so worthy of consideration not condemnation, that Tony Wilson knew what he was talking about when he concluded that Curtis' suicide was the best career move he could have made? Not that it was the best thing for his wife and daughter, or for his friends. Instead, Curtis' decision to hang himself at the age of 23 was the ultimate confirmation of his commitment to his lyrics and music. Would Joy Division have been taken less seriously today had Curtis lived? Would there have been films and books about them?

[Read the whole article]

Listen to "Transmission" by Joy Division:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Wiki]

That Nation's Saving Grace

Here's a nice treat from The Guardian:

My rise and Fall

Outspoken singer Mark E Smith has led his group the Fall for 32 years, surviving continual fights with an ever-changing cast of musicians to create dozens of albums in his own maverick style. At 51, he remains one of rock's most individual voices. In this first extract from his autobiography, introduced by Dave Simpson, he looks back at the formative moments of his childhood and the birth of the band.

Mark E Smith has been called a drinker, a druggie, a tyrant and a nut. He has spent a night in the cells following one punch-up and been ordered to attend anger management. With his group the Fall, he has become one of the most influential musicians of the past 30 years. However, he is as famous for sacking band members as for his music, having dispensed with more than 50 musicians - including various wives and girlfriends - while making approximately 26 albums (there have been so many that no one seems entirely sure).

Smith formed the Fall - based in Salford - in the punk movement of 1976 and fired his first musician, a drummer whose name no one can agree on, before the group had made a record. Since then, he has been the sole ever-present member, in a reign that has seen off five prime ministers, the Falklands, Balkans and Gulf wars, more than a dozen record companies and innumerable changes in British music, while making the hard-driven, repetitive music that John Peel described as "always different, always the same". The Fall have never been a household name, but have had more non-top 20 chart hits (16 in all) than any other group.

The Fall's fans, who include everyone from Alex Kapranos to Frank Skinner and David Bowie, routinely hail Smith's "genius". It's less certain what that genius is. His horror-humorous lyrics - inspired, perhaps, by the sci-fi writers HP Lovecraft and Philip K Dick, along with hallucinogens - are pored over like the Bible as fans chuckle at his descriptions of British People in Hot Weather ("beached whales in Wapping, drunk before ya!") and ponder the true meaning of bizarre songtitles such as To Nkroachment: Yarbles.

Apparent prophesies, such as the song Powder Keg, released just before the Manchester bombing in 1996, convince many that he is psychic. And yet this musical colossus can barely play a note. He is reliant on musicians - whom he holds in contempt - for his lifetime's work.

[Read the whole article]

Listen to "Bombast":

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Wiki]
(Thanks Phil)

Elastica: Waking Up

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Wiki]

The Rolling Stones: It's All Over Now

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Wiki]

Live:

Magnetic Morning (Adam Franklin and Sam Fogarino): Cold War Kids

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Myspace]
[Band Wiki]

Interpol: Hands Away (Peel Session)

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Myspace]
[Band Wiki]

Swervedriver: Wrong Treats

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Myspace]
[Band Wiki]
[Read my interview with drummer Jez]

Live:


Tour Dates:
Apr 27 2008 8:00P Coachella Festival, Mojave Tent (Time TBD) Indio, California
May 26 2008 8:00P Neumo’s Seattle, Washington
May 27 2008 8:00P Wonder Ballroom Portland, Oregon
May 29 2008 8:00P The Fillmore San Francisco, California
May 30 2008 8:00P Casbah San Diego, California
May 31 2008 8:00P Music Box at the Henry Fonda Hollywood, California
Jun 3 2008 9:00P Emo’s (on sale 3/28 @ noon CST) Austin, Texas
Jun 5 2008 8:00P The Masquerade Atlanta, Georgia
Jun 6 2008 8:00P Cat’s Cradle Carrboro, North Carolina
Jun 7 2008 8:00P Theatre of Living Arts Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Jun 8 2008 8:00P 930 Club District of Columbia, Washington DC
Jun 10 2008 8:00P Paradise Club (on sale 3/29 @ noon EST) Boston, Massachusetts
Jun 11 2008 8:30P Bowery Ballroom New York, New York
Jun 12 2008 8:00P Music Hall of Williamsburg Brooklyn, New York
Jun 13 2008 8:00P Lee’s Palace Toronto, Ontario
Jun 14 2008 8:00P Metro Chicago, Illinois

The Wave Pictures: The Airplanes at Brescia

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Myspace]

Talk Talk: April 5th

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Wiki]
[Read Alan McGee's Blog Post about Talk Talk]
[Read My Special on Talk Talk]

Los Hermanos: Condicional (Repost)

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Wiki]

Promo:

The Notwist: Gloomy Planets

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Wiki]

Glasvegas: I'm Gonna Get Stabbed

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Myspace]
[Band Website]

Thoughts On: Ida Maria--Stella (Single)

In indie rock, there is a perpetual false choice: innovate or write a song that people can actually sing along to. Blame it on The Beatles: while they seemed capable of doing both, bands with lesser talent have since felt compelled to pick sides. Thus from the same record label in the same decade you had a band like Ride, heavy on the innovation but lacking in the memorable tunes department, alongside Oasis, a band forever doomed to share royalties from their greatest hits with songwriters from the 60s and 70s.

There's no mistaking there's something a bit classic about Ida Maria's "Stella". Now perhaps, as astute youtube commentators have pointed out, that's due to its similarity to "Jimmy Mack" by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. "Stella"'s unabased Motown influences make the song instantly recognizable, and even more impressive than the band's formidable single, "Oh My God". And while it's short on groundbreaking sounds, "Stella" will no doubt dig itself into your subconscious by the second listen. Definitely worth tracking down.

"Stella" Live:

[Ida Maria Myspace]

Listen to "Jimmy Mack" by Martha Reeves and The Vandellas:

[Download the MP3 Here]

Oasis: Stand by Me

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Myspace]
[Band Wiki]

pacificUV: Need

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Myspace]
(Thanks Clay)