Today's Swell Tune: Evil Friends

Band: Portugal. The Man.

Album: Evil Friends (expected release 4/6/13)

From: Wasilla, Alaska/ Portland, Oregon, USA

Sound: Dreamy fuck you morphing into apathetic riffs, expertly straddling '93 and '13; rock, grunge, alternative.

Website: portugaltheman.com

Social: facebook, tumblr, twitter

Today's Swell Tune: I Don't Mind

Artist: Ted Zed

From: Somerset, England

Sound: See the attached picture? It sounds like that: alt pop/ rock/ synth/ trance (seriously, there's a lot in here)

Website: tedzedofficial.com

Social: facebook, twitter, YouTube

Today's Swell Tune: Riptide

Artist: Vance Joy

Album: God Loves You When You're Dancing

From: Melbourne, Australia

Sound: Bon Iver meets Mumford & Sons, but Mumford & Sons has a ukelele instead of a banjo and does not suck; folk pop 

Website: vancejoy.com

Social: facebook

Today's Swell Tune: Someday

Artist: Float Fall

From: Leuven, Belgium

Sound: Like the XX were inspired by Bruce Springsteen; dream pop

Website: here

Social: facebook, twitter, soundcloud, YouTube

Saturday Night Remix: Recover

Chvrches

into

Cid Rim

Today's swell Tune: Longrun

Artist: Whistle Peak

Album: Off Put to Flight (release: 22.4.13)

From: Louisville, Kentucky, United States

Sound: Those futuristic souds you hear are coming through the door of room 237; electropop, synth

Website: whistlepeak.net

Social: bandcamp, facebook, twitter, soundcloud

Friday's Forgotten Song: A Song From Under the Floorboards

Magazine

Album: The Correct Use of Soap
1980

Today's Swell Tune: Lady You Shot Me

• Artist: Har Mar Superstar
• Album: Bye Bye 17 (release: 23.4.13)
• From: St. Paul, MN/ Brooklyn, NYC, United States
• Sound: This is exactly what Sam Cooke would want done with his last words; R&B, soul
• Website: harmarsuperstar.com
• Social: facebook, twitter, YouTube

Boss Stuff on the Interwebs: Wednesday Links 3/4/13

• Thanks to Electric Comic Book and the magic of computers, you now know how The Doors' Riders on the Storm would sound if played in a major key.
  It sounds like the most unsettling children's song ever.

• Amazing tale time: Did you know that Freddie Mercury once dressed Princess Diana like a male model so he could sneak her into a gay club for a night? I'm writing this on a Coleco, that's how 80s that sentence is. The Telegraph 

• Breaking More Waves has a nine-point introduction to their "new favourite facial-haired US indie rock band" Knesset. Don't just skip to the end, because they are funny, over there.

• Wondering where all the cool indie, smooth sax pop records are? Yeah, I wasn't either, but Fense Post makes a compelling case for Renny Wilson, "the epitome of what Ron Swanson's alter-ego Duke Silver should have created."

• But if you take the other side in that contentious, age-old, sax-versus-banjo battle (brothers against brothers!) What's Protocol  presents to you the amazing Black Horse Motel.

• The CD Critic gives Machineries of Joy, British Sea Power's latest, a good review...

• ...But by God I love a bad review. More than I like a good one. And Bit Candy has a whole section just for bad reviews. My current favourite: "Darwin Deez: This Album Sounds Like His Hair." Fuck, this guy could have a blog just writing titles for bad reviews and I'd read. I'd read.

Today's Swell Tune: Your Life, Your Call

• Band: Junip
• Album: Junip (Release date: 23.4.2013)
• From: Gothenburg, Sweden
• Sound: A gentle coax out of bed...it sucks that she doesn't love you anymore, but dude, you still need to put on pants. It'll be ok.; post-rock, percussive synth. 
• Website: junip.net
• Social: facebook, twitter, YouTube
• Download Free: soundcloud

Justin Vernon Isn't Trying to Make Me Cry, For Once: The Shouting Matches

Bon Iver won't be performing at Coachella, but Justin Vernon will be. This time, the indie frontman and noted passive aggressive Grammy speech-giver  will be backed by a very different group. 

Completely bypassing any timid navel-gazing, bandmates Brian Moen (Peter Wolf Crier), and Phillip Cook (Megafaun) bash out bluesy, old-school rock, as Vernon gives the autotune a rest to howl in his best Otis Redding. The result is The Shouting Matches, a group that's been around and recording since 2008, but hasn't really put much out there, til now.

And how do they do? Well, Mother When's the Judgement Gonna Come has a raucus, I'm-totally-gonna-get-a-staph-infection-in-this-dive-bar feel to it, while the live I Had a Real Good Lover makes me want to lie on the floor, belting out lyrics in a whisky stupor. 

So it sounds awesome. 

Mouthoil, their first EP is due out sometime this year. Probably.

Today's Swell Tune: Dancing with the Tornado

• Band: The Veils
• Album: Time Stays, We Go 
• From: London, England
• Sound: A precision firestorm tearing through a spaghetti western; indie rock. 
• Website: theveils.com
• Social: facebook, twitter
• Free Downlad: here

Weekly Photo Album: The Clash, Debbie Harry, Andy Warhol, Kurt Cobain, Jerry Hall, more

The Clash--In a supermarket!

David Bowie--In the tub.

Debbie Harry with Lou Reed...

...and now with Andy Warhol...

who also hung out with Joe Strummer. Not in a supermarket.

The ex-Mer. Jagger Jerry Hall.

Not to be outdone by Robert Plant.

Janis Joplin backstage.

Patti Smith onstage.

Waylon Jennings and Buddy Holly pose.

Kieth and Mick pretend not to.

Kurt Cobain and Krist Noveselic couldn't pose if they tried.

An astute John Lennon.

  

Monday Morning Cover: VCR

The Antlers

The Original

The xx

Sunday Night Cinema: Jesus Christ Superstar, David Bowie, Louise Quinn & Kid Loco

Heaven On Their Minds:
For Easter, rock opera classic featuring the snappiest of jumpsuits. There is nothing not to love. 


The Stars Are Out Tonight:
With David Bowie, Tilda Swinton and Andre Pejić all in one place, the song doesn't even need to be good. But it is, of course.



Oh Jackie:This collaboration between Louise Quinn (of A Band Called Quinn) and Kid Loco was up for the Scottish Short Film Award at last month's Glasgow Short Film Festival.

Today's Swell Tune: Weight

• Artist: Mikal Cronin
• Album: MCII (Release date: 7.5.2013)
• From: San Francisco, California, United States
• Sound: A shitty morning on a beautiful day; garage, rock.
• Social: bandcamp, soundcloud, twitter

Saturday Night Remix: Winter Is All Over You

into:

Today's Swell Tune: Closer

• Band: Chic Gamine
• Album: Closer 
• From: Winnipeg, Manitoba/ Montreal, Quebec Canada
• Sound: Somewhere, Berry Gordy is getting a boner; soul, pop, R&B.
• Website: chicgamine.com
• Social: facebook, twitter, YouTube
• Buy It: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/chicgamine3

Friday's Forgotten Song: Daylight*

Aesop Rock
Album: Definitive Jux 

2002 

*For the argumentative emailers, I get that you didn't forget 

this song. Neither did I. The Friday feature is just for great  
tracks that are more than a decade old.  Yeah: this song is 
more than a decade old.

The Veruca Valium Vortex: The Hot Toddies' Bottoms Up

I've always had a thing for hazy, garage-style girl groups. The love hatched in the still fledgling years of my musical development: I remember staring longingly at a Veruca Salt album wishing I had the $25 (in 90s Money!) to buy the CD.*  Now music is cheap and easy to get, and I'm all grown up and can have as much as I want. But I'll never forget the ache for that American Thighs album and all the cool I thought it would bring into my life, and I still covet the discovery of those grungy girl bands. Thing is, my angst has waned; he early teens is not the early nineties, and Jimmy Stepchuk is not flirting with my prettier, cooler best friend anymore, so I can afford to lighten up.

That's why I fucking love this EP.

Taken as a whole, this is what it would sound like if Veruca Salt circa American Thighs travelled back in time to 1965, moved to California, popped some pick-me-ups, and cut an album to send  to us, here, in the future. Which, y'know, is probably totally what happened. Science.

The only thing The Hot Toddies did wrong was not make it a full LP.

But I have all five tracks below, for your streaming pleasure. Or buy it.

*Okay, fine: tape.

Today's Swell Tune: The Way We Fall

• Artist: Alela Diane
• Album: About Farewell 
• From: Portland, Oregon, USA
• Sound: The way she sings "You never know when it's the last time/
  I didn't know it was the last time," you're going to feel it; folk, pop.
• Website: aleladiane.com
• Social: facebook, twitter

Boss Stuff on the Interwebs: Wednesday Links 27/03/13

Jane Birkin digs vinyl.

• A New Band A Day did SXSW, talks blogging and freebies. Because they were there. At SXSW. And I wasn't. There. Hmph.
• What's Protocol also has a rundown of SXSW, from 2/3 Goat's POV, because they were there too, and sometimes you just can't make all the shows life is unfair I hate you I'll be in my room. Doorslam.
• Torres' Torres gets a 9/10 from Little Reviews. Great taste, over there, so even if you can't read French, just click play and know that everything's gonna work out fine.
• The Stigma of Synth: My Secret Life with Depeche Mode is an amazing essay. One of my favourite music essays, ever. It's an old piece, but with the new album out, I'd say relevant. PopMatters
• Meanwhile, Color Theory reviews the new album. Succinct and for the devotee.
•  guerolitomusic has an exclusive: the new single Sink, from Inspired and the Sleep. Sweet and crunchy like Corn Pops that don't cut your gums.
• A weekly oldies playlist is starting up. I like oldies. I like playlists. And I like awesome, rambling blog names. So it goes at Mel's Internet Universe Music Blog.
• Speaking of playlists: casamonita has days of boss playlists for you. Days. l have accepted her in my heart as my personal DJ, this week.

Today's Swell Tune: Stand All Night

• Artist: Jil Is Lucky
• Album: In the Tiger's Bed
• From: Paris, France
• Sound: Remember when he did gypsy better than the gypsies do it? This is the 80's better than the 80's did it; alternative pop-rock, indie.
• Website: jilislucky.com
• Video: Here.
• Social: facebook, twitter, YouTube
• Buy: itunes

R.I.P. Scott Hardkiss

Earlier today, DJ and producer Scott Hardkiss passed away unexpectedly, at the age of 43. He had reportedly suffered an aneurysm.

Born Scott Friedel, the early 90's saw him forming the influential Hardkiss with "brothers" Gavin and Robbie. They would lead the way in the west coast/ Bay Area's developing electronica scene with their acid house/trance/psychedelia sounds and legendary warehouse parties, key to the development of the 90's rave scene. He also worked under the moniker God Within, defining an era with 1993's Raincry. 

In the late 90's Hardkiss moved to Brooklyn, where he continued DJing and producing under the name Scott Hardkiss (official site), also working the musical end of film and television projects from the likes of Spike Lee and Wes Anderson. In 2009, he would finally release his well-received debut solo album, Technicolor Dreamer.  I'm most a fan of his countless remixes for artists that include The Flaming Lips and George Clinton.

Goodbye to a musician whose distinct hand effortlessly blurred the lines between what's hip and what's beautiful. Rest assured, he's remixing the tired afterlife into a better place.

Today's Swell Tune: Latter Days

• Band: French Films
• Album: White Orchid (Release date: 5.4.2013)
• From: Espoo/Järvenpää, Finland
• Sound: I described them years ago as "Joy Division as cast by John Hughes". I stand by that; post-punk.
• Social: facebook, soundcloud, twitter, vimeo, YouTube

Monday Morning Cover: Knock on Wood

David Bowie:

The Original:

Eddie Floyd:

Today's Swell Tune: Reset/Restore

• Band: We Were Not the Savages
• EP: We Were Not the Savages
• From: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• Sound: Everyone uses synth in their rock now, but this one actually uses it for good; rock, synth-punk (is that a thing?)
• Buy it: bandcamp (name your price)
• Facebook: facebook

Saturday Night Remix: 2020

YouTube, fuckers.

into:

Today's Swell Tune: Cuckoo

 

• Artist: Rose and the Howling North
• Album: Cuckoo
• From: Leeds, England
• Sound: Nancy Sinatra scoring Tarantino credits.
• Website: Cuckoo Records
• Social: twitter, myspace

Friday's Forgotten Song: Chick Habit

April March
Album: Paris in April

1995 

Today's Swell Tune: Better Things

• Band: Young Rival
• Album: Stay Young
• From: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
• Sound: The Animals. But louder. And Johnny Cash is in the room, for some (awesome) reason.
• Website: http://www.youngrival.com/
• Facebook: facebook