Saturday, April 5, 2008
 

Before I start in on the music writing, let me say this: I’m mulling over a few different formats for this weekly post, and I’ve yet to find one I like all the way through.  I know want you to have free music, and I know that I want the opportunity to shower praise or befuddled shock (John Laird strongly prefers us to not hate, so I can only feign hate throw befuddled shock) on a variety of different musical subjects.  So, this is probably what will happen: each week I’ll write some excuse as to why I haven’t locked down a format, almost always finally confessing to the fact that I’m “lazy” or “tired” and want to eschew the formatted blog for another week.  This will go on for many many moons, and then I’ll slowly stop apologizing and you suckers will have to live with the jumbled collection of disorganized thoughts on music I call writing.  Wow!  What a future that’s in store for you! Thus, no real format this week, I’m “lazy” and “tired” and I’ll most certainly have a formatted blog for your perusal next week.  For now though, enjoy my thoughts on these songs. Smiles!

:The Wars Of 1812 - Radios Unsigned:  Let me be honest here, I’ve been a little obsessive about Wisconsin-based record label Amble Down.  Any chance I get I’m perusing their website, digging in to their catalogue, writing them vaguely threatening emails demanding free music, calling their bands at strange hours of the night, bidding on hair clippings online – you know, music dork stuff.  And this band, The Wars of 1812 is just one of the many reasons why Amble Down gets my creepy-stalker mojo rising.  It’s got a hint of Wilco on the edges but as a whole The Wars create a distinctly different sound.  There’s a sort of top-down, hair-blowing-in-the-wind sort of feel to this road-trip related track, and it knocks me in my nostalgic special parts and gets me yearning for destinations unknown.   The album, Status Quo Ante Bellum was just released on the bestest record label… in Wisconsin… that I’ve heard of, Amble Down.

:Bell - It's Oh So Quiet (Bjork Cover):  I’m feeling quite honest today, so I’ll get this off my chest too: I have problems getting in to a lot of female-fronted bands.  Ladies, I’m sorry, I don’t know what it is, but female vocals have a tendency to turn me away.  Throw things, hit me, fill the comment boxes with your scorn – I just can’t help it.  So inject my ass with estrogen and call me shocked that I was so blown away by this Bjork-cover by singer-songwriter Bell.   It has the same restrained musical-style craziness in the open bars as the original, but when the beat drops, it’s like a hundred pounds of David Banner bass thump, drum-punching you in the head and it just knocks me on my pasty ass.   We can all thank Stereogum for this track, as they recently put together a star-studded line-up of indy rockers to completely cover Bjork’s best album, Post.  We can also thank Bell, for drop-kicking a series of stupid notions related to sex and music right out of my gourd.

:Man Man - Hurly Burly:  I’ve already written a shit-ton today, so I’ll be brief about the freak-funky wackiness that is Man Man’s new single.  It’s sort of sexy but not in a JT sort of sexy, more like a your friend from college who was fat and sweated too much, but somehow pulled marathon “humpin’” sessions with all the good-looking ladies on campus.  He probably was sort of balding and had a beard, and poofy chest hair, and you were grossed out when he ate noodles.  You know the one, you dirty dirty little freak.  Well, they sound like that, and their new album Rabbit Habits drops next week.

- Noah Sanders -



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