In Case You Missed It...

The Dead Weather on Jimmy Fallon 7/17.

All You Have To Do Is Say ________

Conor Oberst, Jim James, and M. Ward's collaborative project called Monsters of Folk has released their first track called "Say Please" off their self-titled debut album due out September 22nd. Go here to stream and download by simply filling in the blank. It's also posted below for you lazies out there.

Monsters of Folk - "Say Please"

Also, in case you missed it, here's Grizzly Bear live on Letterman last evening.

New The National Cover

The National have covered Polaris' - "Ashamed of the Story I Told" for the tribute/benefit album Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy due out September 29th. Check it out below.

Tracklist for the album:

01 Thom Yorke: "All for the Best"

02 The National: "Ashamed of the Story I Told"

03 Michael Stipe: "Everything’s Coming Undone"

04 David Berkeley: "Love's the Only Thing That Shuts Me Up"

05 Dinosaur Jr.: "The Backyard"

06 Chris Harford and Mr. Ray Neal: "Micon the Icon"

07 Frank Black: "Bill Jocko"

08 Vic Chesnutt: "Little Man"

09 Unbelievable Truth: "Ciao My Shining Star"

10 Butterflies of Love: "I Have Patience"

11 Chris Collingwood of Fountains of Wayne: "Cookie Jar"

12 Frank Turner: "The Quiet One"

13 Rocket From the Tombs: "In Pursuit of Your Happiness"

14 Ben Kweller: "Wake Up Whispering"

15 Josh Rouse: "I Woke Up in the Mayflower"

16 Autumn Defense: "Paradise"

17 Hayden: "Happy Birthday Yesterday"

18 Juliana Hatfield: "We're Not in Charleston Anymore"

19 Mercury Rev: "Sailors and Animals"

20 Elvis Perkins: "She Watches Over Me"

21 Sean Watkins: "A World Away From This One"

The National - "Ashamed of the Story I Told" [Polaris Cover]

Also, be sure to check out Grizzly Bear on Letterman tonight!

Album Stream

The Dodos' new record isn't due out until September 15 via Frenchkiss, but as of right now, you can stream Time to Die for free legally. Frenchkiss launched a new site today that streams the album in an effort to curb the effects of the growing existence of album leaks. Check it out here. Don't want to listen to the whole thing? Here's surely one of the singles. The Dodos - "Fables"

Wilco + Feist

Wilco and Feist will be performing tonight on The Late Show with David Letterman. Be sure to watch and check out their song below from Wilco (The Album).

Wilco and Feist - "You and I"

Surprise!

Per yourstru.ly:

We’ve all been there…You’re sitting in a Mexican restaurant, polishing off a monstrous burrito, orange grease dripping from your fingers, when suddenly, six sombrero’d individuals burst through the door and start serenading you without warning or remorse.At Yours Truly, there’s only one thing we love more than burritos and that’s great music. So we decided to combine our dueling passions for a new series we call, Banditos. The inaugural episode of Banditos featuresDent May and His Magnificent Ukulele singing “Oh, Paris” to the unsuspecting patrons of Tacqueria Cancun, home of the greatest super tacos known to man.I met Dent, Tommy, Carr and Bobby at the Independent, where they were scheduled to play their first ever SF show as part of a great Saturday Night bill during Noise Pop ‘09. With Young Jeezy’s Thug Motivation blaring through the van’s speakers, I stuffed myself in the way-back seat to explain our idea of barging in on burrito enthusiasts just like a Mariachi band, only without the guitarrón and tip hat. The guys nodded in loose agreement (they may have been nodding at Jeezy’s killer adlibs) and passed the short trip to the mission by talking about their tour, and singing the “Full House” theme song.

Yours Truly Presents: BANDITOS Episode 1 with Dent May & His Magnificent Ukelele from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

New Modest Mouse

Off their EP due out August 4th, stream Modest Mouse's new single "Perpetual Motion Machine" exclusively over at SPIN.com.

New Video: The Dead Weather - "Treat Me Like Your Mother"

Wanna see Jack White and Alison Mosshart unload machine gun rounds at each other? Directed by Jonathan Glazer. Watch below.

The Dead Weather - Treat Me Like Your Mother

Do Yourself A Favor...

...and please, beyond any shadow of a doubt, pick up this record. It is 100% pop gold. Overlooked by the masses for too long, Camera Obscura, can't be ignored with this record. Off their latest release My Maudlin Career, "French Navy" and "Honey In The Sun" are available below.

Camera Obscura - "French Navy"

Camera Obscura - "Honey In The Sun"

Songs About Time II

The Rentals continued their year long Songs About Time project with the release of their second four song E.P. It's Time to Come Home. You can pick up the EP for four bucks or stream it for free along with the first EP and numerous videos at www.therentals.com.

Back to the Way It Should Be

Jay Z is not the only one fed up with the way hip-hop music seems to be heading. D.C. rapper WALE (pronounced WAL-AE) has released his 2009 mixtape Back to the Feature which appropriately takes rap music back to the where the future of hip-hop is. It's an aptly named album seeing as WALE is one of the highly touted MC's in the "freshman class" of hip-hop, a group that seems to be "trying to preserve hip-hop" to put it in WALE's own words. As far as I am concerned WALE is the next best thing in the hip-hop world. He has an unbelievable taste for lyric as well as a pretty firm understanding of how music is functioning in this new digital age. Need evidence of this? Feel free at anytime during this post to go HERE and download Back to the Feature for free. You can find last years mixtape The Mixtape about Nothin for free as well. Don't let his confidence, "I remain a giant and you Jeremy Shockey," turn you off. The man has a work ethic to back up his lyrical abrasiveness. You can find his newest hit posted on the playlist, but I strongly recommend heading over to his myspace page and picking up what he has to offer.

Avett's Free Download

The Avett Brothers are offering a free download of their first single "I and Love and You" off their forthcoming album of the same name.  Get it here.  Stream it below.  Be sure to check them out when they visit The Lyric Theatre in Oxford, MS on September 22.

The Avett Brothers - "I and Love and You"

2 Weeks Til Prom

Behold the Grizzly Bear and Lil' Wayne mash up featuring their songs "2 Weeks" and "Prom Queen".  Also Grizzly Bear's "While You Wait For The Others" has been added to the playlist.

Grizzly Bear + Lil' Wayne - "2 Weeks Til Prom"

The Dead Weather Stream

Stream the new Dead Weather album Horehound here fa free!!!  Thanks to our friend Holley Yarber for the heads up.

Death of Autotune?

Not according to the debut LP from Discovery, the dynamic collaboration between Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij and Ra Ra Riot's Wes Miles. The debut release from this collaboration is appropriately entitled LP, and is packed full of synth and reverb and yes, the Jay-Z detested autotune. All in all however, I have found Discovery to be quite enjoyable and certainly worth the listen. This is not your standard synth fronted indie rock band, but seems to mesh a little bit more of the current hip-hop sound behind their soaring vocals. There is a fantastic remix of Jackson 5's "I Want You Back" on there that I think everyone should listen too. The album is available for stream here, and you can hear their song "Osaka Loop Line" in the playlist.

RUBIK

When it comes to the Finnish indie-rock scene, there is really only one band that you need to look for. Rubik, whose US debut Dada Bandits is due out September 15, has been a mainstay on the European music scene with their debut album Bad Conscience Patrol. While sharing territory with the likes of Faith No More, Pmmp, and Tapio Rautavarra leaves Rubik a bit out of place, they are proud to find their art-rock actually has owned a little real-estate in the oversaturated market of mayhem that has come to define the metal heavy Finnish charts. Dada Bandits has a true art sound with numerous instruments making appearances and Artturi Tairi's vocals floating over with a persistent edge. I am looking for this band to make a serious splash in upcoming months with a sound that is really hard to dislike or disregard. Their US based publicity company has been kind enough to give Grit Music an mp3 stream off of their new album, enjoy it below and look for the album out this fall.

Rubik - "Wasteland"

2nd Annual July 4th Fest

If you were there last year you already know...this will rock. All day Saturday, July 4th at the Lyric in Oxford, MS from 3:00pm till 12:00am, we will be boozing for America while you gawk at your favorite bands in the air conditioning.

confirmed bands:

Dead Gaze
Dog Magic
The Black and Whites
The Sleepwalkers
St. Andrew of the Blood & Guts
Bass Drum of Death
The Da Vincis
The Quills
Krapp's Last Tape
Airships
Young Buffalo

18+
$7.00

The King of Pop

MICHAEL JACKSON (1958 - 2009)

Another king is dead. He will not be forgotten.

Summer Repeat

KENNA - New Sacred Cow

This 2003 release was one heck of a gateway drug for electronica music in my life. I worked out to it, I listened to it in my car, I did homework to it, etc. Anyone at Alpine in the summer of 2004 should remember this CD which was a shower period staple for 60+ consecutive days. Kenna is the brainchild of Kenna Zemudken, an Ethiopian-born American who was raised on U2's The Joshua Tree. New Sacred Cow mixes Zemudken's vocals with poppy electro-synth to create an energetic album that sticks in your head. If you have never heard of this artist or this album, now is the time to do so. Don't let the summer pass before you lay by the pool with a copy of this album playing in the background. Sadly, since I am in Peru right now, I am not able to embed his music videos due to copyright restrictions in this country, but you can check out videos for "Hell Bent" and "Freetime" to get a good taste of his music or just check out "Freetime" on the playlist. Enjoy!

LoveLikeFire

Straight from the source: Formed in 2006, LoveLikeFire released two EPs, Bed of Gold (2006) and An Ocean in the Air (2007), which have garnered regional love in the San Francisco area and a rapidly growing fanbase across the United States. In early 2008, LoveLikeFire signed to Heist or Hit Records in the UK. They spent last August recording Tear Ourselves Away (Their debut LP) at Tiny Telephone in San Francisco; the revered studio owned by fellow San Franciscan musician John Vanderslice. The record was produced by Bill Racine (Rogue Wave, Mates of State) and will be released later this summer (August 24) in the UK and is TBA in the US.

Lots of hype following this San Fran quartet. Ann Yu's vocals provide a rough edge to the poppy alt-rock sound. Track one off of the album is available below.

Bonnaroo Breakdown!

So Bonnaroo 2009 is over and done and speculations are already brewing about what next years festival will be like. I saw lots of bands and heard lots of good music so here is a list of the top 5 shows I saw along with a worst and surprise artist award.

5. Andrew Bird - Although not as lively as some of the other acts of the weekend (NIN and The Mars Volta) Bird's instrumentation and talent left me in awe. I venture to say that he is one of the more innovative and talented musicians of our day and age. Numerous times Bird strummed his violin like it was a guitar and looped different violin and guitar riffs together until he created an orchestral barrage for the audience to try and decipher. He was literally stunning to observe not to mention his songs are great.

4. Bon Iver - I was very impressed with this band's ability to bring their limited number of songs to life on the stage. Justin Vernon's singing was great, and the band kept me interested despite its slower paced style. I could almost transcend myself from the sweat soaked tent to the feel of a little intimate bar, well almost. Elvis Perkins and Dearland joined the band on stage for a couple of songs giving the show an added bonus of brass instrumentation.


3. Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen - The boss' show did nothing but bolster the already high expectations that I had for seeing him live. Springsteen, along with his E Street Band, rocked the Bonnaroo crowd for almost four hours. "The Rising," "Thunder Road," "Born to Run,"and the venerable "Outlaw Pete" all made appearances and an encore including "Glory Days" and "Dancing in the Dark" kept the 50,000+ dancing and singing on into the night. His mid show rendition of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" was not bad either.

2. David Byrne - David Byrne's 57 year old body ran around and performed with five white clad backup dancers longer and with more intensity than my 24 year old body could possibly have endured. His encore which included "Take Me to the River" and "Burning Down the House" was outstanding.

1. The best live performance of Bonnaroo 2009 goes to Athens, GA band Of Montreal. While David Byrne only slightly missed the number one spot, Of Montreal pleased a sweat soaked crowd with a veritable psychodelic broadway show complete with christmas trees, gas masks, white monsters, tigers, large armed creatures, and pigs to name a few. The onstage act was as entertaining as Kevin Barnes and crew who played a good set, but left out a few of my personal essentials. During the final 12 minute tirade to "The Past is a Grotesque Animal," Of Montreal broke every guitar, bass, drum, and keyboard on the stage, threw the remains into the audience, then flung themselves into the audience while the music dissipated. It was a great performance.

Surprise award - Crystal Castles - this boy/girl duo translated their loud and dynamic elctroclash to the stage with ease. The show was LOUD and raucous with glow sticks and glowing things flying through the air the entire show. They should have replaced the next band.

Worst show award - MGMT - they were given the two in the morning slot for one reason and one reason only, to give the 30,000 drug-enduced stragglers a dance party that would get them to sweat out their chemicals and allow for a good nights sleep. They failed. The show was uninspired, boring, and sounded bad. Not sure what the overflow crowd thought, but I left after three very bland songs. Not to mention, they opened with the same song ex-whigs member Hank Sullivant's new band Kuroma ended with.

Summer Sequence II

Our friend Sam Lane has dropped his second summer mixtape under the pseudonym Cats Meow. The aptly titled Summer Sequence II is 37 minutes of summer feelgoodness which includes RC Furlow's single "A Simple Man." You can grab the mix HERE for free. For an in depth dive into the mix visit the Cats Purring blog.

New Dead Gaze EP

Our boy, RC Furlow aka Dead Gaze, has been pretty busy as of late. He has just released a new EP called Small Lava just 3 months after unveiling his debut LP The Pride of Calling Panther Lake!. He has also agreed to have his new EP pushed by Dent May's Taylor, MS based label, Cats Purring. You can download the new EP for free here for a limited time. Also, check the sidebar to the right to download and we've also re-upped the link for the LP there as well.

Be sure to check out Dead Gaze's recent interview with PartyNice.

Jay-Z Drops Bold New Track

Apologies for the lack of posts over the last few days. Summer is proving to be more difficult than I thought it would be as far as posting goes. I am headed to Bonnaroo tomorrow and then on to Peru so it may be July before I really get to some solid posts. Once again, apologies for that. I did however feel obligated to share Jay-Z's newest release which I heard on the radio a few days back.
Jay-Z's "D.O.A. (Death of Autotune)" is really more of a declaration to the rap world rather than a new track to send to MTV and 99 jamz (for those of you in Jackson, MS). In it Jay-Z goes after rap's current trend of autotuned dance jams and raps, "You rapper's singin too much, get back to rappin, you're T-Painin' too much." He goes after Young Jeezy and lil Wayne for basically adding a verse to every song that is being produced these days. It's also interesting to note that this track is produced by Kanye West, whose last effort 808s and Heartbreaks, was essentially an autotune album. Check it out below, it has the hip-hop world buzzing.

mp3s to peep

A new mash-up surfaced a week or so ago that takes Animal Collective's "Guy's Eyes" and splices it with The Beach Boys' "All I Wanna Do". Check it out below. Also, Animal Collective is playing at The Library (eh?) Saturday June 6th in Oxford, MS.

Animal Collective vs. The Beach Boys - "All I Wanna Do (Is Just What My Body Needs To)

Andrew Bird released a B-sides EP called Fitz and Dizzyspells which takes familiar tracks from Noble Beast and shows them in their more stripped down stages. Check out the song below which is a simpler reconstruction of the song "Anonanimal" renamed as "See the Enemy".

Andrew Bird - "See the Enemy"

Conan takes over The Tonight Show with musical guest Pearl Jam tonight.