A great band you probably missed for about 10 years

So this last post for the month of October is dedicated to Luna, a fantastic band that my brothers Daniel and Peter got me into. Yay for recommendation month!

Witty caption

Unfortunately, Luna broke up in 2005, but they're still one of my favorites. They're sorta dreamy, indie rock/pop from the 1990's and 2000's. Dean Wareham, the lead singer, is from New Zealand, but they recorded a bunch of their albums in NYC (right near where I used to live, on Avenue B--- whoot whoot!). I think they were much bigger in Europe than they were here. They made it sorta-kinda-big here in the US, enough to land a pretty sweet opportunity to open for the Velvet Underground on their European tour. In fact, that might have been the spark for them to record a *great* cover of John Lennon's song (which was covered by Lou Reed) "Jealous Guy."See if you can find it yourselves. I have no idea what album it's from (sorry!).

So, the last GOOD SONG for this month is Luna's song "Speedbumps" from their final album "Rendezvous" (2004). It has a very fun intro and beat to it and Dean Wareham's distinctive voice really works well here. The lyrics are about a sense of uncertainty, moving without any clear sense of where, and dissatisfaction.

"I am tired of all of us...

Tell me who I'm supposed to be.
It's raining rain.
It's raining snow.
Tell me where you wanna go."

There are a TON of Luna songs on youTube, but they're mostly live. Check those out if you like what you hear.

By the way, Dean Wareham later married the bassist, Britta Philips, and now they record their own stuff together, as Dean and Britta. Aw.

BUY LUNA'S MUSIC HERE: Luna!

If you like this song, you might also like:

The Go-Betweens
The Lucksmiths
Margot & the Nuclear So-and-So's
Nouvelle Vague

Thus endeth Recommendation Month on AGSIHTF.

Over and out,
Anna

P.S. Happy Halloween!

Bang Bang Bang!

So Recommendation month continues on the AGSIHTF... This week, though, I'm kinda cheating. I know Last.fm isn't really a friend of mine, but I just had to give this website credit for introducing me to so much good music.

The GOOD SONG for this week is FRANKIE'S GUN by the Felice Brothers (I know, I know I just posted about another brothers group, but this one is different I swear).
I don't remember exactly how I came across them on Last.fm, to be honest, but at this point it doesn't matter. They are FANTASTIC!
And what's weirder is that they are from Palenville, New York, which is about 20 minutes from my own house in upstate NY. Palenville is pretty much a nothing little town, so I give it kudos for producing these badasses.

Ok boys I know you're from the sticks, but
it's not THAT hard to find a shower.

How are they badasses, you might ask? Ok, example of their badassery: in 2008 they played at the Newport Folk Festival (of Bobby D infamy) and a huge rainstorm cut off their power. Instead of wussing out and waiting for the power to come back or just cancel, they played a totally acoustic show, jumping off the stage, and mud-puddling it out to the soaking wet and happy crowd.

The band consists of David Turbeville on drums/vocals, Christmas (that is his real name... he used to be a traveling dice player) on bass, and the two brothers Ian (vocals/guitar/piano) and James Felice (accordion/piano/organ), with occasional additions of washboard, horn section, and fiddle. Another brother, Simone Felice, used to be part of the band as well, but left amicably to start his own thang called The Duke and the King (characters from Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn). Although they hail from the Catskills, they moved to NY a few years ago and started playing their ramshackle music in the subway stations. Since then, they've made it big(ger).

Frankie's Gun in particular is a great song. Sounds like the story of a guy in an old-school Mafia drug or booze run, who is taking money off the top to buy his mom and sweetheart nice things. I like the line:

"I saw a man hit my mom one time, really
I hurt him so damn bad
I had to hide in Jersey."


Here is a link to a great live version as well: Frankie's Gun Live. Yay for accordions! I am going to go see them play live at the Rock n Roll Hotel here in DC this coming Friday (the 22nd), along with Adam Haworth Stephens. Nice! Anyone in the area is welcome to join me.

BUY THEIR MUSIC HERE: Felice Bros

If you like them you might also like:

Bob Dylan
Pete Molinari
Avett Brothers
The Duke & The King
Old Crow Medicine Show (they toured with them!)
Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band (they also toured with them!)

Over and out,
Anna

Tales of Yore and Country Lore

On continues Recommendation Month on AGSIHTF!

This week's shout out goes to Jessie K. for her awesome recommendation of Seth Lakeman.

How he manages to play the fiddle so well with cold hands,
the world will never know.

Seth Lakeman is a pretty sweet (read: fantastic and award-winning) fiddler from Buckland Monachorum, Devon, England (read: middle of nowhere, English countryside). He originally made it relatively big on the British folk scene while performing with his brothers Sam and Sean (c'mon Mr. and Mrs. Lakeman, you couldn't have picked Gilbert or Theodore or something?).

In 2004 he released his album "Kitty Jay" which was a big success in England, and earned him a Mercury Prize nomination. Many of the songs on the album are folk songs based on stories, legends, and songs from his native Devon. Some of them are a bit morbid/spooky. In fact, the album gets its title from a local legend about a young servant girl who killed herself. A bit depressing, yes, but hey! perfect for getting into the Halloween spirit (ha! spirit! no pun intended).

The pleasant British countryside,
dotted with picturesque suicide graves.

Here is a link to the audio of today's GOOD SONG on youtube, but there are plenty of cool live versions to check out, too. --------- >  Kitty Jay

If you like this song, you might also check out:
(OK, so I wasn't sure what to write here, and so I checked Last.fm to see what it had to say.
Apparently, the following bands are closely linked to Seth Lakeman musically)

The Imagined Village
Peatbog Faeries
3 Daft Monkeys
Shooglenifty
Roddy Woomble


!!!!!!

CLEARLY, Seth has to get a cooler band name, because these freaking blow him outta the water. I think Shooglenifty is my favorite.

BUY HIS MUSIC HERE: Seth Lakeman

Over and out,
Anna

Good Advice

So I've decided this month is recommendation month. Meaning GOOD SONGS that were recommended to yours truly by some of the cool cats I know.


So the GOOD SONG  for today is Spanish Pipedream, originally by John Prine, but covered here by The Avett Brothers (one of my favorite groups EVER). It's from a John Prine tribute album called Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows. Here's the link to the song: Spanish Pipedream
Kudos to Dan C. for recommending this whole album to me.

John Prine: the other "Man in black."

It includes some of the best advice I've seen in a long time:


"Blow up your T.V., throw away your paper
Go to the country, build you a home,
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches,
Try an' find Jesus on your own."

The Avett Brothers: Man in black. And man in Mickey Mouse.

John Prine was a pretty cool dude, a fantastic country/folk singer-songwriter in the best way. He was almost (but not quite) a contemporary of Bob Dylan's. He co-wrote "You Never Even Called Me By My Name," which is truly one the best and funniest country songs ever written and includes what is quite possibly my favorite country verse ever:


"Well, I was drunk the day my Mom got outta prison.
And I went to pick her up in the rain.
But, before I could get to the station in my pickup truck
She got runned over by a damned old train."


Ok, not good advice. But still funny. 
Anyhoo, Prine is great. And the Avett Brothers are, too. They have a *huge* cult following, especially down south. Their blend of country-folk-rock-bluegrass-amazingness gets me every time.
Listen to the song. It's a lot of fun. And check out the rest of the tribute album, too. All the songs are covers of Prine songs, by various different bands, so there are a lot of musical styles and genres on there (although there is a definite focus on country/folk, especially the Nashville type), so even if you don't love Prine's style, you might like it anyway.


BUY THE ALBUM HERE: Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows



If you like this song, you might also like:


Neil Young
David Allan Coe
Bob Dylan
The Felice Brothers
Justin Townes Earle
Old Crow Medicine Show
Deer Tick


Over and out,
Anna


P.S. This quote from an Avett Bros. interview will give you an idea why I love them:
" 'I hope truth exists,” says Scott.
Seth looks over with a hard, no-bullshit firmness.
“Music without honesty or hope will leave you empty. We try to avoid that emptiness.' "

Talking Like a Jerk

OK, so because of a sweet hook-up from a friend of a friend, I got to go to Virgin Mobile Free Fest at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD, where a whole bunch of bands played outdoors on three different stages. The one I was most excited about (beating out even Yeasayer and Thievery Corporation) was LCD Soundsystem!


I was not disappointed. They played a FANTASTIC set. You can't listen to them and not move. There was one guy in front of me who looked like he had pogo sticks for legs. For a solid hour, which is impressive.


I am aware that LCD Soundsystem (aka James Murphy) is relatively well-known, so this post is not going to be about introducing you to a good song, per say, but rather more of a reminder that the song is good. 

The GOOD SONG for today is Dance Yourself Clean. This song is long, just a warning. But it rewards patient listeners. Halfway through, it REALLY ramps it up.

I suppose one could, potentially, "dance yourself clean"
in a bathtub. Good thinking, James.

What I found interesting was that in between sets concert-goers could text messages to be displayed on huge mega-screens by the stages. Most of the messages were silly or stupid, some were vulgar, some were nonsensical in-jokes, but a few were thought-provoking.  TWO of them touted LCD Soundsystem as the "voice of this generation." I honestly don't know how I feel about that. Or rather, I think I might believe it, but I'm not sure whether I like what our generation is saying. His lyrics are actually very interesting for an "electronica/dance" group, but there's also a real sense of jaded-ness (is that a word?) and disillusionment. Maybe that's a good thing. I don't know. 
But I have to admit I like the lyrics to Dance Yourself Clean, which includes this verse:


"Talking like a jerk,
Except that you're an actual jerk,
and living proof,
that sometimes friends are mean."


And also these words:


"Every night's a different story
It's a thirty-car pile-up with you
Everybody's getting younger
It's the end of an era, it's true."


Although perhaps his song Losing My Edge is the one that most speaks ABOUT this generation (although perhaps not from within said generation), which is particularly funny for those into music. The whole song is about how he is losing his edge, his "cool," his "hipsterness" to those in the younger generation, who idealize and idolize music from the years that they never even witnessed.
The whole lyrics are here, but these are a few choice lines that I like:


"I'm losing my edge. 
To all the kids in Tokyo and Berlin. 
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Brooklynites in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties. 
But I'm losing my edge. 
I'm losing my edge, but I was there."

and

"I used to work in the record store. 

I had everything before anyone. 
I was there in the Paradise Garage DJ booth with Larry Levan. 
I was there in Jamaica during the great sound clashes. 
I woke up naked on the beach in Ibiza in 1988. 
But I'm losing my edge to better-looking people with better ideas and more talent. 
And they're actually really, really nice. "

Well anyway, I'm sorry to hear that Mr. Murphy feels that he is losing his edge, but he still makes darn good dance music.


But tell me, dear readers, who do *you* think is the voice of our generation?

BUY HIS MUSIC HERE: LCD Soundsystem

If you like this song, you might also like:

Daft Punk

Hot Chip

!!!

Lonely Dear

Broken Social Scene

Caribou (formerly Manitoba)

Over and out,

Anna

Bluegrass and Tea Leaves

Bluegrass music has been around long enough now for musicians to mess around with it. Play with it. Have some fun. Combine it with rock n' roll. Hip-hop. Gospel. Country. Folk. Classical.

But bluegrass combined with traditional Chinese music? I believe Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet are the first ones to brave that attempt.

And WOW! Does it work!

Abigail understands that liking strange toys is a
 prerequisite for appreciating Asian cultures.

A little explanation: Abigail Washburn is a banjo player and singer from Illinois. Straight-up American. Her bluegrass group called Uncle Earl was a big hit on the scene. However, she spent enough time in living in China after college to learn Mandarin and begin recording in it post-Uncle Earl. In 2004 she went on tour in Tibet with the uber-accomplished members of her quartet, which includes Béla Fleck on banjo, Casey Driessen on violin, and Ben Sollee on cello.

The GOOD SONG for today is Kangding Quingge (Old Timey Dance Party), which is such a fun song. The cello is fantastic. And then she starts singing in Chinese, accompanied by a banjo! It starts to get funkier as you go on. I wish I had something to say about the lyrics... but I have absolutely no idea what she's saying. She's got a nice voice though. 


BUY HER MUSIC HERE: Abigail Washburn!

If you like this song, you might also like:

Joanna Newsom

Chatham County Line

Béla Fleck

Uncle Earl

Chinese music???

Over and out,

Anna

Explorers, Lovers, and Poets

So Josh Ritter is amazing, basically.

I first heard him on his second album entitled the Golden Age of Radio, which was fantastic. He just released his sixth studio album, entitled So Runs the World Away (catch that quote? Hamlet Act II, Scene III, line 208). The album is darker and moodier than his previous work, with real glimpses of beauty. 

Not a morning person, Josh?

So, the GOOD SONG for today is my favorite off the album (which is saying a lot), a song called Another New World.  

Give it a listen-- it's long, but incredibly moving. It's a love song. It's an elegy. It's a ballad. It's a cautionary tale. It's a... a.... amazing.

It's about an explorer who goes off the try to discover another new world at the North Pole in his beloved ship the Annabel Lee. Unfortunately, things go a bit awry for the poor old explorer. 

Here are the lyrics, in case you're interested...  Another New World Lyrics

I think my favorite line is:

"So I said, "All I've got are my guts and my God,"

 then I paused, "and the Annabel Lee.' "


In case you haven't guessed by now, the song is loosely inspired by the poem "Annabel Lee" by Poe. They are very different story lines, but both are about losing what you love the most. 

A mourning person.

Apparently, Ritter has said in an interview that, "The Edgar Allan Poe poem wasn't in my head initially, but I must've had an experience with it a long time ago, because it emerged from the bottom of my brain." Yeah, Poe's works tend to lurk in our brains for a long time. Well, they do for me at least.


BUY HIS MUSIC HERE: Josh Ritter!

If you like this song, you might also check out:

The Decemberists

The Frames

Langhorne Slim

Bob Dylan

Jakob Dylan

Leonard Cohen

Over and out,
Anna


P.S. A quote of Josh's from a recent interview struck me as funny and relating to an earlier post of mine. He is talking about religion here, and how people interpret the Gospels, FYI.
"But maybe it’s really holding a mirror up to yourself, and how you interpret something tells you a lot about yourself. If you think A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O’Connor is funny, are you being honest with yourself, or are you just a mean person?"