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July 22, 2004
Late Summer rock recommendations or, What I've Been Listening to Incessantly at Work
Realizing that I spend about 75% of my waking hours either in front of a computer or at least within earshot of one (especially since I have a nice wireless speaker), last summer I subscribed to Real's Rhapsody service which allows me on-demand access to about 400,000 songs. Since then, I've saved countless dollars and listened to things I never would have heard otherwise.
The IT guy at work let me install the Rhapsody software on my work PC so I have access in the office as well as at home. One day last week I put all the good Bowie albums on shuffle and listened to them all day. The day before it was the entire Roxy Music catalog. I've also had days where I played all the New Order albums, the Joy Division box set, the Sonic Youth catalog or a mishmash of British shoegazers (Swervedriver, Slowdive, Ride, My Bloody Valentine, Lush).
Some of the things I would have never listened to otherwise that turned out to be pretty good include Joss Stone (the 16-year old British blue-eyed soul singer who covered "Fell in Love with a Girl"), Shelby Lynne (former Nashville covergirl turned maverick singer-songwriter), Fiery Furnaces (another girl/boy duo, but with a different sound), Japancakes (a sort of drony, instrumental country group from Athens, GA), and scores of others.
And this brings me to my recent fave listens.
The Thermals, a stripped-down, emotional (but not emo) punk band with extra huge and crunchy chords.
The Walkmen, an indie rock band with anthemic songs sorta like early U2 but with more innovation. An interesting side note: I heard them on the radio on the way to work one day and suddenly noticed my muffler wasn't making it's usual racket. It turns out one of their songs has bass on the same frequency with my muffler.
The Secret Machines. These guys are really, really good. Sorta proggy (the first song on the record is 9 minutes long), sorta shoegazy, sorta Flaming Lips-y. They make prodigious use of analog tape echoes combined with driving drums and stacatto guitars. This might be my favorite of the summer.
Posted by Half-Cocked at July 22, 2004 10:48 PM
Comments
Check out the newer of the compilations between the F*cking Champs and Trans Am. It's called F*cking Am. I have heard one track so far (think I got the mp3 from Drag City website). Very cool.
And nice choice with Japancakes.
Have you ever gotten into American Analog Set?
Posted by: Justin at July 26, 2004 10:50 PM
American Analog Set? Not familiar but I'll give 'em a listen this afternoon.
Haven't heard F*cking Am either. An old roommate of mine plays drums for a Drag City band so usually I'm up to date on that stuff. I'll have to check into it.
Posted by: Steve at July 27, 2004 01:28 PM