Friday Fix

Hiss Golden Messenger

I hope everyone's been having a good week... or at least a better week than last week! It's time for the weekly run down!

Some songs I think you should listen to:

1. Today's song you really should check out: @theavettbros (well, Seth) and Jessica Lea Mayfield: "Twilight" #todayssong

   — Karthik Subramanian (@ksub2000) November 11, 2016

2. Today's song you really should check out: @FirstAidKitBand "Walk Unafraid" #todayssong

   — Karthik Subramanian (@ksub2000) November 12, 2016

3. Today's song you really should check out: @foxygentheband "America" #todayssong

   — Karthik Subramanian (@ksub2000) November 14, 2016

4. Today's song you really should check out: @hissgldnmssr "Biloxi" #todayssong

   — Karthik Subramanian (@ksub2000) November 14, 2016

5. Today's song you really should check out: @passionpit "Where the Sky Hangs" #todayssong

   — Karthik Subramanian (@ksub2000) November 15, 2016

6. Today's song you really should check out: @wearexylo "Fool's Paradise" #todayssong

   — Karthik Subramanian (@ksub2000) November 16, 2016

7. Throwback Thursday Special:

   Today's song you really should go back and check out: @springsteen "Glory Days" #todayssong #tbt

   — Karthik Subramanian (@ksub2000) November 17, 2016

Album of the week: Leonard Cohen, You Want It Darker

There are legends, and there are those who the legends call legends: Leonard Cohen was the latter. His final album, "You Want It Darker," is a perfect farewell to his fans and to anyone who describes themselves as a fan of music. It's a necessary jaunt through the Kubler-Ross stages of grief, and if you don't cry while listening to it, I'm not even sure I want to know you...

"You Want It Darker"

All the tracks shine, but the title track is one of the weightiest songs you'll ever put into your ear-holes. He was ready to go, even if we weren't ready to lose him. It's our fault (or at least mine) for waiting until he was gone to listen to it. If you're looking to get it on vinyl, I'd suggest going to Vinyl Me, Please. (While this is shameless product placement, they're not sponsors/advertisers of the site, and I'm just an enthusiastic customer who has used them to augment my vinyl collection with really cool and unique pressings.)

Shows coming up in DC in the next three months that you should go to, and I might go to:

Monday 11/21 - Lincoln Theatre - Ingrid Michaelson * - I'll be there
Tuesday 11/22 - Lincoln Theatre - Ingrid Michaelson
Saturday 11/26 - Warner Theater- Brian Setzer Orchestra
Tuesday 11/29 - Gypsy Sally's - Girls, Guns, and Glory * - I'll be there
Wednesday 11/30 - 9:30 Club - Starfucker * - I'll be there
Wednesday 12/7 and Thursday 12/8 - Fillmore Silver Spring - 94.7 FM Not So Silent Night (two days)
Wednesday 12/7 - Fillmore Silver Spring  - 94.7 NSSN Day 1: Mike Posner, Lindsey Stirling, and JoJo
Thursday 12/8 - Fillmore Silver Spring  - 94.7 NSSN Day 2: Third Eye Blind w. Wrable, The Rua
Thursday 12/8 - Birchmere - The Dan Band
Saturday 12/10 - Black Cat - Reverend Horton Heat
Sunday 12/11 - Hamilton Live - Edwin McCain
Monday 12/12 - Birchmere - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
Thursday 12/15 - Birchmere - Carbon Leaf
Thursday 12/15 - 9:30 Club - Thievery Corporation
Sunday 12/18 - Fillmore Silver Spring - Lauryn Hill
Tuesday 12/20 - Hamilton Live - Los Lobos
Friday 12/23 - Hamilton Live - Virginia Coalition
Friday 12/23 - Fillmore Silver Spring - 80s and 90s Dance Party with DJ BIZ MARKIE!
Friday 12/30 - Hamilton Live - Old 97s * - I'll be there
Saturday 12/31 - Hamilton Live - Old 97s
Wednesday 1/4/17 - Hamilton Live - $20-25 - Cherry Poppin Daddies - WITH A DANCE FLOOR!
Thursday 1/12/17 - Echostage - Run the Jewels * - I'll be there
Friday 1/20/17 - Birchmere - Ricky Skaggs
Saturday 1/21/17 - Birchmere - Ricky Skaggs
Friday 1/27/17 - Howard Theatre - Ginuwine
Sunday 1/29/17 - Birchmere - Phil Vassar

Stations you should create this week:

1. Nickel Creek

If you like newer folk music, this band is for you. Having now gone their own separate ways to the Punch Brothers, Fiction Family, the Watkins Family Band, I'm With Her, Works Progress Administration, and so many more, this band is a perfect starting point to get into. As an added bonus, when you're perusing music videos or seeing him live in any of his current bands, there's nothing like the pure joy on Chris Thile's face when he treats his mandolin like a heavy metal axe. If you want to add variety to this station, just throw in the bands listed above, but honestly, this is a strong seed.

2. Warren Zevon

If you want the perfect seed artist to create a damn fine rock 'n' roll station, Warren Zevon is your man. This station will give you Springsteen, Tom Petty, Van Morrison, and so much more, but Zevon will shine through on this station, especially with "Lawyers, Guns, and Money," though the order in which he asks for them is pretty much the opposite order of usefulness when the shit has hit the fan. If you feel the need to add any seeds to this station, you are a bad person and should feel bad.

Thought of the week:

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." - Desmond Tutu

'Til next time... keep on listening, keep on singing, and keep live music alive.

Governor's Ball 2011

This Saturday, I trekked up to New York City for the Governor's Ball Music Festival. I came home exhausted from dancing and singing, and sunburned. It was an amazing festival.

The vibe of the festival was youthful. A majority of the crowd seemed to be in their 20's and just looking for a good time. Beer pong, sand volleyball and Frisbee were some of the music alternatives to entertain the masses.

The Passion Pit (minus three) DJ set was the first full set I saw. They mostly played mash-ups and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. However if you gave me a choice between seeing their DJ set and seeing a live performance with their full band, I would choose the latter. But I'm sure I'll have my chance to see the full group at some point.

The Neon Indian performance was one of the highlights of the day. They have a fun and unique sound. It's not quite as poppy as say Passion Pit or Empire of the Sun. It has a bit more of an edge but it still puts you in a good mood. They seem to have fun and experiment with sound.

The Empire of the Sun performance was ridiculous. The show they put on is half the fun. Their costumes are over the top with painted faces and backup dancers. It only adds to the music.

And of course, Girl Talk was a blast. This was the second time I've seen Girl Talk and both times have been at an outdoor festival setting. It's great to be dancing among the crowd. Very, very freeing.

Here are some other photos from the show:

Governor's Ball Festival!

In only a few short weeks, I'll be making my trek to Governor's Island in New York City. What for? Passion Pit, Empire of the Sun, Neon Indian, Girl talk and a few others.

Around 11ish in the morning Saturday, June 18 I'll board a ferry to the island and proceed to dance my behind off for the rest of the day. I've been to a variety of all-day summer music festivals and already I can tell that the Governor's Ball will be unique. First, there's a dance contest in the works. They're having eager dancers submit videos and the winners get an assortment of prizes, the best prize being backstages passes and the worst (or really just last place) prize being two regular tickets to the festival (still awesome, if you ask me).

Another postive about the festival is no overlapping sets. One thing I hate is having to either pick between artists or split sets in half in order to hear both. Well, that agony will be spared at the Governor's Ball.

Other activities will be mixed in with the music. Sports include beer pong (yes), ping pong, sand volleyball and basketball.

Tickets are still available! For more information, updates and other neat things, visit the website: Governor's Ball!

Mothers' Day Mixtape

My mother is a punk rocker. She went to concerts a lot when I was growing up. She was even in the "Somebody to Shove" music video by Soul Asylum when I was a kid (just an extra, but I still thought it was pretty cool). Instead of listening to children's music in the car, we listened to great late-80's / early-'90s music like EMF, Nirvana, Midnight Oil and Erasure to name a few of the ones I remember liking the most as a child. And so it is fitting that the mothers' day present she requested of me was a playlist / mixtape. Sorry it's a little late, mom. Here were her requirements:
~Ramones-fast
~No ballads, only exception one or two hooky high drama numbers
~No sensitive singer/songwriters; they've got to rock like they mean it
~No Britney - no exceptions (I like to annoy her by putting Britney Spears on the mix CDs I make for her)
~Released in the last year, unless it is absolutely the perfect choice between two songs
~Must make me want to get out of the car and dance

Here is what I came up with. They don't follow all the criteria perfectly, but I think I did pretty well. Feel free to post your suggestions in the comments:

Dance Floor [mp3] - Apples in Stereo (iTunes / Amazon)

Drumming Song [mp3] - Florence & the Machine (iTunes / Amazon)

Kick Drum Heart [mp3] - The Avett Brothers (iTunes / Amazon)

Mountain Man [mp3] - Crash Kings (iTunes / Amazon)

TV [mp3] - Headlights (iTunes / Amazon)

Western Hospitality [mp3] - Club 8 (iTunes / Amazon)

Luna [mp3] - Fanfarlo (iTunes / Amazon)

The Reeling [mp3] - Passion Pit (iTunes / Amazon)

Strictly Game [mp3] - Harlem Shakes (iTunes / Amazon)

And I offer this last song separately because I feel like I've already put it on one of her mix CDs even though it's not on my list. But I'll throw it on just in case, because if it's not on there, that's a travesty. 

12345678 [mp3] - The Hard Lessons (iTunes / Amazon)

Passion Pit video - "Little Secrets"

Not quite as good as the videos for "Sleepy Head" or "Reeling," but sure looks like it was a lot of fun to be a part of.

The predecessor to the Sleepy Head Video (Passion Pit)

Passion Pit-Sleepyhead from ssarenofun1 on Vimeo.

It appears there may have been a predecessor to the awesome offical video for Sleepy Head that helped launch Passion Pit to fame. This video was sent to me by reader Michael, apparently it was leaked on the Coachella forum. It's actually still quite a cool video, though obviously much lower budget than the one that was actually released. Not sure when this video was made, but that is lead singer Michael Angelakos in it (or, if not, then his doppleganger), so most people seem to be speculating that it was really made by the band, maybe before they had real financial backing. I could maybe even see it inspiring the official video a bit with the hands clapping and things spinning... A disembodied head singing. But let me just say that this is all just speculation on my part. Watch them both and come up with your own conclusions.

Best Albums of 2009

As you might be able to tell by our lack of posting, we were hard at work over the holidays putting together our end of the year lists. Today is the first of three lists - our Best Albums of 2009 list. So in no particular order, we present them to you:
 

The Antlers - Hospice
This intensely beautiful, heart-wrenching album is full of more tragedy than we would hope any one person would experience in a lifetime, much less a person of front man and writer Pete Silberman's young age. Hospice launched The Antlers to indie fame this year, and deservedly so. The haunting melodies strike us deeply in our cores and stay with us long after we've listened to them. Not that it's ever that long between listens, since the album has pretty much been on repeat on our playlists since it first came out in March.
Sylvia [mp3] - (iTunes)

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

This anticipated album encompassed ingenious songcraft, never-ending unwinding textural and melodic flourishes, languid beatuy and sweeping rhythmic cavorts that cut to the center of any listener's ear. With painstaking attention to detail, Veckatimest soared above any fears of overproduction and swooped right into the land of absolute prowess.

Passion Pit - Manners
In a year stockpiled with celebrity deaths, who anticipated that Stanley Kubrick would be resurrected to orchestrate the best indie-pop album of 2009? Every moment of Manners contains a purposely placed hook - Kids singing! Catchy synth lines! A horn section! - but the album would amount to nothing more than a dizzying Go Team! disciple if not for the pitch-perfect layering of Michael Angelakos' heartfelt falsetto. Without it, Manners - and Passion Pit by proxy - would be an indistinguishable novelty act instead of a polished pop catharsis.
The Reeling [mp3] - (iTunes)

Matt Jones - The Black Path

We wrote about this album back in 2008, but it didn't technically come out until 2009, so we're going to write about it again because it's that good. Simply put, Matt Jones is a one-of-a-kind genius and this orchestral folk album is full of gorgeous, rich instrumentation and complex, deeply expressive lyrics. Matt Jones' music and unique voice are truly mesmerizing.

Waltzing With Lady Dawn [mp3] - (iTunes)

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
While they've been on the music scene for a while, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix was the album that really put French band Phoenix on the map. With catchy hits like "Lisztomania" and "1901," they rocketed through the indie masses alongside the album's vivid revivalist melodies and danceable indie-pop beats. A small smear of brit-pop shoegaze added for fun and the love for the film Breakfast Club that was reignited made this album a clear standout in 2009.

Metric - Fantasies

Emily Haines always manages to create songs that are simultaneously melancholy or nostalgic and yet are awesome dance songs. You can rock out, yet feel an incredible emotional pull, and the songs are so catchy that they'll stay in your head for hours. Fantasies is no exception to this rule, and "Help I'm Alive" has not-so-slowly risen to be one of our most-played songs this year.

St. Vincent - Actor
St. Vincent's sophomore album, inspired, she says, by Prince, can take a little warming up to at first. Her songs are complex and many of them can't truly be appreciated on the first listen. But the more you listen to it, the more masterful layers you discover and the more you appreciate this virtuoso. Rocking guitar harmonics burst forth from fluttering wind instruments and St. Vincent integrates these two contrasting sounds flawlessly, even within the same song.

White Rabbits - It's Frightening

This percussion-driven band became a sensation this year with their aptly named, explosive "Percussion Gun." But these are no one hit wonders - their album was full of other good, very catchy, rumbling, crashing, banging, tapping songs. And while it might be easy for a band with such a focus on percussion to get in a rut where all their music sounds the same, they've managed to utilize a nice variety of sounds and genres, while still maintaining a cohesiveness over the entire album.

Florence and the Machine - Lungs
Florence's powerful, rich voice and epically dramatic music make her debut album Lungs a force to reckon with, alternating between dark and stormy, with drums booming and her imposing vocals, and then flowery and romantic with plucky harps. But no matter what the style, the album never loses the dramatic flare that hooks you within the first few bars.

Discovery - LP

The brainchild of Vampire Weekend keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij and Ra Ra Riot's Wes Miles, this debut album, which was recorded over the course of three and a half years, makes for an unique and pleasantly intriguing experience. Inventive beats, playful rhythms and slick rushes of harmonious vocals dapple throughout this album, producing indie electro-pop at its finest.

Fanfarlo - Reservoir
Reservoir is a package full of odds and ends that takes a while to unpack. The British sextet has created a well-crafted propulsive album that will make you laugh, cry, dance, sway or stand still in total revelry all within the same album. Their music has a warmth to it that is downright lovely. The exquisite instrumentation and lead singer Simon's distinct, cozy voice is enough to warrant more than a couple rounds of continuous listens.

Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca

It's perplexing that an album translating to "Please Killer Whale" would lead Brooklyn's experimental class into the pop realm this year (along with Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear). Differentiating this effort from its Yale-crested musical-composition predecessors are the hooks. That's right: hooks. "Stillness is the Move" is an outright jam - not just by Dirty Projectors' standards, but by Left Eye Lopez (R.I.P.) standards. It might have been the track of 2009 that best defined the shift (for those aforementioned bands) from strictly creating songs principled in deconstructionist methodology towards a welcomed practice of lavishing in mind-bending indie hymnals, i.e., running the musical gamut - in styles, genres, tempos, key/time signatures - during every featured track on the album.

The XX - XX
This debut album blew everyone away, with many describing it as downright perfect or fantastically innovative. Pitchfork called it "so fully formed and thoughtful that it feels like three or four lesser, noisier records should have preceded it." Indeed, it was a perfectly executed product from the London band of 20-somethings, with quiet instrumentation full of purpose and lyrics riddled with poignancy.

Elizabeth and the Catapult - Taller Children

Elizabeth & the Catapult's sassy debut album that juxtaposes the freedoms of youth and the responsibilities of growing up is a delightful listen from beginning to end - with bubbly, bouncy child-like songs such as "Race You" to the serious Leonard Cohen cover of "Everybody Knows," it's a well-rounded album and a very solid debut indeed.

Momma's Boy [mp3] - (iTunes)

Monsters of Folk - Monsters of Folk
Comprised of star players like M. Ward (She & Him), Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes), Monsters of Folk ventures into lands of varied and weathered styles, delivering quality and seamless song-work amongst the loose sea of rock-folk acoustic guitars and lush harmonies. Conor Oberst pens GFP writer Diana's favorite lyric of the year in "Temazcal," summing up a relationship that was never meant to be in less than 10 words: "love we made at gunpoint wasn't love at all."

Passion Pit "The Reeling" Video

So, I used to kind of think Passion Pit was a little over-hyped. But the more I listen and especially the more I watch, the more I like them and see why everyone else is so obsessed. Plus their music videos are just so cool! Gotta love a band who's actually coming out with original video content these days. Check out this one for their song "The Reeling" (which is a great dance song by the way). Since mtvU's embed feature is being lame, here is the link to the video.

Moth Wings [mp3] - (iTunes)

And just a reminder that our Beast CD giveaway ends on Sunday at 11:59pm EST. Don't miss out on your chance to win this awesome funky dance album. To enter, send us an email with "Beast CD Giveaway!" in the subject.

Music Videos to Celebrate

This has been a crazy week (in a good way! OBAMA! WOO!) so I'm going to post some music videos today. First up is Jukebox the Ghost with their new video for Victoria. It premieres on MTV2's Subterranean at 1am tonight.

Jukebox the Ghost - New Music - More Music Videos

Next is a pretty cool video (in my opinion) by Passion Pit for their song Sleepyhead.


Here is an older video from The XYZ Affair - All My Friends (for those of you Nickelodeon fans of my generation - see a few people you recognize?)


And lastly an artsy video from Ane Brun for her beautiful song, The Puzzle.