I have a ton of dance and trash to post yet I can’t stop listening to this track by the Avett Brothers. Check it out, it’s something different and perfect for late, late night listening when you just….need….to…..drift……

Avett Brothers Website

Avett Brothers – I And Love You

Video

Saw this in a Sony Bravia ad, just had to share since it combines my love with The Knife and one of my favorite songs by them…classic!

José Gonzalez covering (acoustically) The Knife’s….Heartbeats

La Roux (pronounced /laˈruː/) is a British electropop synth duo band made up of singer Eleanor “Elly” Jackson, and synth player, co-writer and co-producer Ben Langmaid. Jackson describes their respective roles as “very much a half and half sharing situation… not like a singer producer outfit”, but also recognizing that it often can “look like a solo act”. Their music is influenced by 1980s synthpop including Yazoo, The Human League, Heaven 17 and Blancmange. Need I say more?

Extensive tour happening NOW!

Official Site

La Roux – I’m Not Your Toy (DatA Remix)

Official video (and original version of the song)

You know we love the Crystal Castles over here and this song has been on constant rotation the past week, so thought I’d share. Also, they settled the lawsuit for the above shirt so if battered Madonna is your thing, you can buy it (again, but legally) here…

The band is touring and have some US shows in October/November, catch them if you get the chance!

Tour schedule/website

Crystal Castles – Courtship Date

we are crystal castles 
we are 1 boy and 1 girl 
we are named after She-Ra's home 
we play rough

Man, this is some due justification right here…always liked this guy…take a listen and get it stuck in your head too.

Jay-Z has released the long anticipated tracklist for his upcoming Blueprint 3 album. The tracklist includes features from Alicia Keys, Mr. Hudson, Kanye West, Rihanna, Drake, J. Cole, Kid Cudi, and others. Looks like Jay-Z is giving the next generation of artists some shine, check the tracklist below.

01-What We Talkin’ About (feat. Luke Steele (of Empire Of The Sun))
02-Thank You
03-D.O.A. (Death Of Auto-Tune)
04-Run This Town (feat. Rihanna and Kanye West)
05-Empire State (feat. Alicia Keys)
06-Real As It Gets (feat. Young Jeezy)
07-On To The Next One (feat. Swizz Beatz)
08-Off That (feat. Drake)
09-A Star Is Born (feat. J. Cole)
10-Venus Vs. Mars
11-Already Home (feat. KiD CuDi)
12-Hate (feat. Kanye West)
13-Reminder
14-So Ambitious (feat. Pharrell)
15-Young Forever (feat. Mr. Hudson)

Jay Z (feat. Alicia Keys) – Empire State

I’ve actually been finding a lot of GOOD music lately…if I can get the time, you’ll be hearing about it so keep checking back!

From Wikipedia: SoKo (born Stéphanie Sokolinski) is a French singer and actress. She was born in Bordeaux in France to a Polish family and has been called Soko as far back as she can remember.^[1] She has appeared in several French movies, and got her start as a singer after she got her heart broken and decided to write a song to her beloved.^{[1] more….}

I’m late on the Soko train for sure, but despite some signs, she has a genuine voice and I dig this tune…check the fan made video too, it’s pretty cool…

Soko – I’ll Kill Her

Soko’s Myspace

Fan Site

Much thanks to the fine folks over at Saddle Creek for sending us this new track from Land Of Talk’s forthcoming album, Fun And Laughter.

Fun And Laughter , which includes four brand new songs, and three videos, will be available in CD and digital formats.  The CD version features screen printed art designed by the band in a special edition package, and will only be available from select indie retailers, saddle-creek.com, landoftalk.com, and at venues on the road.

Land of Talk – May You Never

Track Listing:
Sixteen Asterisk
May You Never
As Me
A Series Of Small Flames
The Man Who Breaks Things (Dark Shuffle) – Video
Troubled – Video
Some Are Lakes – Video

Tour Dates:
Tue-Oct-27, San Diego, CA, Casbah
Thu-Oct-29, Los Angeles, CA, Spaceland
Fri-Oct-30, Visalia, CA, Cellar Dooor
Mon-Nov-02, San Francisco, CA, Cafe Du Nord
Wed-Nov-04, Portland, OR, Doug Fir Lounge
Thu-Nov-05, Seattle, WA, High Dive
Fri-Nov-06, Bellingham, WA, Nightlight
Sat-Nov-07, Vancouver, BC, Biltmore Cabaret

BONUS! Here’s a video for another new track from the FAL album called “The Man Who Breaks Things (Dark Shuffle)”

Phoenix is a French alternative rock band started during their childhood by Thomas Mars, Deck D’Arcy, Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz in the suburb of Versailles, in the same culture that produced late-’90s bands such as Air and Daft Punk.

Much thanks to the anonymous source that sent me this song, it’s a step in the right direction and can also be heard in what looks like my favorite movie of 2009, “New York, I Love You”.

What happened to the music scene? I have to be looking in the wrong places…where is all the good music? Do you know of a band, a website or a freakin’ SONG that is rocking your world lately? If so, please, just post the name of it, that’s all, I don’t want the file, etc., I just need confirmation that there’s still good out there in the music universe. Right there where it says “Leave A Comment”…post it there, be anonymous, who cares?

Let me tell you what to NOT send me ‘tho:

• Anything “folksy” (if a band member has a beard, I’m going to be very suspect, but you better make DAMN sure there are no freakin’ wimpy instruments like ukeleles or banjos (unless it’s in a good way like Ryan Adam’s “Come Pick Me Up” or (dare I say it) Dixie Chick’s “Landslide” cover (which I only mention because A. It’s a great cover 2. Fleetwood Mac was pretty good, but c’mon, no one would’ve cared without Stevie Nicks and III. Natalie Mains is actually pretty cool and down to earth as heard by her Howard Stern appearances).

• Nothing where you have to be stoned to “get it” or think it’s great. I don’t do drugs, never have, never will so the music better be the equivalent of what a good looking person looks like at 7:30 in the morning (think Alyssa Milano or Jennifer Love Hewitt…you know they’re still hot without makeup).

• Nothing with horns or reeks of ska/reggae. Operation Ivy is about all I can handle, everything else sucks, sorry.

Pretty simple, right? So send me your website/link that has good music suggestions, etc. Send me the band that’s rockin’ your world or even just the name of a new song that’s decent bokay?

Getting back to basics, music I’m looking for, makes you dance, makes you move, makes you happy, makes you think (a little), fun music, sounds great, you know what great music is, tell me about it!

Couldn’t If I Tried – White Trash Superman

Ok, so I’ve been thinking about what to post next, I really regretted not doing a “best of” 2008 and stuff, I did make a list and will probably post it soon (nothing like being half a year late), but feel I need to get this off of my chest first..

Let’s see, first things first…why haven’t I posted in forever? Well, truthfully, this blog started feeling like more of a “job” than anything, it was losing its charm and appeal. I would struggle to find that balance of music I sincerely liked/loved, write something decent and lastly, get permission from the band/label to post the music. When we first started the blog, we weren’t getting permission all of the time. This was either because a million other blogs were posting the songs too or we were just taking the risk of getting into trouble over music we loved. This happened to Lauren at first, then I received a letter from Arr Eye Aye Aye (they’re like Beetlejuice, if I say their name, they’ll appear). That mess just wasn’t fun…I have a family, a career and don’t really have money to pay silly fines or do jail time, so I started a process that turned out to be a lot of work, most of the time unfulfilling or not working out in my favor (thus, the artist losing publicity).

Some bands had the “power” to grant me permission, sometimes I had to court the PR or management of the label, none of which were quick processes (although some bands truly were quick and “doing it for the kids” (Girls, No Age, Sleep Party People, etc., thanks, dudes). Otherwise, days/weeks would pass, crazy requests would be asked (if we say yes, then you owe us a positive review from another band on our label, 30 second sample, no direct links, etc., etc.). This got old fast. Other blogs seemed to post the same songs no problem and/or with seemingly no favors attached (I was connected with a few blog authors and all said they just post up and take the risk of a C&D).

Next was the increasingly frustrating work of “finding” new/good music. I didn’t want to be Johnny-come-lately and post what everyone else had found 2 weeks ago, but I often found my best gems from other music blogs. I tried to give credit when it was due, but had a major problem with one blog in particular telling me they had exclusivity to post the band’s music and to take mine down. I obliged twice, then told them where to stick it from then on since I was getting permission to do what I please from the band members themselves. Doesn’t sound that bad on the surface, but I was downloading about 300 songs a week to sift through and find something that not only I liked, but something I thought the readers would like too. If the average song is 2.5 minutes (and some songs I could tell right away were terrible, so I maybe gave them a full minute), but some rough estimates put the time spent “sifting” at around 750 minutes a week, that’s 12.5 hours or about 2 hours a day on my work days (and most Sundays). I know what you’re thinking, boohoo, you have to listen to music, but I never made a penny and I was getting so burnt on only finding 4-5 good songs a week out of hundreds…

The last straw I think was the pressure I would get from labels/PR dept.s to review the discs they would send me. Now it was fun to get free music in the mail, but I quickly learned that there is an obvious reason they’re sending me free music. Most of it was crap and I just couldn’t bring myself to lie or like Jason did a few times, tell the absolute truth

So I got burnt out big time, jaded like you wouldn’t believe and dreaded every time I knew I had to write something…so I just stopped. Didn’t visit the site or ANY music blog for that matter. I had amassed enough great music over the years of visiting music blogs and writing for this one to last me for a long time, so I didn’t have that desire to seek new music out.

Until now.

I loaded up the 200+ music blogs I’ve come to know/love/link exchange and you know what? There’s hardly anything great out there even after all this time! And even worse, they’re reposting stuff (or just remixes) of the great songs of 2007/2008! I think the indie/twee/alternative music scene is just extremely stale and uninspired right now, so I’m waiting until something groundbreaking, original and most of all, sincere comes out before I can start posting music again.

If you know of anything, please let me know. Otherwise, stay tuned for a “Best of 2008″ post finally…

PS – I was thinking of moving this blog to Tumblr, I love their interface, it’s super easy to post music files (no 3rd party host involved), what do you guys think, any opinion on that?