June 1, 2009

Mixtape for an English Teacher

Post a comment

May 26, 2009

Spiffie Music Blog No. 14

Tracks
5. Rock & Roll – Eric Hutchinson
For fans of Jason Mraz, here’s a fan of Jason Mraz. With the same vocal jaunt of one of his favourite musicians, Eric Hutchinson tells the true story of boys and girls and rock and roll.

4. Curiosity Killed the Popstar – Elle Milano
Elle Milano wagging a wise indie finger at all those pop types. What a shame these guys aren’t around anymore to demolish our clichés and comment ironically on everything.

3. I’ve Got the World on a String – Michael Bublé
To this swinging 1930s tune, Michael Bublé brings his elastic croon. We can’t argue with his contented chorus. It drowns us in the deep thrill of being.

2. Lights Out – Santogold
There’s a heavy, heady party in the middle of a hot, restless night. There are the winos and wallflowers who just don’t know what to do with themselves. And then there’s Santogold, the only thing to hold on to: her smooth, piping promises, the fizzy beats they lie over.

1. Swords of Truth – These New Puritans
The disconnection jitters with self-assured, incontestable energy. Proclamations run together, collide, rhythms unravel and are electrocuted, trumpeted back together, played over and over and over…

Artists
5. The Mountain Goats
The kind of indie rock band you’d be best friends with. Guys who say exactly what you mean, only better, with musical accompaniment that sounds like the background music of your life.

4. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Ready for new indie pop? The Pains are as sweetly sad as their name suggests. They’re also as charming, parading mumbling punches of lyrics over bustling instrumental sets. Their apt brand of high-class lo-fi is getting them lots of play – whether you like it or not, you’ll be hearing them soon.

3. TV on the Radio
Here’s to TVOTR’s latest ode to science, and the cerebral surf rap they make and we love.

2. Tyrant and the Cream Puff
From the dregs of college indie pop band 1954., Tyrant and the Cream Puff presents Joshua David and his sweet-voiced girlfriend, penning melodies as beachy and new-couple-cute as Oh Baby, Been Making Me Feel Dizzy Lately to head-in-the-clouds playground choruses like Saint Vitus’ Dance. And everything in between is just as endearing.

1. Great Northern
They can set you on fire, they can chill your bones. They can take you home. They can cradle you, they can crush you, they can rush your pulse, they can propel you into slow motion. Great Northern is anything your ear happens to ask of your speakers, anything your heart happens to ask of sound.

Post a comment

March 14, 2009

Spiffie Music Blog No. 13

Tracks
5. Not a Love Song – Uh Huh Her
Uh Huh Her is two girls who want to get inside your head. In Not a Love Song, with deceptively soft crooning over the buzzing, pounding rhythm of their electropop finesse, they get there.

4. Tick of Time – The Kooks
Spiffie wants you to sit up straight for the end (kinda) of last year’s Kooks record – for a song that presents itself to you honestly, laid bare. Tick of Time is Konk’s most stripped-down track, featuring a simple wish to write a song to cure heartache, and what sounds like a band sitting around together, keeping time to a tune they all know too well. Drum, shakers, tambourine, acoustic guitar. “Wishing, hoping that I can write her a rhyme / that might stop the tick of time / Get off this situation and feel fine.”

3. I Can’t Make Me – Butterfly Boucher
Everyone sings about how I can’t make you love me. Butterfly Boucher can’t make her love you (and you can’t make her either). She can’t no matter how much she argues with herself, bouncing her words around her microphone in her velvety Australian voice. And you can’t decide whether to sit and smile at the sweetness of this song, bobbing your head composedly, or to get up and do a frustrated dance to its aggravated polyphony of gently frenzied instruments.

2. http://www.rhapsody.com/the-killers" target="_blank">I Can’t Stay – The Killers
Beginning like a storyteller’s new wave ditty, complete with references to stars and electric emotion, I Can’t Stay emerges from Day & Age like something out our favourite old movie. From yearning words aided only by a steady-handed guitar riff, a steadier bassline, and a soft, quick clicking, the song takes on steel drums, strings, cymbals, and brass to soundtrack the scene of our hero, Brandon Flowers, leaving someone or something for whom his heart just bursts. Can’t you just see it now?

1. Quelqu’un M’A Dit – Carla Bruni
Fueling my love for the sound of Paris, Carla Bruni sings, hums, whispers this rhyme into your ears and into your heart. Just a melding of guitars behind her lovely, lonely voice, and words in a language that it doesn’t take more than longing to understand.

Artists
5. Rig Up Explosive
Billy, Joe, Nic, Jono, and Hawx have just signed on to Small Town Records. They could quite possibly roll into the earphones of American indie fans sooner rather than later as the next darlings of that relentless British invasion wave. But don’t wait for the tide to come in; go ahead and give ‘em a listen. It’ll be a while before you (or anyone) forget their finely-tuned, distinctly boyish, alternative-rock-n-roll-punk-whatever! melodies. The best thing about Rig Up Explosive is that this band’s not worried about anything but the music. As they like to say, “Maybe we’ll die / maybe we won’t.”

4. Afternoons
You’ve gotta hear Say Yes. You have got to hear the song Say Yes by three year-old Los Angeles indie rockers Afternoons. That is, unless you’ve already heard an enchanting slice of it on one of the Lincoln car commercials aired in between the Grammy’s last month. The band is part of http://www.cbs.com/specials/grammys/lincoln/index.php?cid=1021572837&pid=eTMOHcY3GnglE9wnEHr_CYPSKEDJG9Go&show=all&offset=0&play=true " target="_blank">Lincoln’s Project Rising Stars . The band is also brilliant. Don’t question it, just say yes.

3. Say Hi to Your Mom
Eric Elbogen, fka Say Hi to Your Mom, aka Say Hi, reeks of Seattle. Though he formed his orchestral one-man band in Brooklyn, Say Hi’s sound is so wonderfully inimitable that it can’t be anything but indie. Besides, E.E. has long since moved his home base to Washington’s capital. Thus, from the heart of indie America, we give you Say Hi – and his newest album, Oohs & Aahs (though we gotta say, our favourite is 2008’s The Wishes and the Glitch).

2. My Brightest Diamond
In Something of an End, her voice is as unsettlingly beautiful as the cataclysm she seems to warn of. In Inside a Boy, her voice falls and crashes just like the stars she says we are. Fall in love with My Brightest Diamond not just for the utter magnificence that is vocalist Shara Worden, but for the host of expert musicians who make these songs the masterpieces they are.

1. Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors
If you’re like Spiffie, you can’t stand today’s pop country. You are completely exhausted by the disgusting uniformity of every pop country musician’s contrived ballads of ill-fated love, small-town roots, etc. The answer to your prayers, then, is Drew Holcomb, his wife Ellie, guitarist Nathan Dugger, bassist Rich Brinsfield, and drummer Jon Radford. You’re looking for well-versed accounts of life, full of insight, tangible emotion, and the promise of sincerity. You’ll find it all in the exquisite compositions of Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors. Their sounds are sunny afternoons in a green backyard, moonlit nights under a star-choked sky, easy days traveling through rough towns. They’re folk rock – that’s country done right.

Post a comment

December 27, 2008

Mixtape for an Indie Beginner, No. 2

Pop-out player.

Post a comment

December 27, 2008

Mixtape for an Indie Beginner, No. 1

Pop-out player.

Post a comment

August 31, 2008

Buy Spiffie These CDs

1. Only By the Night - Kings of Leon
2. Perfect Symmetry - Keane
3. Intimacy - Bloc Party

3 Comments

July 2, 2008

Spiffie's Current State of the Musical Union

Songs
New favourite song: I Can't Tell in His Eyes - Wildbirds & Peacedrums
Old favourite come back to haunt me: White Horse - An Angle
Old song/new favourite: Tomorrow - Death Cab for Cutie
Best song from a movie I've seen recently: You've Got the Music in You - New Radicals
Most addictive: Forever - Walter Meego
Most highly recommended for currently dull playlists: I Don't Feel Like Dancin' - Scissor Sisters
Currently looking for: I Could Be There for You - Eisley

Artists
New favourite band: Dirty Projectors
Old favourite come back to haunt me: The Killers (circa Hot Fuss)
Old artist/new favourite: Cat Stevens
Party music: O
Most addictive: Yelle
Most highly recommended for currently dull playlists: Pull Tiger Tail
Currently looking for: Elbow

Post a comment

July 2, 2008

Vampire Weekend

Some bizarre circumstances led my sister to drop Vampire Weekend's album in front of me a few months ago as I was writing a paper or doing some other meaningless bit of schoolwork. I grabbed the album, thrilled by the simple, hip cover art, and slipped the CD into the nearest stereo while I told my sister all about how I'd been meaning to look up this band for nearly half a year. She said that her friend, who'd let her borrow the CD, described the band's sound as "Californian, but British." My brow furrowed. Then, the first three notes of the album came as a bit of a shock. I'd expected typical guitar-happy indie music, but a piping keyboard sounded, and then some guy started singing. Obviously, I abandoned my paper.

My paper remained abandoned until almost four songs later, when I, clutching the lyrics booklet and dancing a little absentmindedly in my chair, announced to my sister that I had to get away from the music or I'd never finish my homework. "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" was just ending, "M79" was just starting, and I could barely walk away. I was thinking of Africa - the whole time, I'd been thinking of Africa - and I didn't know why. I was thinking of our old photographs, my baby pictures, and how they were all distinctly yellower than the pictures we'd taken after moving here. I heard that yellow tinge in the strings at the beginning of "M79," and I'd heard them in the chorus of "CCKK," and I was in total adoring love with every high-pitched verse and every drum beat and it was on the tip of my tongue to declare Vampire Weekend my new favourite band.

I listened to the first few songs at least twice more before I had time to listen to the entire album. It took me a while to warm up to the later songs, but by the time I did, my head was spinning. My sister's favourite song was "Campus." We sang it to each other and my other sisters gave us odd looks. We sang "One," too, the irresistible call-and-response chorus. The only line I could ever remember from "A-Punk" was Joanna drove slowly into the city, so I would sing that line and mumble over the rest until I got to the Aye! Aye! Aye! Aye! part, at which point I would jump four times with a fist in the air and my head down and then switch songs. I didn't like singing "The Kids Don't Stand A Chance," I loved remembering the sunlight-dappled part right after the one-liner chorus, and I would sort of sway as it played in my head.

After the spring chorus show, [my friend] and I were standing outside of school at ten o'clock on a Friday night because I had forgotten to call dad earlier. I pulled out my camera and told her that I was going to play her a song and she was going to love it. I played her "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" and she said it was lovely. Then I played her "Walcott," my new favourite, and she gasped and said that she'd heard this one before. We leaned against a pillar and watched the lonely road and smelled the night and listened to Hyannisport is a ghetto, out of Cape Cod tonight. And I got the rush of bringing someone else into my world of secret thrilling tunes.

I put most of the songs from the album on a mixtape for my uncle and sent them to Nigeria with my mom. I left "CCKK" off because I didn't want my uncle thinking I was into obscenities and sex, but I so wished I could have added it because it's the most Afrotastic track of them all. And I'm still not that enthusiastic about "I Stand Corrected," so that one was left off as well.

When I found out they were Columbia grads with a preppy tendency and not cultured British kids who wrote songs based on museum paintings, I grinned. They had really ethnic-sounding names, and it turned out that the African sound was done on purpose. I was thrilled. Again. I watched them play "Oxford Comma," sitting down and looking like they were concentrating intensely in a really vacant kind of way, and then I watched their spastic "A-Punk" video and laughed and wished really hard that I could see them when they came to town the week after next. They have filled a gaping void in my heart. A Vampire Weekend concert would be heaven, or nirvana. Too bad they'll just be one of the things keeping me busy at home.

Post a comment

March 22, 2008

Spiffie Lyrics Game No. 1

1. I hear you're coming back to life just for the fourth.
2. I was sure I was growing pains, like lead in my feet.
3. I'm in love with how you feel.
4. What if when we're dead, we are just dead?
5. He dances in secret, he's a part-time punk.
6. Suck on my fingertips until you kill all my prints.
7. I must admit that I was a bit scared, but it gives me thrills to wind you up.
8. The kids all dream of making it, whatever that means.
9. She sees his face in the sweat-stained sheets.
10. You don't have to know the truth, if you believe, I believe it, too.

ANSWERS:

1. Where Have You Been? - Manchester Orchestra
2. Like O, Like H - Tegan & Sara
3. Anyone Else But You - The Moldy Peaches
4. What If No One's Watching? - Ani DiFranco
5. The Blues Are Still Blue - Belle & Sebastian
6. Something to Do with My Hands - Her Space Holiday
7. Foundations - Kate Nash
8. Teddy Picker - Arctic Monkeys
9. You Don't Feel Like Home to Me - The Good Life
10. Invasion - Eisley

2 Comments

February 20, 2008

Spiffie Music Blog No. 12

Tracks
5. The Hollows - WHY?
A jaded tune spitting jaded shoutouts and jaded memories. Kind of enchanting, in a really jaded, sort of slightly reggae kind of way.

4. STD Dance - Ima Robot
Rhymes like a singable strobe light or a funk rock ferris wheel, STD Dance is a party on sound waves.

3. Grip Like a Vice - The Go! Team
The Go! Team's signature orchestral riot hip pop blasts reckless joy through this tribute to the ladies who wanna rock the house.

2. E Raffaella E Mia - Tiziano Ferro
A luxurious Italian tongue makes for a merciless dance track. Distinctively Latin, distinctively pop, and perfect for your most quixotic moods.

1. Parentheses - The Blow
From a tropical jam band Portland duo (or solo?) of irresistably affecting lyricists comes a song that sounds something like a teenage love poem scrawled in the margins of a Chemistry notebook but feels like a lullaby. Let it lull you into a foot-tapping daydream, then check out the ebbing and flowing True Affection and, for all you Police fans, Come On Petunia.

Artists
5. Madina Lake
The sort of alternative band you crave when everything else sounds either far too whiny or far too defiant. Sometimes, the middle ground is a lake.

4. M.I.A.
A British/Sri Lankan/Tamil hip hop/ragga/alternative rapper/singer/songwriter? Yes. Allow me to introduce you to M.I.A., a baile funk songstress prepped and ready to steal the female hip hop scene. And with songs like Boyz and Bucky Done Gun pumping your ears full of irresistable eastern dance music, who could complain?

3. Deviates
A punk band. A real, live, actual, genuine punk band. Need I say more? (No links available. I'm sorry, I just can't find any!)

2. Gavin DeGraw
Finally, new stuff from soulful pop rock crooner Gavin DeGraw. He's won his share of hearts in the past, singing about everything from seedless watermelon to prison guards' sons to chemical parties, but he's returned to what seems to be his favourite subject with In Love with a Girl, his latest single, and his long-awaited, self-titled fourth album.

1. Josiah Leming
"My name is Josiah Leming, and I wrote this." For the first time ever, an American Idol hopeful has made the Spiffie charts. And for good reason: the car-dwelling teenager, doused in the sounds of Keane, Travis, and Coldplay, has written a handful of profoundly sketched songs, each set to a series of raw, heartrending piano notes. He's got a knowing way with words, spinning regretful and yearning poetry from his lips and hands. His winning ways have taken him from the unworthy American Idol straight into the hearts of a million lovestruck fans. It's only a matter of time before we spot Josiah's telegenic blonde hair on the cover of some carefully crafted album. Indie labels, pay attention. We just might have found the next Tom Chaplin. Only, he's from Tennessee.

Post a comment