Indie rock para alegrar pessoas.

Faixas do álbum:

1. Notice

2. See the World

3. How We Operate

4. Hamoa Beach

5. Girlshapedlovedrug

6. Chasing Ghosts With Alcohol

7. Tear Your Love Apart

8. Charley Patton Songs

9. Woman! Man!

10. All Too Much

11. Cry on Demand

12. Don’t Make Me Laugh

LINK – How We Operate

Parece com? The Bees, Kasabian.

Clipe da música Girlshapedlovedrug.

Enjoy o/

I wonder if Devendra Banhart is just too damn happy to make another record to match the brilliance of  2004’s ‘Rejoicing In The Hands …..’ , an album which IMHO still stands  as his masterpiece.

Banhart has always been the personification of a red rag for bullish hippy bashers.  Consequently, the backlash against his freaky brand of folk has been substantial. Added to this are the insidious snipes over his high-profile dalliance with Natalie Portman and ,now, comes his switch from the hallowed Indie ranks of XL Recordings to the major label Reprise Records of  Warners Music Group (boo! hiss!).

Verily, not the actions of a back to basics treehugger.

But, if you look at the names of those who big up the man, dubbing him as the villainous intruder of the New Weird America community becomes less convincing. How can you truly rank someone as a sell out and fraud who can cite among his admirers Beck, Ben Chasny, Antony (Hegarty), Sir Richard Bishop,  Jack Rose , Vashti Bunyan, Arthur Magazine etc etc.?

Sure, his dippy interviews and cross dressing and adverts for cheese put a strain on his credibility, but in spite of this I’ve always regarded him as a serious artist with a passion for making music that matters.

I confess, however, that I dearly wish he would make a record that is darker and more introspective. I truly believe he is capable of making a downbeat classic along the lines of  Nick Drake’s ‘Pink Moon’, Beck’s  ’Sea Change’ or Bonny Billy’s ‘I See A Darkness’ . Admittedly, this might seem a real long shot, but I’d lay odds that DB has some dark songs hidden away in the closet along with his old kaftans.  I had hopes that his breakup with Portman might have given the impetus for some emotive soul-searching but judging by the serene vibes of  his new album – What Will We Be – it seems that his mates have rallied to see him through any potential personal crisis. So, he’s still chirpy enough to continue with the Naturalismo grooves and reggae meets samba rhythms.

In fairness, the record does feel like a more personal, sorted out work than the disjointed and largely disappointing ‘Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon’. The co-production with Paul Butler of Isle of Wight’s ‘The Bees’ seems have been a grounding influence although it still has a few ‘what is this dude on’ moments, notably ‘Chin Chin & Muck Muck’ where he takes on the persona of an old woman or on Angelika where the track abruptly morphs from a gentle ballad to a tacky slab of Spanish bubblegum.

But there are more than enough moments to allay fears that he has sold his soul to the big bad major. The two ‘Songs for B’ (‘First’+ ‘Last’) are very beautiful and neither the tribute to glam-rock icons Roxy Music nor the riffy psych-out of ‘Rats’ are as bad as they threaten to be on paper. The laid back style of the second half of the record is a bit too much on the chilled side for my liking but at the same time these are tunes that warm the heart and calm the nerves.

Pitchfork’s dismissal aside, most of the reviews I’ve read so far rate the album as his most accessible and sorted out record to date. I wouldn’t argue with this assessment although these are not compliments in my book.  Fucked up and impenetrable would please me more but, then again, I realise my tastes rarely coincide with those of the lumpen masses.

Probably the biggest insult you could level at the record is that , despite himself, Devendra has gone and produced an album the Warner executives will be pleased with. It may even be his long-awaited (and deserved) breakthrough album. And if that doesn’t cause him to crack up, nothing will!

Siempre me había querido ver The Birds de Alfred Hitchcock pero nunca había tenido la oportunidad, de chiquito veía la serie de televisión donde se notaba que era un contador de historias, unas más predecibles que otras pero definitivamente con la perspectiva de un excelente maestro del suspenso.

The Birds de 1963 parece una cátedra para cineastas donde cada plano está concebido completamente entorno a la narrativa de la historia, planos secuencia, planos subjetivos, planos genralísimos, generales, americanos, medios planos, detalle, primeros planos, equilibrio en las tomas, continuidad, una innumerable cadena de artilugios cinemátográficos que hacen de esta peli una referencia obligada para cualquier amante del cine.

Obviamente, nuestra cultura nos ha enseñado mucho a nivel de suspenso y terror pero digamos que incluso esta peli con más de cuarenta años de historia logra entreponernos entre la tensión de un fenómeno anormal y extraordinario como es el ataque por parte de pájaros. Las tomas donde se hace referencia a ellos son verdaderamente electrizantes, las situaciones por fuera de la cámara como por ejemplo cuando Tippi Hedren, interpretando a la señorita Melanie Daniels, está esperando afuera de la escuela a Veronica Cartwright, quien hace de Cathy Brenner y de repente empiezan a posarse un par de cuervos detrás en un aparejo escolar y de repente pasando sólo de mostrar la ansiedad de Hedren a un plano donde todo el aparejo está repleto de cuervos es sencillamnete un logro magnífico.

Me encantan las historias inconclusas entre el personaje de Annie Hayworth y el de Rod Taylor, entre este mismo y su madre, e incluso entre su madre y todas sus pretendientes. No me gustó tanto la forma en como quedó abierta la historia al final pero pues es una clara firma de Hitchcock y el dominio de su género.

Excelentes actuaciones de todo el reparto que incluye a Tippi Hedren, Veronica Cartwright, Suzanne Pleshette, Rod Taylor y la magnífica Jessica Tandy.

Rock com funk em uma levada bacana, totalmente excelente!

Faixas do álbum:

1. Bailing Out

2. Love You

3. Pin That Badge

4. Yeah We Know You

5. Green Eyed Fool

6. Pretty Pictures

7. Cash In

8. Just Wanna Play

9. Why Don’t You Do It

10. Pay To Join

11. Girls and shoes

12. If I Don’t Have To Answer

LINK – Stand Your Ground

Parece com? The Blue Van, The Bees.

Clipe da música Love You.

Enjoy o/

it might only be October, but i’ve perfected a good start for my winter playlist. all tracks remind me of the cold months, without being cliche. mostly memories, slow tempo, snowy nights, and sad piano inspired the track selection. enjoy.

1. Black Moth Super Rainbow “Smog in Cities”
2. Band of Horses  ”Snow Song (acoustic)”
3. The Bees “The Sky Holds The Sun”
4. Metric “London Half Life”
5. VHS or Beta “Dynamize”
6. Sage Francis “Broken Wings”
7. Cold War Kids “Hospital Beds”
8. Modest Mouse “Heart Cooks Brain”
9. Jay Z “Dead Presidents”
10. Tapes n’ Tapes “Omaha”
11. The Arcade Fire “Cars and Telephones”
12. The Rosebuds “Make Out Song”
13. Okkervil River “Get Big”
14. The Rosebuds “Silja Line (On Settling For a Normal Life)”
15. Stars “The Big Fight”
16. Why? “Yo Yo Bye Bye”
17. Wolf Parade “Dinner Bells”
18. Yo La Tengo “You Can Have It All”
19. Kanye West “Home”
20. Lil Wayne “Shoot Me Down”

The crowd was like a liquid, spilling around the foot of the building.

Ealing Road stand, Griffin Park, Brentford, Middlesex, TW8

The ball of people elongated and then reformed into a circle. 

Ealing Road stand, Griffin Park, Brentford, Middlesex, TW8

And, within seconds, it had disappeared around the vast concrete corner as quickly as it had appeared.

The Bees, Free the Bees – 2004

Happy Monday everyone!  If you’re not having such a great day so far, this video is guaranteed to make you happy (and quite conveniently prove a point from my blog, too!)  This isn’t the official video, but it’s adorable anyway.  Enjoy!

Free the Bees – 2004

Of all the albums I’ve reviewed that work to capture a hallowed sound of the past, The Bees‘ (A Band of Bees in the US) album Free the Bees comes the closest to authenticity by a long shot.  There are fingerprints of some of the greatest bands of the 1960s here – The Beatles, The Band, Pink Floyd, The Byrds – and The Bees do genuine justice to that era.  The sounds of early psychedelia, and classic electric rock-and-roll come to life so convincingly that you’ll find yourself wondering “When was this record made again?”…or at the very least, wondering if The Bees busted into some vaults to get The Beatles’ equipment and recording devices (in fact, Free the Bees was recorded in the same studio as the White Album).  Even while hearkening back so much that they could be dismissed as simple revivalists, there is no doubting The Bees’ musical skills, attention to detail, and ear for composition.

The songs on Free the Bees spread across the array of their influences as well.  The opener, “These Are The Ghosts”, along with “Horsemen” and “This Is The Land” have that familiar gauzy early psychedelic rock feel: there’s jangly guitar, kicky and prominent beat drumming, and the vocals are distorted and buried a bit under the music.  Of those, “These Are The Ghosts” is the strictest example of The Bees’ adherence to traditional British rock and it’s also just an excellent atmospheric jam.  “Wash In The Rain” is like a combination of pre-A Hard Day’s Night blues-influenced Beatles and the exuberant rock-folk of The Band, blending together into a rollicking good time.  “No Atmosphere” also recalls The Band’s live performances in the verses, then transitions into psychedelic guitar breakdowns and seems custom-made for soundtracking a muddy festival.

Another key track on Free the Bees is “Chicken Payback”, which, like much 1960s British rock, nicks from the imagination of Chuck Berry.  The Bees create a bona fide throwback here and it’s great.  It’s easy to envision a band playing “Chicken Payback” on an old black-and-white television while teenagers dance in the foreground.  Other tracks worth checking out are the shimmery, slow summer evening love song “I Love You”, and “One Glass of Water”, featuring an infectious blend of electric guitars and raucous vocal harmonies.  The time might not always be right to listen to Free the Bees (you need to be in a specific kind of mood I think), but whether you’re feeling nostalgic or you just want to hear some classic rock and have burned out on your normal rotation, this album is about as close as you can get to the real thing.

]]> http://webware1508.wordpress.com/2009/08/03/all-about-honey/ Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:17:31 +0000 webware1508 http://webware1508.wordpress.com/2009/08/03/all-about-honey/

The consumption of honey by humans is an anomaly; honey is the only food produced by insects which humans eat, and is one of the only two substances produced organically whose sole purpose is for food – the other is mammalian breast milk. As a result, bees are the insect most commonly domesticated by humans the world over.

History…

As a food substance, honey goes almost as far back as recorded history itself. The Old Testament portion of the Bible has references to honey, often represented as a symbol for everything pleasant and desirable. The earliest mention is the book of Exodus, describing the promised land as a ‘land flowing with milk and honey’. The book of Judges also mentions when Samson found honey a bees’ hive made in the carcass of a lion. The word “honey” makes an appearance a total of sixty-one times in the Bible.

The Qur’an also has honey represented in much the same way. It refers to honey as being a substance which the Lord taught the bees to make, and calls it ‘a drink of varying colors which is healing for mankind’. Honey is even referred to in the Qur’an as ‘a remedy for every illness’, and is also mentioned as a favorite food of the Prophet Muhammad.

Asian religions don’t leave honey out of the story for very long, either. Buddhists in India and Bangladesh celebrate the festival of Modhu Purnima, which commemorates Buddha’s retreat into the wilderness in order to make peace among his disciples. While on this retreat, a monkey brought him a jar of honey for nourishment, and so this leads to a traditional gift of honey to monks during the festival.

Finally, in ancient Rome and Egypt, honey was considered so valuable that it was even used for currency. The Pharaoh Seti the first set the price of a donkey or ox at “one hundred pots” of honey. But we can’t put this in context without knowing what the size of those pots were.

Honey perhaps takes it’s most familiar place in Western culture as being associated with bears. We have A.A. Milne’s “Winnie-the-Pooh” stories, where the cartoon bear is often motivated by a quest for honey, and honey containers in the United States are frequently sold in the shape of a bear. The joke to all this is, bears don’t actually eat honey; when a bear goes after a bee hive, it’s interested in the bee larvae within the nest!

Folk medicine…

Honey has been used in many cultures as an external ointment, applied to the skin to cure rashes, cuts, scabs, and infections. The logic behind this has turned out to be that honey, though a liquid, has a very low water content, and so is resistant to having microorganisms grow in it. As a result, it makes a good anti-bacterial agent. It also has useful applications as an activator for hydrogen peroxide, and producing high acidity through it’s PH balance, which also prohibits the growth of many bacteria.

The actual medical benefits of honey are slowly being investigated. It has been established that as a nutritional source, honey contains elements which can act as antioxidants, and can have long-term benefits to the digestive system and also be a safe source of carbohydrates. Further research has been conducted to study various other benefits.

Dangers…

It is cautioned that children under the age of twelve months not be given honey, corn syrup, or other natural sweeteners. Infants do not have the acidic digestive system of a more mature human, and so ingesting honey, when mixed with moisture in the infant’s stomach, can lead to a stomach infection. Once a child is eating solid food, the stomach is producing enough gastric acid to protect the infant from this kind of infection.

And now, for something you didn’t expect: There is a toxic form of honey! It is called “mad honey”, and it’s produced when the bees have access to the flowers of rhododendrons, mountain laurels and azaleas. The nectar of these plants may contain grayanotoxin, a compound which is both psychoactive and poisonous to humans but completely harmless to the bees. Ingesting it produces a range of symptoms, from vomiting and reduced heartbeat to psychological symptoms similar to intoxication by psychedelic drugs.

Amongst many accounts, the ancient Greek historian Xenophon noted in his book “the Anabasis” in 401 B.C. that an entire army returning from conquest in Persia raided some wild bee hives in the mountains and became seriously ill for days, reduced to a state of being “like intoxicated madmen”. It was centuries before the cause of this phenomenon became apparent. Rest assured, “mad honey” is rare, as bees usually prefer other kinds of flowers.

Varieties…

Honey connoisseurs get to dive into a range of honey varieties as diverse as the wine field. Just as different kinds of grapes impart different characteristics to wine, different botanical species make for honey with a wide range of attributes. Each can have its own characteristics of color, flavor, and texture. Some of the most common varieties include:

Clover honey is very pale and aromatic, and it is quick to granulate once the jar is opened. It is found mainly in Great Britain.

Acacia honey is pale and runny, with a mild flavor. It has a high fructose content, which helps it stay liquid for an extended time. It is produced primarily in Hungary, Yugoslavia and Romania.

Heather honey is dark, rich in flavor, and thick. It comes mostly from the United kingdom.

Eucalyptus honey is very strong with a tasty flavor and a slight medicinal aftertaste. As you might expect, it is produced in Australia.

Orange blossom honey is very pale amber and has the distinctive aroma of the flower. It is produced in the United States, mostly in Florida, California, Texas and Arizona.

There are actually hundreds of varieties, since bees aren’t too picky about what kind of plant they get their pollen from. When a honey is produced from bees who were kept to a specific variety of flower in order to control its flavor, that honey is said to be “monofloral”. True monofloral honey is actually quite rare, since which flowers the bees visit is hard to control under certain conditions.

This is from the 2004’s Free The Bees.  In their UK home, the band is just called The Bees.  My nextdoor neighbor turned me on to this.  I love learning about new music!!  And this stuff is pretty good.

You know, it’s almost a shame that I don’t really have time today to come up with something on theme. Though, given that the artist name on this says The Scientist / DJ Hype, and you were doing The Rocketman, I suppose this is close enough.

This song was on the record label Kickin Records in 1990, and is titled The Exorcist. And the record label name sure is accurate. Really catchy piece, and fun to listen to.

And given the things you’ve posted in the past, thought I may as well post another piece by The Scientist, The Bees.It’s worth noting that both these videos were posted by rockyfistscats. And whatever he may do to cats, he appears to have a huge collection of records posted…

PS: As a footnote, I had just gotten up when I was typing this post up. After posting, I went to get a shower, and when I looked in the mirror, realised that I had total, absolute mad-scientist hair going. That doesn’t really happen to me that often. It was sticking in all directions, and curling around at eldritch angles.

In a way, it was a shame I had to wash it. If I’d had hair spray, I might have just sprayed it in place, and left it like that. But I thought I’d note that, since it’s always interesting when there’s a tie-in to real life in your posts that you don’t realise is going on…

I’ve recently returned from a very enjoyable week’s holiday in a cottage in Brittany (I missed you too) and discovered an interesting note left for me on Facebook by a friend with impeccable (and eclectic) musical taste.

Apologies if you’ve already come across this little game, but although most of these FB quizzes suck (as Sarah rightly suggested) this one proved quite diverting and worth the four minutes or so it takes to complete.

If your life was a movie, what would the soundtrack be?

An intriguing premise for sure, and the rules are as follows:

1. Open your library (itunes, ipod, Media Player etc)
2. Put it on shuffle (very important!)
3. Press play
4. For every one of the ’stages of life’ below, type the name of the song that’s playing
5. When you go to the next ’stage’, press the ‘next’ button
6. Don’t lie in order to pretend you’re cool.
7. Read through and be amused (or bemused) by the results
8. Do the exercise again, picking the songs you would have preferred to turn up!

I’ve added the last couple of steps myself, (7) to replace the directive to pass it on to friends (in case you don’t want to!) and (8) to give you the chance to redeem yourself if the original answers turned out too embarrassing or just plain weird.

It’s your life, after all!

The movie soundtrack of my life is …..

The stages of life are listed below (in bold) together with my answers. I didn’t cheat, and got some interesting results …

Opening credits Connection – Elastica

Waking up Super-connected – Belly

First day of School Go Karts – The Bees

Falling in Love Easy Skanking – Bob Marley

Fight Song Up All Night – The Young Knives

Breaking Up Little Bear – Guillemots

Prom Why? – Tracy Chapman

Life Dolphins – Beth Orton

Mental Breakdown Look Up – Zero 7

Driving So Tonight That I Might See – Mazzy Star

Flashback I Love You – The Bees

Funeral Song Race For The Prize – The Flaming Lips

End credits

Song 1: The Fear by Travis; cross-fade into song 2: Radio Ga Ga by Frank Sidebottom

A strange mix, but not a bad soundtrack really. I was particularly impressed by the uncanny segue from the opening credits to the wake up song, and mightily pleased that the end credits finished with Frank Sidebottom’s mercurial take on Radio Ga Ga. Thank you.

How does your life sound?

What about you? Have a go and see how your soundtrack shapes up.

I’d be very interested to see your results – feel free to post as a comment below or write it on the wall of the Facebook group for this blog.

I’ll add my ‘Fantasy Soundtrack’ answers – see step 8 – in due course when I’ve had a bit more time to mull it over.

In the meantime, enjoy selecting the movie soundtrack of your life ……

Antony & The Johnsons, Kings of Leon, Oasis, Wilco, Feist, Radiohead and more. It’s a mix to relax or fall asleep to.

Click here to download disc 1.

Click here to download disc 2.

It’s an M4A file that when played through iTunes is capable of fast forwarding to the next chapter. AAC files will play in all iPods. You may also convert it to a single mp3 file within iTunes by going to the ‘Advanced’ tab at the top of the player and selecting ‘Create MP3 Version.’ You may also subscribe to this blog by clicking on the ‘Entries RSS’ and using an aggregator (feed reader), such as Google Reader to get notifications sent to you whenever a new post is made.

Thought I would send this out and see what you guys think. I found this track at last.fm on the Gomez channel. It’s currently stuck on repeat.

The Bees (known in United States as A Band of Bees) are an English band from Ventnor on the Isle of Wight. Although their sound is generally classified as indie rock or psychedelic music, the band have a colourful range of styles and influences, such as 1960s rock, country, reggae and jazz. – Wikipedia

Official Website: http://www.thebees.info/

Baixar o Disco

Formado pelos multi-instrumentistas Paul Butler e Aaron Fletcher, o duo inglês A Band of Bees, antes conhecido como The Bees, criaram de uma forma inusitada um dos discos mais instigantes do ano de 2002. Sunshine Hit Me foi gravado quase que artesanalmente no quintal dos pais de um dos integrantes da dupla inglesa, porém o resultado não é nada artesanal. O disco é uma delicia de se ouvir: melodias leves, quase psicodélicas, classudas, com influências de soul music, reggae, e música brasileira. A influência de música brasileira é tanta que uma das faixas mais curiosas é a versão de “A Minha Menina” criação de Jorge Ben imortalizada pelos Mutantes. Boa parte da música foi traduzida para o inglês, mas os rapazes também arriscam um português macarrônico deixando a faixa, para nós brasileiros, muito engraçada. Sunshine Hit Me abre com a maravilhosa “Punchbag”, tem em seu recheio, além de “A Minha Menina” reggaes leves e inspirados, baladas de muito bom gosto e termina com outra grande música “Sky Holds the Sun” com os belos versos: “I wanna hold you, like the sky holds the sun”. Depois desse, que é o primeiro disco, outros músicos se integraram a banda que lançou outros dois discos até agora. Vale a pena (e muito) ouvir.

Minha nota: 9

My friend Erin had this print of an old British poster in her house that struck me.  It’s a reproduction of an old slogan used to allay public fear during the outbreak of World War 2.  The original poster was held in reserve for use only in times of extreme crisis.   Although thousands were produced, only a handful ever saw the light of day. (For a reproduction of the poster, go to Keep Calm Gallery.)

Some 60 years later, I couldn’t help but think how fitting it was in this day and age where fear and uncertainty has reached epidemic proportions. It seems as though the world is on the edge of its seat, waiting for life as we know it to end sometime in 2009.  Just how bad will 2009 be?  The speculation is endless and the anticipation exhausting. It’s only January 1 and I’m already tired of it.  And like a bunch of rubberneckers at the scene of an accident, we seem compelled to slow down and look at the wreckage, clogging up everything behind us.  Too scared to do anything else. While I’m not one to make New Year’s resolutions, I have decided to adopt this as my motto and modus operandi for 2009. I think we can all use a little more of that British ’stiff upper lip’ right now.

So Happy New Year folks.  Let’s all just keep calm and carry on.  In honor of our wise British brethren, I’ve composed a mix of some of my favorite UK-based artists and songs.  Enjoy.  And let’s keep on rockin’ in the free world!

Keep Calm and Carry On Mixtape

1. The Early Years, ‘High Times and Low Lives’
2. Glasvegas, ‘Geraldine’
3. Elbow, ‘Mirrorball’
4. Radiohead, ‘House of Cards’
5. School of Language, ‘Keep Your Water’
6. The Duke Spirit, ‘Wooden Heart’
7. Belle and Sebastian, ‘Stars of Track and Field’
8. Jamie T, ‘Back in the Game’
9. The Bees, ‘Better Days’
10. Jim Noir, ‘Computer Song’
11. Paul McCartney, ‘Oh Woman, Oh Why’

Get this album free via eMusic’s 50 Free MP3 Promo

buy it at insound!

Tja, eine Woche ausgesetzt, da die Zeit der Besinnlichkeit eigentlich so gar keine ist, sondern soviel Zeit zum Vorbereiten der Besinnlichkeit braucht, dass man die Besinnlichkeit dann gar nicht mehr genießen kann, weil man sich nur wegen ihr so besinnen muss.

Egal, Bands gibts jetzt, meckern tu ich dann zu Weihnachten.

I’m From Barcelona

Geschätzte 2000 Mitglieder haben die Jungs und Mädels, die gar nicht aus Barcelona, sondern aus Schweden kommen. Na gut, vielleicht sind es auch nur 30, was ja wohl genug ist, wie das live aussehen soll in kleinen verramschten Indieclubs will ich fast nicht wissen, wie es sich anhört, kann ich euch aber sagen – toll hört es sich an. Als hätte man Kristoffer Ragnstam mit den Guillemots und den Shout Out Louds zusammen geworfen und sie mit allen möglichen Instrumenten in einen Raum eingesperrt. Die Songs sind so luftig leicht und instrumental eklektisch, dass man sich beschwingt zu allem berufen fühlt. Es ist eine verspielte Experimentierfreude in der Musik von I’m From Barcelona, die man tatsächlich meistens von Schweden oder Kanada kennt. Und wenn sich eine Blaskapellen-Atmosphäre in den Liedern breit macht und man trotzdem Spaß an ihnen hat, muss es ja etwas Besonderes sein, dass diese 30 Menschen da kreieren. Ist es auch.

We’re From Barcelona (wer zählt jetzt, ob es wirklich 30 sind?)

Simon Bookish

Er macht mir ein wenig Angst, der junge Herr aus London, denn es ist eine unterschwellig bedrohliche Atmosphäre in seiner Musik, die ein wenig an die Wild Beasts und einen nicht ganz so melancholischen Nick Cave erinnert. Es hat etwas kabaretistisches, eine Feierlichkeit, die ihre Makel hat, die aber genau daher so unwiderstehlich ist. Mit Electro, Jazzelementen und eingestreuten New Wave Gesängen bastelt er eine Kombi zusammen, die wirklich ins Ohr geht, auch wenn man das bei der Mischung nicht wirklich erwartet hätte. Es ist ein wenig so, als wäre man auf eine dieser Partys, auf der die Leute so unglaublich komisch sind, aber der Abend etwas magisches hat. Herr Bookish ist übrigens auch ein wenig komisch und magisch zugleich.

Da die Qualität der youtube-Videos zu wünschen übrig lässt, hier die myspace-Seite:

http://www.myspace.com/simonbookish

The Bees

Hail dem Retrorock. Diesmal in Form der Bees, auch mit cooler Hammondorgel, sonst macht es ja nicht wirklich Spaß. Diese Herren bewegen sich aber weniger auf den Wolfmother und Blue Van Spuren, sondern tingeln irgendwo zwischen den Doors und Lynyrd Skynyrd und vielleicht sogar den Beach Boys, sprich, The Bees machen Blues/Soul inspirierten Rock mit leicht überirdischen Melodien und vernebelten Gesängen. Während Wolfmother Haare schütteln lassen, treiben einem the Bees durch psychedelische Harmoniengesänge und mit Orgel durchtränkten Instrumentals, die sich wie bunte Schichten übereinander weben, um ein lautes euphorisches Ganzes zu bilden, dass immer entspannend wirkt, ohne träge zu werden. Großartig, wenn der Blick zurück mal wieder einen Schritt nach vorne bedeutet.

Wash in the Rain

…look, Little Joy just put out a fantastic album but I can’t help but feel a little weird about talking about any Fab Morreti project. It’s not like he wasn’t talked about a zillion times for his instant rock star looks as a drummer of the Strokes(despite not being a very good drummer) or as Drew Barrymoore’s husband. I mean there comes a point where you go – do I really need to talk about a wealthy guy who so far has won the genetic, marital, and musical lotteries?

Here at SoV -we root for the underdog. The struggling artists, the unheard of geniuses – how can we feature a guy who has bloggers & mainstream media alike camped on his doorstep waiting for him to make his next move? Well the answer is, if you make an album as honest and unpretentious as he just did with Little Joy or as solid as the first Strokes album, you deserve the hype despite possessing a good amount of luck too. Besides, I can’t help but me more taken by Fab’s lesser known band mates when I listen to this.

In keeping with the theme of things I’m embarrassed to post, add to the list the abundance of intimate videos with artists playing acoustically – often times in unconventional spaces. Don’t get me wrong, seeing Arcade Fire play in an elevator or Spoon play in the back of a cab are cool videos but there are soooo many rip offs of this style of documentary format right now that’s it’s almost unbearable to watch. To make things worse, it’s become a bit of a fad and you hear artists featured who don’t translate well at all into the stripped down acoustic environment. The Ruby Suns need that everything & the kitchen sink in their arrangements – that’s their point of view. When you take that away, they just sound like hippies and the art is lost.

…so without further adieu, here is Little Joy playing a few songs off their amazing debut album to a small camera crew filming in a gritty style in an intimate space – and it’s wonderful! By the way, this is the second straight post featuring a Rough Trade artist. They must be doing something right over there at Rough Trade(well, they always are actually)….

Unattainable by Little Joy (DUMBO Sessions West) – I love this woman’s voice. Reminds me A LOT of Vashti Bunyan with a wee bit of Jolie Holland without the twang.

Next Time Around by Little Joy (DUMBO Sessions West) – this actually reminds me of a couple of songs from the fantastic first Band of Bees album(or just “The Bees” in the UK because of the 60s garage rock band called “The Bees” in the US).