Music Monday

So it’s been awhile since I shared some music with y’all. Well I’ve had a life is happening and so I’m back, and hoping to get this going again. Let’s kick this off with a brand spanking new song by Fun. I just discovered this song last night while watching the Super Bowl. The song was played during a Chevy commercial, and my good friend Bucky pointed out that it was by one of our favorite bands. I didn’t even realize they were coming out with a new album (Some Nights) which is set to be released on February 21, 2012.

Enjoy™

More About Fun.

“Fun (stylized fun.) is an American indie pop band based in New York, New York that was formed by Nate Ruess, formerly of The Format. After the 2008 breakup of The Format, Ruess left Arizona to develop his career in New York City. Ruess then formed Fun with Andrew Dost of Anathallo and Jack Antonoff of Steel Train. Fun recorded their debut album, Aim and Ignite in August 2009 with producer Steven McDonald and arranger Roger Joseph Manning, Jr., the former keyboardist of Jellyfish.”

— Wikipedia: Fun (the band)

Music Monday

“There will always be someone better than you. Even if you’re the best. So let’s stop the competition now, or we will both be losers”

I’ve had this song for quite some time, I listened to the entire album pretty heavily when I first came upon it. Recently it was reintroduced to me on one of the most recent episodes of “Raising Hope” which is one of my favorite shows on television right now.

Enjoy™

More About The Belle Brigade

“There’s nothing particularly complicated about The Belle Brigade. The band, made up of brother/sister duo Ethan and Barbara Gruska, writes simple songs about common themes like being in love, loneliness and feeling like an outcast.”

“The most ear-pleasing quality of the band is the way their DNA-sharing vocal chords are able to vibrate perfectly together, creating full, textured harmonies that seem to rise above the instrumentation while flowing along it. There is certainly something about familial bonds and the way they provide an added connectivity in music that’s just not present in other acts. The album’s best song “Losers” is an excellent example of this. It transforms a straightforward acoustic guitar and vocal piece into a powerful, anthemic rejection of societal opinions concerning those it deems not up to snuff.”

— Paste Magazine’s album review of The Belle Brigade: The Belle Brigade

Music Monday

Here’s a song I’ve been enjoying lately. I’ve also heard it used in a few commercials recently. Which triggered me revisiting the album and also now I am sharing the song with all of you lucky folk.

Enjoy™

More About Peter Bjorn and John (PB&J)

“Gimme Some has been spun as a return to the band’s sunnier, more winning sound, but it too often fails to reproduce Writer’s Block’s unexpected spark. The band seems to acknowledge as much on lead single “Second Chance”. Over claps and cowbell, Peter Morén coos in his slightly mushy, softly accented voice, “You can’t can’t count on the second try/ The second try is such a comedown.” It may be an apt sentiment, but the song feels intent on proving the point via its own limpness. By far the most galling thing here, though, is is the cruise-ship conga-line leading “Dig a Little Deeper”, with its sing-song “oh-oh!”s and the dull semantic argument of its chorus: “All art has been contemporary.”

— Pitchfork’s album review of Peter Bjorn and John: Gimme Some

Alphabet Aerobics

In celebration of my daughter Hannah starting her first day of first grade today I’m going to share one of my favorite hip-hop songs by Blackalicious where he lays down some alliteration filled rhymes as he goes through the alphabet from A-Z getting faster and faster as he goes through each letter.

Enjoy™

More About Blackalicious

“This is one of those classic summer albums that crams in so much sound and so much life that listening to it is like going to a block party, all-day concert and a family reunion all at the same time. Blazing Arrow is the major-label debut of underground hip-hop act Blackalicious, and if it sounds like they had more money to work with than ever before, at least they spent it well. The layered production, the mess of styles, and the three-ring circus of guest stars turn this into a breakthrough record. But what makes it a masterpiece is that Gift of Gab and Chief Xcel can hold it together with the directness of their vision of strength and hope: this is unstoppably joyous, a complicated album that feels as natural as sunshine on your forehead.”

— Pitchfork’s album review of Blackalicious: Blazing Arrow

Can I Kick It?

I was introduced to A Tribe Called Quest in the early 90’s when my brother Matt had first started driving. I’m not really sure how it got introduced to him. The first album we got was “Midnight Marauders”, which to this day is still my all time favorite album of theirs. Soon after we learned they had two more albums before this, so we quickly got caught up to their music. I remember I was like 13 or 14 years old when I came up with this brilliant idea to take my walkman and tape it to my bike so I could pedal around the hood of Live Oak listening to music pretending I was actually driving a car. The walkman I used had a detachable clip, so I taped the clip down so I was able to remove my walkman from my bike. Midnight Marauders was probably the first tape I played while I pedaled around my block to test out my latest idea.

I also remember being on bus rides to away games listening to the Tribe to get mentally hyped up to put in some work on the hardwood. I’ve consistently gone back to their albums throughout my life. The Tribe has been one of my favorite groups. I remember being in high school and giving kids rides home from basketball practice and they would try and make fun of me for listening to Tribe Called Quest instead of “Master P” or some other CRAP! I just turned it up a little louder to filter out their non sense.

This weekend me and my brother Matt hit up Violet Crown Cinema in South Austin to watch “Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest” which motivated me to share one of my favorite songs by A Tribe Called Quest with y’all. The documentary was great, I always wondered why they broke up, and this gave you a complete history of how they got started and what’s been happening with them. 

Enjoy™

Music Monday

I’ve been a fan of Mates of State for about a year now. As I learn more about them I become a bigger fan of theirs. For instance today I watched this story that ABC News did about the band. You see it turns out they are a married couple that make AWESOME music. They have two kids, and they don’t really want to stick them in daycare and be apart from them so they take both their kids with them on tour and to their shows. 

Enjoy™

More About Mates of State

“Considering the sort of cute overload your typical husband/wife music duo induces, Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel have done a commendable job establishing Mates of State as an original, inventive band rather than indie pop’s equivalent of a lolcat. While their mid-concert kissy faces and ubiquitous canoodling press shots would seem to depict their music strictly as a product of love’s labors, the duo’s most intriguing draw stems from their ingenuity, consistently setting off creative lightbulbs album-after-album despite a limiting drums/keys palette. Of course, that’s not to say the couple is impervious to the Sonny & Cher effect. With two newly-minted babies in two years, Gardner and Hammel must feel a rite of passage into parenthood is due, as Re-Arrange Us thoroughly redecorates the standard Mates of State sound.”

— Pitchfork’s album review of Mates of State: Re-Arrange Us

Music Monday

My friend Jayden tweeted out that he could hear Bucky Flowers’ “Cut Copy” blaring through his headphones. I’d never heard of Cut Copy and have consistently found that Bucky and I have similar taste in music. Plus Bucky’s reply made it that much more intriguing. So I immediately Googled “Cut Copy” to figure out who it was. It wasn’t much more time that passed before I was listening to the entire album on Spotify.

Cut Copy has this great 80’s vibe to their sound, but at the same time it keeps it modern. Being an 80’s kid, everything about the decade brings me good memories, takes me back to when life was simple, and fun! So I can completely understand how blaring Cut Copy will take you to that simple happy place of yesterday. 

Enjoy™

More About Cut Copy

“Cut Copy are Australian, and it’s summer in Australia right now. So if it feels a little weird listening to an album of euphoric, starry-eyed dance-rock on earbuds while you’re scraping snow-grit off your windshield, keep in mind: Somewhere in the world, someone is probably road-tripping to a swimming hole with this album playing, or eating a popsicle, or playing catch with their dogs while it blasts out of a car stereo or nearby boombox. By the time summer arrives for those of us in the northern hemisphere, we’ll know these songs by heart and be able to sing along loudly.”

“Back when this group released 2004’s Bright Like Neon Love, the idea of backing dazed, introverted indie pop with a utopian house thump was still relatively novel. And though that sound has since inspired legions of followers and copycats, still no one does it quite like Cut Copy themselves. 2008’s steamrolling In Ghost Colours was an album of anthems; tracks like “Hearts on Fire” and “Lights and Music” were transcendent pop that stuck in heads for days. But Zonoscope is something different. It’s an album-album that puts serious work into movements and transitions, and it works best when you hear it all in one chunk. That doesn’t mean it’s Cut Copy’s OK Computer; it just means that the group has put more work into building a vast, rolling landscape rather than a series of peaks.”

— Pitchfork’s album review of Cut Copy: Zonoscope

Music Monday

“Were you named for the river that surrounds all my biggest my mistakes or the way that I made it out. All the muscles in my mouth never smiled or said profound things. Until the day she handed you to me. Now for all the steps you’ll take and all you’ll overcome. I wanna be the one to put in a song. Take every single tear for all the world to hear. I wanna be the one to put it in a song.”

As a father of 3 I find this song to be VERY beautiful as I would assume any parent would. Beyond the lyrics of the song it has an all around fun tune. I’ve played this song a few times for my 6 year old daughter (Hannah) along with my soon to be 2 year old son (Connor) and they both love it and can’t help but dance along. It’s fitting that the name of the band is “Fun.”

I’ve recently discovered this band and have been enjoying the entire album for the past month. Each song has a life all it’s own. I had a difficult time choosing just one song from the album to share with y’all. I chose this one simply because of the lyrics. Especially since I recently endured a few scary moments with Hannah. So I’m just all around grateful for her in my life. I’m grateful for the opportunity to be a part of each of my children’s lives. My father died when I was 17. So, I look at life as a “you never know how much time you actually have with the ones you love” type of adventure. So take advantage of each and every moment.

Enjoy™

More About Fun.

“While tears were shed and rumors milled over the Format’s sudden split last year, frontman Nate Ruess quietly went about his business. He assembled an entirely new project with ex-Anatholla member Andrew Dost and Steel Train frontman Jack Antonoff. They called themselves fun., though anybody with the misfortune of writing about them on a word processor can attest to just how miserable an experience it is. The shuffling of the frontline doesn’t tell the whole story, however: behind the scenes, there’s a great deal of continuity between 2006’s surprise hit Dog Problems and fun.’s debut LP, Aim and Ignite. Producer Steven McDonald, himself a veteran of ‘90s power pop outfit Redd Kross, returns to produce, but what’s most notable is that Ruess has retained the services of keyboardist Roger Manning, Jr., former member of criminally underappreciated retro pop trio Jellyfish.”

— Sputnik Music’s album review of Fun.: Aim and Ignite