Beat Radio have managed to bend several ears here at 3hive, so it’s always nice to get an email from Brian cluing us to new tracks, in this case the well-arranged and optimistically emo stylings of “What I Love the Most.” It’s even nicer when the track is a preview of not just an LP on the way, but an LP/EP superset, The Great Big Sea + Miracle Flag EP, which will be available in the coming weeks from CD Baby and iTunes. Plus, I just noticed that you can get a ton more free music than what’s below by just clicking over to the band’s website. Listen now, buy later, know that you’re doing it the way 3hive intended.
Sam’s original post from Sept. 2005:
Beat Radio spin wistful melodies with subtle, vulnerable lyrics in the same vein as Luna or Sebadoh’s more tender moments. Their songs have a radiant, familiar quality that grows on you with each listen. In fact, I’ve included two versions of “Treetops” — the 4-track demo version from earlier this year and a more polished version from the forthcoming EP — for this very reason. Much like a frayed blue blankie I once loved, I don’t know if I’m ready to let go of the demo version just yet. While the EP version is by no means overproduced, it seems so in comparison. But I’ll let you decide for yourself.
I can’t write about 
For a brief moment in the ’90s (I’m talking like, three years), Jud Ehrbar, Jeff Gatland, Anders Parker were responsible for some of the most underrated music of that decade. Reservoir (Ehrbar’s ambient-ish side project) and Varnaline (Parker’s Americana/altcountry-ish side project) were impressive enough, but Space Needle’s two albums, Voyager and Moray Eels Eat the Space Needle set the standard for melancholic, noisy (and often very lengthy) art rock that modern acts like Animal Collective and Black Dice are still trying to catch up with. Why were they so overlooked? Some blame Zero Hour, the record label shared by all three bands at the time, and their distribution deal with folk-friendly Rounder which landed their records in patchouli-soaked bookstores instead of the appreciative hands of adventurous nutters like you and me. (The silver lining is that you can pick up the entire Zero Hour catalog at CD exchanges for the price of a BK value meal.) For those who’d rather have history packaged for them nice and neat like (and can afford a king-sized value meal), Eenie Meenie Records last year reissued select tracks from those two Space Needle albums on one CD called Recordings 1994-1997). Enjoy the trip…down memory lane.
I’ve wanted to post Copperpot ever since Scott played a track for me in a rental car in Italy—a wickedly infectious track sampling Doris Day’s “Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps.” Now, almost two years later, I can finally share the sharing with this, the lead off track from the forthcoming album WLYA?. Yes, that’s the Blastmaster KRS-One blessing the mic—just the kind of talent Daniel Kuypers attracts. Our man picks up where his 2005 debut, 
Just read my original post…so much has changed and so much hasn’t. Same goes for 65 Days of Static. They’re still making instrumental rock that I actually like. But they’ve since matured their sound a bit. It’s less of an aural blitz and more of subtle, studied sound. Don’t get me wrong, they still have an edge to them: they had to kick a Scottish after-school dance troupe out of their own auditorium to record the grand piano for this album. Now that’s rock ‘n’ roll.
Trying to keep it Francophone here…Montreal DJ Ghislain Poirier has range. His distinctive rebel beats draw from a range of styles — from Ragga to Detroit techno. (Ghis prefers to call his sound “le gros,” as in the fatness, which I won’t dispute.) He teams up with a wide range of MCs, from dancehall toaster DJ Collage to fellow Quebequois Seba. And he’s been called upon to remix a range of artists from 
Joe is reigning king of the mix tape. While most of us have grown lazy (just look at our sporadic podcast output), Joe still makes mixes — most often on CD-R these days — with little more impetus than capturing a theme or mood: spring songs, road songs, grading papers songs, cooking songs, songs featuring a particular girl’s name… The latter prove to be the most difficult (unless your name happens to be Baby), which is why Utah Carol’s latest album, Rodeo Queen, reminded me of Joe. Among the 13 rich country pop songs we have “Kimberly Smiles,” “I’m Sorry Maria,” “Sam’s Ranch,” and, featured here, “Ruby” and “Come Back Baby” (see, they even have Baby covered). Utah Carol, named after a traditional song about a cowboy who dies trying to save his friend from a stampede, are in fact the Chicago-based JinJa Davis and Grant Birkenbeuel. They take country and pop influences with equal weight, producing precious harmonies, delicate instrumentation, loping rhythms, and memorable lyrics. Hit record, Joe.
Given the season, it’s appropriate that “Simple Plan,” one of my favorite songs of late, could be described as triumphant. Don’t get me wrong, ain’t nothing preachy about Hooray for Earth. Though you could say they’re on a bit of a mission. They appear determined to make every one of their songs sound freakin’ epic. They start with the big-guitars-meet-big-synths sound—then proceed to send it skyward and never look back. “Simple Plan” is a classic example. For the first 20 seconds it rumbles through low-gear grunge, then bursts into a glorious, spiraling new wave anthem that would make Icicle Works blush. “So Happy” picks up the pace, like 
I’m not sure if you guys have heard this band yet, the Arcade Fire? They’re Canadian, and kind of popular. They’ve got this new album, Neon Bible, and more media coverage than Anna Nicole Smith (well, maybe not), and Sam forced me to go see them live a few years ago and they were really, really good. It was a small venue, and we all sang the words to the songs even though we maybe had never heard them before. Anyway, here’s the opening track off that new record. Hope you like it… I like the second song better.