Ehroehed is Lonny Potter, who records music in British Columbia, apparently to give away to his friends. Erik Ratcliffe is a nice person from somewhere, wherever, who dropped Ehroehed in our Suggestion Box. If I knew Lonny Potter personally, I’d tell him to burn a disc of his music to give to Erik Ratcliffe because, you know, that whole sharing the sharing thing. Plus, it’s gonna be the holidays, so let’s all be Lonny’s friends, yeah? Like Will Oldham in the Palace days, Ehroehed reminds me that there are plenty of weirdos out there making beautifully strange songs just for the hell of it (and for that I’ll count my blessings).
Machine Go Boom
Columbus? Yes, twice. Cincinnati? Yes. Cleveland? Never been. But now Jason’s little note to the Suggestion Box has got me wondering when I’m going to be in Ohio next. Machine Go Boom (from Cleveland) is one Mikey Machine, with friends, really just doing whatever they want. The frenzied, frantic pop of “Captain Obvious” is dance-inducing fun, a real gem. As for “The Kazoo Star,” there’s really kazoo, the best use of a kazoo I’ve heard since 5th grade. And “This Song Is a Secret?” I’ll never tell…
The Go! Team
The Go! Team cook up an infectious blend of double-dutch hip hop, horns-a-blazing cop show themes, and raw garage pop. But you probably already knew that. These MP3s are from their 2003 Junior Kickstart EP, which had yet to incorporate the pep squad vocals. But you probably already know that, too. However, unless you’re responsible for one of the 548 plays tallied on MySpace as I write this, you probably haven’t yet heard The Go! Team vs. Kevin Shields, which takes the yummy bits of “Ladyflash” and “Huddle Formation” and puts the proverbial cherry on top. Say G-O…T-E-A-M!
Gotye
Gotye is Aussie one-man band Wally De Backer who, like his fellow countrymen The Avalanches, humanizes bedroom beats, quirky samples, and the odd live instrument and weaves them into epic pop structures. I guess it’s summer down under, which would explain the decidedly upbeat tone of these preview tracks from his forthcoming LP.
Au Revoir Simone
So long, Simone! Have a nice Thanksgiving in Brooklyn. (I’ll probably get yelled at by our loyal fact-checking readership, who will remind me that none of the three women in this band is named Simone.) I’d love to spend my T-day in Brooklyn, or listening to Verses Of Comfort, Assurance and Salvation — which the Japanese consider to be “8 tracks of perfect lo-fi synth pop” — but it looks like I’ll be at home with just one song by Au Revoir Simone to ease me through my tryptophan hit.
Clearlake
(A reminder: Tune in tonight at 10pm PST to hear Mark from Music.For-Robots and myself go mano a mano for what’s sure to be fine musical joust.)
Anyone remember the movie Judgment Night? Yeah, me neither. The soundtrack’s a different story. It paired up Sonic Youth with Cypress Hill, Dinosaur Jr. with Del the Funky Homosapien, and Teenage Fan Club with De La Soul. Two great genres that go great together: indie rock and hip hop.
The album’s really burned in my mind however because back when the album hit I’d just been promoted to Music Director at a commercial alternative station, and a young, eager radio promotion rep at Epic Records, Stu Bergen (hi Stu!), attempted to cut his aggressive promo teeth by yelling at me for an hour demanding my station report Epic’s “single” in heavy rotation or something. Back then playlist reporting was all theoretical because there was no way for anyone to tell exactly how many times a radio station played a song, but Stu was out to impress his higher-ups, and impress them he must have ’cause he’s been breaking bands, taking names, and running promotion departments for Island Def Jam and Columbia Records (and here I sit blogging away…). I don’t even remember the fate of that Judgment Night track, but I do remember Stu and I breaking bread at Smith And Wollensky’s, A Steakhouse to End All Arguments. And end them it did. Stu and I have been pals ever since.
Now that I’ve bored many of you to tears, and awakened a raging midnight snacking, back to Clearlake: between this remix by Nobody and the recent remix of Against Me! by Mouse On Mars, I sense another remix trend bubbling among the indie rock world. I’m sure there’s plenty more out there. Use the comments to let us know about your recent favorites.
And yes, I realize I’ve said absolutely nothing about Clearlake. More demo tracks from their forthcoming album are available here.
The Rosebuds
My inner zen master wants to say of their latest release, Birds Make Good Neighbors, “the delicate sound of falling leaves coupled with the ominous sounds of the approaching winter.”
The realist in me will end this way: Timeless pop from Raleigh, North Carolina. The Rosebuds conjure a rich textural sound and do so in such a way as to evoke Lloyd Cole, The Stone Roses, Grant Lee Buffalo and a tiny dash of Rufus Wainwright. This husband and wife duo are definitely worth a listen.
Beat Happening
Two bands in my heavy rotation right now: Beat Happening and Lync. With our late autumn here, until the cold hit this morning, what better songs to celebrate the warmth than those of Beat Happening’s “Indian Summer” (and the excellent cover of this song by Spectrum, aka Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3) and Lync’s lovely album These Are Not Fall Colors, also on K Records many years ago. Plus, Calvin Johnson, indiedom’s Barry White (for the baritone, not the love songs), founder of K Records, member of Beat Happening, the Halo Benders, and Dub Narcotic Sound System, is playing in town tomorrow night with Tender Forever. Sure, some of the offerings below are a crappy 56kbps, but with music this good and already this lo-fi, who cares?
Speaker Speaker
I thought I’d impress the lady and take her up to L.A. to see a rock and roll show. It’d been too long since we’d got our rock on. We were on the guestlist and everything. We had a babysitter and everything. As we were getting on the 405 at 7pm on Friday night I knew we were in trouble. Traffic. Long story short: missed the show, did a quick shopping spree at Amoeba, replaced a Housemartins (The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death) CD that we’d lost, and sang-along to it all the way home while sucking down milkshakes from In ‘N’ Out. Not a bad night after all. Probably, because, unlike Speaker Speaker, I was right when I picked my girl. We still share a similar taste in music years down the road. And like you, it’s safe to assume, we’re still listening to music fanatically when many of our friends have given up on it, or somehow, unexplicably, started listening to Top 40 Country radio. Speaker Speaker shares The Housemartins and Joe Jackson’s youthful exuberance that too many people lose when they hit their late 20s/early 30s. Don’t let it happen to you.
Dog Traders
Drew is from Columbus, Ohio. He draws comics (Toothpaste for Dinner) and makes music (Dog Traders). You probably already know that. Prior to Jason B.’s suggestion, I may have been the only American of my particular demographic to have slept on Drew’s wicked ballpoint funnies. I may be in broader company by saying I’d never heard his sandblasted garage pop either. But that, too, has changed and I’m a better man for it. Drew’s distant, mumbled vocals remind me at times of J. Mascis or Michael Stipe on REM’s circa Murmur. His lyrics are as odd, clever, and compelling as you would expect from the man who brought you this. Not only is the music good, it’s free. All of the songs on Dog Traders’ A Panic in a Pagoda is available as a downloadable .zip file on Drew’s site (though at $7 I’d recommend buying a copy of the packaged CD, if only to get your hands on the lyrics).