The Enthusiasts

I've probably mentioned before but one of my favorite things about writing this blog is getting bands or their representatives sending me music that I might like to put on the blog.

This time it's The Enthusiasts.

I know the people who read this are fairly diverse in your musical tastes. But you're reading a blog named from a Velvet Underground lyric, there are some things almost all of you like. So I feel fairly safe saying that pretty much everyone that reads this on a regular basis will love the Enthusiasts.

If you like The Strokes, MC5, Jon Spencer Blus Explosion, The White Stripes and basically and garage rock or garage revival band you will love them. Need more evidence? Here's a live version of In The City:



See? Told you you'd love it.

Here's the studio version of the track:

In The City by The Enthusiasts

In The City is the A-side for their new single, the B-side is My Two Worlds. You can order the single from their label here.

Go and check out their myspace there are more songs and videos there for you to enjoy. I know you will.

Covers for Sunday

Here we go, the return of Covers for Sunday, by far the most popular part of this blog.

Send Me An Angel - Emily Zisman & Ryan Avery (originally by Real Life) I'd never heard the original of this until one day not too long ago my wife played it on YouTube. About two hours later I got this cover in my inbox and it is absolutely immense. Beats the original in every possible way. What was originally new wave becomes folk and the synths are out in favour of a violin. It's so good here's the video of the recording:



Ryan Avery's music is fantastic, check out his site here, there are plenty of tracks to listen to/download.

Bonny - Editors (originally by Prefab Sprout). Prefab Sprout may be the best band to come out of the North East ever and Editors do them justice with this cover. Of corse it's not as good as the original, but it's not Tom Smith's fault he isn't Paddy McAloon

Earth Angel - Death Cab For Cutie (originally by The Penguins) It's the song from Back To The Future, I used to love this song when I was younger and argue all the time with two of my friends about which was better: this or Johnny B. Goode. Those were my first music arguments, I was six or seven.

1977 - Edwyn Collins (originally by The Clash). The Clash were great, Edwyn Collins is great, this is a great cover of a great song.

Just - Mark Ronson feat Phantom Planet (originally by Radiohead). Normal service, a Radiohead cover. Some of you will love it others will hate it. Radiohead covers are the most polarizing thing I ever post, more so than the free jazz even. Well, perhaps the jazz covers of Radiohead are more divisive.

One - Vanessa Paradis (originally by U2) Remember when U2 where great? Listen to this, it'll help you remember.

That's it for the return of Covers for Sunday, I hope you enjoy all the tracks.

Uncovered on Saturday

It's been a long time since I've done one of these. Same with Covers for Sunday, which is back tomorrow. I hope you enjoy the tracks. It's a very eclectic mix this week, I'm sure you'll find something you like.

Secret Beach - Brad Mehldau Trio. I've had this post almost all ready since before my absence. The only track I couldn't find was something by the Brad Mehldau Trio that I thought would be suitable for everyone. But now I've found it.

Stumblefoot - Vitamin String Quartet. This isn't a band that does a lot of original pieces, I think this is one of only two released on record. It's very good though, hopefully there'll be more original compositions in the future to go with their excellent covers.

I Wasn't Made For Fighting - Woodhands. Their cover of Eddy Grant's Electric Avenue was very popular when I posted it, I'll be interested t see if this reaches a similar level.

Wolf Like Me - TV On The Radio. It's TV On The Radio so you shouldn't need me to tell you that it's absolutely fantastic. One of their best songs.

Passion Play - William Fitzsimmons. His cover of King Of Wishful Thinking was my first exposure to William Fitzsimmons and I've been enjoying his music ever since. He's apparently been featured on the soundtrack to loads of different TV shows, so there's a chance you'll recognise his music even if you don't recognise the name.

Summerlong - Emm Gryner. She has a gorgeous voice and is a great songwriter. What else do you need to know?

On Shuffle

I'm short of time today so it's just songs I've been listening to lately. No real connection between them, except I've listened to them all and enjoyed them all recently.

I Know There's An Answer by The Beach Boys. Not one of their best known songs, but just as good as them. I've never really been a huge Beach Boys fan but I've been getting more and more into them over the last month or two.

As We Enter by Nas & Damien Marley. I knew as soon as Distant Relatives was announced it was going to be awesome, and it is. If you've read this blog for a while you'll know I listen to all sorts of different types and styles of music, maybe that's why I like this. More likely it's because it's really good. As a bonus if you go to the Distant Relatives site you can download another track from the album.

Autoclave by Mountain Goats. It took me a while to really get into Mountain Goats but when I did it was well worth the effort. It's not that it's in anyway inaccessible or difficult music, it just took a while to click for me. John Darnielle is an incredible lyricist and this song is one of his best.

Live - Everywhere You Turn

This is just perfect. the Bad Plus at the height of their considerable powers, always a recipe for great music. As much as I enjoy their recordings with Wendy Lewis it's good to listen to the trio play without vocals as well.

It starts off with just the drums, (is there a better drummer than Dave King at the moment?), quiet and subdued, and slowly and seamlessly grows into an absolute epic song as the rest of the band join in. The video's exceptionally well shot, it's worth watching this instead of just downloading the mp3.

Everywhere You Turn (mp3) by The Bad Plus

Stamper Freon

Remember The Plastic Pals? They're a Swedish band I featured back at the beginning of March. (Check the post here if you missed it first time around)

After I posted that I got an e-mail from someone who'd done some backing vocals on The Plastic Pals album. So here we are, here's his solo project Stamper Freon.

I've just got to say first that this is really, really good. Stamper Freon came about after a couple of years break from recording and general involvement in the music industry. He's got a really distinctive voice that sometimes reminds me of Paddy McAloon and other times of Alex Kapranos.

Here's the first song: Wish You Were Here. This song was inspired by something his daughter said to him about her grandfather, I think it's the sort of thing any parent will recognise. Also the drumming in this is phenomenal.

Normally I don't post covers unless it's on a Sunday but I'm making an exception here. This is Clap Hands, originally by Tom Waits.

Check out his myspace page, there are another 7 songs to listen to and some videos to watch. In fact, here's one of the videos to watch now:


Safe in grey

STAMPERFREON | MySpace Music Videos

I accept, he sounds nothing like Paddy McAloon or Alex Kapranos in this song, you'll just have to download Wish You Were Here to check it out.

But that's not all. As you probably guessed given his association with The Plastic Pals he's Swedish as well. And he's in a Sweish language band called De livslevande Fågelmännen which I'm told roughly translates to The Very Much Alive Birdman. I asked for a song from them as well because there's nowhere near enough non-English language music on this blog. So here's my first step towards correcting that Ingen Djävul (Not A Devil) This was recorded while jamming and then worked on in the studio. It's a great song, very catchy even if you can't speak a word of Swedish.

Here's the myspace for De livslevande Fågelmännen. There's plenty of songs and a video on there as well.

That's it for today, I hope you enjoy the music from today's post as much as I do.

Paul Haig Day II

One of the worst things about my extended absence from blogging is I missed Paul Haig Day II so I'm doing this post now. I know it's very late but it's a worthwhile blog I think.

I'm not going to talk about Paul Haig though. I'll let his music speak for itself. Paul Haig Day came about because of the support Paul Haig and his manager, Evan, offered bloggers when we were having blogs deleted left, right and centre with DMCA notices. I don't want to talk about the retardness of the various workings of DMCA notices and Googles response to them because if I did I'd be typing all day. What's important here is that there was a musician and his manager smart enough to realise that bloggers are not evil and that plenty of people use blogs to find new music and spend money on artists they discover.

Now, Paul Haig's been recording music since the early 1980's, that's more or less all my life. But I wasn't aware of him. How I came to find out about him is pretty much the story of how blogs work for many people.

I'd recently discovered Hype Machine. So I was looking on it for Martin Stephenson and The Daintees tracks because everything I owned by them was on vinyl and I love Martin Stephenson's work. I grew up with my brother playing it all the time, I knew all the words to Big North Lights when my classmates were singing Rick Astley and Bros. I have awesome siblings. Anyway.

I found only one blog talking about Martin Stephenson. I was pretty happy, because it's one more than I thought I'd find. That blog was The Vinyl Villain (it's in my blog roll and if you haven't looked at it yet you should). I read through all the Martin Stephenson posts, (all the mp3s had been taken down) and then read more of the posts. I started checking it every day. From that blog I became acquainted with Paul Haig. And Paul Quinn. And more of Edwyn Collins' solo work and Orange Juice. And I rediscovered Prefab Sprout. And I really got into Arab Strap and discovered Malcolm Middleton and Aidan Moffat's solo work. And that really is just the tip of the iceberg. So many artists have had my money spent on them because of The Vinyl Villain.

Now, The Vinyl Villain is a great blog, but it's not the only one. I could give you lists from other blogs of new music I've gotten into, especially from music induced euphoria, Rollo & Grady, Destination: OUT and Jazz Note SDP (again, all in my blog roll). I know people have gotten into bands because of things I've posted. To me that's what blogs are really for, that's the function they are meant to serve and that's the value they serve.

So that's why I'm posting for Paul Haig Day II, even though it's very late. A great musician who understands what bloggers do. I hope you enjoy these tracks. While you're listening to them have a look at Paul Haig's official website.

Heaven Sent - Paul Haig

Justice - Paul Haig

Ghost Rider - Paul Haig

Absence

Has your heart grown fonder? Obviously I've been gone a little while, things have been a bit hectic and I haven't had any time to dedicate to this blog. Nothing serious, just the sort of things that are best described as life happening. Things have pretty much calmed down now and the blog will be back up and running.

I've changed the structure of how I'm going to post. There'll still be covers on Sundays and originals on Saturdays but I've got plans for more regular posting during the week. This should make it easier for me and it'll mean a new post everyday.

I haven't had time to post on the blog but I've had plenty of time to listen to music and I've been doing that as much as ever. There'll be plenty of music for you to listen to and hopefully new bands to find, old bands to rediscover and generally lots of music to enjoy.

For now here's three songs, I hope you enjoy them.

Hello Cruel World - E

Plans Get Complex - All-Time Quarterback

Back From Exile - Nickel Eye