Two of Us Riding Nowhere

What is it about movie trailer songs? First let me say - I like this song. It's catchy and exciting:

"I didn't mind you blaming me for your mistakes,
I just held you in the doorframe through all of the earthquakes.
But you packed up your clothes in that bag every night,
and I would try to grab your ankles (what a pitiful sight.)"

But this is emo. Emo seems like a cute word for melodrama, that term for the song in your Springtime drama film trailer, the one where the characters blink and cry in slow motion. I'm fine with that if the song is airy, climactic and smart. It helps to have cool construction paper animation & real footage of lighthouses by directors Ethan Segal and Albert Thrower.

The Antlers - Two

Lean on Fruit Bats

The Ruminant Band is one of my favorite albums of the year. According to Sub Pop, they are "heralded and forward-thinking as Vetiver and The Shins," but I love the touches of soul, Motowny dance-hall guitar they have in songs like "Feather Bed" and "Blessed Breeze":

"I always you thought you never gave enough / But now there's too much love"

It's good to meditate with folk & blues. This month the Fruit Bats are in Texas, doing some nice little ruminations at Good Records (which I will be attending with big cow-bells on) and Waterloo in Austin, for you southerners.

You Can Leave It

A few months ago, I wasn't sure about this band but I had this song in my iTunes. I saw them before Cotton Jones, and something felt off about it. This song though, has played so frequently. Sometimes, you have to listen to your emotional response and shut off your brain - if it's wrong or right, who cares. It's music that makes you feel something.

This Parson Red Heads song definitely makes you feel something.

New Avett Brothers, Great Beard

The Avett Brothers~Laundry Room from LaundroMatinee on Vimeo.

Egg Shake, Clap Clap Clap

On a perfect little tour: Roadside Graves, Rural Alberta Advantage and the strange folk of The Daredevil Christopher Wright. Like RRA and Roadside Graves, there's a distinct sense of loss in their music, or at least in this sad & Final Fantasy-like, asynchronous, recorder happy "The East Coast" - with a egg shake and a set of harmonies, they sing,

"The sun is setting on the bay and the wedding it's a lovely lovely ceremony"

And there's a recorder. Beat that, folk lovers.

The Daredevil Christopher Wright - East Coast

Out of Touch Sunday Collection

If you're like me and have dropped out of time and space, around the world, for a week or two and crave (in that willing to cut your arm off way), good, sturdy, well-written new music: here is some good stuff. Has there been a better year for music than this year? The top ten list is already starting to going to have about twenty runner ups -

What I mean is, press play on this short list and or click their pages and let me know what you like - because, Jesus, I sure want to talk about all this great stuff...

The Antlers and their smart pop; the Fruit Bats sizzling acoustics; Creaturesque's trailblazing with deep, candied guitar and Neutral Milkiness; The Bottle Rockets southern and drunk; Jonsi and Alex's Riceboy Sleeps & James Blackshaw's gothic choir of guitars...so much good stuff I'm going to go nuclear.

The Antlers - Two

Fruit Bats - Primitive Man

Creaturesque - Baby You're Bored

The Bottle Rockets - The Long Way

Starlight Mints, Boomerangs Between their Toes

Ok, these guys are surreal. Norman, Oklahoma natives Starlight Mints have a sound like a Salvador Dali mustache, or a Magritte apple over the face, long-hand cursive handwriting all over your asylum walls.

Have you ever heard lyrics like this? They have a lush pop sound like Ok Go, or Flaming Lips, but skew it with long, zany, expressionist strings and asymmetrical beats. Something sexy, wild, and freaking weird about it - I kinda love it. Their latest, Change Remains, is out now on Barsuk Records.

Starlight Mints - Black Cat

Starlight Mints - Jack in the Squares

Snare Drum Kicks the Door Open to Your Mind

A few years ago, Bruce Springsteen described Bob Dylan's snare drum smash opening to Highway 61 Revisited as "kicking the door open to your mind." Now, I'm not comparing the two here, but I sure thought of the quote when I saw this beautiful video from Bon Iver in front of a swooning Glastonbury audience. Thanks to Muzzle of Bees for posting this killer video.

Celebrate Anything You Want

Roadside Graves Are Playing Your Local Tattoo Parlor

Interview with the Roadside Graves Part 1 from Flynn Hundhausen on Vimeo.

Roadside Graves is on the road, in the smoky wood of whiskey bars and southern tattoo parlors, touring their new album, My Son's Home. It's damn, damn good.

"I lie in bed and hope that I can be true / I don't care who slept with who"

Something in this record is perfect for the summer heat - a southern rock sound that has sweat, blood and beer in it.

My Son's Home is out now on Autumn Tone Records, which is the ever growing cool spawn of Aquarium Drunkard.

Modest Mouse - King Rat

Directed by Heath Ledger.

Henry Clay People on Laundromatinee

Henry Clay People - End of an Empire from LaundroMatinee on Vimeo.

Let it Bleed, Henry Clay People, Let it Bleed. These guys know how to play it loud (though admittedly not as loud as Dinosaur Jr, which was like a crossbow of sound through my brain). Keep these guys in mind, they're going to be big.

Thank You Good Records, Yim Yames

Thank you Good Records. Shelter from the storm. Good Records in Dallas has IMPRESSIVELY expanded their vinyl section. I had the Home Alone scream in my throat (from joy, not aftershave) at the massive new upstairs section of vinyl. There was too much good new stuff to start and test out - Starlight Mints, Bowerbirds, some kick ass rap, and God Help the Girl.

I ended up with Mr. Yim Yames's new record, which is Jim James covering George Harrison. Some proceeds go to charity, and if that's not enough to make you buy it immediately, the description on the back of the album will (PS, he recorded these tracks LIVE).

" Hello friends. Just like most everyone else under this crazy dome, I have been a fan of The Beatles since childhood...but it wasn't till sometime in 99 that an old pal turned me on to "All Things Must Pass" and I quickly become even more enamored with the quiety beauty and majesty of All Things George Harrison...

...The following are a selection of George’s songs I recorded back in 2001, a few days after he passed that were moving me so very much at the time… I recorded them live at above the Cadillac in Shelbyville, KY… On my cousin John’s “ol faithful” Fostex 8 track reel2reel, then overdubbed a banjitar or b. vox here or there. I find comfort knowing that all things must pass, but that as all things do pass their spirits are still out there moving us somewhere… doing what they do, just as real as they ever were in this physical world…I hear them singing and I feel them in my blood."