My Blood Was a Rushing Tide

To put it simply, this video is the reason I love Neil Young inspired folk rock. From Everest's album Ghost Notes. I don't know what else to say besides: I love this (with that sound of rain and running and horses) and I need the record to spinning and crackling at all times. Lucky Los Angeles can see them at the Troubadour tonight with the Parson Red Heads.

Album Review: The Antlers Hospice & Brendan Benson

Two polar opposites. Brendan Benson has grace. It's alive and bright. The album opens with "A Whole Lot Better," a illuminated-blue Strokes-esque love song that introduces you (if you're unfamiliar with his waxings) to his Bowie sides, with that acid IV-drip guitar of the Who, and you know, The Killers or something (God, don't you hate Killers comparison's?).

According to Aquarium Drunkard's well-drawn interview, Brendan is keen on writing compulsively, and has no problems referring to his music as retro, power pop. Coming from the Raconteurs, "My Old Familiar Friend" is refreshing. "Garbage Day," one of the better tracks on the album, is succinct, sweet, and humble:

"If she throws her heart away / I'll be there on Garbage Day"

So maybe this is power pop. It definitely has a Jamie Lidell, I-became-a-twenty-something-in the-90's-vibe, but Benson explores more and is more adventurous than say, Filter (God, I hate Filter references). I wasn't a big fan of "Gonowhere"'s unsoaring melodies and the synth heavy "Feel like Take You Home." "You Make A Fool Out of Me" varies between minimalistic ballad and a interlude cut track from Moulin Rouge--which works well. It's pretty. As a whole the album has the confidence of an experienced songwriter and a good musician, but is weighted by tropes of the power pop or retro or rock genre. Benson, however, seems to know this and embraces it. Ten years from now, I envision cars on a southern highway, like Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire, slamming their steering wheel in pure song elation to "Poised and Ready," or anything Benson graces us with.


I'm biased - I have a proclivity for bizarre, dark-romance indie rock like The Antlers. It opens with a sound I imagined made to imitate the burst of light when you die (so it is read). "Prologue" is beautiful and scratchy, unlike it's poppy doppelganger: "Two" (which definitely is about death). Since Dark Side of the Moon, it's been easy and lovable to open an album with the sounds of quietly leaving your body. The Antlers love this. "Kettering" dances in ascension; a smoky and quiet tribute to the the thunderstorm -

"When they called you a hurricane thundercloud / When I was checking vitals / I suggested a smile / You didn't talk for a while"

The phrase "slow burn" comes to mind. And images of smoke. Unlike its smoke elements, Hospice has density and heart. "Two" has scintillating imagery and electricity even in it's uncharacteristic (from the rest of the album) emo-ness romanticism. Greatness is abound, Shelley or that curly haired freak Byron might say, and "Hospice" is pretty and dark.

The Antlers - Kettering

Brendan Benson- Garbage Day

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.

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.

Megafaun, Record Stores and Incense

I don't smoke weed. Maybe I should, I don't know for sure. There's a scene in Almost Famous when the kid puts on Tommy, "Sparks" fades up, and I remember thinking when I was a kid: "Should I be smoking weed?"

Is it possible that music can replace the urge? Megafaun's new album, Gather, Form & Fly, comes damn close. It's baroque, dark, and full of barn hay. There's lots of exciting diversions in this album, and as the needle rounds the record, it shocks you. Trumpets and scratchy strings in between beautiful folk songs. Some of them raw, like a garbage bag is wrapped around them, giving them that cool, hippy, papery sound that folk musicians love to do these days.

If this were the Seventies, and war was going on (wait...), I'd probably be in my room Indian-style, with a fairly large bowl, with Megafaun's new record rolling on the table. It really is beautiful to think about, and even better to listen to now.

Megafaun is on tour, right this minute, with the Bowerbirds. Can you think of a better thing to do, than to see them play? And before play their records, burn some incense, and see your future? Damn that Cameron Crowe.

Megafaun - The Fade

This is the Best Song for July 4th

The only decent American thing to do on July 4th is to listen to music and drink beer. In Los Angeles, the sky is either hazy or shock blue, and every where else there's a flood of fireworks. Great, you say? You need a good song. If we're going to celebrate it, let's do it right. There are many applicable songs; a crashing symbol and timpani; the Presidential band; the wicker chair you're sitting in as crackling Lee Greenwood nonsense practically destroys the cheap school speakers.

I prefer Folk. In this case, a minimalist harmonica laid over some Americana harmonies. I'm going to go with The Low Anthem. Aquarium Drunkard published a brilliant interview with them recently, and their new CD, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, is out now on iTunes:

"And who could heed the words of Charlie Darwin
Fighting for a system built to fail
Spooning water from their broken vessels
As far as I can see there is no land"

Speechless. Now, unfold that crusty metal chair, put down the aviators, open a beer, and let this song wear you. Don't pussy out with Lee Greenwood, or blow the fireworks away with crap Billboard hits (though Grizzly Bear is up there now...), try some new Americana folk, some rolling skies and a harmonica.

The Low Anthem - Oh My God Charlie Darwin