Category: Music

Why Saint Etienne is the best “best band you’ve never heard of” of all-time.

The home page of English band Saint Etienne’s old website featured a different fan quote each time the page was loaded. Many of the quotes talked about Saint Etienne’s “sweet melodies”, their “lush musical movements over a field of melancholy dew drop daisies” and even “a peaceful cloud of love feelings”. Some spoke of “Sarah’s breezy voice, an open coupe, twilight’s sunny beach” or “summer days, nice people, blue skies turning to cool tingling skin and the moon over the sea”. One compared the band to a “Tiffany’s breakfast”. Another called the band “the definition of loveliness” and still another “comforting – like a big pillow, woolly socks or a stiff drink”. A fan named Roland in New York said that “their songs remind you of every tender memory you had, from childhood to adulthood”. James in London said that Saint Etienne’s sound is “that film moment (usually in slo-mo) when the girl turns her head and opens her eyes”.

What is it about this band that makes people write such gushy metaphors? How is it that a band can make otherwise intelligent adults write like angst-ridden teenage poets??

Continue reading “Our Secret Music”

I spent most of my middle and high school years sorting through stacks of old records at various Atlanta record stores, working the floor at record shows, pouring over Goldmine magazine and burning up transatlantic phone lines with calls to record shops in the UK.

I was what you’d call a record collector, although I wasn’t much of one in the greater scheme of things. There are record collectors out there who have tens of thousands of albums filling their basements and garages, like John Cusack in High Fidelity. But I was never one of them. I kept my collection small, filling it with records I loved as well as records to “flip”. In fact, flipping records is how my love affair with Madonna started. Like most teenage guys in the 80s, I thought that she was super-hot, but I didn’t much care for her music. But I noticed that her records sold quickly and expensively, so I started buying the occasional Madonna picture disc just to flip it into a rare Cure record I wanted.

Although vinyl collecting almost died, it’s going through a renaissance of sorts lately. Many independent record stores are reporting that vinyl is now outselling CDs, although this has as much to do with people who used to buy CDs now using iTunes as it does people buying more vinyl records. Still, vinyl sales are up, and because of this, I thought I’d dust off this old post and spruce it up some.

Continue reading “All About Record Collecting”

I was looking through my site stats yesterday, and found that this page is the fourth hit on Google for “birthday playlist”. Why? I dunno. But it’s my birthday party playlist from 2009.

Here’s the playlist from this year’s party:

1. The Cars – Shake It Up (3:30)
2. Blondie – Once I Had a Love (3:14)
3. The Clash – The Guns Of Brixton (3:12)
4. Buzzcocks – What Do I Get? (2:57)
5. Roxy Music – Out Of The Blue (4:46)
6. Lindstrøm & Christabelle – Lovesick (3:12)
7. Return To Mono – Framebreaker (5:06)
8. Duran Duran – Being Followed (3:48)
9. The Fixx – Are We Ourselves? (2:27)
10. The Big Pink – Crystal Visions (5:48)

Continue reading “My NEW Birthday Playlist”

English musician Mick Karn, co-founder of the New Wave band Japan, lost his battle with cancer today. He was 52.

Read more here.

Here’s the most obscure thing you will see (or hear) today!

Chas Jankel, born Charles Jeremy Jankel on April 16 1952 in Stanmore, England, was the keyboard player and guitarist for the 1970s British punk band Ian Dury and the Blockheads. In fact, Jankel co-wrote most of the group’s biggest hits! But Dury was always the center of attention in that group, and the band broke up after Dury (just Dury) signed a contract with Polydor in 1982.

Although the band periodically got back together until Dury’s death in 2000, Jankel also had a short solo career in the early 80s. Here’s his song “Questionnaire” from 1981:

The song’s… okay, I guess. But the main reason I posted the video was because I had such fond memories of watching it on Video Jukebox, a music video show on HBO. The show began as a series of “filler” shows of 1-3 videos that ran between films. In December 1981, however, the show got its own half-hour timeslot on the network. And whoever chose the videos seemed to love “Questionnaire”, which ran, like, a million times!

Now that I’ve written up my thoughts on the year in television, it’s time to turn my attention to the year in music. 2010 wasn’t nearly as good for me as 2009 or 2008, years in which I found bumper crops of new bands to enjoy. In fact, compared to last year, 2010 looks like pretty slim pickin’s. But there’s still enough stuff to make a Top 10 list, so here goes.

Keep one thing in mind: while the shows in my  Top 10 TV list were listed in order, the following albums are not. Music is such a subjective thing. Some albums are good for when you wanna be mellow, while others are good for cranking up and driving around. In my mind, it just doesn’t seem fair to “rank” them.

Brian Eno – Small Craft on a Milk Sea – Aside from his early work with Roxy Music, I’ve never been a fan of Eno’s “pop” music. I had one listen to 2008’s Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (a collaboration with David Byrne) and promptly deleted it off my computer. But Milk Sea is more like his ambient albums, and a good one at that. Like the rest of Eno’s ambient work, though, you have to be in the mood for it.

Duran Duran – All You Need is Now – The Fab Five (or, I guess, the Fab Four) finally got smart and decided to stop trying to appeal to teenagers with this disc, which is a callback to the circa 1983 Duran Duran we all know and love. Producer Mark Ronson said that he was trying to create a “follow-up to Rio” with this disc, and while I’m not sure it hits that high mark, it’s one of their best albums in years.

Stars – The Five Ghosts – “Wasted Daylight” is one of my favorite songs of the year, so this album probably gets more props than it should. Especially since the singing duties in Stars are shared between (male) Torquil Campbell and (female) Amy Millan. Remember when you’d listen to a Dead Can Dance album and you’d fast forward over the Brendan Perry songs? Yeah, Stars is like that too. But when Millian sings, it’s pretty indie pop. That said, their cover of “A Fairytale of New York” is a crime against humanity; it’s “came in 18 to 1”, not “10 to 1”, you douchebag!

Vampire Weekend – Contra – College music hasn’t had this much fun with nerd rock since They Might Be Giants hit the scene. Vampire Weekend might not be the best band ever, but they’re an awful lot of fun, and this is a great album.

Continue reading “My 10 Favorite Albums of 2010”

Since I’m in a musical mood this week, how about this:

She & Him are an indie band consisting of actress Zooey Deschanel (sister of Bones star Emily Deschanel) and Matthew Stephen Ward (who goes under the stage name M. Ward). I wasn’t all that impressed with their first album, Volume 1, but I’m really digging their new disc, Volume 2. Have a gander of the video for the song “Thieves”, from the new album:

Zooey doesn’t have a great voice, but it’s quirky, like her personality. The first album was kind of boring… but the new one is much more interesting.