1-3-12 - "Snow" ~ The Zolas

I have several good reasons (at least in my own mind) to post this song tonight:


1)  Today was the first day with a legitimate snowfall in Pittsburgh since last winter.  Just my luck it was the morning I had to go to work... I swear, people in this city forget how to drive in inclement weather every summer.  But I love snow even when it means extra traffic headaches and waking up earlier to shovel.  It's better though when you can go sledding and whatnot, so who wants to quit our jobs and just enjoy the best part of the year, eh?


2)  One year ago today, I posted a song by The Zolas, and I love symmetry.


3)  There's an awesome video of Zach Gray playing the song with a children's choir singing along (the St. James Music Academy in Vancouver):


"Snow" ~ The Zolas featuring the St. James Music Academy Choir (on vimeo.com)


Along with the acoustic+kids video, here's the recorded version:

And a concert video, if that's more your thing:

"and it's hard not to call you
when it starts to cover the road
...'cause we kissed in the snow..."


PS - I found a sweet stripped down version of "Green Light" by Leisure (originally posted 8-26-11).  Check it out!

12-28-11 - "Sprawl II" ~ Arcade Fire

If you've been paying attention, you'll know that I love juxtaposition.  First, the word itself is something special.  Second, the contrast between joyful music and depressing / somber / provocative lyrics or imagery, or maybe satirical commentary on modern civilization, or just plain self-destructive tendencies.  This song is just that - if you listen to the tune without paying attention to the lyrics, it is inconceivable that you won't be dancing, or at least tapping your toes; but if you pay close attention, the song is about the never ending consumerism, drudgery, and mediocrity that is suburbia... not quite as cheerful as the sonic array would lead you to believe.  I choose to view the music as giving a hopeful edge to the lyrical bleakness, and lines like "dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains" do indicate the expanse of the blight, but "mountains beyond mountains" also rings of hope.  The phrase is partially a tribute to a book by the same name, by a doctor who has spent significant time in Haiti working with disaster relief efforts.  To quote the description: "At the heart of this book is the example of a life based on hope and on an understanding of the truth of the Haitian proverb 'Beyond mountains there are mountains' – as you solve one problem, another problem presents itself, and so you go on and try to solve that one too."  I have yet to read it, but it's high on my list for the new year.


If you want to dig deeper into the lyrics and their meaning, this one's a good one to pull up on songmeanings.net - complete with a plethora of comments discussing things.


Now for some fun.  Arcade Fire recently released an intense and awesome and epic (further superlatives escape me) website / interactive music video.  If you have a webcam, I highly recommend using it - and if you don't have a webcam, you can still experience (some of) the fun by clicking around during the song:

 Sprawl2.com 

(If you are lacking confidence in your dance skills and need inspiration, watch this and this first.  And if you're totally lame, you can watch the "traditional" version of the music video on the site instead of the interactive version...)


And just for you audiophiles or lovers of Arcade Fire, here are some live performances to further sate your appetite:


 (live studio acoustic session)

(New Orleans Jazz Festival 2011, with special guest Cyndi Lauper - yes, that Cyndi Lauper)

(different song, but had to include - the prelude to the above, in which Arcade Fire's encore began with a cover of Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"... featuring the original artist herself.  If you're clever, you'll watch this one *before* the above...)

(plain ol' music video, for you lame folks)

"They heard me singing and they told me to stop

quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock

sometimes I wonder if the world's so small

can we ever get away from the sprawl...?"

10-26-11 - "Pipeline / Diamond Head" ~ The Ventures

For several reasons, I'm giving you a two-fer tonight (and you can thank my good buddy Ben for that term, although he used it in reference to a piano duet rather than a doubleheader of songs).  First, I couldn't decide which Ventures tune to go with.  Second, I found a sweet live video of two of my top three choices.  Third, the songs are short anyway.  Fourth, it's my party and I'll cry if I want to.


Anyway, the first time I posted a song by this groundbreaking instrumental rock band, I explained just why they are awesome; so I'll just let the music do the talking tonight.  Here are two surf rock classics, performed live back in '64:

(I love the chugging riff in Pipeline, but the best part may be that their demeanor is so laid back while they are playing what was, at the time, some of the most progressive and "hard" music out there.)

10-7-11 - "Big Blue Wave" ~ Hey Ocean

Another one from 100.5 The Peak.  Local Vancouver band Hey Ocean! are on form with this track, and hey, David Beckham is in the band!

...wait that's David BeckINGham in the band, not the soccer player... my bad.  But he's pretty cool too!


Anyway, the song is just swell.  Catchy and hopeful, this fits the bill of indie rock-pop brilliance.  And I found an amazing acoustic version as well, which brings out the harmonies and emotive depth in a spectacular way...


Recorded:

Acoustic Awesomeness:

"Sing until you have no voice
sing because you have no choice
sing until you float away
our love is like a big blue wave..."

2-22-11 - "Casimir Pulaski Day" ~ Sufjan Stevens

Not going to say much about this one; it's pretty self-explanatory.  Well actually it's pretty deep and moving, if you just sit back and listen to what he's saying... you'll catch the drift, but still have a lot to think about...

"On the floor at the great divide
With my shirt tucked in and my shoes untied
I am crying in the bathroom..."

2-21-11 - "Three Rounds And A Sound" ~ Blind Pilot

So here's something I've learned over the years - certain TV shows have a knack for using awesome songs in their soundtracks.  The WB / CW network figured out a long time ago that by cross-promoting, they could make both the artists and the shows more popular, and have used it to their advantage on numerous shows.  And of course the other networks do it too.


One of the few shows I watch these days is Chuck.  Perfect blend of drama, comedy, nerdiness, and - guess what - a pretty rockin' soundtrack.  If it weren't for Chuck, I might never have heard this song.  But I did hear it, and it's just beautiful.  


It's open to interpretation, but I'm pretty sure it's a mostly positive love song, spanning various points in a relationship, and looking at a lifelong, ever deepening love.


(only live versions on youtube; check grooveshark or go buy it for the studio recording)

"Soil and six feet under
kept just like we were
before you knew you'd know me
and you know me..."

2-18-11 - "Reverie" ~ The Cowboy Relics

In honor of the show I attended this evening, here's one from local Pittsburgh band The Cowboy Relics:


"Reverie" ~ The Cowboy Relics


"...and it's got me runnin'..."

2-17-11 - "New Low" ~ Middle Class Rut

When the band name is this awesome, you know the song is gonna be good.  Ok, maybe not.  But this one has a catchy, driving beat to it, and I think the message is a good one too.  Anyone who's made it to adulthood, gone to college and gotten a "real job", or maybe gotten a "real job" without going to college, will likely find out that things aren't always roses.  The grind of a 9-to-5 desk job can be quite taxing.  The grind of a job involving manual labor can be grueling.  The "rewards" (making money so you can buy things so you can keep up with the Joneses) aren't necessarily worth putting up with things.  And unless you're really lucky, even if you're doing something in which you're interested, you probably will not want to keep doing it 5 days a week for the rest of your life.  


Yet, once we are in the system, and once we've started living the "American Dream", we find it incredibly hard to break free of it (the "middle class rut").  At some point, we each hit a new low - depression stemming from the mundane aspects of bringing home the bacon, putting up with corporate red tape and the inanity of office chatter, having our  efforts go unappreciated, or whatever else it may be.  When we were kids, we dreamt of being astronauts or athletes or movie stars or princesses.  Then, when we became old enough to realize that these were not realistic for most of us, we moved on to more "normal" aspirations.  And even if we've reached these goals, we may find they are not as fulfilling as we had imagined.


To quote a movie you may have seen, " Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy stuff we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact."


Don't let yourself be bogged down in the rut of consumerism, and don't let your life be wasted away working for the man.  If you have a job you can tolerate and it provides for your family and allows you to spend time with people you love doing things you love, great.  But if you're just plugging away to pay for your 789 channels of HD TV and your leased Audi, maybe you should reconsider your priorities, and the true cost of this lifestyle.


One more quote from one of my favorite bands: "Decide what to be, and go be it."


Enough blathering, here's the song:

"After your dreams have all died and morning is in mourning... what are you?"

2-16-11 - "West Coast" ~ Coconut Records

Another one I heard on the radio on a recent trip.  It's amazing how driving around in an unfamiliar place and listening to unfamiliar songs can be such a moving experience.  Try it sometime.


This one's a bit mellow, a bit depressing, but somehow hopeful as well.

"So pack up the bags to beat back the clock,
do I let her sleep or should i wake her up?
you said we both go together if one falls down (...yeah, right...)
I talk out loud like you're still around..."

2-15-11 - "Mountain Man" ~ Crash Kings

Heard this one on XM radio while in Nashville for work a few weeks ago.  One of those songs that hooks you instantly; it's just so darn catchy.  And I've mentioned before that I'm a sucker for a dirty piano riff (wait for it in the chorus).  This is just a trio - keys, bass, and drums.  Yet, they produce a pretty full sound... check the bio on their website for info on just how they pull it off.  

"I’m sittin' on top of a hillside,
there’s a one way path that’s takin me home...
climbin' up to the peak with a blindfold,
bombin' down at the top of my lungs screamin..."

2-14-11 - "9 Crimes" ~ Damien Rice (with Lisa Hannigan)

Damien Rice is an Irish bloke who is also a pretty talented songwriter.  This one is hauntingly beautiful, a tale of love gone awry.


(I recommend listening without watching the video at first - the video is quite interesting but also somewhat strange and may detract from your first listen.)

"It's a small crime and I got no excuse..." 

2-13-11 - "Head Full Of Doubt/Road Full Of Promise" ~ The Avett Brothers

In light of one of my favorite bands making their Grammy debut tonight, I can't resist posting this song.  When I first heard of The Avett Brothers, in 2008, they were doing 200+ shows a year, in bars and small venues across the country, busting their tails and leaving everything they had on the stage every night.  They'd already been at it since 2000, and were on the cusp of breaking through with their latest album, Emotionalism, which combined their punk/folk madness with just enough pop to draw in a new demographic of listeners.  I saw them at the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh in June of 2008, and fell in love within the first minute of their electrifying performance (which ended nearly two hours later with thunderstorms chasing the crowd away.)  By late 2009, with the release of "I and Love and You", produced by Rick Rubin, TAB was in the process of exploding into the consciousness of legions of new people.  And now, just over a year later, they're sharing a stage with some of the biggest names in the history of music, and some of the biggest stars of today.  It couldn't have happened to a better group of guys.


The song they performed tonight is one of my favorites of all time.  It's very simple, yet very poignant, and if you look up the lyrics on songmeanings.net, you can see in the comments that different people draw different meanings from it.  My take is that the author is struggling with the constraints of society, with years of going along with the crowd, not living according to what he knows to be true.  He's had big dreams, but been scared to take the leap and chase them.  He's decided not to live life as a mindless drone, just going with the flow, doing as he's told... but hey, give it a listen and come to your own conclusions.

"There's a darkness upon you that's flooded in light,
in the fine print they tell you what's wrong and what's right;
and it flies by day and it flies by night,
and I'm frightened by those who don't see it...
...decide what to be and go be it..."

2-11-11 - "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" ~ Death Cab For Cutie

This one's been in my head all evening.  Just a chill love song.  When you find the right person, you want to stay with them until you both get old, and die, and even after that.

"If heaven and hell decide
That they both are satisfied,
And illuminate the "No's"
On their vacancy signs;
If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks,
Then I'll follow you into the dark..."

2-10-11 - "Help!" ~ The Beatles

Some folks would tell you The Beatles were the greatest band ever.  I'm not one of them, but they sure were pretty good.  Here's a fun one that might not be so light and fluffy as it might seem at first, based on the tempo and chord progression... the writer (Lennon) was actually in some pretty dark times, it seems.  But he knew that if he turned to others for support, he could get through it.  Or maybe it's about drugs... you never can tell with The Beatles...

"When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody's help in any way;
but now these days are gone and I'm not so self assured,
now I find I've changed my mind, I've opened up the doors..."

2-9-11 - "Don't Fight It" ~ The Panics

Here's one from an Aussie band.  It's been in my head all day.  A simple, keyboard-driven verse/chorus with some horns dropped in for the tail end, it's just a catchy groove.  But there's more to it than that... the singer grapples with apathy, with giving in to the path of least resistance, going with the flow, joining the rat race, being overcome by the brainwashing of society and allowing himself to become just another zombie, going through the motions of life and believing the illusion that happiness is found in being just like everyone else.  He knows he's contributed to the problem, but he struggles to find the willpower to break free.  Yet he hasn't given up hope; the bridge shows he's still searching for answers and escape from the apathy...

"Where has my light gone?
Where has my fight gone?
What keeps us burning
when the fire is long gone?
When I can't relate 
to that voice without a face,
should I be afraid or
is it just a voice I did create?"

2-7-11 - "Chase The Sun" ~ The O.C. Supertones

Ska is a funny genre.  Some of it is quite good and catchy, and some of it... isn't very good at all.  Can't say I listen to a ton of it lately, but back in high school and college, The Orange County Supertones were one of my favorite bands.  They called it quits several years ago, which was probably for the best, but before that they put out several albums full of horn-infused fun like this one, with a few mellow, introspective ones mixed in for good measure (I'll  feature one or two of those eventually...)


This one's a scorcher, dropping the bass and kick to get it started, and bringing the horns in for the big finish. It brings back lots of memories, from warm up mixes to counseling at a youth camp.  I had a cabin full of 9-year olds yelling the chorus as we traipsed around the camp one summer - loads of fun.  The video is quite amusing as well - don't take it too seriously, the Supertones certainly didn't when they filmed it.  Just a good old-fashioned Western standoff:

"We lived inside the fault lines
beneath the earth's surface,
spendin' all our time
readin' books and writin verses;
the earth started shakin'
from the noise we were makin';
we emerged from the rubble,
OC was taken."

2-6-11 - "In The Sun" ~ Joseph Arthur

This one's one of those depressing, yet hopeful songs.  It's a song of loss, maybe loss of a loved one or lover, or perhaps the lost innocence of youth, or lost faith... or possibly all of the above.  But there is still life to be lived, and something worth searching for.  

"I picture you fast asleep,
a nightmare comes,
you can't keep awake..."

2-4-11 - "The High Road" ~ Broken Bells

A collaborative album can sometimes be pretty cool.  Case in point:

"The dawn to end all nights, 
That's all we hoped it was. "

2-3-11 - "Konstantine" ~ Something Corporate

Thanks to mi hermano for reminding me of this song and this band today.  Guess I haven't listened to SoCo in a while, but they're emblematic of my high school and college years, and (as mentioned in previous posts) I'm a sucker for piano-driven pop/rock/whatever.  This one's just a smooth, sweet ballad about a girl and the boy who loves her, and the beautiful disaster of their relationship.

"This is because I can spell confusion with a 'k'
and I can like it
it's to dying in another's arms and why I had to try it
it's to Jimmy Eat World and those nights in my car
when the first star you see may not be a star
I'm not your star..."

2-2-11 - "Found Out" ~ Big Hurry

Here's another up-and-coming local artist from the Pittsburgh area.  As with New Shouts, my good buddy Jake introduced me to them by inviting me to a show they played recently... and as with New Shouts, I was unable to attend that night but checked them out online and liked what I heard.


This particular track is full of delightful, trippy syncopation.  You can check out more of their stuff on Bandcamp; a couple freebies too!


"Found Out" ~ Big Hurry


"Wrapped a cord around my neck 
to measure all that I had mentioned;
wish that I had wrote it down
or wrapped it up and buried it..."