Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By

Meowskers, " I'll Be By Your Side" (mp3 from their Myspace)

Somewhere Freddie Mercury is pleased because his life was not for nothing. Complex musical structures, multiple melodies within one song, a falsetto free of self-consciousness overlaying the music summon the boldness and genius of Queen.

It's quintessential rock music, the kind that unabashedly leads with its masculinity, and I usually don't go for that. For me to embrace non-arty, non-folksy "rock music", there has to be something really special there--something that abandons its own conventions and courageously guides itself. This decade I've only found those qualities in a few bands, including: The Stills, Secret Machines, The Killers and probably a few other bands I can't think of right now. Most "rock and roll" leads with its ego, existing solely to fuel cocaine fantasies (but I still believe in a thing called love). I get a different sense from this. This band really funnels everything they have into this song.

Myspace
Website


Meowskers

Southerly, "Soldiers" (mp3 provided to me by Fanatic Promotion)

Krist Krueger, the original member and driving force behind Southerly, seems to like to call upon references some might consider to be cheesy. Soap operas are listed as influences and a gossip columnist is referenced in the album's title. Is he trying to tell us something about his music? I don't think so, because this song (or any of the songs I've heard) could hardly be considered as trite or canned (sorry soap opera and/or gossip columnist fans, but it is what it is). Instead we have a beautifully understated, well-articulated, and musically rich composite slightly reminiscent of Elliott Smith, without the undercurrent of intense discontent.

Myspace
Their booking agency site


Southerly used to be just one guy, but from his Myspace it looks like he has a band.

Matthew Dear, "Pom Pom"

I have to listen to a song called "Pom Pom". Curiousity is just too great for me not to. Turns out it's a really cute song: boppy in good way, with dead-pan vocals that are more talking than singing. It reminds me of one of those great songs known only to 80s children like myself (and those privileged enough to receive mixed CDs from us.)

Myspace
Website


Matthew Dear

Podcast tomorrow night!

Testing blogging through Ubuntu!! Is it working?

Blog post tonight and podcast tomorrow.

Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By

The Contrast, "Clue" (from their 2007 album Underground Ghosts)

I always think my mind is playing tricks on me, so I understand a bit of what this guy is going through. He thinks he's losing his mind, and more sadly, he says though sometimes his dreams come true, he doesn't have a clue. The lyrics get more dour: he tells someone he's glad they're there, but he asks them "Did you have to bring your fear?" Yikes. Talk about gratitude!

The pessimism is okay, though. Uncertainty has never sounded perfectly corralled inside a great melody. It's no stretch to say this song could be a long lost track from the great days of what we once called "college music". R.E.M., The Replacements and this song. Hearing this song takes me back to a period of music before alternative became another brand for bland. Before the "modern rock" stations began playing the same damn Maroon 5 song over and over. Before the "next big thing" was pre-determined by advertisers.

Eh, I'm just cranky. It's past my bedtime.

Website
Myspace
More mp3s on their label site.


Contrast

Ashton Allen, "Prodigal Son" (from the album Dewdrops)

I mentioned Ashton Allen in an October, 2005 post of mine, but none of his songs were available for download at that time. I just happened to be looking at his label site and saw his Myspace and decided to check it out again. I'm glad I did, because otherwise I probably would've never heard "Prodigal Son" This song is quiet, and still, but very pronounced. He has such conviction in what he's saying that he doesn't need physical volume; the volume is in the words--the meaning is louder than any music or vocal delivery. What is he talking about? He's talking about coming alive and giving himself to someone. All the scary stuff that propels our lives forward.

Website
Myspace


Ashton Allen is nice-looking, yes, but more importantly he's very, very talented. Mind out of the gutter!

Touriste, "Shannon's Cannon" (from the EP Battle On)

I've been looking for a postable version of this song for over six months now. I originally posted their song "Your Move", found on KEXP, in November and I encouraged readers to listen to "Shannon's Cannon" on their Myspace. I'm very happy that KEXP is offering this song as a free download because I still think it's well worth your time to listen to it. It's definitely a unique song--there's something vaudevillian about it. The verses feature very light piano, drums and subtle vocals; however, the chorus rachets up into a heightened performance--rolling drums and punching vocals. You can almost imagine dimmed lights during the verse, curtains lowered, then the stage coming to life and light splashing over the performance area as the chorus dominates. It's a very visceral song--perhaps why I remember it so vividly seven months after I first heard it.

Website
Myspace


Touriste

Bonus!!

Keren Ann, "Lay Your Head Down" (from her self-titled 2007 debut)

I'm including this as a "bonus" because I already linked to the video of the song a few weeks ago because I couldn't find an mp3 of the song. If I'd checked the KEXP feed, I would've realized that they had a version of the song for download! Oh well, better late than never at all. Don't tell me you don't like this song. Hand claps! She talk-sings the verses in a Lou Reed kind of way, gorgeously sliding into the choruses. The backing vocals are inspired--a series of staccato "bah"s with a sweeping round of "ah"s behind them. Oh, that sentence will make sense once you've heard the end of the song.

Listen to the song "Liberty" on her Myspace, also. Gorgeous!

Website
Myspace


Keren Ann loves rock 'n roll, put another dime in the jukebox, baby.

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Elk City, "Cherries In The Snow"

Website
Myspace
From the album New Believers


God Love You For A Liar, "Speech Marks"

Myspace
Website
More songs available on their site

Jeremy, "Miss You" (available at their Myspace)

Website
Oh, and Jeremy is a band, not a person. Sorry! I should've known that before I started the podcast ;)

The View, "Face For The Radio"

Myspace
Website
Video

Sean Hayes, "Flowering Spade"

(IODA Promonet requested that I post the following information in exchange for the MP3)

Download "Flowering Spade" (mp3)
from "Flowering

Spade"
by Sean Hayes
Sean Hayes

• Buy at SeanHayesMusic Store
• Buy at Sean Hayes Music Store
• Buy at iTunes Music Store

More On This Album

Website
Myspace

Thank you for listening to another of my podcasts (or at least reading the shownotes! I'll have another blog post next week and another podcast in two weeks.

Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By

Rasputina, "Cage In A Cave"
(direct link from Toolshed)

Always wonderfully dramatic, Rasputina--consisting of lead singer/cellist Melora Creager and drummer Jonathon TeBeest--beat out intense, rolling affairs only matched in these modern times by the equally dramatic and theatrical Dresden Dolls. "Cage In A Cave", from their current album Oh, Perilous World, is an example of an exemplorary and highly compelling composition. The overlaying vocals, the melody which alternates between fiercely raw and sweetly light and the creative use of instruments such as cellos and (what sounds like) a picollo all tumble together into one powerful, pulling force. Rasputina commands attention in this song, and I doubt they would want for it.

Myspace
Website


Rasputina

The Basement, "It's a kinda love"

The music is just beautiful. Is it not? Just gorgeous guitar work and violin. The vocals are a little bit too emo for me--he carries each syllable a little too much, to the point of dragging the vocals. The music, however, is enough to put this song at the top for me. Maybe I can find an instrumental version and sing my own vocals ;)

Myspace
Website


The Basement

Sean Hayes, "Elizabeth Sways" (from IODA Promonet)

Sean Hayes calls his music "Ambient/Folk" on his Myspace profile. I won't dispute this, but I would bend the Folk spectrum more towards "Freak Folk" on this one. I, of course, love both genres. When his voice blends into a tuba (and it blends eerily well), the freak flag is fully out. I love it all the more for the freakiness, and for the backwoods banjo-ness of the song. I don't know who Elizabeth is, but he makes me sway. I only wish I'd gotten to hear some of that Irish folk music he says he used to play in North Carolina.

Website
Myspace


Chris Isaak ain't got nothin' on this guy, Sean Hayes

IODA asks me to include the following in exchange for the use of the mp3:

Download "Elizabeth Sways" (mp3)
from "Flowering Spade"
by Sean Hayes
Sean Hayes

• Buy at Fast Atmosphere Sean Hayes Store
• Buy at SeanHayesMusic Store
• Buy at Sean Hayes Music Store
• Buy at iTunes Music Store
• Buy at Rhapsody
• Stream from Rhapsody

More On This Album

Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By

Mieka Pauley, "All The Same Mistakes"

This is smooth, reminiscent of the hypnotic, melodic style of Poe, a band whose music defined a few of last decade's years for me. For most of the song, the singer's voice is level, calming--perfect for a quiet night in the dark, smoking a pipe or a hookah, staring out a window at the vaguest hint of a moon, and thinking about very little but tranquility. Towards the end, however, she lets some of the smoothness slip, straining her voice to match the dire pleading in the repeated line "I don't want to make all the same mistakes". The regret and emotion in that one line become very tangible through her expression.


Myspace
Website


Mieka Pauley

Bang Gang, "Find What You Get"

I don't know why, but I get a certain spy music feel from this song. If Alias were still in production (long live the memory of Alias!), they would get much use out of this song. I could see it playing while Vaughn stealthily chops an enemy agent on the neck, making the person collapse to a crumpled heap. Then cut to Sydney slinking through a bar in some metropolitan European city, looking for her mark. Bardi Johannsson, the only member of Bang Gang, sings with an unforced, unharried ease, obviously not panicked by the tension drumming up around around him. His voice strings along the music, which urgently and fervently follows his lead, crashing into a wall of clattering confusion...perhaps the victim of a spy's cruel manipulation?


Myspace
Website


Bang Gang

The Thermals, "Pillar of Salt" (mp3 originally from Salon.com)

Heh heh. They list the band "Forgone Conclusion" as an influence. Oh, that just cracks me up. If you don't know why that's funny, then oops. Sorry for you! Anyways, this is one of those songs that knocks you down, crushing your wits so you're not aware what's happened until it's over. Then you decide that was really cool, and you play it again. The album is named The Body, The Blood, The Machine, which is appropriately descriptive--their music is a machine, meant to raise the blood, the body and all the senses.

Website
Myspace
More song downloads from their label page


The Thermals, with some of the cast members of Reno 911!

Bonus:

Keren Ann's "Lay Your Head Down" is a great song. I heard it on Paste Magazine's sampler. I couldn't find a legal (or even otherwise) copy of it, so here's the video.

Bonus ll!

David Brent, formerly of Foregone Conclusion, "If You Don't Know Me By Now"

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Shownotes:

1)Radical Face, "Chewing Bottles"

2)Radical Face, "Smile"

Sigh...I swear to all that is good and favorable that the songs were on the website like a week ago. Anyhow, it appears that the site was redesigned, and they're not there anymore. I swear they were, though. Here's their Myspace, also.

3)Moonbabies, "Take Me To The Ballroom"

Website
Myspace

4)Feist, "Sea Lion Woman"

Website
Myspace

5)Sea Wolf, "You're A Wolf"

Website
Myspace

6)Dragonfly Dying, "Talking To Myself". I swear to all that is mine and all that I want that I downloaded this song from music.download.com a few months ago. I guess I'll learn one day to check the websites first before I post the song, to make sure the song is still available. Okay, so two faux pas on this podcast. Oopsy daisy.

Website
Myspace
Hey--fellow Seti At Home user!

Songs That Might Otherwise Pass You By

What? What's with this new, different title? Where did Five Songs I'm Loving This Week go? Does Lola not love the songs any more?

Okay, I'm done asking questions to myself. Hey, if no one else is gonna pipe up, someone's gotta ask the tough questions.

I went into a lot of detail on my last post, but basically I've just been realizing that five songs every week is a lot for me to consistently post. So much time goes into research and writing the descriptions of the songs, and it's really more time than I can realistically spend. I've been unemployed for awhile now, and I aim to change that somehow. I want to spend more time with my boyfriend, and also I'd like to write more reviews. So, instead of chaining myself to posting five songs every week, I decided to change the name of the post. It'll still run every week (except for the few times a year I might take time off) and it'll still feature songs I love. The difference is I won't be required to post a certain number of songs, and by nature of the title, they won't have to be from that week.

I hope you all keep checking my blog and podcast, and I hope the quality of what I post is always as good as I believe it's been.

Oh, podcast tomorrow!

New Ruins, "Ships"

"Small Town Midwestern Gothic" is how New Ruins describe their music. I can't argue with that--I get a certain "American Gothic" (as in the TV show mercilessly cut short during the 90's) feeling from their music. "Ships" specifically has an urgent shadowiness (that is totally a word) that reminds me of interpol, with maybe some Joy Division mixed in. I definitely feel a certain dark paranoia when I'm listening to this song. Their style reminds me of being in my early 20's, trying to steady myself in barely-lit alleys behind small music venues, smoking, and listening to the muffled sounds of the heavily Joy Division influenced band playing on the other side of the wall. There's something very familiar, yet very intoxicating about this music.

Myspace
No website listed


New Ruins, The Sound They Make album cover

Dappled Cities, "Fire, Fire, Fire"

Heh heh. Okay, I'm laughing at their Myspace. The members (ha ha) have names such as Tit Tittycourt and Dirk Stronghold. The first name sounds like it belongs to a Bond girl and the second should be a character in a space opera. Hmmm...shades of Barbarella? Also, they list their page under comedy/classical, opera and showtunes. That just makes me laugh. Of course for actual (boring) names, you can check their website under "band". I prefer to think of them as a Barbarella house band.

Musically, as much as I hate the label "pop", I'm going to use it here because they say their Myspace listing says they're French pop, Dutch pop, and Italian pop (is that like Italian soda? 'Cause if so, hmmm...) I'm a little confused about international adjectives since they're Australian and what I've heard doesn't sound country-specific, but I could go with calling this pop. It's really good pop, with qualities reminiscent of the lightness and irreverence of one of my favorite bands, Bishop Allen.

Website
Myspace


The Dappled City band member in the blue jacket from doesn't seem to be in on the joke

Vega 4, "Life Is Beautiful"

Lovely song. Unlike the first song I posted, this song has no shades of darkness--it actually starts out like a lullaby and then escalates to a Snow Patrol-ish pitch, becoming a fully realized declaration of love, complete with an ending chorus of overlaid vocals. The lyrics are romantic yet raise questions that aren't very happy. The singer states "our hearts, they beat and break", and he's there to record and express every beat and break.

Myspace
(Their website is under reconstruction)


Vega 4