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Archive for January, 2013

The-Offspring-Dead-Sara-2012

Have a listen to The Offspring breaking down “Gone Away” with Dead Sara‘s Emily Armstrong.

The Offspring – “Gone Away” featuring Emily Armstrong

Growing up, I used to listen to lots of the Offspring.  Their breakout Smash came out when I was 14 or so, and it got played everywhere.  My favourite song was always Ixnay’s “Gone Away.”

Talking to Rolling Stone today, Dexter Holland said, “When we started building our own set list, I realized the stripped-down version of ‘Gone Away,’ which we’ve been doing for a few years, would fit Emily’s voice really well (…) It turned out to be a special moment in the show each night.”

Check out the video they produced for the track on Rolling Stone.

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We’ll stay in Southern California and we’ll stay with music videos.  Email today from  Kids Without Instruments pointing to their new music video for the song “Nausea Nostalgia.”

Cool video… dark little beats and production.  The female vocals need some seasoning… sounds like they were in Choir or something in high school…they need to make a few more bad choices.

Go with yourself.

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iamdynamite
Whoa, double dragons! Getting the week fired up with Detroit’s IAMDYNAMITE.  Punchy, poppy, slightly gritty sounding rock & roll.

They have a single called “Where Will We Go” that is showing up on CFOX in Vancouver and some of the bigger mainstream modern rockers out of the US.  Its a pretty straight forward rocker.  High energy, catchy chorus, just a lot of fun….

Listening to am IAMDYNMIATE,  it got me thinking about Sacramento’s Middle Class Rut.  Man, I wish those guys would reactivate.

Go with yourself.

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Layout 1

Happy Friday!  Today’s blog will feature the latest single by Biffy Clyro that you’ll be listening for on The Zone.   And we travel back in time to remember Walk The Moon’s earlier great single “Anna Sun.”

Biffy Clyro are a polished Scottish BIG ROCK band.  The muscular shirtless rockers we know and love from their hit “Many of Horror.”  2013 has the lads in fine form, touring the UK arenas, and putting all their emotions down on Opposites (March 12, Warner).  The lead feature is called “Black Chandelier.”

Biffy Clyro – “Black Chandelier”

Cruising the information super highway, I found an acoustic breakdown from Flux FM.

I dunno if I’m a sucker for accents or what, but these guys always remind me of Frightened Rabbit…like if FR listened to soaring hooky riffs and took their shirts off 84% more.

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anna sun
So how about Cincinnati popsters Walk the Moon quickly becoming the hottest thing since Foster the People?  Their song “Tightrope” is blasting up the Modern Rock Countdown, and the interest in the group has people hungry to hear more…so we’ll go back in time to a song that was popular on American modern rock earlier in the year and on the blogs/satellite the year before that…. slow build from Walk the Moon.

Their song “Anna Sun” is punchy!

The music video is even more fun…it is so popular with their fans that people now dress up and do their makeup to reflect the video when hitting a Walk the Moon show.

Go with yourself.

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GospelsPressPhoto1(ToryWilliams)
You know what they say, time flies when you’re having fun.  Well I must have fun everyday because when Thursday and Friday roll around I am always surprised.  You’d think, all the years I’ve orbited the sun, Thursday shouldn’t surprise me…but here we are.

I woke up today to exceptionally high volume of emails from bands looking for that blog post to get the buzz rolling outside of your local scene.  Thank you.

I got a job, a kid…life is busy.  Never too busy for one or two (or three) nice songs jamming while I get ready for the radio show.  And today, they come at me from all over and with divergent sounds.

Let’s start in Queens, New York.  The group is called Gospels.  Their introductory email talks about them being the best of roomates? and into home improvement?  Living in a place called Forest Hills? Sounds nice….not the most compelling story but I clicked play.  Glad I did.  Their song ‘Animal Feelings’ is a light, jangly sounding bit of modern rock.  I like the hint of fuzz (which will contrast nicely to our next song).

Their Animal Feelings ep is out in the Spring on +1.

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Dirty Nil
Back to the land of beer and snow…. Canada.  Hamilton’s The Dirty Nil crank the amps on their split 7-inch with Northern Primitive.

The song is called “Zombie Eyed” which I hope is about smoking pot.

Their email compelled me to listen.

Putting out a record with friends is awesome because there’s more people to drink with, double the doom, double the fuzz, people to tell you if there’s too much fuzz (there never is), people to tell you when you’re in tune (we never are), maximum bro hangs, less songs to write, less money to pay, you get to form the justice league of rock and roll, blood pacts, telepathic homie love, hombre Valhalla, and a constant drone of swearing.

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Gospels sound like some guys taking it seriously. Getting it right.  The Dirty Nil sound like fans of rock & roll who make rock & roll.  If they played a show with FIDLAR…well that would be a fun night.

and now… Italy.

The group is Bergen.  The Italian/UK band named after a Norwegian town (in the county of Hordaland… ORCS!) make dream pop.  They says:

Bergen is not only a beautiful city on the west coast of Norway but also the name of a new band from Italy.

The project took shape during 2012, when Nico and Alberto decided to merge their musical tastes and record their first EP.

The result was a melancholy dreamy pop with lighthearted rhythms, elegant sounds and surf choirs that travels beyond the Alps and reaches across Europe.

On january 3rd 2013, Bergen, sons of DIY, released this self-titled EP and will now continue their musical experiment between Padua and Glasgow.

I like Bergen…but right now I’ll put a wait-and-see tag on these guys.  Needs more jam.

Happy Thursday, thank you for listening/reading and maybe throw me a like on the Facebook machine.

Go with yourself.

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SongsforSlim
The Replacements’ Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson recently sat in the same room together to record the first “Replacements” music in years.   The extended play they recorded is a collection of 4 covers that will benefit Slim Dunlap (Replacements guitarist ’87-’91) who suffered a severe stroke last winter.  The ep also features drummer Chris Mars covering a Slim song and he created the art of the record.

SPIN has all the info on how to buy this limited press to support Slim.  Trolling the net, I also found this great 2008 interview Paul Westerberg on Pitchfork.  Good times.

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The other day SPIN featured up a very pretty song by Shannon Whitworth.  I heard this track and it got me thinking it would make a pretty good wedding first-dance type of jam.

Shannon Whitworth – “You Are In Love”

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The Black Keys… pretty good band.

Their record El Camino came out December 6th, 2011 and became a modern rock legend.  The album is huge.  We were sitting around here at the radio factory yesterday talking about what music to have in our “heavy rotation” and what new music to add in when Bossman Johnny said, “where are we at with “Little Black Submarine?”

We were poking around and were surprised to find the song is one of the most played modern rock songs on some pretty groovy Modern Rock FM stations.  Got us thinking (and me in particular) about the speed of sound…I like finding out new music and listening to all sorts of stuff, but the average music fan…happy to jam the forth single on a record that is over a year old.  And is a year old record…. old? Does the Zone churn on the songs too quickly?   How about The Black Keys?  Seems they are ready to march forward, they have some new music in the pipe…but to a Radio Programmer….the forth single is hot.  huh…

addition:

I wanted to add something from this article about music sales this week that is related to the above discussion about The Black Keys.

If there’s a silver lining here, it’s the slow, honest rise of the Lumineers who scoot up from No. 9 to No. 8 as their “Ho Hey” picks up radio adds and on-demand plays since their Grammy nomination and despite their album (The Lumineers, 51K) having come out all the way back in April.

To illustrate the “speed” in which the world turns their attention to music…. this song has 2,000 on The End in Seattle…but its brand new to so many people.

Go with yourself.

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Family-of-the-Year-Loma-Vista

To crib a line from my buddy James Sutton across the Strait at The Peak, I’m into this today, Family of the Year, “Hero.”

James jams this song on his show and we hit it sometimes on The Zone.  Pretty song.  I guess its poised to go super-nova now that it is added at KROQ in Los Angeles.  We were lucky when we got a chance to see Family of The Year last summer at Rifflandia.

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I made a little 30 minute mix of some of my favourite alternative pop songs right now.  Some are my wife’s faves.  Have a listen!

That’s all I got…. Go with yourself.

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fun
Listen to the new song from Fun.  The song is called “Sight of the Sun.”  The song is streaming over at Rolling Stone right now with some thoughts from Nate Ruess.  I ripped it to share below. Hilly Dilly ripped it (thank you!)

The song was originally created for their massive massive Some Nights.  The song didn’t make the cut because of a sample the band couldn’t get cleared.  Enter Lena Dunham from the TV show Girls (season 2 premiers on January 13th) looking for a track for season two.  Nate dusted off the cut, reworked the offending sample out and bingo-bongo… we got a new jam.

I love Girls, I have a love/hate with Fun… this relationship I can get behind IF its open bar.

Go with yourself.

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James+Hersey+cover
Emails! Lots of emails to sift through on a Monday morning.  Thought I’d share a couple I found a little interesting.

Lets start in Vienna, Austria.  James Hersey creates a simple, upbeat, pop music.  Light electronic elements bouncing around a singer/songwriter type structure.  Very fun and summery.  He is singing about hitting the beach which is awesome because I thought Austria was landlocked?  Maybe he means like, we should hit an Alpine Lake Beach?  Don’t say maybe, that IS what I am sure he means.

James is generating some buzz at home.  His song showed some strong love on National Alt rock Radio FM 4. I don’t speak German (Austrians speak German right?) but I think FM 4 is a national radio service akin to the CBC… some one wiser please leave a comment and let me know.  If “likes” on Facebook are to be believed, a couple people listen to it.

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From Vienna to Chicago we go.

pandariot
Panda Riot are fuzzing out the nu-gaze on their upcoming record Northern Automatic Music (Feb 19th, Saint Marie Records).

If our above song was a more traditional sounding pop song… Panda Riot add a few more layers of dense reverb and stacked harmonies. Gorgeous female vocal melodies carry the weight guitar squeal.

Go with yourself.

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Tapes
My friend Razer is back in Victoria for a few days.  His band Acres of Lions got off the road at the end of the fall and immediately hopped into a Toronto studio to work on their new record.  Over a couple a few pints he previewed the new songs for me.  Sounding real good and I can’t wait to share them on this here blog when they come back from mixing.

If you are an industry friend or enjoy this blog from Toronto…please make a date with Acres of Lions at Canadian Music Week in March.

This is an older song but one of their more popular radio singles (at least on The Zone in Victoria and Sonic in Edmonton and maybe The Peak in Vancouver)

After we were done talking shop, we downed one more and fired on that Boy record.

Go with yourself.

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Purling hiss
God bless Spin Magazine… they also are talking about some new sounds for 2013… #1… loud fuzzy guitar rock.

Purling Hiss recorded a song for a public radio station in Philadelphia called WXPN.  They laid down the track “Lolita” with Adam Ganduciel (drummer for The War on Drugs) and it sounds mighty.  When their record Water on Mars comes out on Drag City later this year… I can already tell I’ll be all about it.

BEHOLD!

Go with yourself.

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