She Keeps Bees might sound a lot like Cat Power at first blush, but She Keeps Bees is definitely worthy of more attention than that. Nests is full of great bluesy songs, especially the super sexy “Gimme.”
I went through a really long musical drought. Nothing sounded good. I made a brief detour at Pandora and left unhappy: my digital radio station didn’t introduce me to anything I liked and repeated the songs I didn’t like too often. Honestly I love listening to complete albums. Pandora doesn’t suit me. I don’t like the next song I hear being selected by a computer program. It’s too cold, too calculated. I would rather listen to a podcast that someone has curated with songs he or she has heard and has made an emotional decision to share with me. If you feel the same way, check out Cheryl Waters from Music That Matters. Cheryl has impeccable taste. Cheryl introduced me to Blind Pilot and the drought was over.
Blind Pilot’s 3 Rounds and a Sound is simply breathtaking. The album is so rich I find myself getting lost in the lush melodies, the fidelity of the recording, the brightness of the instruments, and the warm, velvet vocals. Seriously, these guys can sing.
3 Rounds and a Sound vaguely reminds me of more melancholy moments of The Pernice Brothers’ Yours, Mine, & Ours, minus a little pop and electric guitars. Regardless, this album is definitely one of my favorites of the entire year.
Ra Ra Riot is back in New York City playing two sold out shows tonight and tomorrow night. That’s no surprise. They put on a fun live show and their album, The Rhumb Line, is great. They are one of my favorite bands to see. If you’ve got the chance to go, GO!
If you can’t find a ticket, everyone’s favorite Queen tribute band, Dairy Qween, is playing tonight:
Just a final reminder that our Dairy Qween Live Tribute to Queen will be tonight at 9:30 PM at Ace of Clubs, which is located on the corner of Great Jones Street and Lafayette Street. It is downstairs from Acme restaurant.
It’s been long time since I updated brontosaur.us. My freelance worked picked up dramatically recently and I haven’t had as much free time to work on Brontosaur.us. Enough of that. Here goes.
Golden Bones sounds like a bunch of guys sitting on a front porch in the Appalachian mountains singing and playing for their own enjoyment. (Thank you, Golden Bones, for recording your music and sharing it with the rest of us.) Surprisingly, this music comes from Brooklyn, and not some dusty, coal mining town.
My favorite lyric in the song occurs in the final refrains: “That boy needs me. His mother’s already gone.” I missed it the first few times I listened to the song. But that little detail adds so much context to the story.
Golden Bones is releasing their new album on Friday, October 10th. They’ll be playing a CD release party at Pete’s Candy Store in Williamsburg. Check ‘em out. If you’d like to buy their CD, there is information their myspace page about how get your own copy. I look forward to hearing the rest of the album.
Mason Hedgecoth, A.K.A. Yojimbo, is playing the banjo for Golden Bones. Yojimbo has a lot of great songs in the same vein.
Sometimes my iTunes ends up on a song I don’t remember at all and I’m amazed at what I find. “Lunar Sea” from Camera Obscura’s Underachievers Please Try Harder is a beautiful song. It reminds me of the theme song played over the opening credits of a movie or TV show. Maybe it’s because the song feels like it belongs to another time.
