Some guy in Brazil loves how much I love Soul Asylum!
Thank you sir!!!
http://enterthesoulasylum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2168&start=0

If you prefer less Courtney bashing, listen to the version from The Hair Farmer's almanac.

 Photo from www.pollstar.com

Rockbands.gifs! Junkie Girlfriend.

New feature to our web page.  Gifs of bands I really love!!!  I started doing this in order to make flip books of a couple bands, but printing flip books is really expensive, so you're getting .gifs instead.

This week, meet Junkie Girlfriend, and two piece from Mansfield. This was taken last fall when we played together in Cleveland.

See it live when play together again February 8th at Cafe Bourbon Street.

New Video! Rich Kids Got It Easy

Big ups to Gigi Lollo for making this Power Point music video.

You can download this song on itunes, Amazon, and Bandcamp.

Enjoy!

My Favorite Things To Listen To, 2013

Well we made it through another year.  Hopefully with all our fingers and toes intact.  I made a list of the 20 best things I put in my ears ion 2013.  I divide them into two categories.  Albums made in 2013 and albums made for 2013, but released other years.  There's much text here, so let's get to it.

Made in 2013

The Dismemberment Plan – Uncanny Valley

Oh I am so glad this record came out. An uplifting series of vignettes about being past one's prime, alone in NYC, or discovering that your parents really knew how to party. When Travis Morrison sings about being “A fat man on drugs smothered in hugs”, I know that he knows my pain.  Watch this tiny desk concert.  Call and response curse words for NPR.  Joy.

Anna Ranger – Swimming And Crawling

Nathan Snell's song writing often reminds me of Stephen Merritt's. If Stephen were straight and a college drop out. Occupying the vein diagram bubble where techno and country deviously wiggle out their differences. Grim, hilarious, and hip seducing. Swimming & Crawling shows a transformation. Snell trades the groove box for drum God Sam Brown and recruits TJSA's Phillip Parks, creating what often feels like a rust belt Morrissey endeavour. Alcoholic one liners are littered like candy leading to a hut of sonic gingerbread. I dare you to listen to album and then take a shower without singing “Life isn't much here. I drink all the time dear.” You can't.

Moto – Lovers and Other Monsters

I'm so glad I waited till the last possible minute to write this list. This album from the sleeping giants of northern Michigan came out just last week. Chris Cooney sings the way Rivers Cuomo would if he still had soul. Riff heavy hard rock with harmony that wastes no opportunity for a hot lick. “Get What You Like” is 100% uncut ear worm.

Saint Seneca – Upper Cutter 7”

Zac Little and Maryn Jones are not only unstoppable, but also instantly lovable. Their sound is a lush, infectious, and ghostly. Pianos phase into being and vanish just as quickly. Days later, you'll be walking down the street or in a bookstore and you'll find yourself humming a song you can't quite name. It was Saint Seneca

Sebadoh – Defend Yourself

This album and Superchunk's “I Hate Music” were pleasant and unexpected surprises. I love Jay Loewenstien's voice. It sounds like it's grown a beard. Lou sounds more lucid than he has for a few years now. Very happy this happened.

Talib Kweli - Prisoner Of Conscious    Talib Kweli – Gravitas

So Talib Kweli literally bested himself this year, by knocking his other 2013 album “Prisoner Of Conscious” off of my top 10 list, with his second 2013 release “Gravitas”. I had a whole paragraph about Kweli's creative use of the human mic. A technique developed by Occupy Wall Street to amplify a speaker without the use electronics by having the crowd repeat the speaker's words one sentence at a time. And what about the moment when senile old man Busta Rhymes starts yelling at the teenagers about cooking pork in the house!! Nah, forget that, Gravitas kicks that other record's ass.

Yung Lean – Unknown Death 2002

#ignorant #emotional #allthedrugs Who knows what the hell is going on with this Yung Lean kid. Maybe he's a drug hungry army brat who made friends with a Swedish DJ while bouncing around with is family. Maybe he he overdosed in 2002 and his best friends made a highly danceable sound collage out of his leftover tapes. Either way, this'll be the year nerdcore went gangsta.  And the shit is addictive.  It's hard not to want to join in on his fantasy. Even though he can be kind of a gross bro at times, it's like a fun house mirror version of all hip hop's stereotypes. You can get a contact buzz from some of these drum loops. Did I mention that his videos are a bat shit insane blend of home videos, bad CGI, and a fanatical obsession with Pokemon and Arizona Ice Tea?

Mazzy Star – Seasons Of Your Day

Another surprise visit from an old friend. I could just get lost in Hope Sandoval's voice. Is it possible to listen to this music and not feel like the sexiest person alive? Even when she's singing about loss and disappointment. Damn!

Jay-Z – Magna Carta Holy Grail

Some of this record is downright corny.  Jay-Z spends a lot of time explaining just how gansta fatherhood really is, and I don't buy it. Especially since their not one diaper reference made the whole time. But, Jay-Z spends just as much time trying to make Jean-Micheal Basquiat popular again, which is actually pretty fucking cool.  Especially when your boy Nas drops by for a track like BBC, or when Jova mixes swing era jazz into his beats.  For my Adventure Time friends. Sing that “Baby” song Finn sings when he gets that auto tuner stuck in his throat over Justin Timberlake's part in the opening track. Then replace the words “Holy Grail” with "The Enchiridion”

Shout out to Kendrick Lamar's Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe.  The best song about owning a shitty car since Sir Mix-A-Lot did Hooptie

None of these records were released in 2013, but somehow seem to have been written just for 2013. I'm glad they found me right on time.

Illinois – The Adventures Of Kid Catastrophe

This straight to Internet release came out in 2009 I think, but has all the proper trappings of a 2013 release. Genre bending, home made, out of love, witty but not too funny. The prefect soundtrack.

Sick Of Sarah – 2205

Yeah, this Midwestern all girl band knows how to write hooks. And they deliver them without mercy. This came out in November of 2012 and just flew below the radar, but it is worth it. Sick Of Sarah are my favorite new band.

Murs & Fashawn – This Generation

Another late 2012 release that just missed the press it deserved. Slash Gordon wins the battle of the trillest hands down.

D Roof – The Green EP

Another album from 2009 that's #2013. From the hooky “Toxins” to songs about water rights, plastic in the ocean, and even a really great story rhyme about a crew of triple double crossing crooks that ends with a police raid on an airport. D Roof spends a lot of time thinking about the future, and this time he gets it right on the nose.

Graham Nash – Wild Tales

Between his time in the Hollies and becoming part of the OG super group Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Graham Nash dropped this very sober and honest collection of songs. Nash sings about the prison industrial complex, depression sleeping, people trying to survive in an economy that's stacked against them. All in a way that's as lovely as a field of wild flowers on a summer day.

Husker Du – New Day Rising

This album is good all the time, but had a special resonance with me in 2013. I especially love some of the life lessons Mould and Co. try to pass on this album. “There's more to life that being wrong or right. There's something called getting along.” Somebody tell congress.

The Bytes – The Bytes

The Bytes were just another early 80's new wave band from the east coast. Sometimes they sound like a street grade musical starring Olivia Newton John, and other moments I'm surprised they weren't besties with the likes of Ric Ocasek or Mark Mothersbaugh. Still, they predicted cell phone culture with an uncanny accuracy. Songs like “Why Didn't You Call Me Last Night”, “And There's More”, and “Too Cool”. Sound like some of the arguments you overhear and junk you see on Imgur

Various Artists Punk in The GDR, DDR,and Soviet Union

This is three disc set of punk music coming out of East Germany, West Germany, and The Soviet Union in the years just prior to the fall of the Berlin wall. Being punk has always been about rebellion in every culture.  But the punks of eastern Europe had their own set of problems that make our punks look wimpy in comparison. Not only were you giving up any chance at a job or getting into college, but East German punks faced daily police harassment and violence along with the constant pressure of being asked to inform on your friends. Oh yeah, and your friends probably are informing on you. If you were a punk in the late 80's in the US, you family might disown you. If you were a punk in the Soviet Union, your family might never see you again because you were either killed or sent to a work camp. These songs are lo-fi, simple, raw, paranoid, and powerful. Fuck Ronald Reagan. Punk killed the Berlin Wall.

Don't forget, my own album, The Hair Farmer's Almanac become available on bandcamp, amazon, and itunes in 2013 as well.