Matt & Kim

So I was going to write about a new song that I had heard getting some airplay on XM recently by Matt & Kim a few weeks ago.  I looked online and saw their album,Sidewalks, was coming out this past Tuesday so I decided to wait and try and give you an idea of how good the whole album is.  I downloaded it on Tuesday morning and I have to say that I am pretty pleased with my purchase.  Matt & Kim are one of the many bands from Brooklyn that have a big underground following.  They are comprised of Matt and, get this, Kim.  Kim on the drums and Matt on the synthesizer and vocals.  They have garnered some solid commercial success in their time together.  Literally, commercials.  Bacardi, FIFA 10, XBOX Kinect Adventures, and a slew of TV shows like Community, Gossip Girl, and Entourage have featured various songs.  I first downloaded a song by them after hearing "Daylight" on that Bacardi commercial where the guy walks through all the different parties to get his Bacardi.  I enjoyed that taste and needed to know more of their music.  I downloaded a couple other songs from them, "Good Ol' Fashion Nightmare" and "Lessons Learned".  Whenever any one of those three songs came up in a random playlist I would get a big smile on my face.  I can't help it, their songs just give off a very positive vibe and make me want to do something fun.  So anyway, back to this recent album.  The single, "Cameras" stays in the same mold as their other singles.  A driving beat with generally simple and upbeat lyrics.  I haven't seen them live, but have read that they are a lot of fun.  Just a couple people on stage with big smiles on their faces enjoying making people happy with their music.  Seems like a simple formula for success, but too often you go to a show and the people on stage are nothing but robots trying to make music that sounds exactly like the record.  Beyond "Cameras" I'd recommend "Ice Melts", and "Wires".  There a couple songs on the album that didn't grab me, but I'll definitely be moving a handful of tunes from Sidewalks into the random rotation.  I've included a couple videos below. One is for "Cameras", the other "Lessons Learned".  The video for the latter was apparently the inspiration for Erikah Badu's video last year where she walked through a park naked or something.  I didn't see it, just heard that it was controversial.  What about the kids?!?!?!!? Oh my!!!

Going to see Freelance Whales tomorrow night.  Hopefully they're as good as they looked in those NPR videos.  I'll be back next week with a review on the show if I can remember it.  Have a good one and please feel free to send me suggestions of any music that you'd want to share.  Till next time....

So here I am with finally another post.  Maybe next time we won't have to wait as long for an update.  There are a few albums I want to touch on here, a couple relatively new bands that are playing in the area over the next couple of weeks, and one that everyone now knows.  I'll start with the latter.

Kings of Leon released Come Around Sundown on Tuesday as a follow up to their gigantic hit Only By the Night.  Only By the Night was the band's 4th album and was immediately embraced by current Kings fans as well as the general public.  Everyone knows their big hits from that album, so I don't need to remind you.  I thought that the album preceding Only By the Night, was actually better.  At the time I was giving Because of the Times a lot of playing time I couldn't understand why they weren't bigger.  Sex on Fire hit the airwaves and they became one of the most popular bands going.  I really like this most recent album, and hopefully the masses do too.  Its a tough position to be in, trying to come up with a follow-up album after you hit the big time.  Just ask the Killers.  After about 4 or 5 listens through, I've locked in on a handful of songs that I could see being very popular.  The first single, Radioactive is obvious.  I've included the video below.  Others that I have locked in on are The End, Back Down South (a country song that I'm not totally sure what it is about, but it makes me happy) and No Money.  Every song has the vintage Kings sound and I hope that you enjoy their new stuff as well.

The Love Language and Freelance Whales are the other two bands I wanted to bring to your attention.  Freelance Whales are actually playing in Hoboken in a couple weeks and I am gong to try and catch the show.  They have a Deathcab feel... maybe its the xylophone.  Check out the clip from NPR's Tiny Desk Concert Series below.  The song that got me into them was Hannah, check that one out as well. Hope you like the recommendation.  Oh yeah, also check out the Love Language.  They don't have any good videos on YouTube, but I'd recommend checking out Heart To Tell.  The rest of the album isn't that memorable, but that song will stay in rotation for a while.  Till next time....

LCD Soundsystem

I saw LCD Soundsystem a couple weeks ago in Montclair, NJ.  This is not groundbreaking news, but holy shit do they put on a good show!!! They played a lot of songs from their most recent album along with some of their more well known older stuff like "Daft Punk is Playing at My House" and "All My Friends".  They opened with my favorite song on the new album, Dance Yrself Clean, a slow building song that blows it out about half way through and then brings it back down at the end.  Their encore was another song that I was hoping they'd play called "Home".  Their music is very electronic and I was surprised at how well the musicians were able to make everything sound.  It was almost like listening to the albums jacked up to 11.  They actually mentioned that they'd never played Home or the opener live before but you would have never known it... they were all on point.  This is supposedly their last album and they won't be doing much more touring, but if you have the chance to see them, do it.  I've included their video for "All My Friends", one of their more well known tracks from the album Sound of Silver, as well as "Home" from their most recent album This is Happening.

Local Natives

I've been listening to the Local Natives album Gorilla Manor a lot lately.  I don't know what it is that makes me routinely pick this album to listen to over the many others I've recently bought.  Maybe its the harmonies, maybe its the relatively upbeat songs, maybe its the fact that I can't get some of their songs out of my head but I really like it.  I haven't listened in the past week to the album, but I had their songs stuck in my head all day today.  Listening and comprehending lyrics is not my strong suit, ask any of my friends who has ridden in the car with me.  I do a lot of mumbling when singing along....  Typically my mind is thinking about all sorts of other things beside what the song is actually saying.  I don't know if that makes me a "bad" listener of music, but I tend to put my own thoughts / feelings to songs which are sometimes way off the point of what the songwriter intended.  Anyway, back to the Local Natives... so I had Airplanes stuck in my head all day today... not really the words but the melody of the chorus.  As I was doing my chores today, I decided to throw the album on again and actually listened to the lyrics of  Airplanes.... what I thought was a love song turns out to be about the singer's grandfather.  Its weird how sometimes songs will take on an entirely new meaning to you after a random listen.  I'm not gong to bore you with the relationships that I had/have with my grandparents, but it got me thinking that I really need to take more of an effort to get to know them - even the one with the killer breath - if you're lucky enough to still have your grandparents around don't take them for granted.... also, listen to more songs from this album.  If you like Guster, you're going to like these guys. http://www.myspace.com/localnatives

I've been talking about it for a while...

Hello. If you're reading this its because I asked you to.  Thanks for that.  I'm not sure if many people are interested in the music I'm listening to, but I have an ego and think that at least some people will find my opinions interesting.  There is a strong possibility that you will hate half of the shit I like... fine.  Half the shit you like sucks.

I'm doing this in hopes of sharing with you some music that you might not already be listening to and getting turned on to things that I haven't been interested in before.  I'm not going to be talking about super obscure shit, but stuff that I like and that I think more people would like if they had just heard it.  I am by no means in touch with the super underground world of indie music.  Most of what I listen to comes from my small network of friends, Sirius/XM, people I follow on Twitter, iTunes Genius, and Amazon recommendations.  This isn't going to be groundbreaking stuff, but will hopefully get you listening to more than just the shit they play on FM radio these days.

Music won't be all I talk about, but will be the primary focus.  I'm not totally sure where this will go. Hopefully you'll like it and come back more than once.

I'll be back next week with a full post, but in the meantime check out these 3 songs/videos that are getting heavy rotation in my life:

Pumped Up Kicks by Foster The People...  My brother turned me on to them and I scoffed at first.  Now that I've heard this a couple times I'm really digging it... Apparently this is the only song they have released so far, but I have a feeling they're going to pop if they keep dropping beats like this



In One Ear by Cage the Elephant: This song is off an album that came out in 2008 and this single was released this year. These guys really bring it.  I loved their first song "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" and bought the album.  The whole thing is good, just has a good rocking feel to it.  They're opening for STP right now and I can't wait till their next album.



Paris (Oh La La) by Grace Potter and The Nocturnals. This chick belts it out and these guys remind me of The Black Crowes a little bit.  Amazon was running a special $2.99 download on this album, and it was an easy decision.  The album is great, a nice mix of rockers and country-ish tunes.  A great summer album that should be on everyone's iPod.