(je)FFrey

My trip to the pump yesterday…

Best part is that this will last me about 1 and 1/2 weeks.

Duffy’s album “Rockferry” just came out in the U.S. on May 13, but it’s been getting some radio play on independent stations - like WYEP here in Pittsburgh (because heaven forbid mainstream radio put anything new and actually good into rotation). However, she is being touted as the next, though wholesome so thereby starkly opposite, Amy Winehouse, if not only for the obvious soul
influence in her vocals, so she does showcase the ability to break into the pop charts quite easily. Who knows, maybe we’ll start hearing Duffy every 5 seconds at Lava Lounge instead of the same 3 shitty Winehouse tracks on repeat.

It’s funny, though, because she’s kind of the counter-Winehouse at the same time, at least when it comes to looks and lyrical content; seemingly no drug addictions, blonde hair and an amazing smile. She typically wears beautiful dresses/gowns (whatever you want to call them) when she performs and is just a plain jane normal girl smiling and having fun (and sometimes hula hooping with the guys from We Are Scientists) in the few “off stage” videos I’ve seen of her.

The song that initially caught my eye is this one:

Duffy “Mercy”
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Here’s an idea of what I’m talking about.

The only problem with the album is that there are only 10 songs, too few to add to my ears’ queue of enjoyable sound, but not a one of them is really bad in any capacity so you just put the album on again and it all works out. Here’s another one that stands out.

Duffy “Rockferry”
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Definitely pay attention and keep your eyes peeled as Duffy is going to keep on keeping on for sure.

The Hourly Radio is a 3-piece, Dallas-based band that I stumbled across yesterday (classic guitar, drums, bass). They were a part of the SXSW lineup this year so got their fair share of hype for a short time, but right now I’m jamming to the track “Crime Does Pay” - so should you.

The Hourly Radio “Crime Does Pay”
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On a totally different vein, another band I find myself chancing upon often enough over the past day or two is this band Dead Rock Machine from Paris. I actually fell ass backward into their myspace during the classic “find a band you like, click to their top friends, give a listen, like, click to the next, listen, like, click top friends, and so on. The forever impressive Santogold referred me along to these guys only because they seem to be prolific New Comment posters. Despite how much I don’t really like it, I mean, Myspace is just ridiculous with its networking ability. So anyway, these guys are pretty cool. As soon as I can find the tracks myself, I’ll post something to make your life easier. In the meantime, check out their myspace. The track “Why Don’t You Dance Boy” has made its way to my default profile song. I know, huge! This is them live in March this year… simple, fun, grooved up.

They are on DIXOMUSIC

And just because I had it on today, too, remind yourself how much you liked the Libertines…

The Libertines “Up the Bracket”
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Kate Nash was on World Cafe on Friday and it was fun/great. Spend the time.

If you’ve heard me butt into a conversation of yours at anytime in the last week, it’s probably been regarding this band The Last Shadow Puppets who are currently consuming most of my ears’ time (both of them). The Last Shadow Puppets is the “side project” of Alex Turner and Miles Kane (from The Arctic Monkeys and The Rascals respectively). I put a heavy emphasis on the air quotes I’m made while saying “side project” because if the intention was to just make a record in a different vein then their normal garage-rock/indie/whatever the f you want to call music these days, they certainly have stumbled across an excessive amount of promotion and popularity that is probably going to make that a little difficult.

It seems they’ve committed to the new endeavor, though, because they’ve been making TV and radio appearances left and right and are generating even more interest in the blogosphere. I hate that word. I can’t believe I just used it…

Right at the peak of the hype in the last week, they appeared on World Cafe to play a few tracks between the two of them (they normally have a body of musicians surrounding them rounding out the sound into this epic, film soundtrack type of sound). It was fucking sweet and I recommend taking a few minutes of your probably pretty busy day to give it a listen. My suggestion: don’t listen to it while you are doing something else. It’s easy to idle through new music because the majority of it literally isn’t worth your time, but take my word for it on this one and set aside a block of time and pay attention. The show is only 16 minutes long, you can afford that, right?

I’m not an expert on the men and haven’t interviewed them myself, so I’m not going to act like I have some kind of first hand knowledge. Anyone with an internet connection and a vague knowledge of what they like can find this crap out. Apparently the two guys met while on tour and have been friends for a while, sparking from a common interest in a lot of old 60’s mod stuff and a general lust for epic production. It’s pretty obvious that at least a part of their influence comes from, again at least part of, David Bowie’s catalogue. And obviously Bowie is top to bottom awesome, so…

David Bowie “In the Heat of the Morning”
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The reason I like this record so much is because it does live up to their intention of creating something that is “epic” sounding. If you listen to the record, it can consume you, and I absolutely love shit like that. That’s why I say to PAY ATTENTION when you listen to these guys. You won’t regret it.

Kane apparently guested on a few Arctic Monkeys tracks since 2005 so these guys have been playing together on some level for a while and finally now have brought it together to create something new. The first single was scheduled to come out the week before the record, but alas, the internet has holes and (unless you’re The Raconteurs) leaks like a rusty watering can, so we had the opportunity to hear the title track, The Age of the Understatement, sometime in mid-March.

The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement
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The album itself didn’t come out until April 21. To restate: it’s awesome. I give it my 100% approval rating. They actually cover that Bowie track as a B-side.

The Last Shadow Puppets - In the Heat of the Morning
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If I’m not mistaken, they’ve played a few shows in New York City and one or two in London with Remi Nicole (which again is sweet). They’re not actually going on tour until October this year because Miles Kane is still doing some dates with The Rascals (who ALSO just put out an album, though I haven’t heard it and am not really rushing to do so). I do know that they plan on playing with a 16-piece orchestra when they do go on tour, so that is going to be sickening. This particular gentlemen doesn’t typically wait around impatiently for a band to tour, but The Last Shadow Puppets have turned the tables on me.

Check out a couple of these other tracks from them. And don’t forget to listen to that World Cafe show. It’s a good time and pretty cool to hear them talk because they’re both just young guys like anybody else and are laid back and refrain from any type of arrogance, which is respectable, though would be deserved had they shown said quality.

The Last Shadow Puppets - Meeting Place
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The Last Shadow Puppets - In My Room
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Oh, and the other thing that is cool about these guys are the videos they’ve been creating along the way to promote the album. This is one of them live, but I recommend checking out some of the stuff on YouTube right now, too.

Yeah, he’s still pretty awesome as you would have guessed. Here’s a picture of him at 1 week and 1 day old. That’s an eternity for this kid. You remember being little and thinking to yourself “Man I’m so old Mom, let me do what I want to do. I can take care of myself.” Yeah, we’re weren’t old at all! What idiots. But life does feel like you’ve been living it for an eternity, even when you’re a tiny kid, and probably even when you’re a tiny little week old baby (though I can’t say I remember - if you do, let’s talk).

It doesn’t really get much cuter than this little guy here, eh? The McGlawk’s are awaiting their new addition to the family, too. Congrats and what not extends to them as you can imagine. Man… our generation here… is just straight up getting older. Somehow we stay young, so more props to us, but damnit. I’m not even old and I’m OLD AS SHIT.

Life… who knew?

My brother is a now a father. My sister-in-law, of course, a mother. Which makes me… AN UNCLE! Woo! My first trip into unclehood is working out wonderfully already. Granted it’s been less than one full day, but still. It’s AWESOME!

Ilya Alexander Miskis was born yesterday, April 23 around 2 pm. He’s a perfect little specimen of a man. Has all his toes, all his fingers, all 4 limbs if I remember correctly and, well, is just so tiny and cool. Here he is catching some Z’s (and doing something silly with his soon-to-be big Miskis lips). It looks like I’ll be turning into that guy that posts random pictures that I think are absolutely adorable because he’s from my bloodline, but that everyone else will probably just think is just like any baby. Well, to you folks, deal with it! He’s my nephew, and I’ve never had a nephew, and he’s perfect, so shut it.

If you know my address, feel free to send gifts. I’ll hand deliver them and post a photo of him with said gift. Seriously, send him gifts. He’s worthy.

An absolutely fantastic performance -or- an absolutely creepy performance. Man I love me some Fiona Apple. She is definitely reclaiming the spot of “current obsession”. Just the same, I don’t know if my refound obsession is fantastic or creepy either.

Whatevs. Check out the first 5 seconds of this video…

Hard.

Listening to an interview with her on World Cafe ages ago, back when her first album came out in frickin 96 - which makes her 19 YEARS OLD!!! I don’t know if this interview was actually when she was 19 or what because I’m looking on their website to hear this song again (she did a version of “Sleep to Dream” that was just unreal) or if she just did an old track. I could have sworn that the host said she was 19 at the time, but I could be wrong. Anyway, she was/is/will continue to be such a ridiculously phenomenal artist. It baffles me really. 19… when Criminal came out. Looking all smoking and actually making incredible music. Then comes out with 2 more unbelievably fantastic records… Nuts.
So, this video came out I think like 2 years ago, but given my recent kick in the pants to wake up and rediscover how much I liked Fiona Apple, I just now found out that it exists. Zach Galifinakis is a frickin genius and apparently has been for quite some time. I wish I could just embed the video, but of course she’s on Sony so heaven forbid that they let people embed their videos… hell, at least they didn’t pull them completely off of YouTube like idiotic NBC. So watch this video for “Not About Love” with Zach Galifinakis lip-syncing the whole thing. It’s fantastic. Here’s what you have in store for you if you haven’t seen it yet:

Fiona looking how you’d expect - soft, sultry, “deep”…

Zach - being Zach…

Some other World Cafe archives that you should take a listen to:

Sara Bareilles, who is a new artist out and about these days with that track saying something like “I’m not gonna write you a love song”. If there was any speculation that she may actually be really cool and might have written that song in response to the label telling her to write better songs, it is apparently true as outlined in the interview. She is just plain awesome, too. I’ve decided 100% that I just flat out like her. (Kind of like liking Nicole Atkins. You kind of feel like it might be gay and that there’s some level of idiocy that just hasn’t come through yet, but turns out they are just awesome peeps, doing well for themselves). I think Sara Bareilles actually is from some place in Northern California “as far north as you can get”. She makes jokes about everyone in the town growing pot. Her parents are like insurance adjusters and loggers and shit. Pretty pretty pretty good if you ask me. Take a listen fo realz.

Also, give this one a moment of your time. Cat Power was on last night and OH MAN is she an idiot. Stark opposite of everything else I’m talking about here. I really thought I liked her, and don’t get me wrong, still do like her shit, but OH MY. She is either all smoked up, a complete retard, or on some kind of depression drug that morphs her mind into idiocy (which could actually be true because apparently she had some mental breakdown Mariah Carey style after her first album). All she talks about the whole time is … well just listen to it because it made me flat out uncomfortable at times. I’m not saying that I won’t listen to her music… but I’ll be listening with a new ear of regret.

Take the time. Click those “Listen Now” links. And make it happen. Let me know what you think.

Nate Daddy’s recent ghost problems pop into my head every time I listen to that Band of Horses record these days (which is quite often) given the recent unexplainable activity at Nate’s house and, obviously, the “Is there a ghost in my house” references. With that, here is a ghostly On-the-Go playlist I found myself listening to this week while navigating my way through my Top Rated tracks by artists starting with the letter G… (I know. That’s a very normal situation to be in, too… browsing through top rated artists that start with a particular letter… Shut it.)

Ghostland Observatory “Piano Man”
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The Ghost Frequency “Money on the Fire”
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Ghosts “Stay the Night”
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Ghosthustler “Only Me to Trust”
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Sorry Ghostface Killah, you don’t make the cut no matter how many people remix your terrible songs. Stop making music already. It’s really just not working out for you. Van She, on the other hand… you, you’re doing well. Like this song:

Van She “Kelly”
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