The third Saturday of April is now officially Record Store Day, when “independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music”, or, presumably, to get people off the internet and back into record stores. I’m as guilty as the next girl of neglecting my beloved independent music store (that’s you, [...]
You can hear/buy/download singles from some of my most-anticipated albums of Spring 2010 now. The Hold Steady release Heaven is Whenever on May 4th. You can stream “Hurricane J” here. Two-word review: Ehn, maybe? Broken Social Scene release Forgiveness Rock Record on May 4th. Watch/download “World Sick” from Stereogum here. Two-word review: Quite promising. The [...]
What better way to celebrate a cellophane holiday than with a compilation of songs about heartbreak? Download the zip file here. Track Listing: 1) Your Ex-Lover is Dead – Stars 2) Backwards Walk – Frightened Rabbit 3) Through the Winter – Star Anna 4) Roll On – Josh Ritter 5) Andy – Neko Case 6) [...]
Midlake, The Courage of Others, February 2 Midlake’s 2006 Album, The Trials of VanOccupanther, has been a favorite of mine for a couple years now. This is a 21st Century Texas band channeling Fleetwood Mac, singing about things that happened in 1893 and keeping it all highly listenable. Live in Portland, March 6th, Wonder Ballroom [...]
THE GOOD These are some albums that nearly missed the top twenty, or that I didn’t spend enough time with until recently. Slaid Cleaves: Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away. Honestly, I stayed away from this one because dude’s name freaks me out. I mean, how do you even say that? It makes me [...]
Here is the combined ranked list of the top 20 albums of 2009 from what we like to call a “loose confederation of like-minded bloggers”. This is the inaugural year. It’s been a patchy one! But what we do have is a decent idea, and what we feel is an interesting list. So here they [...]
If you know me at all, you know how much I hate holidays, specifically the period between the day after Thanksgiving and the 2nd of January. But what I do love about this time of year is the end-of-the-year lists. I love top tens. Apparently this year is the end of a decade. Which, frankly, [...]
So one of my favorite bands, Lucero (you’ll hear more about them later) just released a new album on October 6th (you’ll hear more about that later). In any case, they asked their fans to develop and submit videos for a handful of the new tracks which were pre-released. Of the tracks on the new [...]
Welcome! No more procrastinating – summer’s over and the rain has arrived in Oregon and it’s time this site went live. It’s not as pretty as I’d hoped, but let’s do it anyway. My goals here are two-fold – to commune and talk shit with other music nerds/snobs/junkies and to get my friends listening to [...]