Blushing

Austin alt-rock/dreampop/shoegaze act Blushing have a new album dropping in May on Kanine Records.  Listen to the sweet and dreamy "Tamagotchi" below and pre-order the "Sugarcoat" LP here.

Daily Jam - Du e för fin för mig

First and foremost, I have always been a beer guy. I always will be. But that’s not to say that I didn’t also enjoy years of youthful indiscretion. Years that have most certainly passed me by (for the most part), but that I have fond memories of nonetheless. I don’t miss those heady days necessarily, but every once in a while, a jam will come along that makes me want to relive them, to partake again, “to cop out [sic] to groove,” as they say. And so we have the complete works of Swedish psych rock band Dungen, or more specifically, the song “Du e för fin för mig” from the 2004 album Ta det lugnt. It makes me move and groove, and I can think of nothing better to listen to while sitting back, freaking out, and smearing your brain like finger paints across the cosmos to.

The strings (synthesizer I think) come in first, layers of calm and tranquility, a wistful melody that feels like the sun rising over a valley, dew on the grass, a gentle chill still in the air, then fades. And then the acoustic guitar riff begins, banging it out to a head-nodding, toe-tapping strum, a clap-along beat, and Swedish vocals, that despite my not understanding a single syllable of them, sound absolutely profound. The strings return, and far-out effects, like a haze hanging over the field, and everything’s hummable. Everything’s still, but waving. And the groove plays out, ready to come to its inevitable end. And then the acid-drenched guitar freak-out, pummeling drums, screeching feedback, thundering bass, tranquility trampled but still loving it. And then someone pulls the plug, we all collapse, coming down.

If a song can make you want to take drugs, you know it’s probably a good one. Hallucinate. Drug use, not drug abuse (maybe the lamest thing I’ve ever said). So, do what you will, and listen below.

I hope my mom doesn’t read this.

Check it out, our Daily Jam.

Cigarettes After Sex

Smoky LA by way of Brooklyn by way of El Paso dreampop band Cigarettes After Sex just announced new album "X's" coming our way this July.  Check out the gentle and melancholy "Tejano Blue" below and pre-order the album here from Partisan Records.

Daily Jam - Just Try

The Dandy Warhols are one of those groups that I easily could have named a half dozen songs to write about that I absolutely adore. They are also one of those groups that all too often seem to be dismissed or written off by the public at large and music nerds alike. But the criminally underrated band have been knocking it out for over two decades now, crafting excellent psych records, alt-rock records, and even a synth pop record in the mix, and hopefully some day they’ll get their due recognition*. In the meantime, I guess they’ll just have spin in my living room and the homes, heads, and hearts of those in the know. So, let’s start in the beginning with the campfire psych-folk jam “Just Try” from the band’s first album, 1995’s Dandys Rule OK.

It’s just so simple, with some studio chatter at the start, some mess-ups left on the tape, correcting course and gradually building the acoustic guitar riffs with Courtney Taylor-Taylor’s subdued drawl lethargically rolling in like some junkie gradually coming to. The song plays melancholy and somber, a living room performance in the early morning hours as the previous evening’s party closes out and burns away. Drunks sleeping it off on the rug or crashed on a sofa, the heads and night owls smoking cigarettes with circles under their eyes. The room is dim. The sun may rise soon. And then those ghostly backing vocals kick in, a haunted eulogy to past loves, dead loves, and a make-believe life that regrettably never played out the way it should have. Crooning lament.

And then it’s over. And I press repeat.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

*Here’s to some recognition beyond Dig!, the 2004 documentary about the band and their friendship/rivalry with fellow psych-revivalists The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

Nourished By Time

Here's some new music from Baltimore artist Marcus Brown who performs under the moniker Nourished By Time.  He has an synth pop meets R&B kinda thing going, and it's equal parts dreamy and hip-swaying.  Check out "Hand on Me" below and pre-order the upcoming "Catching Chickens" EP here from XL Recordings.

Conway The Machine & Joey Bada$$

Buffalo rapper Conway The Machine dropped a new track with Brooklyn MC Joey Bada$$ earlier this month, and it rips.  Check out "Vertino" below.

Daily Jam - I'm that Type of Guy

Growing up, I never really felt comfortable playing the music I liked in the car with my parents. I knew that some way or another it was either going to get derided, openly scoffed at with a series of parental objections and eye rolls, or inspire a degree of fatherly side eye that I just didn’t want to deal with. It didn’t even matter that I would self-censor my selections, omitting any track that might be deemed questionable due to lyrical content and whatnot. My folks were just simply not fans of hip-hop or hair metal, but they never tried to take any of my music away from me (despite the unfortunate “motherfucker incident”) so I never pushed it. It was just a lot easier that way. But I was always kind of jealous of the kids who seemed to have complete control of the car stereo while their parents carted them around town.

That was where I discovered LL Cool J.

In the summer after 4th grade, riding in the car with my friend Barry, his mom driving us to the pool or the park or the movies or something, listening to LL Cool J’s Walking with a Panther on cassette, and “I’m That Type of Guy” comes on and shatters my little 10-year old mind. Sure, a lot of the innuendo flew over my head…but not all of it. And I found the dalliances and affairs of one James Todd Smith to be hilarious. The ladies did indeed love cool James. But that wasn’t even the best part.

The chorus included a chant of “Oh-We-Oh,” ripped straight out of The Wizard of Oz, a sample/homage that was both ridiculous and amazing. It was silly, completely unexpected, and proof positive that if done correctly, you can turn anything into an awesome loop, a boost to any jam. My thinking was forever swayed, my hearing awed and inspired. And, it’s probably why I’m drawn to production and samples before anything else when listening to hip-hop.

And all of this went down with my friend’s mom in tow.

When my boys are older, I’ll need to keep all of this in mind…let them take control of the radio every now and again…be the cool dad if possible. Then, just maybe, the ladies will love cool Tommy too.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

The Diasonics Cover Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons

Here's Russian funk, soul, and library sounds band The Diasonics grooving on Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons' "Beggin'" to start your week to.  Listen below and get the 7" here from Record Kicks.

Arches

I'm starting to look into this year's SXSW schedule (starting in 2 weeks!), and hoping i'll be able to get out and peek into a couple of free parties during the week.  And so, i'm jotting the names of bands and artists i've never heard of before and perusing their efforts online.  Hong Kong alt-rock band Arches is on the list.  Give a listen to "Doll," a track the band released last month, a '90s alt-rock and pop indebted tune that has just the right amount of space rock oomph to make me turn my head.  Check it out below and download it here.

Daily Jam - Kickstart My Heart

There are dancing songs. There are sleeping songs. There are running songs. There are fucking songs. And hot damn, there are driving songs…songs to cruise to…songs to speed to…songs to rev engines and roar down the freeway to. The beat is real. The drive is calling. When I was a teenager, I got my first speeding ticket at 16, and we were allowed to have it expunged from my driving record for insurance purposes so long as I went before a jury of my peers in a teen court to dole out some punishment. The first question asked of me was if I was listening to something that could have caused me to speed. Or course I was. I always was. We always were…and continue to do so. As far as my lead foot influences go, jet-propelled, electro-synth ragers or straight up, up-tempo rock n’ roll usually adds the weight to the pedal, my grip on the wheel tightening, rubber marks on pavement and exhaust fumes. Or there’s Mötley Crüe. If I’m ever fleeing the cops in a high-speed chase, someone please, please, please put on “Kickstart My Heart,” some adrenaline-fueled sonic revelry from an album full of it, 1989’s Dr. Feelgood.

Slam on the gas.

Way back in the late 80’s when hair metal was king, playing on a million radios and television sets, Mötley Crüe was one of the bands that felt a little separate from the rest of spandex, makeup, and hairspray rattled masses (the other being Guns N’ Roses). The Crüe felt different, like something more classic, like something that could survive a cultural shift (which they kind of did). You could poke fun at all the Poisons and Wingers and Warrants* of the world if you wanted to, but for some reason Mötley Crüe seemed immune to that kind of dissent or mockery. Maybe it’s because their albums rocked. Maybe it’s because they were the perfect mix of sex, sleaze, and drug abuse. Maybe it’s because each band member, be it Vince or Tommy or Nikki or Mick, felt like individual components of a larger organism, rather than a parade of nameless, faceless, spandex-wearing troubadours.

Maybe it’s because they make me want to drive fast.

Regardless of how cheesy it may be. “Oh! Yeah! Baby!”

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

*Full disclosure: I fucking loved Warrant.

Armbruster

New York composer and violinist Connor Armbruster makes sprawling, experimental, ambient soundscapes inspired by the spacial atmospheres of old churches.  Real hypnotic stuff.  Check out the droney, album-opening "I'm Really Trying to Catch Up with You Soon" below and get the "Can I Sit Here" cassette here from Dear Life Records.

Kim Gordon

The one and only Kim Gordon is back next month with her second solo album "The Collective."  Check out the noise and spoken word delivery of "I'm a Man" below and pre-order the record here from Matador.

Daily Jam - Bizarre Love Triangle

As I get older, time seems to become more and more fluid, where something that happened ten years ago can feel like it was just a few months ago, where a whole series of endless moments and memories ebb and flow feeling simultaneously closer and farther away. The duration of time is not as long as it used to be. Five years doesn’t seem like it was that long ago anymore, whereas that same amount of days, weeks, months, and years felt like an enormous spread of existence when I was younger. Music is particularly affected by this. For example, Portishead’s Third came out in 2008, eight years ago*, but in the grand scheme of the way my mind works, it may as well have been released last year. It doesn’t feel like it was eight years ago at all. The duration of eight years is now insignificant. But, that’s the same number of years between when New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle” came out (on the 1986 album Brotherhood) and when I finally started rediscovering the band in the 9th grade (1994), and that felt like eons, like it was part of the long, long ago.

It only took a small amount of actual, countable time for the music from the 80’s to feel like it was from a long time ago, and a considerable longer amount for the music from the 90’s to feel the same way. Pretty much everything since could have come out yesterday as far as my brain and perception are concerned. What’s strange is that the stuff I jam to from the 80’s doesn’t feel as long ago as it did when I was a teenager, despite the longer time frame. It’s like I’m in some perpetual loop where sounds feel far away and then closer and then far away again and then closer again. My old jams almost feel fresher than a lot of the stuff they preceded. But then, “Bizarre Love Triangle” was always going to sound pretty damn cool.

Time is fluid. Time is moving. Time is not what it used to be. But good music is good music, regardless of when I hear it.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

*Coincidentally enough, this column was originally posted eight years ago.

clipping.

Here's LA's noisy and experimental (and sometimes horrorcore) hip-hop group clipping. covering the 2004 song "Tipsy" by J-Kwon.  Check it out below and get it here from Sub Pop on the new split 7" with noise artist Cooling Prongs.

Daily Jam - Aquarius / Let the Sunshine In

It’s a little embarrassing to admit to how much I like “Aquarius.” How much I love “Aquarius.” I’ve never even seen Hair before, so I can’t attest to the quality of that musical, but as far as The 5th Dimension’s 1969 version of the tune goes, I am happily and steadily on board, a devotee if you will.

A lot of music I listen to (and love) could easily be filed under the doom and gloom category, but I’ve got to cut loose every now and then. Sometimes you have to skew happy. To quote a movie that a fellow blogging friend of mine absolutely abhors, “it can’t rain all the time.” The “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” medley, the opening song from The Age of Aquarius LP is that kind of song for me. It is an instant mood elevator. A happy pill. From the spacey, psych-pop intro and astrology-laced verses, to the glorious mini-mantra of “let the sunshine, let the sunshine in, the sunshine in,” the song is a kind of elixir to my sad bastard blues. And maybe it’s a little cheesy, but goddamn it, it’s good cheese.

It makes me want to wear ill-advised and ill-fitting pants and dance shirtless in a field of poppies somewhere. It makes me realize why anyone would ever listen to a hippie in the first place*. It makes me want to tune in, turn on, and drop out…man.

But mostly, it just puts a smile on my face, and sometimes that’s all you really need, even if it’s only for a few fleeting moments, the length of a pop song.

*Author’s note: do not listen to hippies. They are usually full of shit.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

Couch Slut

Here we go.  In April, New York hardcore punk/metal band Couch Slut are back with a new album to pummel our brains and rip our faces off.  Check out "Ode to Jimbo" below and pre-order the "You Could Do It Tonight" LP here from Brutal Panda Records.

Friday Horror Trailer - Silent Hill

Daily Jam - True Love Will Find You in the End

If ever you find yourself doubting your own artistic endeavors, procrastinating, keeping yourself from creating because you feel you don’t have the adequate equipment or instruments with which to do so, listen to Daniel Johnston. Listen to the hell out of Daniel Johnston. Throughout the 1980’s he wrote and recorded 10 albums of raw and fractured pop using a cheap guitar and a tape recorder. He also drew his own cover art, made copies of his own cassettes for stores to sell, and in the process influenced a bevy of future artists and performers.

It doesn’t matter how you play it…just that you do.

As crackly and lo-fi as his recordings are, there is an innate beauty within all of them, vulnerable and tragic lyrics laid atop honest and real melodies. Closing out 1984’s Retired Boxer cassette, the simple and unembellished “True Love Will Find You in the End” somehow manages to be both encouraging and devastating, a big bleeding heart laid bare on a sleeve for the whole world to see. Johnston’s crudely crafted little pop nugget manages to sound enormous despite its rudimentary creation. It makes my heart swell. It makes my soul soar.

It doesn’t matter how you record it…just that you do.

I will be welcoming my second son into the world sometime in the next couple of weeks*, and there’s so much I need to write and record and draw and sing about. Time is not something I’m going to have an overflowing amount of, but you just make it work, you just make your art when you can, when you have a free five minutes in the middle of the night. You use a cheap guitar and tape recorder if that’s what it takes. And then you play it for your children…or your wife…or your girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, mom, dad, brother, sister, best friend…or whoever. It’s extraordinary to me that I’ve been able to grow my little family over these last few years, and it’s surreal and wonderful. I want to sing about it.

It doesn’t matter what you love…just that you do.

*This column was originally posted way back in January of 2016.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

METZ

Here's some new noise from Toronto band METZ from their upcoming "Up on Gravity Hill" LP.  Check out "Entwined (Street Light Buzz)" below and pre-order the record here from Sub Pop.

Writhing Squares

Philly duo Writhing Squares are back in April with a new gonzo mix of post punk, space rock, prog, and other assorted madness.  New tune "Barbarians" finds the band in stomping mode, chugging, fist-pumping bombast and freaky sax.  Check it out below and pre-order the "Mythology" LP here from Trouble in Mind.

Shadow Show

Detroit trio Shadow Show just released their latest album "Fantasy Now!," a fun and bopping mix of '60s girl garage rock, psych pop, and more.  Check out the poppy ear candy of "Mystic Spiral" below and get the new LP here via Little Cloud Records.

Superblooms

Here's some hazy indie rock and also the debut single from Madison, Wisconsin band Superblooms.  "Let Me Go" feels a bit like something that would have dropped in the middle of the alt-rock boom of the '90s, so it's certainly pressing all the buttons for me.  Check it out below and download it here from the band.

The Lemon Twigs

Looking to follow up last year's brilliant "Everything Harmony" LP, New York band The Lemon Twigs are back in May with a new record of throwback pop jams.  Check out "They Don't Know How to Fall in Place" below and pre-order the upcoming "A Dream Is All We Know" here from Captured Tracks.

Daily Jam - When the Fool Becomes a King

This column was originally posted in 2016 a few days after David Bowie died.

I’ve been listening to everything through a David Bowie filter this last week, which in so many ways could be unfair to the music I’m hearing, as Bowie is such an unrealistic iconic figure to try and live up to. But at the same time, his cultural influence is so prevalent in everything from music to visuals to fashion and art, that maybe in some ways, that filter was there all along. Orchestral chamber psych-choral-pop band/cult The Polyphonic Spree are hardly the first group of minstrels and troubadours I think of when scouring the audio world for Bowie affection and affectations, but listening now, it’s there indeed. It could be the sense of whimsy and star-eyed psychedelia the band trades in that can certainly be linked back to Bowie’s pre-Ziggy days. Or it could be the simple act of following your own muse, harnessing aspects of old or forgotten sounds and making them your own, or crafting something brand new in the process. Or it could be the fact that I saw Bowie and The Polyphonic Spree perform “Slip Away” together in 2004, and it was utterly transcendent. It’s all of these things.

At that same show, during the Spree’s opening set, the band unveiled a slew of new tunes from their then upcoming album Together We’re Heavy, finishing up (I believe) with the 10-minute epic “When the Fool Becomes a King.” I had been following the band since seeing them a few years prior as an opening act (their second ever show, risen from the ashes of 90’s Texas alt-rock staple Tripping Daisy) for Grandaddy, and was probably one of the few people in the large crowd who was genuinely excited to see them too. Their set was poppy and energetic and fun, a perfect aperitif to get us all ready for the main event, though as they approached their booming finale, they seemed at the ready to even eclipse it.

“When the Fool Becomes a King” feels like a grand summation for an artist’s lifetime of work, though it comes from sophomore effort. The crashing crescendos, orchestration, and choral flair lend themselves so perfectly to front man Tim DeLaughter’s gleeful vocals that the end result is intoxicating. It feels like life, like youthful exuberance and elder foreknowledge at the same time, all of the ups and downs and the good with the bad, but still smiling, a kind of melancholy positivity. It’s sonic affirmation at its finest, and it’s beautiful. And in some ways, none of this would have ever existed without David Bowie.

Under the aura of Bowie, so many artists have, and more artists will emerge from his wake in the creative ether, and that’s a fantastic thing to be able to hold on to and look forward to.

“And it makes me smile.”

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

SOMA

Coming our way next month just in time for the spring equinox, Jersey band SOMA are releasing "Burning Is Learning," an album of devotional psychedelia to expand all the minds to.  The band's name is an acronym for Sacred Order of Mystic Apogees, so things are bound to get trippy.  Check out "Shivranjani" below and pre-order the record here from Centripetal Force.

Kite

Swedish electro-pop group Kite have a new single coming our way in April with the "Losing / Glassy Eyes" 7".  Check out the droning, melancholy B-side "Glassy" below and pre-order the record here from Dais.

Sam Morton

Here's a beautiful and heartbreaking new song from UK artist Sam Morton featuring an assist from fellow UK composer and saxophonist Alabaster DePlume.  "Cry Without End" plays like a gentle hand stroking your hair after a bad breakup.  Let it out.  It's going to be okay.

I love it.

Check it out below and get the 7" here from XL Recordings.

Daily Jam - Last Year's Man

I have long opined that Leonard Cohen is a lyricist unparalleled, his words conjuring all manner of philosophical thought, metaphorical imagery, and emotional art, and every time I go back to his catalog, I’m reminded why. So many of the man’s songs will strike a chord within me, often making me feel or relate before I’ve even had a chance to grasp at what the lyrics are intending. “Last Year’s Man” from the 1971 album Songs of Love and Hate is one of those songs. Something about it hits me deep, down to my very bones, though I still struggle with deciphering what the song actually means.

The song is open to eternal and varied interpretation, as maybe art should be, but it’s still a puzzle to me. Maybe it’s about art, or more specifically a kind of writer’s block. Or maybe it’s about unrequited love, or it’s about finding love and then discovering that that love is not the idealized entity originally perceived. Or maybe it’s about God, or it’s about becoming some sort of theoretical deity as the creator of one’s artistic works and endeavors. Or maybe it’s about solitude.

Maybe it’s about all of these things…or none at all.

Regardless of any intended or unintended significance found within the song, there is a weight of emotion underneath. And it think ultimately that’s what I’m feeling when I listen to it. And that’s probably good enough. Tone can transcend theme as a way to cross boundaries or borders, either culturally, linguistically, and so on. It can serve as a way to relate to each other. Great art is the art that, above all else, makes us feel.

Or maybe I’m just not smart enough to get the gist of things.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

Zetra Covers The Cure

UK duo Zetra just dropped a cover version of The Cure's "Burn" for our listening pleasure.  Giving it a whirl now, and it makes me wish the band would go ahead and just cover the entirety of "The Crow" soundtrack to go along with it.  Check it out below and download it here from Nuclear Blast.

Daily Jam - On the Horizon

When perusing through my CD collection, one may notice several discs with radio station call letters on them…call letters from the station I deejayed for in college…promo discs distributed to the station…radio copies. So I stole some CD’s from the radio station I worked for. So what. I guess I’m a bad person, but I totally discovered some wonderful tunes whilst being said bad person. And one of those tunes is “On the Horizon,” the trippy, Neil Halstead-assisted album closer from Locust’s 1997 LP, Morning Light.

Though it never became quite the cultural juggernaut that maybe it could have been, trip-hop was a fairly prevalent music genre in its day, specifically the late 90’s. And while acts like Portishead, Massive Attack, and Tricky lead the proverbial charge, there were plenty of smaller artists that fit the mold too. Combining chilled electronica, hip-hop beats, mellow instrumentation, and some well placed samples, Locust was one of those oft overlooked artists. Morning Light is a pretty solid effort from start to finish (there’s even a wonderful Karen Carpenter sample in the mix), but it’s the finale, featuring Neil Halstead of Slowdive and Mojave 3 fame on vocals, that really cements the deal. “On the Horizon” begins with some off kilter orchestration, vibraphone and reverb, an array of different instruments both live and synthetic, and Halstead’s soft, dreamy vocals. It takes a couple of minutes before everything begins to come together, the string section and a haunting beat forming like dark clouds in the distance. Melancholy reigns.

The song has always made me think about an old friend of mine who endured an unreal familial tragedy when we were in college, and her subsequent emotional distance that was the result. Over the following years, we grew apart and eventually lost touch entirely. And that has always made me sad. “On the Horizon” encapsulates that feeling perfectly. I still love her dearly, and I hope that she’s all right wherever she is.

“She’s fixing her wings just to fly…”

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

Warpaint

Following up a post about DIIV with another about Warpaint.  It's like it's 2011 or something.  Anyhoo, the LA band just dropped a groovy new single with "Common Blue."  Check it out below and download it here from Rough Trade (the 7" is already sold out).

DIIV

Brooklyn's DIIV is back this May with a new album of indie melodies for the masses.  New tune "Brown Paper Bag" finds the group in '90s post-grunge mode, acid-fried guitar tones and subdued vocals sounding like one big comedown.  Check it out below and pre-order the "Frog in Boiling Water" LP here from Fantasy Records.

Daily Jam - Live Forever

In the mostly British press-created rivalry between 90’s Britpop powerhouses Blur and Oasis, I was always firmly entrenched in the former’s camp, an Albarn and Co. flag waver and cheerleader. But damn it, if the latter didn’t get their cigarette stained and booze soaked meat hooks into me every once and a while. Oasis’s “Live Forever,” from 1994’s Definitely Maybe was one of those meat hooks.

Through my life, I’ve had the good fortune to be able to hear many a perfect pop song, several of which actually surfaced during my formative years, my awkward years, my years of musical revelation and self discovery. I listened to a lot of good stuff in high school, though I listened to a lot of shit too, but that’s a different story. Growing up through the rise and fall of grunge, gangsta rap, and Britpop, I was fed all manner of great pop songs, but that shiny nugget from Manchester still sounds just right.

For all of the mainstream hoopla that would surround and follow Oasis only a year later, “Live Forever,” and plenty of the rest of Definitely Maybe, still maintained a sense of the shoegaze sheen that came before it, guitar tones echoing in your ears, teeth rattling. It was not quite the polished Britpop sound that would explode over the middle of the decade, but it was all the better for it. “Live Forever” has this timeless quality to it, like it could have surfaced as a single during pretty much any era, an homage to any and all of the deceased and flamed-out icons of the time, a glorious celebration. But it is still of the 90’s, a musical and cultural reaction to the doom and gloom persisting in rock n’ roll at the time that culminated in the death of Kurt Cobain. Oasis’s Noel Gallagher has even said that he wrote “Live Forever” in response to Cobain’s “I Hate Myself and I Want to Die.” If only every song that was influenced by Nirvana, either directly or indirectly, could be so good.

While Oasis would never again grab a hold of me quite like they did in 1994, “Live Forever” has been firmly imprinted into my brain for all time.

Check it out below, our Daily Jam.

Midwife

Here's a cool, crawling, and fuzzy track from the now New Mexico based artist Midwife from her upcoming new split 7" with Philly band Nyxy Nyx.  Listen to "It's Ok 2 Lie 2 Me" below and get the record here from BLIGHT.

Daily Jam - Stars

Some days I wish I was still as enthusiastic and starry eyed as I used to be. I wish I hadn’t become so jaded with age. I wish I still had that same feeling of exhilaration I experienced when I heard the guitar riff in the bridge to “Stars” by Hum for the first time. Yeah. That was good stuff.

Hum’s 1995 album You’d Prefer an Astronaut is 45 minutes of metallic space rock interwoven with 90’s alt-rock genetics and some shades of punk and prog. First single “Stars” opens softly, a gently strummed guitar and repeated lyric, and then things begin to swirl and coalesce, and then, a minute in, a drum roll to rattle you to your bones, and the song lifts off. The guitar tones are sharp and driving, the baseline and beat propulsive and bombastic, and the melody feels like it’s pushing you into the farthest reaches of the galaxy, all the lights blurring and flying by in your periphery vision, a brick in your stomach, the flesh on your face pushing against the contours of your skull. The lyrics are wistful and softly sung, adding a dreamy otherworldliness to the affair. And then the bridge. And then that riff.

It makes my heart beat.

Listen below…or just listen to that guitar riff over and over again. I know I will be.

Daily Jam - Seven

Oh, to have come up in the 90’s, a time before the term “emo” was kind of a bad word. It was okay. Honestly, there was just as much bullshit to contend with back then as there is now. It was just different. But to come of age during that time and to really get into music then, the nostalgia runs hard and deep, the songs and bands and styles and genres forever cementing themselves to my psyche. They are forever running through my veins, my ears, and my heart. I was young, and so was emo. It hadn’t morphed into the…thing…it would later become. It was just a style of melodic music indebted to hardcore punk, but skewing personal rather than political, dwelling on private feelings and interpersonal relationship commentary rather than social themes or mores. There was still anger, but there was hopelessness as well, and enough self-doubt and insecurity to rile up any teenager within listening distance. Which worked out well and good for me, as I was 15 the first time I heard Sunny Day Real Estate’s Diary, and fell head over heels for it.

Opening with “Seven,” a song that would go on to pretty much define the band, if not the entire emo sub-genre, for the next couple of decades, Diary flows through it’s 11 tracks with a quiet/LOUD/quiet/LOUD panache, a swirl of dark and sweet moods and obtuse, (maybe) confessional lyrics. It’s like reading the journal entries from some mysterious teenage outcast, the quiet, brooding genius sitting by himself at the lunch table. The whole thing felt instantly relatable, despite any lack of understanding of lyrical thematic meaning or content on my part (i'm kind of an idiot). It didn’t matter. The album felt like anguish, thanks in no small part to Jeremy Enigk’s swoon and wail. It was perfect for a shy, insecure teenager like me, and while I may have moved away from it while growing up, I always find myself coming back for more “Seven.”

Being the first song I heard from the band, probably on 120 Minutes or something, “Seven” seemed to belong just to me. At the time, none of my other friends had any idea who Sunny Day Real Estate was, and as far as I knew, I owned the only copy available in Midland, Texas. That was certainly not the case, but I felt like they were my band. Growing up, you attach yourself to plenty of different groups and artists that belong to your group of friends, or your generation, or whatever, but it was wholly different and wonderful to have something that seemed like it was mine entirely. In a lot of ways, that feeling is what has made me actively seek out and discover new and interesting music over the last 30 years, like some junkie trying to relive that first high. I want to feel that way again.

The craving never subsides, but I guess I’m okay with that.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

Friday Horror Trailer - The Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll

AKA, "The House of Psychotic Women."

Daily Jam - Nothing Compares 2 U

Sinead O’Connor played a very vivid role in my pre-adolescent, pop-cultural memory bank, a massive hit single, a memorable video to accompany it, a live (totally overblown) TV scandal (of which time has proven that she was completely in the right), and…you know…she was a girl with a shaved head. (I was eleven! What do you want?!) The artist was everywhere, on the radio and MTV, invading the whole spectrum of pop culture and media, even getting parodied on the after-school cartoon show, Tiny Toons Adventures.

What remains 25 years later is an artist who, while not at the same level of popular awareness or achieving the creative heights that she once aspired to, still manages a certain amount of transcendence with her version of the Prince-penned “Nothing Compares 2 U.” In all earnestness, it’s one of the best pop songs ever recorded.

It is heartache personified.

Anyone who has ever loved and lost should be able to identify with the range of emotions and feelings on display therein. There’s desperation, and despair, a little shade of anger, and those false kind of personal affirmations you put up to save face…even when you know it’s all bullshit. You try to stay strong, to have fun and carry on. You move on with your life, meet other people, forget about the past. And then you cry.

This song will never cease to move me, so Sinead O’Connor, you are sorely missed, and you will always be all right in my book.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

somesurprises

Here are some dreamy new sounds form shoegaze and psych pop tinged Seattle alt-rock band somesurprises.  The group's new "Perseids" LP is out in April.  Maybe they'll be hanging out in Austin in a month.  Anyway, listen to "Be Reasonable" below and pre-order the record here from Doom Trip.

Daily Jam - Dry the Rain

Discovering something back in 2015...

Wow. My mind is blown. My world is rocked. And nothing will ever be the same. Sitting down to write this piece about “Dry the Rain,” the penultimate Beta Band song from their 1998 album The Three EP’s, I had planned to reminisce about how it was my go-to song in college on days when I felt everything falling apart around me, on days when I felt destined to stumble and crash, on days when everything seemed doomed. Along with The Beatles’ “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” I found it particularly comforting during any post-exam comedown, a jittery mix of nerves, fatigue, and fatalism. The Beatles would sing to me about how “life goes on,” and I’d start to fell better about my perceived impending failure. The Beta Band would sing to me that “I will be alright,” and the future wouldn’t seem so bleak or foreboding…except that’s not what they were singing to me.

Damn near 20 years later, and it turns out I was mishearing the lyric all this time. The line is not “I will be alright.” The line is “I will be your light.” A quick Google search just completely took the wind out of me. I don’t know what anything means anymore. Someone just exploded a bomb in my head.

I’m not sure where to go from here. I’ve got some soul searching to do.

I will be alright.

I will be alright.

I will be alright.

I will be alright.

Shit.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

Arab Strap

Well all right, new music from Arap Strap.  Listen to "Bliss" below and pre-order April's "I'm Totally Fine with It👍Don't Give a Fuck Anymore👍" here from Rock Action Records.

Daily Jam - My Death

When we’re young, we take our lives for granted. Our present, our future, our health, our deaths…we live only for the moment, taking in every slice of pleasure or experience we can, our hair whipping wildly in the wind in our faces, gritted teeth, and no foregone conclusions. We walk on ever forward, never looking too far ahead, but never looking back either. Thinking back on our youth is like floating through a daydream. We inhale nostalgia like pulling off a joint. We inject memories like a syringe full of sleepy afternoons. And nothing seems real until it’s all too real.

Growing up, I could be a fairly macabre little dude, especially in my early teenage years, an adolescent not quite obsession with death and doom and gloom presided over by my artistic overlords of music, film, and literature. I thought about death…a lot. I dwelled on it. I wrote about it, drew about it, sang about it. My friends, my family, my loved ones, myself. But I never really experienced it except in an abstract way. Global catastrophes or disasters can certainly make you feel sad or empathetic, but at the end of the day, you still experience that kind of tragedy and death as a glassed off observer. It’s all just images on a screen really. In fact, it wasn’t until I was 30 years old that death really hit me directly…and completely took the wind out of me. After all of that not quite obsession, I was left unguarded and unprepared. And I felt foolish that I had found it so fascinating. And since then I’ve tried to appreciate life and everything in it, to think about my future, and my health, and my eventual death. But of course, we all eventually slack off.

And then death hit again.

The second time was no different than the first, even when expecting it or waiting for it. I was still unprepared and found myself adrift soon after. Death is so much more than you can ever really fathom. And again, it made me want to live, and to get things done, and to experience everything, and to blah, blah, blah. But we all fall back in line. We all succumb to the droning hum of existence. We find ourselves bored again. We find ourselves complacent. Death’s always just around the corner, but it never seems real, until it is again.

I’m doing my best not to take life or death for granted. I’m doing my best to carpe diem and all that good shit. And it’s hard work. And sometimes my brain and body don’t want to comply. But it’s good for my soul. And I hope I can keep it up before the next death, and the next, and my own.

Ladies and Gentlemen, from 1967’s Scott, Scott Walker’s “My Death”…

Jessica Pratt

It looks like we're getting new music from LA folk artist Jessica Pratt in May, her first new album since 2019's "Quiet Signs."  Dig on the spectral, night-time, psych-tinged sounds of "Life Is" below and pre-order the upcoming "Here in the Pitch" LP here from Mexican Summer.

Daily Jam - Little Trouble Girl

I don’t know about you, but I was pretty bummed out back in 2011 when Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon got divorced and dissolved the band. It’s always disheartening when a band you love, and maybe especially one that you grew up with, reaches its inevitable breaking point and ceases to continue on, but the relationship split within made it that much worse. Granted, I’ve never met either of these people*, and their personal lives have absolutely no bearing on my life whatsoever, but it was kind of devastating. They were supposed to be the model. They were supposed to be the ones that made it. And while it wasn’t like having your parents split up or anything, it was on par with maybe a cool older cousin getting divorced or something.

At least we got decades of excellent music.

Every record Sonic Youth recorded definitely has its charms, but the real sweet spot starts with 1988’s Daydream Nation and goes through 1995’s Washing Machine. You would be hard pressed to find another set of five consecutive albums that are as consistent, original, influential, and just plain awesome as the band’s output during those seven years. And one of the highlights from that era is the trippy and surreal Gordon-fronted ballad, “Little Trouble Girl,” a single from Washing Machine.

“Little Trouble Girl” came out at a time in my life when I was starting to broaden my horizons in regard to music and film, and really to all art and media in general. Stuff that only a couple of years prior would have had me turning my nose up to it, or tuning my brain off from it suddenly started making waves and getting rotations. I sought out the different. I would seek out the strange. I adored the weird. And, if we’re honest, “Little Trouble Girl” is weird. I don’t even know how to begin describing it. An off-tuned guitar begins a slow and strange melody, and then a chorus of girls begins to sing (along with Kim fucking Deal!)…kind of creepily…until Kim Gordon begins her almost Nico-esque spoken word verses. And then those girls sing again. The whole effect is otherworldly, and that chorus digs deep and just stays with you for hours…days…or even 25 years. And now we’ll never get that again.

*In 1998, I missed meeting Thurston Moore at a yard sale in Austin near my apartment by about 10 minutes. He had been crate digging through the guy’s records, which I was there to do myself. I bought a Billy Joel album.

Listen to the song below, our Daily Jam.

Medicine

LA band Medicine have gone through many changes and lineups over the last 30+ years, and they're back again with a new album of "appreciations, interpretations, and ruminations."  Or, you know, a covers record.  Take a listen to the band's noisy, garage rock version of The Beatles' "Tell Me Why" below and get the "On the Bed" LP here.

Daily Jam - I'm Broken

I grew up in Texas. It was only a matter of time before I got around to Pantera.

Like so many other artists in the early to mid 90’s, I got clued on to the Texas metal band through my hours spent in front of the television watching MTV. It was either on Headbanger’s Ball or Beavis and Butthead that Pantera first shattered my eardrums and pulverized my skull, though I’m leaning towards the latter. I distinctly remember listening to the two knuckleheads mocking lead singer Phil Anselmo, joking that his parents were giving him a hard time, and thus the anger and rage on display in his music. “Damn it Pantera! Clean your room!”

At the time, I found the band to be a full on sonic apocalypse that only became more and more aggressive and abrasive as they cycled through albums, from Cowboys from Hell to Vulgar Display of Power, and finally to 1994’s Far Beyond Driven and the single, “I’m Broken.” I felt like they were the heaviest band I’d ever heard. (Future listening and exploration would quell that notion though.) You could feel that bass drum in your chest, the shrieking guitar working its way into your ears and down into your throat, the bass lines shaking your entire body, and the guttural monster’s wail tearing your face apart. I can’t even begin to impart on how important music like this is to 13 or 14 or 15-year old boys. All the angst and rage and confusion boiled down into one screaming, pounding five-minute fit. I’m broken indeed.

While Pantera would find success all over the world and sell a ton of records before the inevitable band breakup bullshit and then subsequent tragedy and death that followed, they always seemed like such a regional flavor. All of my Texas friends, even those who are not into metal, seem to have some kind of fondness, or at least memory of the band, a whole collection of junior high and high school tales of teenage debauchery. Pantera made music for kids drinking beers by pump jacks or hanging out in caliche pits. They made music for the sunburned and blistered, reddened faces, wet breath, and never-ending heat. They made songs for us to slam around in the dust and desert to, clinching our fists and staring off towards the endless flatlands into nothingness.

And then punching that nothingness right in its stupid face.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.