The Album Leaf play CT tonight; and how they grew on me

ALL THAT YOU CAN'T LEAF BEHIND: The Album Leaf play Milford, CT tonight.

MP3: The Album Leaf – Red Eye
FROM: Into The Blue Again

The first time I chanced upon The Album Leaf was in a record shop in New York City a few years back. But it wasn’t a stumble and fall so much as it was an episode of brutal record clerk rape.

The nerdy guy with the inch-thick glasses behind the counter told me I couldn’t buy the other handful of CDs I was trying to pay him for unless I also got The Album Leaf’s Into The Blue Again record. I needed it, he said. And I specifically remember Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros Global A Go-Go being in that stack, so it’s quite unfair how forced I was into the purchase of a record from a band I never heard of before.

But the packaging was rad. And the record label was Sub-Pop. And the clerk was obviously so profoundly in love with it (it was a used copy; not like he had to meet some sort of quota for the Album Leaf or anything). And it’s not like I’m chicken. So dare, I did. Plus he started going on about Sigur Ros, and Telefon Tel Aviv and Explosions In The Sky and was treating me like a human degradation for knowing of those bands, but not Album Leaf. And looking back, I see why that would give someone a minor hemorrhage.

Glassjaw’s cardboard ultimatums – the truth is out there

Why am I getting g-mail from Cardboard City?

>>MP3: Glassjaw – You Think You’re John Fucking Lennon
<<FROM: The yet to be announced album this may or may not be a tease for (unreleased)

>>MP3: Glassjaw – The Number No Good Things Can Come Of (Beat Scientific Remix)
<<FROM: Another Daryl Palumbo side project record that didn’t quite see light of day that would have been called ‘Student of the Drums‘ and probably would have been really fucking good (unreleased)

I don’t know what’s more disturbing about this postcard(board) I found in my mailbox earlier this week.

The fact that Glassjaw (presumably Glassjaw, anyway- that ‘g’ is quite unmistakable, as is the Cardboard City reference) are sending out nerdgasmic postcards of cardboard, or the fact that Glassjaw has my new address in Connecticut.

I did not call them and inform them of my move earlier this year, and I can’t think of how they would where to snuff me out. I mean, I would have informed them of my address change if I knew they’d be sending out cards with cutout g’s in them to keep teasing me with the slippery prospect of a new album that is more of a unicorn than an album I’m expecting to hear any time soon. But I think it’s pretty obvious what’s happening here. I’m being tailed by Glassjaw. And there is no distance I can go to outrun them. There is no place to hide. My days are numbered, and Glassjaw are counting them down.

So if you’re with me, and you also got one of these, be mindful. Keep an eye in your rear view. Peak out your blinds before you turn in. Lock your doors. Don’t use your phones, they’re probably tapped. If you can reach your parents, somehow, let them know you love them. We don’t yet  know what it means, but Glassjaw is most certainly up to something. And we probably are not safe.

What do you think it all means? The truth is out there.

Also, mysterio-marketing is a beautiful thing.

Hugh Hefner wants to make his parts private- but how relevant is Playboy in 2010?

This is not the kind of man who thinks less is more.

<<MP3: Queen – “I Want It All”
>>FROM: The Miracle

We all knew that Hugh Hefner enjoys, and has made a frackin fortune off of, private parts.

But who knew he’d want to buy back every brick of his mighty empire from share holders to privatize Playboy at the age of 84? From the sounds of things, nobody. A very private man, that Hugh Hefner.

COVER FILE: To those who helped me take the weight off

>>MP3: The Gaslight Anthem – “The Weight” (The Band cover)
<<FROM: Live solo acoustic session with Q101.1 (unreleased)

There’s no other way to say it; I’m really stoked about my life right now. And this fantastic, sparse version of the campfire sing-a-long classic by The Gaslight Anthem‘s Brian Fallon is what that feels like.

THE COVER FILE: It’s getting hot in herre..

That expression will never be hot, however.

>>MP3: Jill Sobule – Hot In Herre (Nelly cover)
FROM: unreleased! But check out Jill’s website and buy some of her stuff.

I wasn’t sure I’d be able to blog today. You see, it’s so hot and stinking humid up here in the north east corner of our fine country that I was fairly certain I’d come home to find my laptop had melted. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that. Yet, my apartment feels like the kitchen at a creole restaurant in New Orleans. In August. Which, if you look it up, isn’t exactly a place to build an igloo.

So what I’m saying is, it’s really hot. And so is this song. So take off all your clothes.

Aw heck, here’s a bonus to keep the party going..

>>MP3: Beck – Hot In Herre (Nelly cover, performed live @ the Union Chapel in London, 2003)
FROM: unreleased! Recorded live at the Union chapel in London, 2003. Beck’s website is awesome, btw. His mixes are great.

..Wait, what the hell ever happened to Nelly, anyway? (pause for Wikipedia search..) How bout that; dude is working on a new album called Nelly 5.0. Interesting.

USA Soccer: Kicking jams and taking names

USA wins. Get a kick out of that.

DOWNLOAD: The Presidents of the United States of America – “Kick Out The Jams” (MC5 cover)
FROM: The Presidents of the United States of America (s/t)

Our gulf coast might be gurgling oil. But doesn’t mean we can’t win a soccer game or two.

In World Cup action, the U.S. Soccer team took home the 1st place crown from Group C. It took 90 minutes of a scoreless game (plus 80 years of not winning it) before we could say that sentence. But that’s cool. And Bill Clinton was in attendance at today’s game too. From what I understand he’s done a lot more scoring. Oh, I kid. And so.. The Presidents of the United States of America cover the MC5 classic, “Kick Out The Jams.” Some things just make perfect sense.

Also, I like posting sports posts. It makes my day when I can tag something as “I thought SPORTS was a Huey Lewis album?“

New Drums album means okay, it’s summer time

I mean, hey, if you can find ocean water that has yet to be BP-ed, surf's up dude. Summer time.

DOWNLOAD: The Drums – “Forever and Ever Amen”
FROM: The Drums ($7.99 mp3 album via Amazon) .. (or if you really want a physical copy, you can import it for a few extra shiny pennies)

Summer started yesterday. And with a new Drums album in tow for this year’s solstice, I think it’s only fair to expect a new Drums album every single summer for the rest of my life. All the windows down and surf’s up goodness you can handle, brah. And happy birthday, mom.

I HEART THE 90′S: Number One Cup

no, no no. not THAT Seth Cohen.

DOWNLOAD: Number One Cup – Connecticut
From: Connecticut single (Browse their records at Amazon)

Here, a song called “Connecticut” from a rad Chicago band that may or may not be about Connecticut at all. Been spinning this band a lot lately, actually. Number One Cup deserves way more due than they got in their day. Such a solid sound from that golden era of 90′s indie rock, when indie rock was real indie, and real rock. And the singer’s name is Seth Cohen. But that has nothing to do with my appreciation for them. Honestly.

BP sets aside 20-bill to fix mess, no probs

Enough about the oil spill. There have been other disasters in our time too, ya know.

DOWNLOAD: Travie McCoy feat. Bruno Mars – “Billionaire”
FROM: Lazarus

Talk about a well-oiled machine. Could your business afford a 20 billion dollar mistake?

Think about that. That’s one billion dollars … times twenty. Don’t know about you, but that would snap my business’ neck like a tooth pick. Then again, I’m in the newspaper business.

Not only is BP setting aside 20 billion dollars to cover the worst environmental disaster in American history, analysts seem to be indicating that the company should live long and prosper. I can’t even comprehend what it would be like to just ‘set aside’ TWENTY BILLION DOLLARS.

But Travie McCoy can. Which is why he wrote this song about hanging with Oprah.

Bruno Mars has redeemed himself from co-writing "Right-Round." Can BP Oil redeem itself from turning our satellite images black?

Never got into McCoy or his Gym Class Heroes. But the hook of this, McCoy’s debut solo single, is the smoothest hook to get away with an f-bomb that I’ve heard in a good long while. I could live without the Travie verses, to be honest, but the kid shining his stuff up in the chorus, Bruno Mars, works some magic.

As coincidence would have it, he co-wrote the abomination of music that proved to me hip hop was dead – “Right Round” by Flo-Rida. Point being, if Mars can redeem himself from one of the worst musical tragedies in the history of American hip hop, surely BP Oil can right it’s environmental wrongs in our Gulf coast.

We never stop learning what home is, or how good LCD Soundsystem is.

face it. home is where your record collection is.

DOWNLOAD: LCD Soundsystem – Home
From: This Is Happening

EDITOR’S NOTE: Whether you are sick of home. Or home sick. Or home less. Or not sure where you want to be. This is for you.

Surely, my love and devotion to LCD Soundsystem is no mystery to the boats in these waters. This blog got it’s very name, after all, from James Murphy’s purest sonic epiphany. The song, “All My Friends,” is perfect. His (now) trilogy of albums is perfect. I can speak no foul about LCD Soundsystem. It’s perfect music for a very un-perfect time in history.

Murph’s latest LCD masterpiece “This Is Happening” closes with another revelatory soul-punk epic that I know I will wind my heart strings around again and again for years yet to come. How do I know it’ll keep mattering to me? It’s about home. And leaving it. And coming back to it. And finding it where you’d least expect to. This song is about the quest for where the heart is.

I post this song after spending a weekend at home. And by home, I mean at my parents house; where I grew up, and where I just moved out of a month ago for another state. A home which I have talked a lot of mostly unfair trash on. I post it after a friend of mine just came back from a ‘life-altering’ trip to Kenya (which you should read about at link) where she experienced new people every day who have an entirely different concept of home and family than we do. I post it while my sister is in Europe, studying abroad and readying herself to do some traveling and sight seeing. I post it alone from my apartment in Connecticut, hoping some of my friends from all over the world will hear it and know what I’m talking about.

Because we never stop learning what, or where, home is. I find mine in songs like this, knowing I can share that with someone.

Home is where your music is.