A Fine Line Between Stupid And Clever

6. Bill Withers – “Harlem”, This is a perfect summer song. Typically, I listen to Mr. Withers while I’m washing dishes or crying on my boobs. I’m hoping to be able to play this while barbequing very, very soon.

5. Beastie Boys – “Lee Majors Come Again”, This track is a fun mix of the old Beasties hardcore sound and their early rap attempts. When I was a little kid I loved the show The Fall Guy. Lee Majors as a bounty hunter / stunt man, how friggin cool is that? He even sang his own theme song…

4. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – “Young Adult Friction”, These guys list Teenage Fanclub and My Bloody Valentine as their influences and those were the two bands I thought of when I first heard this. They have awesome song titles like “Kurt Cobain’s Cardigan”, “This Love Is Fucking Right!” and “Doing All The Things That Wouldn’t Make Your Parents Proud”.

3. Bell Orchestre – “Throw It On A Fire”, Just like The Flaming Lips, these guys are friends/family of Arcade Fire. They even recorded in the same studio that “Funeral” was done in. Big thanks to A.A. Pascoe (not to be confused with A.A. Milne, cause he’s dead) for the heads up on this one.

2. Torche – “Across The Shields”, These guys are on Mogwai’s record label and have toured with them. That’s two reasons right there to check them out. They have a pretty full sound for being a three piece and they wear their influences on their guitar straps. Lee’s Palace – July 23! Hopefully they’ll show up in costume.

1. The Horrors – “Sea Within A Sea”, The new album is called “Primary Colours” and the video reflects just that. I love everything I hear by these guys, hope you enjoy this…

Persuasive Rhetoric Edition

6. DJ Dylan – “The Littlest Mashup”, I hardly ever post mashups, but this one is near and dear to my heart. The Drew Mac has been waxing intellectual about Snoop all week and I am a huge fan of the Hobe. Many nights when I should have been sleeping or studying, I would be up at 2 am watching the goodness that is The Littlest Hobo…

5. Wreckless Eric – “Whole Wide World”, I apologize for the quality of this video, but I’ve had this song stuck in my head all week. The guest stars on this version are pretty cool and (yes) this is the song that Will Ferrell’s character sings in Stranger Than Fiction.

4. Justice For The Unicorns – “The Dragon’s Claw”, This band is made up of members from Tigers And Monkeys, another cool NY band. These guys like to sing about the movies Labyrinth and Krull. They remind me of The Flaming Lips and acoustic Beck.

3. King Khan And The Shrines – “Land Of The Freak”, Vice records scores again! This has such a great psychedelic garage rock feel to it…Khan also plays with an outfit called the BBQ Show. Hannaford has tried to get me to come out and see them live; I won’t be able to refuse next time. This rocks hard!

2. Eels – “Fresh Blood”, I recently found out that these guys contributed music to the newest (and I’m assuming awful) Jim Carrey comedy. I’ve always thought Eels would make good soundtrack music, but you’ve got to check out how many movies they’ve been used in, in the last thirteen years… http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1925053/

1. Serena Ryder – “The Funeral”, This is a beautiful Band Of Horses cover from a gig in Edmonton last March. Who says nothing good ever comes out of Edmonton? If you are ever in Toronto and would like to see her play for free after a couple of drinks, she often drops by the Dakota Tavern and jams. She is also quite well known for her Leonard Cohen covers, but I think this one is my new favourite…

72 Degrees In Your Head Edition

6. M. Ward – “Rave On”, Ooo wee ooo, I sound just like Buddy Holly.

5. The Thermals – “Now We Can See”, Riffing and posing and a catchy hook, good stuff.

4. A.C. Newman – “Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer”, Amazing full sound, I’m really impressed. Nice eye candy too.

3. Bat For Lashes – “Daniel”, This is quite different from the single version, it’s really haunting.

2. Guillemots – “Annie, Let’s Not Wait”, The Blogoteque scores again. Paris is the new Berlin.

1. Man Man – “Rabbit Habits”, This goes on too long, but it’s the Apatow crowd doing Teen Wolf…so I don’t mind.

To Be Most Vividly And Perfectly Alive

6. Public Enemy with The Roots – “Bring The Noise”, When I was fifteen years old, P.E. was the number one group in my boom box. I still love them, but I rarely hear anything about them. Pairing them with a live band was an amazing idea…this was also Flav’s 50th birthday. I’m bopping my head along like its 1988!

5. The Greenskeepers – “Lotion”, Apparently this track is from four years ago. I just heard/saw this last week. Not only do I find this amusing, but it’s not a bad little pop song either. It makes me think of the South Park episode where Cartman wants to play “Lambs” with Bebe. I first saw The Silence Of The Lambs on HBO and they excluded the “Spiderman” scene (you know what I mean), but they had no problem with the “Tucking” scene…

4. Sigur Ros – “Vio Spilum Endalaust”, This is the second time I’ve featured this track. When I saw them at Massey Hall, this song brought the house down; I can’t even imagine what it would be like to hear it in a small, intimate venue. The conversation with the older patrons before they play is pretty funny too.

3. Kutiman – “Mother Of All Funk Chords”, The genius that is Milder Weather sent this to me this week claiming that if I didn’t like this, he was going to question our friendship. This is rocking my world! I’m not usually a fan of mash-ups, but this works so well. I wonder if it took a ton of time to create or if it just flowed like it grooves. If you like this, it’s part of a series that you should check out. Thanks again Geoff!

2. Gord Downie – “At The Quinte Hotel”, I saw this a few years ago on Bravo at about three o’clock in the morning. I knew it was an Al Purdy poem thanks to high school English class, but I could never remember what it was called. This five minute clip is why I love the interweb, almost everything cool that I thought I would never see again is usually out there, waiting to be rediscovered.

1. Cursive – “From The Hips”, I saw these guys open for Mogwai a few years ago and meant to keep them in the back of my mind when I went music shopping. I never did. I was lucky to catch them on Letterman when I was channel hopping a while back. This track starts off a little slow, but you won’t be disappointed…

You Can Lead A Whore To Culture, But You Can’t Make Her Think

6. Silversun Pickups – “Panic Switch”, Their new album doesn’t come out for another month, but the first single was leaked. I really like this. The guitar on this track reminds me of old (which equals good) Smashing Pumpkins. What I love about this band is that they seem surprised that they are as popular as they are. They are wickedly modest and assumed they’d be an indie band forever…

5. Brendan Canning – “Love Is New”, Kensington Night Fever! Paul’s Boutique! Mr. Canning is really starting to sound polished and this video is chock full of Toronto scene shout outs.

4. Bonnie “Prince” Billy – “I Am Goodbye”, This track is a toe tapper, Will Oldham strikes again with another fantastic album. He’s had a great year, he starred in Wendy And Lucy (one of my favourite movies of the year) and Jon Langford (of Mekons fame) joined his backing band.

3. The Hylozoists – “The Island Of Seven Cities”, The Pix loves The Hylozoists! This was recorded live last month at Soundscapes; if you are unfamiliar with this store, go now! It’s my absolute favourite music store in Toronto; they stay open until midnight on weekends. If I’ve had a beer or two on College Street, I’m much more likely to drop more money at the store…great sales tactic.

2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Zero”, I was setting myself up for disappointment with this album. I like the band just fine; I just thought they might be a little tapped out creatively. I like being wrong in cases like these. This track reminds me of PJ Harvey if she was trying to emulate Madonna’s “Material Girl” phase. Bonus music geek tidbit – Karen O will be on the soundtrack for Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are.

1. The Duke Spirit – “The Step And The Walk”, This band is relatively new to me, they are a “word of mouth” band. They remind me of the Pixies, if they were a Jefferson Airplane cover band. Thanks to Dose.ca for the free track this week and thanks to Barker for the link. I predict big things for this band…