Here are a few of my favorites lately:

TV Show: Chuck on NBC,
Episode: Chuck vs. The ring - 04/27/2009
Song: Gramercy Arms - Looking At the Sun

With the mix of an amazing season finale of Chuck and NYC based super group, Gramercy Arms which comprises members of Guided By Voices, Luna and Joan as Police Woman with a special guest appearance of Sarah Silverman on “Looking at the Sun” this has to be my number one song of the week.

TV Show: Dollhouse on FOX,
Episode: Needs - 04/03/2009
Song: O+S - A Lonely Ghost

O+S is the musical collaboration between Orenda Fink (Azure Ray, Art in Manila) and Scalpelist (aka Cedric LeMoyne of Remy Zero). Their Debut album just came out on Saddle Creek Records – highly recommended, it brought a great vibe to the scene on Dollhouse.

TV Show: Lie To Me on FOX,
Episode: Undercover - 04/29/09
Song: Joseph Arthur – Walk Away

(listen to sample on Last.fm)

One of my new favorite shows, Tim Roth is an absolute genius even though the schtick for the all knowing detective has been used over and over again this series hit the spot. Arthur Joseph has never been a regular on my playlists but now I’m considering adding him to my daily runs.

TV Show: Gossip Girl on The CW,
Episode: Southern Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - 04/27/09
Song: Coconut Records – Is This Sound Ok?

(Listen to full track here)

I’m a big fan of Jason Schwartzman and Coconut Records and it seems he finds his way in to many TV shows since he started this band. I guess something about the minimalistic sounds and melodic tunes that draws the music supervisors to him.

In the end of the 90s if your band’s name wasn’t “Radiohead” and you resided in the UK, most chances were that you were busy producing pale Beatles or Stones imitations and receiving high praise from publications that should have known better. Over at Scotland exceptions were being made to the rule. One band in particular was set to liven up the dreary reality with catchy pop tunes coupled with crazy fuzzed out madness. They were called Urusei Yatsura and they only lasted for 3 great albums before they called it quits.

Urusei Yatsura - Hello Tiger

Skip over a decade or so and Projekt A-Ko rises from the ashes of Urusei Yatsura. It seems that not much has changed. The madness is still there and the pop sensibility still hides behind the walls of screeching guitar mayhem. Projekt A-Ko’s debut album Yoyodyne sounds like Sonic Youth on happy pills and definitely deserves a spin.

Projekt A-Ko - Molten Hearts

[Get the Album]
[Projekt A-Ko on MySpace]

Pearl Woods was 28 years old and recording with Little Richard’s backup band The Upsetters. She could sing as well as any Motown star, with soul and feeling, and Sipping Sorrow was a great catchy number. This was her ticket, now the world would know her name, and her talent.
Sipping Sorrow was released in 1961 on Charge Records and promptly zoomed off into the ether, unheard and uncared for. Sometimes life is cruel to the manifestly deserving.

Pearl Woods - Sippin’ Sorrow

It was a cold morning in Camden Market, when I entered a local CD shop and browsed through the shelves and the CDs on the display. The year was 2003. I left my homeland Israel to live in London for some time, and to see what life would bring me.

I had a cheap Epiphone acoustic guitar, which I took with me for the lonely moments, and my Rickenbacker bass, that came all the way with me, in order to find a psychedelic rock band, join them, get signed, make records, destroy hotel rooms and live a John Bonham lifestyle, including the fancy cars.
What I didn’t know, was that I’d be in for a big surprise and what they’d call – a lifetime changing moment. That moment happened when I saw, Bert Jansch’s first album on display. He was sitting with a guitar in hand, looking at the occasional consumer in the shop. He had been staring at them  like that since 1965, the year it was released. I had no idea who he was, and no idea why I decided to pick the CD up and take a look at it. It was far from my musical taste back then, which was focused mainly on psych rock bands and singer/songwriters.

Next to his album, there was another album, again, with a guy and a guitar in hand. He wasn’t staring at me, but the two CDs were there next to each other, and something talked me into getting them both. I never took a CD because of a cover, and let’s say it wasn’t THAT pretty of a cover–just plain pictures of musicians that looked, well, plain.

When I came back to my flat, the CDs remained in their plastic bag for three days before that Saturday morning when I decided to play Jansch’s first album. The first three notes on the record, of the song “Strolling Down The Highway”, immediately grabbed my attention. One minute into the song and I knew I’ve never heard anyone playing like that. I was literally, under a spell. After the first listen of the album, I was in such a shock, that I had to check the other CD I bought right away. It was Jackson C. Frank’s sole record. My jaw, couldn’t face the tension, and dropped eventually.

That following week I decided to switch my position. I put the bass guitar in the closet and started thinking of how much I’d get for it and if it would be enough for a Martin D-28. Lucky for me, I didn’t end up selling it  and I still play bass in several of projects and especially in my band Buffalo Boots. But the day I heard Bert Jansch, was the day my life had changed. Completely. I started investigating the fingerpicking world, got to know the alternating bass technique, and practiced endlessly on playing ‘Angie’. From there, it was a rollercoaster.  I compulsively started gathering everything Jansch had ever recorded, and moved onward to more and more guitar players who used that style, like Richard Thompson, Wizz Jones, John Renbourn, Steve Tilston and more and more.

Last month, I released my first album ‘Remember’. It’s a mixture of all the influences I gathered in the past 6 years, moving from British folk to British blues to  Mississippi Delta blues. John Fahey and Robbie Basho are my heroes on the American side of things, and the album combines all of them.

For those of you who aren’t into playing fingerpicking guitar, or who want to investigate the playing of Nick Drake or Paul Simon and even Neil Young’s acoustic guitar playing – go ahead and listen to the names I’ve mentioned, and especially to Bert Jansch. He is THE music for me. Him, and Coltrane of course, but we’ll get to that some other time…

Yair Yona - Broken Rockin’ Chair

[Yair Yona on MySpace]

Matador records has just made available a spanking new track by Sonic Youth. It’s as good as anything SY has ever done. The guys have also added Mark Ibold (Pavement) on bass, making the upcoming album ‘The Eternal’ even more promising.

Sonic Youth - Sacred Trickster

[Download]

Sonic Youth has also anounced a secret gig in the UK along with the ability to pre-order the album if you’re willing to go leave the house and visit an actual good old fashioned record shop.

I personally can’t wait for the next album. Sonic Youth has been producing brilliant albums this decade, and ‘The Eternal’ is sure to be another masterpiece.

One Eyed Monster Trailer

A while back we introduced readers to FishHawk out of Atlanta. There blend of Soulful Vocals and synth-infused 80’s beats caught our attention. The album was due out earlier in the year, and got pushed back until June. To take help ease the wait for the album, the band cut a video for the song “Night Owl.” The song has officially been released as a first single.  Ryan’s Smashing Life also posted a little information on them today too.

The video takes on a more sinister tone that that of the song orignally gives off. It features a home invasion and robbery during a party, punctuated with a little fun with a few of the party-goers. This is a great first video for band sure to begin making waves.

With endless debates and blog posts later – does the album artwork really matter? Can we deal with the shift from a large image on a record jacket through a CD jewel cases and now to a few tiny pixels on an iPod?

We can argue for days about whether a good album cover really helps artists sell albums. In my opinion, as always with design and especially in the “attention deficit disorder internet generation”, a shiny clever image is what it is all about. Think about it for a second, what made you follow that weird guy you don’t know on twitter? What made you keep reading that blog, and what really made you download that album? Could it have been the image, the thumbnail, the avatar?

After years of talented designers like Storm Thorgerson, well known for creating a cultural landmark with the Pink Floyd covers,  welcome to the new age where the album artwork is nothing but an album avatar. What were cultural icons like Iron Maiden’s Eddie playing around in beautiful sci-fi backdrops or The Beatles crossing Abbey Road have now become a 100X100 pixel icons at best.

Wired elegantly addressed this issue and pointed out that when Napster launched they didn’t even preview album artwork and iTunes barely revealed the images when searching. Although, seeing the effect it had on consumers now iTunes displays its rich album scroller and my iPod became a full screen album artwork machine.

Wired go on to solve the problem and complement a few innovators who took a chance and succeeded on bright ideas like Bon Jovi’s ‘Have a Nice Day’ and the people behind Big Active design studio who made the cover for the Enemy’s We’ll Live and Die in These Towns. The idea was a fully interactive railway departure board when each time the track changed the new song name would appear.

Which teaches us that simple, graphic and clever is what it’s all about these days. Sometimes you’ll have nothing but a second to catch the consumers’ eye and if you missed them, they’ll end up listening to a different band. Sad, but use it to your advantage.

Then, should I even invest in album artwork? Hell ya!

I must admit for an avid music fan who downloads, buys and listens to over 30 new albums a week, it often comes down to whether an image catches my eye or not. Remember, looking at an image online or off, is much easier than listening to thirty seconds of a track just to get the feel of what’s to come in the next forty or so minutes.
Looking at 2008 yearly album artwork round ups, Rolling Stone awarded the first place placement to The Killers ‘Day & Age’ album which is a pretty dull and simple, yet quite a colorful eye catcher. The most interesting one for me was number 4 on the list – Metallica’s ‘Death Magnetic’ - a perfect example of what the new artwork should look like.

So do album covers still work? They sure do. Be creative and it will pay off. If not, you can always take comfort in being immortalized on this list: http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/worst-album-covers

Every once in a while each of our writers (and esteemed guests) shares the song that made his week just a little bit brighter. Our honoured guest this week is Ryan from Ryan’s Smashing Life.

Lee H
Nickel Eye - Brandy of the Damned  (Mark Ronson Remix) (feat. Wale)
Nickel Eye is the side project of The Strokes’ bassist Nikolai Fraiture. The original version if this song, which is available on his album The Time of the Assassins, has a dub-rock kind of feeling to it. Mark Ronson (Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse, Adele) does what he does best by adding some horns, shuffling snares and a guest verse from Wale (the D. C. native that’s probably best known for releasing The Mixtape About Nothing, an entire set of hip-hop songs inspired by Seinfeld.) Most importantly the song contains a refrain that has been the motivator for many of my past few weeks: “Don’t let them get you down. They’ll step on you to get to higher ground.”

Charbarred
Harlem Shakes - Natural Man
It’s good to see bands are still investing in proper productions. This song is all kinds of crazy: It starts off like a Decemberists tune and quickly goes Rocky a-la Rolling Stones. It then descends into CSNY territory and bounces right back to indie rock. I especially love female na na na vocals in the chorus. Special stuff!

D Thompson
L.E.O. - Don’t Let it Go
One of my favorite albums has always been E.L.O.’s Out Of The Blue. It managed to turn what I now regard as the worst musical excesses of the 70’s into catchy, hummable, singalongable strengths. With Jeff Lynn pretty much out of the picture these days where can a guy go for his E.L.O. fix but into the past? Well, rather than breaking out the soundtrack to Xanadu you could always pick up a copy of Bleu’s 2006 side project, L.E.O. - Alpacas Orgling, which is the most perfect E.L.O.
imitation in the history of EVER.
As proof of my claim I submit L.E.O.’s “Don’t Let It Go” which sounds like like nothing less than some amazing outtake from Out Of The Blue or New World Record.

Ryan
Johnathan Rice - Further North
My Song of the Week selection is the title track is from Johnathan Rice’s highly recommended 2007 album Further North. Rice just had a guest appearance on Elvis Costello’s new record (along with girlfriend Jenny Lewis). Here’s to hoping we hear something new from Mr. Rice in 2009!

Kendall
Janelle Monae - Many Moons
Open your minds, earthlings, and prepare to be launched headfirst into an alternate universe. A place where robots fall in love with humans. Where your tour guide into this alternate realm is a demure lil thang with a bold set of pipes. “I’m an alien from outer space,” declares Janelle Monáe on the first song of her debut album, Metropolis: The Chase Suite (Special Edition). Yes, Toto, we are no longer in Kansas anymore. Or even planet Earth.  – from www.janellemone.com
This is all pretty interesting for a girl raised in Kansas City.  She slayed SXSW this year, and have been garnering attention from her live show, that appears to mix the energy of James Brown and Andre 3000.  This video seems to match all the live footage I’ve seen of this gal so far.

So what’s your song of the week?

Cursive – Caveman
Album: Mama, I’m Swollen

Officially released today, the new Cursive album is probably my most anticipated album of 2009 apart from the upcoming Built to Spill fall release. It always takes a little while to familiarize yourself with a Cursive album’s hooks, riffs and many moods. The last few days were a true love story and despite what some will say, this is another gem in Cursive’s repertoire.

The Decembrists – The Wanting Comes In Waves/Repaid
Album: The Hazards of Love

I wasn’t a big fan of The Decembrists until this year when they got me hooked on their song from the ‘Dark Was the Night’ compilation. I had the privilege of having a first listen to the upcoming album released March 24th and it blew me away. The Hazards of Love is definitely going to be the most blogged about album of 2009. It’s a big album, almost epic, with many flavors and catchy tunes. It’s very refreshing to listen to an album you can tune in to from track one all the way through. I love the Neil Young touches all over…or is it just me?!

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads will roll
Album: It’s a Blitz!

Another very popular band I’ve never been a fan of up until now. It’s a Blitz! is coming out March 31st and from first listen is a purely cool album with upbeat tracks that are very fine tuned and you can really feel the work that was made here production and sound wise. The song ‘Heads will Roll’ almost sounds like an underground summer dance hit…with the organs – I love it.

Great Lake Swimmers - Pulling On A Line
Album: Lost Channels

This one’s for all the Tom Petty/Acoustic/Sufjan Stevens fans. The new album, also out March 31st, reminds me of when I first listened to Midlake. It’s full of amazing melodies and surprises. It’s actually very difficult to find a proper alt/country album that pulls it off and the Great Lake Swimmers are undoubtedly top of their class.

Cymbals Eat Guitars – The Living North
Album: Why There Are Mountains

Here’s a newcomer which I personally think will get a lot of attention in the coming years, if they haven’t already. If you’re a Built to Spill or Pavement fan and are looking for chiming guitars, a lo-fi meets amazing production album - look no further. Cymbals Eat Guitars have that unique sound and vibe I was personally after. I chose to put a track that shows all their layers, listen through.

I want to add two more albums that came out late 2008 and should get the attention they deserve:

Los Campesinos! - We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
Album: We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

Wales based Los Campesinos! just bring it. Listen to the track and you’ll see what I mean.

Department Of Eagles – In Ear Park
Album: In Ear Park

Very colorful and deep album. It takes a few a listens. Also reminds me of Midlake a lot but much more thought out in terms of looser tracks with longer vibes.