SHOW DATE: Saturday, October 9

SHOW TIME: 7:30 PM @ the Lady Bird Lake stage

This is one of those band that keeps popping up for me.  I listen to Grooveshark … they’re there. Chill out with some Pandora … they’re there.  And now it seems they will be following me all the way to Austin, with their ACL appearance in September.  Well, the good news is that they are really good and you should check them out.

So picking a song for this post was super difficult, but I’m going with Daylight. I love how the song starts with keyboards, then builds to vocals and finally adding the drums. I am a sucker for echoes used in songs, it makes them fun to sings along with.  Daylight is from their Grand album.

I would also recommend listening to Yea Yeah and No More Long Years, if you like what you’ve heard here.

SHOW DATE: Saturday, October 9

SHOW TIME: 5:30 PM @ the Lady Bird Lake stage

There are certain songs out there that just make you want to dance, and Sweet Disposition my friends is one of those songs.  Whenever I hear it I can’t help but move, whether it be in the car or at home.  It has a kind of 80s vibe, which of course I’m into.  I am excited about seeing them at ACL, I think it will be a fun show.

The Temper Trap, from Melbourne, Australia, first attracted U.S. attention back in 2009 at South by Southwest here in Austin.

SHOW DATE: Saturday, October 9

SHOW TIME: 4:30 PM @ the AMD stage

I blame this new found love of Broken Bells on Eklektikos, a radio show on our local NPR station.  A few months ago I first heart it – Mongrel Heart.  It’s always sounds to me like a “sandwich song,” where the beginning and the end are similar and the middle is the real gem.  To me hands down my favorite part is the short, spaghetti-western inspired trumpet solo around minute mark 2:20.

Broken Bells was formed in 2009 by Brian Burton of Danger Mouse and James Mercer of The Shins.  Mongrel Heart is from their debut album, self-titled Broken Bells.

So Austin City Limits is now just two months away, time to start getting a game plan together right? First things first, we know where excited about seeing The Flaming Lips, LCD Soundsystem, Spoon and Gogol Bordello.  But there is so much music to discover every year at ACL you have to do some good old fashion research.  So I guess you can consider us the ACL cliff notes, we’ll weed through it all and give you the need to know info.

I’ve had my metaphorical eye on Shearwater for a while. When their newest album, The Golden Archipelago, came out they received a lot of airtime on our local NPR station, KUT. When I heard this song for the first time, it stopped my in my tracks. I love the haunting voice of the lead vocals and the trumpet solo. They are playing a benefit show here on July 16 at the Austin City Limits studios. It should be a great show!

Interesting musical side note – Shearwater was formed by Jonathan Meiburg and Will Sheff of Okkervil River back in 1999.

I’m not sure that Josh Ritter is the typical artist I go for, but I first heard a song of his on the (way awesome) NBC show “Parenthood”, and subsequently checked out his latest album (So Runs The World Away) to see how I liked it, and was actually very pleasantly surprised. That song by the way, was Change of Time, which is excellent, but not the one I’m choosing to talk about here.

Just today I saw a post on the NPR All Songs Considered blog about a video premiere for one of the songs from the album, done by the drummer for Josh Ritter, who apparently also happens to be a puppeteer.  What’s more is that the song is a love story, about the love between an archaeologist and a mummy. Yes, you read that right.

And I tell ya, the song is great by itself (I’m a sucker for a waltz), but the video is simply wonderful. I never took the time to listen to the lyrics, but they really are very touching. Here they are for the song:

He opens his eyes, falls in love at first sight
With the girl in the doorway
What beautiful lines, how full of life
After thousands of years what a face to wake up to

He holds back a sigh as she touches his arm
She dusts off the bed where till now he’s been sleeping
Under miles of stone, the dried fig of his heart
Under scarab and bone starts back to its beating

She carries him home in a beautiful boat
He watches the sea from a porthole in stowage
He can hear all she says as she sits by his bed
Then one day his lips answer her in her own language

The days quickly pass, he loves making her laugh
The first time he moves it’s her hair that he touches
She asks “Are you cursed?” He says “I think that I’m cured”
Then he talks of the Nile and the girls in bullrushes

In New York he is laid in a glass-covered case
He pretends he is dead, people crowd round to see him
But each night she comes round, and the two wander down
The halls of the tomb that she calls a museum

Often he stops to rest, but then less and less
Then it’s her that looks tired, staying up asking questions
He learns how to read from the papers that she
Is writing about him and he makes corrections

It’s his face on her book and more and more come to look
Families from Iowa, upper West-siders
Then one day it’s too much, he decides to get up
And as chaos ensues, he walks outside to find her

She’s using a cane, and her face looks too pale
But she’s happy to see him, as they walk he supports her
She asks “Are you cursed?” but his answer’s obscured
In a sandstorm of flashbulbs and rowdy reporters

Such reanimation, the two tour the nation
He gets out of limos, he meets other women
He speaks of her fondly, their nights in the museum
But she’s just one more rag now he’s dragging behind him

She stops going out, she just lies there in bed
In hotels in whatever towns they are speaking
Then her face starts to set and her hands start to fold
And one day the dry fig of her heart stops its beating

Long ago on the ship, she asked “Why pyramids?”
He said “Think of them as an immense invitation”
She asks “Are you cursed?” He says “I think that I’m cured”
Then he kissed her and hoped that she’d forget that question

There you have it. Awesome, right?

I’ve been waiting for at least a year to write a post on Lorenzo’s Music.  They are a great band but it seems that nobody wants to create a YouTube video for them.  So I gave up and went straight to the source.  This is better for all of us really, because you can just click that little “Download” button up there and keep this tune forever.  It’s free.  Crazy right?  Now, you could choose to donate however much you want for this service but that’s on you.  Every song put out by Lorenzo’s Music so far has been under the Creative Commons license, so you can head over to their site and check out the rest of their collection.

This song will get stuck in my head for days on end, but that’s not such a bad thing in this case.  I’m Doing Fine is off the album Solamente Tres Palabras which translates to Only Three Words.  You can thank my 7th grade Spanish teacher Senora McCoy for that bit of trivia.  Oddly enough, every song on the album has only three words in the title.  It kind of reminds me of Trashman’s Shoes by Shoulders, but just a tad less drunken carnival like.  It’s definitely my favorite tune on the album, but you should check them all out anyway.  I mean, it’s free.

P.S.  The band doesn’t seem to have any relation to Lorenzo Music, the voice of Garfield (1982-1994) and other characters.

I might be late to the party, but I just recently heard L.E.S. Artistes by Santigold on Pandora.  It sounded very familiar, so I’m not sure if I’d heard it somewhere else.  Anyway, I love the way her voice mixes with those little electronic Oh, Ooh’s.  Very cool song.  I’m going with New Wave, Electronic and Indie Pop on this one.  If you’re listening to it now, while reading this, stop.  Do yourself a favor and watch the video.

At first, it didn’t really grab me but just keep watching.  It gets really interesting at about 1:15 in.  People start getting killed, ripped apart and shot using some really fun special effects.  While some are a bit silly or childish, I found them all very effective, mostly due to the reactions of the actors.  The video was directed by Nima Nourizadeh and according to Wikipedia, was an homage to the film The Holy Mountain.  That movie looks freakin crazy.

Hope you enjoy a little Santigold, if you haven’t been already.  I’ll be checking out her other work and get back to you.