one in ten words

New We Were Promised Jetpacks video for Human Error

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 01:23:00 +0000

The wonderful lads in We Were Promised Jetpacks have released a video for "Human Error" from their most recent release In The Pit of the Stomach. It's all so emotional.

New vid from The Black Keys - Gold on the Ceiling

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 01:30:00 +0000

Those magical dudes in The Black Keys keep on keepin' on, and we love them for it. Here's the new video from El Camino for the track "Gold on the Ceiling". Keep it real.

St. Vincent's Cheerleader video

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:37:00 +0000

I hope you liked the 4AD session with St. Vincent that I posted the other day. I've liked her ever since I saw an interview with Annie Clark where she talked about playing the riff from "Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden on guitar.

Here's the video for the latest release from 2011's Strange Mercy. It's called "Cheerleader".

And here's "Cruel" if you haven't heard/seen it before. It was #36 on my top songs of 2010-2011.

Sleigh Bells were great on SNL

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:30:00 +0000

This past weekend, Sleigh Bells appeared on SNL. They did a great job performing "Comeback Kid" and "End of the Line" from their new album Reign of Terror. I just love their sound and style.

Enjoy!

Alan Cross put up a post about how "...traditional radio may not be doing their job in area of music discovery" because they're not playing Sleigh Bells. Well, I don't think radio is where you go to discover new music and I don't think that's been the case for many, many years.

Don't get me wrong, I long for the "good old days" where DJs would put on the songs that they thought were cool and you could discover new music while listening to a DJ whose taste you trusted, but those days are long gone. Programmers want you to stay tuned until their next 10-minute commercial break so they wouldn't risk playing anything that might cause you to change the station.

Of course, satellite radio is an exception where there are some stations that specialize in introducing you to the leading edge, but there are also stations you can listen to if you never, ever want to hear a song that you don't already know and love.

I miss the days where you got both from DJs who had at least some flexibility to curate their own shows. I have to go to the web for this type of discovery now.

Watch The Brits Tomorrow Night

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:48:00 +0000

The Brit's are on tomorrow night. MuchMusic in Canada are broadcasting them.

Here are The Vaccines with "If Ya Wanna" from their album What Did You Expect From The Vaccines. They're nominated for British Breakthrough Act.

This is a cool song from Ed Sheeran called "The A Team". It's up for British Single.

Florence + the Machine are up for British Female Solo Artist and MasterCard British Album of the Year. Here's "No Light, No Light".

And from a Canadian point of view, Feist is up for International Female Solo Artist and Bon Iver (Bonny Bear?!?) is up for International Male Solo Artist and International Breakthrough Act.

Here's Feist's "How Come You Never Go There?"

And Bon Iver's "Holocene"

The Big Pink are givin' it away

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 01:32:00 +0000

Just giving those songs away like they're free. Wow. Click here. Trust me.

New Cribs track on free sampler

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 01:42:00 +0000

The Cribs have released a 5 track sampler that you can download for free here. It contains a brand new song called "Chi-Town". It's from their forthcoming new album In the Belly of the Brazen Bull which is out May 8. They're back down to a 3-piece for this release - Johnny Marr's not on board for this one.

Check out the new track. It pounds.

And if you're just getting acquainted with The Cribs, here's one of my fave tunes from 2007's Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever. It's "Men's Needs".

Justice with new video for "On'n'On"

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 01:12:00 +0000

Cool video from Justice. It's called "On'n'On" and it's got boobies. And girl toes. NSFW FTW.

Taking a break from new music

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:23:00 +0000

I don't mean a real break where I don't want to listen to new music, just a bit of a break from the acquistion of new music. I put my emusic subscription on hold. I was starting to feel like I was putting more new music into my library than I was listening to.

4AD Session with Blonde Redhead

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 02:07:00 +0000

I'm on a roll with these 4AD Sessions. Here's one with Blonde Redhead.

The Grammy's part deux

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 02:51:00 +0000

I watched the second half of the Grammy's last night. Highlights for me were:

Civil Wars thanking their "opening acts" and their cool, one-minute version of "Barton Hollow".
Kate Beckinsale's legs.
Katy Perry put on a cool, switch-a-roo performance with what I can only assume is her "kick him to the curb" song for her ex, Russell Brand.
Adele was triumphant in an "under the microscope" performance. In a world that often wants artists to fail - like Lana del Rey on SNL - she put on a flawless performance that demonstrated why she deserved to sweep the Grammy's.
Glen Campbell not falling off the stage
Bon Iver not insulting the Grammy's, while remaining honest about the conflicted feelings he holds.
And more Foos! And duelling guitars!

I don't write about the things I don't like so you won't get all that dirt and insulting, condescending attitude from moi. No way, Jose.

The Grammy's didn't suck?!?

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 02:17:00 +0000

Is it just me or did the Grammy's not suck too badly last night? The highlights for me were:

Bruce Springsteen bringing a good performance that had a lot of energy. I still can't help from seeing Little Steven as Sil in the Sopranos, though.
I do appreciate Bruno Mars' live performances when I've seen him on the awards shows. He shows obvious influences from vintage R&B and James Brown in particular.
Bonnie Raitt and Alicia Keys' tribute to Etta James. Man, can Bonnie sing and play that guitar with 10 tonnes of soul. Nice!
Jack Black getting a dig in on Bon Iver for "indie cred" while introducing the Foo Fighters who brought the rawk as they always do. And then the Foos won a well-deserved Grammy for Best Rock Performance.
Rihanna is a guilty pleasure, so it's always good to hear and see her.
And there's the new drinking game where you have to drink every time someone says or sings "Whitney". Too soon?

And I haven't even seen the second half yet.

Too bad the Juno nominations were so vanilla.

4AD Session with St. Vincent

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 01:32:00 +0000

Here's another 4AD Session, this time with St. Vincent.

Cool! 4AD Session with The Big Pink

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 01:31:00 +0000

I just discovered 4AD Sessions. Here's one with The Big Pink.

One hit wonderful: The Dead 60's Riot On The Radio

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 01:15:00 +0000

I thought this song was awesome. And I never got into anything else on the album.

It's the Dead 60's with "Riot Radio". It's still a great track. Some bands don't get one hit.

Of Monsters and Men

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:23:00 +0000

I heard this great song on my car's satellite radio. It's a tune called "Little Talks" from Of Monsters and Men. Their début album, My Head Is an Animal, was released in their native Iceland last year. They've since been signed to Universal in North America and an EP called Into the Woods has been released. According to their web site, the full album will be out April 3rd. They're on tour soon, with a stop at the Mod Club in Toronto on April 12.

I love the melody and the harmonies in this song.

New Imperial Teen song "Runaway"

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:36:00 +0000

Here's a fun track from popsters Imperial Teen. The song's called "Runaway" and it's from their new album Feel the Sound.

And if you want to hear more from this band, check out "Ivanka",

"Sugar", and

"Yoo Hoo".

New Foo Fighters video and the return of RAWK!

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:46:00 +0000

Foo Fighters have released a video for "These Days" from their most recent album Wasting Light. In related news, Dave Grohl told Billboard:

"I don't think there's anything wrong with rock at all. It's overlooked. And right now, the current musical climate is not unlike it was back in 1991, right before Nirvana got popular. The late '80s was full of over-produced pop that kids had nothing to grab hold of -- they had no way of connecting to this hair metal band singing about fucking strippers in a limousine on Sunset Boulevard. Who can relate to that? Then you had a bunch of formulaic pop songstress bullshit, and music was boring. And then a bunch of bands with dirty kids got on MTV and rock'n'roll became huge again. And I feel like that's about to happen. Something's got to give. It can't be song contests on television for the rest of our lives. It can't be the same playlists on every radio station for the rest of our lives. It can't be music made entirely by computers with people talking over it the rest of our lives. It can't go that way, it just won't.

I feel like as a musician and a part of this rock'n'roll scene, I have a responsibility to make shit real, to not think about all of that other bullshit, not think about making music for money or promoting music for fashion, the contests. My responsibility is to make shit that's real. Once you start doing the right thing, it will get better.

Someone asked me recently, "What do you think the problem with the music industry is?" I said, take the Adele record, for example. It's an amazing record and everybody's so shocked that it's such a phenomenon. I'm not. You know why that record's huge? Because it's fucking good and it's real. When you have an artist singing about something real and she's incredibly talented, it deserves all the rewards it gets, it's a great record. Now imagine if all records were that good. Do you think only one of them would sell? Fuck no! All of them would. If all records were that good the music business would be on fire, but they're not. A lot of people are promoting records that are just throw-it-against-the-wall-see-if-it-sticks meaningless bullshit. Everybody has the responsibility to do the right thing and promote artists that mean something."

Here's the video:

These guys might be the last band that would make me want to go to a stadium rock show.

Rock on, Foos!

New Feist video for The Bad In Each Other

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:06:00 +0000

Indie sweetheart Feist has just released a video for "The Bad In Each Other" from her 2011 album Metals.

Neil Young feels that "Piracy is the new radio"

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 01:19:00 +0000

At a recent conference, Neil Young addressed piracy in recent times, "It doesn't affect me because I look at the internet as the new radio. I look at the radio as gone. [...] Piracy is the new radio. That's how music gets around. [...] That's the radio. If you really want to hear it, let's make it available, let them hear it, let them hear the 95 percent of it."

He also suggested that fans can sample music through piracy or streaming services and then purchase the music they value.

Interesting point of view.

I think that lots of people sample music through a variety of means, including piracy. The issue as I see it is conversion. With taping a song off the radio or old cassette recording of a friend's record, I was motivated to buy the music mostly because I was getting a higher quality form of the music. With piracy, I can get a FLAC version of an album and have no incentive, outside of my desire to support the artist, to buy the music. Of course, Neil's got a beef with the quality of digital music to begin with and has since the first days of CDs.

I fully agree with Neil regarding radio being dead. I listen to a bit of satellite radio in the new car, but I'm not sure I'll pay for it once the free offer runs out, and I cannot stand traditional radio with it's ultra-narrow playlists and 50-50 ratio of music to commercials.

However, I often think this blog is a bit like a new form of radio. It's like I'm the deejay curating the show and saying, here's a new song from a band I like, or an old song that I think is cool, taking readers/listeners on a journey through what I want to present.

You can check out articles with Mr. Young's quotes here and here.

You can check out Crazy Horse's 37 minute jam on his web site.

And here's an absolute Neil classic - "Heart of Gold".

New EP from A Place to Bury Strangers

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 02:18:00 +0000

It figures that just after I do a post about A Place to Bury Strangers that they have new news to mention. They have a new EP called Onwards to the Wall out Feb 7. You can stream it at Hype Machine.

Definitely looking forward to their show at Lee's Palace on April 2nd with The Joy Formidable.

New songs from M.I.A., Madonna, M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 01:57:00 +0000

It's a desert street racing party with M.I.A. in her new video for her new song "Bad Girls".

And here she is with Madonna and Nicki Minaj in the vid for "Give Me All Your Luvin'".

Are you going to catch them in the Super Bowl half time show?

A Place to Bury Strangers & The Joy Formidable

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:15:00 +0000

I've got some tickets in my hot little hands to go see A Place to Bury Strangers and The Joy Formidable at the wonderful Lee's Palace here in Toronto on April 2nd. See you there?

Here's some A Place to Bury Strangers.

"In Your Heart"

"Keep Slipping Away" and

"Ego Death"

If you want you can click here for past posts about The Joy Formidable.

New Sleigh Bells video, just like everybody else

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:42:00 +0000

It seems like only yesterday I posted this song. Now here's the video. It's "Comeback Kid" from Sleigh Bells' forthcoming album Reign of Terror. You got yer guns, leather, studs, Ray Bans, daisy dukes and a great song. Pop culture heaven.

Buy the new album on Valentine's Day for that special someone in your life.

Stream the new Twilight Sad album and check out their new video

noreply@blogger.com (jordan neo) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:02:00 +0000

I'm starting to feel like the official Twilight Sad No One Can Ever Know news outlet, but what the hell, I'm looking forward to the new release. Here's the video for "Another Bed"

And you can stream the whole album at Spin. I'm doing that right now.