Menomena

I have the strangest ways of finding new music. For example - My thought process this morning...

"Oh! I have an e-mail. I wonder what it is! Oh, look at that...Ticketmaster AND 930 Club concert dates and ticket prices, let's see if anything is worth looking into. Bah, Ticketmaster is all sale concerts and shit I'm not interested in. AGH, even worse, the only 930 show I want to go to I can't because I'm going to ANOTHER concert that night. *about to click out of email* Wait a sec, Menomena? That sounds kinda cool, let's read the blurb. Experimental rock!? Don't mind if I do!"

After a few minutes of listening, then a few more minutes, then another 5 songs after that I've come to the conclusion that I'm obsessed with them and thier CD, Friend and Foe, which released back in 2007. And APPARENTLY, lucky for me, they have just released another album June 2010, Mines, that I have to look into.

After some searching and maybe slight stalking, this is what I have found - Menomena is an "experiemental rock band" from Portland, OR who got thier start when one of the band members programmed a digital looping recorder, packaged their songs up in the form of a flip book of the band playing live, and then released themselves (called I Am The Fun Blame Monster!) - wtf, on a freakin laptop!

I also found this cool blurb -
The band uses a com­puter pro­gram called the Dig­i­tal Loop­ing Recorder, or Deeler for short, in the song writ­ing process — it was pro­grammed by band mem­ber Brent Knopf. Drum­mer Danny Seim explains the process, “First, we set the tempo of the click, which is played through a pair of head­phones. We then take turns pass­ing a sin­gle mic around the room. One of us will hold the mic in front of an instru­ment, while another one of us will lay down a short impro­vised riff over the click track. We usu­ally start with the drums. Once the drums begin loop­ing, we throw on some bass, piano, gui­tar, bells, sax, or what­ever other sort of noise­maker hap­pens to be in the room. Deeler keeps the process demo­c­ra­tic, which is the only way we can operate”.


Anyway, have a listen. I am loving them and their weird, quirky, off-beat sound.

My My

Muscle n Flow

The Pelican

And another from their new album - Five Little Rooms

Wild Nothing & Stars Concert @ 9:30 Club

STARS. WAS. AWESOME.

That basically sums it up. Honestly. This show just about rocked my socks off...and I hate (and by hate I mean love) using cheesey lines like that.

Without getting too far ahead of myself with excitement, let me start off with the opening band - Wild Nothing - a band I was not insanely impressed with. Don't get me wrong, they weren't bad. In fact, a few times I found my foot tapping along to them, but after a song or two I realized I was listening to the same thing over and over again. Everything sounded the same. And it never got worse or got better.

And of course - one of the only good pictures I got during the night with my craptastic iPhone was of them, so thank you for that, iPhone.

Anyway, you're welcome to listen to them for yourself. Like I said, they aren't bad - They just aren't great. They are just kinda...there.

Wild Nothing - Live In Dreams (I think they played this at the show, but I'm not sure, could be one of the other 5 that sounded just like it.)

Now on to the main event - STARS really stole the show! They put on a really fun and entertaining show - from the crazy lights blazing behind them and the light up construction hat the drummer wore to the crazy amount of energy they had from start to finish. How the female lead vocalist, Amy, jumped around for 2 plus hours in 4 inch patent leather heels is beyond me, but I give the girl props!

They played about 75% of thier new album, The Five Ghosts, which I loved! And the audiance was treated to a giggle when the male lead vocalist, Torquil, asked if it was ok that it was more upbeat and his counterpart, Amy, responded with "It may be upbeat, but the lyrics are still depressing as all hell, so you can jump around and dance and cry all at the same time!". She then preceded to jump around the stage for a good minute, fake crying. Hilarious!

Speaking of thier new album, they played my favorite song off it and I just about went nuts - We Don't Want Your Body was crazy, and upbeat, and weird, and loud, and GREAT to hear & see in person!

They also played a couple of old fan favorites like The Night Starts Here & Your Ex Lover Is Dead which were instant hits with the audiance who sang along loudly.

I wish I got a couple of better pictures - but with the ones I got, you can get the jist of how psychedelic the show was. Not to mention them blowing bubbles out into the audiance was a super fun touch.

Take a look.

I highly suggest seeing a show of theres if you want to have a great night of dancing your little {or big} hearts out. Thank you again, boyfriend, this really made my week, and being a half asleep zombie all day at work today was totally worth it!

Angus & Julia Stone

I wish I had a mango tree


In my backyard


With you standin next to me


Take the picture


From her lips I heard her say,


Can I have you?


Caught up on what to say,


I said you do.

 I think there is a really good chance I've already blogged about this particularly heart wrenchingly amazing brother/sister duo, but in case I haven't, I'm here to introduce them to you.

First and foremost I believe I need to thank Perezhilton for introducing them to me. I still can't believe I take music advice from a gossip blogger...but, alas, I do.

Anyway.

Angus and Julia are from Sydney, Australia and grew up in a musical family, facilitating their present musical talent. Not only do they both sing and write all of their music, but they play all of their instruments as well. Their sound is, of course, folky, soulful, and poignant.

They have 2 CDs - A Book Like This, their debut album, came out in 2008, while their second album, Down The Way, came out recently in March 2010. I have to admit I am a much larger fan of Down The Way. I find it to be more cohesive as an album, while A Book Like This, has a much more upbeat and choppy sound. However, both are DEFINATELY worth a listen.

A couple songs to note -

Mango Tree <- Favorite song on A Book Like This

Big Jet Plane <- Favorite song on Down The Way

Stars

My wonderful boyfriend got us tickets to see Stars at 9:30club next week and I couldn't be more excited!!

I first got into stars, (duh, an indie pop band from Ontario, Canada), about 3 years ago when a friend of mine introduced me to their CDs Set Yourself On Fire and In Our Bedroom After the War and I was instantly captivated with the song Your Ex-Lover is Dead...partially because the lyrics spoke to my life and my dating realtionship at the time...

"I'm not sorry I met you, I'm not sorry it's over, I'm not sorry there's nothing to save...I'm not sorry there's nothing to save..."

...and partially because I have a soft spot for bands with both female and male talented lead vocalists. This band is no exception with the lead female vocalist - she is wonderful. Aside from their vocal talent, I really love their use of slow, ghostly, melodies mixed with the upbeat sounds of the background instruments (The Night Starts Here).

The band has 6 CDs & 5 EPs and I am saddend to say I only own 3 of theses 11 masterpieces. One of which is their most recent CD, The Five Ghosts, released June 2010. This CD has some pretty noticable differences from the other two I have, first and foremost it is A LOT more upbeat and I would even go as far as saying some songs are even dance-able...take We Don't Want Your Body for example. I would have to say this is a personal fan favorite for me. But don't worry, they have not lost sights of their roots and the ghostly sound is introduced in the very beginning with Dead Hearts.

The Five Ghosts

• Dead Hearts
• Wasted Daylight
• I Died So I Could Haunt You
• Fixed
• We Don't Want Your Body
• He Dream's He's Awake
• Changes
• The Passenger
• The Last Love Song Ever Written
• How Much More
• Winter Bones

With all of that being said I'm hoping the concert will not disapoint, I'm not sure how it would.

Thank you again, Stephen!

First Aid Kit

Always on the lookout for new blogs & new music to drool over - I came across this tastey little nugget - hearya.com - probably my favorite indie music blog to date. (Shout out to them - their blog rocks and I secretly want to be them).

And right off the bat they introduce me to my soon to be new obsession - First Aid Kit.

I'm finding it very hard to believe that this Swedish sister duo aren't even in their 20s yet, but alas these teens have more talent in their pinkies than I have in my entire body. With talented music composition, close harmonies, and woodsy/earthy sounds their folky sound is right up my alley these days and if I don't buy their CD soon I might die of heart break.
Here are a few to wet your appetite - Enjoy.
Ghost Town
I Met Up With The King
Hard Believer

Mumford & Sons

I took a leap of faith and downloaded the Mumford & Sons CD - Sigh No More - solely because I've been told it's good and I would probably enjoy it.

Their sound is something I have definately been into recently and if I'm not mistaken I can hear a banjo in their first song (appropriately named after the name of their entire album) - Sigh No More.

After a little more searching - YES, I can hear it! The whole indie/country scene is everything I am about these days and I love love love LOVE their use of the banjo. This sound most definately is not for everyone, but it certainly is for me.

Combine country + indie folk - country twang = my new obsession

The Pretty Reckless

I hate myself for saying this, but I love the song Make Me Want To Die by The Pretty Reckless.

...and yes, I have it on my ipod.

...and yes, that is Taylor Momsen.