Little Joy

I heard these guys a little while ago on a late night talk show of a former MTV host that I'm a little embarrassed to admit I was watching, but they were really good.  I looked them up and learned that they are a project of Farbrizio Moretti, the drummer of The Strokes, Rodrigo Amarante, a Brazilian singer/guitarist, and Binki Shapiro, an LA-based singer.  The album sounds like it's produced just like a Strokes album, but if the Strokes had a Brazilian singer and a female singer and were influenced by old island music.   Here are some acoustic live videos of a few of their songs:  

"Unattainable"

"Next Time Around"

Nickel Creek

Alright, so I admit when I started writing this post it was about Fiction Family, the new project of Jon Foreman of Switchfoot and Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek.  But after listening to their songs up on their myspace and not being incredibly impressed (the album's not out until next week), and then doing some research and realizing that Sean Watkins is not the lead singer/songwriter of Nickel Creek, I decided to just go with Nickel Creek since I haven't mentioned them yet on this blog.  Not to say that Fiction Family won't be worth a listen, especially if you're a fan of Switchfoot.  And if you really are interested, they are playing at Abbey Pub in Chicago tomorrow (Thursday) night.  

Chris Thille is the lead singer/songwriter/mandolin player of Nickel Creek I was hoping for.  I only have their album Why Should the Fire Die? from 2005, but there are a few solo acoustic songs on that album written by Thile that are really nice.  The full band arrangements lean more towards either pop or bluegrass and are pretty good, too.  Here's a video of "Jealous of the Moon" from that album:

(Sean Watkins is the guitarist/background vocalist on the right)

All-American Rejects cover Britney Spears

This is cross-posted at The Joy of Daily Living.

I have to admit, I'm not very familiar with All-American Rejects and I'm not a big fan of Britney. Still, this is pretty awesome. They cover her new single "Womanizer" and then drift into a little bit of "So Happy Together" by The Turtles. Their instrument choice is unique and includes a miniature accordion and beer bottles.

The above video has also prompted a whole slew of people to cover Britney's "Womanizer," and their videos can be found on Youtube too. Here's Lily Allen's cover of "Womanizer":

My next music post might involve a cover too. They can be fun, no?

PS, Thanks to Fancy Llama for pointing this out!

Ragged Claws

Local indie folk band Ragged Claws has made a new EP available for free download here.  It's a little ragged (... sorry for the pun), but not bad.  Some of the melodies remind me of old Bright Eyes.  Enjoy.

Music Blog Zeitgeist 2008

This past week, The Hype Machine and Blog Fresh Radio have been going through the top artists, albums, and songs of 2008 based on votes of the music blogging community (whatever that means).  You can view these lists and listen to the full albums streaming here, or you can listen to the podcast radio version that goes through one song from each artist.  Here is the radio countdown so far:

50-41

40-31

30-21

Josh Rouse

I recently got a hold of The Best of the Rykodisc Years by Josh Rouse.  I wondered how it was that I had never heard of this guy when he already had a best of album, but then I looked on Allmusic.com and they agreed it was a little early for a best of album, but that it was still good.  It is good.  He's a great songwriter, and from the looks of it somewhat prolific (8 albums in the past 10 years), so I think we can look forward to hearing from this guy for a while.  His songs are usually mellow and slightly melancholic, yet upbeat and poppy.  Here's "Directions" (though there were quite a few of his songs up on Imeem if you want to listen to more):

Smoking Popes!

This is cross-posted at The Joy of Daily Living.

Smoking Popes at Lollapalooza 2006, originally uploaded by scoobyhed.

I rang in the New Year to these guys counting down then playing Auld Lang Syne. It was awesome. Click here for their myspace page & to check out their music.

Smoking Popes are a rock/punk/indie/choose-your-favorite-term band that I fell for back in high school because of the poppy-ness mixed with meaningful lyrics. (Anyone noticing a trend in my tastes?) They are from the Chicago suburbs (holla!) and started to make it big in the mid-nineties. A few years later they broke up and left tons of fans broken-hearted. In the meantime a few of them made music with a spiritual theme via a band called Duvall. Well they're back together now & have a new album out. Woo hoo!

Here's a video of an older song called "I know you love me."