Thao

I've been enjoying Thao Nguyen's cd We Brave Bee Stings And All lately.  It's a pretty good album and I think along with her band The Get Down Stay Down she has somewhat of a unique sound going for her, and could establish herself as the next big female voice in indie rock.  Her lyrics aren't bad either.  Here's "Bag of Hammers":

Nina Simone

Nina Simone's start is interesting:  she began playing piano in church, aspired to be a classical pianist and studied at Juilliard, but in order to pay her way through school she began playing clubs and started to sing jazz standards.  Though she's playing jazz in her early work, you can definitely hear the classical and gospel influence.  Her version of "I Loves You, Porgy" is heart-breaking and fantastic:

Here's one of her later performances:

Damien Jurado

I started listening to Damien Jurado with his early albums Waters Ave S (1997) and Rehearsals for Departure (1999), and he's had some good ones after that, but I kind of lost track of what he's been up to lately.  Then I read an article about his latest album, Caught in the Trees, in the Jan/Feb issue of Relevant Magazine.  Although the songs on this album are based on his personal life, specifically a recent divorce, Jurado collaborates with Eric Fischer and Jenna Conrad on the songwriting, and the result is quite good.  Here's the music video for "Caskets":

Noble Beast

Andrew Bird's new album Noble Beast is available today for $1.99 from Amazon.com!  I've listened to it once so far and it is very good!

Theresa Andersson

I saw her for the first time on Conan last night.  It's like an exaggeration of what Andrew Bird does with pedals, which is impressive, but I think I would prefer a full band.  Maybe if she is committed to the one-woman act she could experiment with more amps to imitate a band spatially. 

Ray Charles' Saxophonist Obituary

David "Fathead" Newman

Last month, three saxophonists that worked with Ray Charles died:  Hank Crawford, who was probably the most well-known,  Leeroy "Hog" Cooper, who was primarily a bari sax player, and David "Fathead" Newman, my personal favorite.  Here's "Hard Times," from Newman's first album Fathead:  Ray Charles Presents David Newman, which also features Hank Crawford on bari sax:

L.E. Flaco

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


Photo from myspace.com

I figure after last week, why not continue with the foreign language theme? L.E. Flaco is a hip-hop artist I found back when I was in school and trying to learn Spanish. I figured I could find songs I like, memorize the lyrics, translate them, and then magically be fluent in Spanish.

It didn't work. Still, L.E. Flaco was super cool when I sent him myspace messages (in broken Spanish, I'm sure) and we corresponded the best we could for a bit. He lives in Madrid, Spain with a beautiful girlfriend and really cool dog. I know this because they were mentioned in just about the only lyrics I could translate!

L.E. Flaco's flows are tight and fast over quality production. Click here for his myspace. Here is one of his videos. I love when he throws in some English ("hurry up," "don't worry").





Here's another of his newer videos.





When I corresponded with him I asked what his lyrics are about, but since he isn't fluent in English it was hard to grasp. Many have social and political themes (or at least did in 2006). Because I'm so used to Mexican Spanish, it's really hard for me to pick up words with his Spanish accent. I just here "th, th, th" and then one or two words I can catch.