I couldn’t tell you the last time I actively thought about Ernie Barnes before he died last week. It was likely a decade or more since then, but I grew up seeing part of the world though his eyes. Looking at his paintings now, I am struck by how much his vision jibes with my own, and given the fact that I would have been exposed to him at an impressionable age, I’m nearly positive this guy I couldn’t find in a crowd made a significant difference in my life.

Triple Play 35 [Listen Here] (Hosting issue sorted out and it’s on our server now!)

…read full article…

So where was I? Over the past year I’ve heard lots of really incredible things. Most of it not music, I have to admit, but some of it. A year is enough, though. My palate is clean. My head is clear. Time to get back in the game. In honor of the radio tuning of choice during my great music hiatus (NPR), this week’s theme is “Wait, Wait” after the weekend news quiz show. Turns out a lot of news went down this year. Hope you didn’t miss it while lost in your headphones. It was cool.

(Besides, as luck would have it, edition #33 was “Breaking the Silence” which is kind of ironic. At the time I wrote “Just like music is a great way to keep yourself tuned in to time, the premise under which I started writing my columns here, silence is the only way to understand the context in which your music sits.” It makes slacking off for a year feel almost noble.)

Triple Play 34 [Listen Here]

…read full article…

Some headlines write themselves. Take a look at the roughly six month old video of cute little Holden Lenz below and see if you can find what’s dramatically wrong here:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KfJHFWlhQ[/youtube]

Found it? That’s right, it’s inane, amateurish and not that exciting except for the older kid who nearly takes down the toddler with a speed move to the outside. For these reasons (and, presumably the Prince song that’s almost audible/identifiable in the background) Universal Music Publishing Group presented a take down notice, which Google prop YouTube promptly observed. This made some news at the time because video auteur Stephanie Lenz resisted sharing writing credit and and profits made from the video. Also, she sued Universal for misuse of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (Is there any use that isn’t misuse other than the wiping of one’s rear end? Maybe I’ll save that topic for next week.) …read full article…

Art is often editing, and Austin Kleon (writer, cartoonist, and designer living in Austin, Texas per his bio) has got a vast archive of what he calls newspaper blackout poems. Simply put, he takes a newspaper page and blacks out everything that isn’t his poem with a Sharpie.

Part “writing with constrictions,” part happy accident, part found art, part design challenge, the images/poems strike you as a tangible form of indie rock. The materials are easy to find, but making it more than a novelty or parlor trick takes a particularly trained eye and a lot of deep-seated ideas that will find expression through any outlet you make available. The expression subsumes the form.

…read full article…

Yeah, it’s been slow in the world of DRM hating. So slow you could almost wish of the days of…. what the?

Tip o’ the hat to Maura at Idolator for unsurfacing this little nugget (with assists to Listening Post and good ol’ Ars Technica).

Tracks purchased from MSN Music back in the DRM Daze will no longer be supported by Microsoft. If only they were retro cool like Mac2s or cassette Walkmen. Instead the tracks will die the next time users change their operating systems. The recommended path is to burn and re-rip (likely in the MP3 format that should have been offered in the first place, right?) at a substantial quality loss, and I’m guessing these weren’t quite 256K VBRs to begin with.

All of this presumes there is an audience of MSN Music track buyers to be offended for, of course. Nothing like getting all in a tizzy for a theoretical victim. But at this point we can say DRM has officially had an open kimono moment. Remember how they said how DRM was better for you? It isn’t. …read full article…

It seems lately the entire idea of a record store belongs in a museum. Some of the quotes on the artist quote page of the Record Store Day website are so drenched in nostalgia, you’d think the shelves have long since been relegated to a back room in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Not so. They fight, they scratch, they claw, they stay open, and part of the reason (or so I like to believe) is that record stores are museums of a sort. …read full article…

This album is a good way to catch a whole world of new sounds in a comfortable, even smile inducing, package.

…read full article…

It’s been a long while since any news really shook the digital music world. Amazon’s MP3 store in September — could it really have been that long since anything cool happened? Well, hold on to your hard drive, because this one’s a doozy.

There might be a big new kid on the block when it comes to digital music download block, and it already has over 100 million users. According to rumors, MySpace will announce a deal focussed on providing a wide range of music services – think downloads plus Last.FM type streaming and other offerings. The word is that three of the top four labels are on board (Apple lackey EMI being the laggard) and the whole thing was held up by the law suit between MySpace and Universal Music Group, which is being settled with a sizable payment from Rupert Murdoch. Under the deals with the labels, “All the labels will receive a minority share in the company and a share of all the revenue generated from the site” says Greg Sandoval of CNET.

Watch the news tickers today as an announcement is expected “within days” according to Reuters.

And it’s done: See CNET for more.

This is fun (for me). In our old existence as part of Inside Pulse Music, we had a dictum to describe the albums we were reviewing as cross-breeds. You know, “Late Clash meets Wings” or whatever. These got old fast as we (or was it just me) started simply listing similar sounding bands, but for a while I had fun with it. I can still hear these blends forming in my ears to generate just the right textures.

But I might have been wrong. I have no prizes to offer (and let’s face it, this is an easily Googleable game, so prizes would not make it more likely I’d find out if you could you could guess who I mean), but keeping in mind that these albums are about two years old, see if you can pick out the bands and discs described after the jump. …read full article…

So I have to wait one more week to hear what Justin and Rachel of the Ruckus picked from my CD as I am the cut off point for the first part of the two-part CD Swap podcast. The blow is significantly softened by this week’s excellent ‘cast. You can catch my into of Los Bravos’ “I Want a Name” at the end there, which might lead to the minor honor of having a tune from my mix batting lead off next week.

For this week’s tune parade, make the jump or visit Tim Young’s Contrast Podcast Page. …read full article…

Once upon a time, the closing line to the triptych was “take your grandma to the park and beat the Mets,” but things are looking up for the Queens-side nine, Yo La Tengo’s favorite team.

To celebrate Opening Day (that is “the continental opening day” — following the two-game series in Japan last week and the made-for-TV “Opening Night” last night) I’m kicking off a write in campaign for the “8th Inning Sing Along Vote” to decide the tune to be featured late in every game during final season at “historic” Shea Stadium (the only stadium name checked by the Beasties Boys on Paul’s Boutique, so you know it’s legit).

Follow this link and cast a vote for “I Came to Make a Bang” by the Eagles of Death Metal. I have a sense that the song is catchy and testosterone-soaked enough to work — just maybe. And you will be doing your part to save the world from one more airing of some of the really horrible pre-nominated suggestions (such as “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond, “I’m a Believer” by the Monkees and — come on now, they’ve got to be kidding — “I’ll Be There for You” by the Rembrandts).

Mets fans around the world will thank you (except for Yo La Tengo, who might rather I suggested “Look Out for Me Ronnie,” which is only really appropriate when playing Ronnie Belliard and the Washington Nationals).

Two great tastes that taste great together? Wow, you’d hope so, right? Because you’d hate to have either fantastic act waste an ounce of effort any anything that just won’t work. I am on the fence, which fills me with apprehension over the results to be seen on the album, and let’s face it: I’m going to get it and spend way too much energy hoping it’s great — and it likely won’t be horrible, so we’re just talking about likely undue wringing of hands over the volume of its brilliance.

But here’s the cause for concern — Danger Mouse is better than anyone at creating ghosts with the machinery, while the Black Keys find the ghosts in the room (there may be not better example of this than the band’s work in calling up the ghost of Junior Kimbrough on “ChulaHoma” which, though an EP, still stands as the best work they’ve done).

Will the manufactured ghosts crowd out the real ones, or will all of them start an otherworldly party? We’ll all find out soon, as the album is due out April 1st. (Or are we all just being led down a path to an April Fools Day prank on the overwrought?) Until then, here’s a video so you can properly ratchet your expectations:

Black Keys – “Strange Times” Video

Tim Young got a bunch of bloggers to participate in a multi-continental, genre jumping CD swap that would be unprecedented if he hadn’t done it before. This being the first Contrast Podcast I’m on since we decided to rip up the old site and start over, I’m especially pleased to see Radio Exile make its debut on the roll of fantastic contributors. It’s a who’s who of good natured and worth while blogs and I would encourage you to check them all out.

I chose the song “I Want a Name” by Los Bravos from a disk sent to me from lovely (post card proves it) Derbyshire in the UK by Steve from Domino Rally. There were any number of tunes I would have been happy to submit, but this is the one that made me lucky to have fallen in with the good lot more consistently than any other. The album has been re-issued (1995) but the fact that the version on the CD sent to me was recorded from an LP makes it feel like a rare find, and the tune is classic invasion-era power pop, which is a sound close to my heart.

On the other end of my swapping, I sent Justin of The Ruckus Podcast a CD containing the songs listed after the jump. As of this posting I don’t know which song was chosen, but I’m happy with the result as a play list and fair representation of what I call good music. When the podcast is up, I will post an update with all of the contributions. …read full article…

Official Site

Kathleen Edwards will catch you by surprise. When you think you know her, she’ll throw you one more trick than you thought was coming and it will be a satisfying turn every time. The new album, Asking for Flowers, starts off slowly and, frankly, not on the best foot with “Buffalo” which is over-produced and features some rough high school poetry along the lines of “have you ever seen lightning and snow?” It’s the kind of mom rock that doesn’t inspire much confidence (depending on the mom, that is. She does have a song titled “Sure as Shit” — a title her own mother protested).

Then it happens. She smacks you with lines and readings that are perfect from behind a rope-a-dope sound that mostly recalls a Sheryl Crow album. “You always play me in the cheapest key.” Bam! “Here comes my softer side, and there it goes, because I’ve been on the road to long to sympathize.” Bam! She starts the title track with “It’s complicated,” and you believe her for reasons you suspect the narrator isn’t aware. If you have ever fallen for a Lucinda Williams song, you’ll find a lot to love in this album. It isn’t that the characters are desperate. It’s that you care. …read full article…

It’s been a while since I listened to the Beatles’ white album. A good long while. I sing my son “Blackbird” when I’m lucky enough to be the one putting him to bed. I occasionally find myself mumbling the beginning to “Rocky Raccoon” for no good reason other that it makes me happy to say “now somewhere in the black mining hills of Dakota there was a young boy named Rocky Raccoon.”

I haven’t sat down and listened to “Helter Skelter” and “Happiness is a Warm Gun” and “Julia” and other songs that so deserve the time, but they are always there at the tips of my fingers — both in the sense that I can listen to the album whenever I want and I have instant complete recall of 97% of the music it contains.

When I “discovered” the white album, I was about 20. Up until then the Beatles were my parent’s music — something I assumes as an adolescent and avoided as a teen. Eventually I outgrew the shadow of my parents’ tastes and could approach the music on my own terms. What can I say? I fell for it. …read full article…

Official Site

I like the Silversun Pickups. I like them plenty. So much so that when the band became popular with fans far younger than me, I still talked up the band via posts and friendly conversations. That puts me in a an interesting position regarding this new release. What I like and espouse about this band is the open style of song craft and play — its willingness to leave plenty of air in the mix, make good use of dynamic range and build drama organically. There is plenty that makes the band unique, but I’d put these qualities at the top of this list, especially when selling the band to people who can’t tell the difference between SSPU tour mates Snow Patrol and OK Go.

About two months ago (just in time for the holidays) the band put out remixes as an EP. Uh oh. That’s three bad signs in one release: holiday, remix, EP. In and of themselves, there’s nothing wrong with any of those terms, but you put any two together and you should should see the warning flares shooting from miles away. A triple threat, well, that’s why we get paid the big bucks.

I have sampled the six songs (four versions of the mild surprise hit “Lazy Eye” with two versions of “Little Lover’s So Polite”) and the results are not bad. Indie heroes like Jimmy Tamborello (of Postal Service), The One AM Radio, Jason Bentley, Brian LeBarton and Grayarea were at the knobs ensuring some sort of legitimacy. They are only really unlistenable if you hate remixes, and they titled the offering such that you should not have read this far if you object to the form. Most fans of the band will find them a pleasure and curiosity seekers will be satisfied, which is about what you can expect for the cost of an EP.

So why review a holiday remix EP two months later? For one, they asked and I still support the band (though they were more timely with previous efforts). For two, I want to air my concern that the band is openly targeting the fans of disposable culture with disposable product. I hope this was just a cash generating move, and if so, more power to the band and its Dangerbird business. There’s no reason to dodge a market if it helps you keep the amps loud while working on the new album. However, if this is a signal that the band is forgoing those attributes that give it separation from the mass of sort of raw, sort of catchy bands out there, I’ll have to find a next cool thing.

Rating: 2/5

I told you my spot in the Contrast Podcast Festive Fifty was coming, and sure enough it has come. I’m down there at #15 with my personal favorite song of the year, “Marry Me” by St. Vincent. The Contrast Podcast is always worth a listen or two, even if I’m not in there, but admit it — it’s more fun when you know I’m manning the mic for my 45 seconds of Contrasty fame.

You can play the whole thing here:

or download the podcast using this direct link. You can also subscribe to this and future podcasts (a good idea) using Tim’s RSS feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ContrastPodcast.

Playlist:

18 Editors – An end has a start

Chip from Atomic Ned

17 Laura Veirs – Don’t Lose Yourself

Charles from Heartache with hard work

16 Art Brut – Direct Hit

Ross from Just gimme indie rock

15 St. Vincent – Marry Me

Greg from Broken dial

14 Sharon Jones – 100 Days, 100 Nights

Pieter from Two tramps in mud time

13 Grinderman – No Pussy Blues

Matthew from Song by Toad

12 Jens Lekman – A Postcard To Nina

SiD from Too Much Rock

11 Wilco – What Light

Natalie from Mini-obs

10 Björk – Earth Intruders

Mark from Cinema du Lyon

9 Wilco – Impossible Germany

Dirk from Sexy Loser

8 Okkervil River – Our Life is not a Movie or Maybe

ZB from So the wind won’t blow it all away

7 Arcade Fire – Intervention

Coxon from To die by your side

6 Iron & Wine – Boy With A Coin

Linda from Speed of dark

5 PJ Harvey – When Under Ether

Shaun from Cold Citrus

4 LCD Soundsystem – All My Friends

Taylor from Music for kids who can’t read good

A couple weeks ago I promised I would

3 The National – Fake Empire

Stytzer from Hits in the Car

2 Spoon – The Underdog

Justin and Rachel from The Ruckus

1 Los Campesinos – You! Me! Dancing!

Mike from Nothing by green lights

I was going to stop the gravy train of Internet-based goodies today and give this little site of ours space to breathe, but damn if Paul from the excellent Setting the Woods on Fire hasn’t proven me the fool on his also excellent Page 2.

If you have ever had any appreciation for the Who, and you probably should get around to that if you haven’t despite what you might think you know, today’s run down of Peter Townshend’s demos for the Who’s Next sessions is an eye-opener and treat besides.

The songs are fully realized and Pete makes every recorded noise himself. If you wondered what Keith Moon contributed over the “replacement value” drummer (quite a bit, as it turns out) or what Roger Daltry offered over Pete as a singer (well…) it’s all here in some of the bands better songs from the post invasion era.

Elvis Costello, whatever you might think of him now, was a freaking champ in 1977. And it showed in particularly glorious relief on a certain night when a certain guy (ME!) was turning seven, December 3, 1977. I feel so honored. Thanks, Elvis!

The audio here at the Big O’s posting from Elvis’ opening gig for Tom Petty on that night is, frankly, stellar. It’s from a radio broadcast, and therefore a bit thin sounding, but considering it’s now more than 31 years old, that’s a very small price to pay for this slice of history that’s not likely to find its way to a proper album. Rock on, 1977 Elvis.

Set List
Welcome to the Working Week
(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
Waiting For the End of the World
No Action
The Beat
Less Than Zero
Radio, Radio
You Belong to Me
Lipstick Vogue
Watching The Detectives
Pump It Up
Miracle Man
Mystery Dance

Found at Hidden Track, where there is any number of worthwhile links to good stuff.

I couldn’t believe it took Wired so long to think of it, once I digested the fact that anyone had thought of it, but Thom Yorke of Radiohead sat down with David Byrne to talk about the state of music marketing in the digital age, and damn if it doesn’t result in a fascinating look at the big questions.

Just the fact that David Byrne is asking Thom Yorke “What is music, what does music do for people? What do people get from it? What’s it for?” Is oddly heartening. I never doubted the fact that the two considered such issues, but being invited to listen to the conversation as they discuss such things feels like a spring thaw. Ideas move and co-mingle, resulting in something bigger and better. It also comes with lots of video and audio for your entertainment. Really freaking cool. If this interview was 20 pages long, it could be the modern equivalent of the Lennon Playboy interview.

I first heard about this from a guy called Squashed.