Blackbyrds Clash the Sky Road (February 18th - 22nd)

Hello and welcome to Work Tunes.

Well the company website I designed and wrote has launched, so you'd think things would be slowing down for me. But no, now I have a newsletter to make and a conference greedy for collateral to plan.Good thing there's music to get me through the work-a-day grind - which is exactly why I started writing all these lists down.

This week I have quite a few brand new releases, from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Iceage and Beach Fossils. The ACBs who I'd never heard of, gave their Stona Rosa album away for free, so that is here. I just discovered a fantastic band that the recently deceased Donald Byrd had played in, The Blackbyrds. I also have The Hard Road, which I was certain had been on a hundred lists already, but no. There's J Mascis and early Margot & the Nuclear So and So's; as well as The Smiths and classic Ice-T. 

Check it out:

• The ACBs - Stona Rosa
• Beach Fossils - Clash The Truth
• The Blackbyrds - Happy Music: The Best Of the Blackbyrds
• Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Push The Sky Away
• Ice-T - Power
• The Smiths - Strangeways Here We Come
• Margot & the Nuclear So and So's - The Dust Of Retreat
• J Mascis - Several Shades of Why
• Hilltop Hoods - The Hard Road
  
• Iceage - You're Nothing

Top Five Artists Last Week

1. Gil Scott-Heron
2. The Weepies
3. Dinosaur Jr.
4. Wilco
5. Belly

Song of the Week : The Avett Brothers - Live And Die

Yesterday being Valentine's Day, I of course showered my lovely wife with gifts. One of those gifts was a mixtape I threw together on one single premise. We happened to catch a Mumford & Sons clip on Rage last Saturday morning and she mentioned she "liked their sound". So I grabbed a bunch of bands including Mumford and Iron & Wine, Bon Iver and The Avett Brothers and stuck them on a CD to show her there was in fact an actual sound like that going around. I called the mix Folky Hipsters.

Today's SOTW is the track I used to close out the mix. The Avett Brothers - Live and Die which appears on the soundtrack to the film This Is 40. The awfulness of that film being released the year I turned 40 was not lost on me.

The song is pretty upbeat and extra hoedowny with that banjo and the jangly percussion. I thought Mrs Corey J would like it because it is jaunty and she isn't often one for maudlin folk tunes - unlike yours truly.

Ciao for Niao

Thanks for stopping by. I think I'll be catching Django Unchained this weekend, so maybe look for a review soon on MFNM.

Until then, as always, hasala malakim.

Playlist : March 14th - 18th, 2011

Hello and welcome to another pared down version of Work Tunes.

This week there's a couple of new artists for me in Blind Pilot and Jack Johnson. Yes, I have honestly heard no Jack Johnson (well apart from that song he did where Ben Stiller was in the film clip). I'm also looking forward to the remix version of Gil Scott-Heron's 2010 release I'm New Here - done by Jamie XX and called We're New Here.

This is what it all looks like.

• Jack Johnson - To The Sea
• Beach Fossils – What A Pleasure
• Hilltop Hoods - A Matter Of Time
• Train of Thought - Moving Heads
• J Mascis - Several Shades of Why
• REM - Collapse Into Now
• The Murmurs - Pristine Smut
• Vetiver - To Find Me Gone
• Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie XX - We're New Here
• Blind Pilot - 3 Rounds and a Sound

Top 5 Artists Last Week

1. Dolorean
2. Snoop Doggy Dog
3. Tori Amos
4. Sonic Youth
5. Mellow Drum Addict

Song of the Week : Dolorean - Country Clutter

I know a couple weeks back in a daze of being newly smitten with Dolorean I picked one of their songs. It was a good song, but probably not a good representation of them. The other day, my copy of their latest album The Unfazed arrived. This track, Country Clutter is more true to why I really like them. It’s interesting how it shuffles along in a bit of a death march as well as building at points like it’s about to kick the distortion pedal on. Lyrically, it’s honest and angry and a little bit bitter, which I always like. Enjoy!

Postscript

Most of this post was cobbled together prior to today. I saved this draft before hearing about the earthquake in Japan. I debated whether to just post it without acknowledging that tragedy, but I just couldn't do it.

The footage I've seen tonight is impossible to ignore. The thick slow sludge of the ocean around Sendai swallowing the farm lands and the vast tracts of sheds; sweeping houses and vehicles and fences along, like some cheesy black blob from a 1950s sci-fi film. I'm not one for prayer, but I do hope with every ounce of my own being that no more lives are lost. The last I heard, more than 200 bodies had washed up on the beach. It's terrifying and horrid and all too big to fathom. 200 lives or 200,000+ as on Boxing Day, 2002, it makes no difference; one is too many.

起死回生 kishi kaisei :

Wake from death and return to life.