Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 26 (SIRIUS), and channel 43 (XM), can now be heard twice, every Friday – Noon EST with an encore broadcast at Midnight EST. Below is this week’s playlist.

SIRIUS 126: Jean Michel Bernard – Generique Stephane ++ White Denim – All Consolation Revised ++ Dum Dum Girls – Jail La La ++ No Age – Sleeper Hold ++ Japandroids – The Boys Are Leaving Town ++ TV On The Radio – New Health Rock ++ Yeasayer – Sunrise ++ The Ruby Suns – Cranberry (Radio Edit) ++ Active Child – She Was A Vision ++ Ham1 – Clown-Shoed Feet ++ The Modern Lovers – She Cracked ++ The Breeders – Happiness is A Warm Gun ++ Guided By Voices – Captain’s Dead ++ The Rock*A*Teens – Black Metal Scars ++ Reigning Sound -Stormy Weather ++ King Khan & The Shrines – Welfare Bread ++ The Walkmen – Many Rivers To Cross ++ Oakley Hall – Confidence Man ++ Bonnie “Prince” Billy – Dreaming My Dreams ++ Vetiver – Houses ++ Mountain Man – Animal Tracks ++ Blur – This Is A Low ++ Morrissey – Driving Your Girlfriend Home ++ Spiritualized – Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space ++ Tiger Bear Wolf – Input, Output ++ Tiger Bear Wof – You Play Guitar ++ No Age – Boy Void ++ Black Flag – Fix Me ++ Husker Du – Something I Learned Today ++ Bob Mould – Heartbreak A Stranger ++ Animal Collective – The Purple Bottle ++ Deerhunter – Little Kids ++ Gentleman Jesse – Highland Crawler ++ The Henry Clay People – Working Part Time ++ Happy Hollows – My Wet Tongue ++ Women – Black Rice ++ Chad VanGaalen – Bones of Man ++ Blair – Candy In The Kitchen

*You can listen, for free, online with the SIRIUS three day trial — just submit an email address and they will send you a password.
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1983 was was an incredibly fertile year for the the Talking Heads. The companion album to Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense made an effort at capturing the band’s live mojo, but due to its length (neutered at nine tracks) failed to paint a complete picture. Thankfully there are a number of high-quality boots in circulation. The below show, a soundboard recorded in August of ‘83 in Saratoga, NY, captures this period beautifully. I ripped the FLAC files to 256 kbps mp3s. Highest recommendation.

The Wall. Bloated and self-indulgent, yet near perfect in its execution. Though I was only 4 years old when Pink Floyd first executed its extensive stage show in 1980, the concept album’s legacy began to pervade my consciousness as soon as the beginning of middle school.

It was then that I first began noticing the Wall’s bricks carefully stenciled on the notebooks of the upper classmen; the album’s nightmarish iconography emblazoned on t-shirts, stickers and half-sewn jacket patches—and of course the cardboard CD jewel cases (remember those?) that clung to the inside of rusting metal locker doors. These middle school upperclassmen, which to clarify meant 8th and 9th graders, seemed to be tapped into something…some otherness, something called Pink Floyd.

With the Wall, came the first sense of rebellion…escapism. A break from the suburban norm of Atlanta. Sure it was a band from another generation but what it signified was a good deal more interesting than the top 40 of Madonna and Wang Chung. And really, thinking back it wasn’t even so much about the music (as I’m sure I barely grasped the majority of the content of Roger Waters lyrics), but the promise of an, err, less conservative worldview.

A gateway, this was a world of beers salvaged from basement refrigerators and cigarettes pilfered from your friends mother’s pocketbook, both consumed behind the school parking lot and/or in the woods behind a church or shopping center. This was a world where marijuana was smoked out of bent coca-cola cans and makeshift tin-foil bowls. This was the beginning of sneaking out of the house at midnight and returning home before dawn. Heady stuff for a thirteen year old. Whatever this middle school subculture was, I wanted in. Far removed from Pop Warner football, this, the Wall, as I understood it at the time, was a glimpse of something else. Something far removed from the suburban drudgery of being thirteen in 1989.

And then I discovered Black Flag and Minor Threat. But that’s a story for another time.

That was 20 years ago. I have since gone through many phases of Pink Floyd fandom, from utterly denouncing them and their ilk (see Black Flag reference above), to championing founder Syd Barrett and everything in between. If you haven’t seen it yet, Mojo has taken another look at the Wall’s uncompromising 1980-81 live show revealing everything that went into making it a reality. In addition to interviews with its creator, Roger Waters, the magazine goes behind the scenes talking to the production crew, stage band, hangers on, etc. To commemorate the issue the magazine has curated a two-disc compilation, The Wall Re-Built, inviting contemporary musicians to each cover a track from the Walll. Sample a couple of tracks below. Sweden’s the Amazing slow the raucous “Young Lust” down to a piano-driven dirge, while Gnomonsong’s Papercuts employs fuzz and dreamy dissonance on “The Thin Ice.”

In 2010, I wonder if this album still grabs the imagination of thirteen year old boys the way it did in the days before the Internet. The days before endless “free” music, movies, etc.

MP3: Papercuts :: The Thin Ice
MP3: The Amazing :: Young Lust
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The Ruby Suns, The Tallest Man On Earth…and now Caribou (née Dan Snaith). So far, not even a month into 2010, a number of artists I consider favorites have been dropping mp3 nuggets from their forthcoming records. Caribou’s “Odessa,” the first taste off the upcoming Swim LP is the most curious offering of them all. Curious in that it does not follow the more straightforward and organic instrumentation/production of 2008’s (outstanding) Andorra, instead sonically reverting back to Snaith’s earlier work (both as Manitoba and Caribou) employing Erland Oye-esque vocals, beats and production reminiscent of Oye’s solo debut, Unrest. I can’t wait to hear this in the context of the full-length, which is due out April 20th via Merge Records.

MP3: Caribou :: Odessa
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+ Download Caribou via eMusic’s 25 free MP3 no risk trial offer
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Kristian Matsson, provenance Sweden, is The Tallest Man On Earth. Being that his debut, 2008’s Shallow Grave, was one of the strongest folk records of that year, I have been anxiously awaiting its follow-up. That wait appears to be over as Matsson’s new label, Dead Oceans, has announced The Wild Hunt will be released on April 13th (April 12th in the UK). Check out “King of Spain,” the first single, below.

MP3: The Tallest Man on Earth :: King of Spain
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+ Download The Tallest Man On Earth via eMusic’s 25 free MP3 no risk trial offer
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(Diversions, a recurring feature on Aquarium Drunkard, catches up with our favorite artists as they wax on subjects other than recording and performing.)

The screen grab you’re looking at above is from the neo-classic 1987 vampire/western film Near Dark. And yes, that is indeed Bill Paxton, in all his pre Big Love glory, portraying Severin—a crazed, nihilistic vampire cleaning up the western United States one victim at a time. Badass! Character-wise, the actor never topped this, or maybe that of the role of Chet. Near Dark is just one of the Happy Hollows ten favorite vampire movies. Sorry Twilight. Great list, and I was impressed to see the inclusion of Lifeforce, a film that could have been so much more (needs a remake badly). The Happy Hollows debut, Spells drops today via Autumn Tone. More on that soon.

Die Young is an intimidating title for a debut full-length. It casts a lot of weight about its small frame – a twelve song package of deceptively airy and sprightly vocals spun around a churning, rhythmic and engaging set of pop that takes its cues from a host of 90s indie and classic rock and roll signatures. Blair’s music recalls a bevy of influences without feeling indebted to any one.

That deception is a fun artistic trick. Die Young is a record whose poles seem crossed – its surface a shimmering, mostly sunny sounding record with lyrical themes far deeper and more grey than they appear at first glance.  “Hello Halo” seems absurdist at moments, its lyrics almost purposefully nonsensical (the title phrase, “kittens, rainbows”) and disconnected from any meaning. But there’s a knowing wink, too. “Don’t know what I’m saying,” is the repeated line that follows. The subsequent songs are full of mixed emotions and uncertainty. “Kamikaze” qualifies its certainties with maybes (“maybe I’ve got something up my sleeve“) only to accept the muddled nature of outcomes (“it’s worth not feeling okay“). “My Turn” talks of the hunter becoming the hunted. She winds up howling at the feet of her “Wolfboy” rather than vice versa.

Musically Blair echoes the early days of Liz Phair in the minimalist structure of some of her songs. It’s an interesting comparison to make, but it makes sense also as she came of age in Phair’s peak as a musician. Within this structure though are moments as scattered and diverse as the Southern shuffle of “Wake Up Shake Up,” the girl group shimmy of “Paris France” and the closely cropped haze of “Rampage.” The title track even follows the loping, punctuated delivery of Suicaine Gratifaction-era Paul Westerberg. Die Young never abandons its tone and the album keeps a cohesive feel. It always seems to be going somewhere, even if the destination is as uncertain as the lyrics’ narrator.

Die Young seems to worry about a death of spirit and self as opposed to a physical death. Its moments of hesitance are cloaked in the beauty of how we know best to express ourselves, like a closely honed mixtape ode to our insecurities. words/ j. neas

MP3: Blair :: Hello Halo
MP3: Blair :: Rampage
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+ Download Blair’s Die Young via eMusic’s 25 free MP3 no risk trial offer
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I was first turned on to the Quick several years ago when Dave Newton and I had radio shows back to back at the now defunct Little Radio loft studios in the warehouse district of downtown L.A. Dave’s show was immediately after mine and he would usually pop in 15 to 20 minutes early to chat, drink beer, and generally nerd around about records (good times, Dave). For the most part he solely spun tracks from his 7″ collection that dated back to his teenage years growing up in the UK. This proved to be a constant treasure trove of punk, post-punk, new-wave, pub-rock, you-name-it. It was always the best part of my day, and I always made notes on records to check out later.

Occasionally amongst the 7″s, some 12 inch records and CDs would find their way into the mix as well. One day while digging through his crate I spotted a CD (bootleg?) compilation of old ’70s Rodney On The ROQ stuff featuring the Quick. I quickly ripped it to my laptop as I did with most of the stuff Dave turned me onto.  Sadly, that laptop died and the music with it. But not my appreciation for the Quick.

The Quick are just one of the many power pop curiosities leftover from the late ’70s that, while eluding most, are treasured by genre completists. Radio Heartbeat Records just reissued the band’s sole release, 1976’s Mondo Deco; an album I hadn’t picked up since compiling an early power-pop mixtape a couple of years back (which, now, thinking about the tracklisting, I need to unearth pronto: Rubinoos, Nerves, Blue Ash, Raspberries, Flamin’ Groovies, etc).

An oddity, I didn’t know quite what to make of the LP during the first few listens. What  was this? And how to describe it? Post-glam? Proto power-pop? It sounds like what it is; a hedonistic Sunset Strip take on British glam coupled with a fascination with Big Star. A notable sidenote in their bio helps bridge this convergence of sounds: the Quick were one of the bands of the era discovered by L.A. scenester/manager/musician/producer Kim Fowley. Not unlike another Fowley discovery, the Runaways, the Quick seemed to straddle said genre lines—something I imagine led to their only releasing the one album: Mondo Deco.

If any of the above piqued your curiosity, take it step farther and check Mondo Deco’s fifth track, the glammed up “Anybody.” Visit the folks at Radio Heartbeat Records for the reissued vinyl pack.

MP3: The Quick :: Anybody
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+ Download DRM free music via eMusic’s 25 free MP3 no risk trial offer
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If you have an Internet connection you’ve heard about Beck’s ongoing Record Club. We featured the first installment (Beck and assorted friends covering The Velvet Underground & Nico) back in August. I love that album—there’s no telling how many times I’ve spun its sides over the years, but I can’t say I’ve found myself revisiting that set of covers since they initially appeared online six months ago.  And that’s not meant to be a slight, as the participants aim is made very clear from the outset: “There is no intention to ‘add to’ the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording. Only to play music and document what happens.” No, this has more to do with my having heard one too many covers off the VU’s debut over the years, beginning with my very introduction to the Velvets via R.E.M.’s take on “Femme Fatale.” But really, it’s a classic album—it’s bound to happen. Fast forward to part three.

Now this, the third installment of Record Club (Leonard Cohen was second up), is an altogether different beast. Here, Beck and his ever-rotating group of musicians tackle the often brilliant oddity that is Alexander “Skip” Spence’s only solo album, OAR. Spence, most notably, cut his teeth with Moby Grape and Jefferson Airplane before going his own way, eventually forging a path more in line with Gary Higgins than Jorma Kaukonen. That path led to OAR; a strange, primitive, unsettling, earthy cosmic weirding. It’s also great. But OAR is another post for another time, as it certainly deserves it.

Here, under Beck’s instruction, “Books of Moses,” off OAR, is transformed from a two and half minute folk ramble into a seven-plus minute funk banger equal parts Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder and Shuggie Otis. If that last sentence doesn’t make you want to press play, you’re on the wrong blog. Amidst a fatback steady backbeat and nasty percussive synths, vocals are handled by British soul singer Jamie Lidell who shucks and jives like a Mississippi juke joint. This track just sweats.

photo: autumn de wilde

MP3: Beck’s Record Club :: Books of Moses
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Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 26 (SIRIUS), and channel 43 (XM), can now be heard twice, every Friday – Noon EST with an encore broadcast at Midnight EST. Below is this week’s playlist.

SIRIUS 125: Jean Michel Bernard – Generique Stephane ++ The Bicycles – B-B-Bicycles ++ Knight School – Pregnant Again ++ Real Estate – Fake Blues ++ Surfer Blood – Catholic Pagans ++ Surf City – Autumn ++ Vivian Girls – Blind Spot ++ Pet Politics – The Ghost of Mary And Her Friends ++ James Husband – A Grave In The Gravel ++ Portastatic – Echoes Myron (Guided By Voices cover) ++ No Age – Boy Void ++ Black Flag – Fix Me ++ Deerhunter – Cryptograms ++ Women – Black Rice ++ The Shins – Strange Powers (Magnetic Fields cover) ++ Bodies of Water – Dear Boy (Paul McCartney cover) ++ Gruff Rhys – Lonesome Words ++ The Kindness – Swinging Party (Replacements cover) ++ The Besnard Lakes – Albatross ++ Broken Social Scene – Anthems For A Seventeen-Year-Old Girl ++ The Wrens – This Boy Is Exhausted ++ Cymbals Eat Guitars – And The Hazy Sea ++ Throw Me The Statue – Your Girlfriend’s Car ++ The Lightening Bug Situation – Under Your Jacket ++ Caribou – Melody Day (Four Tet Remix) ++ High Places – Head Spins ++ Television – Friction ++ Josef K – The Angle ++ David Bowie – Boys Keep Swinging ++ Iggy Pop – Dum Dum Boys ++ The Ruby Suns – Oh, Mojave ++ The Bees – A Minha Menina ++ Ganglians – Valiant Brave ++ Dum Dum Girls – Jail La La ++ Lou Reed – She’s My Best Friend ++ Blair – Hello Halo

*You can listen, for free, online with the SIRIUS three day trial — just submit an email address and they will send you a password.
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(Diversions, a recurring feature on Aquarium Drunkard, catches up with our favorite artists as they wax on subjects other than recording and performing.)

I know it’s impossible to keep up with everything posted on Aquarium Drunkard, but I implore you to not miss this installment of Diversions. Why? Because the guys behind the UK’s Wolf People have assembled an eleven track ’60s/’70s psych-rock medley that you absolutely need in your life. Skip your other blog reads for the day if you have to, but do check this out. To celebrate being signed to an American label (Jagjaguwar) despite never having visited the states, the band chose 5 songs from the US and 5 (+1) from the UK. They’re mostly psych-rock. They’re all great. We begin with the UK…
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Edgar Broughton Band – House of Turnabout(from Edgar Broughton Band on Harvest Records)

Here is an English band with heavy Beefheart influences so it’s little wonder that they’re a favourite of ours. They represent something quintessentially English; a sturdy, no-nonsense antidote to the more whimsical and theatrical psychedelia that was rife around that time. They were from Coventry but moved to Notting Hill and became involved with the underground scene that spawned a lot of great and often underrated bands like Mighty Baby (see below), Quintessence, Hawkwind, Pink Fairies and Deviants.

This track from their 1971 self titled album (the one with all the meat on the cover) never fails to knock me out. It seems to me that when America turned towards introspective singer songwriters at the turn of the decade, Britain was on the verge of something more gritty and politically aware which would eventually mutate into punk, and this to me is a great example of psychedelic rock with a proto-punk tinge to it.

Edgar Broughton Band were a festival staple in the early 70’s and most freaks from the time will have fond memories of their epic “out demons, out” set closer, something I wish I could have seen in the flesh.

MP3: Edgar Broughton Band – House of Turnabout