Category: Uncategorized

Usually I’d recommend picking and choosing the songs you download, but this week I think all the songs are worth checking out. iLiKETRAiNs may fill the hole in my heart left by the breakup of Aereogramme. Holy Fuck is an apt name and not at all what I was expecting. A Pavement cover by Cassettes Won’t Listen? AWESOME. The Cure provide loads of influence for A Shoreline Dream. Nice to see Longwave is still around. A lot of you keep coming for the new Division Day downloads so here’s another one. Viva Voce is re-issuing some of their earlier work and to get you in the mood has provided some tunes for you to check out. I don’t know who or what Reykyavik or Dikta is but I like the songs. And ex-Soul Coughing singer Mike Doughty continues to put out great and weird and normal pop songs.

iLiKETRAiNS – “Deception” (MP3)
Holy Fuck – “Lovely Allen” (MP3)
Cassettes Won’t Listen – “Lunch for Breakfast” (MP3), “Cut Your Hair” (Pavement cover) (MP3)
A Shoreline Dream – “New York” (MP3)
Longwave – “It’s True” (MP3), “No Direction” (MP3)
Division Day – “Reversible” (Ginormous Remix) (MP3)
Viva Voce – “Fashionably Lonely” (MP3), “Free Nude Celebs” (MP3), “Wrecking Ball” (Tunng Remix) (MP3)
Reykyavik – “Flybus” (MP3)
Dikta – “Breaking the Waves” (MP3)
Mike Doughty – “Bottom of a Well” (MP3)

BONUS: There are a number of .RAR blogs out there dedicated to ’70s hard rock. These blogs post links to entire album downloads of bands that are so obscure that even their grandmothers didn’t know about them back in the day. The albums, in many cases, were printed up in very limited quantities and though some 30 years later the bands still don’t have any name recognition, their music is incredible.

Something tells me that 30 years from now there will be websites dedicated to posting full length CDs in MP3 format by heavy rock bands from the 2000s in the same boat as those ’70s bands – great music but released in such limited quantity that it’s easy to have missed the bands the first time around.

One of those bands that I think will be more appreciated 10, 20 or 30 years down the road is Columbus, Ohio’s Murder Your Darlings. Made up of members of bands that you don’t know, MYD put out their first album, self-titled, back in 2005 with the help of Reptilian Records. It’s loud, abrasive, a marriage of metal and punk along the lines of the Jesus Lizard, Alabama Thunderpussy, early Nirvana, Black Flag, The Stooges, The Means, etc., etc.

The band’s new album, ‘Modern Man Blues’, is available right now through CDBaby and will be available through other resources (iTunes, Amazon, etc.) sometime in October or November. Buy a copy now so that you can be the one to start the blog 30 years from now and post this album that’ll make the kids of the future go apeshit and question why Murder Your Darlings was a band they had never heard of.

Download 4 songs from the first album, 4 songs from the new one and then go out and buy multiple copies of both to give to your whiskey-drinkin, tattooed friends.

From ‘Murder Your Darlings’

• Going to Hell
• House of Paranoia
• Murder County
• Too Much

From ‘Modern Man Blues’

• 3 AM
• Beg and Borrow
• Tear the Walls Down
• Life of the MInd

The Donnas – “Don’t Wait Up for Me” (MP3) (grab it while you can)
Deadstring Brothers – “Heavy Load” (MP3), “Silver Mountain” (MP3)
Nyles Lannon – “Hesitation” (MP3), “Next Obsession” (MP3) (ex-Film School)
Dutch Kills – “Sunday is the Greatest Day” (MP3), “Storm Clouds” (MP3), “She is Gone/Marisol” (MP3)
Saturday Looks Good to Me – “Make a Plan” (MP3)
Division Day – “Enjoy the Silence” (Depeche Mode cover) (MP3)
Doveman – “Sunrise (Medley)” (MP3)
Magnet – “Lonely No More” (MP3)
Eskimo Joe – “New York” (MP3)
Sunday Drivers – “The Sweetest Disguise” (MP3)
Charlemagne – “8 x 10” (MP3)
Innerpartysystem – “Don’t Stop” (MP3)
Thomas Dybdahl – “Damn Heart” (MP3), “Half of Me” (MP3)
Prong – “The Banishment” (MP3)

Some good stuff this week. Nice of the fine folks at Nettwerk to give away a 5-song live EP by Great Lake Swimmers. New Andrew WK??? Soft revisits shoegazing rock from the early ’90s while Weedeater’s stoner rock is sure to get you high. I only wish I was as wild about Ha Ha Tonka’s name as I was their music. And then you’ve got Billy Corgan’ s favorite new band, Celebration. See, good stuff indeed.

Great Lake Swimmers – Live From the Church of the Redeemer EP (5 songs, .ZIP file)
Blitzen Trappen – “Sci-Fi Kid (40 Thieves Remix)” (MP3)
Andrew WK – “Perforated” (MP3)
Soft – “Higher” (MP3)
Division Day – “Ricky (Tandemoro Remix)” (MP3)
Ha Ha Tonka – “Caney Mountain” (MP3),  “St.Nick on the Fourth in a Fervor” (MP3)
Weedeater – “God Luck and Good Speed” (MP3)
Celebration – “Evergreen” (MP3)
Scout Niblett – “Kiss” (MP3)
Grizzly Bear – “On a Neck, On a Spit” (MP3)

Are you downloading any of these songs? Have any thoughts? Feel free to leave comments.

Chicago’s got a rich tradition of giving birth to bands that mix electronic elements into a traditional rock sound. Corporate X is the latest Windy City band to seamlessly blend these sounds into a rich and ornate soundscape with hypnotic female vocals (thanks to Christine DeLeon) and a hip-hop element as evidenced on the band’s forthcoming debut release, Surrender (in stores and on the web October 16). The man responsible for most of the sounds on the EP, Casper Xavier, took a few minutes to answer a few questions about the third track on Surrender, “Signs”.

MP3: “Signs”

Is track 3 representative of the whole CD?
I would have to say that “Signs” is very representative of the entire CD both lyrically and musically. While “Signs” is considered more of a “Power Ballad” in structure, it still retains the power and message that is conveyed throughout the CD which deal with issues of life, love, loss, longing, and finality through reflection and growth of the everyday person. Thus, the title Surrender.

What’s the story behind the song – from the lyrical content to the way it was written and recorded?
Track 3 is a special song for us. Traditionally I would write the music and Christine would write the vocal and melody on the finished tracks. But it wasn’t so with this song. “Signs” was initially met with resistance in that the musical structure started out a bit more basic and a lot more sensibility than what we were writing at the time. So it ended up on the backburner while Christine concentrated on better produced songs in our arsenal.

But something about the song kept eating away at me and a voice kept saying “this is the one”. So I took a gamble and wrote some lyrics that were reflective of issues we were having in our everyday struggles of life. Lyrics about being able to recognize the signs that most of us fail to see everyday. The signs are all around to help us through those struggles. You know, kinda like that feeling of intuition we all get when we encounter the forks in the road of life.

I reluctantly recorded a melody in my basement studio and showed Christine. That’s when it all clicked. Being able to recognize the potential of the songs Christine shifted into full gear, smoothed out the melody, grabbed the mic and cranked out an amazing performance. A lot of those original recordings are still on the mastered versions. Ironically to our surprise, “Signs” was the song that was first picked by our producer and then label, to be the single.

Was there a particular reason you placed this song in the #3 spot on the track listing?
There was no real thought to the placement of “Signs”. We metaphorically just threw the songs in the air and that’s where it landed. It just seemed the right spot in the whole “feel” of how the songs should progress throughout the CD. It has always lived in the number 3 spot.

Buy Surrender by Corporate X.

Lots of “ex-members-of” downloads this week.

Bottomless Pit – “The Cardinal Movements” (MP3) (ex-Silkworm, Seam)
Division Day – “Every Shining Time You Arrive” (MP3) (Sunny Day Real Estate cover)
Flugente – “Reflections in Spain on the Subject of my 38th Birthday” (MP3)
Life Without Buildings – “Juno” (MP3) (live)
The Swimmers – “Miles from Our Fears” (MP3), “Killing Me Goodbye” (MP3) (ex-One Star Hotel)
AA Bondy – “There’s a Reason” (MP3), “Vice Rag” (MP3) (ex-Verbena)
Duquette Johnston – “Babies and Diamonds” (MP3) (ex-Verbena)
John P Strohm – “Traveling Salesman” (MP3), “Driving on 95” (MP3) (ex-Blake Babies)