Category: videos

The CD drops in a little over a week. I don’t think this is an official video but here another new song, “Please Just Take These Photos from My Hands”.

This isn’t going to be a long diatribe about how there is no longer any M on MTV. I think if you’ve watched the cable channel any time in the last 10 years, you’ve figured that out for yourself. What I do want to say though is that videos still do help sell music and if the labels were smart (which we all know they aren’t), they’d figure out someway to get videos broadcast to consumers. Case in point, I DVR MTV2’s Subterranean every week and this morning was catching up on Thursday night’s episode. I was surprised at how many bands were broadcast in the hourlong show that I had never heard of before. My favorite of the bunch was the video for “M4 (Part II)” by a band called Faunts.

The video is great as is the song. I was really, really hoping these guys were from Scotland (they remind me a bit of Aereogramme) as I seemingly love just about everything that comes out of that country lately but a quick Google search revealed they are from Canada. I’m not sure whether or not the Blogosphere has already championed these guys but they are definitely on my radar now. And, solely because I loved this song, I went out to eMusic and picked up both the EP – M4 – that this song is featured on as well as the band’s debut full length – High Expectations/Low Results – which preceeded the EP. It seems like a perfect time to get into the band – which has been compared to everybody from Radiohead to The Cure to Sigur Ros – as their new album is due out in January 2009 and hopefully that means touring will follow.

How about some free downloads courtesy of Friendly Fire Recordings?

DOWNLOAD: “Instantly Loved”
DOWNLOAD: “Memories of Places We’ve Never Been”
DOWNLOAD: “M4 (Part I)”

Been on a steady diet of Fig Dish‘s two major label releases this week – seeing Willison’s photos on a friend’s Facebook account made me hungry for some long-lost, gone-but-never-forgotten pop-rock mastery from the little Chicago band that could (or at least tried). I’ll be damned if the songs don’t hold up over time, but that should be expected from a band that is cut from the same cloth as the founding fathers on Mount Rockmore (Westerberg, Mould, Dando, Zander).  Yes, I did just quote myself from a 1995 article I wrote about the band for MOO Magazine.

If you’re not familiar with the band (and their record sales from the mid-to-late ’90s indicate that you’re probably not), maybe read some other sites that discuss the first album – That’s What Love Songs Often Do – and the follow up – When Shove Goes Back to Push (surprise, surprise, Pitchfork didn’t like it). Check out the love Wilfully Obscure gives the band’s first single (“Rollover Please” / “Miss California) which you can download. And if that’s not enough, I’ll refer you to the unreleased third album the band recorded, but never officially released, instead, allowing AtomicNed to offer it up as an exclusive free download. Hell, as long as you’re clicking around and downloading, how about a live reunion show from 2006?

If you’re willing to part with a penny (+ shipping and handling), you can pick up That’s What Love Songs Often Do on Amazon.com where you can also find used copies of When Shove Goes Back to Push used for prices ranging from a buck to 3 bucks.

There’s all kinds of post-Fig Dish projects (Caviar, Ness, The Prairie Cartel) you should check out but I’ll let you explore those on your own.

In the meantime, though few and far between, Fig Dish videos ARE available on YouTube and are presented here, for your viewing pleasure.

“Seeds”

“When Shirts Get Tight”

Let’s see how wide-reaching this Internet thing is. Back in ’99 I interviewed a Boston-based band called The Fly Seville (at least I remember them being from Boston) while they were touring in support of their Sealed Fate release, Carousel. It was a good night, Ohio State was playing their first home game of the season, students were starting to come back to the campus area and were looking for some entertainment that night … and while The Fly Seville didn’t play in front of a huge crowd, it was decent and even the owner of the club came up to the band afterward and said “Any time you want a gig in Columbus, you’ve got one.”

It’s been many years since I thought about this band but scanning through some CDs tonight, I found Carousel and popped it in -  very sweet, melodic dreamy pop … singer Jesse Blatz reminds me vocally of a cross of Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow of The Posies and Stacy Joy adds lots of emotion via her violin. The only thing I could really find was a couple of videos that some filmmaker (James Holland) put together and posted on YouTube a year ago. I’m not really sure when these videos were shot or how new/old the songs are.

So, Jesse or Stacy or any of the other former members of Fly Seville, if any of you stumble upon this while Googling your own names, let me know what’s up and if you’ve got anything new in the works, either as The Fly Seville or with different bands.

First thoughts on the song were that it sounded like a cast off from Eyes Open, something that maybe wasn’t good enough to be included on that album. But after 30 or so listens in the last week, I’m thinking it’s not such a bad first single after all. The new Snow Patrol album, A Hundred Million Suns, is in stores at the end of October.