Sunday, March 24, 2013

Recently Unearthed: Jamaican Queens

This one is interesting. I'm still not 100% convinced, but mostly because normally this type of sound would be instantly deleted from my collection. I think Jamaican Queens may be worth you listening too and they are too good to put them into the Endangered Species list for those that I'm typically on the fence about.

The first song I happened to listen to was Asleep at the Wheel from a recent Daytrotter session. It is kind of that weird sound I don't usually like, but has a David Bowie feel without sounding like "oh, those guys are trying to sound like David Bowie". It's kind of like how some people substitute meat with mushrooms. Mushrooms have a "meatiness" but they aren't meat. They have a David Bowiness, but they definitely are not David Bowie. (In my mind, that analogy makes perfect sense.)

Anyway, their weird sound caught my attention, but it wasn't too weird that it pushed me away. I found myself just closing my eyes and listening to the song. Although I don't love every single song I've heard so far, I find myself excited about their music, which is something special.

They don't have a huge amount of web content right now. You can find them on Daytrotter, or their website. For the moment at least you can name your own price to download their album, Wormwood.


Recently Extinct: Alexis Gideon

I had come to a decision not long ago that I wasn't going to do more entries in Recently Extinct because I feel like it's a little unkind. After listening to Alexis Gideon's Daytrotter session, I don't care if it's unkind. This type of session is the exact reason that I will not be renewing my Daytrotter subscription again. You might get a few good songs here or there (Dawes, for instance), but too many "artists" use this forum as a playground for recording crap and passing it off as music. I find it terribly irritating and wasteful. In this case, I ended up with several minutes of this dumbass rubbing his balls on the soundboard or whatever the hell he was doing because I certainly don't consider it music.

This session just makes me angry. Art. Fart. I'd prefer the latter coming from this guy. Maybe there's some great explanation about Alexis Gideon's point of view or something, but I really don't care. DELETE.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Baby D's Shuffle: SoundSupp.ly Drop 7

I don't know how long SoundSupp.ly has been around, I subscribed this year. I've mentioned them before and you can read more about them too. Basically, you can buy a drop at a time, but if they don't sell enough you don't get bonus material or you can buy a whole year and be assured of getting bonus material. They drop every few months and you basically get several full albums from bands you may or may not have heard of before. The price is reasonable.

Since I managed to download over 700 songs this weekend, not counting the ones that came in overnight from SoundSupp.ly, I decided to do a Baby D Shuffle from just Drop 7 to give you a taste of my reaction.

A quick scroll down what I received includes Tilly & the Wall; I own some of their stuff already. The rest seems to be fresh meat to me.

So, I'm going to spin the wheel of destiny a bit and let you know what my ear holes tell me to say.

1. Deerhoof - There's that Grin
Long annoying intro, repetitive lyrics. A little to eclectic for my taste. I don't hate it, but I'll probably never listen to it again.

2. Tilly and the Wall - I Believe in You
I don't dislike Tilly and the Wall, but the tap dancing percussion makes me a little tired thinking of the tap dancer back there tapping the whole time. This song isn't terrible, but a little too much of an ethereal sound for me.

3. People Get Ready - a Squandering
I already like his voice, although the song starts out a little slow. Oh, wait. It stays slow. Name your own price for more of their music by following the link of their name above. We'll see how other songs sound.

4. Basement - Whole
Sounds like an amateur garage band that does some gigs now and then. I'm not digging it so far.

5. Slingshot Dakota - Intro
Well, as intros go, I suppose it's okay. I don't understand having separate intro tracks, they just play weird when you are on shuffle and stuff like that. I guess this one's a little longer than most. The sound of the girl screeching in the background isn't as bad as one would think. I won't probably need to keep this track in my collection.

6. Dikembe - Sorry I Can't Stick Around
Noisy, confusing, ungood. (It's my blog, I can make up new words if I want to.)

7. Deerhoff - Mario's Flaming Whiskers III
Oh no, I don't like this silly crap at all. They are going to go bye-bye very soon.

8. K Será - Carry
Bleh, sounds like their trying too hard. It's got a bit of a Muse sound. I'm not a big fan of Muse, so you may disagree. It's like symphonic power ballad. Moving on.

9. Slingshot Dakota - Words
Someone got new cymbals for Christmas I think, so they gave that someone a really long intro to play with them. Too screechy and lame for me to continue with this one.

10. Buke and Gase - Naked Cities
Girl group. Not my sound preference. I can't imagine listening to this for entertainment.

11. Deerhoof - We Do Parties
I wouldn't say I like this song, but I dislike it less than the other two I've heard. I still deleted it though.

12. K Será - Collisions
Oh, now they are trying to sound like My Chemical Romance. Hmmm. Weak.

13. Tilly and the Wall - All Kinds of Guns
This is more they kind of Tilly and the Wall I'm used to. The recording style for the vocals (echoey) is annoying, but the song is better than the other 12 I've listed above.

14. Buke and Gase - Immortal But Just Fine, Okay
Dear, sweet baby Jesus, what the hell is going on here? Stop. Hammer time! (As in, take a hammer and smash it.)

15. Cursive - The Sun and Moon
Not the strongest vocals, but not the most horrible thing I've heard today.

16. Deerhoof - Flower
I'm scared to even listen... I did. Nope. It's bad.

17. K Será - Meditations in an Emergency
Yeah, just sounds poser-y to me.

18. Cursive - Wowowow
I cheated. I picked this one off the list instead of it being random. They should have called it Badadad.

19. Of the Opera - Talking Shadows
Whoa oh oh whoa oh oh, the intro is long. It's okay. It's not good enough that I'd buy it though.

20. Minus the Bear - Empty Party Rooms
Cheesy. It's like so effing cheesy. Damn. I really had hopes for them because I like their name.

Wow, I was hoping this would be a plug FOR Soundsupp.ly today, but it's kind of turned into a "hey, give me my money back" situation. Well, I have received good stuff from them in the past. Maybe I'll find some gems in this mess later.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Music Archaeology: YouTube

Just real quick here, I wanted to make sure you know that I have a YouTube account set up and I try to remember to add videos that I link to my blog posts in a folder for easy access.

Feel free to dig around.


Recently Unearthed: Cataldo

I've spent a week or more feeling sad for myself because I guess almost everyone in the whole world but me is at SXSW right now, but if I'd really think about it, I'd remember how much I dislike crowds, festivals, and the sort. I do like music though and there's a lot of it going on there right now. I guess I'm just craving going to a good show, finances haven't really allowed for that recently. Maybe as the winter weather fades away, music shows will become a reality once again.

This week I've had some good time to listen to my iPod. I haven't done a ton of downloading lately; I had my mind on other things, but I'm making up for that today. I'm downloading a good 500 songs or so that will take me quite some time to plow through. It's been forever since I used my Daytrotter subscription so I'm catching up on that a bit today.

This week I was listening to some stuff I got from Paste mPlayer and happened across Cataldo -- loved it. Instantly searched my song list and was sad to find I only owned the one song from Paste (Prison Boxing). Eric Anderson's voice just stopped me in my tracks, so I had to start digging for more. Today, I've added to my collection!

Seriously, listen to this. If you don't like it, just don't talk to me anymore.


Sunday, March 10, 2013

Recently Unearthed: Thad Kopec

I'm not a music producer. Honestly, I don't know much about it. I've loved music all my life, but I don't know too much about the behind-the-scenes part of recording music. I'm not a songwriter (we're not counting the little ditties I write about bodily functions from time to time). I'm not even good with instruments. Sure, I had my fair share of marching band, piano lessons, and choir, but nothing very formal.

Sometimes when I find a new musician or group, their offerings sound rough. I don't mind listening to people who record their own music if it doesn't suck. From what I see of Thad Kopec, he's pretty new on the scene, but I really feel like his album, Heart of Man, sounds so professional. I'd never guess this is an artist that still uses Bandcamp as a main website.

He has such a great voice, it's like you can hear pain in his voice, but sweetness at the same time. That's about as poetic as I wax it, baby. Don't worry, Baby D isn't getting all touchy-feely with you today.

This is great music. I'm loving a lot of Indie stuff coming through Nashville lately.


Recently Unearthed: Ruston Kelly

Do you play Monopoly? I used to love that game...I still go through phases with it. Being an only child, I never got to play it as much as I'd like...do you remember that card that said "Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200."? Well, my instructions for today are sorta like that, but better than going to jail.

GO DIRECTLY TO NOISETRADE. COLLECT RUSTON KELLY - THE BOOTLEG SESSIONS. DO NOT HESITATE OR IT WILL BE TOO LATE. THANK ME LATER.

See how I even made a little rhyme there? I am ever-so-talented.

Now, I will warn you, if you visit his website, you may find yourself frightened by his weird tank top picture, but just let it go...it's worth it.

I really enjoy his music. He has a nice voice, nothing too weird (we all know I don't like it too weird).

Ruston Kelly will be Kansas City this week. I don't know if I'll make it...I'm still a little too broke for public outings. I do love the Riot Room though. I guess we'll see what happens. Maybe I'll just stand outside.

This is a nice song:


Friday, March 1, 2013

Endangered Species List: Jon Foreman

Hmmm. I keep going back and forth on this one. This week I forgot my iPod in my car and it's cold so I didn't go back out and get it so I resorted to listening to Pandora on my phone to drown out the noises that make me homicidal during my day job duties. I always start out on my Joshua James channel; he soothes me during my especially-wicked times. Well, I found myself thumbs-upping Jon Foreman a few times that day to the extent that I said to myself "Baby D, we're going to need to blog about this". So with today being Friday and me being less-than-endowed with surplus cash, I decided to do just that.

Here's where I ran into a little problem. I searched my iTunes library for Jon Foreman, I didn't have any, but I do have some music from his side project, Fiction Family. It's...meh. Meh isn't bad, but it's meh. So I go to Wikipedia and see that Jon is part of Switchfoot. I've heard of Switchfoot but haven't explored them and probably won't.

I don't want to get into a religious debate because, well, Jesus is watching me and I'd rather not tick him off. I do, however, sometimes find myself having an issue with bands/musicians that are Christian, but don't want to say they are a Christian band, but then their music all has kind of Christian-themed undertones. I will occasionally let one past me, but for the most part it gives me the heebie jeebies a bit for my own reasons that are probably unfounded and ignorant, but they do so you can't stop me from having my own feelings. I don't tell you what to do (I only make suggestions), so you can't tell me what to do (or make suggestions). I will listen to Christian music -- I really do. I've paid to go see live performances of Christian music. I just start feeling all judgemental about people that try to pass off their Christian music as mainstream. Sorry, Jesus.

So, I listen to the Fiction Family stuff, which left me Meh and then went to sample more of his songs and still had the mehs. I'm not sure where I stand now. I do tend to kind of like his sound, so I will give it more of a try.

I guess I'd have to say I stand before you undecided on this occasion.

Rambling Around Town: Adrift in the Snow

Well, in case you haven't heard, Kansas City has been hit by a snowpocalypse or whatever name the news people settled on. All I know is we've had LOTS AND LOTS of snow. All the snow has just shut my brain down and I haven't had anything very creative to say. I'm sorry for that. I've had plenty of time at home, but I've been doing some little crafty things and staring at the walls a lot. I'll call it a snowcation, but I'll try to be better.

In case you want proof that it's snowed a lot, take a look at my pictures from our second snow. Stay cool!