Another week, another post from me spotlighting my three current favorite songs. Let’s make this a LIVE EDITION just for the hell of it, yeah?
First up is Haim, recent winners of the BBC’s Sound of 2013 music industry poll . Performing new track “Falling,” the band is a joy to watch as they let loose with their throaty vocals and R&B-tinged grooves. I saw them play at Mumford & Sons‘ mini-festival in Portland last summer and they’re all kinds of awesome.
English rock band Foals just released their third album a week or two back and I’ve essentially had it on repeat ever since. “Last Night” is a particular highlight that builds into an epic climax and is totes worth the listen. Tickets for their show at House of Blues in May just went on sale and it’s performances like this one that have me already counting down the days for it.
Lady Lamb the Beekeeper sure sounds like a bizarre name for a single singer-songwriter to go by, but please don’t let it distract you from her brilliance. Her soon-to-be-released album is ridiculously emotional and it’s performances like the one above of my personal favorite, “Bird Balloons,” that make it clear she’s going to be having an enormously successful 2013.
That’s it for this week. Enjoy the rest of the day off and keep on jamming!
I know, I know; you’re stressed. You had four papers due this week and eleven midterms and sixty-two chemistry problem sets and then your car caught on fire and you broke your leg after you tripped over your shoelaces (even though you were wearing flip-flops), and life just sucks.
But given the option, which would you prefer: to wallow in pre-finals self pity, or to feel as happy, relaxed, and without-worry as a cat anesthetized with ketamine? I think the answer is pretty obvious.
With finals just around the corner, it can be extremely easy to get yourself caught up in the hype and forget that no matter what, you’re still going to be well and breathing in about two weeks from now. Get those teeth away from the bloody little nubs that used to be your fingernails and just try to remember that everything will be alright!
In order to try to calm some of those poor suffering nerves of yours, here is a playlist of 15 songs meant to soothe the soul with sunshine. These tunes always boost my mood, and hopefully they can give you some relief, as well!
It’s like finally being able to breathe after blowing your nose. Handing in the diesel essay you’ve been sweating over for the last week. Kicking your thirty-five year old Beanie-Baby selling offspring out of the basement once and for all. Or, for me this week, releasing my band’s EP.
Hi everyone. I’m Jesse and I’m new to BU Central this semester. Music is my passion and my hobby, so there’s no better place for me than Underground. I play drums in a rock’n roll band called MILK. The guitarist and I happened to room next to one another in Warren freshman year. I heard him playing through the wall, and that was that. Since, we added Sam Taber on keys (when he transferred from Emerson sophomore year — good call) and Luke Savoca (music director of the Dear Abbeys acappella — what a multi-talented dude) on bass. You can catch us playing around Cambridge or Allston most weekends.
It’s my great pleasure to share with you all our debut EP, titled HUBBA HUBBA, after many many hours of hard work putting it together. Download the digital copy and listen on the bus. Tell your friends. Grab a shirt. You know what they say about a glass a day…
Come by BU Central any time to find out about this, and other new music. We love to talk to you and hear what bands you’d like to see perform here next semester. Until then here’s your homework —- go write a song of your own, if you don’t do that already. It’s good for you.
Since coming to Boston University, I’ve been focused on school work and not much of anything else. And by school work, I mean Netflix. So, I had a few movies I knew I wanted to watch over the break since I would have more time to focus, relax, and enjoy. One of the first movies I watched (which actually came from Redbox, which is a thing I guess,) was Safety Not Guaranteed. This indie flick was actually… pretty great. Sure, there were audio deficiencies in some places and the cinematography wasn’t perfect, but the actors Mark Duplass (The League, Hump Day) and Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation) had real character. Anyway, this post isn’t about a movie review. While it was good (and you should go see it,) the main point is that I discovered Mark Duplass’ music talent. The first song I heard was directly from the movie.
Big Machine by Mark Duplass He calls it a zither, but it is actually a dulcimer. I want a dulcimer.
Pretty great, right? He has too great of a voice to be wasted! He must have other projects. Well, yes, he does. He has a solo project. It is awesome. But what else? Oh, a band? Yes, a band. Volcano, I’m Still Excited!! is the name and awesome music is the game. While the band is not extinct, they are on a break due to Mark hurting his voice on tour. But hey, Craig Montoro, the guitarist, plays for Sufjan Stevens, so that’s something.
My description sucks. Here is one that doesn’t:
Through the use of a keyboard, a guitar, and a double bass drum (but no bass), the three members of Volcano, I’m Still Excited!! deftly compose unconventional, yet catchy pop songs–throw in a dash of Elvis Costello, Jonathon Richman, and a mix of Spoon and you’ll begin to get the idea. Their must-see live performances include songs in rounds, sweatbands, aerobic workouts, and any other impromptu device that further draws the crowd into their performances. And the name? Some say it’s a tribute to Tom Hanks’ Joe Versus the Volcano, others say it’s some sort of bizarre mantra/rallying cry, others say it’s a merely a random stream of consciousness phrase. Either way, Volcano, I’m Still Excited!!’s style is all their own and their rise to existence is as unusual as their non-sequitur name.
Enjoy the soothing sounds of Mark Duplass and the band Volcano, I’m Still Excited!!.
So I was reading Ayolah’s post about Perks of Being a Wallflower (and I totally agree, by the way. Like she said, it was fucking amazing!), and it inspired me to write a post about one of my favorite movies/movie soundtracks–Pirate Radio (aka The Boat That Rocked).
Quick history lesson:
In the 1960s, the United Kingdom’s radio, BBC Radio, did not play pop or rock music which resulted in many pirate radio stations. Pirate radio stations were ships anchored in international waters broadcasting music to the United Kingdom.
So, as you can probably guess, Pirate Radio is about a pirate radio station struggling against the British government, and so much of the music featured in the movie is rock and pop music from the 1960s. The soundtrack includes music by the Kinks, the Beach Boys, the Who, the Supremes, and more. If you enjoy the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Dusty Springfield, and lots of other artists from the 1960s, then you’ll really enjoy this soundtrack. Aside from the music, the movie is so fantastic and funny and entertaining and you should definitely see it if you haven’t already!
Below are a few of my favorites from the movie, along with the rest of the soundtrack.
GROUPLOVE has one of the strangest stories I have researched. They are an indie rock band that formed in 2010 within the five friends. Where did they meet? Oh, I don’t know… Crete. Crete, as in Greece, as in not even here. On a commune. They met on a commune and made music. What?
But the point of this post isn’t meant to single out GROUPLOVE for their strange upbringing, but explain to you, the reader, that you have definitely heard their music at least once. For example…
Oh.
That’s the song, right there.
Ryan Rabin, drummer and producer for GROUPLOVE, was interviewed on the subject of songwriting.
Every song is different. There’s no set method of how we do it, and we try to change it every time because we never want one song to be too similar sounding to another. Hopefully you hear that on the EP, and you hear a difference between the songs, not necessarily in genre but in overall vibe.
I can give you an example. “Naked Kids“ was something that Hannah and Christian had just been messing around with, almost in a jokey vibe. It’s a very tongue-in-cheek song. And then from messing around with those fun lyrics, they brought it to the rest of us. When we were making the EP we were like, this is a really fun song, it’s super summer-y, let’s try to make it into a full song. So we took their original idea and as a group took it from there and developed it in the studio. A song like “Colours,” Christian wrote the base of that song quite a while ago and just had it in his back pocket. We heard that and we just said “Let’s build on that.” A lot of times it will be a song from someone’s past that gets brought to the band and evolves from there, and other times it will be just something we’re jamming on as a band in practice, just messing around with chords or a drum beat. Overall every song is a group effort, but where it comes from varies.
Like GROUPLOVE? Check out their website or go see them live at the Royale on November 3rd. Listen to their music and say it isn’t interesting. Or don’t. I can’t really make you do anything. Have a happy week and I will be back next week with someone brand new.
That might have been the saddest thing I read when I first got into Dear and the Headlights. The music is so great, the lyrics are crafted beautifully, the songs harmonize and resonate like an orchestra… and they were a band. They broke up in July of 2011 because what their music had become wasn’t what they started with. They were friends who decided to make a band, got it big, and went sour from within (even though their product was oh-so-sweet.) Oh, well. I could go on about what a tragedy it is, but that isn’t the point of this post. This band is another one of those You Gotta Know musicians in my repertoire.
Saintly Rows (Oh Oh)
Paranoia posed in saintly rows outside my windows
Cacophonous caws, bacterial ponds flap
Pavement moans
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Caustic alarmed cavernous psalms
They swing from your lips then tie your tongue up like you asked them to
Out come the gaunt ghosts of your thoughts
They’re shrieking in prose and breathing rhymelessness archaic gloom
Cover your mouth, sound trickles down and drips from your chin
Drooling vibrations in an empty room
There just pull your eyelids down they’re begging for your sleep
Find yourself in white stairwell a trembling voice now speaks
Whirring back and forth from firework to figure eight
Now your trembling hands don’t seem so hard to make behave
Paranoia posed in saintly rows outside my windows
Single filed piled while flashing smiles network imposed
Dumbstruck and shoved oxygen snuffed then beg for embrace
Passion like cancer has a wandering eye
Caskets for hands bury your plans right next to your songs
When t-shirt vending is how you spend your time
Out come the gaunt ghosts of your thoughts
They’re shrieking in prose and breathing rhymelessness archaic gloom
Cover your mouth, sound trickles down and drips from your chin
Drooling vibrations in an empty room
There, just pull your eyelids down they’re begging for some sleep
Find yourself in white stairwell a trembling voice now speaks
Whirring back and forth from firework to figure eight
Now your trembling hands don’t seem so hard to make behave
I hate to run without saying anything more about Dear and the Headlights, but unfortunately they do not tour, they have barely any stock left in their merch store online, and they only have a couple videos online. This is sadly the story of an amazing band cut short, but hopefully you can enjoy their music now as they would have wanted.
Next week, I’ll be reviewing Grouplove, the indie band that isn’t that indie since you know their music from the radio but they still don’t sell out concerts.
Last Saturday some of Boston’s finest local bands threw down in the final round of our Battle of the Bands series and out emerged Frank & Dependent as this year’s victor. The band has been steadily on the rise on the BU scene over the past few months, so it’s about time all y’all got acquainted with the folk-rock ensemble.
Frank & Dependent, with its fluctuating slate of 8-ish members who play a wide array of instruments, deservedly took the competition when the crowd deemed them the official winner of the night. Enjoy the video below of them performing a particular favorite of mine, “Kelly Combs”.
Be sure to like the band’s Facebook page by clicking here or downloading some of their awesome free music off their Bandcamp page by clicking here
Let me get straight to the point. I only sort of discovered Imagine Dragons two days ago, but they’re all I’ve been listening to since. SO GOOD.
This Vegas indie rock band practically brought me to tears when I first heard their instant classic, “It’s Time.” Check out an incredible performance it below.
If you didn’t enjoy that impossibly epic song, you probably have no soul. Here’s another great new song, “Radioactive,” off their new Continued Silence EP.
Hope y’all are spending time planning out awesome spring breaks. I’ll be volunteering in Mississippi for ASB. Enjoy the time off!
If any of y’all have chilled in BU Central while I’ve been on shift, chances are you’ve heard Geographer before.
The band has described their sound as “soulful music from outer space” and that certainly isn’t far from the truth. The use of synthesizers and cello in addition to standard band instruments gives them a distinct place within the Indie Rock genre, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they totally blow up in 2012. The fact that two band members are Berklee graduates is just the cherry on top of their immaculately-produced tracks. Standout songs “Kites” and “Verona” from 2010′s Animal Shapes EP are posted below.
Geographer will soon be touring with labelmates Miniature Tigers and The Chain Gang of 1974 when they hit up Brighton Music Hall on March 24th. Tickets can be bought , but I know I’ll just pick mine up at the Paradise Rock Club box office any day now and skip the service fees. I’ve been pretty obsessed with the band for several months now, so I’m hella excited for this ish.
