MONSTERS IN THE CLOSET

This song is by an African band that literally calls themselves “The Very Best” … no joke. However, “Warm Hearts of Africa” can be simply described as happy music. Having a shitty day? Throw this track on and things will change. Having a great day? Make it even better and play this song.

The use of samples are awesome and create a great driving melody, but the real treat is the lead vocals. Somehow it finds a middle ground between something familiar and how I imagine real African music to sound.

It’s unfortunate this song came out in October because it is the epitome of summer tunes. In my opinion, this song blasts anything M.I.A. has written out of the water. This is extremely accessible music and I have to warn that if you start playing this song, you’re bound to play it over and over at least ten times.

-Leo Showbiz

I know nothing about Built to Spill except that they’ve been around for awhile and that they’re a indie-jam band hybrid. Regardless, this song “Life’s a Dream” is spectacular. I accidently discovered this one and have been spinning it all throughout this rainy day.

The song is a mediation on the concept of solipsism. (The idea that reality is creation of your mind and that reality doesn’t exist outside your own imagination…kind of like the movie Vanilla Sky) It’s slow, extremely rhythmic and deep music. I feel like I’m floating around in a big vat of goo when I listen to this song and as the beat builds I’m slowly being put to sleep. And that’s really what this song is, a lullabye. They even reference the song “row row row your boat” …”So I Row On/Life Ain’t Nothing/But a Dream/Realistic As It seems” …

The REAL reason you listen to this song is the nasty spidery guitar solo which builds beautifully and I guarantee will have you head-bobbing.

-Leo Showbiz

Daniel Johnston is a self-destructive, mentally unstable, musical genius who came to fame in Austin, Texas. He was born and raised in West Virginia, went to college for a bit, but then moved down to Austin and started attracting attention by handing out tapes of his songs. He would actually hand all of his tapes out and forget that he had given away all his source material, so he would go back and re-record songs to make new tapes. He was also one of the first artists to perform live on MTV.

Sadly, his bipolar disorder got progressively worse as he aged and he just seems to have withered away and become a sick man who ,despite all the things holding back, is still able to write beautiful songs. Whenever I listen to the melodies of his songs I immediately think Brian Wilson (of Beach Boy fame) …the case is especially so in this song, “Living Life” except in the end of the song when he goes wild and you can’t help but think of The Beatles, “A Day in the Life.”

There is a great documentary about Daniel Johnston’s life called The Devil and Daniel Johnston which I cannot recommend enough if you have any passing interest in music.

“Living Life” is a wonderful and fantastic song that you need to listen to. Oh yeah, besides the music being incredible, he writes mind-boggling beautiful pop lyrics:

“Hold me like a mother would/Like I always knew somebody should/though tomorrow don’t look that good/Well, it just goes to show/ Though people say we’re an unlikely couple /I’m seeing double of you ”

Please put up with the soggy recording quality. If you do, I promise you’ll hear something you won’t regret dropping on your ears.

(also, he sings like Robert Johnson. Which is a peculiarity in itself)

-Leo Showbiz

Spiritualized is British alternative music right down to the bone. These space-rocketeers write the kind of music you don’t necessarily wear on your sleeve or start spinning at Frat parties. It’s the kind of jams you listen to when you’re off on your lonesome thinking about heady shit. I put this song, and Spiritualize’s music, on the same shelf space as The Verve’s “The Drugs Dont’ Work”.

Anyways, this song is called “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space,” and it’s the simplest of love songs but it’s played and sung in a grand fashion. A dude just wants a “little love to take the pain away,” and so he promises THE GIRL that he’ll always love her and then asks her to take his hand.

Blabbering aside, the reason you listen to the song is for the beautifully layered harmonies. So enjoy.

(I also love how they drop lines from Elvis’ “Can’t Help Falling in Love” in and throughout the song)

- Leo Showbiz

tuneage:

We’ve written about Caroline Smith and the Goodnight Sleeps before.  Their songs are delightful and as the video shows, they can pull it off in nearly any setting.  Since our last post they have even recorded a Daytrotter Session.

This weekend they embarked on a westward tour with shows in California, Texas, Iowa and everywhere in between.  You can check out their myspace page for the dates.  If they are coming anywhere near your town I would recommend that you go hang out with them.

This kind of just fell into my lap during my search for tunes. Caroline has a beautiful voice and the backing band plays extremely well together. To top it off, it really sounds (and looks) like they’re having a blast.

note: She starts rapping Dr. Dre’s Xplosive @ 14:20

- Leo Showbiz

Girls - All I Have To Do Is Dream (Everly Brothers cover)

This was the song that made me reregister the band Girls in my brain. I had been listening to a whole lot of early roots rock and roll. The Everly Brothers’ were in heavy rotation. And, here was this band (Girls) that was pure rock and roll playing an oldies standard. I always thought that concept was cool. Sure, you can sing and play more complicated songs…but at the end of the day it’s about making likeable and honest music. “All I Have To Do Is Dream” is that and it’s themes are something anyone can relate to.

You can dream all day about a different future or a different past. You can hope for things, and maybe they’ll come and maybe you won’t. But you only have one life, and so when you spend your time hoping and dreaming for things that might never come, you’re wasting the very thing that matters - you’re time here and now.

There’s also a real cool snake-ish solo at the 1:50 mark.

“Only trouble is, Gee Whiz, I’m dreaming my life away”

- Leo Showbiz

Girls - Laura (live) [thanks to yours tru.ly]

This is their “hit” …. I think.

It is the sweetest and most honest song about a breakup I’ve heard in awhile. It sounds like something that was made in the early 60s but then given the attitude of the late 60s.

“You’ve been a bitch/I’ve been an ass/I don’t want to point the finger/I just know I don’t like it/I don’t wanna do this”

It’s as if The Everly Brothers took a bunch of drugs, got drunk and broke up with their girlfriends, and then five months later they’re saying these words to an empty voicemail hoping to change the course of a relationship which broke down far too long ago. And all they’re hoping for is to get back to some sort of normalcy with this person you used to care the whole world about… but the tragedy is that you can never get back to those days past. Once you fall out of love, the relationship fizzles and dries and there’s nothing left but awkward moments between you and a person who has become just somebody you used to know.

- Leo Showbiz

Girls - Dreams Come True Girl (Cass McCombs cover)… here is the original

Girls are my favorite band right now. I fucking love them.

“Girls frontman Christopher Owens grew up in the Children of God cult. His older brother died as a baby because the cult didn’t believe in medical attention. His dad left. He and his mother lived around the world, and the cult sometimes forced his mother to prostitute herself. As a teenager, Owens fled and lived as a Texas gutter-punk for a while. Then a local millionaire took Owens under his wing, and Owens moved to San Francisco. There, he and Chet “JR” White formed Girls, and recordedAlbum, their debut album, under the influence of just about every kind of pill they could find.”

- Pitchfork’s review of their album “Album”

<3,

Leo Showbiz

Paul Mawhinney was born and raised in Pittsburg, PA. As a traveling salesman for a paper company, he began to collect records. Now, he is the owner of the largest record collection in the world. After a study done by the Library of Congress, they came to the conclusion that only 13% of his collection is available for purchase in any form anywhere. Meaning, 87% of the music on his shelves can’t be bought for any price. Currently, his collection is estimated at $55 million, but because of a slouching music industry he has an asking price of $3 million. It’s a sad story, but an awesome video.

-Leo Showbiz

This song is by HEALTH and it’s called DieSlow.

I imagine this is the song you listen to when you fight/kill 12+ vampires.

(I know it’s nuts, give it 20 seconds)

- Leo Showbiz