Tag Archives: music

Mellow Tracks from Stephen Malkmus, Kings of Convenience and Paul Simon

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks recently released their sixth album, “Wig Out at Jagbags” to critical acclaim. Malkmus is an indie music fixture from California, heading up the band Pavement in the 1990s and The Jicks ever since.  The new album features a broad range of sounds, including the very mellow track “J Smoov”.

The Norwegian duo, Kings of Convenience, have been releasing albums together for over a decade – though they’ve been lying low since touring in the summer of 2013. Their acoustic sound has a heavy dose of bossa nova guitar. Here is “Misread” from their second studio album “Riot on and Empty Street”. If you like this song, you won’t be disappointed with their other material. Try “Peacetime Resistance” from their third album “Declaration of Dependence”.

Rounding out this week’s mellow set is an old, lesser-known tune from a lesser-known album by Paul Simon, “Train in the Distance” from the 1983’s “Hearts and Bones”. The album came out in between “Still Crazy After All These Years” and “Graceland”, both of which won Grammy awards for Album of the Year. Thanks to Jess at pH Balanced (see our list of favorite blogs) for continuing to unearth these gems.

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Happy 65th Nick Lowe!

This week we indulge in a bit of nostalgia for a true rock hero, Nick Lowe. One of the central figures of New Wave music in the late ’70s, Lowe is a musician, singer, songwriter, producer who’s done great work for decades.

In 1979 Lowe wrote a song that became a big hit for Elvis Costello, “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding”. The track appeared on the U.S. release of Costello’s third album “Armed Forces”, one of five albums that Lowe produced for Costello. The video below includes Lowe sitting in with Costello in 1987. The lyrics are for all time.

Lowe also wrote “Cruel to Be Kind” in 1979, and it appeared on Lowe’s second album, “Labour of Lust”.  The video is apparently a reenactment of Lowe’s wedding to Carlene Cash (playing herself in the video), granddaughter of Johnny Cash.  Dave Edmunds, another icon of New Wave and bandmate of Lowe’s in Rockpile, plays the limo driver.

Fun fact: both of Lowe’s songs were among the videos played on MTV’s first day of broadcasting on August 1, 1981.

In 1987 Nick played on John Hiatt’s album “Bring the Family”, a recording that marked the beginning of the upward trajectory in Hiatt’s tremendous career. The other musicians who played on that album were guitar virtuoso and musicologist Ry Cooder, and session drummer extraordinaire Jim Keltner. That lineup came together again to release an album as “Little Village” in 1992. Here’s a performance of “Fool Who Knows” featuring Lowe on vocals.

Lowe’s latest effort, released in October 2013, was a Christmas album. His voice is clear as ever. While it’s a bit late (or early) to play Christmas music, file the thought away and just listen to a bit of this track.

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Beck’s Back with “Morning Phase”

After a nearly six-year hiatus, Beck aka Beck Hanson real name Bek David Campbell, released his 12th album “Morning Phase” a couple of weeks ago.   Loaded with melodic, acoustic tracks, it’s been receiving critical acclaim – though that’s never been in short supply for Beck.

Here is a performance of “Say Goodbye” from an appearance on The Tonight Show.  If you like it, he also performed “Waking Light”.

Pretty much every music reviewer relates the new album in style and sound to Beck’s 2002 release “Sea Change”, and apparently Beck or his record company connected the two in early press on “Morning Phase”. Decide for yourself – here’s “The Golden Age” from the earlier album.

There are reports that Beck will release yet another album later this year, but likely with a much different sound. He’s put out a few singles recently that might give an indication of what’s in store. Here’s “It Won’t be Long”, and you might also give a listen to “Gimme” to hear him stretch even further to the electronic side.

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Our Beatles Homage – “And I Love Her”

Over the past few weeks the Beatles have been celebrated and remembered as the 50th anniversaries of their Ed Sullivan Show appearance and first U.S. concerts were observed.  So, we’ve got to do our Beatles homage too!

Thanks to Dave for turning us on to this clip from the Late Show with David Letterman featuring Broken Bells covering “And I Love Her”. The ballad is from the Fab Four’s third album “A Hard Day’s Night”.  The TV set featuring Ringo Starr’s drumming is a cute idea.

But wait, that TV set may be more than just a cute idea.  I’m guessing that Danger Mouse and James Mercer saw this video as they planned their staging. It’s a clip from the movie “A Hard Day’s Night”.

This beautiful song was covered by many, many artists over the years. Here’s an interesting cover from the late jazz legend Sarah Vaughn taped in 1969. She recorded a totally different arrangement of the song on a 1981 album of Beatles covers.

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Rock & Roll from The Skins, Band of Skulls and Big Head Todd

This week we have new rock and roll from a barely known band, a Band of Skulls, and a band that released a platinum album over 20 years ago.

The Skins are a barely known band of teenagers from Brooklyn, but they were a big hit at the 2013 SXSW festival and recently toured with Brit sensation Jake Bugg. The band is composed of siblings Bayli (lead vocals), Reef (drums) and Kaya (bass) Mckeithan, and guitarists Daisy Spencer and Russell Chell. If you like the video below, check out their other YouTube tracks “Killer” and “Ocean”.

Band of Skulls’ third album “Himalayan” is due out on March 31st. The track “Nightmares” has gotten the first full video treatment from the new album, and it’s another in a long line of kinda creepy videos the band favors. But the lush vocals and guitars, and trippy arrangements are not scary at all. “Sweet Sour”, the title track from their second album, was their highest charting single so far, and “Bruises” is another great track from that album.

Big Head Todd and the Monsters scored platinum in 1993 with their third album “Sister Sweetly”, and their biggest single “Resignation Superman” was released in 1997. This year they’re back with their fourteenth album “Black Beehive”, and “Josephina” is the first release from that LP.

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