Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Tom Verlaine: First solo album


Tom Verlaine became the indie myth with the first legendary LP of his Television, Marquee Moon. After their second LP the band split and he went on for a solo career started off with this homonymous album: nine songs that did not differ much from his previous band's material, yet they are a good promise for his solo career (as some people might have wondered if he had been able to be such a good songwriter without his past comrades at his side).
And for those who love The Velvet Underground I recommend to listen to Breakin' my heart (in here you will also find the Kingdom come covered by David Bowie on Scary monsters).

More about Tom Verlaine:
See The Wonder
and Oldielyrics

Tom Verlaine

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Arab Strap: Acoustic Request Show

Arab Strap just split and this is a post to remind everyone what a great band they have been, also on stage: 11 acoustic tracks from their last tour (and mind the last one...there is a peculiar ghost track hidden in there).
I really hope their future solo careers will be at this level (and for those who have't: go and listen to Malcolm Middleton's last LP, which really is one of my favourite musical work of these years).

Acoustic request show






Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Danny & Dusty: The lost weekend

Danny & Dusty were much more than the names could lead you to think: it was (on writing "team") Dream Syndicate's Steve Wynn and Green on red's Dan Stuart, plus Stuart's colleague on GOR Chris Cacavas, Long Ryders' Sid Griffin and Tom Steffen, and at last DS's drummer Dennis Duck.
The lost weekend was a collaboration of a couple days only, when all of these people met only "for the fun of it", delivering good-rocking pub songs for drunks and old timers (including a more than enjoyable version of Knockin' on heaven's door).
Many consider this some kind of a lost masterpiece (lost given the fact that it has not been re-released for a long time), and I do not completely agree with that because I still think that the Paisley Underground (the californian scene that included all the three of these musicians' bands) produced better than this (Days of wine and roses and State of our union come to mind...), but still The lost weekend does not deserve to be left in the drawer of some label forever because it is a collection of songs that many Paisley underground Fans could truly appeciate, along with Neil Young fans (I think of Ragged glory) or Dylan's (specially if you like some of his slack material).

The lost weekend


Monday, October 16, 2006

Cha VanGaalen: Skelliconnection

Chad VanGaalen is a young and talented canadian artist, involved both in painting and musicmaking. He has just released this Album -Skelliconnection- on which he played all the instruments and where he shows the many sides of his music: soft-baladeering, folk-pop (the opening Sing me to sleep), lots of 60's references (the beautiful, stunning, and yet with simple chord sequence Graveyard that reminds me of Harvest/After the gold rush-era Neil young and first Belle & Sebastian, though the lyrics are more reminiscent of Smog), indie-rock, and more (like the electronic folk of Red hot drops).
On the whole Skelliconnection is an album with a lot of naiveté (in a good way) and one that is also able to surprise you quite often with its music shifts. There are not so many out there (and this is how I have decided to uploaded, while I usually do not post brand new stuff).
...and check out the Surprise link all you West Wing fans (if there are any in here).

For more info about him:
See his Myspace page (if you want to have a taste of his songs)
or Newmusiccanada
or the Eye Weekly (there's a nice article with his bio)

Skelliconnection

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Track 11

Here is track 11 for those who could not extract it

Track 11

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Robert Wyatt: EPs

I'm not a great Robert Wyatt fan, but this collection of EPs just takes my breath away: specially the first three EPs (songs 1-14), which are loaded with wonderful cover versions, one of which is Elvis Costello's magnificent Shipbuilding, playedeven better by Wyatt, but also with a is-this-really-it?-version of Neil Diamond's I'm a believer, and then Peter Gabriel's Biko among others. The fourth EP is a whole different matter, with the eerie sounds from The Animals Film, and the fifth is a series of remixes of songs from Wyatt's Shleep album.

(And check out the surprise link because it is big fun, trust me!)

INFO:
See Robert Wyatt on Wiki.
Look in here if you are looking for his solo discography.


This is big, so it's split two parts.

Part 1
Part 2

Friday, October 06, 2006

Morrissey: You have killed me + Feist: One evening

Today a post with two cd singles: MORRISSEY's You have killed me (with 2 previously unreleased tracks) and FEIST's One evening (with a remix, a live -I think- version of Lover's spit with her and BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE, and a solo piano version of the title-track).



Link Removed