largehearted boy: a music and literature blog

July 23, 2008

Why Obama, by Alina Simone

Why Obama is a series of guest essays by musicians and authors, where they share their support for Democratic United States presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama and offer arguments why we need him elected.

Alina Simone is a singer-songwriter living in Brooklyn. Her latest album, Everyone Is Crying Out to Me, Beware, is a collection of covers of Russian singer Yanka Dyagileva, and is out August 5th.

In her own words, here is Alina Simone's Why Obama essay :

I liked Obama. I voted for him in the North Carolina primary just before moving to Brooklyn. But I didn’t get really excited about him until he started “flip-flopping.”

Stephen Colbert, in his hilarious, dead-on indictment of George W. Bush at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, said, “When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday -- no matter what happened Tuesday.” Eight years have proved that the stubborn ability to ‘stay the course,’ in the face of compelling and contrary factual evidence, is not actually any kind of virtue. I want a president who will consider what happened on Tuesday when deciding whether to go to war on Wednesday. Especially if no weapons of mass destruction were found on Tuesday. So when Obama said he was considering changing the Iraq troop withdrawal timeline he had originally suggested because of recent changes in what is sure to remain an extremely unpredictable and volatile situation, I thought that made sense. If, in 2009, sticking to THAT exact 16-month withdrawal plan is simply not safe or feasible, and ultimately leads to a far larger number of dead and wounded, who among us will be happy that at least Obama ‘stayed the course’ he outlined during the primary fight? Not me.

Some Democrats were disappointed when Obama reversed his decision to accept public campaign financing. I wasn’t. Maybe it would have been more gentlemanly of Obama to forgo what is predicted to be a substantial financial advantage over McCain going into the race, and stick to his original plan. I’m glad he decided not to be gentlemanly, but instead decided to win. Al Gore already served as that sacrificial lamb, offering the ultimate noble and sportsmanlike finish to the 2000 election, bowing out with a rousing speech and sparing the country a nasty and protracted battle over chads. The warm glow of Gore’s eloquent departure lasted, tops, about nine seconds before the reality of a Bush presidency set in. I wish mightily he hadn’t of been so fair and balanced; I am positive that Hillary would never have gone away so quietly, and now I am happy to see some proof that Obama is in it to win it too.

Let me diverge for a sec and get a little wonky here. Behind the strong ideological ‘axis of evil’ justifications for the war in Iraq, and despite the sad headshaking on the part of Republicans over the necessity of running up the largest deficit (in absolute terms) in history, there is another motive here. The Republicans, through a combination of tax cuts and war spending, are driving up the deficit in order to curb future government spending and ultimately reduce and retire existing ‘entitlement’ programs like social security. This isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s a well-known conservative economic policy best articulated by David Stockman, the head of Ronald Reagan’s OMB, as ‘starving the beast.’ In other words, the Republicans are extending a war most Americans don’t want in order to drain the hope and resources for health, education and welfare programs most Americans do want. It’s a grim and amoral and irresponsible policy, and it’s been our reality for almost eight years now. I find less and less nuance in the situation each day, fewer shades of gray and not much to quibble about. So some may fault Obama for changing his mind for matters of political expediency, shifting the weight of the policy pendulum from the caucus-voting liberals to the undecided middle-Americans. But in this election, political expediency, for better or worse, is just as weighty a fact to consider as all the others because, in policy terms, we are facing a zero sum game. I believe Obama is the candidate who can end this war, curb our deficit and start investing in programs that address the most heartbreaking gaps in our social welfare programs. He has proven that he is smart and articulate, and now he is proving that he is a savvy, bare-knuckled fighter. And that is exactly the kind of Democratic candidate America needs now.

Alina Simone links:

Alina Simone's homepage
Alina Simone's MySpace page
Alina Simone's MOG page
Alina Simone's Largehearted Boy interview with Eugene Mirman
Alina Simone's Largehearted Boy Note Books essay

Barack Obama links:

Barack Obama presidential campaign website

also at Largehearted Boy:

other Why Obama essays
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews

tags: politics music obama barackobama

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July 23, 2008

Shorties

Pitchfork reviews Alina Simone's Yanka Dyagileva covers album, Everyone Is Crying Out to Me, Beware.

Yanka's music never got wide distribution, and, sung entirely in Russian, the meaning of her songs (if not the emotions) won't necessarily reach non-Russian speakers. Alina Simone does stick to Russian when singing Yanka, but at the same time she's made it easier for curious outsiders to enter Yanka's world. At the very least, Yanka's spare, rough-hewn songs are fleshed out with the evocative addition of trumpet, strings, slide guitar, and other favorable chamber embellishments.

The Bainbridge Review profiles Jonathan Evison, author of the debut novel, All About Lulu.

Bainbridge, with its present affluence and urbane sheen, is an interesting place for Evison to have grown up. His family moved here from the San Francisco Bay Area in 1976, and he knew he wanted to live a literary life after finishing Kurt Vonnegut’s “Breakfast of Champions,” a gift from his father at the age of eight – yes, eight.

The Times-Picayune reviews five new books on the fundamentals of reading.

The Nashville Scene interviews Murry Hammond of the Old 97s.

Scene: In terms of your personal songwriting process, do you usually come into the studio already with songs completely written?

MH:Rhett and I do it the same way. We go in with completed songs and the band really does the surgery if there is any surgery to be done. Basically Rhett and I have the finished ideas done. Occasionally I might get inside one of Rhett’s songs and redo something about it—redo the middle or something. “My Two Feet” was one of those. It was already something that Rhett and I had written together, but the middle part needed help and I was able to do that in the studio. For some reason, Rhett is a little more able to let me inside his stuff to rework things than I am able to let him inside my stuff. Maybe it’s because I am only bringing three or four songs to a recording project and he will bring 20. Maybe the stakes aren’t as high, or maybe they’re much higher with me. I just feel, “No, no, no don’t touch it. It’s perfect.”

Tor.com lists free and legal downloadable science fiction and fantasy e-books.

Ploomy lists 10 music sites not owned by Viacom or big business.

ReadWriteWeb lists three online mixtape services that are "remaking the art form."

Sleevage is a blog devoted to album artwork.

Blurbex lists the best superhero movies.

NPR lists 5 songs for a heavy metal road trip.

UWeekly interviews Alina Simone.

UW: You've been getting a lot of attention this year for the Dyagileva album. How has that been?

It just, really in the past couple weeks, really picked up. So it's definitely super strange for me because I'm used to being a really under-the-radar, sleepy little indie rocker. It's been great because I'm really passionate about this music and I'm really excited that it's been getting exposure, not just my covers but Yanka's original music. It's been a little hard with my job because I've had to beg for a lot more time off than I used to.

The Independent lists the opening odds for the Mercury Music Prize (Radiohead and the Last Shadow Puppets are co-leaders at 5-1).

Metromix Detroit interviews singer/actress Zooey Deschanel.

What are the most impassioned responses you’ve had from fans?

It’s hard to think of myself that way. I’m kind of a regular girl. I don’t know. Sometimes people have made me mix CDs. I’m always really excited when I get a mix CD, so I’m like, “Keep ‘em coming, guys!”

A British Olympic boxer shares his inspirational music with the Telegraph.

The Muskogee Phoenix offers recipes taken from Haruki Murakami's novel, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.

BookMovement lists the top book club selections every week.

Minnesota Public Radio's The Current features the Hold Steady with an in-studio performance and interview.

Drowned in Sound interviews Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn.

DiS: Do you think that you’re a throwback to a touring era then, before bands were launched with MySpace and viral marketing and YouTube campaigns?

CF: We’re a little older than most bands. We’re from an era where this kind of touring, this kind of release schedule, was commonplace. If you look at guys like Husker Du, they did an album a year, and toured constantly. Those are the bands who we, as an organisation, want to be.

also at Largehearted Boy:

daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
this week's CD releases

tags: music books popculture indie news

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Daily Downloads (Calexico, Jeff Hanson, and more)

Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:

Black Angels: 2008-07-04, Asheville [mp3,ogg,flac]
"You in Color" [mp3]
other Black Angels posts at Largehearted Boy

Calexico: "Two Silver Trees" [mp3] from Carried to Dust (out September 9th)
other Calexico posts at Largehearted Boy

Jeff Hanson: "If I Only Knew" [mp3] from Madam Owl (out August 19th)
other Jeff Hanson posts at Largehearted Boy

Mike Doughty: 2008-07-19, Baltimore [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Tremendous Brunettes" [mp3]
other Mike Doughty posts at Largehearted Boy

Mission of Burma: 2008-07-19, Detroit [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Max Ernst" [mp3]
other Mission of Burma posts at Largehearted Boy

The Morning Benders: free and legal Bedroom Covers album [mp3]
"I Won't Share You (Smiths cover)" [mp3]
other Morning Benders posts at Largehearted Boy

Pataphysics: several tracks [mp3]
Pataphysics: "Jesus, Grow a Handlebar Mustache for Me (live at KVRX)" [mp3]
other Pataphysics posts at Largehearted Boy

The Physics of Meaning: "Aeroplanes and Hurricanes" [mp3] from Snake Charmer and Destiny at the Stroke of Midnight (out September 16th)
other Physics of Meaning posts at Largehearted Boy

Spoon: 2008-07-15, Brooklyn [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Rocks Off (Rolling Stones cover)" [mp3]
other Spoon posts at Largehearted Boy

Ween: 2008-07-16, San Francisco [mp3,ogg,flac]
"Light Me Up" [mp3]
other Ween posts at Largehearted Boy

Today's free and legal recordings of live shows, rarities, and demos available via bittorrent:

Babyshambles: 2008-07-17, Carhaix [flac]*
other Babyshambles posts at Largehearted Boy

Bob Dylan: 2008-06-10, Vienna [pal dvd]*
other Bob Dylan posts at Largehearted Boy

Fleet Foxes: 2008-07-19, Chicago (Pitchfork festival) [flac]*
other Fleet Foxes posts at Largehearted Boy

Kaki King: 2008-07-20, Universal City [flac]*
other Kaki King posts at Largehearted Boy

Mike Doughty: 2008-07-19, Baltimore [flac]*
other Mike Doughty posts at Largehearted Boy

Raconteurs: 2008-07-18, Angouleme [flac]*
other Raconteurs posts at Largehearted Boy

Radiohead: 2008-07-08, Berlin [flac]*
other Radiohead posts at Largehearted Boy

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings: 2008-07-20, Hollywood [flac]*
other Sharon Jones posts at Largehearted Boy

Spoon: 2008-07-20, Chicago (Pitchfork festival) [flac]*
other Spoon posts at Largehearted Boy

Tammy and the Amps: 1995-07-01, Hoboken [flac]*
other Amps posts at Largehearted Boy

*registration required

also at Largehearted Boy:

previous mp3 and bittorrent downloads

2008 Bonnaroo downloads
2008 Coachella music downloads
2008 SXSW music downloads and streams
2007 Austin City Limits Music Festival downloads
2007 Lollapalooza downloads
other music festival downloads

Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and album streams from weekly CD releases)
weekly CD release lists

tags: music download indie mp3 bittorrent

Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)

July 22, 2008

Book Notes - Jonathan Evison ("All About Lulu")

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that is in some way relevant to their recently published books.

When it comes to literary fiction, I can always depend on Soft Skull to publish books I will enjoy. Earlier this year I received a box of books from Soft Skull, immediately dug into the fiction, and picked up Jonathan Evison's coming-of-age novel All About Lulu.

All About Lulu is an impressive debut novel, the moving story of a vegetarian, skinny boy in a family of bodybuilders who loses his mother and develops an obsession with his stepsister. Even the ancillary characters are well-written, and Evison shares surprises along the way in an incredibly satisfying read that seems way too short.

Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:

"Evison provides readers a viciously funny and deeply felt portrayal of a blended family and one man's thwarted longing."

Jonathan Evison kicks off his book tour in Seattle tonight at the Elliott Bay Book Company.

In his own words, here is Jonathan Evison's Book Notes essay for his novel, All About Lulu:

I’m a weeper—there, I’ve said it. And it’s safe to say that nothing makes me weep more frequently, more effusively, and more gratefully than the volatile combination of music and beer. A lot of beer. I like to get real dumb and listen to music in my headphones under the stars, and have a nice weep—I find it regenerative. I also find that the process somehow informs my writing, though I’d be hard pressed to articulate exactly how, which I think is sort of the point. There’s something to be said for crippling one’s language centers with eight or nine beers and letting the world wash over you. I find the condition to be sorta’ womb-like. For all the sluggish meanderings of my mind, there is a lucidity to my world view when I’m in this prone, inebriated state listening at full volume to Steve Earle or Count Basie or Patsy Cline or Shuggie Otis. Perhaps, it is music’s intuitive approach to rushing at the unseen, and getting at the heart of the matter with chill-inducing precision. Whatever that means. The beer helps.

Like its protagonist, at its center, All About Lulu has a bruised heart and wants to be loved, thus many of the songs which have informed, inspired, or otherwise seem to jibe with the tone, content, or spirit of the novel, express a sad or wistful quality, which I can’t seem to elude, and don’t really care to. I’m determined to keep weeping.

Doctor My Eyes – Jackson Brown

What makes this song apropos to All About Lulu in my mind, is a certain white-haired boy quality to the lyrics, which express genuine disillusion and despair without expressing bitterness, as one who has been injured unwittingly, and is determined to make sense of his injury. Yet, beneath these despairing qualities, there is something ambiguously hopeful about this song with its upbeat rhythm, a sense that the heart will soldier on in spite of it all. That’s kinda’ how I feel about Will’s narrative voice.

The Adolescents – Kids of the Black Hole

Aside from being synonymous (for me) with Los Angeles in the early 80s, this anthem of teen angst possesses all the velocity of adolescence; all the angsty, restless yearning of teenagedom so desperately wanting voice. There’s something so urgent about it all. This velocity and urgency of heart are two qualities I was really aiming for with All About Lulu.

Detroit Cobras – Hot Dog

Given that the hot dog is awarded nearly sacrosanct significance in All About Lulu—indeed, it is deemed transcendent by Will’s mentor-turned-protégé Gerard—this one was a no-brainer. As Eugene Gobernecki might say: this song “is pledge of allegiance for Hot Dog Heaven.”

Summersong – The Decemberists

The infectious, spiraling chord progression of this song just speaks to me of Will and Lulu kissing in the pampas grass in high summer. This song makes me feel like I’m in love, and my heart is unsullied.

Someone Saved My Life Tonight – Elton John

It was impossible to avoid the music of Elton John in mid-70s California, and I’m guessing just about anywhere else. There is something particularly poignant to me about this song. But I gotta’ say, Bernie Taupin wrote some weird fucking lyrics. His inexplicable reference to sugar bear in this song, makes me think of a box of Super Sugar Crisp, which is pure, unmitigated nostalgia for this 70s survivor.

The Eels – World of Shit

This woeful self-indulgence lament, with its disaffected drama, reminds me of Lulu in her later adolescence.

These Days – Nico

Funny, that in essence, Jackson Brown should make this list twice, being that he wrote These Days, which Nico wields with her signature antiseptic approach (from a great distance), yet still cannot belie the tenderness at the song’s core. I think of Nico’s tonal distance as being something akin to Will’s sarcasm, a defense mechanism.

Paradise City – Guns n’ Roses

I quite simply can’t conceive of L.A. in the late 80s without thinking about Guns n’ Roses. In one of his many incarnations Ross (going by Alistair at the time), discovers Guns n’ Roses “just as the rest of America’s Appetite for Destruction was beginning to wane.”

In California – Neko Case

This song has a haunting, sad, homesick quality which makes me think of Will driving around endlessly in the L.A. basin at night searching for he knows not what. The song’s fundamental tension lies between what is and what could be, which is also the fulcrum of William’s despair, and everybody else’s, too, I suppose.

Jonathan Evison and All About Lulu links:

the author's website
the book's page at the publisher
excerpt from the book
excerpt from the book

Joshua Ferris review
Powell's Books review
San Francisco Chronicle review
Seattle Times review

The Inside Cover interview with the author
KUOW Sound Focus interview with the author
L Magazine review
The Nervous Breakdown interview with the author
Powell's Books blog posts by the author
Publishers Weekly review of the book
Three Guys One Book interview with the author
Writers Read post by the author

also at Largehearted Boy:

Previous Book Notes submissions (authors create playlists for their book)
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
guest book reviews
musician/author interviews
directors and actors discuss their film's soundtracks
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2008 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2007 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2006 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2005 Edition)
52 Books, 52 Weeks (2004 Edition)

tags: books music literature fiction

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Try It Before You Buy It (July 22nd Music Releases)

Try It Before You Buy It features free and legal music downloads and full album streams from the week's music releases.

MP3 downloads and full album streams from music released this week:

Benji Hughes: A Love Extreme
full album stream
"You Stood Me Up" [mp3]
"Why Do These Parties Always End Up the Same Way?" [mp3]
"The Mummy" [mp3]
"I Went with Some Friends to See the Flaming Lips" [mp3]

Black Kids: Partie Traumatic
full album stream

Black Sabbath: The Rules of Hell (box set)
full album stream

Bodies of Water: A Certain Feeling
"Under the Pines" [mp3]

CSS: Donkey
full album stream
"Rat Is Dead" [mp3]

Danny Tenaglia: Futurism
full album stream

David Bowie: Live in Santa Monica '72
full album stream

Dr. Dog: Fate
full album stream
"The Old Days" [mp3]
"The Ark" [mp3]

Forward, Russia!: Life Processes
full album stream

Individuals: Fields/Aqua Marine
full album stream

Lackthereof: Your Anchor
"Last November" [mp3]

Loved: Everything, Anything, Nothing
"Lydia/Spinning" [mp3]

Pacific!: Reveries
full album stream
"Sunset Blvd (remix)" [mp3]
"Runway to Elsewhere (Breakbot remix)" [mp3]
"Hot Lips" [mp3]

PAS/CAL: I Was Raised on Matthew, Mark, Luke & Laura
"You Were Too Old for Me" [mp3]
"Glorious Ballad of the Ignored" [mp3]

Paul Weller: 22 Dreams
full album stream

Windmill: Puddle City Racing Lights
"Tokyo Moon" [mp3]

also at Largehearted Boy:

previous Try It Before You Buy It lists
CD & DVD release lists

tags: music cd list indie album releases mp3 download

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Shorties

Paul Westerberg has a 43 minute mp3 featuring new music for sale at Amazon, "49:00," for only 49 cents. (via)

Billboard offers background for the release.

The Guardian reports that the finalists for Britain's 2008 Mercury Prize have been named.

The nominated albums:

Adele - 19
British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
Burial - Untrue
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Estelle - Shine
The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement
Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim
Neon Neon - Stainless Style
Portico Quartet - Knee-Deep In The North Sea
Robert Plant And Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Rachel Unthank And The Winterset - The Bairns

Popmatters interviews Tori Amos.

Fortunately, you’re exploring other things, visually as well as sonically. I want to ask about Comic Book Tattoo, which is different artists interpreting your work visually, including a lot of women artists in there, which I find wonderful. I was wondering if there were any stories in there that made you see your own songs differently.

A lot of them have. When I was sent the storyboards, some of them, the way that they were reading, I kind of cocked my head and said “I wonder how this is going to play out.” However, Rantz [Hoseley] and I discussed the concept and I was not going to interfere. I thought it was really important that the writers and the artists were not going have any kind of middling witness because this can’t be about what the songs are about from my perspective as I know them. They live on in their own way. They’ve spoken how they feel about themselves just by existing sonically. And then anybody and everybody has [their own] right to an interpretation of it. I felt that what was important about this is that it be allowed to take a turn that might be completely the furthest thing from the song’s intention when it was written. I had to allow that to happen.

USA Today excerpts from Marie Brenner's memoir, Apples and Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found.

The Guardian's books blog calls for renewed interest in the work of Bernard Malamud.

Richard Yates's literary resurrection came through writers' recommendations and a pretty good biography. The image of him drinking himself half to death, still smoking while carrying an oxygen tank around with him, is perhaps the one that we like to see of our hard-living writers. Malamud was never so ostentatious - and neither were his characters. It's this lack of show, this subtlety which marks him apart from Bellow and Roth, the writers he should be considered alongside. Their bombast, their fiery prose and brimming sentences, shout importance, whereas Malamud's whisper, patiently and intently.

The A.V. Club interviews singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton about music and videogames.

AVC: You release your work under a Creative Commons license—freeing people to make their own music videos using clips from World Of Warcraft or other games. More than a few of these get millions of hits.

JC: It's another thing that's been instrumental in getting my word out to people. I understand that the Creative Commons license is a sort of counter-intuitive thing. How can you let just anybody use your music for anything like that? It's true, some of those homemade videos have been viewed millions of times. You can't buy that kind of exposure. I mean, you can buy that kind of exposure, but it's very expensive. For me, that kind of exposure cost me zero dollars.

Forbes profiles Elle Newmark, whose web savvy enabled her to go from self-published author to a rumored seven-figure advance for her novel in less than a year.

In Newmark's case, she spent less than $10,000 of her own money to "bootstrap" her self-publishing effort, she found customers online, and then she recruited William Morris agent Dorian Karchmar as her "investment banker," who then got her Simon & Schuster as a "venture investor." Newmark's deal with Simon & Schuster is widely rumored to include a seven-figure advance.

Favtape.com creates and shares an instant mixtape based on your last.fm loved songs or Pandora bookmarked songs.

Indie Music Tech interviews C.C. Chapman, co-founder of the PR firm Advance Guard), about indie music marketing.

Spinner is interviewing artists who contributed stories (inspired by Tori Amos Songs) to the graphic novel Comic Book Tattoo.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution remembers Joel Chandler Harris on the centenary of the Uncle Remus author's death.

Publishers Weekly reports that the Los Angeles Times will cease to publish its standalone books section at the end of the month. LA Observed prints a response from the newspaper's book editors.

Boston's Phoenix is keeping track of 2008 summer music festival casualties.

BBC Radio 1 interviews Dandy Warhols frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor about the band's innovative subscription plan.

Variety attempts to explain the ongoing popularity of ABBA.

A theory I have had for a while gets reinforced anytime I see the band's videos. Abba represents a heavenly place. This is milky white music sung by milky white performers in video settings that alternate between extremes, night and day, cold and heat, etc. It is nonthreatening and elusive; the beats are like no other disco-era tunes, the vocals impossible to duplicate. Robotic and humorless, too, but that lack of emotion was a harbinger of dance music; emotion-riddled music was for the confessional singer-songwriters so popular in the early 1970s, and Abba was able to slightly assimilate some of that sensibility in their early years.

The Los Angeles Times, the A.V. Club, New York Sun, and Gapers Block review last weekend's Pitchfork Music Festival.

The Atlantic's annual fiction issue is online, and features new short fiction by Cristina Henriquez, Mark Fabiano, and much more.

The Daily Cross Hatch interviews legendary cartoonist Jules Feiffer.

IGN offers a "sonic FAQ" to the videogame Rock Band 2.

WDUQ lists five songs for a summer grill.

also at Largehearted Boy:

daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
this week's CD releases

tags: music books popculture indie news

Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)

Daily Downloads (Airborne Toxic Event, Dreadful Yawns, and more)

Today's free and legal mp3 downloads:

The Airborne Toxic Event: "Sometime Around Midnight" [mp3] from The Airborne Toxic Event (out August 5th)
other Airborne Toxic Event posts at Largehearted Boy

Dave Marsh: "Backstreets Thread" [mp3] from The True Love Rules (out July 29th)
Dave Marsh: "I Know Nothing Anymore" [mp3] from The True Love Rules (out July 29th)
other Dave Marsh posts at Largehearted Boy

Dreadful Yawns: "Kill Me Now" [mp3] from Take Shape
Dreadful Yawns: "Expecting Rain" [mp3] from Take Shape
Dreadful Yawns: "You've Been Recorded" [mp3] from Rest
Dreadful Yawns: "November Nights" [mp3] from Rest
other Dreadful Yawns posts at Largehearted Boy

Faunts: "M4 (Part II)" [mp3] from M4 EP
other Faunts posts at Largehearted Boy

Fight Bite: "Widow's Peak" [mp3] from Emerald Eyes (out October 28th)
other Fight Bite posts at Largehearted Boy

Linfinity: free and legal Songs of the Weeping Willow EP [mp3]
other Linfinity posts at Largehearted Boy

Today's free and legal recordings of live shows, rarities, and demos available via bittorrent:

Bruce Springsteen: 2008-07-20, Barcelona [flac]*
other Bruce Springsteen posts at Largehearted Boy

Death Cab for Cutie: 2008-07-17, London [mp3,ogg,flac]
other Death Cab for Cutie posts at Largehearted Boy

The Kills: 2008-07-18, Angouleme [flac]*
other Kills posts at Largehearted Boy

Leonard Cohen: 2008-07-17, London [flac]*
other Leonard Cohen posts at Largehearted Boy

Mates of State: 2008-07-21, KCRW [flac]*
other Mates of State posts at Largehearted Boy

REM: 2008-07-18, Kinross [pal dvd]*
REM: 1991-03-12, 2 Meter Sessions [flac]*
REM: 1984-07-21, New York [flac]*
other REM posts at Largehearted Boy

Tift Merritt: 2008-07-19, Nashville [ntsc dvd]*
other Tift Merritt posts at Largehearted Boy

Tom Waits: 2008-06-25, Tulsa [flac]*
other Tom Waits posts at Largehearted Boy

*registration required

also at Largehearted Boy:

previous mp3 and bittorrent downloads

Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and album streams from weekly CD releases)
weekly CD release lists

tags: music download indie mp3 bittorrent

Posted by david | Permalink | Comments (View)

July 21, 2008

This Week's Interesting Music Releases (July 22nd, 2008)

Former Jam and Style Council frontman Paul Weller releases his latest solo effort, 22 Dreams, stateside tomorrow, a disc that features guest appearances by Noel Gallagher, Graham Coxon, and others.

Other albums I can strongly recommend include the Avett Brothers' Second Gleam, Benji Hughes' debut double album A Love Extreme, Bodies of Water's A Certain Feeling, Faun Fables' A Table Forgotten EP, Helena Espvall and Masaki Batoh's self-titled album, and PAS/CAL's Raised on Mathew, Mark, Luke & Laura.

For the literary minded indie rock fan, Chamber Music: James Joyce collects Mercury Rev, the Minus 5, Kinski, and others interpreting James Joyce's 1907 collection of poems. Best of Janis Ian - The Autobiography Collection, also available tomorrow, can be sen as the soundtrack to the singer-songwriter's autobiography, Society's Child (out Thursday, look for a Largehearted Boy Book Notes essay from Janis Ian then).

The 9 4AD remastered SACD albums by Dead Can Dance share the reissue spotlight this week with remastered editions of U2's Boy, October, and War (all available as single CDs, with bonus CD, and on vinyl). Julie Doiron's Loneliest in the Morning, an album I truly adore, is also reissued this week with bonus tracks.

this week's interesting CD releases:

also at Largehearted Boy:

previous CD & DVD release lists
Try It Before You Buy It (music from this week's CD releases)

tags: music cd list indie album releases

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July 23, 2008

Why Obama, by Alina Simone

July 23, 2008

Shorties

Daily Downloads (Calexico, Jeff Hanson, and more)

July 22, 2008

Book Notes - Jonathan Evison ("All About Lulu")

Try It Before You Buy It (July 22nd Music Releases)

Shorties

Daily Downloads (Airborne Toxic Event, Dreadful Yawns, and more)

July 21, 2008

This Week's Interesting Music Releases (July 22nd, 2008)