a geek and his life
Archive for March, 2006
drunken rodeo clounds vs. the danes – more bands of 2005
02643 days
in music
raveonettes
heard ‘love in a trashcan’, the single off ‘pretty in black’ on sirius’ satellite radio’s “left of center” channel. i liked the late 50′s/early 60′s hollow bodied guitar reverby sound and imperfect two-part harmonies. as it became a staple on a couple of the “left of center” shows, it got stuck in my head and i decided that i’d look them up. they’re danish and “pretty in black” is their 2005 release. i grabbed it, right away. the rest of the album is really good, though not as catchy as the single. it has a 50′s “teenage dreamboat” sound to it, including the cover of ‘my boyfriend’s back.’ i had to look at the writing credits a couple times, just to verify that the songs weren’t all covers. touring heavily, they opened for depeche mode on ‘playing the angel’ tour. even though i made that show, i missed the raveonettes. my coworkers were all about seeing depeche mode and for all they knew, “depeche mode” had decided to have drunken rodeo clowns open for them. (ok, maybe not. they (and i) would have decided to watch that.) anyway, their 50′s-revivalist sound holds up to repeated listens quite well.
bright eyes, or is it brighteyes
02644 days
in music
brighteyes
i first heard brighteyes on soundcheck on live 105 (kits fm). soundcheck is a weekly programmed by the music director that tends to play newer stuff from the college circuit and newer music that sometimes breaks on the ‘alternative rock’ charts. i get the feeling that he plays two types of music: stuff he likes and stuff he wants to gauge the reaction to. he played ‘rest of my life’ off ‘digital ashes in a digital urn’. i was shocked at how truly vulnerable it was. i mean, i was moved by a song on the damn radio. what the hell is that? pecked the name into my phone and downloaded the album that night. i was impressed with the rest of the album, though none of the remaining songs had quite as dramatic an effect as ‘rest of my life’. while he’s certainly not the only artist i’ve heard that sounds like a ‘solo white guy writing good songs and singing them in his bedroom with a fostex 4 track just trying to be honest’ he’s certainly not derivitive. i stole copies of ‘lifted or the story is in the soil, keep your ear to the ground’ and ‘fevers & mirrors’ from nicole, when she bought them. the former has higher production value (without losing the honest feel to his songs) and, to my ear, holds up to more frequent listening than ‘fevers & mirrors’. ‘make war’ off ‘lifted, or…’ has a country slide guitar backdrop that makes me smile.
