"We never are what we intend, or invent."

Time for another album review. This week it's a major label release - Daisy by Brand New.

CD/mp3/Vinyl

It would be wrong to used the word let-down when describing this record because, under normal circumstances, it wouldn't even evoke the thought. However, this is the fourth album by Brand New and though it still follows their trend of continuously getting further away from the pop-punk that was their first album (Your Favorite Weapon - 2001), it doesn't quite take the size of steps that both their second (Deja Entendu - 2003) and third ones (The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me - 2006) respectively take. Which isn't a slight against the band, it's actually quite the compliment, The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, is the kind of album that all bands who are actually in the game for musical creation and not money would kill to make. Depressing, clever, a musical rendition of mood swings and God-complexes, death and loss, completely not radio-friendly, and yet to those willing to get past its quirks, it was an incredibly intense and yet, musically at least, pleasure to listen to.

I'll say this now; If you haven't heard The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me - get off your ass.

Daisy is not that album, there's no way it could be. Lyrically it tries, there are some biting tracks (At the Bottom) and God-complexed ones (In a Jar), but the music just doesn't seem to match the mood. Which is what I'm sure the band was going for, they've already depressed us and now they want to rock our faces.

Which, actually, doesn't seem like the case for the first minute or so of the opening track, Vices. You start off the CD with the gentle sounds of the piano and the stark contrast of a woman singing properly through what sounds like a blown speaker. For a second you start to think, "Did I buy the wrong damn album?" Then, if by chance, you've turned the volume up to better hear the words this woman is singing, you are now deaf. Apparently Brand New needed to remind us listeners just who the hell they are with that opening guitar riff, or just to let you know that the album has officially started.

And, that's the difference with this record; It rocks. It rocks hard, it rocks loud, and it rocks constantly. It rocks so much that you may need a couple listens and a pair of head phones just to appreciate the subtle nuances in each of the tracks, but if you put the effort into it you won't be disappointed. It definitely grows on you, the up-tempo tracks sound great and when it does (rarely) slow down, you're reminded that singer, Jesse Lacey, is better than most everyone at singing in the two extremes. The contrast is joyous.

Oh. If there's anyone out there who would happen to wonder how the piano song at the beginning would end if it wasn't interrupted by pure, unadulterated, face-blasting rock, DO NOT WORRY. The album finishes the listener off right back where they started, which is actually a nice way the tie the album into one cohesive package.

Do I recommend it? Yes. Highly even.

Just not as much as The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me.

That's the question you ask? What is SHE doing to ME? That's not important and you damn well know it! The question YOU should be asking, hell, the question that I should be asking is; Just what the hell am I doing to her?

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Now playing: Brand New - At the Bottom
via FoxyTunes

"There's been no lesson learned that I'll soon remember."

!URGENT BREAKING NEWS!

MySpace has released the track listing for the soundtrack of the sure to be blockbuster film, New Moon. Prep your razors boys and girls, you're not going to want to nick yourselves when shaving for the big event.

Via MySpace:

1. Death Cab For Cutie – Meet Me On The Equinox

2. Band Of Skulls – Friends

3. Thom Yorke- Hearing Damage

4. Lykke Li – Possibility

5. The Killers - A White Demon Love Song

6. Anya Marina – Satellite Heart

7. Muse - I Belong To You (New Moon Remix)

8. Bon Iver and St. Vincent – Rosyln

9. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Done All Wrong

10. Hurricane Bells – Monsters

11. Sea Wolf – The Violet Hour

12. Ok Go- Shooting The Moon

13. Grizzly Bear - Slow Life

14. Editors – No Sound But The Wind

15. Alexandre Desplat – New Moon (The Meadow)

Click to Read the Full Article

I'm going to be truthful here; I'm confused. You get the obligatory bands that the author loves (Muse) and popular bands (The Killers), but the rest just seems like, to me at least, a random collection of semi-known indie bands, bands with names that fit the mood of the story, or bands with songs with names that fit the mood of the story. Of course, I'll also admit that this isn't for me.

I'm not the audience for this movie, so I don't really get a say. That is until some chick finally makes me see it and I laugh and laugh and laugh, and then I'll complain about the music, but only then.

Anya Marina sounds cool. I like her voice and the cover of T.I.'s Whatever You Like that's on her MySpace page is freaking awesome.

This spells disaster. Yet... it smells of something not-unpleasant.

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Now playing: Cheap Girls - Stay High (Magic)
via FoxyTunes

"Plot Devices: Bike locks and tons of fucking people throwing molotovs and rocks."

Take back your rotting flowers, they are not needed here anymore. For punk, sirs, is not in fact dead, and if it ever were, then it has been miraculously reborn! For living proof I show you Portland, Oregon's very own The Taxpayers!

Yeah. As fuck.

They want word about them spread far and wide and, well, look at them. If that were you, wouldn't you want the same? They have the usual outlets, website, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, but then they have the unusual as well, their own record label, Useless State. Which "celebrates the diversity and ingenuity of the DIY culture." by supporting all kinds of independent media, using environmentally friendly companies and practices (including the use of an occasional stolen CD-R) and putting out music that can only do so much to prevent your face from melting off due to awesomeness.

Case in point: A Rhythm in the Cages by The Taxpayers

Looking at the cover, I'm sure you're thinking, "Sure. They could be squatters. Even still, that building doesn't look very punk.", and you have a very valid point. But, let me run something by you here for a quick second. The way this planet we exist on works makes it impossible for anyone to release a straight up punk album, it'd be quite the conundrum if it weren't so simple. To rehash is to follow, which in turn is so not punk, so you have to do something to up the dosage of punk. And, even though genre stuffing was surely not the point behind this album, The Taxpayers still managed to find the magic answer.

The cleanest way I can pigeon-hole this album is to call it Folk-Punk, and even in there it doesn't want to sit still. Which is kind of the point; This album shouldn't be tied down and lumped into a category or two, it should be allowed to spread its wings and sore justly like the eagles above.

Which it does, quite nicely, to the tune of probably being my favorite album of the year so far. (It just barely qualifies, being released in January). The songs are varied, yet cohesive and at any moment any one of them could relate to any of your possible mood swings. Are you feeling folksy anarchic in Europe? Take a listen to Never Getting Warm. Militant for the poor who may or may not be in Russia? I believe Dig Too Deep might be for you. Could you be a southerner, raised on country music who happens to hate your situation in life? You'll absolutely love No Lodging For the Mad. (To be fair, every working man in the world will love that song.) Revolutionary longings for love told through a folk song? - Needle's Eye - Anarchy you can dance to? - Militaristic Kitchen - Stuck on a fucking train in Montana? - Montana - Or, just plain love bootleg liquor made of apples stolen from major oil corporations? Stealing Apples From the Man will quench your thirst.

It's music for the personality disordered. It's music for us all.

And when I say for us all, I really mean it. At least Quote Unquote Records does; As part of their Maximum Summer promotion they have made this album available for free. All they ask is, at some point, you can even do it from their website, you support this band monetarily. Throw them a few bucks, they may love you forever.

!Free Download Here!

!Buy Physical Copy Here!

One more thing in the spirit of punk rock:

Click the cover for The Taxpayer's first CD Exhilarating News.

Your actions have resulted in a clearly drawn line. Stay the hell on your side.

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Now playing: The Taxpayers - Stealing Apples From the Man
via FoxyTunes

"I'll change your mind and the metric system to time."

Good lord. I never realized how much I occasionally need a good rock show. The type of event where the music gets so loud that your equilibrium gets screwed up, walking becomes a chore, and even if you only drank water all night, you're still afraid you'll get pulled over for suspicion of a DUI. Where, at the end of the evening, you've managed to piss off at least one person just by being there and having a good time. So, thank you John and your Benefit for providing such an evening for a reasonable price, and even though your voice was a little hard to make out, the new guitar solos were more than enough to make up for it.

Actually, a lot of thanks needs to go out to PoundCake who were the real headlining band of the evening. I don't know a lot about them, other than the bassist used to be the drummer in Deconstructing Jim, but they managed to pick up where the Benefit left off, and then managed to find a few louder notches on the amp dial. Simply awesome. Definitely keep an eye out for them.

So, if the political rant of my previous post proved anything, it was that I needed an outlet to let loose and have my brain melted back to its usual stupor with wave after wave of sonic aggression. Having successfully accomplished this, I'm back to a mellower mood and mellower shade of music. (Current track aside)

I'm going to embarrass myself something severe here, but I have no other way of setting up this transition. I like the television show iCarly. There, it's out. I'm a twelve-year old girl. Seriously though, it's a well produced and acted show, with humor that hearkens back to a couple of my favorite old Nickelodeon shows, Rocko's Modern Life and Kenan & Kel. Not to mention, both lead actresses, Miranda Cosgrove and Jennette McCurdy, are active singers trying to make their way in the music business as well.

Now, Miranda (Carly) essentially has a CD out already in the form of the iCarly Soundtrack. Where, amongst audio clips from the show and some other bands, she sings a few tracks. It's not bad, per-say, and if I were really a twelve-year old girl I'm sure I'd enjoy it. Besides the surprisingly good show opener Leave it All to Me which features Drake Bell, Headphones On, and Stay My Baby (Once again, nothing special and done better by European tween star Amy Diamond), the album produced one single for her, the insanely catchy Sugababes (click this link for the best inappropriate jump ever) cover, About You Now. For it's audience and even for jaded misanthropes like myself, it was a good way to spend a few minutes killing your nervous system with bubble gum and pop. However, it drips generic and there's nothing to make me want to spend my time wanting more, not to mention it's heavily draped in an auto-tune that even Lil' Wayne would have suggested they turn down, if only slightly.

Which brings us to the other star of the show, and the real reason for my post, one Miss Jennette McCurdy (Sam). I'm actually a little saddened to say this, but I fear she's going to be a waste of talent. She's signed to Columbia Nashville and, if you couldn't tell, I have quite an aversion to major labels, even if they happen to be country. She's already released two singles, So Close and a cover of the Amanda Stott song Homeless Heart. The latter of which is a vanilla ballad that's not good, not bad, just there. It's not really my cup of tea, however, her voice does shine in this piece, not to mention twenty percent of the proceeds go the Cody Waters Foundation, both of which are enough reason to buy the track from iTunes.

The former of which is the basis for my talent wasting fears. As stated above (and about to be shown below) she has a fantastic voice. So Close, which, once again, is a song that's just kind of there, save for the vocals, just screams to me that Jennette is going to be swept up into the machine that is modern music and her talents are going to be pillaged and twisted until she's a Taylor Swift clone, winning VMA's, getting attacked by Kanye, and being used to make millions of dollars for people who will drop her from the label as soon as the tweens stop caring.

God. I hope I'm wrong on this. She's not only a developing singer, but a budding songwriter as well. And, I'm more than sure, that with the right label and producers guiding her way, her talents could be put to much better use. She has the type of voice that doesn't need Columbia's hype machine and over production. Just strip everything down, put her in a room with an acoustic guitar and let her voice do the work. Hell, it's not rocket science, it's something YouTube has already proved to us.

That's a cover of Carole King's So Far Away and it's a shame that it's only a YouTube clip and not a single. Otherwise, I might have some clue as to where you could download a copy of it.

The biggest disappointment of all was the smile upon my face.

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Now playing: The Hives - The Hives-Introduce the Metric System in Time
via FoxyTunes

"He plays on like he doesn't know that it's killing me. Yeah. To the end, I keep hearing the devil's strings."

You know what everybody can get behind? Some unreasonable and unintelligible yelling, that's what. Now, let's also pretend that we're protesting something important, let's say some sketchy, no-bid government contracts handed over to the friends of those we elected.

What? Too complicated?

Alright. Let's go with health care instead. But, we have to make sure we get really loud about this. I mean screaming to you see colors type of loud, and we should work in clear references to Communism...

And subtle references to the Nazi's...

And don't forget, the pinkos elected a color to the white house, so let's remember to keep the racism tasteful...

In the end, please remember that this is all grassroots and we do this for the people, like us, who have gotten the short end of the stick called life.

OK. Enough with the impossible attempt at conveying sarcasm over the Internet, this is serious. I understand this is America and we all have the right to protest, but Jesus, could you Tea-Partiers just shut the hell up for a minute and listen?

First and foremost, you are not grassroots, at least you aren't any more. You are now being manipulated by groups such as Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks into yelling and fighting against programs that are being developed to help those who can't afford the rising cost of health care stave off death for a few more years. The irony of which, seeing these protest on television, these programs would be life savers to the many of those protesting against it.

Now, I'm well aware that this is a rash generalization and that there are many who don't fit into this mold, that there are actually some people protesting against the idea of a larger government and some people trying to project their ideals onto the country. (Unfortunately, a lot of the latter being whitey's irrational fear of blackie.) But, even for those people, it might be a good idea to look into who you're actually protesting for.

It's as easy as looking into the main media outlet for organization and news coverage of these protests; Fox News Channel. It's almost a sad cliché at this point and I must be the millionth person to say this, but this is indicative of textbook Republican Party strategy and they're using it to make sure the people attending these events are as unruly as possible in a propagandistic move to make Americans scared of those only trying to help them. Many of you are Republicans, some of you are not, but all of you are pawns.

Pawns of two different groups, the first of which being Americans for Prosperity - we will just refer to them as "Big Oil". Big Oil (and, by which I mean the company behind Americans for Prosperity - Koch Industries), besides organizing Tea Party Protests in Dallas-Fort Worth and Washington D.C., has done a lot to get itself into trouble recently. From subsidiaries having to pay massive fines for oil spills and environmental law breaking, to the actually company settling a law suit with the federal government for what amounts to stealing oil from Indian lands. The actually guy in charge of Americans for Prosperity, Tim Phillips, was a former parter in Century Strategies, and the easiest way for me to show why this is important is just to link one name; Jack Abramoff. Now, I'm sure your asking; "What does Big Oil have against government sponsored health care?" It's actually an easily answerable question - just visit Patients United Now for answers straight from Big Oil's mouth. If you don't believe what they tell you there (And, God knows I wouldn't blame you) then it probably has something to do with our next organization.

FreedomWorks, is a non-profit based out Washington D.C. and is chaired by former U.S. Representative, Dick Armey. (Ignore the juvenile jokes about tea parties, tea bags and Dick Armey, please. David Schuster already beat you to it.) To keep this short, the area of FreedomWorks that you need to pay attention to is the company its chairman's former lobbying firm represents, and that would be pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb. I can't imagine they would have a problem with drug prices in this country being contained to a reasonable level, can you?

The point is, these are the same old wolves from the last time this country tried to fix health care only now they're wearing a different sheep's clothing. What's saddest of all is they're scaring the people who could use these changes the most to protest against them, so these companies can keep up the status quo and continue legally robbing the sick of this country blind. I'm not saying you can't protest, and I'm not saying you shouldn't protest this subject, but do it on your own merits and not on those who couldn't care less about you, those who can afford health insurance, those who would crush you if you accidentally got in their way. These Tea Parties are not your friends, they are the same people who've looked upon with disdain and disgust for years. Don't say I didn't try to warn you.

That was the day I decided I didn't want to try anymore.

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Now playing: Karl Larsson - Devil's Strings
via FoxyTunes

"OHMYGOD! This. But, I'm riding a dragon."

Time to talk about some of my ol' favorites and the new things they are begetting/creating.

We'll start in television and that means my favorite show ever to be on the air, Frisky Dingo. For those of you who may not have heard of it or those of you who have no idea what it was about, let me post a screen capture from the commercial for the season two dvd. I think what follows should tell you all you need to know.

If it looks familiar it's probably because it was made by the same people who did Sealab 2021 (another super fantastic show) - 70/30 Productions. Now, the sad news is 70/30 went belly up and Frisky Dingo ended with a cliff hanger that we may never know the resolution to. The good news is; We get a distraction, in the form of a new Fx Original series tentatively called Archer.

Created by Adam Reed, Archer is a comedy set around an international spy code-named Duchess. With an animation style similar to what was done with Sealab, Dingo, and its spin-off The X-tacles (Also great, but only two episodes were ever made), and placing it on a network spin-off channel instead of in-network spin-off channel, leads me to believe that this could be great. Fx has ordered six episodes and it's set to launch this fall.

Also coming to Fx: Louie by Louis C.K.

In music: Two of the absolutely most fantastic local bands have been quietly bringing themselves back to life.

John Condron & the Benefit: MySpace/Facebook

Click on an Album to Purchase

As far as the Benefit aspect goes - they've added a new member. Jeff Julian, most recently from Deconstructing Jim, has signed on and is sure to give the band's sound a new dynamic. And, music, well, after what has seemed like forever, the band is set to release their new 12-track Cd, Eleventh Hour Grace, this fall. I've heard a few tracks off it live already, and, trust me, this is going to be a must have.

The Righteous Hillbillies: MySpace/Facebook

Click Album to Purchase/Here to Download

For you instrument nerds out there, the hillbillies have updated their website and, on top of new artwork, photos, and show information, they have started to post in-studio updates of the recording of their new record. This in-depth stuff; I'm not just talking about the hangover and puke stories (surprisingly unrelated), but also the amount of detail they go into describing the use of instruments, amps, and the reason for the different microphone placements. If you're into the technical side of recording a record, this is some good stuff. If you're like me, however, and just like the pretty sounds and the pretty colors it makes you see (wha... wait. Nevermind.) know that I've also heard some of their new stuff live, and I have a feeling this album will be better than their last, which is really saying something.

Speaking of live - See them Thursday, September 3rd with John Condron & the Benefit at the Elbo Room in Chicago OR Friday, September 4th by themselves at Chicago St. Pub in Joliet OR if you're feeling really special, they open for The Charlie Daniels Band Thursday, October 1st at The Rialto Square Theatre in Joliet.

For Free:

Click Album for Free Download

Deano Waco - Deano Meets the Purveyors

Coming from the Chicago country band The Waco Brothers, guitarist Deano Schlabowske brings you 14 free tracks with Austin's The Meat Purveyors. It's folk with country, some electric guitars, a pinch of hyper-bluegrass, and topped with sensitive song-writing. In short; it's a mess, a beautiful, beautiful mess.

"The best way to describe it? Picture yourself on an empty highway, zooming along at, lets say, ninety. You see a curve ahead, a slight curve, no need to reduce your speed, and you ease into it with no worries at all. Sounds great, right? Now, picture yourself coming out of this turn to see a brick wall blocking all the lanes, including yours, your only hope is to slam on the brakes and pray to God you stop - that's the best way I can describe it."

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Now playing: The Righteous Hillbillies - Love Burns Cold
via FoxyTunes