I had a window seat

Where are my manners? I didn't even give Ms. Ali Hammer—newest member of Team Songblague—a proper intro last Friday. Hopefully, you'll do right by her and lend her your ears when she graces us with her postings.

After her deft reach into charcoal depths of The The's back catalog Monday and Flynn's string-tastic drama yesterday, I think we need a little light detour. In Sweden! Eggstone are sadly unheralded pop masters. This one's got some classy chord changes that should definitely produce smiles at your July 4th bbq. It's got a chorus to put you into a diabetic coma, but the dash of melancholy is the secret sauce.

Eggstone - Taramasalata

I've built you this gorgeous house

Until a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't remember the last time I'd discovered new, great music in a live setting. Then I saw Lost in the Trees play at Bowery Ballroom and remembered what it felt like in 2004 hearing the Arcade Fire for the first time or in 2001 when I first saw Matt Pond PA. It's not like discovering Bowie or Big Star, but in some small way, this little blip of a show changes you.

On record, it's hard to hold up to that kind of expectation; unfueled by late nights and drinking and enthusiastic crowds, it sounds a bit more sparse than you might expect. Still, there's something here, and it's inspiring to be reminded that we're not too old to find the new.

Lost in the Trees - All Alone in an Empty House

The Cranes Are Moving In The Twilight

I have a limited knowledge of The The's discography, which is a shame because I have a feeling that I'd like a lot of their stuff. Beside the fact that they're always grouped with bands I like to play on jukeboxes (Bauhaus; Talk Talk; ABC), the few songs I do know are killer.


I first heard this one on May 7, 2010, right after watching a friend's band play on the Lower East Side. It was blared through the speakers between sets, and I could feel the bass in my ribs. I was afraid that it wouldn't sound nearly as aggressive later (ie. sober, through my home stereo) but it held up nicely. Beautifully, even. I will dig deeper, The The. For now, Flesh and Bones has saved you from being immortalized by an M&M's commercial.

The The - Flesh And Bones

Nimbus beats

One from the cybernetic groove files. Or file under krautrock drummer makes good, letting show just enough melodic sense to justify a brazenly up-front slap bass. I can't tell if this is music for the moment when a rainstorm hijacks a sunny day or for when the sun beats it back. Sorry for the runoff at the end; grabbed the track off this mix, which is well worth finding.

Eroc - Der Prophet

You seem cool, but get a load of me!

The Toms is really just one Tom. That’s him—Tom Marolda, of New Jersey—on every instrument on this home-recorded album of perfect, breezy pop tunes from 1979. Today’s track, “Better than anyone else” sounds like a typical crush song: Tom’s met a pretty girl and wants to get with her. Specifically, he says to her in the song’s infectious chorus, “I want you to know me better than I know myself.” Aww…? Let’s take a closer listen. He wants her to know him better than he knows himself. Meanwhile, in the 2nd verse he recounts how he worked up the nerve to talk to her, asking her if she’s a dancer, and then reveals he can’t remember her answer! He was so excited about his own bravery in approaching her, and that she’s willing to talk to him, that he didn’t even listen to what she had to say. In the 3rd verse, he drops the bomb—he doesn’t even know her name! And yet he’s dreaming of her becoming the foremost expert on Tomology. This song raises the troubling question: how often is romantic love and attraction based on a fantasy we construct of another person who we don’t even know, or even care to? The most important thing is the ennobling reflection of ourselves we see in their eyes, and the shine they bring to us by allowing us to be seen beside them. That’s something I learned from this one guy, The Toms.

The Toms - Better than anyone else

Hits of sunshine

Is it trite to get all summer song-y when the heat comes to town? And woodland-y on top of that? Maybe, and who cares. Here's some music for romping around under canopies of leaves, sunlight flickering between the sturdy trees, a little stain on the brain. How about a double shot?

The Impossible Shapes - Florida Silver Springs
The Impossible Shapes - Fulgent Fields

you've got your pride and your prose

So, I'm supposed to have a bass lesson today, and I flaked.  What has this got to do with Songblague?

The reason I flaked, you see, is because I was walking home from a friend's place last night with my current favorite record blasting on my headphones when I realized that I don't really want to just play bass: I want to play bass in a specific band, and if I can't do that I really can't be bothered.  And not only do I want to be in the Gaslight Anthem (who is of course the band in question), but I want to figure out a way to leave my headphones on while also having conversations and going about my life in general, because I don't ever want this record to stop playing.

So there you have it: I've posted about this band before, but I couldn't tell you what other new music is out right now and worth listening to.  I can't even keep appointments.

The Gaslight Anthem - Boxer (Live on KEXP)

Cruising altitude

I know I rocked some Roxy Music not long ago, but this one is really a different animal. The kind of animal that wears white pants and aviators that reflect the dreamy last sparkles of the setting sun. You can almost hear the private jet pulling up the runway.

People talk about the Avalon album ushering in the age of yuppie make-out music. Maybe, but you can't blame the furniture for things people do in the room. And even if it does bear some responsibility, is it so bad for people to inject an imagined grandeur into their days? What if your life was as exquisitely put together as this song? I'd settle for a version of myself as graceful as Manzanera's guitar part.

Roxy Music - Take A Chance With Me

Drone strike

Sorry. There's nothing amusing about death from above by remote controlled aircraft. And there's nothing attack-like about today's song. In fact, if it has the same effect on you that it does on me, you might even forget how to muster up an aggressive impulse. But it will help you focus on breathing and keeping it mindful...all the way om. Uh, sorry for that one too.

Mountains - Choral

Big guitars, big hearts

Bless the jumpy, earnest hearts of emoting indie rockers. These kids probably had a lot of bad times with thick-necked men and no shortage of angst-ridden teenage years, which they've transmuted into a well-caffeinated variation on Pixies-style rock damage. There are a bunch of genre cliches going on here, and, though cringing a bit, I still have it my heart to enjoy every one of them.

Pidgeon - Ain't Nothing Can't

2/3 axis powers

The pendulum swings. Philly sweetness gives way to unhinged Japanese caterwauling. When you've got Can's Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit holding down the fort, you can pick any limb to go out onto. This song makes me want to run through abandoned construction sites avoiding rabid dogs and thirsty mutants. Not 'want' exactly, but my imagination can't help but conjure that picture.

Phew - Signal

H2O2

Hydrogen peroxide? Or day 2 of Hall & Oates's Songblague domination? Well, this is some bleachy soul. But soul nonetheless. Forgive the double dose. 2 reasons why it's gotta be this way - I'm listening to nothing else right now and, having logged 72 work hours last week plus an intense day yesterday, I'm too fried to go too far from the audio comfort zone of the moment.

No apologies are needed really. This jam's got it going on. It comes from just before they set up camp in the Top 10. For those who doubt Hall's vocal prowess, just listen to those flourishes. And for those who harbor suspicions about unspoken amorousness within the H&O camp, I'd say the vocal/guitar call and response at the end will surely fan those flames. Good on Oates for the tasty guitarness. It probably gave someone a nasty infection.

Hall & Oates - Have I Been Away Too Long

H2O

I'm just gonna say it. Private Eyes is a stone cold classic, end to end. I know it's easy to get caught up in giggles about Oates's mustache, but the hits are hits for a reason. And great pop craftsmen should be revered for tapping the pleasure center of the body politic. Seriously, you go write a song as slinky and minimal as "I Can't Go For That." But the album tracks are just as strong. The whole record captures the best parts of the early-'80s pop zeitgeist (and any Songblague listener knows that's much appreciated around here). There's the big beat, a gee-whiz approach to drum machines and synths, and a band and producer who understand how to balance flesh-and-blood playing with tasteful studio embellishments.

Songblague has explored Daryl Hall's arty tendencies. Private Eyes has some unexpected moments of Frippery, and they're nicely woven into the pop fabric. Here's a great deep cut that could've easily shot to #1 if they'd dropped it as a single. OK, fine, now let's make jokes about the Oates-stache.

Hall & Oates - Head Above Water

Lost in the forest

of your mind...mang. I like long pieces on Fridays, and this one deserves some reflection. Or maybe it deserves me shutting up and just allowing it to speak on its own behalf. If you want music to settle the neural clutter, head into these woods. Mang. All those notes, all flowing along the same wind. And also something deeply sad. I'm not quite sure why.

James Blackshaw - Past Has Not Passed

I look for moves and I search for breaths

They dress up in masks, and then singer goes and masks her voice in digital disguise. The lyrics are oblique, suggesting dark and unsettled things. The music can be cold and distant. But they make songs that grip you like a Scandanavian bear hug. Here's an early one, before all the accolades. Good ears can hear something special among the deceptively familiar elements.

The Knife - Lasagna

Bogus journey

Roxy Music is one of my favorite band names. It oozes style and sass, with some artsy distance to boot. The Music For Pleasure album is worthy of their name. Eno's sound adventures and Ferry's glammy crooning were becoming totally incompatible, but somehow the record is magnified by the tension. Here's a direction they didn't explore nearly enough—a sinister, almost Cannish groove, shuffling along as dark sexy phantoms circle around it.

Roxy Music - The Bogus Man

Through to the badlands

People make entire albums that sound like the Midwest.  It's hard to talk about music that sounds like hay bales and really long roads and bourbon on the porch without using the same set of adjectives describing reedy voices, singer-songwritery vocals, easy guitar licks.

So let's not.  Let's just say that some music sounds like hay bales and really long roads and bourbon on the porch.  That to me is what the new Deer Tick album is all about, and there's no more fitting way to celebrate it than via their own homage to a certain fellow whose work is rooted in landlocked states and folk songs.

Deer Tick - Nebraska

I can only stare

Some hooks are such audio dopamine that you'd think all of our brains would naturally produce a chemical equivalent of their essence. Which is maybe why they sound so familiar the first time you hear them. This chorus hijacked my mind Saturday morning and continues to hold on tight. How is that a man who labored over convoluted messes like Quadrophenia busted out such an effortless earworm just a few years later? Something in the water circa '82 maybe. Another one for my as-yet-to-created summer bike riding mix. Gotta get on that.

Pete Townshend - Face Dances Part Two

Laugh all night

MX-80 were a post-punk band from Indiana. Yeah, that one. Apparently, they did not set the cornfields ablaze. I happened upon a live album of theirs during college and just recently pulled it out again. It comes from late in their career and has a weariness befitting a band that never got beyond cult status. I guess you can hear that somberness in this track. I find the idea of quantifying your daily allotment of laughter terribly depressing. I'm not sure if the problem is that we get so few or that the world we live in is bureaucratic enough to calculate an average. Worse is that I probably fall below that average more frequently than I ought to.

On the other hand, I really love the notion that laughing all night long is life's greatest pleasure. It helps when you deliver that news in a sad flatness, punctuated by one of the most joyless 'ha ha ha's you'll find on record.

MX-80 - 15 Laffs

All this talking is only bravado

Milestone recognition time. Today marks 300 Songblague posts. I hope you've been enjoying however much of it you've been tuning in for. I feel it's adding up to something.

I'm gonna celebrate with a sentimental fave. I love the Blue Nile because they keep thwarting my efforts to fall out of love with them. And their music is made of sturdier stuff than it appears. There are so many ways they could sound thin, dated, over-the-top hokey. And yet, Hats is one of the most engagingly soulful records I own. And barely a non-synth instrument on it!

Here's the standout track from their debut, which has an interesting story about its origin. This tune kills me every time. It shows that it's the little decisions that separate drama from melodrama, and when you get them right, you've got magic.

The Blue Nile - Tinseltown in the Rain

Surfing on a rocket

Like they say, if you've got a good schtick, you may as well schtick with it. Hello...is this thing on? Anyway, these fine young space warriors worked that instrumental surf rock/B-movie sci-fi dialogue sample combo for all it was worth and maybe a little more. Part of me wishes I had that kind of focus. Another part wishes I were far more eclectic in my pursuits. The bum-out part of me fears I may be in the middle.

As for the Astro-men, their EEVIAC album (stands for Embedded Electronic Variably Integrated Astro Console, if you care) ventured into slightly more adventurous territory and still rocks it out pleasingly. It's also chock full of great mainframe-geekout song titles.

Man Or Astro-Man - A Reversal Of Polarity

Not not not your academy

Happy post-holiday. Hope you ate your fill and didn't get sunstroke. Props to my man Carl for deftly executing a killer Memorial Day crawfish boil. Really, eat those guys up while you can. Looks like the oil may be killing the ocean straight through August. But let's not dwell on how screwed we are. Let's rock instead! While we can anyway.

Mission Of Burma - Academy Fight Song