Ghosts.

You've got the wrong Eleanor Friedberger

The RIAA: Abusing the Legal System Since 1987

If you don't know the Fiery Furnaces you should. Why? Because they rock. In the process of writing the review of their new record Bitter Tea, I came up with this name for the genre they belong in: Awesomecore. I mean, come on, what could possibly say more about a band than that? I would totally want my band to be in the Genre. But the Furnaces really do belong in a genre all their own, a kind of indie-rock paradise where they are lots of ponies and puffins (enough to get you through the end of may!) where the albums are multilayered and insane, there are blueberry boats and pirates and zombies, and even the sometimes incredible inaccessability of their music is forgiveable, because although the electronics can get in the way, the hooks come back, and they allow you to totally FREAK OUT!

Big Announcements, Albums Josh wants, songs for free.

Ok so a few things.

Firstly an occasional series makes its appearance
Albums I want to own, and you should want to own to.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs-Show Your Bones
Seeing as I am going to the CONCERT next week, I should probably own this, huh?

The Fiery Furnace-Bitter Tea
I CAN'T WAIT! This one is supposedly far better then the Josh-liked-but-otherwise-derided-Rehearsing Your Choir, and will make Josh happy when it comes out. Very happy.

The Secret Machines-10 Silver Drops
ditto above, but like times a million.

Margot and the Nuclear So and So's-The Dust Of Retreat
This is a unknown collective of Indie pop gods, kind of like

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin-Brooms

Songs That You Should Listen To (Some of Which are FREE!)

The Raconteurs-Steady As She Goes
The first song from Jack White's amazing new project. It's bass heavy and fuzz filled and is just a great, great tune.

The Secret Machines


Margot and The Nuclear So and So's-Skeleton Key
Atmospheric and mournful, with lyrics full of regret and sadness. A somber tune that has the Indie Pop version of a breakdown, and features a mood breaking, epoch shaking, totally awesome WOO! near the end that ties the package together. None of this making sense? It will.

The Fiery Furnaces-Benton Harbor Blues
A million times more accessable than the songs on Rehearsing My Choir, this tune is the epitome of what electronic and experimental pop should sound like.

WHAM BAM THANK YOU FRANZ

A couple of good streams and downloads today:

Crazy In Love-The Magic Numbers
A Beyonce cover by Britain's preeminent nostalgia wave band.

Wuthering Heights-The Decemberists
In the wake of a recent Kate Bush cover by another favorite of mine, The Futureheads, i figured the Decemberists cover of Wuthering Heights was worth a listen.

Franz Ferdinand & Scissor Sisters-Suffragette City
Woah. How cools is this?
Avaliable for download here.

The Subways-Young For Eternity

The Subways are a family band. Drummer Josh Morgan is lead singer Billy Lunn’s younger brother, and bassist Charlotte Cooper is engaged to Lunn. A recipe for destruction, indeed. On first listen, Young For Eternity appears to contain two separate albums, one of brilliant garage punk and one of mediocre pub rock. When it’s good, it’s very good, with a hard edge and irresistible hooks, but when its bad, its pretty awful. On those tracks the music sounds painful not only to listen to, but to make. I can’t imagine anyone thinking these tracks are anything but filler, and that they serve any real purpose. It sounds so forced, like the producer is holding a gun to their collective heads. The lyrics can be god awful, “Mary is my best friend/she makes me my tea”, kind of sounds like they paid a 12 year old to write the lyrics. One redeeming aspect of these songs is a rhythm that drummer Josh Morgan provides, even when you things can’t get any worse, Morgan saves the day with an ear for rhythm and a sense of when it’s needed most.

When the band begins to rock out, however, is when they begin to shine. Unfortunately for them, their strengths lie in the ability to jam out a good punk song, and not in the ballads they would like to write. “Rock And Roll Queen”, for instance, just totally lets loose, with the aforementioned ear for rhythm totally destroying his drum kit with a sonic barrage. Unfortunately, they choose to alternate the harder tracks with the softer tracks, disallowing any possible momentum the album could possibly benefit from. The most obvious example of this is in tracks 3 and 4, “Rock and Roll Queen” and “Mary”. The aforementioned punk rock stomp of “Rock And Roll Queen” leads you to expect something more from “Mary”, which it does not provide, and therein lies the problem. The record lacks a sense of pace, and the sense of urgency built up during the punk songs is just blasted to pieces by some of the slower numbers. Songs like “City Pavement” have a unique sneer about them, one rarely heard anymore, almost Johnny Rotten in nature, a statement of rebellion and youth. They do, however, attempt to be everything to everyone, and the strands of brit-pop and soft rock are not fitting of this band’s talents. Expect good things from the Subways once they find their way.

Subtract My Age...

I know i haven't been so good to you. I have denied you your gothic playlist. But i still love you! To prove it, i will rant at you. First of all, i have writers block. I'm having a trouble writing the Destroy reviw i really wish to write. ::sigh:: I will right that Subways review though. I hope. Also, I am watching Fall Out Boy on snl, and attempting to write through the pain. Why? For Science! Speaking of science, for a man who is a doctor, and who knows science, go to DrMcNinja, quite possibly the most amusing webcomic I've seen in awhile. He is a doctor. And He Knows Science. But back to the real Science of directing a Fall Out Boy performance. My first reaction is that I never thought Sugar Were Going Down could sound any worse than it already did, but then I think about the first song they played, where it was just kind of YAAAY WE USED TO BE HARDCORE! FOB are actually decent musicians, HOLY SHIT PETE WENTZ THINKS HES PETE TOWNSHEND! Come on, Don't throw your guitar into the drum kit, dude thats old. My biggest problem with them is image. Oh, right, the are actually decent musicians, just the music they choose to play isnt. It's almost as if they choose to play bad music. Yes, so i feel that was a decent rant. Subways review soon, I promise.

Those Who Love Zeppelin Will Soon Betray Floyd

First of all, if you haven't seen Max Temkin's last post on Mankind Minus One, you need to. It's a great pieceof social commentary, and all 4 of you who read this would like it alot, i think. Secondly, i have been on kind of a Gothic Fiction kick recently, which means i have been reading Sandman and stuff by Lovecraft and Poe etc. This, of course, means its time for a GOTHIC MUSIC PLAYLIST! I will post this playlist later. Thank you for your time.