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wild moccasins

Wild Moccasins were always one of my favorite bands to see in Houston.  Fun, catchy songs with the stage presence to back it up.  It’s a band that looks like they’re actually enjoying playing for you.

Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten a chance to catch them since moving to Austin.  That is until Monday night, when I saw them open for Of Montreal at the Mohawk, a great example of a bill that actually works together.  If you like Of Montreal, there’s a good chance you’ll like Wild Moccasins.  The bands are on a U.S. tour for the next month and you should absolutely make it out if they’re coming through your town. Read More

queen

When two big names in music get together to do a collaboration, there’s a pretty solid chance it’s going to be good.  When those two names are Janelle Monáe and Erykah Badu, you can feel pretty confident you’re gonna have a jam on your hand.

And in this case, that jam is titled, “Q.U.E.E.N”, and it’s off Monáe’s upcoming album The Electric Lady, due out this fall via Atlantic Records. Read More

may day

credit: Ricardo Levins Morales

Today is May Day, aka International Workers’ Day, and AfroPunk has a great list of 10 songs that can serve as the perfect soundtrack for your day.

It’s hard to pick a favorite from this list, but I think I gotta go with a classic, “5 Million Ways To Kill A C.E.O” from The Coup.  Not only does the track have the perfect lyrics for rebellion, but the Coup walks the walk, as Boots Riley has been involved in Occupy Oakland and a host of other radical movements.  Read More

so so glosYou know who the most punk people on the planet are?

Toddlers.

Seriously. Angsty teenagers think they’ve got the market cornered on punk, but they’re too self-conscious to completely pull it off.  Toddlers don’t have that problem, mainly because they don’t really care about anyone but themselves.

Think of the most epic outburst from a punk band you can come up with.  Got it?  Okay, well there’s a two-year-old at an Olive Garden that is throwing a tantrum that is putting that band to shame.  Toddlers don’t give a fuck.

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Screen Shot 2013-04-03 at 10.15.17 PM

So there’s a couple ways you can think about the new video from Charli XCX, which features her hanging around a hotel room with a few friends:

Option A: Charli knew she had to film a video for this track, so she invited two of her best friends over to her hotel room, where they hung out and and sang along with the camera rolling.

Option B: Charli’s manager/PR people decided she needed to film a video for this track, so they spent weeks finding two women that fit the image of ‘friend of Charli XCX’, then spent another few weeks scouting the perfect location.  Every aspect of the video, down to pizza and the runs in Charli’s tights, is fully scripted.

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Screen Shot 2013-04-01 at 10.48.05 PMWhen Vampire Weekend’s first album came out, I adored it. I played it everywhere, even in my 2nd grade class until I realized they were singing ‘fuck’ repeatedly in “Oxford Comma.”  And you know what? I still love that album.

And you know, for a while, the indie scene loved Vampire Weekend too.  And then that love started to wane.  There’s probably lots of reasons: they got hyped beyond what any band can live up to, their second album wasn’t as good as their first, they went to an Ivy League school.

But I think a major reason people’s love started to wane was that they got ‘mainstream’.  It’s a claim as old as ‘hip’ has existed – that you liked a band before they became cool – and it’s a tired debate to get involved with.  Read More

chvrches recoverWhen I was in college, one of my roommates was a film major and she was forever inviting me to go see these really arty films with her.  Walking out of the theater, she would typically rave about the film while I would shake my head and wonder what I had just spent two hours watching.

That friend has since gone on to get her Ph.D in film, so I’m pretty sure the problem with those films was her, not me.  I don’t know what it is – I can get into music (obviously), literature, even the odd painting from time to time, but I just can’t seem to get my head around film as art.

I believe you when you tell me it means something – I just can’t see it myself.

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fear of men seer

With every listen to their album/compilation Early Fragments, I fall a little more deeply in love with Brighton’s Fear of Men.

Which is not to say I didn’t love them the first time I heard “Green Sea.”  It’s more that this is a band that grows with each listen.  You can notice the musical nuances that you might have missed on a previous spin.

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little boots

So SXSW (at least the part that matters) is just about a week away, and like many of you, I’m starting to pull my schedule together and get ready for a mini-marathon of day drinking.

As all of y’all from the colder parts of our nation dig out your short-sleeve shirts and cowboy boots for the trek to Austin, the weather is getting ready for you.  Today was perfect SXSW weather – sunny, not to hot but not to cold. Beautiful.

Anytime the weather’s like this is begins to remind me of SXSWs-past, and all the fantastic acts I’ve gotten a chance to see there.

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white noiseAs premises for music videos go, “Security Guard heads to work, then ends up dancing in an abandon building” is not one I would probably pitch.  But that is exactly what is happening in this video, and I kind of love it.

If you’ll remember all the way back to January, buzzy UK duos  Disclosure and AlunaGeorge collaborated on this track, “White Noise” in anticipation of their respective debut albums coming out later this year.

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