Today is Johnny Marr's Bday. Now I could easily post a smith's song or go on and on about how he influenced my life. But you already know all that. So how about something new? What's Johnny been up to lately?

Well if you haven't heard his new album with the healers, or more specifically "Down On The Corner," well then, in my humble opinion, your just not living up to your own potential baby.

Listen and pay homage...

Here is an mp3 of McFly performing "I Predict A Riot" on Radio 1's Jo Whiley show!

This one's a keeper.

Download here.

I heard they also cover "Mr. Bright Side," but I can't find it. I guess they want to be famous but not creative?

One of my guilty pleasures is pop rock. I like ashlee and kelly and josie and the counting crows and some others... So I think it was pretty fitting that I met Army of Me in a college dorm room, surrounded by drunk college kids, flip cups, bags of wine, bongs, hookas, and student artwork. I'm not putting Army of Me down, my point is that its fun, nostalgic, and rockin' like a good party ought to be.



But Army of Me also has a lot to offer the emo in me. When I saw them live I definately connected both lyrically and with the emotion of their power riffs and pop drummings.

Seeing them perform live, songs like "Going through Changes" (download it!) immeadiately called out to me and made me feel connected to the band. So I was pretty happy to have the chance to learn the chords from Brad the guitarist and then sit and listen to the final mix of the song with Vince who wrote it. We listened for a while and finally all I could say was, "I feel really bad for what you must have gone through, but I hope it was worth it because now you have this amazing song." And he sat there staring at the floor for a while and eventually after the line "I know I needed changes, but not this, this is not painless..." he replied, "yeah, I went through some shit." And I felt exactly where he was coming from. Listening to the song, I think we all can relate to it from some point in our lives. It's partially that broad appeal and partially the accessability of their music that makes it really easy to love Army of Me.

Army of Me are also from DC, which you gotta love. (just thought I'd throw that in there)

If you're in NYC, definately see these guys when the are at Knitting Factory on November 5th.

Army of Me on Myspace

is awesome. We already knew that. But with the release of their new album, they just got cooler...

from their website: "Why we’re releasing our latest album for free on the Internet



In preparing to self-release our new album, we thought long and hard about how best to use the internet. Given our unusual history, and a long-held sense that the practice now being demonized by the music biz as “illegal” file sharing can be a friend to the independent musician, we have decided to embrace the indisputable fact of music in the 21st century, put our money where our mouth is, and make our record, Little By Little…, available for download via Bittorrent, and at our website. We’re not streaming, or offering 30-second song samples, or annoying you with digital rights management software; we’re putting up the whole record, for free, forever. Full stop. Please help yourself; if you like it, please share with friends."

Here is the torrent link for the album in mp3

i don't usually get introduced to new music by 14 year olds, but maybe I should more often because I am so GLAD that my buddy max played me a veils song the other day that soon led to my new obsession with their album, "The Runaway Found". It came out last year on rough trade and I can't believe it's been so overlooked.

The veils'"> 19 year old frontman Finn Andrews is the son of Barry Andrews, of XTC and Shriekback fame, and dad produced some of Runaway’s tracks.

The album is completely eclectic. “The Wild Son,” opens the album with waves of sleepy strumming that are augmented by low-in-the-mix orchestration. "Guiding Light" adds the accsesable pop friendly ode to travis. “The Nowhere Man,” a somber burner of acoustic guitar and cello wraps it up. Between the two, Anderson covers a lot of ground. “The Tide that Left and Never Came Back” hits on power-jangle; “Lavina” mixes numb-drunk orchestration with lullaby keys; “The Leavers Dance,” with its subtly insistent bass line and high, buzzing guitars, could be a pre-ProTools Radiohead song.

Over the weekend the veils updated their myspace so that they are correctly represented by 4 amazing songs. the entire album is fully amazing and this new zealand band will be around for a long illustrious career, I hope. Go check out the veils...

I'm not particularly a fan of Local H, but if my favorite bands were auctioning off the honor of creating the setlist for a specific show, I'd sell my third brother for the right. Here's the thing, Local H and Interpol have the same booking agent, so maybe one day... when you dream, dream big.

Speaking of craziness on ebay... did you know you could buy these awesome little white stripes record players at the whites stripes concert for $60 and then sell them on ebay for $1,200?

Oh My God!



I've been bitchin about the lack of bands that can blow me away in the current scene, and exactly when I wasn't expecting to be blow away.... bam! I was drinking with josh upwelling at pianos last night and having a great time dancing to melody nelson's all night dance party when nick surefire ran upstairs in a complete panic.

"You have to see the band downstairs right now!"

I thought to myself, 'okay, he seems pretty excited, but come on, what could it possible sound like that he is sooooo excited?' So I went downstair thinking nothing much of it. But as I walked through the venue doors I was immeadiately taken aback by the blue valour suits and the beatle-esque wigs on japanese lads... I thought about the 5678's and moved a bit closer. Then I was caught by the crazy massive wierd-scientist eyes of the lead guitarist and the blare of his distortion filled solo licks, and then the purple sparkel drum set, and the pandimonium that was breaking out around me as LES hipsters danced 50's style and cheered to the rock gods as these 3 oh so very japanese rockers filled the room with the high energy and the pure rock I've been so longing for. This was my introduction to the awesomeness that is 50 Kaitens!

When they encored with "s-a-t-u-r-d-a-y" I couldn't really understand the lyrics, but I felt their passion and laughed at their stage presence. They basically mocked the Ed Sullivan era beatles as the audience baiscally mocked their broken english and nonsensicle japanese version of what I guess they thought english is. I mean words like "New York" and "He wah go!" were about all that made sense and the audience laughed both at them and with them. And in the end it all boiled down to having a laugh, rocking out, playing it loud, and dancing as if we were all part of some crazy japanimation cartoon. And thats what rock music is supposed to be about, isn't it? Pure volume, emotion, and rock - it doesn't matter what language it's in, as long as the band can take you somewhere else. And for a good minute, this random Tuesday at Piaonos WAS a dreamscape of a comedic Saturday night with the Beatles in the 50's... and then some.

So next time your in japan, be sure to check out 50 Kaitens.

Here is their website (but unfortunately it's in japanese!)

Here is a fansite with some more info.