Get this now and contemplate the point at which modern rock/alternative jumped the tracks … ’cause these guys manned the wheel for three decades.

I’ve watched Julia Nunes videos on YouTube for a good two years or more now, including most, or all, of the early shit. Glad to see that she is making headway on a national stage because she deserves it. I hope the nation eventually hears songs like, “Into the Sunshine, “The Debt” and “First Impressions.”

She performed recently on Conan with her new song, “Stay Awake:”

With or without God, this no doubt has a church atmosphere:

I just found a channel on YouTube called Watch Listen Tell that features up and coming artists and established acts singing their tunes acoustically in apparently random places in the greater London area.

Here are some songs (new to me) that I particularly enjoyed:

Lissie, “Everywhere I Go”

Villagers, “Becoming a Jackal”

Stornoway, “I Saw You Blink”

Guillemots, “I Don’t Feel Amazing Now”

OK, this last one isn’t new to me, but he is new in general. A year ago, one could barely find Ben Howard on Amazon at all, just a couple mp3s. He just released his first album, “Every Kingdom,” in October. Here is

Ben Howard with “Old Pine” and some good acoustic work:

Because I don’t have anything else intelligible left in me today, here’s a song titled “Barely Out of Tuesday” by Counting Crows that never fails to pull me inside out and then back again.

This is apparently the only recording of the song. I have the show at which it was played sitting in a CD case from back in my trading days. The girl that he mentions in the beginning is Courteney Cox I do believe. She appeared in “The Long December” music video.

I woke up Wednesday morning,
Sometime Wednesday evening,
Hoping for a piece of something easy to believe.
When you live out on the border
Of everything and nothing
There’s nothing but waking and dreaming.
I’m barely out of Tuesday.
There’s no one to receive me,
And nothing is changing.
Maybe you could leave a light on (leave a light on) for me.

This post is more to test a new plugin than anything else, but I may post some periodic song mash-ups as I see fit using the plugin. See here for more information.

Sweet. It works!

Sounds like a computer generated drum part underneath a lightly muted, upbeat clean guitar riff. An electric guitar riff follows.

You’ve got some nerve coming here. You’re so in awe. Give it back. Good morning, Mr. Magpie. How are we today?

Couldn’t make out the next lyrics. Wall of sound slowly creeps in midway through the first chorus and then fades. Back to mostly the guitar and drums, then to a Eraser-espue beat and some “ooohs” from Thom. This continues for awhile and gets markedly louder. Another verse follow accompanied by the muted guitar and second guitar.

You know you should. But you don’t.

The guitars are getting a little more driven as the second chorus ensues.

Good morning, Mr. Magpie. How are we today? They’ve stolen all my magic and took my melody.

The song ends with a sustained note that eventually fades to Little By Little.

Mellow, upbeat vibe with lots of ethereal sounds in the background.

Rating:

More to come later this weekend.

Enchanting brief opening dubbed over by a synth beat (a la “Eraser”), which is followed closely by some snares playing an almost march-like rhythm. Lyrics begin after about a minute. I won’t attempt to analyze the lyrics because I won’t be able to understand some of them. Heavy reverb on Thom’s voice. Various synth loops are playing over the vocals while the march beat continues.

Thom switches to falsetto in the next portion of the song, the melody of which seems to be mirrored by some more synth stuff. Multiple layers of Thom’s voice in the background. Enter a mellow horn part, which becomes layered with more horn sounds and concluding in a wash of high pitches and then back down.

Thom’s vocals continue shortly after. The march hasn’t stopped. Horns can be heard again in the background with heavy layering. At about 4:50, the song is winding down with more Eraser beats and echoed loops.

The soaring horn section in the middle seemed to nicely reflect the title of the song.

Rating:

12:15 a.m. (or thereabouts) Feb. 19

So, I’ve live-blogged a time or two on this site, most recently, New Year’s Eve 2011, but I’ve never live-blogged the first listen of a new music album. I thought it might be a good time.

Today just after midnight, I paid the $14 and downloaded Radiohead’s new release, “The King of Limbs” (available here).  I thought for a second about how to best convey my initial listening of the album, and posting a series of Twitter messages initially came to mind. But I figured, I do own this space, so might as well put it to good use, especially since live blogging seems all the rave these days. I think I’ll live blogging my dachshund’s bowel movements one day. That should draw a hit or two to the site (It’s late. I think I am allowed some levity here).

But back to the music. Radiohead is well known by now for their innovative and groundbreaking knack for making music. Their last release, “In Rainbows,” was — dare I keep up the imagery? — a kaleidoscope of warming sound, from the stripped bare and falsetto-esque, “Nude,” to the searching lyrics and lilting beats of “All I Need,” to the pulsating, “Jigsaw Falling Into Place.”

While the music was grand, I actually thought “In Rainbows,” coming in at 10 tracks, was a bit short to hold up against “OK Computer” and “Hail to the Thief.”  That said, “Kid A” only featured 10 tracks as well, and it was nothing short of masterful.

Thus, as I look at the eight tracks presented to us on “The King of Limbs,” I’m admittedly a bit skeptic, for if the 10 tracks of Kid A made it a excellent album, an eight-song album had better arrest the listener’s soul with every tick of a second. Here is the track listing for The King of Limbs:”

1. Bloom
2. Morning Mr Magpie
3. Little By Little
4. Feral
5. Lotus Flower
6. Codex
7. Give Up The Ghost
8. Separator

And here is an article from The New York Times on the release.

Without further adieu and with headphones firmly in place, here we go.