Archive for 2006

On The Playground We Learn So Much

The Gossip “Listen Up!” – From the first time I saw The Gossip open up for Sleater-Kinney early in their career, it was obvious that they were a band intent on getting their audiences to move. Up until recently, they were working with a fairly limited musical palette, drawing mainly on rockabilly, blues, and punk moves. On their new album, they’ve opened up considerably, drawing heavily on elements from disco, funk, and soul (and punk variations on all three…), resulting in the most effective and impressive music in their discography to date. Make no mistake – they are treading on familiar ground covered by several bands new and old, but they make it work by avoiding the strangely oppressive sexlessness of most contempory punk-funkery and emphasizing the vocals of Beth Ditto, who sings with a confidence and authority owing more to Diana Ross or Kim Weston than most anyone in the indie rock universe. (Click here to pre-order it from Insound.)

Elsewhere: The aborted Britney Spears/DFA track has finally surfaced. If you’re interested, The Prettiest Pony has it, at least for a little while. Get on it. (Predictably, they had to take it down, but you really ought to go to that site anyway, they have a lot of quality tracks over there.)

Hot Ham Water

Talking Heads “Right Start” – Even if the Talking Heads had never gone ahead and finished this early version of “Once In A Lifetime,” they would have ended up with a brilliant song. Though the completed version is unquestionably superior and arguably the highest peak of their career, “Right Start” is a fine showcase for David Byrne’s gifts as a guitarist, as his parts are foregrounded rather than obscured by bass and keyboards as in the post-Eno arrangement. It’s also quite interesting to observe the shift in tone from this demo to the album recording – though the song ends up feeling epic and anxious, it began as a rather light-hearted and casual affair. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Zalatnay Sarolta “Rogos Uton” – I don’t understand a word of Hungarian, but it hardly matters with a singer like Zalatnay Sarolta. She’s overflowing with power, soul, and authority, whether it be on pure funk tracks or ragged classic rock tunes like this selection. This track is taken from a cd-r compilation made by APT‘ s Alec D, who apparently met and befriended the woman ten years ago and is distributing it in the hope that it will lead to finding her again. (Buying a copy of this cdr compilation will be tricky. Other Music in NYC has it for sale, but it is nowhere to be found on their mailorder website. You can try emailing the address on the inside sleeve: alec @ aptwebsite.com )

Oh hey, look – Bloggie nominations are open. I’m rather baffled as to why they have abandoned the music category at a time when music blogs are booming, but you can feel free to nominate this site in the following categories: Best American Weblog, Best Entertainment Blog (this site was nominated for this award last year, but Defamer won by a large margin in a rather strange apples vs. oranges vs. pomegranates competition brought about by the ridiculously broad category), Best Writing of a Weblog, and Weblog of the Year. It’d be awfully nice if the lot of you voted heavily for music sites in these categories (it doesn’t have to be this site), if just to send a message to these people re: the popularity and vitality of music blogs. After all, people like Eppy, Sean, Tom, Abby, Tyler, Jessica, Nick and Carl are much better candidates for the Best Writing category than whatever group of chumps who are likely to be nominated, and Tom Ewing has certainly had a far greater influence on the world of blogging via his recently-defunct NYLPM than most any tech/design geek who is going to be a shoo-in for the Lifetime Achievement award this year.