Wednesday, March 28, 2012

the used - vulnerable


The Used have a new album out - it's called Vulnerable. I sent this news on to my bros, with whom I absolutely wore out the first two Used albums in college. The biggest fan of us all was my best friend Dan. Dan's response to my email was so good I'm just going to publish it, because I couldn't possibly say this any better. Take it away, Dan.

Dan, The College Years



The Used has been the band that I would have called my "favorite band" since high school.

Their first and self titled album, The Used, was the first time I heard a band do screamo well - and the right way; super intense, puke inspiring screams (where you can understand the words) and then ridiculously good modern rock vocals all in the same songs = post-hardcore.

Unfortunately I like that album so much, it could never be matched.  To this day when I listen to "Box Full of Sharp Objects" or "Taste of Ink" it makes me feel like I'm a 17 year old bad-ass, driving around Midlothian in my hatchback - and lets face it - there's no better feeling than that.

In Love and Death had a much more produced sound but I still liked 100% of the songs when it came out, and still do.  I think The Used lost some of their rawness as they gained popularity, but if you you listen to the story their albums tell you can see why.  They went from writing about becoming "alive" as they broke away from the Mormon  culture in Utah, to love (of drugs), to drug addiction, to being clean, and then about real love (of humans).

As we all do, they got boring as they got more mature. Sadly, Lies for the Liars was an awful album and I really lost hope for them after that.  I always wished I was a big enough fan of them that I could appreciate the development and change of the band and be a consistent fan --- not the case. Luckily, their first few albums will always exist and I can always be a fan of the albums, no matter what the band puts out there.

17, downtown Richmond punk rock show, Subaru hatchback, smoking cigarettes, 2am = The Used, self titled album

27, Winchester Target, SUV, investing in my 401K, in bed by 10:30pm = Lady Antebellum

-Dan


Thursday, February 16, 2012

what I'm listening to february 2012

Here is what I have been into musically recently:

Kimbra - compositionally interesting modern soul from a sexy Kiwi. Definitely the best music on this whole page:
nLZMb.jpg
Best songwriting / composition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBxmidwDy2Y
Sexiest (live) video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaTEySLiLmc

Now that’s some real female vocal talent.

In the dude-bro category, we have Anthony Green’s new solo stuff. You may know him as the singer from Saosin with absurd high register. He is also the vocalist of Circa Survive, one of my favorite bands of all time. And he has a solo album now that is ridiculously good.

04JfY.jpg

Best representative of the album: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjFVVDGL-oQ

Fuckin’ songwriting. Fuckin’ arrangement. Love this stuff.

If you have to do the indie / emo thing, at least make it good. Welsh band Los Campesinos! brings the poppy hook like none other. Also has a legit early emo feel, which I love, as a big Get Up Kids fan.

JGwf8.jpg

Best song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ku_ZMPJ5M0
If you have to rock, like for real rock, go for Bad City. They sound like Queen and AC/DC and KISS, but young. I am not overstating when I say they ROCK AYASS! Prepare to tear your shirt off and play air guitar. Every fucking song on this album is good. Also, they look like they’re on drugs, which I find to be a huge plus for any band.

9GOOO.jpg

Rockinest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d5nasG72lo
Baseball and Apple Pie-est: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQcc3FXzu5k
Power Balled we need to learn acoustic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMYAhspDy9c (It’s called “Fire In The Pouring Rain”, LOL)

Next up is, of course, French electronic music made by a high schooler. Musically, he just fucking has it. He is uncannily good at having a sense for badassitude in rhythm. Hello Madeon:

CQ6Ukl.jpg

Best introduction to his style: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxPbgnO81sQ (awesome video, too)
Best song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuC2MUmQaG4

And in the guilty pleasure / I’m obviously on drugs category, we have Honey Claws. No explanation here, I can’t defend it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxSMsuXGJI4

Love,
Hunter

Monday, February 13, 2012

coloured animal - coloured animal





The album opener sounds like music from the beginning of a movie where a Bruce Willis-type in sunglasses is driving in a convertible towards a big city.

Right away, you can tell that this album is decidedly not playing to a decade. You know how some songs you hear, and you can tell "yeah, this was definitely made between 1987 and 1988, LOL" --- this album is doing something I like, which is just playing what their sound is - not trying to appeal to a demographic or fad. Music like this is generally music that "holds up."

The first thing that jumped out to me about the sound of this album, oddly, was the drumming. It reminded me of that late 90s / early 00s sound of hard alt rock that fell between the nu-metal fad and the radio rock fairway. I'm talking about stuff like Guano Apes. The drumming carries attitude, like I can see the drummer's face bulldoggin'.

Next up is the vocalist - he is an acquired taste. Kind of school-yardy, kind of whiny - but I always give a fair shake to vocalists because they have no instrument to hide behind - they're giving a lot of themselves. If you aren't with me on this, bust out your cell phone and record yourself singing your favorite song. Now play it back and listen. Would you want to share that with your friends, family, and a paying audience? I sang in an a cappella group in college, and I was never very good at solo singing --- I had one or two solos, though, and neither of them were very good, because I know how annoying my voice sounds, so I was holding back, trying to hedge how much I gave on stage - put less on the table so there was less to lose. This just makes a weak singer sound worse. Anyways, someone with a voice that doesn't sound like Chris Cornell or Michael Buble who is letting it rip always gets patience in judging from me.

Also, I have been known to love singers whose voices are off the beaten path - exhibit A is Anthony Green, who sings higher than your girlfriend, Justin Vernon who always sings in falsetto, and Dryden Mitchell, who sounds the most like our singer here. Anyways, the vocal will definitely pop out at you, and whether or not you like it is as personal as Chevy vs. Ford. I'm in my probationary phase with it, where, as mentioned above, I appreciate that he's giving us his voice, not an imitation of Eddie Vedder's. But I haven't fallen in love with it the way I have with some of the aforementioned.

The bass player, I love. My first instinct comparison was Robert DeLeo - serving the role in the band first, but then pushing out enough character that there were lots of places in this album where I said "look out, there's some bass playing going on here." Not "slap you in the face" Flea type stuff, but something anyone who's ever played in a band can appreciate. I give high marks here, as I contend that the bass player is the most important member of every band. They don't have the highest VORP, but they are like the transmission of the car - everyone focuses on the engine, because it's the sexy and exciting part - but try getting somewhere with nothing between the engine and the wheels. This bass player is tying things together with a subtlety and competence that I rarely, rarely hear on rock albums - but when I do get it, it feels like somebody just bought me a beer. Coulda lived without it, but god damn it feels nice.

Next up, comes the guitar playing. I always suppress the urge to judge guitars first, because I'm a guitar player, and it would be too easy to be like "I'ma guitar guy and I like guitar so let's listen to some guitar and see how the guitar sounds and guitaaaaaaaaaaaar!"

First things first, I can tell skill and experience when I hear it. I pretty much have a line with guitar playing, of which 100% of guitar music falls on one side of or the other: better than me or worse than me. I used to be a pretty tight rhythm guitar player and even had a few semi-awesome bands, but in the last, oh, say 10 years, I've mostly been playing for myself in my basement.

Anyways, dear reader, this is here for narcissism reference: I'm better than you at guitar, but not as good as most guys who play in bands every weekend.

Both of the guitarists in this band are playing so tight and together that they're way, way, on the "better than me" side, which is great, because I only listen to bands that play guitar better than me. The two guitarists feel like one guitarist to me - like there's only one guy and he must be recording (overdubbing) both guitar parts in the studio, because nobody could know their other guitar well enough to lock like these two guitar parts on the album. Well, it turns out it is two guitarists. So they must be twin brothers or something (spoiler: they're not) because they lock like...like the violin section of an orchestra --- you know, where 20 players play their part, and it doesn't sound like 20 players, it just sounds like "the violin." The guitar on this album is a lot like that - just a super tight wave of guitar cominatcha. I really respect that about this album (and this band).

The lead guitarist has a lot of memorable riffs, that sound like his own style - not just borrowed from standards and greats. Like I mentioned with the singer, I really like when a band gives you them, not their take on what's selling this year, or their take on what Aerosmith did - you know?

The guitar playing on this album sounds like the perfect fill / accent stuff you hear on a pop song - in how perfectly metered and played it is - not a single millimeter of slop on this entire record. It's amazing, actually. I can point you to at least one good clam on just about every album I have, but not this one. Beauty in execution. Tres magnifique.

Ed. note: I keep trying to write about the rhythm guitar and lead guitar separately, but I can't seem to split this hair. It really does sound like "the guitar section" as opposed to two guys, it's pretty weird, but that's how I hear it.

As far as songwriting goes, this one is all over the map. "604" sounds "post 80s," "The Prestige" sounds like REM wearing sunglasses, "Lost and Found" is "Free Bird" and "Wish You Were Here" rolled into a burrito, and "Protest The Sky" is like Alien Ant Farm sitting in with Tom Petty's Heartbreakers. I'm trying too hard here - this is a band that really sounds like Coloured Animal.

If you want some highly original rock music that doesn't really sound like something you're already listening to, and is primarily characterized by artistic honesty and perfect execution, click here.

-Hunter

Thursday, December 01, 2011

my recent picks, november 2011

Hip-Hop: Childish Gambino. It would take me 5 years to write lyrics this referentially dense.



Rock: The Raconteurs. I am astounded that music this good exists in modern tymes.



Pop Punk: Four Year Strong. New album out is not as mean as their previous releases, but strong nonetheless. More melodic. The production is bombastic and awesome as always. I would buy these albums for the outrageous production value, even if I hated the music.



Soul: Mayer Hawthorne. You can't f*ck with Mayer Hawthorne. He's cooler than cool, and he's bringing it back. And yes, that first video is as badass as it looks. Hot chick gunfight.








You know you like my style

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

mixtape 2011



I made a mixtape with my favorite songs of 2011.

It's 40 songs, about 3 hours.


It is available here.

Unzip the folder, then use the AAA.m3u playlist file included in the folder to load the songs into your music player. The playlist file is important because it will put the songs in order, and as you know, song order is important on a mixtape.

-Hunter


Not all songs are from 2011 - they are just the songs of my 2011.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

old fashion ladies



This is a band that I found out about through a guitar-nerd forum (shout out to the SDUGF). They are a French rock band caught me way off guard with how awesome they are.

Sounds like Foo Fighters, Rage Against The Machine, Guns & Roses, Muse, Porcupine Tree, Radiohead, Our Lady Peace.

Kind of puzzling to nail down a style, because each song seems like it's by a different band. My guess is that the players in this band are all highly musical in their own right.

Example? Here's their guitar player doing a particularly badass Britney Spears "Toxic" cover.



Anyways, their EP came out on Tuesday, and it kicks ass. you can stream it in full here.

-Hunter

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

new beastie boys coming 3 may 2011



-Hunter

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