mae (a)fternoon

New mae album dropped last week.

It's entitiled (a)fternoon. I love mae, so I bought it without even previewing it. I know it's good.

If you're not familiar with mae (elephant in the room: yeah, it's intentionally lowercase), they are a clean and fresh sounding band from Virginia Beach that have been making music for almost 10 years.

I remember my good buddy Daniel made me listen to a track of theirs when we were freshman or sophomores in college, and I immediately dismissed it, because "the singer sounded wimpy." The song I heard / dismissed was Embers and Envelopes from 2003's "Destination: Beautiful."

Little did I know that "Destination: Beautiful," although admittedly lightweight, would become a major foundation for my own songwriting and guitar playing. You can even catch me playing "Tisbury Lane" on one of my YouTube guitar demos.

After "Destination: Beautiful" came "The Everglow." I would liken "The Everglow" to...I don't know, let's say the first time you got drunk. And I mean the verrrrrry first time. You had some expectation of what it would be like, but then HO-LEE-SHIT-NO-WAY!

  Pictured: how I felt when I heard "The Everglow" for the first time.

This album raised the bar for my expectation of what music can be --- in terms of both songwriting and performance. The songwriting is basically inexplicable - it combines melodies that stick with you like glue, but with authentic depth; a layering of instrumentation that betrays the group's small lineup. It's like a Ferrari that can tow a boat.

Back to (a)fternoon --- it's the second in a timed-release series of concept albums --- the first one of which was (m)orning, a few months back, and this one is (a)fternoon --- it's weird, there are 8 tracks on each one, and the track 1 from morning has commonalities with track 1 on afternoon, and so on. I am really digging the vibe though. With (m)orning, I hated it for a month, was honestly a little disappointed, then a switch flipped and I loved it.

There's a lot of great guitar tone and recording on this album. SUPER clean, and there's a lot of acoustic guitar doubling electric guitar parts, which I love. His signature electric sound has come int its own, clearly carving out a definition of "Firebird into a VOX."

"Communication" is a standout for me, with such great lyrics I want to write them down and frame them.

Hit the Amazon link up top to preview the album, then buy it if you think it's your spring jam. I just became an "Amazon Associate," which is a setup that allows me to make a buck or two if you actually buy some of the music I'm recommending (from the links / badges I post here). I wanted to let everyone know, so you don't feel like I'm sneaking one in on you. I want to be clear that I have no intent of turning TLA into a money factory, just hoping that eventually I can make enough bucks to register a domain name and get some hosting space for the blog and expand the content to include stuff like podcasts with cool playlists, etc.

So preview the new mae album --- if you're anything like me you'll love it --- and if you're new to mae, you may have just found your new favorite band.

-Hunter

why it's tough to listen to music when you're a musician

 My wife and I listening to music (dramatization)

When you love listening to music, being a musician yourself is both a blessing and a curse.

It's kind of like being married (God, that came out wrong). It makes things better for you all around; you extract "more" from everything, you don't take small things at face value, you can appreciate not only what someone's doing, but why they're doing it. Like when John Mayer makes my lunch every morning. I think I may have cross-threaded my analogy, but you get the point.


It can also make simple things, things you never used to notice, tough on you. (Insert wife using autotune joke.)

I was recently taking a walk with my wife, and I mentioned that I've lived a lot of my life "behind the curtain" --- from my recreation, to my community involvement, my cars, all the way to my job. You're more likely to find me backstage than in the audience at a church play --- you'd find me waiting in the wings, playing backup guitar for high school choirs --- at work I spend more time getting data ready and presentable for use than actually using the data for anything. Real talk: I never take my car to the shop, because I know that the guy they're going to get to fix it is A) definitely probably no smarter than I am, and B) cares less about the car.

It dawned on me, pretty suddenly, that I have a lot more time invested in getting things presentable for an audience than actually being a part of an audience.

So I don't think the same way as some folks when it comes to final products of any sort - whether it's food, cinema, automobiles, or music. I realized that there are two types of folks: audience folks and backstage folks.

• At a nice restaurant, the audience folks think "this food tastes great!" The backstage folks think, "the cooks did a good job with this."
• At a movie, the audience folks think, "it really sucked me in." The backstage folks think "the lead actor really executed his character well."
• When the audience folks are thinking "this truck rides nice," the backstage folks are thinking "some enginerd nailed the spring rates."

 You know how sometimes I throw a random picture in the middle of a serious blog post?

I don't ever really enjoy any music at face value anymore. I am dissecting guitar tone, thinking about mic placement, the subtlety (or not-so-subtlety) of compression, and things like that.

On the downside, the overall picture, the "song as a whole" is often lost on me, or only comes to me once I listen to every "channel" of the song, beginning to end. So if I'm interested in the drums, bass, rhythm guitar, accent guitar, vocal, and vocal harmony of a song, I need to hear that song 6 times, one time focusing on each element, just observing and "seeing what I see" before I can let the whole thing play as a unit. The curse of a wannabe recordist.

 On the upside,  I can listen to something on the radio and pick out a Telecaster through a Vox amp, and think "hey, that sounds great, I might wanna try that combo," and boom - I have a new tonal idea without ever hearing or reading a single word. Or I can hear somebody use an effect in a way I've never heard it used, and I can say "damn, I oughta try that," then I'll spend a few hours in the basement turning knobs and playing around, and boom - a new song is born, just from messing around with a new setting.

What I imagine when I pull away from a stop light. 

This condition also affects other areas of life, as well. Having seen the inside of an engine too many times, when your average driver mashes the accelerator into the flo'board, they are probably thinking "WOOOOOOO!!!," but I am thinking about the connecting rods and rod bearings and valve springs and piston rings and how the whole thing should explode.

It might seem contrived or unfathomable to you, but I literally cannot derive any pleasure from blasting off like a rocket in a car. I'm not thinking about what's happening, I'm thinking about everything that makes it possible. That's life behind the curtain. Anybody else live this way?

-Hunter

four year strong

I used to fancy myself a super cool punk rocker. I mostly did this because I listened to a lot of punk music, or so I thought.

Yes, this is actually a real picture of me. 

I'm holding the controls for a hydraulic suspension system on a lowrider Chevy. 

Yeah, my head exploded a little bit when I saw this picture too.

Years later, in my infinite wisdom as a wannabe music reviewer, I realize that all the music I ever liked was pretty much straight-on POP, with a dash of punk flavor.

Anyways, I used to wear No Fear t-shirts, which, at the time, were very X-TREME, I rode my skateboard everywhere in the neighborhood, which I now realize actually somehow takes more energy than just walking somewhere, and used to try to do sweet jumps on my BMX bike. I have a permanent scar on my belly from where I did what eyewitnesses describe as "most of a backflip" on my bike.

This was me, trying to be a super cool punk rocker. I have recordings of me playing and singing Green Day songs, solo acoustic style, at home. Equal parts bad and hilarious.

Well, since about 5 years ago, I have not been reppin' pop punk like I used to. I started to become embarrassed by it, because it seemed like I was "aging out" of the "scene." The funniest part about that sentence is that I actually thought I was a part of a scene. Anyhow, I started focusing on my guitar nerd roots --- Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Derek Trucks, and my own personal musical napalm, John Mayer, leaving punk, pop-punk, punk-pop, and whatever the hell else you want to call it, behind.

Well, just today, I was cruising iTunes, to see if anything that slipped past Stereogum or Pitchfork was charting. What I found, was a cool looking album cover that linked to a band called Four Year Strong's latest release, "Enemy of the World."

Pictured: A centaur with a machine gun.

I clicked Preview All, and something wonderful happened.

I got a twinge of that attitude I used to have - that attitude that helped me be in a good mood on a bad day, the attitude that helped me care a little less about what people were thinking, and more about what I was thinking. Now, I don't intend to wax philosophical on the psychology of punk music, but I can definitely say that there's something to it that evokes a very, very distinct response in me --- a response that I can't synthesize on my own.

I bought the album, and I'm giving it the first spin now, so I won't review it, but I will say that if you related to anything I wrote up there, you might want to check this album out.

Fakie backside nollie to 540 ahhhh who am I kidding,
Hunter

solid air

John Martyn, live from Rockpalast in Germany, 1978.

This is the first song I've heard in probably 5 years that made me

Written by Martyn about the death of his friend Nick Drake.

John Martyn is one of those musicians that makes me feel cheated that I didn't know about him before 2010. John Martyn died January 29, 2009, aged 60.

His notorious alcoholism is said to have set a range for his performances from "absolutely terrible" to "inexplicable genius." I have done a lot of reading on John Martyn, and have heard tales from old musicians that described his state, just before a concert as "unable to form a sentence, and barely able to stand," but then he would walk out on stage and deliver a performance like the one you see above --- simply on another level.

Eric Clapton was quoted as saying Martyn was, "so far ahead of everything, it's almost inconceivable."

-Hunter

new turntable soul

Turntable Soul January/February PODCAST by TurntableSoul

The new "Turntable Soul" is out.

Like I have said before, if you aren't listening to these, you are about as cool as wearing a Radiohead t-shirt to a Radiohead concert.

For the uninitiated, turntable soul is a podcast that comes out every 2 or 3 months, where some genius mixes awesome Motown songs with awesome rap songs, in a way that makes you bob ya head.

Listen and groove,
Hunter

murphy's kids (plays all your favorite songs)

Disclaimer: most of what's below is a recollection of events that occurred before yesterday,

so the details will be entirely made up fuzzy.

 

 Kind of like Motown and AC/DC had a baby. With horns.

Murphy's Kids was the coolest band in my high school when I was growing up. I remember seeing them get the plug pulled at a high school talent show because of their excellent (and mostly true) song, "Everyone's an Asshole" (I still hear it in my head when I'm sitting in meetings). And getting the plug pulled on you at a high school talent show is actually cooler than playing a high school talent show. That band went from being high school heroes to one of my legit favorite bands.

Well, being a wannabe musician myself, I had a band in high school --- I was the guitar player for an 8 piece funk band.

 

I'm in yellow, using most of my brainpower to count to 4.

The band that I was in, the embarrassingly named "Graham Funk Railroad," (we were pandering to Mrs. Graham, the judge for talent show auditions), had a bass player and saxophone player that were in Murphy's Kids. In this small world, I got to know the other fellas from Murphy's Kids a little bit, but not really.


Fast forward to college. The aforementioned bass player, who had become one of my best friends, is writing music with me all the time, spending long hours in my basement with a crappy stolen microphone and whatever guitars we had. He was still playing bass in Murphy's Kids, and they were coming up to do a gig, but didn't have anywhere to practice, or stay for that matter.


I told them they could practice in our basement. Again, after this the details get fuzzy, so be warned that most some of this could be entirely made-up inaccurate.


A short while after I told them they could come practice in our basement, my roommate Dan came home with a keg and said, well, "KEG!"


This, my friends, is what we call the perfect storm for A GREAT MOMENT IN PARTY HISTORY.


Predictably, we ended up having a full-on rock show in our basement, featuring Murphy's Kids and as many people as would fit into our basement.

That PA speaker remained in the basement of that house literally until the day we moved out.

Since then, I have been the biggest of MK fans, and do my best to keep in touch with the band, who are now long-time brohams of mine.The current lineup no longer includes the aforementioned bass playing buddy, but rest easy - his riffs live on, and he was replaced with a long-time friend and musician extraordinaire. Long-time. Betcha didn't think I could get three in there.

Their latest album is "Departures," an album that's a perfect soundtrack for your house party / beach trip / BBQ needs.


The album is strong from start to finish with an obvious focus on rock songwriting, adding to their already fun ska sound. I Still Miss You (Alex Levine) has a Pink Floyd vibe at the beginning, and is one of the few songs you'll hear in modern music that has DYNAMICS, our long forgotten friend. This song has a clear buildup and climax, a very well composed song.

Hands On is a perfect driving-with-the-windows-down or grilling-a-burger song, a positive mood-changer for sure. Whenever I hear it, I want to do that high-knees, side-to-side rasta walk that you see white people do at festivals.

Me toil part-time at jah Cold Stone Creamery!

Plans is a good representative of the change in style, the "departure" if you will, from Murphy's Kids' long-time (that's 4!!!) ska sound. I hear jazzy chord voicings in here that give me the same thoughts I get when I hear any of my favorite guitarists: "How in the hell did he come up with that? And why didn't I?"


To me, this album is definitely "rock with horns," not "ska with rock," although the integration of ska and rock throughout the album is seamless. I am impressed with how much the horn section is brought into the riffing as well --- the horns aren't just there for accents, they absolutely drive the band. You'll hear what I mean.


I won't review the rest for you because I have work to do spoil the first listen - but I will say that I bet you'll enjoy it.


I would be remiss in describing the band if I didn't tell you that their live show is bad-ass. Nothing against their album, but their album compared to their live show is kind of like...a globe compared to THE PLANET EARTH.

This was 2 or 3 years and bandmates ago

Also, MK hosts an annual holiday charity event called SKALIDAYS that supports a charity that is "helping victims of domestic violence through advocacy, support and empowerment. Simply put, their goal is to help people with no other place to turn get the counseling, support (even housing in some cases!), and knowledge they need to become healthy and self sufficient."  This past year was the event's 10th. Ain't a damn thing wrong with that.

Are you with me?

-Hunter

He dead!

I'm back.

 Ctrl + Click this image to play the music that accompanies my triumphant return to a blog that 3 people read!

I used to do a lot of set-it-and-forget-it type of stuff at work. You know --- waiting for models to run, waiting for data to load, sending interns to find a basement that doesn't exist, etc., and I could drift away into writing about music and why I rule at everything. These days, all the work I'm doing requires my full attention, which makes the government run more smoothly day fly by, but it's killed my blog.

I'm not getting dumber, I just haven't had any free time.

Anyhow, let's get back to what TLA is about: music reviews. And my two cents. Dot com.

 

Deadwing was recorded entirely while brooding, on the banks of a lake, 100 years ago.

At Christmas, my brother-in-law gave me the Porcupine Tree album "Deadwing." I first found out about Porcupine Tree on guitar nerd forums, where my fellow guitar nerds were dissecting the band's guitar tone. So I YouTube'd some stuff and got really interested, because their riffs were tight. Not a euphemism.

The album is progressive rock, which, for the uninitiated, is best explained by this excellent article by Cracked, which states:

There is no clear definition of progressive rock, as it is not bounded by convention, structure, tradition or common sense. Progressive rock is like the anti-socialite of music; there are no rules or restrictions.
However, progressive rock bands have typically featured:

• Extremely skilled guitarists, drummers, bassists and keyboardists
• Okay singers
• Huge egos
• Tons of drugspiration
• No sense of when to stop a song

Be sure to click through to that Cracked article. They even have a chart that plots prog rock album covers on a scale from "Dongs" to "Butts."

Porcupine Tree is smack-dab in the middle of Pink Floyd and Tool on the progressive rock continuum. I have to stop writing about prog rock now, because I would be repeating the Cracked article, which had me LMFAO.


On Deadwing, the first thing that stands out is the riffage. We are talking really bad ass riffs, the kind that play in your head when you get home from work before your wife and you imagine your house is a scene from an action thriller and you work your way through the house pwning imaginary henchman with various made up karate moves.

 

This has nothing to do with prog rock, Porcupine Tree, or house karate. I just felt like I needed a picture here.

The next thing I noticed was that it's not so far out there that non-music-nerds won't run from it. It's accessible, because Porcupine Tree don't get any of their progressiveness© from gimmick. Everything they do that pulls you in is just straight up good --- no zoo animal noises, no screaming, no playing guitar with power drills - just good ass music.

After my embarrassing gush over a band that was ALL gimmick (which I won't delete, because it's as funny as it is embarrassing), it's refreshing to get excited about a band that gives you the "holy shit!" with zero gimmick.

It's good to listen to all in one shot, as with most prog rock albums. Next time you have to go on a road trip or drive a ways alone, download this album and prepare to be a big Porcupine Tree fan.


I will be dropping more blog science on you TOMORROW!
-Hunter

N#

Disclaimer: I could write all day about Naturally Sharp memories, but this post is mostly showing off how good N# 2009 is.

OK, so I was in a pop a cappella group in college. The kind that sings stuff you'd hear on the radio.


Our retarded very original name was "Naturally Sharp." We were founded by our buddy Anthony in 2003ish, who, in retrospect, probably threw the group together for no other reason than to gain a competitive edge in the world of hooking up.

You know, now that I think about it, forget "probably," that's definitely why Anthony started it.

 Naturally Sharp, 2006ish

Anyhow, we threw together 2 or 3 standards and 2 or 3 radio hits, and hit the all-female dorms.

We all liked to sing and have fun, but none of us, regrettably, were real standout singers. So we decided to just be really inappropriate fun, and we were.

I stand firmly against the overuse of words or phrases that have a distinct meaning, but are misused / overused so frequently that the original meaning is lost, so believe me when I say we had no shame. I won't go into embarrassing details, but believe me, we were really committed to building a following.

Throughout our university years, we, the founding group, went from a loose group of beer-drinking buddies to singing the biggest venue at Virginia Tech, getting paid gigs all over the place, and hosting our own concerts.

Well, after the founding members all graduated, we were sort of worried that the soul of the group would die out.

It didn't. And the singing got way better.

Listen to the 2009 concert here:








-Hunter

Jeans vs. Music, Over Time

Click image for larger version

-Hunter

Turntable Soul

New "Turntable Soul" out today --- if you aren't listening to these, you are about as cool as bringing Zima to poker night.

They're a mix of "Northern Soul, Roots, and Modern Love."

I can't describe it any better than that, but I can tell you that when you play it, whatever you're doing - and I mean anything, you will feel cooler.


Driving in the car? Smoov.

 Loading flood plain data into a geodatabase? Chill.

Trying to get the goddamn garbage disposal to work right for the third goddamn time this week? Fresh.

A genre built from failures,
-Hunter