discover more good music

I’ve got the discography here at the moment. It’s BRILLIANT music. First album released in 1992 (so, it’s a case of new for me, not new absolutely). I like the acoustic, raw, emotional feel to the music, and vocals. It’s quite downbeat/depressing-type music, but I really do like it. I’m astounded I haven’t heard of these guys before – I think they should be popular – maybe they are/were – am I out of the loop on this one?

In terms of new absolutely, I’ve also got hold of The Magic Numbers new CD – Those The Brokes. I’m going to see them this weekend in London at the Hammersmith Apollo (I think, my mates have got me tix), and that will be cool. 2nd time I would have seen them (first was 13,000 miles away from here in NZ).

I was out in Reading on Wednesday last week to see a work colleagues band play at the Three B’s. Oh, my colleagues band is called The Pines – they’re pretty good I reckon.

Anyway, I also heard MJ Hibbett & The Validators – I reckon they are very good. I scored a copy of the CD “We Validate!”

Catchy music, lo-fi feel about it, fun lyrics. Can you want any more?

...It’s new to me. Given the recent hype because of the movie, and the fact that a couple of my friends are really into him, I thought I should check out Johnny Cash. In my usual style, I’ve gone way overboard. I’ve got hold of the following albums.

American 3American 4American RecordingsAt Folsom PrisonAt San QuentinLove, God, Murder [2cd]Man In Black (54-58) [5cd]Man In Black (59-62) [5cd]UnchainedUnearthed [5cd]

So, I’m going to be all cashed out at the end of this I suspect. I’ve listened to American 3 so far. I give it a 3/5. One and Won’t Back Down are the best tracks there IMHO.

On my trip to wellington last weekend Johnny (the younger brother of a friend I was staying with) suggested I might want to check out Calexico. I got a hold of 2 of their albums, one is a joint effort with Iron and Wine (who I also really like a lot), and the other is Calexico alone.

If you’re into folk guitar type sounds (Iron and Wine, Belle & Sebastian [twee pop – but a similar sound], Sufjan Stevens etc) I can highly recommend In The Reins. The album Feast of Wire was a more interesting mix, which I’m lead to understand is more core Calexico. Jazz, Afro-Latin, and acoustic guitar blend with beautiful voices to create a masterpiece. I’m quite impressed.

Wow. I was in Wellington this weekend just gone, and went to (apparently) the opening of the Fringe Festival down there – there were a whole lot of electroclash/electropunk artists playing at Indigo (but I also hear it’s changed it’s name). Anyway, So So Modern (ex Hamilton, now Wellington) were there, and their gig just blew me away. I was astounded.

I actually emailed them today to see if there was a CD or EP or something. They did sell one with their last tour, but it has all been sold. If anyone has one I’d be quite willing to take it off their hands. Actually, the dude in the email suggested I just find someone with it and steal it, which was nice of him.

Anyway, if you are a fan of the electroclash movement, give these guys a whirl.

Here’s something interesting… An aggregation of “75 best albums of 2005” lists. http://amysrobot.com/archives/2006/01/gregs_music_for.php

Quite a bit of stuff on there that I have, but quite a bit I haven’t heard of. What’s also interesting is that the majority of the top 10 albums (really all of them apart from Franz Ferdinand and Kanye West) are relatively non-mainstream. This tells me that the types of people that post “top 75” lists on the internet are not your mainstream music listeners – or perhaps there was a bit of bias with the aggregated list selection.

A good list nontheless.

When some of my friends where here for the Big Day Out last weekend, one of them (Johnny) bought a single from Real Groovy which had been marked down from $27 to $7 (damn cost of importing music). It was the Libertines – I had never listened to them before. The single only had 3 or 4 tracks, but I was quite impressed. So, I ventured out and got their album “The Libertines”, and was impressed by that as well. Good stuff.