Put your right foot forward

Back after a bout with the flu -- and my maxed-out credit card, which is why I couldn't buy Neon Bible yesterday like a good indie hipster and had to wait one whole day to hear it.

Is it just me, or does David Bowie endorse bands that sound like him? (I guess it's normal to like the things you wish you had made.) Both TV on the Radio and the Arcade Fire have received his blessing, and their songwriting could totally pass as his. It's probably the grandiose, reckless, genre-defying and -adopting that does it. But whereas I think Bowie does it consciously, the Arcade Fire does in unconsciously. Like Final Fantasy, they just seem to write songs without any regard for the standards of pop and rock music.

I can't figure out why I liked Funeral. In fact, it took me a long time to like the Arcade Fire, mostly because I couldn't pin them down. It was only when I labelled them as "infectious" and left it at that that I could let it go. Neon Bible will no doubt be analyzed to death via all manner of music journalism hyperbole (I'm talking to you, Pitchfork), and all I will say is this: the Arcade Fire are still infectious, but I miss the enthusiastic abandonment of the singing on Funeral.

Arcade Fire website
Arcade Fire on MySpace
David Bowie and the Arcade Fire performing "Wake Up" on YouTube It's pretty surreal to see the celebrities in the audience rocking out to the song.

---

Speaking of enthusiastic abandonment, I am currently hooked on the swaggering synth-and-brass disco-march-rock of the Wet Secrets, thanks to their 8-song EP, Rock Fantasy, being available as a free download on their website. It's the perfect soundtrack for my walk to work.

The Wet Secrets website
The Wet Secrets on MySpace

You are the angel that I couldn't kill

I like to be surprised. I like liberal vocal harmonies. I like Mother Mother. I even liked them when they didn't have the extra Mother and band members. But I like Touch Up much better than their self-titled, self-released debut -- even though most of the tracks are the same -- because their new label Last Gang (home to Metric and The Dears) cleaned it up and cut out all the goofy self-indulgent bits that distracted from the strong genre-spanning Tin Pan Alley-like songwriting, interesting harmonies, and distinctive singing.

They play March 9 at the Horseshoe with a bunch of other fine young bands as part of Canadian Music Week. Sadly, I'm probably going to miss it due to another commitment. But I'm sure they'll be back.

Mother Mother website
Mother Mother on MySpace ("Polynesia" is my favourite track)

---
I don't think I have a snowball's chance in hell of scoring Arcade Fire tickets today. But I'll still try.

The bitch said yeah, the bitch said yeah

There hasn't been much to blog about lately because I went for one whole month without buying any new music. I didn't even realize it until I started to feel the strain and stress of a bitterly cold January. I finally got hold of Thom Yorke's The Eraser, but needless to say, it Mr. Yorke's mournful warbling didn't help my mood. It's an excellent album, yet I can't figure out if it's good or bad that it's exactly what I'd expected. I mean, I expected it to be excellent, but I guess I always want to be pleasantly surprised by music and it was anti-climactic to hear The Eraser at last.

The Eraser

---

Did you know that customers who bought this item also bought:

Twin Cinema - New Pornographers
Apologies to the Queen Mary - Wolf Parade
Everything All The Time - Band of Horses
Set Yourself On Fire - Stars
Illinois - Sufjan Stevens

I am not surprised in the least.

I bought Immaculate Machine's Ones and Zeroes on a whim; I'd heard one or two tracks via CBC Radio 3 and they seemed to have the kind of energy I need for these early winter months. Like the New Pornographers, they're infectiously peppy, and have similar male-female vocal interplay. Kathryn Calder even stands in for Neko Case when the New Pornographers tour.

But whereas the New Pornographers have a '60s pop sensibility, Immaculate Machine has its roots in the '80s. That is, the former makes me want to dance like I'm singing backup in a girl group; the latter makes me dance like I'm in the prom scene in a John Hughes movie. In fact, I am convinced that they are the same band, but due to some trick of quantum physics, they are co-existing in the same time and space despite being from alternate universes.

Immaculate Machine website
Immaculate Machine on MySpace

---

Cansei de Ser Sexy has replaced Justin Timberlake's Futuresex/Lovesounds as my new guilty pleasure. Any other time of year and I wouldn't have bought the album. In fact, CSS made little impression on me when I saw them open for Ladytron last October, other than they were a cheerfully sleazy low-rent Go!Team. (Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.) One line from "Art Bitch" sums them up perfectly: "I sell my crap and people ask for more."

CSS on MySpace

---

Speaking of JT, there was some excitement at work on Tuesday as his tour bus was parked near the office and visible from our windows. That's as close as I want to get to him, even if he is bringing sexy back.

Good times

I like to think that today, the Bordens would have a MySpace page (maintained by youngest son Gary) and hold variety show podcasts from their rec room. And their "Friends" would mostly be older son Roger's high school classmates, who leave comments like, "OMG!!! saw you at the legion hall in trenton...u rawk" and "when r u coming back to dryden?"

And then one day they would get namechecked on CBC Radio 3 and discover they've been elevated to cult status by indie electropop bands. "I don't know who these Holy, er, Fudge boys are," Mrs. Borden would say over the phone to her sister in Kamloops. "But they sent us some nice e-mails."

The year in review

Whenever I come home from a show I take the ticket stub out of my pocket and tuck it into my whiteboard. Needless to say, there were a lot of stubs this year.

No. of acts (not including the huge lineup at Jazz Lives): 57
No. of shows: 32
No. of times I got carded: 28
No. of times my old, expired driver's license wasn't accepted as proper ID: 1
No. of times I saw Joel Plaskett this year: 3
No. of times I saw the Grates: 2
No. of times I blacked out at Lee's Palace from the poor air circulation: 2
No. of band T-shirts bought: 4, but only 2 bought at shows
No. of Keiths and rye-and-gingers consumed (but not necessarily at the same time): unknown

Best show of 2006: Tied between the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s for the raucous crowd and the Flaming Lips for the trippy, totally immersive experience.

Shows that just plain rawked: The Dears, Hot Chip, Joel Plaskett Emergency, Les Breastfeeders, My Brightest Diamond
Shows that went on too long: Band of Horses, Cat Power
Shows at which I nearly passed out: Band of Horses, Cat Power
Shows that won me over: Camera Obscura with the Diableros
Shows that overwhelmed: Ladytron, Flaming Lips
Shows that underwhelmed: Band of Horses, Calexico, Cat Power (sorry, she's very lovely but she tends to pick two or three chords and stick with them)
Shows that traumatized: Kids on TV, Fiery Furnaces
Shows that grated on the nerves: Fiery Furnaces, Spiral Beach
Shows that surprised me by how much I liked them: Classic Albums Live does the Beatles
Shows that I really enjoyed at the time but have since faded from memory: The Rapture, Belle & Sebastian, Stereolab, The Futureheads, Wolf Parade, The Strokes

Coming up in 2007: Peter Appleyard, Golden Dogs, Jazz Lives, Sebadoh, Sonny Rollins, more free indie acts at Nathan Phillips Square, and word on the street is that Dave Frishberg might be coming to town. Yeah!
Bands I hope are coming (back) to town: Final Fantasy, Gogol Bordello, Les Breastfeeders, My Brightest Diamond

Also planning a trip to Seattle in the spring. I'm bound to catch some good acts there (hopefully including the Trucks and the Earaches).

Major discoveries of the year: yéyé (French pop from the '60s), the Beatles, live opera

Favourite albums of 2006: Aberdeen City - The Freezing Atlantic, Final Fantasy - He Poos Clouds, Found - Found Can Move, The Grates - Gravity Won't Get You High, My Brightest Diamond - Bring Me the Workhorse
Honourable mentions (all good stuff by favourite bands, but these albums didn't resonate with me as much as their previous ones, or as much as the ones listed above): The Dears - Gang of Losers, TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain, Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
Guilty pleasure: Justin Timberlake's Futuresex/Lovesounds. I'm so ashamed.
The album on top of everyone's Best of 2006 list that I didn't check out: The Decemberists - The Crane Wife.
Anticipating albums in 2007 by: The Bravery, Hexes & Ohs. And PJ Harvey is apparently working on new material, but no word on when that'll be released.

Happy new year!

It's a song you know well

Because nothing says Christmas like -- unh! -- James Brown.

Well, not really. But when you've had enough of sterile studio recordings of pop and jazz divas warbling carols, you can count on James Brown to spike your egg nog. Get down!



"Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto"
"Sweet Little Baby Boy"
"Christmas is Love"

And there's no need to fight last-minute shoppers at the mall. The Best of James Brown: The Christmas Collection -- 17 funky and festive tracks -- is available on iTunes for $9.99.

Addendum: RIP, Mr. Brown. I feel inexplicably responsible, having posted about him the day before.

Bonus track: Animaniacs, "The Noel Song". Best. Noel. Puns. Ever.

Sorry! These mp3s are no longer available for download.

---

This isn't music-related, but it is audio- and Christmas-related: on the latest episode of CBC's Quirks & Quarks, an engineering professor explains that it is possible for Santa to visit all our houses in one night with jetpacks and a relativity cloud. Awesome! A guest also discusses the virgin birth of komodo dragons. My favourite part is him pointing out that if Mary had conceived through parthenogenesis, Jesus would have been a girl. I think there's an untold story in that.

I just bought these albums

I lucked out and found a CD that had both Beatles For Sale and Rubber Soul on it. (The disc says, "For sale in Russia only." Oops.) Just missing Help and Yellow Submarine.

I think the used CD store man is going to have a very nice Christmas.

Beatles Marathon @ the Phoenix

So last Sunday at noon-ish my posse and I joined fellow musical masochists for the Classic Albums Live Beatles Marathon at the Phoenix. 211 songs, from "I Saw Her Standing There" (Please Please Me) to "Get Back" (Let it Be). 12 non-stop hours of live music, with only one break for dinner. More Beatles than I've ever listened to in my life. It felt a little bit like a Celtic folk tale in which a poor fool unwittingly puts on magic shoes that force him to dance for eternity. I crawled into bed after 1 am and I swear my feet were still tapping.

Highlights:

• The first "George" hopping happily about the stage with his bass. He had the head shake and the scream down pat.
  
• German versions of "Can't Buy Me Love" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand". (As K. pointed out, these were songs he thought he would never hear performed live -- and would likely never hear performed again.)
  
• The groovy sitar player.
  
• The spot-on vocal harmonies during "Drive My Car".
  
• The rip-roaring performance of "Helter Skelter".
  
• The supporting percussionist belting out "Why Don't We Do it In the Road?" I thought he was going to burst a blood vessel.
  
• Hearing a really good song that I'd never heard before, which happened a lot.
  
• The hipster jocks in the audience. Now I know where all the cute young guys in Toronto hang out.

Lowlights:

• The frightening, aged rockers in the audience.
  
• "Eleanor Rigby", unfortunately. The strings got ahead of themselves and "Paul" had to work to catch up.
  
• Hearing a not-so-good song that I'd never heard before, which happened a lot.
  
• Realizing I should've worn comfortable sneakers instead of knee-high leather boots.
  
• Realizing, during "Lovely Rita", that no one writes songs about web designers. I may have to get on that. ("Lovely Deb, web designer", anyone? It'll sell a million records, I swear.)
  
• The woman who was a bit too excited to meet Andy Frost of Q107's Psychedelic Psunday. (He was broadcasting from the lounge.)

Undecided:

• The long-haired fellow who probably stands in for Robert Plant during Classic Albums' Led Zeppelin performances. Good vocalist, but there was one song in particular in which his hard rock stylings totally brought down the mood and gave it a sinister edge that had never been there before. (For the life of me I can't remember which song it was -- one of the early ones, when the band was still in their mop-top phase.)
  
• The group in the audience who was either a blended multi-generational family or a cult patriarch with his many wives.

In the end, the band outlasted us, as we limped away at the end of Abbey Road at 12:30 am with Let it Be still to go.

The next day I had a medley of their songs running through my head and I had to exorcise it with Ladytron's Light and Magic. Still, the concert did the trick, and now I'm thinking of getting hold of the Beatles' entire oeuvre. Checking my iTunes library, I only have Abbey Road and half of the White Album (long story). To the used CD store!

The Beatles official website
Classic Albums Live website
Classic Albums Live promo on YouTube (That's "Paul" singing Pink Floyd's "The Wall". Weird!)

No, I won't sit and be quiet

Speaking of DIY bands as an excuse to have fun with your friends and impress girls, I present the Trucks as Exhibit B. Despite this Seattle quartet being all-female, I imagine several tracks off their self-titled debut will hold a special place in girls' hearts. These tracks will have you singing drunkenly with your gal pals on the dance floor while all the straight males in the vicinity look on in confusion or terror.

Their MySpace page claims, "WE ALL HAVE SWEET MOVES AND ROCK THE HOUSE!" Translation: collaborative synth-pop that's a cross between Peaches and Luscious Jackson, with a dash of Le Tigre's grrrly flair. Peaches probably inspired the raunchier lyrics, which is disconcertingly incongruous with the Trucks' girlish singing and harmonizing and catchy melodies. You will likely find yourself humming the most inappropriate tunes in the most inappropriate places. I unfortunately had the chorus of "Why The?" ("Why the f*ck won't you go down on me?") cycling through my head yesterday, which made for an entertaining day at the office.

But don't let that turn you off (or on, depending on your tastes). This is still a debut album; they haven't settled on a sound and schtick yet. Some tracks are nicely crafted alt-pop songs. Others will have you dancing in your pyjamas. And a couple will have the men in your life blushing with shame. All in all, the Trucks sound like good fun, and they're on my list of bands to see if I make it to Seattle next year.

The Trucks website
The Trucks on MySpace

Shut the f*ck up 'cuz this is what's up

About five years ago they were saying that indie movies were the new garage bands. All you needed was a digital camera, video editing software, and a dozen of your closest friends. I think recently there's been a return to music as an indie art form (read: a way to hang out with buddies, drink too much, and impress chicks), especially with this '80s new wave electropop revival -- again, because of easy access to computers and other relevant software.

Local Toronto band Ninja High School isn't '80s new wave electropop revival, but I suspect they were formed out of someone's desire to become more popular with girls. Without knowing anything about them, I imagined what the band was like from listening to their music:

• The frontman is a charismatic but slightly obnoxious lout whose forceful personality keeps the band from falling apart. (Likely the founding member.)
  
• The drummer is the only one with any formal musical training.
  
• No one likes the keyboardist, but they keep him around because no one else has a keyboard, and he's also their sound guy.
  
• The rest of the members are assorted backup-shouting and -dancing, tambourine-playing girlfriends, hangers-on, and riff-raff, who are just in it for the great after-show parties.

Of course, this is (probably) all untrue. But that's the impression I got from the 45 minutes of relentless slapdash cheerleading old school dance-rap on Young Adults Against Suicide. I tired of it quickly; there was little variation between tracks. If they ever show up on the bill of any of the concerts I go to, however, I'll be pleased. They at least sound like they're raucous good fun live.

Ninja High School website (I hope their sense of web design is ironic)
Ninja High School on NMC
Ninja High School on MySpace

It's the nature of the experiment

Without knowing anything about them, I bought tickets to Tokyo Police Club's Dec. 2 show at the Horseshoe because a friend needed to entertain an out-of-town visitor that night. (Bespectacled Montreal electropop duo Hexes & Ohs will be opening. Yay!) What I heard on TPC's MySpace page, however, was enough to make me buy their EP.

For a new, young band out of Suburbville, Ontario (a.k.a. Newmarket), they've already sound like they've been at it for years. And yeah, maybe their NY/Britpop-punk sound isn't so original now that the Strokes have been on the scene for a while, but I'm still impressed by their maturity. And unlike the Strokes, every song on A Lesson in Crime doesn't make me want to dance like I'm singing backup in a '50s girl group.

Tokyo Police Club website
Tokyo Police Club on MySpace

There’s nothing too advanced about the grooves

I’ve just discovered BBC Radio’s podcasts. (If you use iTunes, search the Podcasts section of the store for “BBC”.) The Beeb’s already pretty good at making content available over the internet, but this makes it much easier. It’s like getting magazines delivered to your door as opposed to browsing for them at the library.

BBC Radio 1 is the popular (i.e. not jazz or classical) music channel. I subscribed to the Best of Unsigned, listened to the "Electric Proms special" from October 27, and was intrigued by the last song of the podcast: "Found Can Move", by Edinburgh lads Found. It sounded as if Lou Barlow was experimenting with trip-hop.

How can you not like a band that holds a colouring contest for its CD cover? That and their laid-back combination of lo-fi indie and equally lo-fi electronica won me over. I was also impressed that an overseas listener like me could buy their music easily; I feared that the band was so new (and Scottish) I wouldn't be able to find their CD in stores, and I'd have to spend too much at Amazon.co.uk.

Thankfully their record label has an online store where, for 6 pounds sterling, you have 24 hours to download all the songs from Found Can Move in either mp3, ogg and/or flac format. You can also listen to all the tracks. The whole transaction was brief, painless, and a great example of how the music industry can make the internet work for them.

Found website
Found on MySpace
Found Can Move at the Surface Pressure Records shop

I've been trying to show you over and over

I heart PJ Harvey.

As a teenager learning how to sing, Sarah McLachlan taught me how to sigh, and Tori Amos taught me how to squeal -- but PJ taught me how to wail. She’s been my favourite artist for the past 12 years, ever since I bought Rid of Me in 1994. Whereas other favourites have fallen to the wayside (e.g. Sarah McLachlan), PJ has persisted. I love absolutely everything she does, so of course I ran out and got The Peel Sessions as soon as it was released this week. I even had the date marked down on my calendar.

The tracklist is interesting: out of 12 tracks, four are from her first album, Dry, four are B-sides, and the remaining four represent all her albums save for To Bring You My Love, which was probably her most commercially successful (or at least well-promoted to the masses) album. In fact, none of the tracks are particularly well-known, save for "Sheela-Na-Gig".

I have to confess that I was a bit disappointed by this album. I was expecting slightly different renditions of her songs, but it isn’t until halfway through that we hit unfamiliar territory. (One-third of the way, if you’re unfamiliar with B-sides “Naked Cousin” and “Wang Dang Doodle”.)

Some poking about the internet, however, revealed the significance of the first four tracks being off of Dry: they were recorded in 1991, during PJ’s first session with John Peel at the BBC, when she was just emerging as an artist. That would certainly explain why they sound so close, if not identical, to the album recordings. Her first album was so stripped down anyway that the minimal arrangements afforded by the BBC studio made no difference.

But then we get to “Losing Ground” (a B-side from the “That Was My Veil” single), and it’s a different arrangement. And “This Wicked Tongue” was only ever available on the UK and Japan releases of Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea. So a few surprises for those of us who are too lazy to search for clandestine mp3s.

The Peel Session treatment works best with the last two songs, though: “Beautiful Feeling” and “You Come Through” are much more powerful than their studio release versions in the semi-impromptu setting. Reason enough to buy the album if you’re a fervent PJ fan.

PJ Harvey website
Peel Sessions on Wikipedia
The top 125 Peel Sessions (He discovered Camera Obscura 5 years before I did. Damn, he was good.)

Like a monkey with a miniature cymbal

At a friend’s urging over instant messenger, I checked out Hot Chip on MySpace, and within 20 minutes I’d bought and downloaded The Warning off iTunes and ordered tickets online to their Nov 6 show at the Mod Club. And the record industry says the internet is destroying them. Pffft.

They sound like the Postal Service - simple, forlorn pop vocals over ’80s electronic beats - but less precious. It’s probably because they’re British. Anyway, I pushed it onto a beta tester -- a co-worker whose taste runs to the happy and electronic -- and it got his seal of approval, so that’s good enough for me.

Hot Chip website
Hot Chip on MySpace

Help me, I think I’m falling

I saw Karrin Allyson earlier this year at Jazz Lives, the now-annual Jazz FM fundraiser. I remember a petite woman with a lush, throaty voice who sang with great emotional expression and a sense of humour. (If the two sound mutually exclusive, it’s because she performed two songs.) She had the audience hanging on to her every breath.

Wild For You, unfortunately, seems to be her “pop” album. I’m not sure why Stacey Kent’s covers of the great songwriters of the ’70s work for me, but this one doesn’t. I do like her version of Joni Mitchell’s “Help Me” -- probably because Mitchell's songwriting is a bit whimsical in the first place -- but the jazzed-up “Wild World” (the Cat Stevens tune) makes me cringe. This is very much a studio album. Everything is too perfect and bland, which goes against everything I like about jazz.

Nevertheless, I recognize that I’m not the core audience for this CD (file under adult contemporary, please). I still hope to see Ms. Allyson perform again at the next Jazz Lives because she’s a knockout live.

Karrin Allyson website
Karrin Allyson on MySpace

You can take your salvation and go to hell

I’m a sucker for punk-disco beats (see Controller.Controller) and forceful female vocals (also see Controller.Controller). So when the CBC Radio 3 blog posted an mp3 of Modernboys Moderngirls’ “Edge of My Blade”, I was hooked immediately and made of note of when they would be releasing their first CD.

The Edge of My Blade EP launched on October 12 and is only available at local independent record stores. I schlepped my way to Criminal Records on Queen St W last week, and when I couldn't find the CD, I asked the cashier. Turns out she had it behind the counter; she’d been just about to create an index card for it. I probably bought the only copy they had at the time. So if you like what you hear, try Soundscapes or Sonic Boom instead.

Modernboys Moderngirls website (Turn your speakers down, “Edge of My Blade” starts playing right away)
Modernboys Moderngirls on MySpace
Modernboys Moderngirls on NMC (You can stream the entire EP here)

You know your French well

I bought It’s Never Been Like That after two non-Torontonian friends, at opposite ends of the globe, recommended Phoenix to me independently of each other. I was even urged to go see them live in early September, but it turned out their date at the Mod Club was a V-Fest exclusive. Boo.

I still can’t pin them down, which is why it’s taken me this long to do a write-up. The first time I heard them, they reminded me of the Monkees. “If I Ever Feel Better”, from a previous album, has a funky ‘70s vibe although the songwriting style is the same. In this new album I hear traces of Britpop, the Ramones, the Strokes. You’d never guess that Phoenix is French. Although maybe they initially made me think of the Monkees because of yéyé influences, however slim.

Most importantly, though, It’s Never Been Like That makes me want to dance like I’m in the prom scene in a John Hughes movie. And although that’s the best insight into Phoenix that I can give, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Phoenix website
Phoenix on MySpace
“Consolation Prizes” on YouTube
“If I Ever Feel Better” on YouTube (T. says, "It is the most happy/dance around your kitchen in your socks/shake it about/feel good/feel bad song.” So there you go.)

Gonna teach you tricks that’ll blow your mind

One thing that stayed with me from my misspent youth at the Royal Conservatory of Music is the tierce de Picardie, or Picardy third. You’re happily trundling along in a minor key, and you think you know what the next chord is going to be, but -- surprise! The third’s been raised a semitone, making it a major chord.

Grizzly Bear likes their Picardy thirds. I’m afraid that’s all I remember of their opening set last night at the Opera House -- other than their trippy psychedelic noodling -- because afterward headliners TV on the Radio took the stage.

I didn’t know anything about TV on the Radio until a co-worker lent me Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes. I liked it immediately. It sounded as if Iggy Pop had co-written songs with David Bowie in the '80s and '90s instead of the '70s, and then the songs were covered by Peter Gabriel. So...rich, textural chameleon rock with raw edges, and a frontman who really does sound like a smouldering Peter Gabriel.

Within the week I’d bought tickets to their show at the Opera House, and a short time after bought their recently released album, Return to Cookie Mountain. I’m still waiting for it to grow on me as much as Desperate Youth. It’s an excellent album, but less raw, and the only track that stands out so far (but rightly so) is the catchy “Wolf Like Me”. I’m thinking that it stands out too much, and overshadows the rest of the album, because every song they played last night was a knockout. I was not disappointed by their live performance. It's just a pity that I had the misfortune of being directly behind that one guy -- and there's always one in every audience -- who was drunkenly dancing like an idiot without any regard for others' personal space.

Grizzly Bear website
Grizzly Bear on MySpace
TV on the Radio website
TV on the Radio on MySpace
“Wolf Like Me” on YouTube

La-di-da, oh la-di-da

I love the fall. It means scarves, corduroy jackets, apple-picking, pumpkin pie -- and that I can sing Stacey Kent’s version of “’Tis Autumn” around the house.

There is absolutely no reason why I should like Stacey Kent so much. Her interpretations are pretty straight; no vocal gymnastics or flights of fancy. She's simply a chanteuse. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but they’re a dime a dozen.)

But she made me like standards that I never liked before e.g. “Too Darn Hot”, “Makin’ Whoopee”, and “The Trolley Song”. I mean, “The Trolley Song”! “Zing-zing-zing went my heartstrings” -- yeah, you know the one. She just has this charming, effortless, lilting delivery, and on The Boy Next Door she applies it to everything from Porter to Paul Simon and it’s all lovely.

Stacey Kent website
Stacey Kent - “’Tis Autumn”

Sorry! The mp3 is no longer available for download.

Hey Lloyd, I'm ready to be heartbroken

I didn't know anything about Camera Obscura until I was dragged to see them at the Horseshoe back in July, and I liked them so much I bought Let's Get Out of This Country within the week. They get compared to Belle & Sebastian a lot, being Scottish and twee. That's like comparing the Tragically Hip and Broken Social Scene because they're both Canadian and they rock.

Camera Obscura's organtastic '60s go-go meets folk actually sounds exactly like The Concretes -- right down to Tracyanne Campbell's voice -- only the songwriting is better. (The Concretes tend to choose a few chords and stick with them.) I don't know why no one's made this comparison before, because it was so obvious when I saw them live.

Camera Obscura website
Camera Obscura on MySpace

---

Dirty Pretty Things is the new band from the ex-Libertine who is not dating Kate Moss and entering rehab on-and-off.

I think Waterloo to Anywhere is the album that The Bravery wanted to put out instead of their self-titled debut. Not that I didn't like their album; I love their album, and they put on a good show. But all the eyeliner and fauxhawks in the world could never bring them to this level of attitude.

Dirty Pretty Things website
Dirty Pretty Things on MySpace

---

Gogol Bordello is insane. That's what I've been telling everyone I push this album on: "These guys are insane." And it's not just because of the liberal fiddle and accordion usage. Every track on Gypsy Punks: Underworld Dog Strike makes me want to drink vodka and whirl around the room like a dervish. Sadly, by the time I realized they were playing at the Drake earlier this year, the show was sold out. It would've been quite the spectacle.

If you’ve ever seen the film Everything is Illuminated, frontman Eugene Hutz plays the Ukrainian translator (sans handlebar mustache). I recommend that too.

Gogol Bordello website
Gogol Bordello on MySpace
"Start Wearing Purple" on YouTube