Rejoice, for Bon Iver’s new album comes out today! Bon Iver, Bon Iver is the second album from folk it-dude Justin Vernon’s band, his first album being the overwhelmingly pretty, often-hyped For Emma, Forever Ago, the one that has the highest play count on my iTunes.

Of course the new album is also overwhelmingly pretty, but it is a bit warmer. Everything is much fuller, the songs change and transition delicately. And it can’t really be called straight-up folk anymore. Everything is more complex, some tracks have some subtle saxophone, and the guitar is soft and trickling. Vernon’s voice ranges from deep and sweet, to its trademark gentle falsetto.

Seriously, you need to listen to this with a good pair of headphones. Preferably you should be watching the sunset on a beach, but that’s not a requirement. Try “Towers”, or “Michicant”. Trust me, they’ll melt you like  buttah.

Something Pretty for Your Ears is a post from: KZSC Santa Cruz

I first learned about Frank when I was in a bar down in San Luis Obispo a few years ago to see a completely different band (the equally brilliant Murder By Death). After a few pints, my friends and I settled back to watch the opening act – some English guy with an acoustic guitar that we had never heard of. But he was incredible. Soulful, hilarious, musically gifted, and maybe just a little drunk, he laid down about an hour’s worth of solo acoustic material that managed to strike a chord in me – pun definitely intended.

After that fateful night, though, I completely forgot about Frank for over a year, when another one of my friends handed me a mixtape containing some English guy with an acoustic guitar covering Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road.” Suddenly my memory was jogged, and that fateful night in that random bar came flooding back. I was suddenly hooked. I scoured the world for this man’s music, devouring his solo albums first, and then by a stroke of providence finding his material from his first band, London punks Million Dead. Since then, I’ve hung on his every move, and never been disappointed.

So here are a few words about his music. Frank grew up in Winchester, England, went to school in London, and has been in the music scene for over a decade, releasing three albums with his first band, Kneejerk, two albums with Million Dead, and a solo discography of three studio albums, a full-length live album and DVD, four EPs, and another studio album set to be released so soon I’m already drooling. His music has influences stretching from Springsteen and Dylan to the Sex Pistols and Rancid, with a solid dash of traditional English folk music to top it all off. Last fall, I was lucky enough to see him perform at the legendary Troubadour in Los Angeles, and snagged this video of his latest single, the raucous “I Still Believe”:

Click here to view the embedded video.

In these days of insipid genre-squabbling, I find artists like Frank Turner to be more than just a unique spin on things – they represent a movement that celebrates the joy of music, not the currently trendy “us against them” mentality. Because, after all, something as simple as rock and roll can save us all.

- The one and only DJ Z

He Won’t Sit Down And He Won’t Shut Up is a post from: KZSC Santa Cruz

FALL BE KIND

So, yep they did it. To us. Again. Through the heart? Maybe.

Animal Collective released a new collection of songs: their Fall Be Kind EP. As a long-time AC fan, it’s kind of easy for me to slip into really loving everything they do. However, their last album (Merriweather Post Pavillion) sort of threw me through one of those trials we have in romantic relationship; the “you’re still really cute but you’re getting seriously irritating” romantic trial that some of us might know all too well. Summertime Clothes? Undeniably catchy. My Girls? Good god this is summertime bliss! But it didn’t blow me out of the water. More importantly, it didn’t blow my head off with greatness, it didn’t rub my face in fleshy dirt the way Sung Tongs was capable of doing. So consider me, at this point, a skeptical yet still enamored fan.

The new EP? Compelling. Gorgeous. “Bleed” is the most wonderfully hypnotic song that I need to hear every morning that I need to hear late at night that a crazy night of storytelling is incomplete without. The whole EP draws out, brings me in, hypnotizes me, and brings me to that meditative state that only a good cup of distortion and repetition could take me to. The final verdict? A good move in the Animal Collective story. It’s possible that they hype can scare us all out of our skin at times, but there’s nothing like some good meditative noises and shouting to wash it out of our systems.

Fall Be Kind is a post from: KZSC Santa Cruz

Show review: Vault Dweller, Fell Voices is a post from: KZSC Santa Cruz

Yesterday CMJ gave away a slewww of prizes and awards at their annual College Music Awards. While KZSC is only winning at home (and with you) right now, our neighbors KSSU Sacramento took home a mountain of awards, including Station of the Year! Say congrats to them and give them a listen to see what all the hooplah is about.

Little Teeth!

The real hooplah last night, however, was Little Teeth, one of my favorite high energy freak-folk bands whose album “Child Bearing Man” was played alllll over KZSC last winter. The group recently became a (partly married) trio and the combination is still as fantastic as ever. Front woman Dannie Murrie stomped around with legs wrapped in shells and bells, threw pots and pans, and nearly made my booted heel break the floor boards from the amount of stomping and clapping that was induced. They should be coming to Santa Cruz in the near future, so get into this soon. You’ll want to wear your dancing shoes and your swing along with all your friends. Also, this little lady managed to snag their new EP “Falling Off the Bed By Default of the Bed Falling Off of the Bed” so look forward to hearing that all over the SC radioland.

UUVVWWZ!

Also last night was a current favorite out on Saddle Creek right now: UUVVWWZ. They played at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn which I have to say is a less-than ideal venue for such a great act. Can I just say right now that I really dislike stages? Mainly tall stages, I have a problem with a band as fun and crazy and dance-along wonderful as UUVVWWZ playing while raised 5 feet in the air with obnoxious colorful lights flashing the whole time. What I mean to say is that this band is great. I want to dance along with them in my living room will all my friends and get sweaty and nuts. An oversized venue just didn’t do the trick. Lead singer Teal Gardner kills it with her jumping dancing flying crazy voice over gritty jittery guitars. I am 100% going to try to catch them again before I take off for California tomorrow (booooooooo!) so cross those fingers that I do!

Today I got up early to catch High Life once again. An early show (2pm is pretty damn early) and equipment constraints lead Doug to adapting in the most wonderful way: we started off downstairs at the Cake Shop in a nearly empty, dark basements and followed the guys up the stairs into the cafe for a surprise acoustic set of what I had previously seen: freak electronic Panda Bear-style pop. And this time? Beautiful folk music from a musician who I really cannot get enough of.

Keep checking here for more CMJ updates!

CMJ Day 3: UUVVWWZ, Little Teeth, and college music awards! is a post from: KZSC Santa Cruz

It’s time we sit down and cuddle up to something that I personally cannot get my ears to move away from. The band is Air Waves, out now on Catbird Records. This is what happens when you get a copy: your hand is filled with this beautiful, screen printed, yellow artwork on what looks like a 45rpm sleeve.

in love with your sunny afternoon, this is Air Waves

And inside, the sounds inside, are equally as gorgeous, as striking, and as warm. It’s lo-fi in the sense that it sounds like it was recorded in a really sunny afternoon bedroom. And it feels like you’re in that bedroom when you listen to it. The head songstress, Nicole, has a beautiful if not toughened voice that is intimate and trustworthy and heartening. The music is sunny and breezy and relaxing. This is music to lay on your floor and craft to. This is music to sit in the park with. This is music to swing on a hammock with. It’s your summer sweetheart, if nothing else.

Keep listening to KZSC for sneak peeks of this grand self-titled EP. Chances are you won’t be able to wait for that serendipitous moment, which is why you should go to their myspace, listen to some tracks, lay on your bedroom floor, and maybe get your own beautiful Air Waves EP.

I hope someone else falls in love with this record, because really, it’s too warm not to share.

Love,

Caitlin of KZSC

take care!

Lost in the AIR WAVES is a post from: KZSC Santa Cruz

Welcome to summer, KZSC-ers

They’re not quite coming from the beyond the grave; these are our charts from last Tuesday. Next Wednesday will bring new joys, but until them, check out this greatness:

Rock music wins:

Top 5 adds:

Soundtrack to your Motel Motel raptor battle adventure

1 Motel Motel – “New Denver” – We’re messy kids listening to The Walkmen, taking them by storm, upping the pop and having way too much Coffee Cigarette fun. By far one of my favorite new indie rock bands, Motel Motel are doing it right. (The songs “Coffee” and “Cigarettes” are by far some faves)

space.

This is your Neon Graveyard. Love, Gobble Gobble.

2 Gobble Gobble – “Neon Graveyard” – Pop music made on an acoustic guitar by a solemn boy run through a room full of vocal filters, chopped and cut for glitch effect, added blips and spilled out onto a CD. Some songs (esp. “Meteor Eschat”) are incredibly compelling. Honest and intimate despite the amount of sonic experimentation going on.

space.

We believe in indie rock, you can too: You Can Be a Wesley

3 You Can Be a Wesley – “Heard Like Us” –  Okay, let me be honest here. I’ve become disillusioned with this so called “indie rock” banner that us kids have been carrying for so long. That “sound” (you know, the classic one, the one that Spoon stands for) had eluded me, and experimental music took over my heart. Well, until now. Starting this week with Motel Motel and held up halfway by You Can Be a Wesley, my heart is now achingly happy about our genre. This band has enough upbeat pop sensibilities to keep your ADD-kid leg a-hoppin’ and enough indie rock sound to not make you sick from pop-cleanliness.  (Listen to “Stuck in a Battle”, please, for the goodness of your own happiness)

space.

Japandroids will set us all on fire.

4 Japandroids – “Post-Nothing” – We’re alive and well, we listen to Rock and Roll and as much as Los Angeles has made apathy hang on our lips like bummed cigarettes, we still believe in fun. We still have an ounce of hope and with that ounce we’re going to dance around and have fun. Go it? Good. Rock music is still alive, don’t forget. (“Young Hearts Spark Fire” is the soundtrack to this scene, to your new life. Get up, friends.)

space.

We’re youthful and alive: Charts from 6/22! is a post from: KZSC Santa Cruz

Strangways, Here We Come

Back in 1986, the wheels were already coming off the rails of the Smiths’ metaphoric “train”. For starters, the move from their original record label, Rough Trade, to major-league EMI had it’s complications, add that to the fact that the band’s lead singer, Morrissey, had systematically chased off every single manager that the band had had and the tumultuous, embittered friction emerging between the once-inseparable writing duo and it’s surprising that we even got a fourth Smiths record. It’s a testament to the group’s tenacity (especially Marr who, on top of all that, got in a minor car accident prior to recording the album) that we got to cherish this record. That being said, Strangeways is, in my experience, looked on as the bastard child of the Smiths’ LP work, despite both Morrissey and Johnny Marr having claimed it as their favorite work. Why is that?

Well, side one of Strangeways starts off with the song titled “A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours” which features some of Morrissey’s most creative songwriting, taking the perspective of the embittered spectral remains of “Troubled Joe”, desperately claiming that he’s alright on his own despite being unable to deal with the idea that “uglier” people can find love where he can’t. The glam tinged “I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish” benefits greatly from drummer Mike Joyce’s snare, which gives the song a distinct snap as it grooves along Johnny Marr’s snarling, T. Rex-informed guitar, while “Death of a Disco Dancer” plays like a 5 minute descent into madness; initially starting out as slow and mellow (courtesy of bassist Andy Rourke’s stirring bassline) and eventually evolving into a guitar and piano-laden frenzy. Morrissey uses this backdrop to mock those he perceives as naive and pollyanneish in their pursuit of an agenda of “love, peace and harmony”, especially prophetic given the ecstacy-fueled madness of the Madchester scene of the early 1990’s.

Fourth off of Strangeways is the perennial jukebox favorite, “Girlfriend In A Coma”, a fascinating 2-minute long, incredibly bouncy jaunt, followed by probably the most straightforward song on the album, “Stop Me If You Think That You’ve Heard This One Before” which showcases the Smiths at their rockin’ best. Marr’s guitar line is deceptively simple, as he is said to have written it as though he were “an amateur punk rock guitarist”. How the hell that explains the bell sounds throughout the song is beyond me. In terms of the lyrics, however, Morrissey just goes to town: the title itself has a double meaning, addressing both the singer’s critics (and there were/have been/always will be many) and the person for whom Morrissey, within the song, is singing to about his alcohol-fueled madness.

Strangeways also features some of the Smiths best samples, best demonstrated by “Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me”. It opens with a sound collage of sound effects from the BBC library that give the impression of a mob attacking some building far in the distance, with only the cries of anguish and pain audible from the rest of the chaotic mess, and follows suit with one of Morrissey’s most dramatic vocal turns yet with the Smiths. Mike Joyce’s drum rolls keep with the melodrama of the song, and Marr’s restraint on guitar is enough to keep the song from going overboard. Restraint is hardly on Morrissey’s mind, however, as “Paint A Vulgar Picture” counts among some of Morrissey’s best vocal work, dashing between the dueling perspectives of a gone too-soon dead artist and an adoring obsessive fan (as the former head of the New York Dolls Manchester fanclub, it’s a feeling that Morrissey knows all too well). Also, Marr’s solo during the lyric-less refrain is pretty badass.

Released in 1987, some months after the official disbandment of the Smiths, Strangeways, Here We Come may suffer from the obvious strain on Morrissey and Marr’s songwriting partnership, as well as the dubious circumstances on which it was released, but I feel that it’s very much like their 1985 release Meat Is Murder where, rather than cementing the guitar-driven jangle pop the Smiths are known for, the quartet focused on expanding their sound, using piano (“A Rush And A Push”, “Death of a Disco Dancer”), expansive vocal samples (“Last Night I Dreamt”), organ-like flourishes (again, “Death of a Disco Dancer”) and other such ingenuities to push our buttons. And for that, I am grateful.

Final Rating: 8/10

If you’d like to hear songs off of Strangeways, Here We Come and other work by The Smiths, tune in every Wednesday morning at 10:30 for Louder Than Bombs where you get the best and brightest of the Pope of Mope, Morrissey!

Strangeways, Here We Come is a post from: KZSC Santa Cruz

Black Clouds and Silver Lining

It’s out. I have been waiting for it since the day I heard of its upcoming release. After seeing them in concert last year I couldn’t get enough. Dream Theater is the band with the technical expertise and the know how to write some of the most amazing songs I have ever heard. Their new CD entitled, ‘Black Clouds and Silver Lining‘ does not disappoint in any way.

I have this thing I do when I get a new CD, the first time I give it a listen I have to set everything up just right. I have to make sure I won’t be interrupted while I listen to it, I have to make sure I’m comfortable, and I have to make sure that I’m listening to it in a place where I can get the best sound. Well, I’m not too busy, but it is really hot, and I don’t have a super fancy and expensive sound system at home. So I waited until it was night time, opened my window, turned on my fan, put the CD in my cheapy boom box, laid back and listened.

It was quite an adventure. Black Clouds and Silver Lining is a prime example of Dream Theater’s seemingly innate ability to write songs that tell stories from not only a lyrical dimension, but a musical one as well. From the brutal beginning that is ‘A Nightmare to Remember‘ and its intense music and impeccably placed sound effects to the epic ending of ‘The Count of Tuscany‘ the CD tells stories and tells them damn well. This is a great CD to listen to if you are new to the band Dream Theater, showcasing their many faces and styles, even if you like only one song off of the CD I guarantee that there are more songs in their repertoire that will fit the bill. I can’t say enough how impressed I am with this offering from Dream Theater, listening, really listening to this CD was a really rewarding experience. That all being said, I have no choice but to give it:

5 STARS!!!

You can check out the official Dream Theater website right here: http://www.dreamtheater.net/

or their Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/dreamtheater

–

Chris Auzenne aka Leviathan

KZSC Loud Rock Director

Silver Lining is a post from: KZSC Santa Cruz