unpiano: music

//photo by Jason Fischer

Hey guess who’s on tour right now? Guess who also put out one of the best records of 2008 (that’s an empirical fact not up for discussion btw)? San Francisco’s Thee Ohsees that’s who. From little home-taped solo project of SF enigma John Dwyer (of the Coachwhips, Pink & Brown, Zeigenbock Kopf, Swords And Sandles, etc.) to full blown rock band of the year, The Masters Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In is a killer fucking record and “Block Of Ice” shreds (neither of these pure, empirical facts are up for discussion either). Look them up on MySpace for tour dates with the Sic Alps.

Thee Ohsees - Block Of Ice
Thee Ohsees - Ghost In The Trees

Bonus:
Thee Ohsees - Block Of Ice (live @ Cake Shop, NYC)

What can you say about Lindsey Buckingham? No, really.. what can you say? ..Because I have no idea. I think I’m starting to use this blog as a way to exercise all the songs that are stuck in my head. A friend sent this video to me a couple months ago and I still fucking hum it on a weekly basis. What else can I do but put it out into the internet in the hopes of putting it to rest. I hope you don’t mind..

Lindsey Buckingham - Holiday Road
Lindsey Buckingham - Holiday Road (video)

Really excited about the new Matt & Kim record Grand that should be coming out soon. They released a song from the new album last week and it’s been on repeat for the last couple of days. If this song is any precursor, you can expect a well aged second album. Kind of like that girl you know who was fucking crazy when she was 22 but you just ran into her 10 years later. She’s all grown up and mellow now, but sill has that spark in her eye that says she’ll smash bottles and jump fences. Yeah, it’s like that.

Matt & Kim - Good Old Fashion Nightmare
(They released the song from rcrdlbl.com who in turn asked that no one else host the song. I’m going to respect it this time around. Just click the link above and then click download. Just one extra click.. no big deal right?)

My friend Knucklehead sent me these tracks he has been making a while back and I slept on it because I’m getting old and slow. It goes really well with that Girl Talk post I did a week or so ago and I like it more and more with every listen. Look, the thing is I love house music. I may not talk about it all that much but it’s true none the less. Manic vocals, samples from the 90’s, all that good stuff is contained in these tracks and it made me even happier when he told me how they were made. Fuck a fancy sequencer is all I have to say.

Knucklehead - Can You Dig The Sun
Knucklehead - Jazz Disc (The Happy Organ)
Knucklehead - Fatty Disco

Damn I need to get these posts out quicker before they become old news. If you haven’t heard it by now, the new Girl Talk album is pure fire. Just like always you either hate him or love him, but by this point you should have already made up your mind. It’s still crazy to me that in 2008, Greg Gillis can make mash-ups sound fresh and listenable. Plus I just discovered that it’s the best biking music for those nights when the hills are looking bigger and bigger. True, it does make me think of that movie Bring It On sometimes, and when I’m biking up those big hills I can’t help but draw the comparison to being at an aerobics class. However, if you have ever seen one of his live shows you’d know that sometimes to get to the party you need to get a little cheesy first. Also, all through the last album I wished that I could have a track listing to consult with. Luckily, you can find the complete track listing for the new album on the Wikipedia page. I tired to figure out what tracks to post, but it was pretty hard. I think you should just go to the Feed The Animals page (on the Illegal Art website) and download the whole album for free instead.

Girl Talk - Play Your Part (pt. 1)
Girl Talk - Hands In The Air
Girl Talk - Like This
Girl Talk - What It’s All About
Girl Talk - Set It Off

They just singed to Columbia recently or rather their record, Oracular Spectacular, was just released on Columbia after having a super good indie EP out for a while. MGMT started out as a college band and now seems to be doing pretty good for themselves living in New York and whatnot. Besides all that career stuff though, the record is really, really fun. Like good songs, that cheer you up and maybe even make you want to dance? Then the other half is psych and throwback stuff that makes Rolling Stone compare them to.. The Rolling Stones. Seriously though, I know I mentioned this before, but my vocabulary is the worst right now “really, really fun” and “Like good songs”!?! I’m the worst. If anyone has good words they want to contribute, feel free to chime in. Actually this blog was supposed to just be songs posted up when I first started, but I like trying to be witty and now I’ve got myself in a quite a bind. Oh well.. If MGMT comes to your town, go see them and have some fun.

MGMT - Electric Feel
MGMT - Weekend Wars
MGMT - Kids (<-- Shout out to our little friend Juniper!)
MGMT - Of Moons, Birds & Monsters
MGMT - The Handshake

Bonus:
Electric Feel interactive music video

Oh man, the new Les Savy Fav album is so good. I’ve been keeping an eye on them for a while, but to be honest all the last albums sort of disappointed me so I never really spent much time on listening. I don’t know how the new album differs (which is why I shouldn’t have a music blog) from the old stuff, I think it might be a stronger effort on song writing. The hooks are catchy as hell and it’s less ’screamy’ then the last stuff.. I think I’ll use that word “accessible” again. Anyways, my birthday was a couple of weeks ago and I bought this album just to play at The Attic for the occasion. It totally made my night.

Les Savy Fav - Patty Lee
Les Savy Fav - The Lowest Bitter
Les Savy Fav - Kiss Kiss Is Getting Old
Les Savy Fav - Scotchgaurd The Credit Card

Still away on the east coast and still without Photoshop or a FTP program. Sorry.. I get home next week though, and I should have a bunch of good stuff going up. For now, please enjoy these videos from the insatiable Leslie Hall preforming with her band Leslie and the Ly’s. For like, 100 more awesome videos from Leslie, just visit her site. If she and Dan Deacon ever had a baby, I would post the baby’s songs here and then probably jump off a bridge or something.

//Photo by Josh Sisk

Dan Deacon has been popping up all over lately and for damn good reason. He and all his Wham City friends have been doing some great stuff in Baltimore, so much so that I feel super lazy everytime I visit their site. His show at Pitchfork was supposedly pretty wild (i.e. had to be shut down early) and besides, how could you not freak out to his music? It’s got the energy of a million Girl Talks and it sounds like an electronic version of Ween. Somehow I missed the last San Francisco show when he played at Bottom of the Hill, but there is another show in September that you can be sure I’ll be at.

Dan Deacon - Crystal Cat
Dan Deacon - Okie Dokie
Dan Deacon - Pink Batman

Bonus:
Live at Pitchfork (video)

I can’t hang with noise/art rock too much. Sometimes they make for great live shows, but listening to them at home doesn’t ever seem that appealing to me. There is always that one song though, hidden in the album somewhere, that you can listen to a million times and even bring out when you dj the bar. For Japanese band Kiiiiiii, that song would be ‘4 Little Joeys’. I hear Kiiiiiii’s shows are really fun and I just barley missed them playing recently at The Rickshaw in San Francisco.. Go see them if they are playing in your town.

Kiiiiiii - 4 Little Joeys

Watch the video