Dear Ari Hest,

I think I have fallen in love with your new song "Bird Never Flies" from your most recent album, The Break-In. I heard it in a sampler CD in the 5th Anniversary issue of Paste, a cool little magazine which features awesome music, nifty movies, and fun artifacts of our present culture. It's really a publications gem.

Anyway, either last issue or the issue before, I saw an add for your 2006 project, The Green Room Sessions. I was intrigued 1) by your name and 2) by the cover, which features you, a fairly good looking man playing a guitar and sitting on a chair near a window. I was intrigued, but I'll admit I did nothing about it.

So, then I purchased the most recent issue of Paste. I put the sampler CD straight into my car's CD playing and listened. Eventually I was distracted by a deep, commanding voice. It was your song (a live recording from the Paste party back in February).

It starts with moving, driving acoustic guitar. The lower notes drive the pulse of the song, the higher notes plinking away, creating an interesting syncopation with the bass notes. Then your booming voice comes in. There's something familiar about it, but I can't quite label it. There's something comforting about it, the vibrations of it, the way your deep voice rolls and vibrates over the verses. There's something phenomenally alluring about the way your voice is so present and clear one second, but gets raspy on higher notes.

And talk about catchy-as-hell love song: "Darling, don't cry/ don't you know/ I won't give you up/ this bird never flies" and then the heartstrings-pulling repetition of the line "I won't give you up" toward the end.

Even though I haven't heard the studio recording of this song, I think I like it. The guitar, the voice, the lyrics, the emotion it evokes. It's one song definitely worth a listen.

I may have to buy the whole album. Score for the Adult Alternative Artists!

Love,
Christina

It's been a while since I posted a new installment of this series, but the music industry seemed to have taken a break from doing things that really annoy me. However, they are back at it again. But, really, who is surprised?

As you may have heard, seventies band The Rubinoos have accused Avril Lavigne of ripping off one of their songs entitled "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend." Can you guess what Avril song has the very similar refrain? In case you're not familiar with the Rubinoos song, you can listen here (along with the comparison to "Girlfriend").

Well, that's not all. Now there's suspicion that one of her songs called "I Don't Have To Try" is a rip-off of Canadian band Peaches. The comparison of their song, "I'm the Kinda" and Avril's can be seen/heard here.

Listen for yourself and see just how similar both songs are. This is disgusting. She's stealing these people's music. That's just tacky and uncalled for. As gossip champion Perez Hilton pointed out on his website, Avril is trying to defend stealing the Rubinoos song by saying that she's never heard it. But Hilton pointed out that there's no defending stealing the Peaches song, as InStyle magazine did a feature on some music celeb's lists of "most influential" songs, and that same Peaches song was Avril's #1.

There's no defending that.

At it doesn't end here. Check Perez Hilton's page to read on (scroll down a bit to find the Avril stuff... though there's some other tasty celebrity gossip there too).

I'm too disgusted to talk about it anymore. I was never that big a fan of Avril Lavigne's anyway. I liked maybe one song. "Complicated" annoyed me. Don't get me started on "Skater Boi" or whatever it was. I'm glad that I don't have to be a disenfranchised fan -- because really, no amount of loyalty should be able to stand behind this kind of action (unless of course you're 9 and don't know any better... which most of her fans may be anyway).

Of all the awful things that happen in the world of the celebrities and music and hollywood, this is probably the lowest you can go. Never steal anyone else's artistic hard work. Disgusting.

It's one thing that will make NOT <3 Rock Stars...

"Amateur" by Lasse Gjertsen

I guess this technically constitutes music. It's really just some Norwegian kid playing random stuff on a drumset and a piano, and then he used a pretty cool editing technique to put it all together.

I thought it was a pretty significant YouTube find, and thus I am sharing it with you. I wish I could play half as well as this kid can edit, haha.




Apparently, he can't play the piano or the drums, which I find amazing. He can't play, and yet he's composed something beautiful out of randomness. Now, that's talent. Norwegians are awesome.

You can find some more videos by Lasse on YouTube.com.

Just the Beginning: "An End Has a Start"

A couple days ago in my other blog, I mentioned the new(ish) Arcade Fire album Neon Bible. I bought it about a week and a half ago, and it's pretty good. And though I listened to it a lot those first few days, and generally approved, I haven't been listening to it lately. I need to get back into it, as it actually is very good. But I haven't been listening to Arcade Fire these past few days because I've been preoccupied with another band.

Now, this is a band that I've talked about before, and if you look in the archives, you'll find a review of their first album. So this band isn't a new find. But for about a week now, UK rockers Editors have been occupying my time.
I listen to them every once in a while, when I remember them, and I always enjoy them. Their first album was pretty top notch (as I described a few months ago). But something brought them up a couple weeks ago, and I haven't been able to get them out of my mind. I started listening to their first album, The Back Room, a lot, and, naturally, that led to my looking them up online.

I knew they had a new album coming out (An End Has a Start), but it hadn't been released in the US yet (release date is set for July 17, 2007). But I really wanted to hear this new creation. I considered downloading it from UK sites, but the conversion rate is a bitch, and I don't know if I trust overseas buying with my credit card (especially since I don't even like to use the card here in the US). But so after much mental debate I got a friend to find it for me. I know, I really hate this kind of stuff, but I'll make it up and actually buy the album when it comes out.

Because, really -- Holy Jesus. I'm listening to this song called "Escape The Nest" right now. It's track number 8 on the new album, if my data is correct, and my God this stuff is great. If you're a loyal reader, which I suspect you either 1) are, because why else would you be reading this?; or 2) are not, because why else would you be reading this?, you'll remember that in my first Editors review, I called their music something along the lines of "rock the way it's supposed to be."

Pretty much. It's hard, it's heavy, it's moving, it's even got screaming guitars. This urgency, this whimsical yet tough feel that this song oozes is... magnificent. I can't think of any other word to describe this sound (though, in my defense, it is 2:15am). It's exciting and even has a guitar shrieking out eight notes (and then, Sweet Jesus, are those sixteenth notes? My ears cannot discern). It has the kind of beat that infects your body. Your brain can't ignore it, and you find yourself two notches away from stomping your foot along with it.

Of course, it's not all fast paced; Editors have depth, too. The song just before this one is slower, calmer, more tender. "Don't drown in your tears, babe/ push your head towards the air/ now don't drown in your tears, babe/ I will always be there" lead singer Tom Smith (a nice young, almost baby face with an impossibly deep, brooding voice) croons over an dreamlike pulsing piano and strumming guitar in the track aptly named "Push Your Head Towards the Air." So far, it's my favorite track on the album. Silly sounding name aside, the steady rocking of the beat, the words flow to meet the tempo is almost enough to produce tears. Now, I'm not saying it's the most beautiful song in the world, or even the best, but I still think it's pretty damn good. It's definitely worth a listen or 50.

As is the entire album. When this thing hits the US in 13 days, I suggest you go pick yourself up a copy. I don't think you'll be disappointed. I wasn't.

And I can be hard to please.

Notable Tracks: #1 "Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors"; #2 "An End Has A Start"; #7 "Push Your Head Towards The Air"; #8 "Escape The Nest".


(Author's note: also in that first review, I mentioned the level of energy emenating from the songs. I mentioned that I can only imagine what the live shows are like. Well, turns out I will find out Sept. 7, 2007.)