"Two Cousins" ~ Slow Club

While the recorded version of this track is absolutely fabulous and brings back great memories, I stumbled upon this live version of the song tonight and was impressed ... and made me think how acoustic slow-downs can make songs better ... maybe because they're that much closer to the original, more composition-close versions of what we hear on our radio and digital feeds, like the personal versions of ourselves, instead of the online, made-up, publicized versions.

Mystery Jets - Radlands

Happy New Year everyone!!

Here's a new track to start off your year.  It makes me miss old times and playing guitar.

Lord Huron - “Time to Run”

Thought you might dig this ditty. From Boingboing.net: 'Lord Huron started as just Ben Schneider, a Michigan-born Navy brat with fond memories of his father playing guitar around a campfire at (you guessed it) Lake Huron. Ben’s since moved to LA and morphed Lord Huron into a 5-piece melodic hootenanny machine. The songs are lush and accomplished and feel perfect for this time of year. “Time to Run” is my favorite song, and the band is giving us a free download for a week.'

The Coup - "Guillotine"

The Coup is a revolutionary communist hip-hop group hailing from Oakland CA. Their outspoken political views have generated heat before, most notably in 2001 when their album Party Music was pulled from a September 2001 release because of the artwork which featured rappers Boots Riley and Pam the Funkstress blowing up the World Trade Centre towers. Bad timing indeed.

Their new album is recently out called Sorry to Bother You. This single mixes French Revolutionary messages with a wacko Wizard of Oz theme (paying tribute to the 70s Motown remake "The Wiz" [featuring Micheal Jackson as the Scarecrow, and Diana Ross as Dorothy.

Never has the revolution sounded so funky.

Lake Side Dive - "I Want You Back"

A jazzy country four-piece from Boston belts out this Jackson 5 classic on a Boston street.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - "Only in My Dreams"

Rock and roll weirdo Ariel Pink's new album "Mature Themes" has recently been released, and his first video "Only in My Dreams" is now floating through the interweb. He is a real weirdo, as documented in this Pitchfork feature, and has freaked out and refused to play major gigs like Coachella due to nerves. Luckily he's got his band to back him up. Like many musicians or creative geniuses in general, he walks the sanity line. He had recorded hundreds of lo-fi songs over the years, before one of his homemade CD-Rs made it into the hands of Animal Collective, who liked what they heard and signed him to their label. Ariel Pink's sound is like an alternative take on 60s dream-pop, and is sweetly captured in this new single "Only in my dreams". The VHS style video is also a nifty throwback. Enjoy!

Grapes of Wrath - "Good to See You"

Flipping through radio stations I stumbled upon and stopped on this song on CBC Radio1. I thought, "Wow, full circle – great sound. Must be coming back." Yet I was puzzled, because I couldn't picture someone in their early 20's writing a song with lyrics like this one ... lyrics about time going by in a way that I really identified with.

But when the song ended, the DJ credited Grapes of Wrath, an early 90's Canadian alternative band (that didn't get packaged and exported south like Barenaked Ladies did, but one that everyone north of the border knew about), and it all made sense.

Maybe the sound is coming back. It should. It's good.