Brilliance.
Flight of Concords Rulez. Period..
March 06, 2008
January 14, 2008
Good Music + Artistic Vision + Clever Filming = Refreshing Video.
April 17, 2007
Crazy Osmonds. I mean Crazy Horses. I mean Crazy Mormons....
This is a seriously good jam. Seriously.
PS - Thanks to bud Johnny Kingfish for sending me this. Talk about turning a frown upside down...
March 12, 2007
How to make me go camping.
Manchester, Tennessee - June 14:
The Police • Tool • Widespread Panic • The White Stripes • Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals • Wilco • The Flaming Lips • MANU CHAO Radio Bemba Sound System • The String Cheese Incident • Franz Ferdinand • Bob Weir & Ratdog • Damien Rice • Ween • Gov't Mule • Ziggy Marley • The Decemberists • The Roots • Kings of Leon • Michael Franti and Spearhead • Wolfmother • Regina Spektor • The Black Keys • Galactic • DJ Shadow • Gillian Welch • Spoon • Keller Williams (WMD'S) • Sasha & John Digweed • STS9 • Old Crow Medicine Show • The Hold Steady • Lily Allen • North Mississippi Allstars • Fountains Of Wayne • Hot Tuna • Feist • Hot Chip • John Butler Trio • Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys • Aesop Rock • The Richard Thompson Band • Dierks Bentley • James Blood Ulmer • Xavier Rudd • Gogol Bordello • Junior Brown • Tortoise • T-Bone Burnett • Mavis Staples • Clutch • Cold War Kids • Dr. Dog • Paolo Nutini • Brazilian Girls • RX Bandits • The Nightwatchman • The Slip • Girl Talk • Railroad Earth • Martha Wainwright • Rodrigo y Gabriela • Annuals • Tea Leaf Green • Sam Roberts Band • Elvis Perkins in Dearland • Charlie Louvin • Sonya Kitchell • The Wild Magnolia Mardi Gras Indians • Mute Math • Apollo Sunshine • Uncle Earl • The National • The Little Ones • Black Angels • Ryan Shaw
November 22, 2006
Juke Box Hero May Be The Best Rock Song of All Time.
Thank iTunes shuffle feature for this revelation. Juke Box Hero by Foreigner is totally shaking my music snob foundation. Here are five reasons why this fiery hot-lick rock nugget should be purchased from iTunes or emusic.com immediately. (Oh wait, emusic doesn't have this delicious mp3 track.)
Reason 1: "Standing in the rain, with his head hung low. Couldn't get a ticket. It was a sold out show." This may be the most melodramatic opening lyric of all time. It just begs for a killer anime version, or maybe a Robert Rodriguez black and white digitial interpretation.
Reason 2: At 0:33, the most amazing wall of amp driven guitar power erupts out of my high end PC gaming headphones.
Reason 3: "Yeah, he's needs to keep-a-rockin, just cant stop, gotta keep on rockin, that boy has got to stay on top... AND BE A JUKE BOX HEROOO!" This morale building anthem is the stuff of myth; distilled choral essence of teen spirit. For you youngsters out there, replace "Juke box" with "iPod Hero" and maybe you'll get my drift.
Reason 4: The sweet sweet 10 second hot lick from 3:10 to 3:20. Dudes at Guitar Centers everywhere turn into pillars of salt when they displease the Guitar God with unworthy "$299 cherry-red US made Fender knock off" hot licks. Seriously dude, trash your Nickelback shirt, pawn your guitar and go learn JavaScript. I know programmers who are way more rock star than you'll ever be.
Reason 5: Is it coincidence that the most entertaining character on my Tivo Box is "Hero" (from the break out NBC hit "Hero")? Or is it fate testifying to Juke Box Hero's utopian rock worth?
You be the judge.
September 25, 2006
Unmute Mute Math.
Zoe came back from Lollapalooza raving about an up close and personal show she saw of this band called Mute Math. To my chagrin, I brushed off her endorsement and didn't give them more than a passing listen. However, a few weeks later I ripped their CD (she bought at the show) into iTunes and started giving them an earnest listen. AND. I. HAVE. WORN. OUT. THIS. RECORD.
Eponymously named, Mute Math ranges from the sweeping syrup cocoons of Coldplay-esque balladeering (Give 'Picture' a listen) to the retro-prog-rockishness of Abacab era Genesis to (give Break The Same a listen) to the staccato beats of Stewart Copeland. Not to mention that lead singer Paul Meany performs in the haunting upper range that Sting does.
If you live in Atlanta, you should mark this on your calendar:
Oct 24 2006, 8:00P, 40 Watt Club w/ The Whigs and Jonezetta ,Athens, GA
Oct 27 2006, 8:00P, Roxy Theatre w/ The Whigs & Jonezetta, Atlanta, GA
If you live in Utah (yes, I know people in Utah with good musical taste), you could check them out here:
Sep 29 2006, 6:00P, Club Sound w/ Shiny Toy Guns & Jonezetta, Salt Lake City, UT
Zoe took this photo, so I get no credit for it. Other than being cool enought to post it here.
August 11, 2006
Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant.
Not since Weezer released Sweater Song have I been so completely jealous/envious/dazzled/embittered by a band. I've worn out OkGo's last record "Oh No". If like Weezer and don't have OkGo in your collection, you must repent and download it immediately from your flavor of legal or illegal sources. I've watched the video for "A Million Ways" (see In The Backyard below) over and over, completely floored by it's DIY visual blitzkrieg. So I'm happy/jealous to inform you that they have done it again with this little DIY video gem for "Here It Goes Again".
OKGo on treadmills:
OKGo in the backyard:
June 02, 2006
Hot Splash! 2006
| I totally flaked out over the new year and failed to put together a new sampler for you. I figured I'd try to make it up to you by putting together another playlist for you, with some of the bands that most interest me right now. You can listen to each track one by one using the jukebox below, or if you like, you can download the whole compilation by clicking here. As always, let me know what you think. Word. |
||
| Arctic Monkeys Fake Tales of San Francisco UK : Sheffield |
I rarely agree with NME, but if you don't have 'Beneath The Boardwalk' in your collection, shame on you. If were local to Sheffield I'd say "Fook'n brilliant mate - it's right fook'n ace." But I'm not, so instead I'll put on $100 dollar headphones and mow the lawn with serious "piss-off" attitude. |  |
| Mando Diao Paralyzed Sweden |
I saw Mando Diao like 18 months ago or so when they opened for Jet, and blew them off stage. What do they feed the children of Sweden? They must have biscuits and tea made out of 100% pure kick-ass. I bet IKEA sells them. |  |
| OK Go A Good Idea At The Time Sweden |
OK Go has filled the whole in my heart that was left when The Cars broke up all those years ago. What's more is my heart now overfloweth with visual OKGo candy in the form of viral videos that tribute the best dance routine ever choreographed. I highly recommend you spend a ton of time watched every one of them here. |  |
| Brendan Benson Alternative To Love USA : Michigan |
It's rare that I get jealous of a singer/songwriter to the point of seething spittle between clenched teeth, but I have serious song envy. Benson conjures up the melodic genius of Wilson &Lennon with the velvet throat DNA of Dando. |  |
| The Sounds Tony The Beat Sweden |
Blondie, meet Peaches. Peaches, meet Pat Benatar. Oh yeah, and speak swedish. |  |
| Goldfrapp Beautiful UK |
I saw them on Letterman and I was completely blown away. I mean, I already had the album, but seeing them perform was unbelievable. Who knew you could blend Spinal Tap and Synth Disco? |  |
| Spoon I Turn My Camera On USA : Texas : Austin |
I got turned on to this album (among others) by DJLight. My taste was confirmed when I saw them on Austin City Limits. Brilliant. There simply aren't enough tall gangly blonde men in rock. |  |
| Conner Silent Film Score USA : Kansas : Lawrence |
As my old college friend reviewed them on 3Hive.com:
|  |
| The Black Angels Young Men Dead USA : Texas : Austin | Listening to the Black Angels gets me stoned, makes me put on black leather pants with no shirt, light candles, and writhe around the floor screaming aburdities about giant Peeps with bullwhips. |  |
| Van Tramp New England UK | The song New England hooked me like rootbeer. One part U2, one part Faces, this is lush, drive-with-the-top-down, scream along music. I ordered a pre-release copy from their site and it was well worth the scratch... |  |
June 16, 2005
Nostalgia for the 'Zine.
Ok, indulge me. In the past two weeks I've had all sorts of random little reminders about Shimmerzine, my first musical endeavor in Atlanta. A friend says they listened to an old CD. Someone recognizes me from my old days at the Q. An old band photo falls out of the liner of my guitar case. Who knows what this means if anything, but I still decided to post some music out there for you folks who never heard us play. Who knows, maybe it's time to start playing again in general. Since I won't be traveling, I might actually have the time.
June 14, 2005
The Blue Van...
Here's your assignment: Listen to The Blue Van and then go cut your hair in a Prince Valiant. How is it that Scandanavians do rock n roll so well?
April 30, 2005
Deep in the Ivy.
There's a ruckus outside. A spring thunderstorm is assaulting my roof, bending the winter tired trees, then releasing their wet boughs to whip across my shingles. Whap. Whap. Whap. I'm laying on the sofa, looking 23 feet up to the beam across my vaulted ceiling. I can hear my home's old frame moan, "You're kidding right? I'm too old for this."
It's been a long, stressful week. On top of being sick, getting travel vaccinations which made me feel more sick, having a thunderstorm of sorts at work, and worrying about my upcoming trip to Asia, now I have to deal with the weather mugging my house? Damn.
I pick up the remote, and flip through mindless stations of cable brain rot. Nothing. I grab my iPod and start flipping through the hundreds of artists I keep on tap. Ivy! I forgot I downloaded their new album, "In the Clear". I press play, and just like that I'm fixed. Dominique Durand's voice pours into my ears like warm syrup, and I sink deeper into the couch. I have a long history with Ivy and hearing their sound gives me goosebumps. It jogs a memory about standing by myself at The Point when I first moved here, swaying to the music, checking out the indie kids and thinking that living in Atlanta was going to be alright. Her voice soothed me then and now.
My eyes close, weighted down by the gray shadow of late afternoon. As I fall asleep an effervescent thought bubbles it's way across my inner movie screen. "Dude. Your deep in the ivy." I fall asleep.
March 30, 2005
March 20, 2005
American Minor.
Preface: I'm a guitar tone snob. It's one of the few things that's still left over from my days playing with Shimmerzine. Anyone can buy a Marshall stack and crank the volume. Few can pick the right Marshall speaker, the right Marshall head, and then match the rig to a guitar that emotes the beauty of it's original design. (Translation: Buying paint doesn't make you a painter).
Entry: Saturday night I went to see Soundtrack Of Our Lives (SOOL) play at Smith's Old Bar. I fully expected I would have to write an entry about how amazing they are, how much energy they ooze on stage, and how their lead singer looks like a Viking who's been hitting the nitrous oxide a bit too often. And well, SOOL was all those things. You should buy their record, and try to see them as soon as you can.
The real reason for writing this entry however, is to tell you how amazed I was with the first band of the evening, American Minor. I LOVE stumbling across a band that helps me validates my ongoing love affair with music. In short, here are 5 things you should know about American Minor.
1 - They KNOW classic guitar tone. I'm talking about that sultry buzz, that electric syrup, that siren call -- you know the sound. You heard it from Hendrix. Zepplin. Skynnard. Allman Brothers. Odds are if you grew up south of the Mason Dixon line, you got sweaty in the back seat of a car to this tone.
2 - They are the embodiment of what I thought rock bands would always would look like.. In a sea of indie-rock scenesters, all five band members look like members of the bands I'm sure they worshipped growing up. They are: Lanky. Long haired. Bearded. Young-ish. And into their thing.
3 - They are from nowhere West Virginia.
4 - Josh Gragg (guitarist) has a righteous mustache. And if you don't know how I feel about a mustache... well, you haven't been reading here long have you?
5 - "Buffalo Creek" is song that makes the southern music gods very, very happy. You can listen to their whole EP on their website - check it out.
February 04, 2005
BRITISH AND FRENCH ATTACK AND OVERWHELM THE COLONIES!!
I suppose I've taken a bit of creative license here because by 'French' I actually mean a small band of Montreal, Quebecans and by 'Colonies' I mean my iPod. The 'British' part is true, so I suppose I made an editor at The Sun proud today. In spite of my journalistic inadequacies, LISTEN UP PEOPLE. DJ Light and I are turning you on to some new music!
First on my weekend list is KASABIAN. If you have ever hung out at MJQ on a Wednesday night, this band is for you. A coctail of Stone Roses, The Charlatans, Kula Shaker, and a hint of Blur will warm you right up! If you aren't already involuntarily drooling down your shirt, listen to this track called "Processed Beats" and tell me you don't want more.
Second on the list is KAISER CHIEFS. Damn the british and their sound infection! The KC's strolled right past my jaded mattLandia quality control agents, Britpop passports held high, and have comfortably settled into iPod rotation with this song: "I Predict a Riot". The 'Chiefs have what I call 'Derivative Turrets'. One moment they are effusing the likes of Pulp or Space, the next moment the yelling/snarling with the polite grit of The Clash or Supergrass. Anyway you slice it, I like it and want me some more...
Now for those pesky Montreal, Quebecans (aka ALMOST FRENCHIES) ARCADE FIRE. I must admit that I had to listen to the album a few times for the hooks to begin to sink deep. The Arcade Fire are Win Butler, Régine Chassagne (Win and Régine are married), Richard Parry, Tim Kingsbury, and Win's little brother Will. Win seems to have most of the vocal duties and reminds me Modest Mouse, The Flaming Lips, or the Talking Heads. His wife Regine shares vocals duties as well, and she often has an ethereal Bjorkeques delivery. It's not a far stretch to say that Arcade Fire are a Sugarcubes for the new millenium. Listen to "Power Out" and dance around your cube like a crazy person.
Enjoy the tunes. Enjoy the weekend.
December 28, 2004
Sweet 17: mattLandia's 2004 Sampler
Attention readers, visitors, lurkers, and friends. I'm back to posting after a much needed rest over the holidays. I return bearing gifts!
I'm presenting you with "Sweet 17: mattLandia's 2004 Sampler". This year, as in past years, I spent hours scouring my music collection, and hand-picked the jewels that stood out for 2004. This year's sampler is decidedly rock oriented. That's not to say that I didn't add some good hip hop, electronic, and off beat to my collection. I just seem to be particularly excited if I can use words like "diesel", "octane", "boot stompin'" or "hell raisin'" to describe something I've been turned on to. Don't get me wrong, there are some more relaxed tunes in this list, but for the most part, this is Tabasco for your ears.
For a limited time, you'll find that each song title is a link to an mp3 track. You can listen to each track or download the tracks as you like. If you have a crap internet connection, just shoot me an email and I'll burn you a copy! Happy listening!
|
Artist |
Track Name |
Album |
|
Wet From Birth |
||
I've been preaching the Faint for years now, and 'Wet From Birth' reaffirms my belief in the healing power of synth-rock. Hailing from Nebraska, one wonders if Simon LeBon did a little 'extra' fan appreciation on a tour stop in the 80's... |
||
|
Tyrannosaurus Hives |
||
Sweden Rules. There, I said it. It's a sad state of affairs when a SWEDISH band has to re-educate american teens on the very principles that gave birth to rock: sweat, swagger, sex, steam, boot stompin' and pounding sound. |
||
|
Fever to Tell |
||
This track made my list for two reasons. One, it was a Friday-Night-at-Lenny's favorite, making it de-facto mattLandia material. Second, Karen O cries in the 'Maps' video. That's commitment. |
||
Franz Ferdinand |
||
I started 2004 in a London club called the Bunker dancing to Franz Ferdinand till 5 in the morning. This Scottish foursome got a final stamp of approval when they packed the Cotton Club in the late spring, and slammed their way through their pop-electric-stacatto-dance set. Best pop foursome since Blur. |
||
|
Black Mustache |
||
Black Mustache is undoubtedly my "One Hit Wonder" of my 2004 list. "Hot Monkey, Hot Ass!" was the soundtrack for my trip to NYC in May of this year. Electroclash-ish, it nails the art house hipster a**holes who strut their black-eyelinered, heroin chic selves up and down Williamsburg. |
||
| Rubber Factory | ||
A bluesy-trash-rock tour de force, these guys ooze fuzz. Read my earlier review on this archived page. I've also noticed that lots of critics are including the Keys in their favorites lists as well. Jump on the band wagon before it leaves town... |
||
|
Peace Love Death Metal |
||
Winners of my "Best Named Rock Band" award, I can't help but replay this album over and over. Makes me believe that anyone with a four track, a smelly practice space, and a propensity for well crafted melodies can provide us with a work of rock-art. For any 'Resevoir Dogs' fans out there, they also do a wicked cover of "Stuck in The Middle With You", aptly renamed "Stuck in the Metal"... |
||
|
Mouthful of Love |
||
I've seen YHA twice this year. Once opening for Peaches in NYC. The second time at a seedy bar in Melbourne, Australia. Texas sized rock lined with searing ACDC-esques vocals from both a guy and girl. Go to you nearest jukebox owning bar, and demand a 'Mouthful of Love' immediately. Pure Diesel. |
||
|
High Life High Volume |
||
Local boys. Local Legend. Easily the best old school rock n roll show in town. If you can ever catch them at the StarBar -- do. That is when they aren't recording an album in Spain. Can you say "tax write off"? |
||
|
Origin Vol. 1 |
||
Sweden Rules. Ok, I said it -- again. This follow up album to the massively successful "Behind the Music" does not dissapoint. I've seen them 3 or 4 times in concert and have my fingers crossed I'll see them again. Favorite TSOOL moment: In Minneapolis at The Bar, watching TSOOL perform for about 100 people. I go to the bar for a drink, and while my back is the stage, Ebbot Lundberg (the very large front man) sneaks up behind me while walking and singing through the audience, and then screams his way into a chorus. Lesson learned: large singing swedes are frightening. |
||
|
Now Here Is Nowhere |
||
"Nowhere Again" and "Primitive (The Way I Treat You)" are similar in that they are both have slinky, wrap around your spine, stick in your craw melodies. Both tracks have been used as the soundtrack for my little episodes where I feel the need to dance sans clothes (...sorry for that image mom...) in the window of my hotel, looking down a city below. It's an oddly empowering ritual I entertain when staying in a large hotel in a city near you. |
||
|
LP |
||
The 'LP' album is arguably the best full album to come out of NYC. Each track is intoxicating in it's own right. I have to thank a college radio station in Duluth, MN for turning me on to them. I was driving from Minneapolis to Duluth late at night, and "Primitive" came on. I was awestruck and bought the album the next day at a cleverly named record store called The Electric Fetus. I was not dissapointed. |
||
|
Final Straw |
||
I begrudgingly put Snow Patrol on my list. I had sooo many people ooze adoration over this band during the late summer, that I purposely decided I wound't like them. Ok, I know, a childish reaction -- but sometimes I have to make sure that I keep my music snob credentials alive and kicking. Anway, once I finally got around to listening to their whole album, I.... well,... I had a change of heart. Enjoy. |
||
|
Lovers |
||
Killer band from down under. Met their drummer in a Melbourne bar called Cherry bar. Bought the album. Wish all bars had drummers from bands as cool as the Sleepy Jackson lounging in them. |
||
|
My Name Is Deke |
||
I spent a lot of time this year getting in touch with my honky-tonk. I even went to Nashville for a night of Tennessee twang at Roberts and The Blue Grass Inn, where honky tonk lives all day - everyday. I could have just as easily listed Big Sandy and the Fly Right Boys, Benny and Fly By Nighters, The Reverend Horton Heat, The String Busters, or others, but Deke Dickerson's set at the Drive-Invasion at the Starlight Drive-In this summer was smokin'. |
||
|
Candi Staton |
||
Candi Stanton isn't a new artist by a long shot. But she's new to me, thanks to the Music Library o' Shay. She reminded of what good r&b should sound like. That, and Natasha and I listened to this record the first night we hung out. Seems she took this song to heart. |
||
|
SMiLE |
||
Closing out the set list is a Brian Wilson masterpiece. Listen. If you don't get it, go see your nearest music counselor and beg for illumination. Once you do 'get it', the SMiLE album will be reverently placed in your top ten albums of all time. I kid you not. |
||
October 31, 2004
SNL Sing-Along.
I'm watching Eminem perform his new single on SNL and I can't believe he's actually using a teleprompter and a trackback. Now that's entertainment -- watching a so called rhythmic thug read his own song and still occasionally miss a syllable while the vocal mysteriously continues. This just one week after Ashley Simpson missed her cue to sing along with her own track... Worthless.
October 20, 2004
The Faint - Live - 10/19/2004
The Faint just doesn't know how to dissapoint. I've seen them 5 times now, and they are still as amazing as always. Their latest effort, Wet From Birth, doesn't stray too far from the neo synth dance pop that was so infectious on Danse Macabre. Live, these Omaha boys explode from the first down beat, pulsing, dancing, jerking, and swaying all over the stage. I would say that's probably one of the things that keeps me coming back for more - there just aren't that many bands that MOVE as well as these guys do. Favorite songs of the night: Paranoia, Retro Career Melted, Agenda Suicide, and Drop Kick Punks.
Their multimedia projected behind the band was stunning in complexity and syncopation. I tried to deconstruct how they were controlling the cue for each song but it made my brain hurt unnecessary. And the fact that Flash was used to animate the snake and arm in the video work for Phone Call was pretty ingenious too. If they come to your neck of the woods, pay $15 and go get yer danse on!
October 18, 2004
Smile.
I was birthed, musically speaking, in front of an old stereo on the living room carpet of a two story house in Montevideo, Uruguay. Headphones vacuum pressed to the side of my head; the coiled umbilical cord from ear drum to stereo output; the light industrial sound "crrkkpllnkk" of the needle dropping to vinyl. It was there, in a Uruguayan dusk, where the waterfall of Brian Wilson's harmony washed over me and launched a thousand dreams of stardom.
His was my first love. I this love with me everywhere I went, albeit in silence. I was a Wilsonphile, and it was a pop culture cross to bear. No (at that time) I didn't like the beatles, I wasn't really into Iron Maiden or the Scorpions (although I wore their pins as sort of a passport visa into the middleschool killzone, where many a boy was bloodied for not knowing the lyrics to Number of the Beast) and I just wasn't that rock and roll in my musical development.
In 1985, my parents bought be the a video called "Beach Boys - an American Band". It was this videotape that gave me my first look at the darker more complex side of Brian Wilson. It was the first time I heard Surf's Up. It was the first time I saw Brian as anything other than the skinny, surfboard carrying posterboy from California. I became fascinated with this side of the BeachBoys, and over time, grew to appreciate Pet Sounds for the masterpiece it is. I read all the press about the greatest album Brian never released called Smile. I had cuts of Heroes and Villains and Good Vibrations. I would later debate bandmates on the influence the Beach Boys had on the Beatles and vice versa.
All of this came to a head for me on Saturday night. Brian Wilson, apparently resurrected from years of creative castration, rerecorded Smile in it's entirety and has been performing it around the world. I nabbed tickets for Natasha and I, and we got ourselves seated in the cold fall air of an outdoor amphitheatre. Brian and his band (19 members all of who seemed to be able to play every instrument) warmed up with some acapella versions of Beach Boys standards, and then played a set of Beach Boys / Brian Wilson tunes. Good, especially for devotee like myself, but a bit to sugary sweet for Natasha (who was giving me look as if to say "if you like this crap, you really ARE old..."). I started to panic, certainly it would be better than this. Tell me I haven't waited in vain for this moment of pop nirvana only to be distracted by the glow stick sales guy and a slightly off key version of Barbara Ann. Brian and Co. took a break, we the audience took a collected breath, and waited.
Upon return, Brian and Co. launched into Smile. It's hard to describe the clear distinction between Smile and EEBWHD (Everything Else Brian Wilson Has Done). Where EEBWHD is sweet and fun, Smile is a symphony of genius, manic mood swings, and instrumental bliss. To say I was blown away is too easy. I was blown apart; with all the little pieces of my sonic id caught up in the ripcurl of a sweeping orchestra. Heroes and Villians was Wonkwellian in scope. Surfs Up will be forever be my standard for pop ballad complexity. Hearing Good Vibrations in the context of Smile was an "a-ha" moment for me, sort of like seeing the Directors cut of The Abyss (I know, an obscure reference for most.) I snuck a glance or too at Nat, and I was pleased to see that she was having her own awakening to pop genius, manifested by a long series of softly repeated "wow"s.
As I left the amphitheatre, I hummed, "Hung velvet overtaken me / Dim chandelier awaken me / To a song dissolved in the dawn. The music hall a costly bow / The music all is lost for now /To a muted trumperter swan." Genius is a mysterious beauty.
October 04, 2004
The Black Keys
Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye... Rock and roll is now in session. This is a record that has chest hair, chain smokes, always wears dark glasses, and turns the volume down for no one. Part Hendrix, part White Stripes, The Black Key's Rubber Factory LP is in regular rotation in mattLandia, thanks to a tip from DJ Light up in Saint Loooee. Good rock is so hard to find, so I've been drinking heavy from this well the past few days.
A few strokes of the keyboard reveal that this is an Akron, Ohio based band and that this is their third LP. Although the band's own website is decent, the fan site put together at blackkeys.net is easier to navigate and offers up a ton of good readin'. I've put a 20 second clip of one of my favorite tracks "Grown So Ugly" right here for the sonic voyeaur (click here). Be forewarned: like crack, one hit off the Black Keys and you'll be a droolin' fool, suckin' fumes off the nearest speaker.