I have the flu probably. I took some cough syrup to help me sleep, but it is defying all odds and keeping me awake. Huh. Imagine that. I don't really know what to do at this time of night (it's only 11:45), so I thought I would share the song that has been stuck in my head all day.

"A Better Son/Daughter" is probably one of the best Rilo Kiley songs ever. It is jam-packed with emotion, and it is brutally honest. It makes me want to sing along as loud as I can, my belly-deep singing signifying an understanding of and love for its message.

I have to wake up in exactly 5 hours for work. But I can't sleep. So I'm going to blog.

I love all girl bands. Namely rock n roll bands. Well, I love any girls in bands. Deborah Harry is one of my heros. But this blog is specifically about all girl bands. I love all girl bands but I hate when other people love them. Ok, well, that's not entirely true. I hate it when people (dudes) are like "yeah, they're really good, and they're an all girl band!" Like, is that surprising? Just because they're all girls, they automatically get more credit for being good? What are you trying to say here? And for some reason it's even more surprising to people (dudes) when they're all pretty girls.
First of all, all girls are pretty so shut up. Second, girls are just as good at making music as boys so go away.
Anyway, I'm probably over thinking this. And I should have been asleep 3 hours ago. And chicks rule.
So here's a mix I threw together on spotify of chicks that rock. (I would have included Seattle's La Luz but they're not on spotify. You should look them up too. They play surf rock). There were quite a few other bands I wanted to include that had one or two members in the band of the male gender (idiots!) but I tried to keep it pure. Namely the Long Blondes and The Ettes and The Noisettes and Blondie (duh). They're good. But not all girls. But you can listen to them some other time.

In honor of the tenth anniversary of iTunes the folks down at Paste posted their most listened to song on iTunes over the past ten years. I thought I would do the same.

My most listened to song since I've owned iTunes is. . . . . . .

"For Emma"
By: Bon Iver
Number of Plays: 151
Date added to iTunes: Unknown, too many computer switches, but my last.fm account keeps track of all my iTunes plays.

This comes as no surprise to me. One, because I already knew it was number one and two, because I've never been more obsessed with an album than For Emma, Forever Ago. It was my life. I would come home from work, put on my headphones and listen to it on repeat. To this day I have no idea what the lyrics mean on the album, but For Emma was what got me through a long cold Idaho winter. Thank you Justin Vernon.

Also thank you iTunes for being born. I guess that's what this post was initially about.

After forcing people to listen to the atrociously awful cover of "Back to Black" by Andre 3000 and Beyonce (two people who I usually love), I thought I would post something I think is great.

Let me preface this by saying that I have never been a Daft Punk fan. I might kind of like that song "One More Time", but who doesn't?  Other than that I've never been able to sit down and listen to an entire album. I've also never listened to the R&B artist Pharrell (that last sentence made me sound like a Dad). I can't say anything about him, because I don't know anything. However, my wife (who is five and half years my junior) informs me that he's a big deal.

Daft Punk and Pharrell have collaborated on a new song called "Get Lucky" and I can't get enough of it. I don't even know what made me listen to it, but I 'm glad I did. It's nothing like I thought it would be. When I think of Daft Punk I think of DJ music. Honestly I don't even know what I mean by DJ music, but I know that I don't normally like groups like like Daft Punk, deadmau5 (or as my middle school students pronounce it, dead mouse. Isn't it he/it French?), Hot Chip, Justice, etc., etc.

This song is hardly electronic. It's more smooth 70's guitar disco pop. I'm tired of explaining, just listen to it.

Usually I'm pretty positive when it comes to this blog. I hardly ever write a negative review or trash other people's music. I, for the most part, enjoy posting about music that I like.

However, this post is an exception. I listened to Andre 3000 and Beyonce cover Amy Winehouse's song "Back to Black" for the upcoming Great Gatsby movie. This song is awful. The music is lousy. It sounds like an electronic metronome. It's one of the most boring beats I've ever heard in my life and that's not even the worst part.

Andre 3000 straight up butchers the first verse. I don't have words to explain how bad his singing is. It sucks. Beyonce comes in to somewhat redeem the last half of the song, but the only reason it sounds okay is because Andre 3000 was so bad. If Beyonce had sung this by herself everyone would be talking about how horrible she was.

Don't listen to this song. It's one of the worst covers of all time. I'll post the crappy version and the original version so you can compare the two.

Just a side note I love the Amy Winehouse version.

About six months ago my then roomate Zak Mercado introduced me to a band called Akron/Family. Six months later there is probably no band that I listen to more. I'll spare readers a description of the band and just promise you they are both eclectic and awesome! Below is a sampler of some of my favorite songs by the band and a new single that will be on their forthcoming album Sub Verses due out next week. Enjoy!

-Earl

We don't really live in a place with a big (or even minuscule) music scene, but we still tried to make the most of record store day. A lot of our favorite artists put out some cool stuff. I went with the Best Coast 7", which  includes the unreleased songs "Fear of My Identity" and "Who Have I Become."

The first song is my favorite. It's a really good and honest account of second guessing, anxiety, and self-consciousness. I love Best Coast because their music is so honest. Also, at $3.99, it was the cheapest record store day deal.

We also bought Sgt. Pepper's for eight bucks, which I think is a pretty good deal. I hope you all had a blessed record store day. Share your conquests in the comments below.

Sincerely,

Xtina

In the past, I would have probably described myself as a very casual James Blake listener. I liked what I heard from him, but I didn't listen to him when I was by myself. However, his new album Overgrown came out this week, and my dear pal Nina  also went to see him a few days ago. This killer combo (ehh....) led me to listen to the song "Retrograde." I was feeling a little blue, but I immediately felt better when I put it on. It felt like the universe knew what I needed right then. So...thanks, JB.

We're about to have the storm of the century tonight. I hope we make it out alive.
For those of you who don't know about tornadoes, they happen when hot and cold air meet. Well it's almost 80 degrees right now and the low in the morning is 32. It's not looking good for the Gibson's tonight.

Here's a little song about storms and staying out of them. It's also one of my favorite traveling songs. There are two versions of the song. Don't worry many readers of our blog (that's funny because we don't have many readers) I'll post both versions.

It's called "Burn Rubber". It was origninally written and sung by Simon Joyner, but Bright Eyes also covered it on the Take it Easy, Love Nothing EP.

I hope we make it.

In the words of my good friend Andrew Mayfield, "Justin Vernon could poop in a microphone and I, along with a million other people would buy the record."  Andrew, you're right.

The Shouting Matches (Justin Vernon's new band) released a new album today, Grownass Man. Unlike the last self-titled Bon Iver album there's not a lot of hype surrounding this album. It's also not as complicated or expansive as the last album. Plainly stated, this is a blues rock album. Quoting Andrew again, "It's like Deer Tick, Tom Petty and Eels got into a threesome".

I think the dude needed a break from all the stuff (sorry for the lack of a better word) surrounding the last album. This is a fun simple. There's only three guys instead of the 200+ that played live shows supporting the last effort.

I like it and you should too.

Here's my favorite song from the album.

Eisley has been a favorite band of mine since I was 14 or 15, and I am so excited about this new album. Nylon posted a song off the new album  Currents called "Drink the Water," and it's great. It opens so perfectly with the piano, and Stacy's voice is better than ever. Eisley has been categorized as "dream pop," and I feel like that's a pretty accurate description except it leaves out the complexities of Eisley's music. I really love the almost dark or heavy feeling that their music contains, especially with The Valley. 

I was wondering where they would go with this new album since most of them are happily married with children, but if this song is any indicator of the album as a whole, I would say that Eisley fans will still be happy. Their albums typically offer such a variety of style, so I am excited to see how the whole album will sound. This song kind of sounds like it could have been on Sucre's A Minor Bird, but it's still got that signature Eisley sound.

Listen to it here.



--Christina

If you weren't sure if you should do genealogy, I am here to tell you that you should. You may find out that you are related to someone great like Steve Buscemi. Chris Baio of Vampire Weekend was diligent in doing his genealogy and look what happened:




-Christina

I love discovering new music. By new, I don't necessarily mean it was released in 2013. So here is a "new" discovery of mine that I really like. This week it's an album by a band called Mercury Rev. I'd heard of them but never given more than one song a listen. The album Deserter's Songs is a beautiful string laden, rock album from the late 90's. Check it out below.

-Earl

My song of the day is "Sacrilege" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I have loved them since I first heard "Maps" when I was in eighth grade. My dear friend Harper even threw me a 20th birthday that was Yeah Yeah Yeah themed. I think they are so crazy and good, and I am really excited about this new album. They were on NPR today-- read the transcript or listen to it here.

They performed "Sacrilege" on Letterman this past week with a full gospel choir, and it was crazy. The lady directing the choir is nuts. I think Karen O. is just so cool. She was recently quoted as saying that she doesn't really care about fashion but she loves style. I really liked that. They are all also apparently really shy, so that made me like them even more.

Do you have any albums that you listen to in the car that make you think you are the best singer ever? I'm talking "I Will Always Love You" style. For me, those two albums when I first got my car were All We Know is Falling by Paramore and Room Noises by Eisley. I would belt them like I was auditioning for The Voice and my only option if I failed was to go back to my crappy waitressing job and raise my eight kids alone. I once made the mistake of turning down the radio a little bit to see how I sounded, and I did not sound like Whitney Houston.

Anyways, I still do that with Eisley. I have remained a fan of theirs, but I kind of dropped Paramore after she started wearing all those bright colors. I started following the singer on Instagram, so I knew that they put out a self-titled album out last week. I started listening to it on rdio.com, and it is pretty good. It's a little more "rockin'" than I am used to from them, but I like it. It isn't the best album of all time, but it's high energy and very catchy. It kind of reminds me of Avril Lavigne with better lyrics. It's just a good pop album, I suppose. I would give it 3 out of 5 stars if we did stars on here.

Sincerely,

Xtina

This may come as no surprise to most people who follow this blog but my all-time favorite Spring album has to be Third Eye Blind's eponymous debut. I honestly will forget about it for most of the year but once the days start getting longer and the snow melts I have this hankering for the aforementioned masterpiece.

I'm not sure how it came to be a tradition but my fuzzy memories tell me I was introduced to the album during the spring of my eighth grade year. I knew there was something special about Amy (oh yeah, Ryan Ward was there too) when I coaxed her into coming over to the large house to listen to it during Spring '09. I'd never actually owned the album so Amy bought it as my Christmas gift that year.

If you have Spring Fever, try this on for size:

"Hero" by Family of the Year

This song is sweet, melancholy, and a little angry or defeated. I really love it right now, and I will probably listen to it until my ears fall off. Enjoy.

I'm not going to write a big explanation about this song, except that I loved it so much my freshman year of college.

I keep hearing good things about the band STRFKR (pronounce that how you will), so I finally caved to peer pressure and listened to them. They are legit(imate). I kind of expected it to be bad electronic music. I guess I am just a jerk. All of the songs on Miracle Mile are great, but I guess my song of the day is "Kahlil Gibran."

This is a song called, "Sex" from an E.P. also called Sex. The band is The 1975. I haven't listened to another song by them, but I love this one. Enjoy "Sex".

I discovered Pretty & Nice through a Say Anything band member's Tumblr, although I can't remember which one now (one of the twins). Their album Us You All We is a great album when you are just hanging out on your couch eating a Popsicle on a Thursday night.

This album is very relaxed. It could be grouped into all those lo-fi surf punk bands that started sprouting up a few years ago, except that it's much tighter and the production is pretty good. Also, they have some electronic aspects that those albums typically don't have.

That album cover is one of the very best. What is even going on there?

The whole album is pretty great, but my song of the day is "Dan's Heart." Their previous album Get Young is really good and pretty different, so give it a listen if you haven't yet.

I think that the Shins are one of the best bands ever. I feel like they are always so tight, and their lyrics, though often cryptic, are so GOOD. I can't say any more than that because I feel that the word "good" was intended for the Shins right now.

I watched the live streaming of last year's Bonnaroo, and the Shins' set was unbelievably good. I don't typically include the Shins on my list of favorite bands, but I should. They played all of my favorite songs, too. They played at the same time as Bon Iver, and I kept switching between the two. However, the Shins quickly won me over, and I ended up finishing their set. I don't typically include the Shins on my list of favorite bands, but I should.

I sometimes forget about Port of Morrow because we don't own it, and that is a shame. My birthday is in two months from tomorrow, so someone can buy it for me. No pressure, though.

Anyway, my song of the day is "It's Only Life" by the Shins.

I went and saw this band a couple weeks ago and fell in love. Their name is Japanther and they're a punk-ish/garage rock-ish group from Brooklyn. It's two dudes, one on bass and one on drums playing along with tapes they previously made and they sing into old telephones instead of microphones. They're sweaty, loud, vulgar and crazy. Who could ask for anything more?

I read up on them a little more after the show. It doesn't really even sound like they call them selves a band but rather seem to consider themselves to be something along the lines of performance artists, making statements and rocking out. They started as an art project while attending Pratt. They've done collaborative projects and have been seen performing along with the likes of synchronized swimmers and giant puppets. I think they also do street art. Double cool.

They're just awesome and crazy and I love them. So listen to them and tell me what you think.

Here's a video.

Chromatics is a band I'd never heard of until tonight. They put out an album last year called, Kill for Love, which also happens to be the name of a song on the album. I don't know how I missed them. They made it onto almost everyone's top ten albums last year.

The first track on the album is a Neil Young cover called, "Into the Black" and it's my song of the day.

New Avett Brothers music video.



I just love them so much.