The Unblinking Ear Podcast: All Grown Up

There's a lesson here. I think it's that if you commit suicide but leave your child with a lot of money, they may wind up using it for cosmetic surgery and awful text tattoos.

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The Unblinking Ear Podcast: Illest Jamz '09

(One of 2009's most intriguing people)

I had hoped to complete this best of 2009 podcast sometime before, you know, 2009 ended. However, I forgot that the time off one gets for the holidays are often just as exhausting as any working week.

Despite an informal year-end round up I posted, I have yet to compile a conveniently enumerated list of my year's top albums. And I don't think I will, for reasons better explained by Ben Tausig at Dusted. However, if you really feel you need a list, I will create and send you one upon request, though I must warn you that after the top spot occupied by Reigning Sound and a silver medal for Grass Widow, the order will be fairly arbitrary.

There are some folks whom I hold in high regard that did make list and contain a bunch of records that escaped my field of vision. (Field of earshot? Auditory range?) Check them out and see how many of these stragglers wander into my next podcast:

Doug Mosurak

Henry Owings

WFMU's Terre T

WFMU's Evan "Funk" Davies

WPRB's Jon Solomon

DJ Rick

Brushback

Matador Records Staff and Artists

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Money Well Spent: Sally Crewe and Volcano Suns

There are two (three, if you want to get technical) good reasons for you to head to ye olde record shoppe today.

The first is Your Nearest Exit May Be Behind You, the latest record from Sally Crewe and the Sudden Moves. As I'm sure you know, Sally and her ever-fluctuating backing band have already released one of the decade's best albums with their debut, 2003's Drive It Like You Stole It. Wait... you didn't know that? Well, you really should since Sally is one of the finest authors of pop music around right now. Her songs are pretty much everything one could want from a pop tune: direct and immediately affecting, but displaying a depth that becomes apparent on repeated listens. Subject matter rarely strays from matters of the heart, which is a pop music staple to be sure. It's a tribute to Sally's craft that her take on love and romance never ventures into trite or drippy territory. I can probably count the number of songwriters who pull the above off on a regular basis using both hands (and maye a toe.) In other words, Sally's breathing some rather rarefied air. Her skills as a tunesmith have earned her fans like Spoon's Brit Daniel and Jim Eno (both of whom appear on Drive It) and power pop-legend Tommy Keene (who will occasionally take a break from his legendary status to be the Sudden Moves' bassist.) I know that's an impressive group of pals but frankly, her material is even more impressive.

Below is the video for "English Medicine." Get on board this train now, people.




Also coming out today are reissues of the first two Volcano Suns albums, The Bright Orange Years and All Night Lotus Party. This will mark the first time these fantastic records are available in the very popular compact disc format. This may mean Volcano Suns will lose their status as some kind of rock snob badge of honor, being that it's no longer necessary to own a turntable to to hear the band's best material. However, if you're hearing these albums for the first time and are suitably blown away, you probably deserve to join the club anyway.

Volcano Suns were the project of former Mission of Burma drummer Peter Prescott and whatever guitarist and bassist felt like playing with him at the time. While never quite garnering the kudos his former band received, the Suns' records were nearly as essential. Prescott and co. were a much more playful outfit than Burma, eschewing much of their music-theory stodginess in favor of rocking out with abandon. This is not to suggest that the Suns were some quotidian meat-and-potatoes outfit. Just give a listen to "White Elephant," a song that serves as a microcosm of everything that was great about Volcano Suns, and has long been a personal anthem of mine. Prescott bellows his waggish parable of the collector as scraps of noisy post-punk guitar help shape a tune that's tightly constructed and melodically rich. At the risk of sounding like a hyperbolic fool, independent rock (and perhaps rock music in general) doesn't get much better.

As for which of these albums you should buy first, it's hard to say. In terms of quality of the original albums, All Night Lotus Party gets a slight nod. However, these reissues are adorned with bonus cuts which complicates things a bit as ANLP's are weaker, containing a "dub" take on "Walk Around," a cover of "Ballad of Bilbo Baggins," a Spinal Tap-esque "Jazz Odyssey" and some less silly material. The Bright Orange Years, on the other hand, contains the fabulous "Sea Cruise/Greasy Spine" single and (what I assume) is material from the original pre-record Volcano Suns lineup featuring Gary Waleik and Steve Michener, both later of Big Dipper. Plus, there's a cover Prince's "1999." My advice: buy both. Merge Records is offering a package deal of both CDs for only $20. Volcano Suns may not have gotten more than a passing mention in Our Band Could Be Your Life but these albums stand alongside the titans of 80s indie rock and hold up quite well.

Ex post facto update: Also released on this date was Ghosts, the new album from Denton, TX's The Marked Men. It may not quite measure up to their previous album, Fix My Brain, but that was as fine an example of blistering pop-punk as anything released in the past 10 (or 20?) years. The new album is worth a listen though and it's streaming online in it's entirety here.

The Unblinking Ear Podcast: In the Name of Love

"We don't want the glamour the pomp and the drums/the Dublin messiah scattering crumbs"

Instead taking the usual route of many rock radio stations and playing U2's "Pride (In the Name of Love)" repeatedly on MLK day, as opposed to playing any actual, you know, black artists, I decided to simply do neither.

I'll remind you all once again that this podcast is now available via iTunes but instead telling you to go through the inconvenient drudgery of the iTunes store, I'll just give you a direct link. Feel free to write a review while you're there. Try to toss around the word "handsome" if possible.


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The Unblinking Ear Podcast Episode III: Reference of the Niche

Episode I: The Fat, Glum Menace and Episode II: Attack of the Drones are still up. (Is Mad Magazine hiring writers by any chance?)

Thanks to SILive's Marooned blog who gave the podcast a ringing endorsement. And special thanks to "broface," whomever that might be. (I have my suspicions.)

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Make This Band Your Myspace Friend: Sally Crewe and the Sudden Moves

You probably don't know it but British expatriate Sally Crewe is possibly the best pop songwriter in the world. Hyperbole, you say? Perhaps, but give one listen to her 2003 debut Drive It Like You Stole It and tell me that I'm wrong. On that particular album Ms. Crewe was backed by Jim Eno and Britt Daniel of Spoon with Eno producing. The inventive arrangements they usually bring to Spoon's albums fit Ms Crewe's batch of short, infectiously catchy songs perfectly. A top 5 record of the decade thus far, in my opinion. Unfortunately, Eno and Daniel could not commit full time for obvious reasons and Sally got a new crew of Sudden Moves to back her on her 2005 follow-up Shortly After Take Off. While the sound was far more conventional, the songs were equally if not more impressive than those on the debut platter. I've spent many a commute to work listening to this album's "Game Over" on repeat. Sometimes I even have trouble getting past it to listen to the remainder of the album.

Following this album Sally left London to relocate to Austin, TX and picked up yet another group of Sudden Moves. With this group she went into the studio (with Jim Eno producing again) and recorded Your Nearest Exit May Be Behind You, a record that has yet to see proper release because no label seems to have enough good sense to put it out. And yet someone is putting out Dan Deacon's albums. This is truly an unjust world. But I digress... Sally has promised to put (every?) track(s) from the new record on the band's myspace page. First up though will be four songs from Drive It Like You Stole It which are on the site now. This will be followed by 4 songs from Shortly After Take Off and then the new record. So go ahead and add them to get the cliff notes version of their discography. You'll be able to become aquainted with Sally's singular brand of pop/rock magnificence rather quickly which will allow you to lie and say you knew them way back before they were cool.

Make Sally Crewe and the Sudden Moves your myspace friend.

Update: Sally posted this bulletin on myspace yesterday:

I've just upload "Your Nearest Exit May Be Behind You" - track 1 from our upcoming album, uh... "Your Nearest Exit May Be Behind You". I'll be uploading a track every day for 12 days, so go and check this one out now because it'll be gone in 24 hours...

So there is now even more incentive to befriend the band and to do it fast! Since 7 pm yesterday the song has received 13 plays. I'm hoping that the power of this blog will at least double that amount.