MOG

It seems as if it's been forever since I last posted. It's only been a little over a month. A storm is brewing here in Maine so I'm down for some keyboard time before I fire up the grill. I could talk about how excited I am for the new Dandy Warhol's album or how there are a lot of great summer records coming out that are going to blow up in the coming months. I could comment on the Bob Dylan biopic, "I'm Not There" that we just watched but I'm not enough of a Dylan fan to comment on whether the dipiction was accurate or even interesting to the common fan. The new Death Cab For A Cutie CD is out. I just haven't listened to it enough to comment. There are a boatload of new bands that have caught my ears -Dignan, Fleet Foxes, Shearwater, Stars Like Fleas...but time is drifting.

I'll try to keep this post narrowed down to 3 great albums I've been listening to (just a notch above the rest), and maybe one rant so-to-speak that makes me rethink my respect for Coldplay. First up is Bon Iver - an amazing songwriter from Wisconsin. He reminds me of a backwoods Iron & Wine (actually Iron & Wine reminds me of a backwoods Eliott Smith). Backwoods only pertains to the beard these two wear. Bon Iver is great. The album titled For Emma, Forever Ago has a great six minute plus ditty on it - "Re:Stacks" on it (my favorite). It's just a moving track with great melody. The CD also contains "Flume", "Skinny Love", and "The Wolves (Act I & II)." The most exciting part is that Bon Iver is daring enough to play Portland, ME but mean enough to doing it during day 6 of our Lake vacation in Central ME. That may just mean a early departure from the Lake.

The next album I'll rave about for about 10 minutes is Helio Sequence. I first saw this band on Jimmy Kimmel and thought "They're cool. They sound sort of like Sonic Youth." I was sort of wrong. They might have Sonic Youth riffs here and there but they're more like counterparts to The National, Band of Horses, and The Shins, with influences of Dylan and Leonard Cohen. "Lately", "Keep Your Eyes Ahead" (also got some MTV2 Subteranean airtime) and "Hallelujah" (not the Cohen or Buckley cover, but my favorite) are the killer cuts, so-to-speak. I really need to check out some of their older material. Looks like they have three other records too!

Last but least (only because I've only heard one song of theirs) is the instrumental soundtrack sounds of Quiet Village, a melodic, light on the samples, heavy-on-the aurora, electronic act without the beeps and ooops of the cheesy keyboards. The music on the track "Circus of Horror" is nostalgic of a 70's film filled with a quasi- funkedified bass line. I have to agree with eMusic's recommendation that they are for the DJ Shadow fan. Instrumental music in general is interesting to me so Quiet Village is a must purchase for those who seemed intrigued thus far.

Lastly, I must comment on the slightly unfair playing ground Coldplay is pulling on non-physical sales for their June 17, 2008 release of Viva La Vida. Non-physical sales of course refer to digital downloads and Coldplay is giving the equivelent of a Best Buy exclusive to iTunes by skipping the "mom and pops" of the digital music world. iTunes will be the only digital retailer who will carry the new album and that sort of ticks me off because it's only giving one corporation free reign (instead of all corporations free-reign...because after all must digital retailers are attached to a corporation of sorts) and it's not like the album will be any less in price to the consumer because of the exclusive. I guess iTunes is paying for free ads on TV for the new Coldplay album in exchange for the exclusive. To me it makes sense on a business side but it's not really giving Coldplay anything on the respect side to other download sites such as Rhapsody, Microsoft, Amazon, Napster, etc. I don't even use the competitors (except for indie-only eMusic), but it's still like...hmmm....if iTunes ever goes belly up...it could be the end.

Speaking of emusic, The Rolling Stones catalog was pulled from eMusic only after a month of being made available. I'm confused as to why ABKCO pulled the catalog from the download service but I'm sure it had something to do w/ the band not getting enough to make it worth their while through the subscription based site. Oh well - guess I'll wait till another day to get "Metamorphosis."

That's it.