I find almost as much, if not more “new” old music of quality than I do new new music of quality these days.

Some of it is just cases of “finally” getting around to listening to classic albums  – like Derek & the Dominoes/Layla & Other Love Songs, which I’ve been playing as the last album of the night lately.  I really like this track, especially the chorus:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgNYXZL2fB4

Some of it is finding a defunct or current project from a member of a band I already like  – such as Dear Leader, which was The Sheila Divine frontman Adam Perrino’s project for the last few years – and whose wiki page was deleted?  WTF wiki, W T F.  Wow, check out the deletion notes page… I guess wiki is getting as bad as I’ve heard.  Dicks!  That bit of snideness on Wikipedia about the deletions really pisses me off.  I mean, it’s not like the space for text is limited.  Hell, high school bands should have wiki pages!   But really good bands being booted off for not being “important” enough?  How the hell do you know whether a band will be “important” in the long run or not?  Sure, maybe they suck, but maybe not.  Any music lover can probably pick out a dozen artists who were not well known/loved/thought highly off but that rank as “important” (perhaps decades later) anyway.  Is it really worth saving .06k of storage space?  Christ, people.

/end wiki rant

Here’s a vid of them doing “Radar” live, with some wacky dancing guy.  Maybe this will cheer me/you up after the wiki idiocy.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1stYBB7uRE

Some of it is current bands who have been putting out albums that I just plain missed – like The Felice Brothers, whom I just posted about last week.

And some of it is finally having music that I’ve had laying around, or been referred to before, just “hit” me.  You know like you finally hear that track that just works for you?  This happened for me a few months ago with Ted Leo & the Pharmacists.  I love “Bottled in Cork” (below, official video, skip to 1:45 or so if you just want the music), and it was just what I needed to get the rest of the album (which, stylistically, isn’t much like this song) into my head.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w248uwpAX14

So, this whole Unofficial Month of Blogging thing was supposed to help get my head right for writing, but so far it’s just making me think a lot about music.   This is not an unwelcome outcome, as I’ve been kind of … spacey when it comes to music for the last year or so.

I tracked this down because Dear Leader is the band Adam Perrino (singer/songwriter of the late, awesomely great The Sheila Divine (seriously, check them out)) moved on to after The Sheila Divine broke up.  This is their second album, I think.

I picked the first one (The Good Times are Killing Me, 2003) up a couple weeks ago – I think it was my first purchase from Amazon MP3.  Yeah, I finally broke down and went there.  I guess somewhere between a year or two ago and now I suddenly lost my aversion to not having something to file.  Crazy, I know (trust me, for me it is).  So I picked that one up and was a little bummed.  It’s solid, but not moving me (yet).  So I wait about a week for that to percolate, then I grabbed this one.  First couple of listens I thought “Well, this is better…. but not special.”  Then on the way home from work last week I had it cranked in the car and, and then on my headphones in the grocery store, and it finally reached out and punched me.  I dig it.  Playing it loud helps.  Headphones.  While cooking.  Whatever.

Then, last night I had it up while I was playing through a task force in City of Heroes with my steam powered robot samurai and somehow it was just the perfect music to be slashing up evil Romans and their time traveling ex-Nazi allies.

I think it works better as a full album than in individual bites, but it’s not available for free so I have no where to point you.  So here are a few tracks to check out out of context:

Raging Red (live, but I think with the album audio dubbed over?):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=441KXyUrIAA

annnnnd wow, that’s all I could find of the tracks I wanted to share with you guys on youtube.  Bummer.  The band site doesn’t have the particular ones I’m looking for either.

So… I mucked around with youtube a bit and uploaded this song (Culture Vultures)… it’s actually on the first album as well.  I admit, it kind of grated on me when I first heard it.  Just because he mentions TV I think, and that’s so jarring for me to hear referenced in music (dunno why, it just is).  But, like the rest of the album, it really grew on me.  I think I prefer the version on this album, but it could just be the context.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSCFo2Ou3vY

Also, you can preview the whole thing to whatever degree Amazon allows via the link above.

[Note: I just found a huge archive of The Sheila Divine bootlegs!  I know what I'm listening to tonight... and probably for the next month :P.]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4TRD-Vc9vU

Of course I went out and tracked down the album asap.  It (New Parade) was (and is) an awesome disc.  They put out one more album after that, which was also killer, and had EPs as well (Secret Society & The Sheila Divine).  Annnnd that was it.  Hum alone really should have carried them over into some kind of radio presence, but I guess the right people just never pushed for it.  Bleh.  Go music industry.

Here’s Sideways from their last album (Where Have all my Countrymen Gone):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSDNr8qayEU

Bonus: The lead singer, Aaron Perrino, has a new (er than SD, but not “new” per se) band called Dear Leader that I quite like.  It’s not The Sheila Divine, but that’s not how these things work.  Here’s a video of them doing Radar live.  Quality is not so hot.  More people need to carry around really expensive HD recorders.  Duh.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IndQ5aeIThE

The season has slipped back into obnoxious up here in the Portland of the West (I’m not talking to you Portland, Maine!).  Freezing wind (not literally, yet), cold nights, and RAIN.  RAIN.  Yes, someday we will move and leave you far behind.   New Mexico?  Hawaii?  New England somewheresabouts?  Somewhere!  All we need is that perfect moneymaking job!  Like… being a writer.  That totally pays about $40k a year if you luck out and bust your ass.  Wait.  That’s not that much at all.  Doh!

…

There are no movies that look interesting to me because a) I rarely watch trailers and b) when would we have the time?  I suppose I should start netflixing all the stuff I’ve missed this year….right?  American Pie 12 here I come!

…

Marvel announced at least three big events so far for next year: Second Coming (X-Men event), DoomWar (seems Black Panther centric, but has X-men & FF members &…Deadpool.  Kay!),  and Siege – the final “ending” of the Dark Reign stuff and return to semi-normalcy with Cap/Thor/Iron Man Avengering around together again.

…

Books.  Books.  I haven’t read anything in a while.  I’m slowly working my way through a book of interviews with Michael Moorcock.  He’s been known to write a book in ?3? days I think it was.  Fucknutty!  Somehow I’ve made it to date without reading a single one of his books.  Cardinal sin, I KNOW.  I should be able to find some in old school paperback pretty cheap though, maybe I’ll do that after I finish (and start…) Name of the Wind.  I’m so afraid it will suck I haven’t touched it yet.

…

I haven’t tried to watch a single episode of Heroes since my failure to complete the first one.  Jen seems to be enjoying Flashforward though, and it seems moderately interesting.   I think, if it doesn’t go the way of X-Files/Lost?/Heroes etc. (ie dragging out the initial premise to Herculean lengths, then never resolving it satisfactorily because you’ve inserted so much bullhsit in there in the attempt to stretch it out to 7+ seasons) it sounds like it could be decent.  We had a conversation about the different things we’re willing to invest in a TV show – I’m much less willing to start watching any kind of ongoing show these days because I lack the confidence that TV writers have the balls to end something.  If a story is only meant to run 1-2 seasons, that’s all it should run!!  But, of course that runs completely counter to TV programming-think.

…

Nothing particularly new to me in the world of music.  I think I may like She & Him.  Still trying to decide. I like some of the songs, but I need to hear the whole album and I’m reticent to buy it without hearing the entire thing first.  I do dig the retro-50s vocal thing she’s doing though.  I like the sound, but not so much in its original context – amusing, yes?

I’m debating ordering Dear Leader‘s now album – it’s ex-Sheila Divine frontman Aaron Perrino’s current project.   They were a great band that I think was just hitting their stride when they vanished so hey, good luck with reincarnation.

I heard a rumor that Jawbox was going to be on some douchebag’s late night show.  That guy from SNL who couldn’t keep a straight face to save his life.  Can’t remember his name for some reason.  Crazy.

The Monsters of Folk album is ok.  Not ok enough for me to rush out and buy it, but ok.

…

Z has a selection of chorus lines he says now when he’s in the mood, inevitably going from one to the other.  “Beating like a hammer” (Metric), “It’s cold outside”, (classics), “hit the road jack/don’t come back no more” & a few others I’m brain farting on right now.  He usually knows 1-2 extra lines of the songs as well.  It’s freaking adorable.  He’s starting to get a little bit of melody going too.

…

I’m in one of those “everything bores me” phases right now, hoping it will end soon.   Could just be the seasonal doldrums.