Song Spotlight – Iguana Death Cult – “Spasms”

I’ve been in a funk for the past few months. My band Dirty Rugs lost two members and I’m halfway dealing with what you may call a midlife crisis. In spite of it all, music always gets me through. In the past 2 months since I’ve last posted I’ve found quite a bit of music and have even been to what may possibly be the best concert I’ve ever attended “The Who”.

I’ve been procrastinating writing about The Who show because it was so monumental and I know its going to take a lot out of me to write the full thing. Until I work up the…willpower…to write about it I wanted to post this song as an easy spotlight.

I heard of these guys on KEXP and immediately loved it. Totally unique and rocking. The whole album Nude Casino is perfect, but Spasms may be my favorite song off of it. Please give it a shot and enjoy it as I have. It’s been my running music and my morning commute music for weeks now. So happy its in my life and hope you give it a chance as well.

Song Spotlight – “I Want Results” by The Obits

It’s 11:30pm and I’m freakin’ sleepy so I’m heading to bed. But before I drag my weary old body to bed I told myself I have to share this before I forget. I Want Result by The Obits is the best song I’ve heard in a long time and its been on nonstop repeat for me for the past 2 or 3 weeks. Everything about it is what I consider real rock and roll. I can’t recommend this song enough, and if you ignore my advice and don’t listen to it you are only doing yourself a huge disservice. Get inspired and listen to this absolutely killer track by them.

Song Spotlight – “Mars for the Rich” – King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

I hadn’t listened to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard in years, mainly due to the fact I didn’t care for their last umpteen albums. I got real into them when Nonagon Infinity came out because I thought it was such a great creative concept. An album that’s nonstop and just repeats! Songs flow into each other, seriously was a great idea and super creative.

Anyways after that they had some weird albums that were a little too far out there for me to get into. Some real Frank Zappa type stuff. Which is great and all if you’re into that but I’ve never been that much into “out there” music.

Anyways I had seen a month or so ago the video for Planet B and loved it as it reminded me of some good ole thrash metal. I was hopeful at that point that they would be working on a thrash album and then luckily I saw “infest the Rats Nest” came out. Thank God! Total redemption for them as far as I’m concerned.

My favorite song off the album is Mars for the Rich. Just a great throwback to some thrash and maybe some Black Sabbath/T-Rex/Sleep as well. Right up my alley. I’d highly recommend to any and all fans of hard rock, check it out,

Song Spotlight – “Machinery” – Wet & Reckless

I was so happy to be introduced to this band. Our IT guy that comes into my work once every other week found out I was in a band and randomly brought in a flash drive of some bands I might like. We had talked music before and seemed to have the same taste so I was really looking forward to hearing what was on there.

Wet & Reckless’ self titled album immediately jumped out to me. It is rare that I immediately connect and like an album on the first listen through. It’s these kinds of surprises that I live for. This whole album is what I consider a perfect representation of well thought out and good pop rock music. The singers lower register vocals fit perfectly and are a nice refreshing change of pace for female rock vocals. Kind of in the vein of the Screaming Females who I also love.

Anyways, the most surprising fact of being introduced to this band was the fact they are not huge. Seriously, they have like 1700 likes on Facebook. Please please please give them a listen and a like, bands like this deserve it. Favorite song of the album below:

Song Spotlight – “Lookin’ Out for #1” by Bachman-Turner Overdrive

Sometimes I surprise even myself with the random music I like. I was listening to the apple iTunes “chill” playlist that basically guesses what kind of music you like. This came on and it immediately brought me back to watch some jazz musicians at Huber’s Winery in Indiana. I liked it so much I’ve played it pretty much nonstop for over a week. Since that’s been the case I figured I have to add it to my song spotlight. Give it a listen and let me know what you think. It has such a cool casual “cool” feel to it. Makes me just want to drink wine in a nice shady little garden area.

Anyways, here it is!

Song Spotlight: “Shelter Two” by The Evens

Honestly this really about checking out the Evens period if you’ve never heard of them before. I was out at the bar the other day with Ben from my band and we ran into my buddy Jimmy who used to play in some punk bands back in the 90s. Anyways, long story short he mentioned I needed to check out the evens because I mentioned some minimalist rock.

Right the and there I added it to my library and kind of forgot about it. Flash forward a couple of days and I’m driving in my car trying to think of what to listen to (which happens far too often honestly) and I saw this, clicked it, and fell in love.

Shelter Two is the first song on the album and not so coincidentally is the first song I really liked from them. Maybe most importantly, and what I’ve failed to mention until now…The Evens consists of Ian MacKaye from Fugazi. Its really cool hearing him in this entirely new context.

Anyways, enough blabbering from me. Check it out below!

Song Spotlight: “All Choked Up” by BRONCHO

photo by Courtney-Lee Yip

I had heard of Broncho but never listened to them. Fortunately “All Choked Up” came across my recommended songs on Apple Music and I immediately loved it. Lots of slacker attitude with the vocals and the rhythm to it is unique and a great change of pace from pretty much anything else I listen to.

I listened to more of their album Bad Behavior and it’s pretty good, but this song stands far and above the rest in my opinion. I mean that steady bass kick spread randomly throughout the verses is great. It’s honestly inspiring me to try and do something similar with my own music.

Check the song out below!

Song Spotlight – “Starting From Scratch” – Carl Broemel

I got lucky enough to hear Carl Broemel pop up on one of those algorithm’s on Apple Music. I loved the song and saved it but didn’t immediately listen to it over and over. Then a couple of weeks later I was listening to WFPK and heard “Starting From Scratch” again and remembered how much I loved it.

This of course got me curious so I download the latest album and loved it! Listened to it over and over again. I liked it so much I did the whole wikipedia thing to see where he was from and was blown away that not only is he from Indiana where I’m from, but he’s also part of one of my favorite band’s, “My Morning Jacket’

I took it as one of those signs. It’s weird when things come together like that. Anyways I should just be recommending everyone to check out the whole album, but I wanted to introduce you all to him like I was introduced and start of with “Starting From Scratch”. Great tune, amazing musicianship and just tasteful really. Can’t recommend it enough, definitely my favorite album of 2018.

Song Spotlight – “Return of the Grievous Angel” by Gram Parsons

This song hit me right when I heard it. In fact I can tell you right where I fell I love with it.  About 4 or 5 lines in when he says “Out with the truckers and the kickers and the cowboy angels”.

I think it must have been his harmonies with Emmylou Harris that got me, but I dunno, its just immediately likable and recognizable. Makes me jealous and honestly astounded at how its catchy.  I wish I could write music that was as simple, catchy, yet unique as this song is.

Gram Parsons is a pioneer of Alt-Country and I’m forever grateful for that. He totally made the world a better place because of his contributions to music. It’s too bad he died young. The story of his death is a whole different topic, truly something you would think would be made up in a a book or movie. Long story short his body was stolen by his friends on its way to his funeral, then they burned his body in the Joshua Tree state park in California because thats what he would have wanted.

Crazy right!?  Anyways, enjoy the song and if you have time listen to his other stuff. Great, amazing talent.

 

Fall Playlist 2018

I need to add a few more shows to my blog here but I’ve been busy and I need the time to write those down.  In the meantime I figured I’d jot down some artists I’ve been listening to this fall to mainly remind myself in a couple of months.  It’s funny, 2018 started off with me listening to a lot of Dio (actually pretty much nothing but Dio) then I went through a typical garage rock phase, then thrash metal…lately all I’ve been listening to is singer songwriter stuff.  So here it goes, in no particular order

Kyle Craft
Father John Misty
The War on Drugs
Jim James
Carl Broemel
Paul McCartney
Greta Van Fleet
Kevin Morby
Ryan Adams
Kurt Vile
Conor Oberst