You read that right, it’s the Top 9. Two qualifiers: 1) an album totally worth the price, your money will be well spent and 2) an album that’s stood up on replay, ad infintinum. Hence, there were only nine. Trying to squeeze in a 10th felt like a copout. And we can’t have that. So, just in time for your shopping lists, our faves around Outlandos HQ for the past year:
1. Michael Miller, I Made You Up 
Awash in a melodic swath of near-psychedelic ether, Miller’s sound teeters between that delicate dream state of newborn refuge and Milky Way haze. But don’t let the SoCal singer-songwriter thing fool you: Miller’s unassuming yet gumptious approach places him squarely alongside the likes of troubadours Pete Droge/Steve Forbert but with flecks of Supertramp/Bowie-style transcendental grandeur. No kidding. Which is why it’s my top pick. |
2. Chris Velan, Solidago
Solidago was on my tops last year because I had an early copy (the release was April 2009) but it’s so good I’m putting it on the list again. The scoop: cunningly disguised as jangly chill-lax pop, Solidago reveals whipsmart songcraft and no-bullshit guitar rockers juxtaposed amidst easy-going ditties. Think Paul Simon, Tom Petty, The Wallflowers, Bob Marley. The kind of political/romantic moxie that makes me think hell yes, I too am a Hard Way Learner. |
3. Mike Gent, Mike Gent
A pop masterpiece. Seriously. It’s easy, it’s smart, it’s fun, AND it has balls. Like Wilco used to (think Box of Letters, Monday). Speaking of balls, Mike’s other band, the Figgs, has long been one of my favorite badass live outfits. |
4. Glasvegas, Glasvegas
Timeless Glasgow glampop at its uber-finest. Echo and the Bunnymen-esque, bigger drums. Shit-hot. |
5. Gidgets Ga Ga, The Big Bong Theory
Fountains of Wayne meets Cheap Trick meets Strawberry Alarm Clock. Lots of bouncy, chimey guitars, and an authentic garage sound. Plus the album has a million songs on it. Loads of bang for your buck. |
6. Contramano, Contramano
Argentinian chamber-punk. Go figure. It’s spectacular. Seriously, you need to own this record IMMEDIATELY. |
7. Roman Candle, Oh Tall Tree in the Ear 
The Bees (US) are easily one of my fave bands ever. Unfortunately, for legal reasons, they had to change their name to The Silver Seas. They should have a new album out soon (yay!). In the meantime, Bees’ cofounder Jason Lehning has been keeping busy. Roman Candle is his latest project and everything you would expect from a Bee. Smart, fun, shades Steely Dan, Pretzel Logic-style. |
8. Passion Pit, Manners 
A dance record! Who knew. Fun fun fun. Very Jackson 5. Plus a lot of synth. |
9. Gary Yerkins, Compass 
Gotta have a touch of blues in your list. Gary has a sweet Robert Cray sort of thing going on. Produced by guitar great Pete Droge who plays all over it as well. Total gem. xo |
Tags: Bob Marley, Cheap Trick, Chris Velan, Contramano, CUT THROUGH THE NOISE, David Bowie, Echo and the Bunnymen, Fountains of Wayne, Gary Yerkins, Gerry Rafferty, Gidgets Ga Ga, Glasvegas, Jason Lehning, KATE BRADLEY, Michael Miller, Mike Gent, NOW PLAYING, OUTLANDOS MUSIC, Passion Pit, Paul Simon, Pete Droge, Robert Cray, Roman Candle, Steely Dan, Steve Forbert, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Supertramp, The Bees, The Figgs, The Jackson 5, The Silver Seas, The Wallflowers, Tom Petty, Wilco —
Following in the Outlandos tradition of Letters from the Road, our guest post this week comes from Skip Matheny of my new fave band Roman Candle:
Dear Fanny,
I saw your band/show last night. Thanks for putting me on the list and asking for advice, critiques, etc…. I’m not sure what to tell you exactly. You all were great. In fact, I imagine you will be very popular, and maybe better — very quickly. I don’t have a critique in the world about your show or aesthetic. You all seem to have nailed that down pretty well. However I might say the same thing to you I usually tell any writer, including myself, which is: think in terms of “songs” and listen to a fair amount music made before the year you were born.
Off the bat, that might seem like a nostalgic thing to suggest. It’s not. It’s about finding and learning about good art. Your band’s songs are great but if you want to make records for the next 10 or 15 years, artistically speaking, you will likely find more substance in songs than in guitar tones. I think there’s a lot to be learned by realizing you are a writer in a long tradition that stretches back before your own time, even (way) back before recorded sound — and the “thread” or the common thing through all of that tradition is the form of the song. It’s an interesting and mysterious thing, and it repays the attention you give it.
If you go listen to any of the records that came out last Tuesday and then listen to, for example, Joni Mitchell,”The Gallery” or David Bowie, “Life on Mars,” or Stevie Wonder, “Do I Love Her?” you’ll probably hear some similarities (verses, choruses, 3 minutes long). In contrast to the new records which, for the most part, are a bit vacuous when it comes to being interesting songs. You can blame the music industry or whoever you like but the unfortunate thing is how anemic most current individual songs are. I’m not suggesting there’s no great active songwriters or that “the past” is the place to be for good music. There were just as many turd songs in 30′s-70′s as there are now. It’s just that great songs were a bit easier to find in those decades and maybe harder to find now. Which is no small bummer considering there is equally about 5 squillion more recorded songs today, than in all those decades combined. I don’t mean to tangent. I’m just saying that unless you all develop into a strictly noise-core act, the song is going to be the medium in which you all work. So I am suggesting you give it as much attention as you can.
Also there’s plenty of books to read — and here again, I would say don’t be scared of the very old ones, Geoffrey Chaucer, Homer even. Often they are more ‘modern’ in style and subject matter than anything on the NY Times best seller list. Words are an underestimated medium in songwriting and it helps if you read authors using them well. Hopefully, they rub off.
Please don’t think I’m presuming to have any big answers here though. Writing songs is not easy and the more I do it, the more mysterious it gets, so I’m not sure how qualified I am to be offering all these suggestions. You’re a smart one though and I’ll probably be asking you for advice sooner or later. Anyway, I hope your band makes a killing.
Skip
10/5/09 | Comments (0)Tags: CUT THROUGH THE NOISE, David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, KATE BRADLEY, LETTERS FROM THE ROAD, OUTLANDOS MUSIC, Roman Candle, Skip Matheny —
Guest Post this week from another one of my faves, Salim Nourallah (who you heard on The Daily Dose 05/18/09) and who’s been on tour in Europe recently:
dear Europe
thank you for these past 3 weeks
thank you for your lush green fields
nicely manicured highways
friendly people
bowls of cheese
castles
thank you for Casa Buskies and the Astra Stubbe in Hamburg
Basti
Gunther
Matthias
Lars
thank you for their smiles and hand clapping
thank you for Berlin and the double-decker bus tour
the Hotel Adina were I swear David Bowie must also stay
whenever he visits Berlin
thank you for the great Italian food we ate while the rain poured
thank you for making the rain stop in time for us to walk back to the Adina
thank you for Potsdam and the Sanssouci Palace
for the beautiful weather that day and plenty of time before Magdeburg
thank you for Jan and his nice comment about buying Nourallah Brothers 10 years ago
thank you for mysteriously fixing my video camera
for the Atlanta Hotel (instead of another dive!) in Neukirchen-Vluyn (where else?)
for Marcus at Kulturrampe in Krefeld
and the German fan who said he was attending Eastwood High
in El Paso in 1978
thank you for the Ulenspeigel in Giessen
and the nice promoter Toby who is going to Kansas soon
thank you for the Café NUN in Karlsruhe
the perfect sound and audience
my friend Mark and his family at the ex-convent
the man in the front row who said he loved all my records
and requested “It’s Not Enough”
thank you for scenic and peaceful Bacharach
our room in the tower
our walk up to the Castle
the nice lady who gave Gavin hot chocolate
Castle Burg Eltz and the knight show from Gavin
thank you Rastatte and Aachen plus a packed house
all the people smiling and singing along with me
for the 3rd time in 4 years now
thank you for letting me see my friends Jan and Walter again
and also for G to have a chance to play with Henri
thank you for our safe and pleasant drive to the South of France
and for our friends Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby
Le Lawrence D’Arabie and the great pizza from Nico and Sabine
Emmanual and his enthusiasm for the Clash and Gavin’s Wreckless E t-shirt
thank you for all the people who bought t-shirts and cds
and even asked for me to sign them
thank you for the stories from E about Stiff
the Captain and punk rock
for the ride in his white van to Les Toques
and for the girl who danced in French to my acoustic pop songs
thank you for giving me the chance to play music with a hero of mine
thank you for our amazing flat in Paris
and our friends Maureen and Cody
for showing us round
thank you for Pere Lachais
the canal ride
pastries and Paris at night
Gavin cried when we left
thank you for 3 weeks I will never forget
that I luckily got to spend with my two favorite people (Jayme and Gavin)
maybe some of G’s first lasting memories were made on this trip?
I hope so…it would be a very nice place to start
Love
s
Salim’s new record is Constellation, which you can hear here. Do!
6/1/09 | Comments (2)Tags: Amy Rigby, CUT THROUGH THE NOISE, David Bowie, KATE BRADLEY, LETTERS FROM THE ROAD, Nourallah Brothers, OUTLANDOS MUSIC, Salim Nourallah, The Clash —
At the risk of committing watercooler-suicide, the truth is, I hate football. But that didn’t stop me from joining 97.5 million Super Bowl XLII viewers in feverish anticipation.
There is, after all, something fascinating about hitching your identity onto the fate of 11 virtual strangers, thereby declaring their actions as somehow an extension of yours. It’s as if by association, for those few hours, you too are “super.”
And allegiance is everything. Giants? Patriots? Either way, you’re making a “super” statement. “I don’t know” is not an option.
So when asked the obligatory: “who are you rooting for?” My answer was easy: Tom Petty.
Dude.
IT WAS SO FREAKING AWESOME!!!
Undeterred by the slew of on-screen nubiles who’d stormed the stage, I too had my rock horns up and out for the entire, truly super 12+ minutes. Right there in the living room. I’m not kidding.
The spectacularly gianormous, neon heart/flying v logo… the Guitar Hero-esque lighted backdrop… the Free Fallin’ fireworks… Tom’s schoolboy grins… Jesus.
“Runnin’ Down a Dream” blew the freaking roof off.
Mike Campbell was on fire!
Post-show, delirious music-high still pumping, I went straight to the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers website. I wasn’t alone… the site was so jammed with hits, you couldn’t get on.
They connected.
Now that’s shared experience for you. Supersized.
And then, on the eve of Super Tuesday, like so many others, I was torn between two candidates. Somehow, “I don’t know” became a perfectly viable option. Until I saw this.
At first, I merely read the subject line and dismissed it as yet another thing to fuel my indecision. It sat in my inbox for days. The Black Eyed Peas? Oy. That wasn’t helping.
Finally, I opened it. And it hit me. Shared experience. Politics aside, it was truly a magical thing to witness the power of contagious emotion communicated by music — in action. The choice was clear: yes we can.
Suddenly, I felt super-connected.
Which brings us to the holiday at hand.
Someone once quipped that Valentine’s Day is sort of like the Super Bowl for women, what with all the hype, the anticipation, etc. Maybe. But whether you are pro or con, the desire to feel connected, to feel loved, to feel, essentially, “super” is universal. And while chocolate and flowers can’t hurt, nothing conveys emotion quite like music.
Hence, my valentine to you is a Bowie cover I’ve recently fallen in love with: “Modern Love” by The Last Town Chorus. Not exactly a love song in the romantic sense but nonetheless, stunningly superb.
xo
© Outlandos MusicTM2008
2/11/08 | Comments (0)Tags: Black Eyed Peas, CUT THROUGH THE NOISE, David Bowie, KATE BRADLEY, Mike Campbell, OUTLANDOS MUSIC, shared experience, Tom Petty —
