buddyhead just came out with a best and worst of list for 2009. it’s stuff like this that reminds me why i love buddyhead. sometimes brutal honesty is the best policy. this site is worthy of a bookmark because it will make u laugh. and u guys think im harsh?
ok, before we start i think a quick recap of the 2 with ten rules is in order. in a perfect world i would like u to post no more than 2 artists from the letter in question. ideally these bands are found within your own personal itunes library. i would prefer more recent artists but again that’s tough given the limits of the library in question. (if there isnt much to choose from in your library this might be a reminder to stay current and not get complacent with your music.). now post one song link from each artist be it a youtube or myspace link. that’s it. pretty simple. if you want to list just one band/link and ask a question then do that as it will take this blog to even stranger places.
grizzly bear. gb is an indie band from ny that debuted in 04. they are my first g but it’s not because of their most recent and popular record veckatimest that everyone seems to think is so amazing. it’s actually because of their second record yellow house which i think is much better. yellow house came out on warp records in 06. i think that as a whole, from start to finish, it’s a very complete record – it flows extremely well with warm, dreamy, psychedelic, folky, unique and timeless elements to all of it. i don’t even remember how i got this record but i think i got it from amy. the track i picked was called knife.
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gabin. this was an easy choice for a few reasons. i discovered gabin when we were signed to astralwerks as they were fellow labelmates…but from italy. gabin is the elctro lounge duo of fillippo cary and max bottini. they are both great musicians with a defined style- bottini happens to be a well known jazz bassist in his own right. so here’s the story, before i took a trip to rome in 04 i had my a&r guy get me in touch with their manager. i set up a time to meet with them at their studio and played them our then unreleased debut cd off of a little digital camera that i had it on. they immediately took a liking to the song hollywood and eventually remixed the track. to date it’s one of the most radically interpreted remixes we have ever had made. this track still gets played on chillout stations and appears on our first remix ep which is actually tough to find in print.
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way to bring in 2010 guys. a few thought provoking mentions for the letter f. going to be doing my best in the upcoming weeks to dig more into the exact reasons and psychology of why i like or dont like certain bands and/or music. good stuff this week though – fugazi, foals, feist, and fever ray a bunch of times. thanx for taking the time to research and post the songs. i appreciate it – hopefully u r listening to all the songs like i am. it will make u musically smarter i promise
francis 2kTen
drat. once again, in efforts to abide by my own rules i find myself plagued by the limits of my itunes library. since i can only pick from what i have in the f’s im going with the first 2 artists that jump out to me. alas, they arent new but they both had an instant effect on me when i heard them and have since stood the test of time.
FC Kahuna. is a dj duo from london that made some pretty big beats. at one point they had a band that was touring. anyway, the song i picked called hayling came out in 2002 and features gus gus vocalist haftis helde. many a night i would sit in my truck with this song on repeat. i love the dark sparse bouncy use of electronics (fyi some samples on this song were lifted from tangerine dream). bottom line: this track is full on vibe – its minimal, beautiful, futuristic, trippy and sultry. damn, the cymbals are wonderful in this song too. oh, i first heard this song via a great double disc released my the ministry of sound label called the chillout sessions. this cd was a monster.
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in a weird twist of fate my other f happens to have also appeared on the aforementioned double disc. crazy huh…also the first time i heard of this band too!
Fischerspooner. usually when one thinks of fischerspooner a song like the one im posting doesnt come to mind. tone poem has always been my favorite fs song. we opened 3 shows on the west coast for them in 2005. at the time those were probably the biggest shows we played. adding to the fact that i love casey spooner this was a no brainer for me. check out this trip down memory lane. scroll down to june entry toward the middle of the page to see some of those show reports.. wow that’s a trip. ya know if anyone ever questions the amount of work and shit this band has gone through i guess i should just tell them to scroll through the archives of this blog.
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ok, on to the “f”uture. f me now please.
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thanx again for all the e’s people. way to keep this rollin. lots of good stuff. explosions in the sky – elbow – eels!!! awesome stuff. it was fun listening to all the good, the bad and the ugly. remember….two artists with a link or maybe just one and a question – just dont list bands. i love you guys
fran
when i opened itunes on both my computers i wasnt too shocked to discover how few bands i had starting with the letter e. i knew e was going to be one of those trouble letters. luckily i hit the jackpot with my first suggestion. what a relief, and to top it off, i had 3 of their records. enough said, let’s do e bitches.
Enon. enon is a trio from brooklyn that was formed by john schmersal from the band brainiac. they released their first cd believo! in 2000. it was electronic and noisy and i really liked it. i first heard this when i was a content producer for an online music site and i left a track of theirs up on the music featured section for a very long time. enon is extremely interesting largely due to the fact that after this record most of the band members changed. 2 years later the band was still a trio that featured schmersal but now included bassist/vocalist toko yasuda (ex-blonde redhead) and drummer matt schulz. the track i picked, in this city is off of the high society record released in 02. they have gotten a little less noisy on this one but it’s just as cool. enon is eclectic and rich in the musical ground they cover. discover this band.
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usually my second choice is difficult because there are sooo many bands to choose from. sadly this was not the case tonight. shit…i wanted to go with something new but it was too difficult to find something. ok, this might surprise a few of you but yes…rap.
Easy-E. despite his bad rap (no pun intended) easy-e was pretty awesome before he lost all credibility when n.w.a broke up. this is the guy that brought all the members of n.w.a together and just for that he deserves a huge amount of credit. his label start up money came from selling drugs – which is pretty dope (again, no pun intended). the track i picked off his only full length titled eazy-duz-it is called eazy-er said than dunn. this has dr dre all over it..it’s heavily produced with layers of samples. it was released a month after n.w.a’s straight outta compton and it’s essentially n.w.a but with eazy front and center. i wonder what it would be like to put your name in almost every title of every song you wrote. i guess it makes song naming pretty easy (again, no pun intended).
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ok, now give me your e’s.
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once again thanx to everyone who sent in their suggestions! this is so great. lots of good suggestions here. please, for the love of ur god, will u all take the time and read the comments posted for these “2 with ten” posts. listen to these links when ur at work or just doing something at home. im sure one of these bands is bound to get added to your music library. again, if you post a comment remember to leave a link. also remember that the more suggestions the better for all of us so if u have a friend that’s really into music then by all means send them over so they can share their good taste with us. the letter e is coming in a day. thanx again – i feel smarter.
for all of those who missed it, i will never be the same played a free show last night at pershing square in beautiful cosmopolitan downtown los angeles no less. i love playing outside in cold weather – ever since west indian girl did a show in sub zero temp at sundance i have longed to do one again. last night wasnt quite as cold but it still counts. check out more pics and news about iwnbts here.
i’m gonna be moderating a panel at the sf music tech summit next monday dec 7th. if you’re in town please try to make it. i’m pretty sure u can watch it live on web….of course 
the letter d was actually pretty tough. im sure everyone thought i would put death in vegas down but since i already wrote a post about them a few weeks ago im gonna go with something that might surprise a few of u. this one goes out to all the guys who keep suggesting female singer songwriters to me. Dot Allison. she’s a scottish singer/songwriter that i fell in love with in 1999 when i heard her debut afterglow. at that moment in time i was working at an online music start up and this record was sent to me by her publicist. to this day i think it’s a great record with a ton of a variety. during that time period she was collaborating with artists like arab strap and death in vegas. in the past few years she has been performing with massive attack and recording and performing with pete doherty. again, afterglow is a record worth listening to… just because of the ground it covers. the track i posted is not surprisingly one of the more deeper hypnotic cuts called morning sun.
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wow…choice 2 was difficult…i wanted to go with my favorite deftones song change as well as my fav doves song snowden but i ended up going with a newer band from la called Deathelectric. i first heard about this band because i know the man behind this plan – joseph holiday. he gave me this cd one night a few months ago when i bumped into him outside of the viper room. i put it on while driving down to the studio and i really started to love this one song called no reason (no soul). i have since had that stereo with the deathelectric cd in it stolen from my truck…for the 3rd time. in a ideal world with more hours in the day to accomplish everything i want to do i would have already done a 9XF10 remix of it with josh. anyway, joe—great work on this debut.
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random strangeness…i just noticed the name of this cd is in the evening sun…and the track i chose from dot allison was morning sun. strange indeed. i feel better about these choices now.
just cos im a sucker for Double D’s here are 2 more
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once again thanx to everyone who sent in their suggestions and im sorry for posting a bit late. it makes me so happy to read all ur comments and musical suggestions–even if i dont end up liking the band! i didnt find too many new c’s that i loved in this batch. i hope u guys know i’m being brutally honest with my thoughts, impressions and opinions here…i can’t help it if my tastes may seem(are) at times somewhat narrow — music has to hit me on some sort of psychic level to make a really strong impact. again, i’m lovin the links included in the comments but im not loving the comments that just list band names. these posts are nice but i’m not going to comment on them if they dont include a song link so please lead a horse to water and make me drink. special star goes to harold who came up big on this round. happy thanxgiving people.
Hey guys on way to play sd right now. I will have the letter c video response and letter d up on Monday – I’m also planning on bringing back the show reports but this time adding a video for most of it
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thanx to halloran and everyone else at fm 94.9 for having me on the station this past sunday. appreciate it. especially james and kate for making sure everything went well.
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