Author Archives: DAAadmin

July wasn’t exactly exciting (okay I haven’t listened to Jeff Beck yet) and August doesn’t look all that interesting though I am looking forward to hearing the new Ryley Walker:

August 5:
Angie Stone: “Covered In Soul”
Dinosaur Jr.: Give A Glimpse Of What You’re Not”
Nels Cline: “Lovers”
Wye Oak: “Tween”

August 12:
Atmosphere: “Fishing Blues”
Of Montreal: “Innocence Reaches”
Savoir Adore: “The Love That Remains”
Thee Oh Sees: “A Weird Exits”

August 19:
Amos Lee: “Spirit”
Chris Staples: “Golden Age”
Crystal Castles: “AMNESTY”
Dolly Parton: “Pure & Simple”
Ed Harcourt: “Furnaces”
Lydia Loveless: “Real”
the Minus 5: “Of Monkees And Men”
Ryley Walker: “Golden Sings That Have Been Sung”
JEFF The Brotherhood: “Zone”

August 26:
Barbara Streisand: “Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway” (not another “duets” album)
Butch Walker: “Stay Gold”
Cass McCombs: “Mangy Love”
Celine Dion: “Encore un soir”
De La Soul: “And The Anonymous Nobody”
Florida Georgia Line: “Dig Your Roots”
Ingrid Michaelson: “It Doesn’t Have To Make Sense”
The Album Leaf: “Between Waves”
The Beach Boys: “Becoming The Beach Boys: The Complete Hite & Dorinda Morgan Sessions” (62 tracks)
The Fabulous Thunderbirds: “Strong Like That”
The Monkees: “Monkees 50” and “Forever” (50th anniversary releases)
The Veils: “Total Depravity”
Twist: “Spectral”

The 2016 Mid-Year Report

Seems that all of my favorite music blogs are doing a mid-year assessment of the best albums of the year (so far). So as not to be out done, we have come up with our own list of the best (so far). Eight of the albums have gotten at least one/possibly two or more mentions so we’ll skip them:

School of Seven Bells: “SVIIB”
Field Music: “Commontime”
The I Don’t Cares: “Wild Stab”
Sturgill Simpson: “A Sailor’s Guide To Earth”
Esperanza Spalding: “Emily’s D+Evolution”
Shearwater: “Jet Plane and Oxbow”
Radiohead: “A Moon Shaped Pool”
Japancakes: “Japancakes”

As for the rest:

Garbage: “Strange Little Birds”. I wasn’t impressed the first time I listened to this. However, the second and third time through revealed a album that has to rate with their best work.

Aubrie Sellers: “New City Blues”. Country music played by a punk band? In a year with superb albums from the likes of Maren Morris, Keith Urban and Brandy Clark, standing out in the crowd is hard.

Bonnie Raitt: “Dig In Deep”. As the song goes, “no one does it better”.

David Bowie: “Blackstar”. His last album and one of his very best.

Anderson. Paak: “Malibu”. An album everyone is (still) talking about and for good reason. This year’s “To Pimp A Butterfly”.

Lucinda Williams: “The Ghost of Highway 20”. Has she ever made a bad album…so far the answer is “NO”.

Paul Simon: “Stranger To Stranger”. Paul is hinting that he may stop touring. I only hope he doesn’t stop writing and recording. “Wristband” is a great song.

The Accidentals: “Parking Lot” (ep). The Traverse City, Michigan trio fronted by Savannah Buist and Katie Larson were one of the most talked about bands at SXSW this year (I missed them….damn). Eclectic is overused but in this case it is so appropriate. Here is a link to a free download at NoiseTrade. Click here.

case/lang/viers: “case/lang/viers”. I haven’t heard the term “supergroup” used in years, but these ladies just may qualify. Nothing extraordinary here: just good songs, well done.

Kongos: “Egomaniac”. The brothers Kongos’ third album is even better than their sophomore release which was one of the year’s best (2012). Two of the songs are on my Spotify playlist of 2016’s best.

Please note that I could only come up with 18 albums for the list. That is not a misprint. Trying to find albums that are consistently good from the first song to the last is hard these days…..and I thought the 50s were bad!

It doesn’t appear there is a lot of great new music for July (numbers wise), but there are some interesting new releases we are watching……..

July 1:
Bat For Lashes: “The Bride” (already getting great reviews)
Blink 182: “California”
Snoop Dog: “Cool Aid”
Thee Oh Sees: “Live In San Francisco”

July 8:
Aphex Twin: “Cheetah”
Biffy Clyro: “Ellipsis”
Heart: “Beautiful Broken”
Kenny Chesney: “Some Town Somewhere”
Switchfoot: “Where The Light Shines Through”
The Avalanches: “Wildflower”

July 15:
Clams Casino: “32 Levels”
Good Charlotte: “Youth Authority”
Jeff Beck: “Loud Hailer”
Need To Breathe: “Hard Love”
William S. Burroughs: “Let Me Hang On You” (the author reading from “Naked Lunch” with accompaniment by Bill Frisell, King Khan, Wayne Horvitz, and more)

July 22:
MSTRKRFT: “Operator”
Relient K: Air For Free”

July 29:
Billy Talent: “Afraid Of Heights”
Ringworm: “Snake Church”
Steve Adamyk Band: “Graceland”
The Ramones: “The Ramones” (40th anniversary limited edition)

There are a number of websites we visit each month in search of “free” music: Indie Rock Café, Fluxblog, Aquarium Drunkard, Faronheit, Mad Mackerel, etc. There are also new sites to discover while a few older ones “close” when the editor decides to move on, loses interest or simply gets tired. Blogs take a lot of work, obviously. Some of the more esoteric sites (“Awesome Tapes From Africa” for example) don’t follow a specific calendar and may go weeks/months without a post before there is a flurry of activity. Which brings us to one of the more interesting sites we’ve discovered: “Never Enough Rhodes”

The blog is dedicated to jazz/funk/r&b/soul; just about anything utilizing the Fender Rhodes piano. There isn’t a lot of history on the site but I’m told the instrument dates back to WW II when it was used as part of the rehabilitation efforts for soldiers. It’s also the inspiration for the term “keyboard”. What is important is the effect it had on music beginning in the late 60s. The site has a lot of free music you can download. I heartily recommend the numerous samplers, particularly “Herbie Hancock-Man With A Suitcase” and the Latin/Brazil Rhodes compilations. click here.
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