You gotta put down the duckie if you wanna play the saxophone.
Listen to Put Down The Duckie
Sautéed on the same stove as Drewl’s recent post about Franz Ferdinand singer Alex Kapranos’ new book comes Dinner with the Band.
As you can see from the trailer, Dinner with the Band is sort of a cross between Dinner for Five and the Naked Chef. 2006 James Beard nominee and avant-garde chef Sam Mason invites touring indie bands to his apartment to fix dinner, play some music, and chow down.
Austin, Texas based OnNetworks recently green lighted the show for 8 online episodes and now DWTB is looking for bands to feed. If you’re hungry and going to be in NYC during March or April, email Greg or Darin with your Band Name, # of Members, Preferred Date, Current Record, Label, Favorite Food, Contact Info, and whether or not you consider yourself a foodie ASAP.
And, since the trailer featured the Harlem Shakes…
- Listen to Carpetbaggers
- Listen to Sickos
Buy Burning Birthdays from 
.
Check out Lily Allen’s creepy new “Chucky” video for “Alfie.”
Listen to Alfie
We’ve talked before about some of the excellent music coming out of the City of Brotherly Love and the new year began with a stellar 
reminder of that fact. Mike Shellito emailed us here at (((withoutsound))) and asked us if we’d be interested in hearing his new release, Benevolent Laser. It may have been the fastest we ever returned an email.
Back in 2002, my brother Drewl turned me onto Shellito’s excellent Ingredients. With Mike’s laid-back but intimate vocal style and strutting a subtle Byrds-ian bent, Ingredients also bore a striking resemblance to some of Elliott Smith’s later work. And now 5 years later, we have Benevolent Laser.
Similar to my thoughts on the Shins’ new release, Mike Shellito has a formula that works and he sticks to it. Refusing to bang you over the head with over-hooked pop, Shellito instead insists on seeping into your earhole over time by crafting music that
grows on you, taking root and blossoming in your brain upon repeated listens.
Here’s a taste, but as you can probably infer from above, you’d be better off buying the whole album.
- Listen to Tuckahoe
- Listen to Somehow Good
- Listen to 1-2-3-4
Join the Fight and buy Benevolent Laser from the artist himself.
Much thanks to Drewl for carrying the weight this past month, I feel like I’ve been out to sea for most of that time and I’m finally getting my land legs back. Anyway, it’s been nearly two weeks since the Shins released their 3rd album, Wincing the Night Away, and that’s been enough time for the album to sink into the quicksand of my aural canal.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Shins first album, Oh, Inverted World, was one of those albums that blew me away when I first heard it. I wouldn’t, nay, couldn’t listen to anything else for quite some time, as nothing else seemed to measure up. Needless to say, the follow-up, Chutes Too Narrow, was much anticipated. And, while it didn’t veer to far from the successful formula of the debut, it also didn’t rise to the same heights. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable continuation of the journey and it, too, has graced my CD player more often than not.
And that brings us to present day, four years after the release of Chutes. Given the length of time between the two releases, you might be inclined to think that I have been feverishly waiting for Wincing The Night Away to arrive, but I wasn’t. Was my lack of enthusiasm a result of the Shins’ progression from indie rock darlings to the apple of everyone’s eye by way of the Garden State soundtrack? Perhaps. But I think I was starting to pessimistically believe that lightning does only strike once.
Not that Wincing isn’t a good album. It is. It’s just that Oh, Inverted World kind of felt like the beginning of Pulp Fiction. You know, when Tim Roth (Pumpkin) and Amanda Plummer (Honey Bunny) are sitting in the coffee shop having a His Girl Friday kind of conversation? Then they stand up in the booth and shout:
PUMPKIN
Everybody be cool this is a robbery!HONEY BUNNY
Any of you fucking pricks move, and I’ll
execute every motherfucking last one of ya!
Then Dick Dale’s “Misirlou” kicks in and you are left sitting in your seat thinking, “Whoa! What the fuck just happened?!? We’re in for one hell of a ride.” Well, Oh, Inverted World turned things on their head for me in the same way that Pulp Fiction did. The Shins and Tarantino changed the rules of the game and countless other bands and filmmakers have been trying to play by those rules ever since.
The only thing is that the Shins haven’t upped the ante at all. James Mercer and the gang have hit on a formula that works and they’ve stuck with it. While Oh, Inverted World was a monumental first chapter filled with captivating characters and crazy plot twists, Chutes Too Narrow and Wincing the Night Away feel like the means to an end, enjoyable rest stops along the way.
I’m looking forward to the day we arrive at the journey’s climax and the Shins change the rules again.
- Listen to Sleeping Lessons
- Listen to Phantom Limb
- Listen to Sea Legs
Buy Wincing the Night Away from PRMS.