January 2010 Archives

Who knew Catcher in the Rye could inspire the making of a euro techno song? Well, I guess everybody gets inspired by Catcher in the Rye at some point in their lives. 

Our video of the week comes to us as a suggestion from Inga, one of our readers from Berlin, who loves Bodi Bill (which according to her are "like mini-superstars in Germany") and thinks they deserve a lot more attention. So, here they are with a the dancey trippy video "I Like Holden Caulfield". I don't think Salinger would approve, though the electro-girl that I am, I like "I Like Holden Caulfield".

R.I.P. JD Salinger

When I started this site, one of my goals was to define what ‘indie music’ is. After listening to many a song from the pool of what popular culture defines as ‘indie’, I’ve come to realize that though you can’t really sum up ‘indie music’ in terms of musical style, you can however, spot the ‘indie-ness’ of a certain song / band by some telltale signs. For this week, we've got a list of indie trademarks culled from hundreds of hours of music surfing and an odd number of family and friends commenting on what the heck I’ve been listening to -

1.  There’s a dog barking in the background or the 'Lo-fi' sound
Not to say that all artists not doing Lo-fi recordings are not indie – but to some extent, most indie bands have their own lo-fi recordings out there, since most started from humble, no professional recording equipment beginnings. Come to think of it, some even love the DIY authenticity of it so much that it became one of their trademarks (i.e. The Mountain Goats, Guided by Voices).

Why it’s not bound for mainstream success:
People love the flawless, polished sound. In the era of high tech and dolby digital, most people would want clear and crisp sounds to accompany their HDTV viewing. Also, with all people growing up in this new era, background sounds can be annoying – like that one time, when I was watching TV with my husband – we’ve retrogressed to using rabbit ears for the moment (actually a customized version, lovingly built by my hubby for the purpose of getting the free HDTV channels). To those of you experienced in catching channels from an antenna, you'd regularly experience snow and white noise (I know, this would be lost to some of you young folk). My husband was quite surprised as to why it wasn’t bothering me at all. I proudly replied, ‘I’m used to the crackling sound that vinyl makes’ – but in truth, I grew up with a black and white TV and we never got cable until I was in university.

Fave lo-fi song:
I’ve posted it twice on the blog before, and it’s my all-time favourite song: Strange Things Will Happen by The Radio Dept., a band that does their own recording at home. However, to offer some variety in my Friday list, here’s another favorite lo-fi gem from wonder siblings CocoRosie. The song is their version of Damien Jurado's Ohio. CocoRosie’s first EP was recorded in comfort of their own Parisian bathroom.

CocoRosie - Ohio

I should never schedule posts on weekends because they never happen. So, for anyone who missed out of one of the lyrics of the day posts last week, here's the recap.

A lot of it is about love, which tells you how girly I am. So, if you've got any obscure lyric to share, drop me an email and I'll do my best to share it to world ;)

One of my faves for the past week was my Shout Out Louds selection. It's like a nice generic advice, with something really random just thrown in at the end. I just love a little bit of randomness every so often, like when my little boy said to me out of the blue, during lunch - "I'm going to marry Iris. Then we're going to play soccer together. And then she's going to go to the hospital because she's going to have a baby".

Here's a rundown of the past week's lyric of the day:

Yep, I've joined CBC Radio 3's call for a webathon. Today, our list will be focused on the Haiti Earthquake Relief efforts and the different organizations and groups that are helping out with this cause. Of course, since it wont be List Addicts Fridays without the music, we'll be showcasing a couple of songs from different artists, all of whom have partnered with organizations helping out in Haiti. Most of them have songs available for downloads in exchange for donations. So yeah, enjoy the music and help out in any way that you can -

1. Adaline  - Whiter Straighter | Download and Donate

Adaline is just one of the independent artists from Music BC, who is offering free downloads via The Province, in exchange for donations to the Red Cross. Entitled Project Haiti, it's a partnership between Canwest, Heavy’d popcorn, Music BC, and Save-on-Foods for the Haiti relief efforts. To check out their playlist and for more information about the Project, you can go here.

2. Dave Matthews Band - Typical Situation (Live) | Download and Donate

Music for Relief in partnership with the United Nations Foundation, Habitat for Humanity and Dave Matthews Band's BAMA Works Haitian relief effort, has released a download to donate album up on their site. The album contains previously unreleased tracks from artists such as Linkin Park, Peter Gabriel, Alanis Morissette and the Dave Matthews Band (which features the live track Typical Situation, that we're sampling here).

This video came via email from an average uni student from Australia (hey hey, if you're reading this, you know who you are). Since we can never have enough rock-piano bands and videos that make wonderful use of that neato tilt shift effect, here's Yves Klein Blue with Make Up Your Mind - a single from their 2009 release, Ragged & Ecstatic .

Thanks to Craig for the wonderful tip.

It feels like it’s been forever since the last Fresh from the Post. Well technically, I haven’t done one since last year, so for this year, I'm thinking we should start out with something really fresh.

To cater to the 18 and below demographic of this site's visitors, this week’s Fresh from the Post artist is a band whose members have a mean age of 17. Blonde Louis is Josh Clarke, Harvey Downes, Jack Cox and Jack Cherry - four friends from Hertfordshire UK, which make guitar-heavy pop songs that are hard not to like.

Josh, the band's lead vocalist, takes a crack at this week's Fresh from the Post Q and A and gives us a little background on Blonde Louis, their impending teen-idol status and a song inspired by a missing guitar teacher -

As promised, here's a recap of all the songs that were featured in the 'Your Indie Music Lyric of the Day' section since I started it a few weeks ago. If everything works out right next week, I'll have this out every Sunday. If not, it would have been because I got caught up watching my husband's 'The Middleman' marathon (why oh, why did they cancel that show?) back to back with Chris O' Dowd in Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (which was a really great film btw, a nice filler for the empty hole left by not having to watch new episodes of The IT Crowd ). This also explains the absence of List Addicts Fridays last week, this and the fact that my brain got fried after a full week of my son asking mind-racking questions such as : Is electricity solid, liquid or gas? Is it matter? Why are tadpoles not called fishes (since they're still not amphibians and can't live on land yet?) Can I have a black hole in a black hole?...etc.

If you care about the timeliness of my posts, as well as quality - admittedly, I felt sad seeing how bad my writing was from all that rushing to post stuff (especially when sleep deprived) - you can go ahead and contribute your own list. Otherwise, you can also give me answers to questions about the world and the universe that a 7 year old autistic kid with ADHD might be interested in. For those who care, please do submit at submissions@theindiemusicdb.com

Now for the recap:

"Friends,

Haiti needs your help in her darkest hour.

We just got off the phone with our friends at Partners in Health.

Most of the medical infrastructure in Port-au-Prince is down.
Since Partners in Health's clinics are in situated the surrounding areas and haven't been damaged, they are mobilizing their resources towards
the capital, setting-up field hospitals to treat the injured on the ground.
Also, Paul Farmer (the founder of PIH) is at the UN and has access to the best information on where to direct the money... so for the moment
if you want to help, we suggest sending funds to:

www.pih.org
+ donate.pih.org/page/contribute/haiti_earthquake?source=earthquake&subsource=homepage

Canadian residents with Roger cell phones can text HELP to 1291. 5 $ will be directed to Partners In Health's Haiti emergency fund.

Please be generous as time is of the essence.

love,
Win and Regine"
http://www.arcadefire.com/

The band has always been and advocate for raising awareness for Haiti, providing leaflets in support of the non-profit healthcare organisation Partners In Health (PIH) and its Zanmi Lasante healthcare centres during concerts. The band's co-founder Régine Chassagne, has strong ties to the country, her family having emigrated from Haiti to Canada during the Jean-Claude Duvalier dictatorship.

It's a brand new video from my all time favorite Swedish band - Shout Out Louds. Fall Hard is from their album Work, which is due for release on February 23rd.

They've also got a North American tour lined up this coming Spring with three stops to Canada :D

Fall Hard won't be due for release till next month, but you can sample one of the songs from the new album - Walls, which is offered as a free download at the band's site.

Check out Merge Record's press release as well as tour dates after the jump.

I'm not going into semantics here on what defines a geek (or geek vs. a nerd for that matter) . Everyone knows what a geek is, and frankly, geek chic is still in. Not surprising, since everyone is going techie. You have to have at least some basic technical knowledge to maneuver the ins and out of the modern society and juggle duties between email, twitter, and your many many iPhone apps. Since everyone belongs to the Geek Generation now, I dedicate my list to the continued rise of geek chic. And since every song in the world is a love song, it's a list of songs for geeks in love -

1. Figurine - IMpossible

I love Figurine. I always find a reason to include them in one list or another. The band that let me know which half of The Postal Service I favored the most, is also a concept band by Jimmy Tamborello with friends David and Meredith. They make electropop songs set in the future - about space stations, technology and, in this song in particular - love via IM (for the non-internet savvy, Instant Messaging). It's one of my favorite songs from the trio, since combines a duet, rave sirens and modern love in one neat package.

2. The Hot Toddies - HTML

The Hot Toddies are four cute girls that have mastered the art of clever sexual innuendos set in song form. With HTML, you can discover that internet-speak can be sexy too.  Also, to always be aware of handles that seem to reveal the age and sex of the online person you're talking to. Nine times out of ten, sexychick18 would most likely be a pervy, balding, pot-bellied guy in his forties.

You might want to ask - why are there stars in the background? I'm wondering that too. I've actually been racking my brain trying to think of something to fill those whitespaces and that's the best I could think of. It kind of looks like wrapping paper - it must be my post holiday withdrawal. I may or may not scrap it - express your opinions if any of you out there are reading ;) (UPDATE: sadly, the stars have been taken down. I was just not feeling it)

I've also added a new section on the upper left corner there called 'Your Indie Music Quote of the Day'. For old time visitors of the site, I once had a section that churns up random lyrics from artists that I have in the database. I kind of missed that, so I'm putting on a new and improved one that you can check out daily. I will tweet it, and for those too lazy to visit everyday, there's a blog post for a recap weekly as well - just in case you were curious.

I actually put it up yesterday, but for the few hundred that visited and missed it - my first quote comes from Voxtrot's The Start of Something. I just find it - sweet.

Who knew The Phoenix Foundation was based in New Zealand? This is yet another proof that Macguyver left an indelible mark in our culture.

Our video of the week comes from New Zealand band, The Phoenix Foundation with 'Going Fishing'. This song is from the movie, Eagle vs. Shark which the band provided the score for.

I know, this is going to be the second movie themed post we've had in the past 5 days. I'm actually still in movie mode, since my husband and I were viewing movies we missed last weekend  with Eagle vs. Shark being one of them. I found the film quite endearing - in an awkward sort of way. Think of it as Napoleon Dynamite - but with more three dimensional characters and one half of The Fiight of the Conchords in it. It's also worth it to see a socially awkward Lena Horsley, who does an amazing job in the part of Lily - the shark, who fell in love with an Eagle.

It's the start of another year and won't you believe, it also marks a year of the Friday's lists. I started out my first ever list with New Year's songs which I think is still the best list of indie songs about the New Year out there ;) I really didn't think I could go on this long though - not with my Friday's list being bumped to Saturday, or Sunday even. I should've scratched doing it every week, since I never really did it on time - but then for some weird reason I just kept on doing it. The Friday's list is like an itch that can only be scratched if posted online.

I would've gone on to do another New Year's themed list, but I think I've exhaused all my choices. So today, it'll be something that combines two things that I love - music and movies. Most of the songs that become my favorites often have some context behind it - either a song that's attached to a memory in my life or a songs that I came across watching a great film. Music becomes more powerful with a narrative and it goes the same the other way around too. Since everyone's doing a top ten something of the decade right now, here I have my favorite songs, used in ten great films that I've watched over the past decade.

1. Gogol Bordello - Through The Roof N Underground (Wristcutters: A Love Story - 2006 )

I did post this on the site before, but it was way back in the dark ages where I only had 50 hits a month and no List Addict's Fridays. Wristcutter's: A Love Story had a fun concept - if you die by killing yourself, you go off into an afterlife specifically for people who committed suicide. It's drab, gloomy, and no one can smile. This is also where Zia, the main character of the movie, got stuck. He killed himself after a failed romance and is now working as a pizza guy at Kamikaze Pizzeria. When he gets word that his ex-girlfriend also offed herself, he goes on to a road trip to find her - along with a Russian rock singer and a girl who claims she ended up in the dreary afterlife by mistake.

One of the most fun things in this movie is the whole road trip montage. They only had one tape to play on the car stereo, which was the Russian guy's band's tape that he had in his pocket the day he died. What better choice of song on an afterlife roadtrip than to have Gogol Bordello's Through The Roof N Underground. Honestly, I believe that they specifically wrote in a Eugene Hutz character just so that they can use Gogol Bordello in the movie - and I loved it :) I got the song stuck in the head for week and the movie is now on my list of my fave movies of all time.

2. Bjork - Scatterheart (Dancer in the Dark - 2000 )

Don't watch Dancer In The Dark if you're depressed...or maybe you should, since you'll come to realize that things could be so much worse. The movie centers around Selma, played by Bjork, a young single mom who works at a factory in rural America. Worst luck ever couldn't even fully describe what happens to her in this film - she has a degenerative disease that causes her to slowly go blind, get's fired at her job because of it, loses the money she saved to get her son treatment for the same disease, kills a police officer and gets sentenced to death. Despite all the gloom that this film has, it has a really nice quirk - it's a musical. Selma, is a woman that loves musicals and often gets engulfed in the musical fantasies in her head. In one particular point in the film, she escapes the horror of having killed somebody by singing around it.

To fully appreciate Scatterheart, you should watch the film. That scene has that cute but creepy charm about it as you watch Bjork sing and dance around with the re-animated body of the person she just killed - it's also heartbreaking too, creepily cute and heartbreaking.

3. The Polyphonic Spree - Light and Day (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - 2004 )

I have yet to find somebody who didn't like this film. It's one of two Michel Gondry films that I have on my list because I just love how he makes things so whimsical in a non-cgi looking way. He also made the new video for The Polyphonic Spree's Light and Day to accompany the film's soundtrack where he superimposes a mouth singing the lyrics to clips from the film (which may include the mouth replacing Jim Carrey's, Kate Winslet's or even placed on a house or on brain scans).

I'm not a big fan of The Polyphonic Spree, but I love this movie and my son loves this song. He calls it the 'reach for the sun song'. I just find it cute it when he nicknames songs when he doesn't know the title - like 'booger face' and 'the one with the disco stick' for those Lady Gaga songs.

4. Mumm-ra - She's Got You High ((500) Days of Summer - 2009 )

The first song that I liked from the 500 Days of Summer soundtrack was Temper Trap's Sweet Disposition. I had it in my head for weeks after viewing the trailer and I knew I had to see the film. It only had a limited run in my area so I had to drag my husband to go downtown with me just to watch it. Of course it didn't dissapoint, and as a plus, I was treated to one of my favorite songs just when the credits started to roll - Mumm-ra's She's Got You High. Of course I sang along happily, having watched such a great movie, while my husband stared at me with a 'don't-ever-drag-me-to-another-chick-flick-again' look (though I know deep inside he enjoyed it). Too bad the group's no longer making new songs, and I'm quite curious to see how their latest incarnation would fare.

5. The Moldy Peaches - Anyone Else But You (Juno- 2007 )

I admit, this song doesn't have a great replay factor. It's cute, it's quirky, but after listening to it more than once, it kind of gets old on you (unlike the Temper Trap song, which I listened to everyday for four weeks and Captain's Frontline which I listened to nonstop for 10 hours). But there's one thing that makes this song memorable - it's included in the 2007 indie film hit - Juno. In fact, we're treated to a duet by Ellen Page and Michael Cera with their rendition of this Moldy Peaches song.

This song and this movie earns a place in my list because it weirdly spawned the new fad of 'teenage pregnancy is cool' . I also like Juno (the character). Like me, she loves wearing stripes and hoodies, and plays music. I love drinking Sunny D and my husband, eating orange Tic Tacs. Also, like Juno, the time I got pregnant was the most tramatic moment in our lives. This is why my son is an only child.