It's a wonderful life, this life of music
From the category archives:
The music blogging gig is a weird thing… you can go months without hearing anything that inspires you, and then all of a sudden a whole host of tunes reach out and smack you across the face in a course of a week.
This has been one of those weeks.
Today, following a link posted in [...]
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Juzzie Smith – The One Man Band that will blow you away
Juzzie Smith is one of those happy coincidental discoveries. It just so happened that, while my mother was out in Australia visiting us on holiday, we took her up the Sunshine Coast for the weekend. While up there, we decided to take a trip [...]
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Donerail (Image Credit: Trask Bedortha)
Donerail (pronounced Dawn-er-rale) are a Portland band that make me smile. Much like a past Burgoblog favourite, High On Stress, Donerail play that kind of Replacements-like rock ‘n roll that never fails to bring a smile to my face.
Donerail’s latest album, “Destiny and Dishonor“, was recorded live over the course of [...]
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I was thrilled to receive an email yesterday from Leah at Engine Room Recordings letting me know that Lowry (who I featured back here) have just released their new music video for their tune, “Whiskey”. Not only do I love the track itself, but I was also fascinated by the story behind the video: Lowry [...]
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The other day I got that kind of email that music bloggers love to get… an email from an artist’s management saying, “Hey… you know, I’ve noticed from your blog posts that you like xyz… and I think you might like some of my client’s stuff. Want to check it out?”… and you actually do [...]
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So, apologies for the decline in posts around these parts lately. It’s been a hectic few months. Actually, scratch that… it’s been a hectic year, and posting sometimes fell by the wayside. So you know it had to be something special to bring me out of that unintentional hiatus, right?
Well, it is. Something special, I [...]
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On Sunday night, I was lucky enough to see “superband”, Coldplay, perform live at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre.
Now, I’m going to throw this right out there. Even when uber-popular music blogs like Stereogum feature bands like Coldplay, there always seems to be a massive backlash from the “Hipster Runoff” type kids. The ones who don’t [...]
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One of my new favourite music videos… the new video for Fleet Foxes’ “Mykonos” is filmed entirely with stop-motion frames… and it’s sheer beauty.
That is all.
Mykonos from Grandchildren on Vimeo.
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You know, I wasn’t sold on Samantha Crain… not quite, despite the major promise that I heard in her release “Confiscation EP“. It was undeniable that there was major talent in there, but for some reason, it just didn’t seem to reach that “critical mass” point, where everything comes together in this wonderful, glittering moment, [...]
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Late December Update:
Unfortunately, after months of fighting with the RIAA amongst others, Mixwit, the site that I used to embed the below playlist, has had to close down. This means that the below playlist is no longer operating, but you can still read about the bands and follow the links to their individual posts below [...]
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Following on from the Cardinals’ Coffee Shop Show, Ryan Adams & Co. have just released the entire (yes, entire… in other words, close on 30 minutes) 3 Voor 12 set up at cave.cardinology.
I really don’t see the need to enter too much in this post here. Honestly, I think I’ve talked about Ryan Adams and [...]
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This is a really short note here, but to any of you readers who have enjoyed the stuff you’ve heard from Joe Pug on this blog so far, you might want to head over to NPR to stream Joe Pug’s October 5 performance from NPR’s Mountain Stage in full… trust me, you won’t regret it.
The [...]
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For some reason, if you’d asked me last week whether I had posted about William Fitzsimmons on this blog before, I would have sworn blind that I had discussed his 2006 album “Goodnight” sometime in 2007. However, I recently received his 2008 album, “The Sparrow & The Crow“, and was preparing a post when I [...]
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So this past Saturday, Ryan Adams and the Cardinals appeared on BBC Radio 2’s Dermot O’Leary show… and man, what a treat we were in for.
It was a short and sweet slot, with only 2 interview segments, and two songs, but those two songs were pure magic. The first was the always-stunning “Fix It” (by [...]
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Wow, look at all those alliterations in that title.
Anyway, straight to the business at hand. Ryan Adams and the Cardinals recently celebrated the release of their “Cardinology” album with a eight-song acoustic performance at Café Select in New York’s Soho. For those who were there, in such an intimate setting, it must have been an [...]
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Included for not other reason than the fact that it’s a cracking tune, and that vocalist Brian Fallon looks like he couldn’t be having more fun… for some inexplicable reason, this (hardly ground-breaking) video has me excited about music again.
[youtube]c-Pm5NC3OZI[/youtube]
You can check out more about The Gaslight Anthem here.
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So as I mentioned in a past post, Brett Dennen and Amiestreet have teamed up to make the world a better place with some charity. It’s unfortunate that this happened while I was away on holiday, as by the time you read this post, you will only have a few hours left to get in [...]
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I’m quite late to the party on these guys, having first read about The Sand Band way back in August on that awesomeness of music blogs, Some Velvet Blog. I filed away the band for listening at a later date, and it somehow slipped between the cracks… until now.
The Sand Band
I’m not sure if it’s [...]
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Short note today… but just wanted to let everyone know that The Avett Brothers have released their new video for single “Murder in The City” (featured in this post back here)… and it’s a killer video (no pun intended).
Beautifully filmed, like the song itself, the video is full of quiet moments. Watch it below.
Beautiful…
And here, [...]
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So, a few weeks ago, Diana from MADMUSE got in touch with me to let me know that they were sending me a pre-release copy of Bill Madden’s new album, “Child of the Same God”. (Sidenote: I love it when overseas agencies don’t mind paying the international postage and send original copies all the way [...]
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Ok… so this isn’t so much a post as an announcement to all Bon Iver fans. Bon Iver (now more than just Justin Vernon, as pointed out here… now a full band) recently contributed to the Myspace Transmissions series; and they’re now offering the entire EP (four songs) for free download. For fans, this is [...]
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Ed’s Note: The following is a guest post from Rachel Morris, a regular reader here on Burgo’s Blog. This is something I’m hoping to make a regular feature on Burgo’s Blog. Too often I get emails from people who write with such beauty about music they’re into, but who feel like they don’t have a [...]
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First off, thanks to Sharyn at No Door Agency for dropping me a line, and keeping me abreast of all the developments in Joe Pug’s career.
I first covered Joe Pug on this blog back here, with this post: Joe Pug – Nation of Heat. A thoroughly impressive debut …
I was instantly captivated by Joe’s music; [...]
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Ryan Adams & The Cardinals on tour… standing on the shoulders of giants.
You know, by all accounts, it’s been a different Ryan Adams that has posted on Foggy lately. Having been on tour with Oasis for the last while, it seems like Ryan’s… well… maturing. And healthier than he’s been in a while.
And I don’t [...]
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As another week draws to a close, and I head down the coast (and offline) for the weekend, I thought I would throw up a quick music roundup of those songs that have been spinning incessantly on my iTunes this week. So here you go…
Motel Motel – Mexico
Motel Motel… these guys deserve to be bigger.
Listen [...]
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You know, oftentimes when band’s reform, they simply rest on their laurels and end up reliving their glory days, touring and touring on old material.
Not The Verve though. The Verve have put themselves out there, and recently released their new album, entitled “Forth“. And damned if I’m not enjoying this one.
This, the band’s fourth album, [...]
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Joseph Arthur (self-portrait)
Once upon a time, Joseph Arthur was one of my favourite artists, right up there with Ryan Adams. But then, something happened. I don’t know what it was, and I’m not pointing any fingers here… after all, it might just have been the case that we were growing apart. People do that, you [...]
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… And yes, I know exactly what a huge statement that is to make. But I’m making it anyway. Only a band that excited me this much could have brought me out of my semi-hiding on this blog. I heard them, and I simply had to get out a post straight away.
God, I’ve missed that [...]
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Here’s me, not one post earlier, saying that things were going to be quite around here for the next week or two. Yet here I am, putting up a second post today! Truth is, I’ve had an unexpected opening in my schedule, and with a spare hour before my next meeting now, I thought I [...]
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It’s been a while, I know… but hey, as some would say, “Shit got real“, you know? And, unfortunately, blogging has had to take a second seat lately. Hopefully, this won’t be the case for too much longer… but for the next week, at least, things will continue to be pretty quiet around here.
That said, [...]
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Under The Radar is a column inspired by material sent in by the readers of Burgo’s Blog, alerting me to music that I may not have otherwise heard. If you’d like to let me know about some of your favourite tunes that I may not know about, then drop a line to the email address [...]
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Wow. It has been one hectic week, and at this stage it doesn’t look like there’s any sign of easing up. Which is disappointing, as it means blogging has had to take a back seat, and I’ve received some cracking pitches recently from some great bands flying Under The Radar. Hopefully (!), I’ll be able [...]
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Heh. I just saw the trailer for this, and it looks… well… awesome.
Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
So… in summary, we have: Michael Cera (from the criminally-under appreciated “Arrested Development“, and, of course, the much-hyped “Juno“); seriously cool soundtrack (including such bands as the Shout Out Louds, Bishop Allen, Modest Mouse, We Are Scientists, Devendra Banhart [...]
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This is just a short note to let you all know that there’s a new Tallest Man On Earth song out – see my last post on this dude here – titled “A Field of Birds”… and it’s a killer tune.
The song’s been released as a theme song for the site, Yellow Bird Project; a [...]
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Welcome back to another Live Music Friday here at Burgo’s Blog. For today’s post – and largely due to the fact that I’ve just watched “August Rush” again – I thought I would post something slightly different; a 2004 show, where guitar virtuoso Kaki King performed, lived at the Ironhorse.
Now, I’m pretty sure this show [...]
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It’s been a while since I put a Tuesday Trio up on this blog, and seeing as I was going through some of the messages to have landed in my inbox lately that have alerted me to new music, I thought: Why not? So, for today’s tunes, we’ll be looking at tracks from The Avett [...]
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Welcome back to another Live Music Friday here at Burgo’s Blog. Today, we’ll be featuring someone a little closer to my (adoptive) home… Australian musician, Xavier Rudd.
One of my favourite shows of 2007 was an Xavier Rudd gig on the Gold Coast… in fact, I even put up a post about it, although that post [...]
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The New York Fund (image credit: www.gregorynolan.com)
So, there’s this band called The New York Fund, and you need to listen to them. Seriously. I’m not kidding. If you want to hear music that excites you, then this should be it.
Previously incaranated as the band Cherryfalls – circa 2003-2005 – after a slight line-up change, the [...]
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So I was all set for a Calexico “Live Music Friday” post today, and then at the last minute, an email came through pointing me towards this NME article, which in turn led me to the BBC Radio 1 site, which – finally – pointed me towards this set: Coldplay, performing live from the Brixton [...]
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Joe Pug – a startling debut (photo credit: Amber Meairs)
One of the most impressive debuts of the year for me, Joe Pug’s “Nation of Heat” EP – which was released last month – is quickly becoming my album of the year so far.
It’s not often that I’ll throw around Dylanesque comparisons, let alone twice [...]
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What that extremely long and convoluted title alludes to is the fact that, for me, May 2008 has proven to contain an absolute dearth of good new music. Aside from the new Death Cab album and Frightened Rabbit release, not much sparked interest from me this month, and that might have been noticed in the [...]
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Possibly the post that I receive the most emails about on this blog was my past post about the Counting Crows performance on WXPN’s World Cafe Friday.
I don’t think that a a single week has gone by, since that post was published, where I don’t get an email asking me for the rest of [...]
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Death Cab For Cutie have just released their new album, “Narrow Stairs”
So Death Cab for Cutie has finally released the much anticipated, “Narrow Stairs”, which I originally wrote about in my post, “Some Death Cab-related goodness“, and the first thing that I noticed was that I was obviously wrong: the track “Casino Blues” that [...]
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Langhorne Slim is an artist who has me excited; the quintessential “everyman” performer, he is a singer who seems to truly embrace his flaws… and then run with them.
Langhorne Slim (photo credit: Crackerfarm)
The 27-year-old Slim, aka Sean Scolnick, is a proponent of that frenetic folk-rock of which I’m such a fan; but he manages to [...]
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Continuing my recent love affair with Scottish musicians, today’s post deals with the, quite frankly, brilliant band from Glasgow, Frightened Rabbit.
Frightened Rabbit have released their new album, “The Midnight Organ Fight”.
Yesterday I finally recieved my copy of Frightened Rabbit’s new album, “The Midnight Organ Fight“, following a month of extreme expectation after I was exposed [...]
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Yes, you read that right. Malcolm Middleton is easily my favourite Scotsman, and that’s saying something. While still predominantly known for his work with the – albeit, brilliant – Arab Strap, his solo output since leaving that outfit has been, in my opinion, nothing short of consistent excellence.
Malcolm Middleton has just released his new [...]
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Wow. It’s been a busy few days, which means that I haven’t been able to get onto the blog much lately, so I apologise for not replying to comments here and there. Unfortunately it’s going to be just as busy a week this week, with another trip down to Sydney in the works. This time [...]
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Coldplay have just released their new single, Violet Hill as a free download
This is a very short post… more a heads up really… but if there are any Coldplay fans amongst my readers, the band yesterday released their new single, “Violet Hill”, from their upcoming album “Viva La Vida or Death and All His [...]
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