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 teamed up with $99 Music Video, a “new online TV network dedicated to emerging bands and filmmakers who work together to create high-quality original music videos for budgets of $99 or less.“
I’d say Lowry definitely got their $99 worth… check out the video below.
Aah, Phoenix. They’ve come a long way since their break through as the backing band in a remix of Air’s, “Kelly Watch the Stars“, but I knew from the first time that I heard “If I Ever Feel Better” from their “United” album that this was a band with whom I would have a life-long love affair.
And now that I’ve heard their latest single, “Listztomania” from upcoming “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix“… I know that I was right.
Man, this is cool…
“Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” is out May 25, 2009. Seriously. Get it.
Bugger. I missed posting this yesterday, but in the United States, it still is yesterday, if you know what I mean… so I thought I would post anyway. Yesterday (or today, depending upon where you are when you read this), marked the 15th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death.
There’s a trifecta of musical deaths that shaped my life… Shannon Hoon, Bradley J Nowell… and Kurt. Even after all this time… Kurt still matters. Here’s to you, man.
To everyone who has emailed me in the last week to tell me about your band/client/new release/gig, sorry for the lack of replies. I’ve been away the last few days at the 2009 SMX Conference in Sydney, and haven’t had a chance to check personal emails. It will be a few days before I get a chance to get round to it, as work resposibilities come first… but I just wanted to let you know that, as soon as I can, I’ll get round to your email.
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 love the client’s stuff.
(Side note: to management… if you’re going to approach music bloggers, make sure that you’ve actually read the damn blog. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve got emails about artists I’ve already posted about, or one that even said “Hey, I sound like Howie Day. You probably won’t know his stuff, here’s a link”… Srsly? Ahem. Rant over)
The point is, that in this case the email came from Shannon over at Brick Wall Management… and not only did she do everything right, but the client she thought I might like was Ari Hest.This is the kind of email I love getting. Where management has actually got my tastes damn spot on.
Um. Ari freakin’ Hest? Only someone I’ve been a fan of for ages… around 6 years or so, I would say, ever since I first heard “Aberdeen” from “Come Home” way back in the day. So of course, I was thrilled when Shannon told me that Ari’s just dropped a new album, entitled “Twelve Mondays”.
After listening to the album for about an hour, I twittered: “Just been sent the new ari hest album to review. there’s a song on here that’s possibly the best thing he’s ever done, in my opinion.”
Yeah. It’s that kind of album.
Official music video for “Dead End Driving”, from the new Ari Hest album, “Twelve Mondays”
First off, some more background on “Twelve Mondays”:
Back in 2008, Ari started out a trailblazing experiment called “52“. Basically, what “52” entailed was recording (and releasing) a new song every week. Fans then voted on their favourite tracks, and twelve of those were collected into the album, “Twelve Mondays”.
That such an album could have come out of “a song a week” project is, quite simply, astounding, and only hints at Ari’s songwriting prowess.
Oh… and the best thing Ari’s written? Well, the whole point of the “52” project was that different songs would appeal to different people. So you should probably head here to purchase the entire album to decide for yourself.
For my money though, “The Weight” will go down as an all-time Ari Hest classic.