Hey Errbody! I’m starting this blog to go in tandem with my radio show on K-UTE radio (called the FYI, Tuesdays @ 3pm on kuteradio.com), which features my weekly rant and rave about certain songs, artists, and albums I’ve found that I think deserve a lot more credit than they get. And, without further ado, here goes!
1. Miniature Tigers’ album “Tell It To The Volcano”
This band can instantly be filed under the “that cute little indie group” category upon first listen. The Phoenix based group has a certain island-y sound on this first full-length album of theirs, which was released around this time last year, and has such a catchy vibe to them that you really can’t help but rock your head back and forth to the beat. They are currently on tour across the states, and just recently played a sold out show at Kilby Court.
Check ‘em out f’sho!
Key tracks: “Hot Venom”, “Cannibal Queen”
“Cannibal Queen” by Miniature Tigers …a little creepy, but still a great song
2. Them Crooked Vultures
For some odd reason, 2009 seems to be the year of the supergroup. Yeah, sure, Chickenfoot is pretty cool (at least in theory), and someone really deserves a hug for getting M. Ward, Conor Oberst, and Jim James together, but I just have one thing to say on the whole topic:
STOP EVERYTHING AND LISTEN TO THE GUYS ABOVE MENTIONED IN BOLD.
Them Crooked Vultures is a collaboration between Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age on guitar and vocals, Dave Grohl going back to his Nirvana roots on drums, and, I shit you not, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin on bass. The get-together of complete badass is really unmatched by anything that has happened so far in the genre of pure, hard rock, and it shows in their songs. So far, no official full recordings have been released, but snippets of some of their bigger tunes and a few live recordings can be found on the band’s myspace blog.
Listen. Now:
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendId=491766979
“Nobody Loves Me And Neither Do I (Preview Snippet)” by Them Crooked Vultures”
3. “Pursuit of Happiness (feat. Ratatat and MGMT)” by Kid Cudi
You remember that whole collaboration thing I just talked about in #2? Yeah, that’s been happening a LOT lately. Though these three techno gods aren’t forming a group of their own, hip-hop artist Kid Cudi was still ambitious enough to get everyone into a room to record this gem off of his new album, Man on the Moon: The End of Day, which dropped three days ago. Though Ratatat is the more obvious artist featured in “Happiness,” MGMT are still crucially present in the chorus and in various other parts of the song on vocals.
That aspect, however, was sadly left out of the David Letterman performance Cudi gave last week, where Ratatat was the only guest artist at the performance.
The song however, is a great listen, and the Letterman performance can be found here:
(check out the string quartet they have for the performance. Bamf!)
Alrighty folks, there’s your first hit of the blog! Hope you walk away from your computer a rocking out a little harder :)
The FYI, every Tuesday from 3-5 on www.kuteradio.com
