Here's a bit of a beauty by Show me Shows from Doc Feldman, A Texas Moan. It's Tuesday and I haven't left our compound in seven days. This song has convinced me to leave my keys with a responsible party and head out for some/many beer(s).
For good measure, here's a second song by the man...
Rah Rah is a Canadian band from Regina. I hadn't heard of them before seeing this new album, "The Poet's Dead" show up yesterday in my feed. The album was released a day before that, on October 2nd. Now I'm going to have to dig up their two older albums and a couple of EPs.
The songs on this album are a mix up between male and female leading vocals for various songs, and I like it that way. It makes the album almost feel like a mixtape more than a series of songs by the same band, even though the style is pretty consistent. Well then, that's the extent of the review you're going to see here. You'll have to head somewhere else for an adjective riddled review about prose and poise.
Oh, Wikipedia had this to say...
“Rah Rah was named ‘Best Alternative New Artist’ and ‘Best New Canadiana Artist’ in iTunes Best of 2009 list. Rah Rah headlined the Whistler Live! stage during the 2010 Paralympic Games and performed at the Saskatchewan Pavilion. The group has been noted for their energetic live shows which often feature Pop Rocks candy and confetti.”
Good friend, drinking buddy, music lover and all around Top Shelf Human, Tom Nugent is joining Love & Rum. He'll be heading out with his camera to document music being played and alcohol being drank around Vancouver. Look at that damned photo of Willis Earl Beal above. Fantastic stuff, my man. Expect more like that real soon.
His personal site, tomnugent.ca can be found here.
Don't know Willis Earl Beal? Watch this video below. The boy's got chops!
If you're reading this blog you're either super hip, super drunk or super bored. If I'm a month late on posting this album it's because you're amazing and always a month ahead on music, yet a week behind on your school work and a lifetime behind on finances. Anyhow...
Look, we all know I don't know how to review music. I can't tell you anything about composition or intention, but what I can tell you is... This album is a banger attempt at luring my 80s Synth Pop heart into thinking it's amazing. I do enjoy it and have been playing it lots in the last few weeks, but what I've noticed more than the play count in my iTunes rising rapidly is...
This guy looks like the lovechild of Prince and Kanye if making sweet, sweet synth love and popping out a 25 year old child was trendy.
Sam Cooke did about as much for race relations and pop music as Hemingway did for booze and prose. Unfortunately all we have to show for it today is Katy Perry and TMZ.
In 1957 You Send Me became the first African American written and performed song to rank Numero Uno on both R&B and Pop charts. After that, You Send Me sold over a million copies and went gold along with the rest of Sam Cooke's career, including the posthumously released, unofficial song for the Civil Rights movement, A Change is Gonna Come.
Before being shot to death at age 32 in 1964 in a seedy motel amidst suspicious, drunken prostitute circumstances, our golden boy of gospel and pop mentored the likes of Aretha Franklin and launched the career of greats like Otis Redding through his own record label.
Every day of your life is a good day to put on some Sam Cooke, but summer even more so. Nothing sounds better while enjoying a barbecue and beer on your upper middle class patio than the sounds of civil rights and soul (eeeeeh.... while I can't say it's possible to empathize, I revere and applaud the effort and accomplishment). But hey, if you enjoy the boy, you should learn a bit about his contributions to civil rights and pop music before it eventually mutated into LOL txts, teenagers, Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber.
While I just can't figure the house music liking ways of the youth today, maybe I'm out of the loop... but if I were to spend an enjoyable day manning the barbecue with friends, I'd want to be able to look back later on it in my twilight years, thinking, Ah yes, this sounds like the best of times. It warms my senior citizen, diabetic heart to think of better days.
As opposed to, Is it just this house music or am I having a seizure? I'm having a seizure! Maybe the audio device built into my futuristic senior ear drums is broken. It could be a stroke. I'm almost positive I'm having a stroke!
