MD Picks of the Week: 7/22/2012 0

Hey all! I took last week off for Bastille Day, but I hope you all enjoyed two weeks ago’s picks of the week! I’m really excited for Alt-J’s American release! Now onto some other stuff,

This week’s MD Picks are…

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Artist: Pomplamoose

Pomplamoose has released quite a few tracks via their YouTube channel over the course of the past few years, all of it incredible. They recently dabbled in Electro-Pop with the single linked to above, and just dropped a new EP. Definitely check them out!

Similar to: The Ting Tings, The Submarines, Shiny Toy Guns

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Album: Regina Spektor – What We Saw From The Cheap Seats

Regina Spektor is one of my absolute all-time favorite artists, and her new album doesn’t disappoint. Incredible sound, with a bunch of old tracks redone, and some new ones to boot, this album is terrific. And, to all the DJs wanting to play this album on their show, it’s available in the MD-recommended rack in Studio A! Recommended Tracks: “Patron Saint,” “Small Town Moon,” “All The Rowboats.”

Similar to: Ingrid Michaelson, Kate Nash, Immaculate Machine

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Song: Madeon – “Finale“

I hope you all were as excited as I was when Madeon dropped his newest track. The 17-year old French electronic artist is an incredible force and one that’s been taking over the electronic scene in the past few years. Check out this track and check out all of his other tracks on his SoundCloud.

Similar to: Yelle, Wolfgang Gartner, Dave Edwards

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Enjoy! See you next week!

– Graham Starr

MD Picks of the Week: 7/08/2012 1

Hope you all enjoyed last week’s picks of the week! The Oh Hello’s are really a great new sound. Now onto some other stuff,

This week’s MD Picks are…

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Artist: Balto

The frontman took a journey to Russian Siberia before writing Balto’s newest album. And like the animated dog, a sense of loss is apparent in the newest album, October Road. There’s a great mixture of seclusion, longing, and optimism inherent to their lyrics. Just an all around terrific sound. They may not have released much in the past few months, but they’re definitely an artist to keep track of. Enjoy! Recommended tracks: “The Railyard,” “Self-Portrait.” Though, in all honesty, they don’t have a bad song.

Similar to: Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver

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Album: Alt-J (∆) – An Awesome Wave

Sometimes only identified by the Delta character they associate with all their music, Alt-J is a group out of Leeds, UK, that plays what they like to call “folkstep.” It’s an interesting style: a mixture of electronic backing and folk-inspired rhythms, lyrics, and musicianship. I guarantee you that you’ll have at least one of these songs stuck in your head for a while. Unfortunately, the album won’t be released in the US until September, but the group was nice enough to post the entire album on their SoundCloud. Recommended Tracks: “Breezeblocks,” “Tesselate”

Similar to: The Maccabees, The Wombats

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Song: Rhye – “Open“

So this song is actually a bit old, by at least several months. but I feel it’s a track that still, nonetheless, needs to be shared. This enigmatic duo has only released this one song so far, and little is known about the band’s origins, intentions, or identity. Pretty cool, huh? But seriously, this track is just absolutely beautiful. I dare you – try listening to this song only once. It won’t be easy. Enjoy!

Similar to: Chairlift, Purity Ring, Neon Indian

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Enjoy! See you next week!

– Graham Starr

MD Picks of the Week: 7/01/2012 0

Hey everybody! We’re introducing a new tradition where each week the Music Director (me) selects a new artist, album, and song that are bound to perk your ears up a bit. Each week I’ll be posting something that may have gone under your radar a bit, but you’ll really like. Some of these will be available in the rotation shelves (look for the silver stickers), but most of this is just to spread the music around! I hope you all will enjoy it!

This week’s MD Picks are…

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Artist: The Oh Hello’s

Really great new artist from Texas. Their new album merges a lot of folky aspects with a new rock and alternative sound. This brother-and-sister combination has great vocal harmonies.

Similar to: Mumford & Sons, The Civil Wars

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Album: The Tallest Man On Earth - There’s No Leaving Now

I absolutely love The Tallest Man On Earth. For those of you who don’t know him, he’s this Bob Dylan-esque Swedish singer-songwriter with a very folky feel. This album, though maybe not as revolutionary as his Shallow Grave album, is incredible and definitely worth a listen.

Similar to: Bob Dylan, Joe Pug

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Song: Michael Kiwanuka - “Home Again“

This British singer-songwriter merges soulful roots music with a great bluesy background. Michael Kiwanuka has the incredible ability to make you feel like you’re in some raggedy pub somewhere, just watching him pour our his soul. This song is just so beautiful.

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Enjoy! See you next week!

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(Graham Starr)

Pick of the Week | Every Single Night 0

Remember Fiona Apple?  You know, that impossibly slight singer from the late 90s, the one with the huge blue eyes and the even huger voice?  Maybe you remember Tidal, her first, awesome album from 1996 and it’s bad-ass single “Sleep to Dream.”  After her 2005 release, Extraordinary Machine, Apple effectively disappeared, dropping out of the general music consciousness and leaving the throaty soulful singing to a new crop of British songstresses.  Fortunately Apple is back with a vengeance this year.  After her much lauded SXSW appearances, Apple has released the first single off her upcoming album The Idler Wheel, set to drop on June 19th.  ”Every Single Night” is extremely minimal, keeping the focus on Apple’s remarkable voice and the interior monologue expressed in the lyrics.  For the most part she keeps her voice soft and tremulous, allowing it to shake and even break occasionally before breaking into her full throaty belt in a near yodel at the end of each verse.  Its a strange and thoughtful new track from a strange and thoughtful performer whose presence we’ve been missing, whether we knew it or not.  The track is available on Apple’s Soundcloud.

Pick of the Week | “Go Right Ahead” 0

I have this thing about Swedish musicians.  Why are they everywhere and why are they so good? Consider First Aid Kit, two sisters who make up an extremely young, very cute, and absurdly talented folk duo, who just released their second album to tremendous blog hype and critical acclaim.  They just had their Boston show switched over to the Paradise Rock Club after selling out Brighton Music Hall.  Others who come to mind are The Tallest Man on Earth, Jose Gonzalez, Jens Lekman, and Peter Bjorn and John, all excellent Swedish musicians who sing in English and have gained an ardent following in the US.  But before any of these artists were a big deal, there was The Hives.  Though officially they formed in the early 90′s, The Hives came to prominence, as part of the so-called “garage rock revival” in the early 2000s, along with The White Stripes.  The band hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves in the US for its excellent and straightforward brand of rock n roll; They all but disappeared after their 2007 release The Black and White Album.  But they’re back this year with a new album, Lex Hives, to be released in June, and in the meantime they’ve got a new single, “Go Right Ahead.”  Listen up, and then start working on your “Superior Swedes” playlist.

Classic Rock Mine – The Pretty Things and S.F. Sorrow 0

Formed back in 1963 by former Rolling Stones bassist Dick Taylor, the Pretty Things’ raw sound and rowdy live shows made them a top club act in the UK. However the band’s failure to tour the US contributed to the Pretties being eclipsed by The Stones in popularity. The band developed a decidedly more psychedelic style with the release of their 1967 LP Emotions, but it was the groundbreaking 1968 rock opera S.F. Sorrow that should have made the band huge.

Released one year before Tommy, SF Sorrow was critically acclaimed upon it’s release in the UK. Unfortunately the LP was not distributed in the increasingly important US market until well after Tommy hit store shelves. Needless to say US fans did not buy S.F. Sorrow. To most US rock fans, S.F. Sorrow remains little more than a classic rock footnote. That’s a shame, because it’s a great album. I was fortunate enough to sit down with the Pretty Thing’s Dick Taylor and Phil May and gain some insight into this ground-breaking work.

Mike Conway: Can you talk a little bit about how the S.F. Sorrow album came about because obviously that has been a real signpost in the history of rock.

Phil May: We had reached a point, as Dick said, beyond the pop thing, and we had done all that. And I think really it was for our own preservation that we had to find another way or we were getting a bit bored with it. It is like we had done it for four or five years and the singles. It seemed that we needed something more to get our teeth into, to sustain our interest, otherwise, I think we would have stopped. And it was in some ways our salvation, that we found another way of making a record that held our interest and took us into the next stage. Otherwise, I think we would have stopped at that point and just been a pop band with bad boy overtones. The opportunity to go to the best studio in the world, spend a year with Norman Smith was a great working, when you got the Beatles in the other studio and Pink Floyd in the other. The whole sense of Abbey Road was kind of an exciting place of invention and people trying to push the envelope. I remember it as being probably one of the most creative, stimulating periods in my life. It was a wonderful feeling you know.

Dick Taylor: And also there was a feeling of, when we were doing that, it was more like we are working on an artistic project rather than we are producing a piece of product for a record company.

Phil May: Commercial. This is going to be the next commercial big thing. We didn’t have any illusions that maybe we were going to have, but we did feel we were doing something, which is important.

Dick Taylor: That really was in our minds and it wasn’t just like, oh we got to do so many songs to fit an album, it was actually a conceived of piece which we wanted to complete. It didn’t spring sort of like out of the air, but we had to really work on it. But Phil’s story and everything, we just knew, oh now we have to do a song which kind of fits this and sometimes the song would come and the story would change.

Phil May: It was making new demands on us. We were writing for a particular character, like Baron Saturday. We had to come up with something musically which suited his character. So that was exciting. So again, we had found a different way of making music. Whereas the story was driving us. And we had good songs around the time we didn’t use. There was another song which didn’t make the album called “Cardinal of Regrets”, was another character, but we couldn’t get into that, it just stayed on the sidelines because the story ruled.

Dick Taylor: Let’s dig that out again. If you can remember it.

Phil May: I found the drawings for it the other day.

Dick Taylor: I never, I can’t remember it.

Phil May: It was different enough that, you know, if I was doing lyrics, there would be pages of drawings for that song. And then from that, the lyrics would come, after it had been visualized. What was happening? The balloon burning. And then the lyrics would come next. So I had a sketch book full of drawings.

Dick Taylor: And then we would be beating away putting riffs together and things and what have you.

Phil May: So it was a very visual– That’s what I mean, it was very visual. For me it was visualized before the text came. The visual image was there before the text.

Mike Conway: Do you think the work still holds up today?

Phil May: You have to answer that.

Dick Taylor: It seems to, because this is, people seem to be saying it does.

Phil May: Young kids are hearing it for the first time, find it quite stimulating.

Be sure to check out Classic Rock Mine, Saturday nights from 9pm-11pm, to hear the music of the Pretty Things and other obscure classic rock goodness.

The Magnetic Fields at Berklee Performance Center Friday, April 6th 2

The Magnetic Fields – “Andrew In Drag” – ATP Festival

The lyrics to any Magnetic Fields song, if read, appear overly simplistic and often disturbing. The voices of Claudia Gonson, Shirley Simms, and Stephin Merritt easily recreate them as lighthearted, humorous or heartbreaking –sometimes all in the same song. (more…)

First Youth Impressions – What Band Would You Choose? 0

There’s a point when most young adults suddenly opt to listen to something that wasn’t force fed to them.  If one doesn’t have an older sibling to get ideas from or a friend who has already stepped off the predictable music path, one has to just have to make an effort to dabble in music variety on their own.  But where do they start?  Do they just start downloading random songs or clicking on Youtube music videos with the most hits?  It must be frustrating to feel lost and surrounded by the musically unknown …

So I want to prepare you, readers, in case you are that person they turn to after they have shed Ryan Seacrest’s heavy cape of popular music.  Pretend that this person, in a daze of fear and excitement, timidly asked you what band they should start with to begin their enlightened path towards music fulfillment.  You will be the one to apply the first color to their palette … which can be a bit daunting, eh?  So what band would you choose to start them off with?

For me, it has to be the Pixies.  You and I may know about them, but given that even their singles are on the fringe of memory (“Here Comes Your Man” miiiight get played once in awhile on an alternarock station) the group can still be considered as relatively unknown to the younger crowd.  The Pixies also benefit from having two distinct phases:  the quirky punk run from “Come On Pilgrim” to “Doolittle” and the more approachable phase for their last two albums.  Depending on the young adult’s tastes, one can direct them to either “Doolittle” or “Bossanova” easily.  Or, if the person needs more visual convincing, just show them the cover of “Surfer Rosa”.  All of a sudden, there could be interest.

If the person can’t sit still for a whole album (yikes … but perhaps not too surprising given this day and age) one may have to just get them to listen to a few songs.  With the Pixies it is a tough choice, but I would go with “Here Comes Your Man”, “Debaser” and probably “Gigantic”.  Those are likely some of the more safer choices, but they have a little mix to them so that the listener can hear the allure of the band while getting a sense of the off-kilter elements here and there.  “Here Comes Your Man” is a straight forward pop song  that will appeal to most everyone, while “Debaser” showcases Black Francis’ penchant for shouting.  “Gigantic” features Kim Deal on vocals, which tips the listener off that there are two vocalists in the band (albeit short-lived).  Plus, the energizing ending to the song might win over a new fan if they’re more into Joey Santiago’s guitar and David Lovering’s drumming anyway.

Someday, you will likely encounter someone who needs a push in the right direction when it comes to music.  Maybe they don’t know they need that push yet, or maybe they assume that your taste in music is tired or boring.  Be ready to set them straight by having a go-to band ready, ideally more than one as well as spanning across different genres, so that they have a highly recommended avenue to follow.  Hey, one can’t save the world in one stroke but one can possibly save another from living a life of aimless music listening.

New Episode of The Mashup! 0

This Sunday at 3p on The Mashup, we welcome Sam Zuckert and Lia Kastrinakis.

Sam Zuckert is a youngster from Evanston, Illinois. Sam is a member of the Tufts Stand-Up Comedy Collective. He has writes cool things about hip-hop here: http://admissions.tufts.edu/blogs/jumbo-talk/author/slam-zuckert/. Read up, kiddos.

Our second guest is the fantastic Lia Kastrinakis. Lia is a member of The Institute and Major:Undecided as well as a really good rapper (like for real). Watch her in this awesome sketch about the ladies of The Institute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSjx0UpKbMs&feature=BFa&list=UUOsLqsZ8Qa1DPyB8h8gkb7Q&lf=plcp

The Mashup is a weekly comedy programs on WMFO. It is live on Sundays at 3p, but past episodes can be heard at www.mixcloud.com/themashup

New Episode of The Mashup! 0

This Sunday at 3p on The Mashup, we welcome Lev Novak and Ezra Salzman-Gubbay.

Lev Novak is a junior from Newton, Massachusetts. He is a writer for The Institute and he has worked as an editorial intern at CollegeHumor.com (Guys, he is pretty legit). Check out some of his College Humor articles here: http://www.collegehumor.com/user/5925426

Our second guest is the hyphenated Ezra Salzman-Gubbay. Ezra co-hosts “Trading Fours” with our very own Sawyer! Check out his blog here: http://www.dangerdiversion.blogspot.com/

The Mashup is a weekly comedy programs on WMFO. It is live on Sundays at 3p, but past episodes can be heard at www.mixcloud.com/themashup