Song of the Day

Archive for the ‘Acoustic’ Category

John Brown’s Body is a poem, a song, and also a band according to Wikipedia. The last of the three would be this creative group of reggae masters from Boston and Ithaca. They’ve got what it takes to take Reggae to the masses, their blends of genres side steps from the classic straight Reggae traditions and creates something new that can make anyone shake a leg. They pump out tunes and keep the good vibes alive. Get some free music downloads off of their official John Brown’s Body website in the upper right corner by giving them your email address.

Very cool music video and excellent song. I wonder if the whales listened to music if this would be their anthem for their relationships with humans.

I wonder if the historical slate of band names was whipped clean would indie bands like this one out of Brooklyn still choose the names that they do? I guess every band has a different reason for picking their name aside from trying to sound cool, but it just makes me wonder. After watching this music video for some reason I feel like I’ve could toss my brain into one of those side loading laundry machines for a few cycles and I wouldn’t know anything strange happened. There’s something emotionally strong about this song but like most of the objects in the music video, all the sounds seem to be slowly destroyed like dragging something behind a car while it slowly grinds away.

The masks remind me of a bunch of other music videos. Is there some kind of psychological trend or message here that I’m missing here? Anyone, anyone, … …. Bueler, Bueler?

Here’s a double whammy. By a great new band that I just found. It’s hard to overstate the power this indie band has to produce good music. They have a combination of energy and heart the likes of which are rarely seen, not by being energetic enough to yell loudly or bang on things quickly or fiercely. I’m referring rather to having the ability to create a depth and range of soundscapes, to possess the capacity to produce music that can create an enormous variety and emotions while maintaining a mastery of their craft amidst that variety. They aren’t really breaking outside of their genre of acoustic indie folk alternative music, but they are orchestrating songs so well it’s like they belong in a movie in which the soundtrack alone is powerful enough to create all the imagery, story, and drama you need. Maybe I’m being too optimistic, maybe their music is just the kind of thing that I like personally, go ahead and let me know what you think. I’d like to hear your thoughts on this band. I’m excited about them!

Also, their album covers are not to miss! Check them out along with more of their music videos at the Rogue Valley official website.

From his 2006 album Goodnight William Fitzsimmons captures your ears and heart at the same time with this gentle humble and emotionally drawing songs. His songs well made lullabys remind me of the Weepys and Greg Laswell but he creates a softer more personal and intimate tone that seems to sit next to you and speak with you as if it were the actual voice in your head at the loneliest of times.

I’ve been trying to find this song online for years now and have finally by some stroke of luck found this song tonight. I’ve really been searching all over the place for it and I’m so glad I’ve rediscovered him and his music now. Hurray for keeping track of good artists, this song has been a long time coming!

If you have an artist that you want other people to discover, please don’t hesitate to share them with me and if I like it I’ll post it on my Song of the Day blog here. They don’t have to be an indie artist, but the idea is to share music that most people probably wouldn’t find out about by listening to the radio or watching TV.

You wouldn’t believe what I did to get this song. It wasn’t easy, I had to go to Tudou.com which is in Chinese, what a mess! Leave it to the Chinese to allow me to get a good audio file for sharing. What’s up US? Where’s the artistic beef?!

Well here’s this song, I was thinking of posting a live in (radio station) studio version of this track but the audio just wasn’t so good. I prefer production quality, there’s a reason for studios, they make better sound! And I even heard that using all battery powered equipment off the power grid is even clearer because there’s no distortion from slight jumps in power that you get when you plug equipment into the wall. I got that tip from Jack Johnson’s music label Brushfire Records.

Anyway, here’s the band and this song, ENJOY!!!!

I try not to classify artists or to translate their musical style, genre, or category of music based on their beat or the types of instruments they use, but in a way it’s necessary to help make artists more approachable. Jamie Woon’s music is backwards for me, he’s already approachable, and although his music appears to consist of a mix of pop and electronic sounds with a soul RnB and acoustic singer songwriter feel, I think that it’s not easy to classify his music into a genre. The funny thing is I went ahead and described it while talking about how it’s hard to describe.

One thing that pops out to me about his work is the clarity of the sound, it’s nice to have clear sound which sometimes gets lost among the dinge of electric guitar screams and regular percussion clashing. But without any hard percussion sounds, Jamie’s voice is given full stage. He’s got a great voice, and the well balanced studio production he did when recording his music does it justice.

Jason Reeves and I were both born in Iowa City! He moved to California and co-wrote most of the songs on Colbie Caillat’s album Breakthrough. I really like Colbie and now after finding out he worked with Caillat it shows why, he’s a great songwriter.

Check out more of his music at his website JasonReeves.com.

For some reason this song appears way down near the bottom of the list of songs that Last.fm says were popular for Sarah Jaffe. The songs that are at the top are also good, but I thought this song was more powerful. Perhaps people are turned off by it having the same name as her album “Even Born Again” or maybe there’s a negative connotation among some people when someone mentions “Born Again Christians”, but I don’t care about the religion part, it’s a great song, and it just projects positivity to me, or somber and clear self-awareness perhaps. It’s also surprising that the best sound for most of her tracks on YouTube were captured during this live performance at a church in her home state of Texas. Some other songs of hers to check out are Clementine and Vulnerable.