The Sharp Things' Playing The Benelux . . .And More

You might've noticed this fun little slab 'o bytes over in our Songdrop widget (glance to the right, or, if it's now one or more posts later, to the upper right). We liked it so much, we included it in our most recent eMusic purchases. Now we find the Brooklyn chamberpoppers' November 2013 LP, The Truth Is Like The Sun, is available for name-your-price download over at Bandcamp. So how does that make us feel after having spent our hard-earned on same? Good.



Speaking of Songdrop, you might enjoy paying a visit to our homepage there. We're enjoying our own playlists as well as those of Songdroppers we're following. In addition to our Currents playlist, embedded here at the blog, we've got playlists of current Powerpop, Early Powerpop, Indiepop, Shoegaze, Psych, Garagesurfpunk, Alternative Heyday, etc., etc. Songdrop has a free app, should you want to listen on a portable device.

From the Archives - Into 2010, Part 2

We continue with our series of archived favesongs, as promised. Listen via the exfm widget and download by doing the right click/save maneuver. Click here to visit all previous From the Archives posts. We hope you find some things to like. We'll mention again that we are hosting some of these songs with previously given and never revoked permission. If conditions have changed, we ask bands, labels, etc., to let us know, and we will remove the links.

Apteka - Blackout Hearts mp3
The Botticellis - Up Against the Glass mp3
The Charlatans - Bad Days mp3
CHOO CHOO - A Little Wiser Now mp3
Darker My Love - Talking Words mp3
Drakes Hotel - Broadcast to the Addicted mp3

Fever B - Please Operator? mp3
The Firekites - Good Times mp3
Golden Triangle - Neon Noose mp3
Hot Silk Pockets - Body Clock mp3
I Love Math - I Remember When I Loved Her (Zombies cover) mp3
I Was a King - Norman Bleik mp3

The Krinkles - Gimme Gimme mp3
The Lovetones - City Meets The Stars mp3
Magnapop - Bring It To Me mp3
The Motion Sick - 30 Lives mp3
The Orchid Highway - Next World mp3
The Paparazzi - Hi mp3

The Raveonettes - Suicide mp3
The Sky Drops - Now Would Be mp3
Tall Dwarfs - Meet the Beatle mp3
The Telepathic Butterflies - Circle Man mp3
the Warm Fuzzies - Space Invaders mp3
the Young Sinclairs - Girl I'm For Real mp3

Hear Hear The See See!

We've been enjoying this London band's loverly paisleypop for several years now and were prompted by a visit to the excellent Songdrop page of Power Pop Review's knowledgeable Debra47 to see if SoundCloud might have any free and legals. Well, guess what. Explore and purchase here, here, here, here, and here. Their U.S. full-length debut drops March 8 on the Sundazed label, as celebrated here and here.


Download here.


Download here.

The next three are full-fledged fabs in our ears, but you might want to know that they are largish WAVE files (in the 25.5-38.4 MB range). Most computers can accommodate files this size quite comfortablly; ours certainly did, and our lives are much the better for it.


Download here.


Download here.


Download here.

Odd Bird: Kiwi Tom Lark

We found New Zealander (Christchurch) Tom Lark via our email friends at Happy. Although repelled by the picture accompanying the video of "Hipsteranity," we soldiered on and boy/girl, are we glad we did. We love the quirky bigsound and the thrilljoy of the everrecurring unexpected. If it's doing for you what it's doing for us (although, truth to tell, how would you really know?), more streams and frees and legals are at SoundCloud and Bandcamp.


Download here.



Download here.

More Resonars & More: Fogbound, Rosco A.K.A Sterling Roswell, Morgan Delt, Violet Swells, Orgone Box, Frowning Clouds, Doug Tuttle

Nathan Ford's excellent The Active Listener Sampler 16 has helped us keep that promise previously discussed here and here. (Thanks, Nathan Ford.) In addition to the excellent song by The Resonars, we're posting several other of the psych-pop groovers available for "name-your-price" downloading. One of the long-time pleasures of this genre is the creative bandnames associated therewith, so you'll also find numbers by Bat Faced Girl, Vintage Cucumber, Lunar Grave, etc., etc. Are you smiling yet?









This line is inserted simply to prevent your being freaked by a sky-high stack of eight (8) daunting widgets. Enjoy.

Just in Time for Val's Day (next year): Miss Mary, Oscillators, Raindrops, Riviera F, Mumps

If we'd found these in time, we would have posted them last Friday, so please consider this a post-Valentine's Day musical rummage "sale" (with excellent—free—rummage). Thanks to Polaroid for the headsup and to Where It's At Is Where You Are, which says the comp is good for one day only, so act quickly. These are our five favorites, although we loved a lot more (especially #'s 2, 3, 6, & 8).

Music of the Sphere: Doug Tuttle, Kelley Stoltz, James Dean Driving Experience, Tony Molina, Ex Hex, The Men, Richard X. Heyman, Marshall Crenshaw, Paul Westerberg, The Red Button, Tommy Keene, The School, Girls

Hey, Doug.

We've sat on these a couple of days and just now realized some of them might not be at their hostsites for long. Therefore we post and thank each host.

Doug Tuttle - Better Days (Wools Grown Lighter) - Rollo & Grady

Kelley Stoltz - Storms - Unpiano
James Dean Driving Experience - Oh, Grateful - Unpiano

Tony Molina - Nowhere To Go - Side One Track One
Ex Hex - Hot And Cold - Side One Track One
The Men - Different Days - Side One Track One

Richard X. Heyman - Falling Away - Teenage Kicks - one of our all-time faves by RXH
Marshall Crenshaw - Cynical Girl - Teenage Kicks - our all-time favorite by MC
Paul Westerberg - Dyslexic Heart - Teenage Kicks - one of our a-t f's by PW
The Red Button - Caught in The Middle - Teenage Kicks
Tommy Keene - Deep Six Saturday - Teenage Kicks
The School - Why Do You Have to Break My Heart Again? - Teenage Kicks
Girls - Honey Bunny - Teenage Kicks

More Trouble In Mind = Less Trouble In Mind

To us promises are sacred, so constantly breaking them causes us no end of grief. Well, almost no end, because Trouble In Mind's 2013 FALL(out) Sampler is letting us fulfill a promise we made several months ago regarding faveband The Resonars . . . with bonus expiation. In addition to the favesongs posted below you will find  beaucoup bon boom boom, all on a "name your price" basis at Bandcamp. And so we find our minds at least temporarily becalmed. Thanks, Trouble In Mind, for Less Of Same.

Oh, and you really should check out TIM's Stax-O-Trax sampler from November 2012, with 16 nifties by The selfsame Resonars, The Wrong Words, Mikal Cronin, Jacco Gardner, etc., etc., ALL for $1.00. Yes, $1.00 TOTAL. $.0625 per song. Do we belabor the point? Uh-oh. Are we making it clear? Bon.

From Downunder: Hey Geronimo

Recent excavations at Triple J Unearthed helped us dig up/dig some free and delightfuls by "Brisbane's poppest indie-Frankenstein band." We've got four of the five quoted words figured out and soon as we solve the fifth, we'll be sure and let you know. (Breath your hold don't.) Learn more at Facebook and Twitter.

Music of the Sphere: Morgan Delt, Warm Soda, Axxa/Abraxas, Wild Smiles, Dune Rats, Dum Dum Girls, Pillar Point, Evil Arrows, Real Estate, She Sir, Frowning Clouds, Paul Messis, Persian Claws, Sufis, Tomorrow Tulips, Veronica Falls

What if they met up with Wild Smiles? Wow.

You might wanta go to the SOTOs first, as some of them've been up almost two weeks now (and you know what that means). Many thanks to ALLLLL the blogging entities for posting these bytes of pleasure. BTW, use your 'balls and you'll notice a trio of sightsongs. Kinda spooky.

Morgan Delt - Obstacle Eyes - 3hive

Warm Soda - Young Reckless Hearts - Austin Town Hall

Axxa/Abraxas - On The Run - Austin Town Hall

Wild Smiles - Life Builds You Up - Rollo & Grady

Dune Rats - Pogo - Rollo & Grady

Dum Dum Girls - Rimbaud Eyes - Side One Track One

Pillar Point - Eyeballs - Side One Track One

Evil Arrows - Jennifer Kills The Giant (Once A Week) - Side One Track One

Real Estate - Talking Backwards - Side One Track One

She Sir - Condensedindents - Side One Track One

From Infrasons' Excellent Best of 2013 Post:

Frowning Clouds - Much Too Much Too Soon - Infrasons

Paul Messis - Sowing Seeds - Infrasons

Persian Claws - Clever Way to Crawl - Infrasons

Sufis - Turn Around - Infrasons

Tomorrow Tulips - Flowers on the Wall - Infrasons

Veronica Falls - Nobody There - Infrasons

Warm Soda - Busy Lizzy - Infrasons

eMusic pppurcha$e$ - 2012 (Quarters 2-4) & 2013

Here's another little "feature" we started sometime back and have kind of neglected. (There are reasons, all uninteresting.) These are the powerpop, indiepop, shoegazepop, psychpop, garagepop, deathmetalpop, etc., songs we purchased at eMusic during the spans indicated. They aren't necessarily all the songs we bought by these artists, as explained on the spreadsheets. If you like some of the same music we do, maybe you'll get a few ideas for purchases or Spotifications or somesuch of your own.

2012 - Quarters 2-4

2013 - Whole year

You can view previous pppurcha$e$ po$t$ by clicking here.