Bongo Beat's IPO Toronto Sampler

In anticipation of this week's Toronto edition of the International Pop Overthrow Festival, Bongo Beat Records is offering an excellent four-song sampler as a free download here for the next fourteen days. The sampler includes one song each by Bongo Beat artists Dave Rave, Kevin Kane, Plunt, and Ralph, all of whom will be performing this Friday at The Rivoli in Toronto. Nab the complete Toronto IPO Festival schedule here.

Hail and Farewell, Not Lame

I share the sadness of fellow and sister powerpoppers at the news that powerpop giant Bruce Brodeen is closing the doors of his online store and label, Not Lame, on November 24. I've gotten a lot of great music at Not Lame the last few years and am genuinely inspired by the joy, passion, and personal touches Bruce has brought to my enjoyment of music. So I also join poppers world-wide in thanking Bruce for this and look forward to his next venture, Pop Geek Heaven, to be launched in January. Click the link in the previous sentence or click here to get on the mailing list for updates and more information. Here is Bruce's moving and articulate good-bye/hello.

Web Dating Vid: "Lovin You, Freakin Easy"

Love it. (Thanks to Friendship Bracelet for the headsup.)

Music of the Sphere: Shins, Who, Beehive, Weezer, Telekinesis, Soft Boys, SSLYBY, J. Pants, J&MC, JJ&TB, BDoD, Idle Times, et. al. . . .

Second blob to the right of the hand-for-hook. (Click to enlarge, maybe zoom, if "necessary.") We like Harlem, too.

If we had 'em, we'd post 'em. Unfortunately, we do not. Fortunately, they do. (See below.) And we thank them. Profusely (if laconically). Rock on, rockcats. That is all. Peace out. (Idle times, oui?)

The Shins - Strange Powers (The Magnetic Fields cover) - Chromewaves - live and studio versions - Sure, you've seen it here before and probably will again.

Voice Of The Beehive - Monsters And Angels - Barely Awake in Frog Pajamas

The Who - Pictures of Lily - Infrasons - Sarkozy's first (Is this a joke? My French isn't up to subtlety.); purt near my favorite by The Who; Nic and me: what a pairing/whodathunk?

Stuntcat - All Things Come to Those Who Wait - Coast is Clear

Love Culture - Karolyne - Milk Milk Lemonade

Web Dating - Can't Get Enough of You - Friendship Bracelet

Telekinesis - Can't Get It Outta My Head (ELO cover) - Indie Rock Cafe

Weezer - The Good Life - Tsururadio
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Banned (By The Man) - Tsururadio

James Pants - Darlin' - Gorilla vs. Bear
Reading Rainbow - Wasting Time - Gorilla vs. Bear

Mazes - Go-Betweens - Pop Headwound
French Kissing - Oh Suzanne - Pop Headwound

The Jack Rubies - Be With You - Popdose
The Jesus & Mary Chain - Blues from a Gun - Popdose
Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - The French Song - Popdose - French theme developing today; Ooo-oui goo-oui.

The Soft Boys - Kingdom of Love - Raven Sings the Blues
Mirrors - Shirley - Raven Sings the Blues
Tyvek - Underwater 2 - Raven Sings the Blues

Bass Drum of Death - Heart Attack Kid - Raven Sings the Blues
The Wrong Words - What Went Wrong - Raven Sings the Blues
A Bolha - Razao De Existir - Raven Sings the Blues - Picture a tilde over the z. ("Pictures of Tilde?" Ooo-non goo-oui.)
Idle Times - Do You Hear Those Bells & I Don't Believe It/X-Tina - Raven Sings the Blues

Catch-Up: Built to Spill, Amusement Parks on Fire, Flight, Ty Segall, Autolux, Gross Relations, Thee Oh Sees, Unlovables, Kung Fu Monkeys, et. al. . .

We're continuing to work our way back through our long list of unposted yet highly pleasing songs. This third set runs the gamut from present day to a year or more ago. You can find the first set here and the second here. Many thanks to Insound and IODA for making the songs below available. In addition to the fact that we very much like-to-love each precious ditty, these songs have something else in common: when you left-click each one, a dialogue box will open, giving you the choice either to listen or to save. (Please feel free to do both.) Yahoo Media Player will not pick these up, so you will not see the cute little "Play" arrows in this post. If that disappoints you, well, that makes us very sad. Happy listening.

Amusement Parks on Fire - Flashlight Planetarium mp3

Autolux - Here Comes Everybody mp3

Built to Spill - Hindsight mp3

Gross Relations - You Don't Know Me mp3

Strfkr - Boy Toy mp3

Thee Oh Sees - Meat Step Lively mp3

The Unlovables - Leave Me Alone mp3

The Kung Fu Monkeys - Summer School mp3

Flight - Real Estate mp3

Ty Segall - The Drag mp3

Modwheelmood - Sunday Morning mp3

Magic Bullets - The Book is Closed mp3

pppurcha$e$ - August-November, 2010

We're delighted with the powerpop, indiepop, psych, and garage we bought at eMusic the past four months. Do we like or love all 271 songs? ABSO LUTELY. Favorites? Too many to name. Click here to see and sample for yourself.

Music of the Sphere: Fresh & Onlys, GbV, Twilley, Fannies, L7, Ride, Chapterhouse, Wild Nothing, JAMC, Johnny Boy, TPoBPaH, Elvis C., et. al. . . .

Picture Credit

Lord have mercy but these favebloggers are pouring it out! Thanks and blessings to them. Sorry we haven't found more for you.

The Fresh & Onlys - Endless Love - The Passion of the Weiss - Scroll down to #36.

Guided by Voices - Echos Myron - Music for Kids Who Cant Read Good

Montana - Good Goes Bad - Peter's Power Pop

Dwight Twilley Band - Looking For The Magic - Art Decade

Generationals - Trust - Rollo & Grady

L7 - Hanging On The Telephone - Star Maker Machine - also has versions by Blondie and The Nerves

The Thermals - I Don't Believe You - CYSTSFTS

Redtrack - Wait Around - Mojophenia

Stormy Mondays - Nothing On My Radio - Indie Rock Cafe

Celestial - Dream On - Sweet Indie Tunes

The Ramones - Pet Sematary - All Eyes And Ears

Ride - Eight Miles High (The Byrds cover) - Chromewaves
Chapterhouse - Pearl - Chromewaves

Wild Nothing - O Lilac - IndieBall
Midlake - Roscoe - IndieBall

King Charles - Love Lust - All Things Go
The Young Veins - Take a Vacation! - All Things Go

The House Of Love - Destroy The Heart - The Vinyl Villain
Teenage Fanclub - God Knows It's True & Alcoholiday & So Far Gone & Long Hair - Vinyl Villain - These Peel Session recordings have a fantastic live presence.

Ringo Deathstarr - Imagine Hearts - RCRD-LBL
The Rentals - Honey Life - RCRD-LBL

Thee Headcoatees - Teenage Kicks - Pogo A Go-Go
Voodoo Queens - Supermodel Superficial - Pogo A Go-Go
Buzzcocks - Promises - Pogo A Go-Go

"Or is that too many for one post?" we muse. We actually have a baker's dozen more, all from the same site. Should we post them now or put them in another post? Ah, what the heck, let's do it, mainly because we don't know how long they'll be available.

Taylor over at Music for Kids Who Cant Read Good has a fantastic three-part series on songs that begin with the incantatory "Boom! Boom-boom, cha!" beat of The Ronettes 's Spector-produced "Be My Baby." These are our favorites; maybe you'll prefer some of the other 43.

The Opening Salvo
The Ronettes - Be My Baby - Music for Kids Who Cant Read Good
Jesus and Mary Chain - Just Like Honey - Music for Kids Who Cant Read Good
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Gentle Sons - Music for Kids Who Cant Read Good
Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Hand In Hand - Music for Kids Who Cant Read Good
Jay Reatard - An Ugly Death - Music for Kids Who Cant Read Good
Johnny Boy - You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve - Music for Kids Who Cant Read Good

V2.0
Brendan Benson - The Pledge - Music for Kids Who Cant Read Good
Jesus and Mary Chain - Sowing Seeds - Music for Kids Who Cant Read Good
The Explorers Club - Forever - Music for Kids Who Cant Read Good
Kenickie - Millionaire Sweeper - Music for Kids Who Cant Read Good
Sally Seltmann - Harmony to My Heartbeat - Music for Kids Who Cant Read Good

V3.0
Wild Nothing - My Angel Lonely - Music for Kids Who Cant Read Good
The Lucksmiths - Great Lengths - Music for Kids Who Cant Read Good

Impossible Hair Update: Second Song Posted

Three weeks ago we posted a mighty fine song by Washington, D. C. band Impossible Hair. Today we received and posted a second mighty fine one. Click here to hear/download both.

Velvet Davenport: Warm, Personal, Mysterious

Somebody didn't get the memo: Blood-red body paint for the photoshoot, Sunglasses Guy. Sheesh.

Velvet Davenport - Warmy Personal Routine mp3

Velvet Davenport - Mystery Michael mp3

from forthcoming LP
Warmy Girls
on Moon Glyph

We previously posted this Minneapolis sextet's collab single with Ariel Pink and Gary War and very much like these two songs from their forthcoming third effort with Moon Glyph. These two songs are a bit more poppy than the spacy "Get Out," although we happily swing (or sway or sit smilingly immobile) either way. Well, here's what we mean.

Velvet Davenport ft. Ariel Pink & Gary War - Get Out mp3

Many thanks to AJ Jahnig of Swim Agency for the headsup. You can still get VD's "Run" at Stereogum and see the psychy video of "Get Out" here.

MySpace | iTunes | Amazon mp3 | eMusic

Catch-Up: Charade, Doiron, Meridene, Pollard, Say Hi, Mae Shi, Antique Toys, Dead Meadow, Sound of Arrows, Paper Moon, Underwater TP, E. Hundred

As we recently mentioned, we've got a lot of songs we just haven't posted, so we're trying to catch up. (It's not gonna happen, but fondly may we dream.) For this post we drop down to the chronological end of our queue. Frankly, we're not exactly sure when we found these, but it appears it was in late 2008. Try not to settle into any particular mood, for this lot is all over the lot.

The Charade - Monday Morning mp3
Julie Doiron - Consolation Prize mp3
Meridene - Stay Alive mp3
Robert Pollard - Imaginary Queen Anne mp3

Say Hi - These Fangs mp3
The Mae Shi - See You Again mp3
The Antique Toys - Zombie 13 mp3 - Ta to Morten for the long-ago headsup.
Dead Meadow - I'm Gone mp3

The Sound of Arrows - M.A.G.I.C. mp3
Paper Moon - What Are You Going To Do With Me? mp3
Underwater Tea Party - The Untold Story About Mary and Nick mp3
East Hundred - Slow Burning Crimes mp3

A couple of post-posting notes: The Yahoo Media Player plays the Dead Meadows song fine in Firefox but not in Windows Internet Explorer or Google Chrome, on my 'puter at least. You can download it, though, with right-click/Save Target As. YMP is not picking up the East Hundred song, but it will launch by left-clicking and will download with the usual right-click/Save Target As command. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Here We Are with Cashes Rivers

Cashes Rivers - Our Boats mp3

from Cashes Rivers

due Tuesday, 26 October on

Aqui Estamos Records

Des Moines folk rocker Matthew Garcia's 12-song debut "ranges from folk to pop and back again"** Our blogname gives an idea of which sector we like best, but we have long-digging folk roots as well. Thanks to Candice Jones and the folk at Team Clermont for floating our boat with this excellent song.

MySpace | Bandsite | Amazon mp3

**Well put, Baby Sue!

New from Rainbow Quartz: June, Volebeats, Sails, High Dials, Parties, Flower Machine

You may have noticed last month we were pretty excited to hear of forthcoming releases from the fabulous Rainbow Quartz label. And we still are. We promised we'd post free and legals as soon as we got them. Well, we just got them. And even though it's 5:14 A.M., this is more important than that vastly overrated thing called "shuteye." So here we go.

We'll begin with three LPs that are already available for purchase.

The June - Good News mp3 - from Green Fields and Rain - band's Rainbow Quartz page - Amazon mp3 - eMusic

The June - Feel The Sunshine mp3 - same as above

The Volebeats - Me and You mp3 - from The Volebeats - band's Rainbow Quartz page - Amazon mp3 - eMusic

The Volebeats - This is Where I Belong mp3 - same as above

The Sails - I'm Only Bleeding mp3 - from A Headful of Stars - Get another mp3 from the LP at the band's Rainbow Quartz page. - Amazon mp3 - eMusic

These three LPs are due to be released on Tuesday, 2 November.

The High Dials - Uruguay mp3 - from Anthems for Doomed Youth - Get more at Rainbow Quartz. - Amazon mp3 - eMusic

The Parties - Let's Call It Love mp3 - from Coast Garde - more at Rainbow Quartz - Amazon mp3 - eMusic - Click here to hear Mr. Suave's highly entertaining interview of The Parties and here to go to his excellent Mod, Mod blog.

The Flower Machine - L.A. in the Rain mp3 - from Lavender Lane - more at Rainbow Quartz - Amazon mp3

Oh, Pairs!: Sad Day for Puppets, Grand Atlantic, Surfer Blood, Soft Pack, TPOBPAH, Legends, Liechtenstein

Picture Credit

As we near our blog's fourth anniversary, we've noticed literally hundreds of songs we've queued up but still haven't posted. (Some reach back a year or more.) We won't go into the boring reasons why this has happened, but over the next couple of weeks we're going to try to play a little catch-up.

By now you've probably found a lot of these elsewhere, but we'll post them anyway. You will not grieve to hear we will be writing even less than usual. The music's what matters, and we trust your ability to do GoogleBingYahooAskWhatever searches. The following don't necessarily have a lot in common except a) we very much like-to-love them and b) we're posting at least two songs per artist. Hope you enjoy.

Sad Day for Puppets - Monster & the Beast mp3
Sad Day for Puppets - Mother's Tears mp3

Grand Atlantic - She's a Dreamer mp3
Grand Atlantic - Coast Is Clear mp3

Surfer Blood - Floating Vibes mp3
Surfer Blood - Swim (To Reach the End) mp3

The Soft Pack - Answer To Yourself mp3
The Soft Pack - C'mon mp3

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - 103 mp3
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Higher Than the Stars mp3

The Legends - Always The Same mp3
The Legends - Seconds Away mp3

Liechtenstein - Roses in the Park mp3
Liechtenstein - Stalking Skills mp3

A Telekinesis/SSLYBY Joint

Hey Jealousy

Telekinesis/Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Gotta Get A Record Out (Green cover) mp3

We love both these bands and faced a profound blogger moment quandary ("blogmoqua," as it's known in the business) as to which bandname should come/go first. We hope neither will mind (and won't, as neither will notice).** Anyway, the song was a joint venture just prior to recently hitting the road together, and we think it's superswell. ("Interesting" observation: After seeing numerous instances of the acronym SSLYBY, we noticed that if you ssnakily ssay the first two letters, it kind of rhymes with "flyby." Ssaves a lot of time talking to myour hipster friends.)

It was also nice to learn about Chicago powerpunkpoppers Green in the bargain.

Here are a couple of wonderful songs we've previously posted by the two groups, along with infolinks and purchasepoints, all of which we've heartily, greedily, and happily employed.

Telekinesis - Coast of Carolina mp3 - from 2009 release Telekinesis!

MySpace | Amazon mp3 | eMusic

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Sink/Let It Sway mp3 - from August 2010 release, Let It Sway

MySpace | Amazon mp3 | eMusic

By the way, I recently found another excellent--ready to practice??--SSLYBY song, "Think I Wanna Die," at last.fm. I tried posting it again here at Powerpopulist, but it had "issues" with the Yahoo Media Player widget. I've posted it here at a ridiculous little blog I set up a few years ago to tie in with a couple of posts I'd done in our blog's infancy (or toddlerhood).

**No telling what kind of jealousy won't break out when they don't see the relative sizes of the paired pictures up there.

Watch Out For Watch Out For Rockets

Watch Out For Rockets - a Lotus Yet mp3

Watch Out For Rockets - Buckle Yer Hair mp3

from Beasts With Hearts Of Gold

Back in August we guided you over to Covert Curiosity to check out this lo-fi Austin band and then lifted over to eMusic to see what they might have. Lordy, what a payload! We purchased 16 right on the spot from their first two LPs. (We feel lucky if we find one excellent song on an album, but scoring seven on one and nine on the other is almost unprecedented.) We'd grooved on the goodstuff for a month, when out of the blue rocketdog7, aka Aaron Rimbey,* aka guitarist for WOFR, invited us to friendship at last.fm. "Hmmm, might this be an opportunity to host a couple of the excelentes right here at our humble little blogchild?" wondered pp. "Yes," said newfriend Aaron! So there they are, in launch mode up yonder. (Hopefully you've already taken the rocket ride. . . ."Come on, grab ahold of my rocket" indeed. Shameless, weren't they? Ace nevertheless. But I digress.)

Aaron got our bp rocketing up a bit with the news WOFR** will be releasing a new LP in a month or so. Telepathic War Machine will initially be offered as a free download at the band's Bandcamp site. He also said a free EP is available at the Bandcamp site and will remain so-unpriced until the LP is released. Needless to say, we got our aspirations over there lickety split, did the dl thing, and are highly grooving on the results.

We are grateful to Aaron for the permish and also to Mr. Curiosity for the initial headsup and for directing us to the excellent Austin Sound, which has lots of valuable info, plus a couple of other WOFR songs we especially like.

MySpace | Bandcamp | Amazon mp3 | iTunes | eMusic

*That's Aaron up there in the beard.

**The band was first formed by David T. Jones (guitar/vox) and also includes Lucas James Urbanski (bass) and Richard Galloway (drums). The Austin Sound article says Jonathan Terhaar plays drums. And that could well be.