GO TEAM: Say My Name Triumphant

 

MP3: Say My Name - La Cygne

ALBUM STREAM:

Say My Name returns with Say My Name 2, an album that finds the Kid utilizing a grandiose pallet of intentions and ideas that hit the mark every single time.

Each track tells a story unique to your imagination, bursting with back handed pimps, gash fountain babes and drugs that haven't even been invented yet... or at least that's what I hear. Honestly what is so fascinating about SMN's music is that it's entirely open to interpretation, but is so brilliant that even the biggest village idiot has boost towards "getting it".

Take for example two of the Kid's all-star collaborators on this LP: Kenneth Kupfer's long fingered, skull cane ladden artwork for the cover makes complete sense, as does Range Life Records honcho and not-frequently-enough FY!GT! contributor Zach Hangauer's Wonder Woman vs. injustice video for single "La Cygne" (available for viewing below). It's seriously worth investing in a project of Say My Name inspired art projects, but in the meantime it's beyond worth investing in Say My Name 2 - and you can September 20th when it's available for digital consumption.

The trailer

MP3: White Flight - Children of the Light

The vid for this WF track is coming soon I guess. Enjoy the trailer above and buy the single that just came out on Make Mine. 2011 y'all!!

GO TEAM: Children of the Light

MP3: White Flight - Children of the Light

Roll your windows down over and over friends: White Flight's "Children of the Light" may only be one song, but it warrants multiple rides around the neighbourhood, with your speakers bursting with an energy not felt since WF's "Panther".

Another track taken from the so-anticipated-it-hurts "White Ark", COTL is available as a digital single with b-side "Thunder Over Thunder" giving you a chance to cool off before diving right back into the jacuzzi water.

Thanks Range Life! Cop this single on iTunes, yo.

FY!GT! PREMIERE: Crying Shame

MP3: Fourth of July - Crying Shame

Lawrence, Kansas takes Fourth of July for granted.

While living there, I never saw them play a bad gig or write a mediocre song. I would argue that they are the most talented band in that city, if not the entire Midwest and come August 31st I fully believe that this will be realized by the masses (oh, plus I got to sing with a group of Lawrence's finest on "Tan Lines" and a few scatter shots all throughout the LP. So that shit makes this post officially a GO TEAM. Believe it.).

"Before Our Hearts Explode!" is FOJ's sophomore record and a lot has changed with the guys besides haircuts. While you could easily write this whole thing off as a breakup record (which it is PROUDLY) there is so much more going on. Brendan Hangauer's lyrics have gotten more precise and clever, keeping the songs selfishly about himself while weaving incognito tapestries that any listener could easily relate to. Yes, it's a "man"'s record, but the situations are so genderlessly universal that if you are human and you feel, you're in hook, line & sinker. It goes back and forth from sweet to ugly within the blink of an eye.

Today's premiere "Crying Shame" is the perfect example of that: it sounds like a relationship hanging on by a thread where both parties involved do everything they can to screw with each other but come the choruses it returns to the routines of the past and the fear of truly being alone.

So yeah, Lawrence takes Fourth of July for granted, but I think very highly of this album and I bet they will too to the point that it'll be worn like a badge of honor. Bravo FOJ, bravo Range Life Records.

GO TEAM: Panther!

MP3: White Flight - Panther

Those who are lucky enough to have any kind of working relationship with Range Life Records and it's main man Zach Hangauer were most likely hearing songs from White Flight's mythical "White Ark" sessions for years now.

I myself remember first hearing songs from it, including "Panther", on a train ride leaving Salt Lake City in 2007. So while Panther and the like are almost like old friends by this point, it's been kept in pockets like a big secret and anytime a passenger would catch a curious glimpse of it, you'd almost instantly have to reject their advances and move along to something else. And that made you feel really, really fucking cool.

So it is with mixed emotions that this single has been released. On the one hand, Panther is a hot track, perfect for any summer and everyone deserves to hear it. It's genius. Plus, the years leading to this release were not spent lying down: this single is the culmination of an insane amount of hard work and missed opportunities. On the other hand, I liked being part of a small society with these sessions. Sure, I've got "Princess Pentagon" and you don't, but "Panther" was our crown jewel.

In the end, of course I am so fucking pleased this exists and that I can help in any way to get people onto White Flight. I pushed the first record so hard and if White Ark ever does happen (which I hope it still does), I will send it to the galaxy.

Beat by RATATAT, swagger by White Flight. Enjoy "Panther" everybody, you deserve it.

Download the Panther single with an instrumental and a hot 1,000,000 Light Years remix from iTunes HERE.

Top 15 Songs of 2007: #12 Fourth Of July

MP3: Fourth Of July - I Don't Want To Lose You

NOTE: Awwww yeah suckas, day number 4 from my personal list of the 15 greatest songs of 2007. Maybe more posts today, maybe not, but I'd check every now and then just in case. Either way, these posts are coming daily so come on back tomorrow at least. Wonderful.

I try not to post about my friends here too much without having them involved in some way, but since this is my top 15, I'm going for it.

Lawrence, Kansas' own Fourth Of July released a fantastic record titled "Fourth Of July On the Plains" this year on Range Life Records (friend of the blog) that is chock full of fantastic music that will stick to your head like gum on shoe (that you purposely stepped on).

When they went on tour this fall, they released 3 "tour singles" of all new music that were freshly recorded and ready for the public's ear to enjoy. And enjoy we did, as they had already topped themselves months after the gem they just dropped on us. For me, "I Don't Want To Lose You" was the stand out of those 3 incredible songs, with it's irresistible hook and it's overall sincerity coming from a band of rock geniuses.

Plus, they have a pretty sweet crib too:

{purchase fourth of july recordings from range life records}

GO TEAM: Dri

MP3: Dri - Don't Wait

NOTE: Today's contribution comes from Mr. Busy: Zach Hangauer.
I asked him to do a write up on "Don't Wait", a song from Dri's "Smoke Rings", which came out today. He released this record and I wanted to support it in any way possible, as it is beyond fantastic. It also introduces a new but long overdue feature here on the blog, the companion to our "FUCK YEAH" posts: GO TEAM. These will pop up every now and then, varying from hometown heroes (aka anything Connecticut) to words from the people involved with the jam. So without further delay, enjoy this post. Go team.

"Don't Wait" by Dri
Produced by Josh Powers
from the album "Smoke Rings" out now

The way we did this record was by picking out tracks a few of our talented local producer and deejay friends had put together and then arranged them so Dri could step up and slay them. Some we had for six months before recording and by the time we recorded they were pure flow. A few others we got very last minute and "Don't Wait" was definitely one of those. Josh Powers, bless his old-school soul, is a procrastinator and he promised, promised, promised and then - finally - delivered.

At the time Dri was recording "Smoke Rings", White Flight was finishing recording his next record in Catskills, New York and was getting ready to make his first visit back to Lawrence in two years. Justin and Dri, as all you Anniversary fans know, were not only a couple once, but a couple who, by virtue of their coupling, broke up the band. You can feel the weight of their history in "Don't Wait", especially in the second verse where Dri takes a step back and sings, all Sly-Stoned, my favorite round of lyrics on the record: "The Universe couldn't stop it/ And it didn't try", and "I love you more/ because you are the one who set me free."

She had just talked to Justin on the phone. She was thrilled, as we all were, to see him after two years. She hung up the phone and knew she had to write this song. I imagine that's where the chorus came from - being filled with this flood of feelings and thinking "If I don't take care of this now, it could get lost forever." "Don't wait", she thought to herself. And she didn't.

{purchase dri recordings from the range life shop}

Casiotone For the Painfully Alone

MP3: Casiotone For the Painfully Alone - Graceland

NOTE: Today's blog comes from the amazing Zach Hangauer, who runs the brilliant label Range Life. They released White Flight's self titled debut, which I talked about right here. Fuck yeah.

Man, I love the song "Graceland". The way the melody ebbs in sadness and flows in anticipation, expressing exactly what's being sung. Hearing it as a kid - did anyone's parents not own this? - it made me long to be grown up and to know girls who could crush you by "brushing their hair from their forehead". Listening to it now, it's a diamond-in-the-rough, a gleaming, chiseled jewel of pure American Pop: road trips, Elvis, movie stars, fathers and sons, love and loss. It's almost too perfect.

Which makes it perfect for CFTPA. If there's a common thread to Casiotone songs it's that his heart is in the right place but something's forever awry. Like Thom Yorke in "Everything In It's Right Place", Owen Ashworth can make you feel like even the possibility of order is disconcerting. And grant him this: if he wanted to, he could rip this fucking song apart, singing it in a roar instead of a growl, shattering every little poetic line with a wrecking-ball of desperate, raw feeling. You can sense him wanting to - a grown man crushing a childhood relic, taking his world-weariness and busting up the nose of everything Sophisticated and Sensitive. But as much as I would enjoy the catharsis of hearing that (perhaps live? - Casiotone fans should conspire to get Owen totally bombed before playing and see if he won't shatter - I mean absolutely fucking demolish - this song), the tack he takes, I think, is the savvier one.

Gone is Paul Simon's baby-boomer crushed idealism, sad and sweet, and in it's place is a voice so aching it's agitated, honoring a lullaby of lost love through barely-contained gritted teeth. And isn't this us? I mean, think of the real Graceland now, how sold-out, dumbed-down, corrupt and lame it's become. It's about one step cooler than Disneyland. It's silly to even fathom it now as a place of redemption. Perhaps it's disdain for the way our parents, the Baby Boomers, have allowed things that were once cool (including themselves) to become so selfish and tasteless and shallow. Think of how different they are from how we are - how they all joined fraternities and sororities and got married in their 20's and voted for Reagan and brought their kids up on McDonald's. And think of how it impossible it seems sometimes to really find love. And how embarassing and shadey our Government is. And how little we get paid compared to what we have to pay. And all the commercials that bombard us. And how so much of what we know is meaningful somehow keeps turning to mush.

Casiotone knows all this. And by covering "Graceland", he's taken it upon himself to fight back. Nothing's sacred, Boomers. His "Graceland" isn't as pretty, sure, but it's real and that, right now, is our currency. It's for us that the drums come on like a staccato march, some home-brewed Timbaland, a lo-fi call to action. For us that lovelornness is recast as nerve-wracked. And for us the ending cacophony which would never be "received" by Memphis or Paul Simon or our parents. Fuck Graceland, seriously, shit's getting way too heavy. We've got to find somewhere new, start fresh and do the whole shebang right this time.

I wonder what Casiotone calls his apartment?

{buy casiotone for the painfully alone recordings on insound}

The songwriting of Justin Roelofs

MP3: The Anniversary - The Ghost Of the River
MP3: Justin Roelofs - Why do I have to take my pants off when you're the one who lied?! (featuring Pink Nasty)
MP3: White Flight - Solarsphere

The White Flight record has been getting a lot of well deserved attention lately from mp3 bloggers and various reviewers. That's probably what brought everyone over to the songwriting of Justin Roelofs, except a select few like myself who were huge fans of the Anniversary.

So today's (late) entry is dedicated to the songwriting of a Mr. Justin Roelofs. I made a post about the Only Children, the new project of Josh Berwanger, the other songwriter of the Anniversary. Feel free to check that out.

Choosing an Anniversary penned Roelofs cut (or any cut) was hard. In the end it was between this and another, but "The Ghost Of the River" won because it really showcasing a band working around him. He still very much owns the song with his unique voice and lyrics but the rest of the group really gives it depth. "Your Majesty" is an all time favourite for me, and though Vagrant has it out of print, it's still pretty easy to find. Take advantage of that asap.

After the band split, 3 tracks surfaced from a now solo Roelofs. The humourously titled "Why do I have to take my pants off when you're the one who lied?!" is very folksy. It has some really great backing vocals from Pink Nasty (who is worth seeking out).

White Flight, the current project from Roelofs? It's really and truly unclassifiable. I dare you to try. I can only say it's great, bright yet dark and will mostly get you off your seat and on your feet... or something.

White Flight's self titled record comes into physical form on March 6th on Range Life, but the kind folks who distribute the album (a little label called Saddle Creek) will give it to you 2 weeks early if you preorder.

{buy the anniversary recordings on insound}
{buy white flight recordings from saddle creek}