A buddy and I are headed to St. Louis this weekend to watch a Blues game, and while we know they suck as a professional hockey team we’re hard-pressed to find a reason to pass up free VIP seats to any sporting event. Mostly because of the free beer.
The Blues chose their team nickname because the city has a rich musical history (check out BB’s Jazz, Blues, and Soups if you’re ever in the area—great music, and the best damn muffaletta I’ve ever eaten), and up-and-coming alt-rock group Cavo is helping to keep that tradition alive with their 2009 album, “Bright Nights, Dark Days.”
These St. Louis natives burst onto the scene in 2008 with “Champagne,” which has the same grit and honesty of the really good early Puddle of Mudd stuff. Not bluesy by any stretch of the imagination, but enough to get serious airplay on the local radio stations and generate enough buzz to get inked to a major label in Reprise Records.
So “Champagne” is the first track on their first full-length album, followed by my personal favorite, “Crash,” which we featured in a recent Jukebox, and “Let it Go,” the next single that also appeared on the Transformers 2 Soundtrack. From there the rest of the album does what a radio-friendly alt-rock record is expected to do—plenty of catchy power chords and rock ballads and memorable hooks, etc. Bottom line: the whole record rocks. Every track sounds like a single. It makes you wonder how what these guys are doing is any different from what the wildly successful Daughtry is doing. It’s the same basic thing with about 30% less pop, which I guess makes it simultaneously more credible in the music community and less popular in the 13 to 18-year-old demographic. Okay, so I guess that explains it. Ho-hum.
Yes, I’ll be spending the weekend singing the blues over the horrible hockey I’ll be viewing, but the car ride down is going to be very upbeat, thanks in large part to the Cavo album I bought a couple of weeks ago. If nothing else, it’s going to be great driving music. The Blues may suck, but rock will never go bad.
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LikeI first met Teitur, in the fall of 2003, while he was touring with Matt Nathanson. I really didn’t know what to think about Teitur. He came across shy and reserved. He had an accent that I couldn’t quite place and he said he hailed from the Faroe Islands. With those clues and my Holmes like logic, I concluded that he might have been a less written about character from the mind of J.R. R. Tolkien. When Teitur hit the stage my goofy preconceived notions were blown way. After he completed his set I picked my jaw up off of the floor and took in a much needed breath. That night he became one of my favorite artists.
Teitur is just thinking.
Teitur’s 2003 release, Poetry and Aeroplanes, is hands down one of the most beautiful albums I have ever listened to. Every time I give the record a spin I can’t help but feel a little guilty because it seems like I am reading his personal diary. Each song feels like it was lifted word by word straight from his experiences with love, longing and happiness. Songwriters want to create tracks that draw listeners in. Teitur not only draws listeners in, he encourages a shared listening experience. The well crafted lyrics exude genuine emotion. The intelligently structured instrumentation is simply amazing. Universal Records saw something in Poetry and Aeroplanes and they attempted to share the music with the world. After touring with Teitur, John Mayer was quoted in Esquire saying that the album was one of “best albums to come around in the last five years.”
With all of that being said most of you might be asking yourself, “why haven’t I heard of Teitur before?” Well, the music industry can be a crazy beast. Universal Records never really seemed to get behind the promotion of the album and they let it sit on the shelf. A dedicated fan base and word of mouth promotion did get his music out there. Tracks ended up on some film soundtracks and there was some minor radio play. In 2006, Teitur and Universal parted ways. Since that split he has turned into a global troubadour sharing his amazing talent with loving audiences that cannot get enough of his storytelling.
Add Poetry and Aeroplanes to your music collection. “One and Only” is one of my all time favorite love songs. I can never get enough of the upbeat “You’re the Ocean”. And “I Was Just Thinking” and “Josephine” are soothing masterpieces. Prepare yourself to be moved and wooed by the incredibly artistic and emotional music.
Video for “I Was Just Thinking”
The amazing “One and Only”
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I’m a soul man. In fact, the famous song that we all know and love from the Blues Brothers is actually based off of my life. I still get royalties every time the movie is played. That’s a true story that I made up. So maybe I’m not actually the soul man, but I am a soul man. So I recognize good soul music when I hear it. Especially when a new artist puts a new spin on a style you may have grown up with and heard a thousand times. Laura Izibor is that new spin.
She was born in 1987 (so she’s a youngin’) in the one place everyone associates with soul music: Ireland. Not what you were thinking? Yeah, me neither. But that’s what makes her so unique. Plus, I’ve got a thing for accents.
Her music is a mash-up between Joss Stone and Amy Winehouse (with a MUCH cleaner image, of course.) The opening track “Shine” on her debut album Let The Truth Be Told is an upbeat tune that draws on a classic soul feel with a fresh twist that’s younger and more refined for a new generation of music lovers. When most people think of soul, they think of old school. When I think of soul, I think of Soul Asylum. Then I think of “Runaway Train”. Then I think of the 90’s and slap bracelets. Wait, what were we talking about?
But if you’re saying “Soul isn’t really my thing”, think again. Luara Izibor’s album is the essence of soul, but it’s got a little something for everyone. Like Mary J. Blige 2.0. She’s the next generation soul queen. We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised to hear the classic sound coming out of her lovely pipes or we’ll give you your money back. That’s right, we’ll give you your money back. Sound too good to be true? It is (as far as the money part is concerned.)
Check out the video for “Shine”:
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Charlotte Gainsbourg is the daughter of two musician-slash-actors—a British mumsy and a French popsicle—so it probably was no surprise to see the offspring of such a talented duo go into the same pair of businesses. Yes, while some spend their entire lives unsuccessfully pursuing one or the other, Gainsbourg has been able to dip her fingers into both the music and movie industries. Her most recent musical project, “IRM,” was written and produced almost exclusively by the great Beck, which means it is, by definition, worth at least a casual listen.
But this is a complex record, and it’s going to take more than one cursory flip through the tracks to get the most out of what it has to offer. The first single is, naturally, a duet with Beck entitled “Heaven Can Wait,” and it’s absolutely Beck-ish but with a feminine touch. It’s got sort of a happy, driving beat with tambourines and major piano chords that are just rhythmic and interesting enough to get a sense of why it’s the record’s first radio release.
The opening track, “Master’s Hands,” as well as “Trick Pony” and “Le Chat du Café de Artistes” (which, as you can guess from the title, is sung entirely in French) also are pretty memorable, but the whole album is sort of a non-stop happy-go-lucky lullaby with just enough experimentation to keep it from being too poppy. It’s an interesting record, to say the least, but would you expect anything less from Beck?
The album has already been out in Canada and parts of Europe since early December, but now it’s America’s turn to get a jump on this sort of mellower, trickier style of Imogen Heap pop to see if we’re ready for it. We at Fresh Scouts think we are.
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Spoon – “Got Nuffin”
We recently featured Spoon on our New Music Tuesday with their new album Transference, but what we didn’t feature was this rousing track that’s getting heavy radio play on the alternative circuit. Lucky for me (and you) I’m in an alternative mood, so it works out. Plus, you’ve got nuffin to lose…
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Hot Hot Heat – “Talk To Me, Dance With Me”
This song spicy. A little rock, a little salsa, a little hot sauce and a little south of the border (even though these guys are originally from north of the border in British Columbia.) Who would have thought Canadians could rock out this much? Sorry Canadians.
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Dirty Projectors – “Stillness Is the Move”
With a sweet name like Dirty Projectors, how could you go wrong? With electronic drum beats and instrumental melodies that are far from the norm, these guys definitely bring something new to the table. The band consists of a multitude of sounds and vocals that all intertwine in perfect sync like N’Sync. Ok, maybe not like N’Sync, but that’s the first thing that came to mind. But seriously, they aren’t like N’Sync. Seriously.
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