Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Oh Yeah, America

You know what really kills a good car show? Rather, what tends to kill most fun things when it happens out of context? That annoying "America is obviously the best place in the world" music. And it seems like whenever I go to a car show that these older guys just park their cars and then salute the speakers as they bellow songs like America The Beautiful. Now, don't get me wrong or take that unpatriotically, I mean, I'm from Cape Cod, where the Patriots are from (New England), so it's basically impossible for me to make unpatriotic statements. Anyway it just kills me to get out of the car and hear this blaring. I'm not 70! I don't remember when this was hip. Anyway, that's what happened at the most recent show I went to, and the "deejay" said he had two more gigs the same day. I can't wait to be back on the radio in August. How cool would it be, though, to go to something like a car show and have music like what's on this blog blaring? Man, I'd never leave. It's a dream, I know, but maybe in the future! Are they going to be playing blog music when I'M 70 looking at some car from the 2000's going "Man I remember when this thing was rattling around on the roads"? Probably not. Doubtful there will be much in the way of cars from right now in 2070 with the way things are made to biodegrade.

Anyway, enough ranting and raving. So I have a bad tendency to hear some music, think "that sounds great!" and then forget to ever follow up and get any information about what made me so excited. Miike Snow is no different. And before you all jump, no spelling error, it's got 2 "i"s. Heard this band's single "Animal" a few weeks ago and it's super catchy, got a cool feel, and definitely is a neat summer song. The band has a kind of Sufjan Stevens-y feel with some electronics for good measure. I'm enjoying the album quite a bit. Pretty good music for a rainy day like today was. Not depressing by any means, but not overly-cheery either. I'd advise to grab this one.
Miike Snow - Animal
Miike Snow - Plastic Jungle


Also, I happened upon this awesome Michael Jackson/Ratatat mix, not a mashup, it's well done..go check this out, it's worth a listen
The Hood Internet - Billie Wildcat Jean (Michael Jackson vs Ratatat)

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Trams and Folk

I realized this afternoon that school would be infinitely better with a tram system. Efficiency, hipster points (Stetson is frighteningly low right now, about neck and neck with country clubs and old people), and all around awesomeness. All these features and more can be ours! It is time to begin campaigning for tram services. We can do this if we raise our voices together!

A more realistic grassroots venture is the band Deer Tick. Their album "war elephant" is complete gold. If you thought folk music was just for your grandpa and hippies, you were mistaken, I'm afraid. My girlfriend Christine introduced them to me, and it really got me into folk music. I hope it can do the same for you. Here is Deer Tick's Art Isn't Real.

Deer Tick - Art Isn';t Real
Found at bee mp3 search engine

Monday, June 22, 2009

On The Precipice

Man, it is really interesting how much goes on in a week. That's probably a pretty unintelligent thing to say, but if you take a second and think about it, it's crazy. Let's see here, off the top of my head we had USA beat Egypt in the Confederation Cup, Obama killed a fly, Iran insanity is still happening and now they're being threatened with some heavy backlash, gas has gone up, and obviously, the biggest news out of all of this is that super band Discovery has blown up since last week's update. Maybe I need to start hopping on here and updating more often. Geez, I've heard 3 separate songs on Sirius in the past few days and every website I've been on has been promoting them. Which is awesome. The record is just great.
For some reason Blogger is fighting me with images this morning. Luckily I know some HTML! (enough to make a photo appear ha)
!!!!Someone just got stuck in the elevator outside my office!!!! Man, rickety old thing gave up for a few minutes..I think he just got out. What a way to begin the morning!
Anyway, I digress, Go pick up Discovery's album on July 7th
So I've had Phoenix, Kings of Leon, Harlem Shakes, and the above mentioned boys on heeaavvyy rotation for the past week and I couldn't enjoy it more. You know how sometimes you just love what you're listening to and don't have much need to find new stuff? Well that doesn't happen too often for me but I guess it did. What I'm getting at here is that I really didn't know what to update here with today...but I think I've got it.
Following on this little electronic trend that Discovery has started this morning; Simian Mobile Disco is a London based duo turning out pretty interesting music and remixes. They have three records out that have dropped in the past two years and their newest, called Temporary Pleasure, drops on August 17th..which is still a few months away, but their new single - The Audacity of Huge - is hitting the airwaves now and a pretty interesting video has come out for it as well


Look for that album in a few months..it should be a pretty good album to get dance parties going. (which is always important.)
Anyway, I want to leave with the song "Manhattan" by King of Leon so this has some non-electronic music. This song, and all of KoL's songs have a very addicting beat and sound.I'll admit, I reaaaallyyy didn't like Kings of Leon on my first, maybe 15 listens. But they've grown on me and I really like it a lot now.
King of Leon - Manhattan

Finally, If you read this and think I should include some other bands PLEASE comment and let me know! Hopefully I'll have an email address for this soon and we can get some communication going on!
Have a great one everyone!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Maybe it depends on what you agree open first. I know that you gotta keep food in the cabinets, but it seems inherently wrong to commercialize that kind of music. I guess a band/artist would have to decide that ahead of time. If they wanted to keep their music grassroots fine, and if they want to be in minivan commercials (Modest Mouse), and fly by the seat of their pants that's ok. But I think it adds a lot more to a group if they keep things out of the limelight. Thoughts? Opinions? Leave some ideas!

Also, awesome song. This is fresh danceable hip hop. N.E.R.D. is a great artist.

N*E*R*D - Everyone Nose
Found at bee mp3 search engine

Monday, June 15, 2009

Leaving The Lights Off

So, here we are, another Monday morning. It's 9:30 and already blisteringly hot out in this Florida weather. There's something like 200 football players here on the fields down from me and a ton of people just milling about. Way hot for that jazz, I'm working in a nice air conditioned office. Well seeing as it's Monday, that means another weekend down with time spent finding out about sweet music. And I definitely spent some time listening to stuff this weekend. And creating! My personal band spent some time recording a pretty hilarious Taylor Swift "Love Story" cover. But I'm pretty sure it's not ready for the public ha.
Anyway after an interesting conversation with a man at Radio Shack on why cables were being colored hot pink (and how some men have to deal with their sexuality and wear it sometimes..or something) I bought a 1/8"-1/8" cable and hooked up my computer to a Sirius boombox. Man, feeling like I'm in the 90's but bumpin' great tunes pretty much rocks. (speaking of which, I saw a kid walking with a Macbook on his shoulder blaring music a few weeks ago, now this could be because of how horrible the speakers in those things are, OR he could be re-inventing the boombox in post-2000 hipster style. Either way, hat-tip, Sir.) So, what I'm getting at here is that I blared music all weekend long and it was great. But the most interesting thing I heard this weekend was presented by the ever hip JOSIAH on SiriusXMU. It seems that Vampire Weekend's Rostam Batmanglij and Ra Ra Riot singer Wes Miles have taken both their taste for 808 beats and electronics and collaborated for a summer project called Discovery. Discovery has a record due on July, 7th called LP. I don't think much of their music has hit yet. They've got two songs up on their Myspace. But their song Orange Shirt is available for free download here. Or you can just listen to it here as of course I'll put it up for your ear's enjoyment.
Discovery - Orange Shirt

Alright, well onto the meat of this blog post. Tyce and I have been semi-arguing about something for the past few days. It all started when Tyce saw the new Bacardi commercial that features the awesome Matt and Kim's single; Daylight. Here's the commercial


So yeah that spurred interest in the idea that indie as a whole might be beginning to become "sold out". Now in music, as I'm sure you know, hearing the words "selling out" are as frightening as hearing a gorilla is running around with a bazooka. It's just not something you want to hear. Now, I know Ra Ra Riot had a song featured in a commercial a few months ago, and I'm pretty sure Modest Mouse was in a commercial a while ago. To perpetuate this a little, while in the mall on Saturday I heard our recently blogged about Does It Offend You, Yeah? blaring from Aeropostale. Now that struck me as odd seeing as that store has, as of late, started to carry clothing only 9 year olds can appreciate.
So that leads me to a hypothesis on this. I mentioned this to Tyce the other night and I've been thinking about it a little more so here I present this to you. I don't think that indie music is selling out. I think that companies and more"mainstream people" are being turned on to the music like what we blog about on here because they (the companies) have realized what a large sector of people there are that live in this "hipster realm". And due to this realization, I think that "hipsters" are being hired to find music for commercials, and stores and etc. This in-turn pulls in people, like myself, who hear DIOYY? and stop outside the store (before remembering it's Aeropostale) or it pulls in a new group of people who listen to Matt and Kim and now drink Bacardi because they heard "their" band on the commercial. And yeah, it does suck to hear the music we've all been listening to for a while hit the mainstream (somewhat) because it's amazingly fun to have our own quiet culture, but I really stand by my little American consumerism hypothesis that these companies are reaching out to this quiet culture of people. I mean we know Mcdonalds could care less, I don't even understand what they're trying to appeal to with their rap-esque break dancing adds? So, I say at least our boys and girls who have been working hard are getting a little publicity, right? And if this is true, then maybe it means we can be guaranteed jobs when these places realize that they need some good music. Maybe American mainstream is taking a turn towards better taste?
Then again, maybe our bands really are just selling out and buying Ferraris with the money their making. Whoa, wait. That was tough to say. Truthfully, I think that it's almost inherently impossible for a true "indie" band to sell out. I don't think Modest Mouse or Vampire Weekend started playing music for the express purpose of becoming rich and famous and hearing themselves all over. Maybe I'm speaking a little from experience here as well. I've played on the radio, made a little money, and had some fun drumming with my band, but we never planned for any of it. It just kind of happens. And if a car company came to us saying "hey your song really rocks, I want to put it in a commercial for my XXXXXX" We'd probably be overly excited. That would rock. Anyway That's my side of the argument. I believe Tyce, who is most likely going to shame me will weigh in on this later on but yeah. Check out that song Orange Shirt and why don't you reply here and let me know what you think!
I wanted to leave you with one song I found last week from N.A.S.A. I believe these guys are from Brazil, and they have a sweet sound. Here's the video for Gifted featuring Kanye/Santogold/ and the amazing Lykke Li. Such a great line up!

Friday, June 12, 2009

Black Wire - Hard To Love
Found at bee mp3 search engine

Breaking through the Blogosphere

Jack has invited me to write for his blog. Obviously he is not too concerned about doing justice to his own title, as I can promise minimal "hip" (of the figurative variety. I am well endowed physically ... with hips).
I appreciate a myriad of fields and hobbies - music, photography, whatever Jack likes really (he is leader of the free hipster world). But I really love something considerably less cool (try spelling bee levels of cool) but definitely awesome ! beep boop robot sounds! She blinded me with sciiience! Doo Do Do Dooo Dooo! And stop the band! Great take guys. You get paid on Thursday. See, scientists get made up bands! How neat! What do indie hipsters get? Real bands that play original, exciting music? O yeeeeaaa...
So what am I trying to say? First, really pleased to write for Attempts at Hip. Second, I like what Jack likes (sometimes >_<). Third, expect completely bizarre and fun topics too.
I leave you with a song from former indie rock band Black Wire out of Leeds, UK. I saw these guys when they first came to the U.S. and played at whatever venue would take them. Namely, a suburban high school auditorium in the cornfields of Illinois. There self-titled album Black Wire is fast, frantic, and makes you (well me anyway) want to violently dance. Enjoy!

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Fun, Fun, Fun

So, Thursday morning, and another day sitting in the office. I come today to you with a war story. I hope that no other person falls victim to the horrors that befell me last night. I went to hang out with some friends and was coincidentally roped into watching Pride and Prejudice. It was incredibly scary. I'm lucky to have survived. Thankfully, we watched the version with Keira Knightely so there was at least that redeeming quality. Two hours later, my retinas scarred and my brain on British-people-talking-way-to-fast overload, it ended. But I guess something lucky from this is that I remembered I had not finished reading this new book I got about two months ago; Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.If you haven't heard about this book then get excited. If you like zombies, decent writing, and not Pride and Prejudice then this book could be for you. It's the story of P&P re-written by zombie author Seth Grahame. Rather, Grahame has added zombies into the book. The story hasn't changed too much though. It's changed just enough to include a zombie wasteland with a quaint love story. I bought the book for $11 on Amazon a few days before it came out. I encourage you to buy it. I encourage you to buy it from a bricks and mortar bookstore like Barnes and Nobles or Books-A-Million for example. Had I a memory to remember to buy a book like this when it came out I definitely would have, but buying it online saved me the trouble of forgetting! So go pick that up.
In other news, as I was flipping through some music sites this morning I ran into some info that The Harlem Shakes have just put out their first full length album! I saw The Harlem Shakes as an opening band for Vampire Weekend about a year ago and man they rock hard. Last year when I saw them they only had an EP out called Burning Birthdays and now they have a new album called Technicolor Health and upon first listen here I'm enjoying it a lot. These guys rock hard. The first time I looked them up online it took a little to get into the music, but after that I was listening to them non-stop. Very exciting to see they have a new album out. They're currently touring with Passion Pit and opening for them. I'd say if you get a chance go see these guys, They'll probably give the headliner a run for their money...They did it to Vampire Weekend. I leave you with Harlem Shakes new song "Sunlight". I heard it said that this song could be a 'hipster's summer front porch song' and I'm beginning to see the truth behind that!
Harlem Shakes - Sunlight


P.S. Attempts At Hip now has another writer besides myself. Figured it would be cool to have some other taste spliced in on here so look for that soon!

Monday, June 8, 2009

Monday Morning

Well here we are; Monday morning. I'm currently sitting in the office at work being oh so productive. Not really, I've got no work to do except sit here and answer questions..but nobody is around right now..so there's no questions to answer. Man. Some guy keeps mumbling outside the door, I may check on that in a few minutes.
So last night I was listening to some music and remembered that forever ago I wanted to get an album by Does It Offend You, Yeah? DIOYY? is from Reading in the UK and they play electronic-dancy music, but they also have a few songs that are just...songs..and they're quite good. I've been listening to them since I sat down here. Well, until a co-worker walked in - headphone time. So obviously I'm going to leave you with a song from DIOYY?. They're wildly popular in the UK and had a sold-out US tour last year. I'm guessing the reason they're not more talked about is because of the music. I'm sure they're well known in the electronic realm as they've worked with Prodigy, Ladytron, Bloc Party, and NIN to name a few. They've also been on Jimmy Kimmel. I have not been paying attention ha.
Side Note - Two of my co-workers are outside in the hall with a cooler full of beer and wine. It's 10AM.

Anyway, I've got a song for you called Dawn of the Dead and a video called Epic Last Song



Does It Offend You, Yeah? - Dawn of the Dead


I'm starting to realize that if you play the songs on here and just let them go it's not a bad dance-y mix for a little party. Sweet!

So other news, I was surfing on Indiebound.org last month and saw that they were
recommending this book called "Who Is Mark Twain". I happened upon it in Barnes And Nobles a few weeks ago and bought it and it's a collection of unpublished stories that Twain wrote and never published. Some are incomplete, some are just scattered thought, they're very interesting. If you don't read Indiebound, I suggest you browse over there and do so. They find some of the best books that might not make it into B&N or just don't get a ton of publicity and pump them up (granted they're worth reading).
indiebound

Thursday, June 4, 2009

So Much Rain, So Little Indoor Activities

I guess a problem with living in Florida is that when is rains, all your plans - even your possibility to plan - goes out the window. The normal 3 O'clock showers have become something like 5 O'clock showers and it's been randomly raining all the time. There's a nice, huge, flooding, storm going on right now. My little patio here is so full of water it's just about flush with the door jam, and the cars outside my window have been struggling to get up the hill!
Anyway, time to talk music. I've been debating whether or not to put some songs on here lately. The reason for this is because these records have a few great, stand-out songs, but (I feel like) the rest of the album is lacking. So on with it:
This first band I present to you is named Lykke Li. They're from Stockholm, Sweden and they have a really chill, interesting sound. I dig it, but I can't decide whether I like the whole album or not. they've got a song called "Little Bit" that is great.
The next band is a band I've only found out about a few days ago called Arkells. They've got this song called "The Ballad of Hugo Chavez", and it's got a great vibe. The rest of the album though, I don't know, it has a unique sound. kind of like Gaslight Anthem but more upbeat sounding. Either way, their Ballad is a phenomenal song and I guarantee it'll get your foot bumping. (no money back offer). Arkells is from Ontario, Canada. That should be enough for you to go out and get their album. Darn Canadians. For as much flak as we, as I, give them..they sure know how to make music. I guess that's a viable alternative when all you've got is cold open land to play with. Unless you're a hoon.
Finally, I've got Cut Off Your Hands to talk about. Funny, when I heard about these guys I wrote it on my hand and then thought "hey this will be artsy if someone sees and reads it." It wasn't as funny as I thought when someone did. COYH is a band from New Zealand, and it's pretty apparent. I think just above Canada on the awesome-witty-smart-good music scale is New Zealand. As we can clearly see on the official Funny and Good Music scale, New Zealand clearly outranks Canada due to their climate and entertainment possiblities, while both overwhemingly defeat Greenland, where I don't think anything actually happens. Truthfully, Flight of the Conchords should be a decent enough track record for New Zealand to be recognized as a neat music/wit scene. COYH calls themselves a pop band, but that's for you to distinguish. They've got upbeat songs, and a song called "Turn Cold" stands out to me. (also it's one of their singles). They've been getting a tiny amount of exposure on SIRIUSXMU, which I guess isn't tiny, but they rock for sure. Well enough blathering, let's get on with the music, shall we?

Lykke Li - Little Bit
Arkells - The Ballad of Hugo Chavez
Cut Off Your Hands - Turn Cold