recommendations and reconsiderations

Finally, I've gotten around to putting something here besides the weekly setlist. Well folks, grad school will do that to a person, but hopefully I can keep up a little better with this, at least til the next semester starts.

Enough of that, on to the goodness...

Stuff you should know about (in my opnion, anyway):

Girl in a Coma: Both Before I'm Gone - Texas=based three-piece doing indie guitar rock with a very heavy British influence. Solid songwriting with some definite Morrissey-isms (listen to some of the vocalisations) and they're on Joan Jett's label, so there you go.

Elias are some lads out of Canada who tread the same emotional/epic ground as Coldplay and Keane, but with more spark than a lot of groups doing the same.

The new Björk is all kinds of awesome, but you knew that already.

Now, I know what you're saying, "I don't like comic books, I don't like magic, and I don't like comic books about magic." Fair enough. But you really need to check out Phonogram. Writer Kieron Gillen takes the premise of "music as magic" and makes it literal, but then uses the story as a set-up for an examination of the heroes and casualties of Britpop and the dangers of aging hipsterism. And Jamie McKelvie's art is just spot-on. You're best off getting the individual issues, if nothing else then for Gillen's commentaries, which act as a nice primer both for the series and the scene in general.

Similarly, while you may have had your fill of mp3 blogs, Emptyfree is well worth a look. Not only because you'll find links to things such as the entire Aphex Twin discography or all three discs of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' B-Sides and Rarities for download, but because of nuggets of joy such as this. Now, if that's not worth the price of admission, well, you tell me what is.

A little while ago I sang the praises of the Chris Randall solo album. Well, recently I had the chance to get properly acqauainted with it and, well... I'm not going to go a full 180 and completely rescind my recommendation, but man, does this guy want to be Tom Waits. Not that anyone in their right mind wouldn't want to be Tom Waits, but seriously, it did get to be a bit much after prolonged listening. Still and all, there are plenty worse artists to try and ape.

Don't forget, starting this Friday, June 29th, new DiS day and time, Fridays 7-9, and July 5th, Radio Free Thursdays presents Dreaming in Stereo at the Avalon Front, 300 Oullette Ave. in Windsor. All the best tunes of the show, and the bartender's pretty cool, to boot.