I was so excited to see Emot last night, I forgot how good We Are the Willows are. They're good:
Continue reading Friday Music Day: March 7, 2014 →

My favorite local band right now, Emot, is having a record release show at the Cedar next Thursday night (3/6). Opening are my second-favorite local band — We Are the Willows — and the Cairo Gang, who have collaborated with Bonnie Prince Billy. I'm really excited about this show. You should go. It's $12 at the door ($10 presale), Doors at 7, Music at 7:30.

Emot Music Video and more after the break.
Continue reading Friday Music Day: Feb 28, 2014 →

I was very excited last night to tell HPR that I'll be bringing him to his first Concert in April.
Colin Stetson is playing at an all-ages venue.

I'm working at toning up my iPod. It was too full of vegetables, and it needed more meat and sweets. Hope that shows in today's random ten.

Also: Lydia Loveless's album comes out Tuesday. Until then, you can listen here.

I saw that the 400 Bar is re-opening in the Mall of America.
How many touring bands will be disappointed to discover that they're booked at a club in a mall?
How many touring bands will show up at Cedar-Riverside looking for the 400?
How bad will the service be in the new location?

It's been so cold this week, I can't listen to my iPod while walking to the bus or waiting for it: the wires to my headphones become so stiff it's like they're on sticks and pluck themselves right out of my ears.

When I bought a lot of Music at Cheapo (and Ernie November's before that), I used to love buying used tapes. They cost about half of a used CD, so you could gamble even more on things you may not have been willing to drop even $8 on. I also picked up a few cutout tapes for even less at Sam Goody. One of those tapes was Yello Zebra. I don't even know if I connected them with "Oh Yeah" at the time, but I think I did know that they were someone the Orb had remixed. I might have confused them with Yellow Magic Orchestra.

I listened to the album in my car driving home from Rosedale that day and wow, Zebra was really good. Like what if Carl Craig had a Latin Swing jones and some weird dude vocalist and wrote songs instead of tracks? It's not all great, I'm less fond of the songs that were singles "How How" and "Do It", with all the vocals. But "I... I'm in Love" and "Night Train" and some of the others were definitely worth the risk of the five $2.99 tapes I picked up that day.

I write this because I just saw the tape last weekend and decided to find a download of it. It's most of what I've listened to this week.

You got any unexpected little gems you've found because they were cheap enough to make a gamble on?

So, what's your best of 2014 list look like so far?
Mine is after the jump.
Continue reading Friday Music Day: Jan 17, 2014 →

Nothing new to add to my 2013 best-of list yet, and nothing from 2014, either.
I read yesterday that Amiri Baraka died. I've got a few records with him on it. One of my faves after the break. Language warning. Continue reading Friday Music Day: Jan 10, 2014 →