Monthly Archives: August 2010

daddies lonely rocket radio

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Honeytrap

A bowler hat he wore, his eyes became obscured, his teeth were telescopes,
you should have seen his legs were the rolling rivers, they call him the forgiver although he cannot forgive

With the proliferation of the hardware and software to allow any musician to record and master an album, we have entered exciting and refreshing times in music. There are many people making music now, without the help of a label and it’s marketing machine. Enter the music blog. Once your blog is established… bands, labels, and even your friends will send music for submission. My inbox gets stuffed with links to bandcamp and soundcloud. NOT complaining, but it’s tough to get through it all. As a necessity, I must only allocate a brief read and listen and move on if I wish to clear the unread messages in one sitting. Sometimes though, something catches my eye or ear, and I settle in for a more in-depth discovery.

Laura Roslin, President of the 12 Colonies

In this case, it was a rather innocuous thing that grabbed my attention. The title of a song. “ROSYLN IS A CYLON”. Being a fan of the BattlesStar Galactica franchise, including the 2003 re-imagining, gave me cause to pause and pay attention. If you avoided watching BSG because you thought it was, well…to geeky for your tastes, I don’t think I can get you up to speed with out making this post too long winded. In a nutshell, Roslin was the president of the 12 Colonies and Cylons are a race of sentient machines, created by humans. These machines had learned how to look human, so figuring out who was a human and who was a “skin-job” made for some interesting episodes throughout the series.

I quickly load up track two off Petrushka , the yet to be released LP from the band Honeytrap, and take a listen.


Download Honeytrap – Roslin Is A Cylon

The sound of the song, and much of the album, is unconventional in many ways, yet strangely familiar. An Eastern European sound combined with Folk and Rock, much like Gogol Bordello, but with a Pop sensibility that will likely allow them that crossover factor that is so important today.

David Bowie is a fan, and sums up the band well in this quote taken from the The Times:

Balkan-inspired slice of craziness… Puts me in mind of some of Camper Van Beethoven’s finer moments.

Oh yeah! Camper Van Beethoven! The side project of lead singer, and co-founder of the band Cracker! Damn that Bowie is good. It’s a good thing HE doesn’t have a music blog!

Curious about the origins of the song and expecting a BSG fan’s fantastical analysis of some episode where a clue was found pointing to the possibility of Roslin secretly being a Cylon (she isn’t) and using her presidency as a way to undermine the fleet (she didn’t), lead me to shoot an email off to the band.

“Big Dan” (guitar/vox) was the author of this particular song, and quickly replied back with an explanation. Sadly, no BSG fan was found, but the story was interesting none the less.

The song is basically about being under control. I guess it represents the lack of trust the the government had for us. There is the shadowy figure always watchful throughout the track, representing the feeling of a nanny state I was having at the time. The Roslin line comes from a sign in the toilet where I work. Its printed “please be careful, leave the bowl as found”. I got squeamish at the thought of the management unable to trust its educated staff to properly use such facilities and it went into the song. There’s a little cartoon fish in the picture and someone has scrawled “Roslin is a Cylon” as a speech bubble.

I guess there was no point in asking if he was disappointed in the ending of the BattleStar series. (frown)

Sometimes it’s a song title, or an album cover…but to an up-and-coming band to get noticed, takes a bit of luck sometimes. Luckily for me, I noticed a song title and discovered a great band in the process.

You can pre-order the album Petrushka on Honeytrap’s BandCamp site. I suggest you do…unless you are some sort of Skin Job?

That’s All You’ll Ever Get From Me

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This band is getting a lot of press as “The next big thing from Vegas.” I don’t mean to be a balloon-popper, but you’ve got a lead singer who is a Vegas native, his cronies from BYU, and their cronies from the east coast who all moved to Vegas a year ago. So I don’t know if I am supposed to point out their similarities with The Killers or why they are dissimilar or whether just having mixed musical elements makes you sound like The Killers… But it’s effing hot outside and inside, I’m afraid to kick my thermostat over 80 lest my power bill surpass the $423 it was for the last month, I want to work out but where would I do it, and it’s making me kind of oh… Wait.

Now that you’ve had your serving of piss with corn flakes, let me say that Imagine Dragons truly have an amazing stage presence, put on a great show, and have an impressive sound.

Imagine Dragons is Dan Reynolds on vocals and keys, Wayne Sermon on guitar, Brittany Tolman on keys, Ben McKee on bass, and Andrew Tolman on drums (yes, married. Recently.) They recorded their first EP upon moving to Las Vegas from Utah. It was good. Then they released a second, and it’s ten times better. So… Maybe the heat didn’t get to them yet. Maybe they knew they needed to be in Reynolds’ hometown to really get the energy flowing. Maybe the fact that his brother is also the Killers’ manager doesn’t hurt with the momentum either.

It’s working. They have knocked out competition in multiple Battles of the Bands, traveling extensively to provide the beat-down with their energetic on-stage presence. I saw them open for Paper Tongues, Civil Twilight, and Neon Trees. They were unequivocally better than the other two openers.

Not everyone agrees. Molly Bergen from West Coast Sound said, “It was exactly the kind of neutered, harmless pop rock that made Maroon 5 and Train stars. With their lead singer’s good looks and passionate thrashing on stage they should go far.” OUCH! Well, what are you going to do. They’re the rockin’est Mormons since the Osmonds. You gotta start somewhere. They’ve got endorsements from Vegas’ local “mix” station as well as from their “alternative” station, so maybe Bergen isn’t too far off.


Download Imagine Dragons – I Don’t Mind

After an amazing week in Los Angeles and performance in Las Vegas, the band is headed back to Provo for a week, seemingly to relax since the next gig is on Friday at Club Velour. Then it’s on to Park City for a festie, back to Vegas in September for a show at the Pub at Monte Carlo – that sounds like a good time! – and then back to return to the scene of their recent domination at the Viper Room.

You need to get on this.

You’re a Heartless Bastard

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As an aside, I’m writing this all while listening to a ton of old house and electronica. The antithesis to what I’ll be posting, today. In fact, since I can’t find a good audio program on the cheap to rip all my old vinyl, I’ve resorted to digging around youtube to find some of it. What am I listening to right now?

That seriously could be the best choon Armand did on the remix tip. No joke. That’s just some filthy disco goodness. Nice use of low and hi-pass filters to tease everything in, too. I used to kill this track when I dj’ed. Ah, memories.

Anyways, let’s get back to what the hell I meant to write about. And before you little hipster snobs start giving me shit, yes, I am just hearing about the band I’m posting today. No, you don’t have cred. Stop it. Speaking of hipsters, that reminds me of quite possibly my favorite joke. Ever. I mean, ever. Because it’s fucking funny. I love swearing to accentuate things. In my mind, it makes me seem chic without trying. Or just an ass. Take your pick. Anyways:

How many hipsters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

insert dramatic pause here

It’s a really obscure number. You’ve probably never heard of it.

Yes, I think I’ve made a few people angry, but also a few people have smirked. Hopefully, a few also snorted milk through their nose. If so, send pics. But, uh, yeah. I keep getting off track. The band in question today is Heartless Bastards. I mean, I heard this song “The Mountain” on Saturday while driving into work, and my mind was just blown. It’s epic. Seriously. Epic. Say that word along with me, now – epic. Italics are cool, huh?

So I guess the former producer of Spoon, Mike McCarthy, produced this latest album, entitled The Mountain. So far? I like what I hear. And today I bring you a couple nuggets of goodness. Seriously. You guys read through a pointless diatribe (I hope) just to get to this point. Oh, and here’s also something else I’ve been listening to. Because holy shit is the video just disturbingly funny. I mean, almost to the point where it’s hypnotic. Not Hpnotiq. That’s cognac for sissies. This, however, isn’t for sissies. And I mean that for both the video and the Heartless Bastards tracks I’m posting.

Yeah. Now music. The stuff you’re here for.


Download Heartless Bastards – The Mountain


Download Heartless Bastards – Out To Sea

Buy shit. Now. Please?

me·te·or·ic

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I want to introduce you to two guys with a lot of talent as musicians who have a lofty goal: To get the world to appreciate electro, dubstep, and nudisco.

Aptly named On The Rise, two sophomores at Bucknell University are quickly gaining attention and picking up fans at every show they rock. They’re playing some of the hottest and unique dubstep/electro/indie mashups every weekend at parties all over the Northwest. They have even booked east coast gigs at venues such as The Middle East in Boston and Webster Hall in New York City (August 4th).

Get Low! Clap Those Hands! by dougbogan

On The Rise is Brian Pei and Doug Bogan. They met as freshmen out at Bucknell and discovered they both were musicians with similar tastes in music. Brian plays guitar and Doug is a classical pianist. After becoming friends they started to play acoustic shows together. One day Doug asked Brian if he would like to join him at DJ’ing gigs…and well…the rest is history!

They are a little crazy though. Right? I mean who would take the band Thee Armada and mash it up with Ludacris! It sounds awesome, I just want to know where do you get the idea!

Rock Shock and Low by dougbogan

On The Rise even put together a dubstep mashup exclusively for us! We are proud and honored to present to you, this amazing exclusive. Take the Grifta Dubstep Remix of Deadmau5’s “Faxing Berlin”, Outkast’s “Bombs Over Baghdad” and, because that’s not big enough already…add the song “Move Shake Drop” from DJ Laz. Submitted for your approval:


Download On The Rise – Faxing Baghdad (inALLcaps exclusive!)

Wait…I got more! Check out this 7 minute megamix…it’s fantastic.

Doug Bogan Vol II by dougbogan

If that’s what 7 minutes of what On The Rise sounds like at a show, how COULD you miss it. You wouldn’t.