My love affair with Calexico began with last year’s Carried To Dust and endures still with this Black Cab Session performance of ‘Not Even Stevie Nicks’ from their 2003 release Feast Of Wire. It’s a great concept actually – musicians taking a cab ride around London, performing one of their songs in the back, all stripped down and acoustic like. The songs that is. Not the musicians.

Other Black Cab Sessions include Fleet Foxes, The Felice Brothers, Slow Club, Grizzly Bear, The National, Okkervil River and loads more.

Not Even Stevie Nicks – Calexico

Bonus coverage:

He Lays In The Reins (Calexico Cover) – Iron & Wine

Ya gotta love the hooded organ player.
And the romantic slowdance during the solo.

Coachella

One of the great things about being involved in the Contrast Podcast is getting the chance to take part in the annual Contrast Podcast CD Swap, where all the CP regulars get to make a compilation for another member of the CP gang. This year was the first time I’d been involved, and the theme was Letters of The Alphabet. I got the letter V and made a CD for Chris over at phosphorous.net all about the tunes of the Vagabond – my music library, while pretty darn good in many ways, did not offer enough variety in the V department, so I was required to get a little more creative.

The CD that I received came from Linda over at the wonderful Speed Of Dark, one of the first music blogs I ever read. Needless to say I was pretty stoked to receive a compilation from Linda, and knew it would be full of great tracks. I wasn’t disappointed.

Though the whole CD was fantastic, the stand out track for me was ‘Up With Mittens, Down With Gloves’ by the USA’s Red Fox Grey Fox, a band that I’d never heard of. I was immediately won over by the punchy intro and the vocals, which I later discovered were courtesy of lead singer Peter, and not the fiery frontwoman I’d originally pictured. Apologies Peter!

Up With Mittens, Down With Gloves – Red Fox Grey Fox

Make sure you also check out ‘Building A Building’ from their 2007 release From The Land Of Bears, Ice and Rock.

Building A Building – Red Fox Grey Fox

In addition to the top tunes Linda sent, she also included a stash of Coachella Festival items, including badges and a program that I read with a slight tinge of envy and wistfulness…yet another dream to add to the list! It was brilliant to receive these tokens and I was quite touched by the thoughtfulness of the gift. This is just another reason to love the Contrast Podcast I reckon – I can’t imagine any other way I’d come to have these things in my possession, so thank you Linda, and to Tim for keeping the CP going. And if you’ve never checked it out before, you can head here for Part 1 of the CP CD Swap, and here for Part 2, which includes my contribution to the cause!

I’ll leave you with a few of the other tracks from Linda’s CD that caught my attention:

Useless Me – The Dogs

Ulysses – Franz Ferdinand

Underground Dream – Son Volt

I have Sandy over at Slowcoustic to thank for pointing me in the direction of the Hear Ya Live Sessions, when he highlighted a recent Horse Feathers recording.

After scrolling through the excellent archives at Hear Ya, which included sessions by Heartless Bastards, Rural Alberta Advantage, AA Bondy, The Morning Benders and loads more, I stumbled across Other Lives, a five piece indie outfit from Oklahoma.

These guys have everything – melting boy/girl harmonies, insightful songwriting and a heady combination of piano and cello that speaks to me in ways I’ll never be able to explain.

Let’s just say I was impressed.

It Was The Night (Hear Ya Live Session) – Other Lives

Paper Cities (Daytrotter Session) – Other Lives

Black Tables – Other Lives

Post title a lyric from ‘Paper Cities’.

The good folk over at Daytrotter do some wonderful work. This afternoon I emerged after a much overdue dig through their archives with a fistful of gorgeous tracks.

Today’s session came courtesy of the fantastic Motel Motel. This version of ‘Coffee’ from their 2008 release New Denver is superb. I love the crisp piano and train-like beginning. Check out the rest of the session here.

Coffee (Daytrotter Session) – Motel Motel

David Vandervelde’s 2008 album Waiting For The Sunrise is quite a winner in my book, and this take on my favourite track ‘Someone Like You’ is fantastic. You can hear more here.

Someone Like You (Daytrotter Session) – David Vandervelde

Wild Light’s ‘California On My Mind’ is a song that I never get sick of. Simple and catchy, it’s got such a great sound. This take seems to be a half-step faster than the album version, giving it extra energy, and the harmonica is fab. Check out the rest of the tracks here.

California On My Mind (Daytrotter Session) – Wild Light

You’d be pretty hard pressed not to like this track. The harmonica, the harmonies, the shimmery cymbals…it’s all lovely, and there’s more to explore here.

To The Ghosts Who Write History Books (Daytrotter Session) – The Low Anthem

Camden

God knows how this happened, but until today I’d never seen the videos for ‘London Still’ or ‘Bridal Train’, two of my favourite songs by The Waifs. While watching ‘London Still’, I let out a little yelp of recognition when Donna sang about ‘taking the tube over to Camden to wander around’ – she was walking along the same street I strolled down just a few short weeks ago when I, totally influenced by those words, decided to do the same very same thing myself. Great fun.

 

The video for ‘Bridal Train’ is also wonderful, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the telegram you see around the 20 second mark was the original telegram sent to Donna and Vikki’s grandmother, whose story inspired the song.

Bonus mp3 – a wonderfully understated track that gives the proverbial finger to a woefully inadequate ex.

 Haircut – The Waifs

Image: Nifty little seats fashioned to look like motorbikes by the Camden Lock.

Though I’ve never claimed to be a fan of Michael Jackson, he’s always been around. I remember singing ‘Black and White’ in music in Grade 3 at school, and playing the glockenspeil to ‘Heal The World’ at the school concert in Grade 4 (a highly coveted honour!). ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’ and ‘Billie Jean’ always got me on the dance floor on Thursday nights at the pub while at uni, and the Jackson 5’s ‘I Want You Back’ remains one of my favourite songs. And, regardless of your thoughts on him as a person, there’s no denying his extraordinary talent as a performer.

I don’t really like the idea of posting about him at all to be honest, simply because I’m now joining the gazillions of other posts that are out there already. However, it doesn’t feel right to not mention it either, if only for the simple fact that this is a music blog and he was an incredibly gifted musician.

The Way You Make Me Feel – Michael Jackson

I Want You Back – The Jackson 5

My parentals are off to see Simon and Garfunkel tomorrow night in Melbourne and they are all kinds of excited. Here’s hoping they’re treated to just as good a show as the good folk up north in Brisbane were last week.

Cecilia – Simon & Garfunkel

The Sound of Silence – Simon & Garfunkel

And it wouldn’t be right to do an S & G post without including my favourite track.

The Only Living Boy In New York – Simon & Garfunkel

Above video ‘Baby Blue’, from the 2003 debut EP Little Birdy.

I haven’t caught up with Little Birdy’s May release Confetti yet, but I was reminded of it this afternoon when I rediscovered opening track ‘Brother’ during an iPod purge. This track got to stay, not only for the typically excellent vocals by lead singer Katy Steele, but also for Paul Kelly’s stellar backing and harmonica work.

Brother – Little Birdy

Disclaimer

This blog exists for the purpose of promoting wonderful music. Mp3s are for evaluation purposes only, and are available for a limited time. Support the artists by buying their stuff and heading along to their gigs. If you represent an artist and want me to remove an mp3, you can email me directly at agnes83[at]live.com.au and it shall be done.

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If you want to send me music, please contact me with information about the artist as well as an mp3 or two for me to listen to. Heaps of artists send me stuff so it's likely that I'll only post about the gear I really like, but I do my best to check out every submission.

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