i just can’t tell. is this band trying to be funny or serious? I DON’T KNOW!!!!!
Jul 15
Found these guys on Crazed Hits today. Lady Danville seems to be their name and little acousticly flaired dittys appears to be their thing. I don’t know that they’ll ever hit it big, but I do like their sound. Maybe they could do well on one of those college tours where they open up for O.A.R. Then again, John Mayer and Maroon 5 used to open up for O.A.R. so perhaps that means they have a good chance of becoming massive superstar hit makers. Perhpas.
Lady Danville – Cars from Matthew Kurtin on Vimeo.
Apr 11
Who names their kid Jer? Probably nobody. I’m going to go on a limb and assume that Jer Coons is actually named Jeremy Coons. But isn’t “coon” some sort of racist terminology? Who is this kid and why is he having so many name problems??? Poor guy.
He’s some new young singer songwriter on the scene who seems to think he’s the next John Mayer and perhaps if I was a 17 year old girl dealing with the trials and tribulations of AP History and junior prom, I’d agree. But I’m not. I’m a boy and I’m not quite that emo anymore. I really do like this cover of the Jackson 5′s “I Want You Back”, but his other songs are pretty average. But he’s only 20. Maybe at 23 he’ll have progressed. I wouldn’t be too quick to write him off.
Until then, enjoy this nice cover of a classic pop hit!
Jer Coons – I Want You Back (Jackson 5)
get it on Amazon!
Mar 10
So many bands get signed and dropped from major labels that it is kind of sad. At least sometimes they have the chance to meet other musicians and get some creative work done while they are signed, however. Taylor Locke and The Roughs is a great example of this.
A “supergroup” of artists who were formally signed to Geffen Records. Taylor Locke was (or still is?) the guitarist for SoCal power pop band Rooney. I love Rooney and their last album, which barely saw the light of day, was f’ing amazing. Half of it sounded like vintage Styx and I just loved it. Anyhow….the guitarist/organist of The Roughs is Chris Price of a little known band of the name Price that had a short major label stint. Chris was the lead singer of that band and they were GOOD. Shame they were let go without ever releasing an album. Charlotte Froom, the basist, was in the rocking all-girl group The Like, also previously on Geffen (or was it Interscope? i dont know, but they’re virtually the same company) and finally, Mikey McCormack was (or is?) in the band that i’ve blogged about before, Everybody Else. They were signed to Militia Group and were ‘dropped’ when the label completely folded.
So, now these misfits have gotten together and put together a stupendous album. One part Bravery, one part Weezer, one part Kings of Leon, one part Rooney, its simply sublime (but not the band Sublime). Honestly, I don’t know what to say about this music other than that i’ve been listening to the song I’m posting here over and over and over again on full blast in my car and on my stereo. It’s sick. Get the album, support an indie band.
Taylor Locke and The Roughs – Start Me Over
Get Taylor Lock and The Rough’s Grain & Grape on Amazon mp3 for only $5.99
Feb 09
Imagine Dragons.
I had heard of these guys from some other blog or something or other. Somehow, some way, they sounded familiar to me and when I noticed they were playing the closing spot at the Roxy last night, which was on my way home from a late night work meeting and where I am a member of Club Rox so I can go to any show I want for free… I figured, why not step in for a minute?
These guys BLEW ME AWAY. I think the clearest sign that a band is great is when you see them live without ever having heard their music before and you feel like you’ve been listening to them your whole life and this is a pinnacle moment for you, finally getting to see them on stage. Imagine Dragons played in front of an empty house. Maybe 30 people if you counted the shmoes in the VIP seats enjoying a cocktail. But they rocked the stage as if they were headlining Wembly Stadium, U2 having just opened for them.
The music is straight up Las Vegas, which has somehow become a sound recently. Think The Killers meet 30 Seconds To Mars or something like that. The band is fronted by a good looking, tall and outrageously energetic frontman with a killer voice. He OWNS the stage. He was everywhere and not one second of it felt fake. This guy was so into his music that I found myself fighting the urge to dance with the drunk indie rock kids. The guitarist (only 1 of them) was insane good and proved it with a 2 minute solo outro on the final song of the night. The keyboardist is a cute girl with her hair combed to the side in a manner you’d expect Zoey Deshanel to rock in one of her cutesy indie films and her backing vocals easily lead me to believe she’ll put out a solo album after Imagine Dragons completes their third top 10 album. The drummer was on point. Really on point. and the bass kept it all tied together.
These guys don’t even have a full length album. These guys have zero fans in Los Angeles besides the one guy i noticed singing along. These guys are DESTINED for greatness. So jump on the bandwagon now, before its a bandwagon.
Imagine Dragons – Selene
Imagine Dragons – Uptight
www.myspace.com/imaginedragons
Jan 07
there are so many crappy people on youtube trying to sing songs. there are so many decent people on youtube trying to sing songs. there are even a lot of pretty damned good people on youtube singing songs and some of them have even gotten record deals out of it. once in a while, there is some pure f*ing talent on youtube, and this kid from Yale is one of them. His voice is stupid good. So smooth. So so smooth.
He could easily win American Idol, but why win Idol when you can just get a deal without all the show and tell? Sign him. Now.
A Gaga medley.
Sam Tsui covering Leona Lewis covering Snow Patrol. and he actually does Leona’s insanely good version of this song justice.
Dec 18
Owl City stands out from the rest, both lyrically and production-ally, but that whole post-emo electronica pop punk seems to be the hottest way for unsigned teenage singer/songwriters to get their music to the masses besides singing with their acoustic guitar on their webcam. It definitely isn’t an easy production concept to master, but it is the ultimate in digital technique. Just goes to show that one day more artists will be endorsed by Apple than by Gibson.
So here are a couple of other unsigned artists who have that type of sound and you might like to dig deeper into.
Drew Alexander – Shake
Visit Drew at www.myspace.com/drewalexander
The Ready Set – Stays Four The Same
Visit The Ready Set at www.myspace.com/thereadyset
And just for fun, an older Owl City track
Owl City – Rainbow Veins
Get Owl City’s Maybe I’m Dreaming album on amazon mp3
Aug 15
Parker House & Theory is a pretty sweet collegy / jammy/ funky band I discovered a few years ago during one of my nights of sifting through crap on myspace. Or maybe I found them on an AWARE earsnacks cd years ago. Hmm, i forget, but either way, they impress me. They’ve got two vocalists who both seem to be trained in the genre of Broadway Musical! and it works really nice with the tunes. One of the singers is of some sort of Latin heritage and even throws in some Spanish verbiage here and there. Since they are based in Boston and rarely on the west coast, I’ve never had a chance to see these guys perform live, but I have a feeling they bring it.
They probably aren’t bred for a major label, but someone should sign these kids and put them out on tour with the Jason Mraz’s and DMB’s of the world.
Parker House & Theory – Home
Parker House & Theory – Love
Get their debut release Automatic Stranger on Amazon Mp3
Aug 14
Why does Sweden produce so much good English language music? I think I love that country. They’ve got pretty girls, they eat pea soup and pancakes on thursdays, they have a super hot princess and they have a new pop star who looks bizarrely similar to Napoleon Dynamite.
I don’t know a lot about this dude named Erik Hassle, but I really dig this song. It’s pure pop, but there ain’t nothing wrong with that. This sh*t is catchy and I don’t see why it can’t be a hit in the US if someone wanted to sign him. I’d do it, but my record label is only backed by the $38 in my wallet and my ripped copy of Garageband on my 4 year old powerbook Mac. That probably won’t cut it.
Erik Hassle – Hurtful
Get the Import single on Amazon Mp3 for a mere $8.49 for 1 song! What a deal!
I really like his video for this song too, so I thought I’d include it. I love how dark and 80′s looking it is. Nice camera work mr. director of photography!
Aug 07
Just found this intriguing unsigned band from Connecticut called The Queens Killing Kings. Friend of mine from out there introduced me to their stuff this morning through the magic of facebook. They certainly have an Under The Influence of Giants feel, and i love UTIOG (hmm, thats a horrible acronym) so I think these guys sound cool too. Their name is a bit ridiculous though. Seems like they were just trying to get a lot of points in scrabble with all the K’s and the Q.
The Queens Killing Kings – Ivory
Get The Queens Killing Kings debut album on Amazon MP3
