Yearly Archives: 2004

Joe from Watershed introduced me to Marah, a band out of Philadelphia that I fell in love with fast and hard. Today Joe wrote me to let me know that Nick Hornby discusses the band in a piece he wrote for the NYT today, discussing Marah, Springsteen, Outkast and everything else in between. Here’s one of my favorite quotes from the piece:

Both “Hey Ya!” and Marah’s new album are roots records, not in the sense that they were made by men with beards who play the fiddle and sing with a finger in an ear, but in the sense that they have recognizable influences – influences that are not only embedded in pop history, but that have been properly digested. In the suffocatingly airless contemporary pop-culture climate, you can usually trace influences back only as far as Radiohead, or Boyz II Men, or the Farrelly Brothers, and regurgitation rather than digestion would be the more accurate gastric metaphor. (full story)

David Cobb has interviewed Houston band Casino here.

From what I’ve been told, we’re getting some good recognition out there in the fine city of Houston. I encourage you Houstoners to make your way to the message board and let your presence be known.

Ted Leo said last week that he’d be putting up some demos of upcoming songs online. After a bunch of technical delays, Catbirdseat noticed that they finally went live: “Me and Mia” // “The Angels Share” // “Congressional Dubcision”

You don’t know how fucking happy it makes me to listen to these new songs. Me, Kiesha and a lot of donewaiting.com writers had Ted Leo Fever in 2003, and I think it’s about to comeback.

Mystery and Misery is a well designed, articulate website that links to bands around the country that I’ve never heard of. The descriptions are dead on, and the site even provides a ton of mp3 links to the bands being discussed. Make them a bookmark.

Start your downloading engines, because there’s a ton of good stuff to be found. For example, be sure to check out the mp3s from Maine’s Seekonk. You’ll like them, I know you will.

Yo, we’ve got a pair of tickets to giveaway to Friday night’s The Stills concert @ Birdy’s. The first person to e-mail contest @ donewaiting.com gets them. Sorry, we got our winner.

The Stills are currently on tour supporting their new album, Logic Will Break Your Heart. You can check out their new video, “Still in Love Song” in several media formats here: real / windows 400k / windows 56k

RJD2 celebrated the release of his new album “Since We Last Spoke” last night in his hometown of Columbus OH and I was there. I was a wee bit skeptical going into the show, to be honest. I’d seen The Chemical Brothers a few years back in NYC and wasn’t impressed at all with how they tried to recreate their albums in a live setting.

Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised by how absolutely amazing the show was. RJ worked his four turntables and synthesizers like a mad mad, constantly changing beats and rhythms, contructing and deconstructing familiar songs from his albums. I was genuinely surprised at how dramatic the entire performance was.

For an encore, RJD2 came out with an acoustic song and sang one of the songs from his new album, “Making Days Longer. It was the second time he sang in front of a crowd, and it was great. (Where’s your guitar, DJ Shadow????)

I’m listening to the new album for the first time right now and so far I’m loving it. I was a big fan of his first record, and this one just might be as good (or even better?).

Remember when everyone was into Franz Ferdinand? It seems so long ago…

Joy Division’s singer and primary songwriter hanged himself on May 18, 1980. Suicides are, of course, always sad—much more so when they are committed by those so young and full of promise. Curtis may have had a self-destructive and alienating nature about him, but he certainly had a lot of good things to offer as well.

In related news: Moby plans to produce a film about Ian Curtis’s life and death. I expect it to be whitewashed and mainstreamed, though, just like everything else Moby does. Jeers.

Essential MP3s to add to your collection: six albums filled with folk songs about science from the 1950s. This will get you started on your path of being the next RJD2 or DJ Shadow.

[credz waxy]

Ladyfest Ohio has announced an impressive list of bands playing the inaugeral Columbus OH version. Bands include Tracy + the Plastics, Scrawl, Mascott, Slumber Party, The Naysayer, Miss Kitty’s Hot Box, The Royal Renegades, and many many more. Full list here. The festival is taking place over Memorial Day weekend, and they also have a ton of workshops, film, and theater lined up.