Lu Myself

Happy Holidays to all!

Hope you enjoy this throwback Lupe Fiasco freestyle. Shits dope.

Track of the Week Vol. 11

This will be the final track of the week for the semester!! The song is "False Alarm" by the band Wooden Birds off of their only LP, titled Magnolia. Wooden Birds is signed to Barsuk Records of Seattle, and the band is led by Andrew Kenny who has worked with Album Leaf, Her Space Holiday, and Arthur & Yu. Enjoy (download HERE!)

Track of the Week Vol. 10!

This weeks's track of the week is a pair of Harvard grad indie rockers that go my the name of Chester French. They started creating buzz over the last few years hip-hop superstars Kanye West and Pharrell Williams both heavily pursued signing Chester French to their respective labels. Chester French ended up signing to Pharell's Star Track Records and released their debut album Love The Future this last April. They produced and engineered the entire album themselves in their college dorm at Harvard.

Chester French - C'mon (download link)

My Top Albums of 2009

1. Kid Cudi - Man On The Moon: The End of Day

2. Castledoor - Shouting At Mountains

3. Hockey - Mind Chaos

4. Islands - Vapours

5. Sea Wolf - White Water, White Bloom

6. Cunninlynguists – Strange Music Volume One

7. Chester French - Love The Future

8. Matt & Kim - Grand

9. Jamie T. – Kings & Queens

10. Champagne Champagne - Champagne Champagne
(No official album art exists for this one)

Honorable Mention:
Tegan & Sara - Sainthood
Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Rubik - Dada Bandits
Jupiter One - Sunshower
Cage - Depart From Me
K'naan - Troubadour

Not released in '09, but still top albums I listened to this year:
Rural Alberta Advantage- Hometowns
Airborne Toxic Event- Airborne Toxic Event
Walter Meego- Voyager
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

The Next "My Girls"?

This song and video remind me of Animal Collective's "My Girls" song and video, with just a little bit toned down acid trip feel to it. Kudos to Kanye's blog for this find.

Track of the Week Vol. 9 (Double Feature!)

Meet Castledoor. They're legit. They're only full album was released earlier this year, it's called "Shouting At Mountains". And it's legit. This CD consumed nearly all my zune's plays for at least a week in the summer when I found out about them. No YouTube preview this week; just download these songs and enjoy them because they're great. Then go and get their album. And then their EPs.

Castledoor- Skipping Stepping Stones (Download Link)
Castledoor- Fifth Tambourine (Download Link)

Fresh old Jay-Z song, Kanye West produced

This song is over a year old and was originally made with the intent to be on Jay-Z's Blueprint 3 album. Somehow it slipped past me, but I really like this:

Track of The Week Vol. 8 (The Ocho)

Backseat Goodbye is just one person, Chad Sugg, and he started this solo project back in 2004 when he was only a freshman in college. He's released several EPs but only one full album (in 2008) so far. If you enjoy this song, you can download it here:

Backseat Goodbye- Technicolor Eyes (Download Link)

Track of the Week Vol. 7 (don't miss this one...)

Islands- Switched On (Download Link)

Islands is another collaboration from two of the guys that were in the band Unicorns. I've only heard their most recent album "Vapours" so far (came out in September '09) but the entire album is really solid. Definitely check it out if you enjoy this song.

Track of the Week Vol. 6

The Wombats- Let's Dance to Joy Division (Download Link)
This track comes from my guest on the show this week, Spencer. The song has a bit more elements of punk to hit than what I normally play, but not too much so it makes for a good, upbeat indie rock track.

Bonus Track of the Week (Explicit)

I LOVE THIS SONG SO DAMN MUCH. I would have used it as the track of the week without a doubt if it didn't swear in the song. Don't worry though, it contains explicit content but really is just a solid indie song. It does not come across as vulgar at all.

So since I couldn't play it on my show. I'm going to go ahead and give it to you here to download anyways.



Wild Light- "California on My Mind" (Download Link)

Track of the Week Vol. 5

Nada Surf- "Popular" (Download Link)

Nada Surf is an indie rock band that has been around for a decade and a half now, first releasing their debut album High/Low in 1996, "Popular" is actually the single from that first album. They've changed a lot over the years, they started out with a much more alternative sound, and now have developed into a much lighter indie rock feel with songs such as "Always Love" coming from them in recent years. I do enjoy their newer stuff more, their last 2 albums have been released under Seattle's own Barsuk Records and one of them even being produced by Death Cab For Cutie's lead guitarist Christopher Walla.

This song, even though it was recorded in 1995, is still classic to me. Not only is it super catchy but it is easily relate able to anyone who has been through high school.

Top 25 Indie Break-Up Songs

http://recycledlovesongs.com/indie-music/top-indie-break-up-songs

As mentioned on my show. Whether you're trying to get over a past significant other or not... This list is actually really strong and better yet provides downloads to all the songs!

Track of the Week Vol. 4

Hey Marseilles- To Travels & Trunks (download link)

Hey Marseilles is a band out of Seattle. Sound Magazine ranked their album, To Travels & Trunks, as the 23rd best Northwest album of 2008. They're still pretty small, but apparently they were the opening act for the "Bumbershoot Music Lounge" at Bumbershoot... they also have a Wikipedia page so they're on their way to living large.

Also, their album came out last year on December 13, which is my birthday and so that decision provides even further credibility to the band.

No Homo

You and your bro friends say the increasingly popular "No homo" phrase? Watch this video, it's pretty funny.

Track of the Week Vol. 3

Jamie T is from the UK and crosses hip-hop and indie rock genres. For those of you that listened to me filling in for a hip-hop KZUU radio show from 10pm-12am, I opened with a more rap sounding song by Jamie T. In this song the sound is similar to a mix between the Kooks and the Arctic Monkeys. Most commonly I find that he sounds like a mix between the Arctic Monkeys and the Streets (a British rapper). This song is from his 2007 debut album, but he also just came out with a new album entitled "Kings & Queens" last month which I enjoy even more than the first album (but contains more explicit content so I couldn't play it).

Jamie T- "If You Got The Money (Official Music Video)

(Download Here)

Super catchy beat--Kid Cudi freestyling while high

This beat was made by Illfonics, which is the guys that produced the "Enter Galactic" track, and given to Cudi last year. Apparently Cudi really liked the beat and said he was going to use it on his album... but I guess they never made a track using it that made the cut. I think the beat is really sick, I'd love to hear a studio track around it.

I know most people that check this site (however few that may be...) are probably here for hip-hop, so I try to keep hip-hop related posts to a minimum. But this just made me laugh because Kid Cudi is obviously totally baked here. I love towards the beginning of the video when he tells his friend that "Imma bout to get Too Short on this motha fucka" and his friend responds "ohh biaatch", because for those of you who haven't heard Too Short, he's somewhat famous for how he says "biaatch"

Track of the Week Vol 2

SORRY IT'S LATE!! I had it saved as a draft post last night but didn't want to post it until my show, I know a person called in and asked for the address again so they could download the song... I forgot to say that I hadn't posted it to the blog yet!


Barcelona- "Lesser Things" (Download Here)

Barcelona is an indie rock band from Seattle and released their album "Absolutes" in 2007. They played at Bumbershoot in 2008, and just this year they have been signed to Universal and did a re-release of the "Absolutes" album, so with a big label budget behind them, maybe Barcelona will cross into the mainstream in the future.

Wow. Huge collaboration.

This video is put together by 172 communications students from the Université du Québec à Montréal. It's pretty amazing that when working with such a large area they were able to all get to their proper places and play their correct roles.

I think it'd be pretty cool if WSU's communications department worked together to create some large project. We have a strong communications program so it would hopefully be achievable, and doing so would help to create some positive national attention for the school (not just about the H1N1 "Swine" flu, or focused on WSU being a party school).


Reminds me of one of my favorite music videos ever, also made by students, for the rapper Nyle. This one is more well made but didn't rely on as many different people having to remember what to say:

Nyle "Let The Beat Build" from Nyle on Vimeo.

Kevin Devine- I Could Be With Anyone

Late of the Pier- Space & Woods

I was looking through some old bookmarks I have (in a nearly endless folder dedicated to music) and I found this video which I saved to my bookmarks last Spring. It's a decent song and some really cool effects are used.

Space and The Woods

Track of the Week #1

Each week during my show I will play a song that I'm featuring as my "Track of the Week", it will be played around the 5pm middle mark of my show. Also each week I will be posting the song on the Crimson Culture blog along with a link to download the track if you like it.

The first track of the week is:




"Battle Hymn of the Republic" by Eef Barzelay (This is the download link)

This track is featured in the Indie Comedy Rocket Science and is a cover/remake of the old hymn by the same name. Not trying to get religulous on you guys, but I just like the musicality of the song more so than the content.

Enjoy.

Heatseekers

I now have a radio show on WSU's student radio station, KZUU 90.7 FM Pullman. My show is called "Heatseekers" and is from 4-6pm every Thursday. Listen to me either on 90.7 FM if you're in the local Pullman area, or you can listen to the radio station streamed online live at kzuu.wsu.edu

The name "Heatseekers" comes from the name of the Billboard Charts for up and coming artists, because even though the show is all indie music, my goal is to try and play all songs that have a pretty widespread sounding appeal and so someone who may only typically enjoy Top 40 should hopefully still enjoy a lot of what I play.

Man On The Moon

September 15th.

FRESH Filmography

Firstly, this music video is pretty damn fresh if I do say so myself, it's packed with some super stylish fashion, I wish everyone in the real world dressed this nice, we'd all look so much more sophisticated. Also the choreography here is pretty fun and interesting. The song itself may not seem to be so impressive at first but towards the end of one listen it should already have grown on you, and for me after just a couple listens I'm completely hooked. It reminds me of an electronic version of Chester French (sounds a lot like if YACHT remixed one of their songs).



This next video is a short film with crazy directing skills (click this it's different than the youtube music video below) that won a contest held by Philips Electronics to show off their new 21:9 "cinema" display ratio TVs (which I'm all for by the way, anything closer to the standard hollywood movie aspect ratio (2.39:1) is a step in the right direction to me).

I found out about this little short by seeing the new 50 Cent music video that released today and features parts of the original short film. Before you dismiss this video simply for being a product of the "long past his prime" 50 Cent, give it a watch along with his "Get Up" song from last fall if you haven't heard that yet... I think he just may come with some fire on "Before I Self Destruct". He definitely flopped hard on his last two LPs but Get Rich Or Die Tryin' was simply a classic rap album no matter how much of a commercial joke he has become since then.



Also if you like this song, it's featured on 50's latest mixtape "War Angel LP" that he released last week. The mixtape is far from flawless but it's definitely a step in the right direction and about half the songs are good.

ALSO, since I've only just started this blog. Here's some of what I can remember as some of the best indie music videos I've previously found:

Animal Collective- "My Girls" (AMAZING computer effects)

Nyle- "Let The Beat Build" (Best music video directing feat I can think of)

Hey Champ- "Cold Dust Girl" (Super hi-def slow-mo masterpiece)

Natalie Portman's Shaved Head- "Sophisticated Sideways Ponytail" (Tons of crazy energy and fun in this one)

Thunderheist- "Jerk It" (Definitely a very unique idea)

Birdy Nam Nam- "The Parachute Ending" (This is just super trip-out awesome)

Zion I- "Geek to the Beat" (Really great start but kind of standard in the second half)

Mr. Solo Dolo

Kid Cudi has so much talent, it's crazy. He really is a totally new sound, he raps on beats like Kanye, but his style and flow is so much more chill. A lot of his songs are really laid back in a way that just works perfect with his voice, normally I'm more of a fan of the harder and faster that a rapper will go on a verse, but Cudi just eases over his words like nothing I've heard. Man On The Moon: The End of The Day releases August 25, 2009... get ready for the newest sound of hip hop and what is likely to become one of the most classic albums ever.

While on the subject of unique sounding rappers... I've got to give a nod to my all-time favorite, Lupe Fiasco. I don't know what it is about him but I never get sick of it, The Cool in my opinion is one of the best rap albums ever and is definitely my personal number one favorite, it still blows my mind. I can't wait for Lasers to release later this year. The song "Shining Down" has blown me away, after being teased with a leak of just the beat + Matthew Santos chorus for a few months, the final version of the song has now leaked in it's complete form with Lupe actually on the track (The song will be officially released to iTunes and Zune on July 7th, make sure to buy it!) Let me just tell you now that the beat of this song is simply ridiculous! I'm really into music production and beats, and I think this is easily the best beat Lupe has rapped on (hopefully this just isn't me being charmed by a new song after such a long drought) and may easily become his most popular song to date. Only thing holding this song down is probably how short Lupe's verses are and he doesn't really to push the barriers with his lyrics as far as I know he can.


Fresh Tracks:
Kid Cudi- Mr. Solo Dolo
Lupe Fiasco- Shining Down