J's Indie/Rock Mayhem - 12th August 2009

[A really fantastic edition of J's Indie/Rock Mayhem tonight with tons of new music - tons I didn't even get to as you can hear in my misleading intro to the show. This year has been really awesome for music coming down the pipeline and the fall is shaping up to be a hot season for it as well.

The final Extra Mayhem of the summer will be next Monday night at midnight. However, I've lucked into some earlier slots the past few weeks, so keep an eye on the Twitter feed (over to your right or by subscribing to my tweets) in case it jumps to an earlier slot. I'll try to make it something special.

Don't forget that this Friday, August 14th, is the second Often Awesome benefit show to help former WQFS GM and DJ, Tim LaFollette, in his fight with ALS/Lou Gehrig's disease. The final Kudzu Wish reunion (Tim's old band) will headline the even along with performances by J's Indie/Rock favorite Tiger Bear Wolf, former show guest Matty Sheets, and the Social Life. I'll be MCing again, so come on down and say howdy. It's $5 at the door with 100% of the door going to the Often Awesome organization and additional donations are welcome and encouraged. Come on down!

Now, while I sit here and watch my Upright Citizens Brigade DVDs, onward.]

J's Indie/Rock Podcast: 12th August 2009 Show

Theme Song - Peaches - "Rock Show"
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Oneida - "The River" [from rated O. this is some classic, rockin' oneida to be sure. i still haven't gotten my ears on the entire record (the curse of parsing things for radio), but the reviews have been solid.]
the Flaming Lips - "Lightning Strikes the Postman" [from clouds taste metallic. i'll be doing a write-up on this album for drunkard in the coming week, but i couldn't hold back on playing one of my favorite tracks in the meanwhile.]
Akron/Family - "River" [from set 'em wild, set 'em free. they're playing tonight at local 506 in chapel hill, though by the time this goes up, that won't matter to you. you'll either be there or you want. so there. great album, though. and great live.]
Dinosaur Jr. - "Over It" [from farm. so, thoughts, people? how does this stack up to beyond? leave it in the comments - i wanna know what you think.]
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Brendan Benson - "Garbage Day" [from the forthcoming my old, familiar friend. if you missed out on hearing benson before he began his stint with the raconteurs, then get on it. pronto. this is his new album which is out next week and, honestly, it's great.]
Meat Puppets - "Backwater" [from too high to die. i'll be honest - until earlier this summer when i did the wholesale album piece about their up on the sun, aside from this song, i'd never really listened to too high to die. it came out around the same time as their appearance on nirvana's unplugged performance, so i'd been aware of it for a long time.]
Wye Oak - "Take It In" [by email request. from the knot. i'm really enjoying this new wye oak record. it's a lot stronger than their first one, i think. growth in a band is a marvelous thing to get to watch happen.]
Obits - "Fake Kinkade" [from the excellent i blame you. VBS.tv, which is associated with vice magazine, has a great session with obits in their practice room series that is well worth a checkout if you're a fan of the band.]
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Reigning Sound - "Stick Up for Me" [from the new love and curses which is ridiculously good and might just be a match for their amazing time bomb high school. yeah. it's that good.]
Mark Vidler/Go Home Productions - "Main Bloom" [from the spliced krispies compilation. it's a mash-up album - here featuring alan parker's "main chance" mixed with the vocals from nirvana's "in bloom." the whole album is a masterpiece of mash-up work and you can download the whole thing for free from their site. vidler also made videos for each song which are viewable there. it's some great stuff. we'll be hearing a lot more.]
Future of the Left - "Throwing Bricks at Trains" [from travels with myself and another. easily, yes, this is going on my top 25 albums list for the year. i'll go ahead and say that now and the rest of you can fight it out for the other 24 spots.]
the Clean - "In the Dreamlife You Need a Rubber Soul" [from the forthcoming mr. pop which will be out on merge records. it is so good to hear new music from this excellent new zealand band.]
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the Lemonheads - "Waitin' Around to Die" [from the new varshons cover album. this is a take on townes van zandt's classic which you can see van zandt perform in this video. tearjerking. damn.]
the Replacements - "Can't Hardly Wait" (live) [recorded at maxwells in hoboken, new jersey in february of 1986. that's bob on guitar and you can check out my post and the follow-up posts at aquarium drunkard about this song here and here. great reading and lots of great comments. love this live version.]
Steve Earle - "To Live is to Fly" [from townes. another townes van zandt cover, this from earle's new van zandt tribute album. great, great stuff.]
Justin Townes Earle - "Can't Hardly Wait" [from midnight at the movies. justin is steve's son, of course, and he's named partly after van zandt. and here he is covering the replacements. serendipity, my friends.]
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A.A. Bondy - "When the Devil's Loose" [the title track from his forthcoming album. i've already listened through this a time or two and man, it's every bit as good as american hearts. we should be hearing more in the coming weeks including an interview i have scheduled with bondy later this week. stay tuned.]
Dogbowl - "The Girl with the Pelican Hair" [by request. from tit: an opera. i've never heard this album, i just went digging for the caller. a pretty fun song and i imagine an interesting album. i'll have to do some research.]
Prince - "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" [from sign 'o' the times which i also did a piece on for aquarium drunkard this week. check it out.]
Kudzu Wish - "Afraid of the Bomb" [from en route. kudzu wish is the former band of tim lafollette, he of the often awesome benefit from last month. the next benefit show is this friday at the blind tiger here in greensboro at 9pm. kudzu wish will be playing what will probably be their final reunion show along with the social life, tiger bear wolf and matty sheets. yours truly will be MCing again, so come on down and have a great time for a great man and a great cause - helping tim fight als/lou gerigh's disease.]
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the Low Anthem - "Ticket Taker" [from oh my god, charlie darwin. they're playing tomorrow night, thursday, august 13th at local 506 in chapel hill. i'll be there. so should you as it ought to be awesome.]
Radiohead - "Let Down" [by request. from ok computer. i was having a discussion with someone about this album the other day and it came up that one of their favorite songs from the album was this. so the suggestion was stuck in my brain until i started thinking of songs to play for lauren. so there you go.]
the Foreign Exchange - "Daykeeper" [from leave it all behind. very different from the first foreign exchange record but even more beautiful in a lot of ways. great album.]
Sonic Youth - "Leaky Lifeboat (for Gregory Corso)" [from the eternal. what do y'all think of this record? i've enjoyed it quite a bit, honestly. better than rather ripped i think.]
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Port O'Brien - "My Will is Good" [from the forthcoming threadbare. i saw these guys last fall and they put on a tremendous live show, so go catch them live if you can. hope this album is as good as this song sounds.]
Jason Falkner - "I Live" [from presents author unknown. a great slice of power pop from a former member of jellyfish and the three o'clock. this album is from 1996 and is just, well, amazing. seriously.]
Ride - "Vapour Trail" [from nowhere. same guy i was talking to about radiohead was also talking to me about ride, so i thought we'd close up with this gorgeous number.]

That'll do it for this week. I should be on for what will be the last Extra Mayhem of the summer next Monday night - watch the Twitter feed for updates in case the time moves to any earlier in the evening. Otherwise, the usual midnight to 2 AM. Until then, take care.