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I’ve had a little over a month to fully listen to Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins’s Rabbit Fur Coat. I think Rilo Kiley fans will enjoy this album (I know there’s at least someone else that visits this site that enjoys RK)… More to the point, Jenny Lewis fans will enjoy this album. It’s got lots of Jenny’s voice, light instrumentation, and of course, the Watson Twins complementing throughout.

The cover of Traveling Wilburys [George Harrison super group, woo!] Handle With Care is amazing. See my previous post professing my love of covers. But this cover is especially amazing, even legendary. The contributors in Handle With Care read like the A-list of indie rock: Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie), M. Ward, and Connor Oberst (Bright Eyes). You can easily play Six Four Degrees of Separation with all of the above names. Some tips: include Omaha, The Postal Service, and/or True Love.
Here are some tracks to whet your appetite. Let me know what you think. Then go buy the album.

Links (Right-click and save):
Rise Up With Fists!!
Happy
Handle with Care

I’m a sucker for covers of songs by bands I love. I usually find them and listen to them over and over and over again (See my iTunes playcount for Punk Goes 80s). That’s why I’m so confused how I never heard of Stubbs the Zombie until recently. Horror movie? Nope, video game. Recently, video games have turned out great soundtracks (a lot of the EA games and GTA to name a few.)

The difference with Stubbs is that the songs were recorded specifically for the game. Flaming Lips, The Walkmen, Rogue Wave, Ben Kweller, and Cake all contribute.

My personal favorites?

Death Cab’s cover of Earth Angel and Oranger’s cover of Mr. Sandman.

Is it bad that I still like the Back to the Future version of Earth Angel and Death Cab’s more than the original?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to listen to my transistor radio and then grab a malt at the soda shop.

The new Starting Line album, Based on a True Story is coming out soon. And it seems the first single is indeed Bedroom Talk. However, the single version sounds a lot better than the version that was in the Drive Thru Records Winter sampler. By better, I mean it sounds a lot more polished. It has a great beat throughout the entire song. As a result, it seems that there is a lot more structure in the song. The winter sampler version sounded a lot slower just because there wasn’t any good way to identify the beat during the first verse. The weird part where he keeps singing “I just don’t know, don’t know, don’t know” (1:52-2:02 Winter Sampler) has thankfully been shortened. The overall song length has been shortened to 4:07 from 4:16. And the part where the timing changes when Kenny sings “Big, big plans”, “Got to mean something more”, sounds really crisp. It actually sounds like it’s driving the song forward instead of in the Winter version, where it sounded like it would stall the momentum of the song. They cut out “You can stay like that for now” (3:00-3:03 Winter Sampler) before “I will always love you”. I actually enjoyed that part, but I guess they’re doing as much as they can to cut out the parts that seem to slow the song down too much. In essence, this is a no-nonsense version of the Winter Sampler version of Bedroom Talk. Not as free-flowing, more to the point. Which is quite unlike this entry, which has rambled on long enough. One last thing: apparently, people have also been dissing Kenny’s hair as of late in addition to the content of Bedroom Talk. But I’m guessing those are the young girls that enjoyed the image he portrayed with his bleached blonde hair. Kenny, I don’t care what color your hair is and/or how long it is. I’ve been a Starting Line fan for too long.

If you want to see Kenny’s long, dark hair for yourself, you can check out ‘boogi’s site.

The Starting Line’s new album, Based on a True Story, hits stores May 10.

New music Tuesdays… and a new Music from the OC has been released today. It’s the 4th mix from the show (3rd if you discount the Chrismukkah one). Regardless of your opinion of the show, it’s a pretty solid mix, as far as these mixes go. Highlights: Half of Frou Frou (Imogen Heap - Goodnight and Go), Beck’s Scarecrow (nice score for the mix, even though Guero has already hit stores), and my personal favorite: matt pond PA’s cover of Champagne Supernova, which you’ve definitely heard if you’ve been over to my apartment or have been sitting for any length of time in my car the past few weeks. I’m gonna be running out to stores after my exam later today to go pick it up, so I’m sure you’ll be seeing the tracks over here ——–> very soon. In show-related news, I read Death Cab will be stopping by the OC, performing at The Bait Shop soon, playing Title and Registration and The Sound of Settling! I’ve got a hunger… Off to lunch!

Can I interrupt my non-posting for a quick update?

I have been obsessed with Long Island-based Straylight Run for about a month now.

You should be, too. It’s the two guys that left Taking Back Sunday plus one
of their sisters (Michelle! <3) and the drummer from Breaking
Pangaea.

We don’t care what you think!

My recommendations (besides listening to the entire album):
Existentialism on Prom Night
Another Word for Desperate
Mistakes We Knew We Were Making
Tool Sheds and Hot Tubs (<– Michelle sings this one!)

Highly, highly recommended! Emooooooo and more at its best!