Good news, people! The Cool Kids are giving away a new mix tape that can be found by clicking on the above fishing fish.  I haven’t had time to pick it up yet, but hey… free is free. Am I right?

Bass in the track and the trunk will slap,
Seats lean back made the beat so phat,
it go boom, boom boom boom boom.
- The Grouch & Eligh

And I’m back. Hopefully everyone had a good weekend. I ran in a half marathon and broke a world record in the same weekend. What world record? I did my part by eating two of the 208,752 brats eaten over Memorial Day Weekend at Madison, Wisconsin’s “World’s Largest Brat Fest.”

Well, I’m pretty much out of emusic tracks until the middle of next month.  I decided that I hadn’t picked up any good indie hip hop this year and went searching, but I’ll get to that later.

I’m not sure if anyone has seen anything about this, but it’s starting to become a bit of a big deal. Danger Mouse, the man who brought you The Grey Album, Sparklehorse, a band I ignored at lollapalooza, and weird film director David Lynch have teamed up to create Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse Present: Dark Night of the Soul.

Each track has a different lead singer, most of whom I would consider well known. The album comes with a 100+ page booklet of pictures taken by David Lynch that supposedly coincide with the music. One problem, though. There’s no music.

Right now, EMI is fighting the release of this album for unknown reasons. So instead of a CD with music on it coming with your book, you instead get a CD-R with the following statement on it:

“For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.”

The album is currently streaming on NPR’s “Exclusive First Listen.” and may be the only time you’ll ever “legally” hear the music. It’s apparently quite popular, so I haven’t been able to get it to actually stream.

Back to my lack of emusic tracks. I had no hip hop, so I decided to see what had been most popular on emusic this year. I came up with two albums that sounded good to me – The Grouch & Eligh’s Say G&E! and Mr. Lif’s I Heard It Today.

I like both albums with a slight nod to G & E. Mr. Lif tends to get a bit preachy for my tastes, but that is apparently his style. I was pleasantly surprised to find a track on Say G&E! featuring Slug of Atmosphere and it quickly became my favorite song on the album. Check out Boom (Feat. Slug).

But I feel alive and I feel it in me,
Up and up i keep on climbing,
Higher and higher and higher.
- Passion Pit

Apparently the 80’s are back with a passion. A Passion Pit maybe? This band has apparently been blowing up the blogs recently. Their debut album, Manners, dropped on Tuesday and I’ve been jumping between it and the new White Rabbits ever since, but you already knew that.

A lot of people are going to listen to Passion Pit and say that it’s not for them. I know not everyone likes dancey music and the lead singer’s voice doesn’t necessarily open them many doors with the general public. But if you do like indie dance rock, then this might just be for you. I know, great recommendation, right?

Lyrically, they’re similar to Saves The Day, a band I listened to a lot in college. Saves The Day was notorious for writing some pretty disturbing lyrics and singing them to poppy songs to get people who didn’t know any better to sing along. While Passion Pit doesn’t take it quite as far as Save The Day, there are definitely moments where you say, “What did they just sing?”

Taking a step back, where have all of these indie dance rock bands come from? I think it’s pretty easy to credit (blame?) Postal Service for most of these bands that we’re seeing today. They were the entry into indie music for a lot of people for good reason. I think of indie music as a ladder of accessibility. You start out with the first rung bands that are easy to listen to and slowly figure out that maybe some of the weirder stuff is pretty interesting as you climb.

But anyway, that’s about all the time I have today. Check out Little Secrets.

So imitate the action of the tiger
or imitate the action of the snail
Snap your teeth and smile a little wider
or leave behind a lovely silver trail
- Bishop Allen

Well, it’s taken a long time, but after listening to two of Tuesday’s releases, I think my faith has been restored in indie music – at least the stuff coming out in 2009. Yesterday, I picked up new albums from White Rabbits and Passion Pit.

The White Rabbits album was high on my list of anticipated for 2009 and I only heard about Passion Pit last week. Supposedly, there has been a lot of internet buzz surrounding Passion Pit, but I don’t really know how to use the internets to their full potential, thus the same header since I started the website over two years ago.

I had White Rabbits debut album as my #10 album of 2007. Add to that their producer – Britt Daniel of Spoon – and you can see why I was excited. I caught a single on the radio a couple of weeks ago and thought that Spoon had put out an EP. While there are some tracks on the album that could be mistaken for Spoon, I think they do a good job of still personalizing it and making it their own.

Switching gears, the Passion Pit album is fun, indie dance rock. I know, I know. We need another indie dance rock band like I need an eyebrow waxing. Wait… do I need an eyebrow waxing? I sure hope not. Right now, this album is making me happy. I’m slightly worried that Pheonix’s new album will overtake it pretty quickly, so I’m trying to ingest as much of it as I can before next Tuesday.

Today’s song is the opening track from the new White Rabbits album. Check out Percussion Gun.

Nobody knows where you are living,
Nobody knows where you are.
- The National

Sorry, people. It’s been a busy couple of weeks. I’ve had this link that I was intending on sharing a couple of weeks ago, but apparently I forgot about it, so you’re getting it today.

One of my favorite albums of the year has been the Dark Was The Night compilation. It’s been pretty popular all over, so it makes sense that they would try to get as many artists together for a show. That show happened to be on May 3rd at Radio City Music Hall in NYC.

Stereogum did a recap if you want to check it out. I got a laugh out of the first comment after the article: “Is it just me or is Justin Vernon rapidly losing hair?“

In other news, Bloc Party apparently didn’t learn from their last remix album and have put out another one, qualitatively titled Initmacy Remixed. Can we all just agree that remix albums should be at max released as EPs from now on?

That’s all I’ve got. News (or the ability for me to find news) is getting pretty dry around here. I do, however, have a fun new song to play. I had about twenty emusic credits left over the weekend that expired on Monday, so I picked up some lesser-known stuff. Well, it could very well just be lesser-known to me.

I’m not a huge fan of country twang unless it’s done well and I think that Devon Sproule does it very well. Check out Healthy Parents, Happy Couple.

Honey, what reveals you,
What you try and hide away,
You could tell the planets,
or your pillow case.
- St Vincent

Those would be the crickets currently taking up residence here that you’re hearing. It’s been a slow couple of weeks and I kind of went overboard with putting out six posts in two weeks in the middle of April. My bad. So here are some little things.

Pitchfork had a short interview with The Shins‘ lead singer James Mercer last week that left me not really all that happy with the guy. Two members of the group, keyboardist Marty Crandall and drummer Jesse Sandoval are no longer with the band due to the direction that Mercer wants the group to go in. Apparently neither of them wanted to change or Mercer thought they couldn’t.

I dunno. I don’t like seeing one member of a band have creative control over the entire operation, but that might be the way it has to be sometimes. Another thing brought up was the reasons for leaving Sub Pop last June, especially considering that they might become the band’s distributor for the future album. Mercer’s response? “Because you get more money.”

Ok, I understand that bands need to get paid, but between the band members leaving, this comment, and Mercer’s attitude when I saw them play at First Ave, I’m getting kind of fed up with the guy. Rant over.

A new album from Jeremy Enigk comes out tomorrow. I once watched him play golden tee. After praising his skills, he signed my t-shirt. Which one of those three things didn’t happen? The praising of skills part. I am way too big of a wuss to do that. Especially 18-year-old Nick at his first indie show. He was an even bigger wuss than the Nick you know today.

Today’s song comes from the new St Vincent album, Actor. It’s not too bad. I agree with one of the reviews that I read that says she tends to let the music describe her emotion because her voice doesn’t change much over the course of the album. I’m having a hard time picking out a song. Actor Out Of Work is the obvious choice, but I think I like Laughing With A Mouth of Blood Better, so here ya go.

Trevor Heinz was just a small-time kid who had grown up on the wrong side of the tracks. Nothing had ever been given to him until one day…

Richie Dogooder: Hey kid, you seem nice enough. You should come live with me and my family in our mansion in the hills.

 

Trevor: I don’t know mister.

 

Richie: Come on, it’s your chance to start a new life. A better life. You and I both know you’re just a kid who understands The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.

 

Trevor: Don’t you mean the pains of being pure of heart?

 

Richie: What’d I say about talking back to me? Now, are you going to leave your difficult life for a life you perceive to be easier, only to find unexpected complications or what?

 

Trevor: Ok, but I’m not calling you dad.

And so Trevor’s new life began. Being from the tough side of town, Trevor was full of street smarts, but none of it could prepare him for what would come next: rich people prep school.

Generic Teacher: Class, this is the new kid. Trevor, or something like that.

 

Jock #1: Hey new kid, you should totally come to my party on Friday. That way, you’ll be guaranteed to hit on one of my three girlfriends and I’ll have an excuse to fight you.

 

Trevor: I don’t know. Sensitive guys like me aren’t known for known for falling for other guys’ girlfriends, are we? Oh wait, we are. Such are The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.

 

Jock #2: True dat.

Friday, at Jock #1’s fantastic party. Trevor shyly enters the room, sweeping back his overgrown emo bangs so he can properly see out of his left eye.

Chloe Cashpants: Hey, you’re new here. You should totally hit on me.

 

Trevor: Wow, being pure at heart, I can tell that you’re the only girl I’ll ever love.

 

Jock #1: Hey, are you hitting on my second-favorite girlfriend? Looks like it’s time to fight.

 

Trevor: Not again…

Next time, on The Pains of Being Pure at Heart…

Trevor: Chloe! You’re the only one for me!

 

Chloe: Like, go away Trevor. You totally messed up by beating up my boyfriend. I never want to talk to you again!

 

Trevor: Ouch, my heart.

It’s dramatasic! If you’re interested in buying the rights, let me know. I’m thinking after school mini series. Do those exist anymore?

If you haven’t figured it out, today’s song comes from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Check out Young Adult Friction.

Everything you’ve read to this point has been a lie. Well, not really. Everything from the post title to now has been slightly misleading. Originally, I was going to talk about an interesting link I found, but then I found two more links, and well….

Links like to party. Links like, links like to party.
-Vengaboys

In 2005, Sony got caught paying off radio stations to play more of their music. Since then, the likelihood of hearing more indie music on the radio should have increased, right? Nope. If you listen to a typical radio station in the U.S., you’re still hearing 85% from a major label. Most of Minnesota has no idea how lucky they are to have The Current.

Next, noeviltwin favorite The Rural Alberta Advantage have apparently signed with Saddle Creek. I’m not sure how this works. They were part of the eMusic Selects “label” so hopefully eMusic got themselves a pretty payday out of the deal. They will be re-releasing Hometowns this summer and playing a short tour, which includes a stop at the High Noon Saloon in Madison at the end of June.

Finally, Matt & Kim have a released a new video of the two of them walking through Times Square. There’s a catch, though. I’ll just say that the pitch to get the permit to shoot in Times Square was something along the lines of “Tourists walk through Times Square inappropriately dressed for the weather.” This video may not be suitable for work.

No song today. My bad.