Y La Bamba Y Me Siento Feliz.

Song of the Day is..."Juniper" by Y La Bamba.

This video just blows me away. It's so well done and the colors and symbols are so beautiful. It was a perfect way to wake up and I have Annie to thank for it. She has introduced me to another amazing Portland-based band, called Y La Bamba and I am so very excited to share it with you all.

What a weekend!!!! My goodness. Just to recap some music highlights:  Friday, we had TV on the Radio grace us with their presence (and I mean we should feel HONORED because they are THAT rad) at Edgefield Brewery, which I was supposed to attend but didn't, and then Saturday we had for the music festival this last weekend, Portugal. The Man played at Music Millenium on Burnside for FREE! You can imagine the crowd for that one, hence why yours truly was not going to attend on a hot 85 degree sweltering day with other black panted hipsters. I chose to sit by a pool in Sellwood listening to their album on repeat.  Later that night, some very lucky audience members had the opportunity to witness a Fleet Foxes show, also at Edgefield on a beautiful summer night (one of the very few we have enjoyed).  Yesterday, I figured with one of my few days childless, I was going to do a "walk about" town and hit up some recording studios and Elliott's house, just listening to some new tunes on my phone but then I saw that Eleanor Friedberger was playing for FREE ALSO at Music Millenium yesterday afternoon, so I wanted to hit that up. Again, lots of people. For those of you unfamiliar, Eleanor Friedberger is part of an indie rock duo group called The Fiery Furnaces with her brother, Matthew.  She produces some sweet vocals for their little duo and I appreciate listening to them. Little bit of trivia for you: She dated Alex Kapranos from the Scottish pop band, Franz Ferdinand.

With me not having gotten the chance to see some of the greats this weekend, I felt lost and utterly disappointed.  HOWEVER, this was all made better by my introduction to Y La Bamba.  Now I know I sing Portland's praises often, but how can I not? Do we not produce some of the best music around? I think so! Do I not have every single album of Pink Martini? I do! I have seen them more than a handful of times in concert. Do I have Portugal. The Man's latest album in my player and refuse to take it out? Correct! Am I now in love with this band, Y La Bamba? YOU BET! And I will purchase their CD asap and buy a ticket this week to see them play at the Doug Fir on 08/12/11 for only $12! Very exciting stuff indeed!

As a side note, I have decided to embrace my insomnia. I have been fighting it for some time. I find out in detox, that it is very common to lose lots of sleep and to feel restless and a bit agitated. Also speaking of The Fiery Furnaces, my house temperature is broken. I'm convinced. Sitting at 80 degrees is rough at night I tell you what. Ugh. Anyway, I have decided that it's ok to be on no sleep. It will make for creative stories, right? Ha. I wake up early with my mind full of ideas and my dreams only make the day more interesting as I cannot tell if they have really happened or not. Maybe I'm in a perpetual state of "waking life" lucid dreaming as I go through my day.  Who knows. But anyway, instead of "waking up" angry about it, I have decided to embrace it. So already I have started the day off much brighter. There are many things to complain about though. It is Monday, it is gray, the meterologists are liars, there was the loudest thunderstorm known to man in the history of Portland, Oregon at 5:00 a.m. on the dot (which is not an awesome way to wake up) and the garbage comes at the butt crack of dawn with the lovely sound of smashing glass come sunrise. BUT I woke up happy, kind of refreshed, excited about my day. And the band, Y La Bamba, is responsible for a lot of that. I have been listening to their music all morning, cup of coffee in hand, pencil behind ear, pen holding hair in high bun, in my t-shirt and underwear.

Let's tell the tale of Y La Bamba, shall we? There is no way you will not just enjoy hearing about their start, how far they have come, and embracing the uniqueness and their absolute creativity will change you somehow and I'm not even sure how.  They are best described as an eclectic indie rock folk band consisting of the tall, beautiful Mexican goddess Luz Elena Mendoza, the man whom she believes has opened her up and saved her soul, Ben Meyercord, long-time friend and collaborator Mike Kitson on drums, Sean Flinn on lead guitar, and Eric Shrapel with the accordion.

Mendoza migrated to Portland, Oregon where she feels the music scene really opened her up and gave her a fresh start in self-actualization and musical enlightenment.  In early 2008, she would sit in her room and write music, recording a collection of little songs that became not-so-little but major works of art picked up by Gypsy Pop Records and released in December 2008 titled Alida St.  Luz Elena started an open mic at a sake house in Northeast Portland regularly where she met her muse and inspiratory (yes, I actually mean to use that word as the word 'inspiration' actually comes from the inhalation of air ie: "to catch one's breath" and this is exactly how I feel when hearing her sing) guidance to create a collaborative band under the name Y La Bamba.  Once the group was formed, people flocked to see them perform.  Like a moth to a flame, people have taken to Y La Bamba unlike any other in the sense that their sound is entirely unique.  When I hear them, I feel I am having a spiritual awakening. I feel transformative, as if I am in a gypsy cathedral hearing this soulful voice singing in religious codified tongues exciting me as Mexican folk music does.

Mendoza, a self-taught artist, feels her talents were given to her by her parents, whose musical tastes are her primary influence for her 1930's eclectic native sound.  Raised in a traditional Mexican household, she was exposed to the old sounds, almost gospel-like in its tone and feel.  She has stayed true to those roots with a modern twist and carnival caravan texture.  It really is unlike anything I have heard before. 

http://www.clubfonograma.com/2010/09/video-y-la-bamba-my-love-is-forest-fire.html

The rich sound is moving, compels you to shut your eyes and hear each wail, each note carried into the next as if you are being taken on a soul-searching adventure through tall grass, setting suns, wearing grandiose eccentric costumes marching to the beat of your new family drum.  I feel honored to have walked the same streets, hung around the same coffee shops with their independent open mic ghosts lingering in the dusty corners. They have made Portland proud.

Good stuff. Good, good stuff. Pure raw talent.  If you would like to see them live, they will be playing at the Doug Fir on August 12th, as mentioned previously, as well as MusicFestNW on September 7th.  If you have tickets, make it a point to catch your local artists as they will need the most support, and in my humble opinion, the most deserving.

IN OTHER NEWS:  The deluxe edition of Arcade Fire's The Suburbs comes out August 2. Over the weekend, a seven-minute remix of "Ready to Start" by the band and producer Damian Taylor, as well as a demo of "Sprawl I", have hit the Internet, too.

Impossible Soul is the gargantuan 25-minute-plus closer to Sufjan Stevens' latest LP.  WNYC posted video of Sufjan performing the final section of "Impossible Soul", the acoustic lullaby "Pleasure Principle", accompanied by Bryce Dessner of the National.

On Thursday Feist shared a mysterious teaser video hinting at the followup to The Reminder. Today we’ve got a new vignette and confirmation that a new album is indeed coming soon. Titled Metals, it’s out October 4th.

I still feel really sad about Amy Winehouse. It's just devastating. As a friend and I were talking yesterday, we pointed out that the media will capture footage of celebrities making them laughable ridiculed symbols to be judged and characterized by us "normal folk" when in all reality, they are addicts. This is their life. We take a picture of a helpless torn-up desperate Winehouse on the streets of London in the middle of the night begging to be helped. After we had our laughs and our snickers and our dinnertime table conversations about "right" and "wrong", she is dead. That is the face of addiction. It is real. And it kills people.

I feel so happy to be breathing in and out:  inspiration.  I am grateful to be alive, even on this gray Monday morning. I am stoked to read and hear about new music being made, the continuous flow of sound that never stops, people being moved, artists never giving up and new sounds being produced all for us, to hear and to experience whenever we want. We are so very lucky.  Have a wonderful start of your week.

Amy Winehouse.

Song of the Day is...."Back to Black" live version by Amy Winehouse.

I do think this is one of the best live acoustic performances ever. Her voice is dumbfounding. I would have to say it's my favorite. I think if I could sound like anyone, it would be Amy Winehouse. What a loss we have experienced. Poor girl.

I feel it only appropriate to write about Amy Winehouse today as her life tragically ended this morning. Personal feelings aside about addiction and how powerful it really is, how we might have all seen this coming a long time ago, or how we feel about her criminal background and long list of assault charges, I want to dedicate today to her.

Amy Jade Winehouse was born September 14, 1983 to Jewish parents Mitchell Winehouse, a taxi driver, and Janis Seaton, a pharmacist.  She was heavily influenced with the sound of jazz throughout her younger years and would end up shaping the foundation of her music today. She has one older brother named Alex, but it was Amy who was the singer, the loud one in class constantly getting in trouble for her consistent need for music, singing until she would get punished.

By the age of 9, Amy's grandmother suggested Susi Earnworth Theatre School for further training.  By 10, Amy and her friends formed a rap group called Sweet & Sour.  It was a short-lived little group with classmates.  After four years, she was accepted into the Sylvia Young Theatre School. Alas, Amy was kicked out of the school for not applying herself and for piercing her nose.   From there on, she joined several alternative arts schools. 

Her father sang her Frank Sinatra when she was young and by the age of 13, she had received her very first guitar and within a year was writing songs for her first album Frank.  She started singing with a jazz band and her then boyfriend soul singer Tyler James, sent a demo to A&R records.  Her being discovered is actually a very sketchy story. She had signed with one label but was not allowed to reveal her identity until then someone bigger picked her up and she then re-signed and eventually found an agent to carry her further.  It is unclear to me how she was discovered and where she went from there.  Like most of Amy Winehouse's life, it remains a mystery.

Winehouse's debut album Frank was released on October 2003.  The album entered high levels on UK charts in 2004 and received a few not-as-prestigious awards but nonetheless was generally acclaimed and not forgotten. People were comparing her to Sarah Vaughan and Macy Gray.

After release of her bluesy, jazzy, sweet sultry sound of Frank, Winehouse shifted her focus to the girl groups of the 1950s and 1960s giving her sound sort of a spiced up doo-wop version of sultry meets sexy.  She wrote songs such as "You Know I'm No Good" and "Rehab" and performed them on radio to eager ears.  Her audience waited with breath that is bated in anticipation of the 11-track album Back to Black that topped UK charts at #1 numerous times and immediately climbed its way to #7 here in the U.S.  It was the highest selling album in 2007 selling 1.85 million copies. Time magazine claimed "Rehab" as the number one song in 2007.  Her singles from that album soared to new heights the jazz community had not seen in a long time.  Amy Winehouse was making history.

Amy Winehouse had received grandiose accolades such as Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best Album of the Year taking home numerous Grammys in 2008. She then started booking performances for renowned people with great impact in the world such as for Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday party and was asked to guest star on hundreds of television shows and begged to do live performances to be broadcast all over the world.  She was the "it" girl. She was even entered into the Guiness Book of World Records for most Grammys ever won by a British female performer.

In her final days, she had started a number of projects with some of the greats such as Quincy Jones, ?uestlove from The Roots, and Tony Bennett.  She was to release her last album in January 2011.  When January came and went, it was revealed that Winehouse had not been near a recording studio in some time and was dealing with health-related issues.  She did say however that the third album will be much like the second and will be basically a "jukebox" album.  Even co-president of Island Records, Dacus Beese said that some of the songs "just floored me".

Adele has given thanks for the smoother transition to the U.S. having given British pop vocalists a whole new name for themselves and Lady Gaga has sang her praises for paving the way for female artists to climb their way to the top.  This is better known as "The Winehouse Phenomenon".  Now we will be left with her music and her fashion, as she has worked on a 17-piece fashion collection with the Fred Perry label.

What I won't want her to be remembered for, and fear this to be true, that her relationships and assault charges will overpower her angelic voice and extreme talent unique to the modern female community and envied by everyone. Her on-and-off abusive relationship with estranged husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, changed the sweet young aspiring singer to a crack cocaine using heroin shooting waste.  In and out of court people figured they would eventually commit suicide and could be seen cutting themselves to numb their feelings of withdrawal.  They eventually divorced in 2010 and she reportedly vowed to get clean as she feels she does not need drugs.  But addiction to drugs and addiction to fame, popularity, empty love, eating disorders, self-harm and depression are habits hard to kick. And eventually led to the imminent death of Miss Amy Jade Winehouse, lover of jazz, singer of the blues, a beautiful voice that the world will never forget.

I'm the Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands and If I Ever Feel Better, I'll Let You Know

Song of the Day is...."If I Ever Feel Better" by Phoenix.

If I ever feel better
Remind me to spend some good time with you
You can give me your number
When it's all over I'll let you know

This song is a perfect description of my week.  Rough time for me, rough time for my friends, rough time in class, and for all of us Portlanders, it's been a rough start of summer.  I was thinking today that I should just take a vacation, a long one.

This blog will go nowhere but down if I sit here any longer.  So I am going to go hiking now.  I need to move some energy and get it out.

---------

It's the next day. It's 10:46 p.m. and I feel like I should call this "ramblings of a struggling tired girl". I have Sigur Ros turned up as loud as it can go on this stereo. I wonder if people would call the cops because "Agaetis Byrjun" is bothering them.  Doubtful.

What have I been up to, you ask. I have received 3 emails from 3 of you wondering where the hell the blog entry was yesterday. It's flattering and disturbing. I am flattered that some of you are religiously reading this which makes me feel like these are not just ramblings worthy of cyberspace and disturbing because people are checking on me, which means I guess I can't hide for long. I guess that means disturbing in the best possible way. I have been attending "meetings" where they teach me about HALT - Hunger, Anger, Loneliness, and Tired.  Reasons why we become self-destructive. It's strange. While in my meeting today though, all I could think about was how the White Stripes titled their last album Under Great White Northern Lights and how much I like that title and how that then made me think about Iceland hence why I have been dying to rest my weary head to the sounds of my beloved Sigur Ros.

But good things were happening today. Yes, big things indeed - like shopping for a new place to live! I have fallen in love for the 187th time with the City of Roses in a whole new way the last six months I have been here. I explored the foot of the West Hills for hours today. It was a quiet time, an introspective time, a clenched fist, breathe deep time. The quiet in my head was a little too loud for me. I immediately remedied this with The Pretenders and Chris Isaak. They both sang very different anthems for West Portland. It was a good day.

Tonight it is Lisa Gerrard and Sigur Ros.  I don't have much to say right now. And all of this makes sense seeing as both Lisa Gerrard and Jonsi sing in tongues - made up languages of their own.  Maybe I'm channeling that.  All I think is music.

Two nights ago, Tim Robbins graced us with his presence at the Alberta Rose Theatre.  I make it sound like I went. Of course I didn't go. I bet it would've been fun though.  This weekend is off the hook.  Tomorrow TV on the Radio is playing and Saturday, the Fleet Foxes will be performing.  This is all at Edgefield. Holy s. I just got a message on FB from my friend Jose saying that he has an extra ticket for me to see TV on the Radio tomorrow. Uh....looks like I might have something musically exciting to report tomorrow :-) We'll see!

Tunde Adebimpe is an incredible musician and seems like a remarkable man.  Actually, I only have one quote that graces my refrigerator and that quote is from Tunde. He talks about his wife and why he knew he should marry her. It's a beautiful thing. He sees that he has fallen in love with her and her creativity and HER life and feels just fortunate to witness it. He says his job (and of course this is all paraphrased to the max) is to keep obstacles out of her way of getting to where she wants to be. Solid. I also loved him in Rachel Getting Married.  TV on the Radio has an interesting history.  The band released their first album OK Calculator in reference to Radiohead's OK Computer and involved only Adebimpe and David Sitek at the time.  The band has expanded since 2001 in Brooklyn, New York, to then include Kyp Malone, and Gerard Smith as official members.  Gerard Smith, their bassist and keyboardist, developed lung cancer and quickly perished leaving us on the morning of April 20, 2011.  He was a tremendous asset to the band and has been a blow to the other three founding players.  They have been known to have some big name contributors to their sound including David Bowie for vocals, Nick Zinner from The Yeah Yeah Yeahs for guitar, Kazu Makino of Blonde Redhead for vocals, Martin Perna of Antibalas, and Katrina Ford of Celebration.  They are known as a post-punk, funky jazzy (I'm starting to sound like "US3") electro soul band to the indie rock community. We love them.

They released an EP in 2003 to critical acclaim and then featured their second full-length album Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes which earned the band the 2004 Shortlist Music Prize.  They then released ANOTHER EP and then followed that with their third album, Return to Cookie Mountain which was named Best Album of the Year by Spin magazine in 2006.  This is the album that features all the greats and was of course widely recognized as an edgy fun unique one-of-a-kind album and quickly bled into mainstream media with the appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman.  Then get this:  They start their US tour to promote this album and play with some pretty rad rockin rockers such as Bauhaus' Peter Murphy and Nine Inch Nails legend Trent Reznor.  Oh and we're not done. They come out with yet another album, their fourth album titled Dear Science and was named Best Album of the Year in 2008 by Rolling Stone magazine. BUT we're not done there. Not only did Rolling Stone give this album the honorary award but many others followed suit namely The Guardian, Spin magazine, The Onion AV Club,  MTV, Entertainment Weekly, as well as a slew of rock polls taken all over the country.  Then in 2009, Tunde announces the band will be taking a year off and then everyone comes out with solo projects and releases albums within that same year! They then say OK we're back and come out with another album called Nine Types of Light.  This resume' doesn't really get much better.  And hey, they love Prince and call "Purple Rain" a classic. They look up to Brian Eno and the Pixies. I think this is all enough for me to say yes to the concert. Pretty sure.

It's an exciting time for music, folks. It always is though. It always has been. I heard a song today by The Noisettes and am looking forward to catching a show of theirs sometime in the future. I hear they're pretty rad live. And if you can afford it, Chris Isaak is playing at the Oregon Zoo this summer. If I could, I would. I'm sure it will be incredible.

Seeing as I promised you all that you would fall in love with Phoenix by the end of the week, I will leave you with this:  An awesome cover of colossal proportion.

It is no easy feat to cover Bob Dylan. Believe me, I have tried.

I have a bunch of thoughts still moving right along and most of them are ideas of things to write about because I can talk about this stuff all day. I want to touch on videos, covers, songs of our youth, MTV, Remote Control, the Singles soundtrack, classic sounds, eclectic beats, funky rhythms, and the Cold War Kids.

Until then, remember you are at your best when rested.

Sleeping is no mean art:  for its sake one must stay awake all day.  ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Goodnight.

I'm a Walking Wilco Love Ballad and I Wish I Was a Country Music Fan.

Song of the Day is...."Lisztomania" by Phoenix.

It's really annoying for me to have to embed someone else's video. I stray far away from stuff like that so you are not distracted by some amateur video and can't hear the song. YouTube can be pretty annoying like that but I get to share music with it, so I will do my best to quit complaining. Anyway, their original video for this song could not be embedded for some reason. When you're on the blog, you have a finite number of videos to choose from. There weren't any good ones so now you get to see the lyrics. Whatever.

I'm jacked up on coffee ice cream. You may not believe me but it's true. I just ate a pint of it and I'm completely lactose intolerant. I have no idea why I would do that. The last few days, I have been living on a steady diet of cherries, ice cream cones (just the cones), and popsicles. What am I? Five?  I might be depressed and not even know it.  Gross.

So Lisztomania is the song I chose for today. It's not only a great song but there are so many remixes it's insane. This is the Classixx remix and the video is great.

Like I said yesterday, this band is fantastic all around. Great remixes, great performances and great videos. They've got it all and they are super duper underrated.  This is the last version I will show you of this song (but just to give you an idea of how versatile they are). It is an acoustic performance of the song in a radio station studio.

I feel bored with my thoughts.

We all know "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" is one of the best albums to date but really, it's one of the best albums to date. Seriously, I listen to this album so much, I can hardly see my reflection in the disc.  I'm surprised it still plays. Actually it does skip from time to time but if I hit "cue" for just 2 seconds max, we're back in business.  When I'm stuck in traffic, I play the whole thing and just rock out. Yeah, that's me - the one with the windows down looking annoyed and simultaneously happy as shit because my music is cranked and it rocks. The song I love so much on this album is "I'm the Man Who Loves You" and I have decided that if someone were to write this song for me, I would marry them in a heartbeat. My idea of a perfectly written love ballad. This is how I feel. I'm not a "Nothing Compares To You" lover anymore. I'm not a "It's Friday I'm in Love" freaking out type anymore or a "I want to shoot myself because this love is making me want to die" kind of lover that everyone, I mean everyone seems to write about. We have like a million choices of songs that remind us of sour abusive unhealthy nonsensical relationships. Not me anymore. Wilco is me. I am Wilco. It is love.

So the other day I'm driving down the freeway (per usual).  I was about to clock in my 340th mile of the week when I see a billboard featuring the latest country music stars coming to town. Good looking good ol' boys in big hats with the modern day surfer shag sticking out the sides and that smile with those pearly whites.  Country music stars aren't farmers or heroin addicts anymore (I really miss Hank Williams every day) or alcoholics like Keith Whitley or that old truck driver sound of Little Feat.  There are no more Willie Nelsons, Alabamas, or that classic rock/country sound of Bob Seger.  Nope. These guys definitely looked polished like they've just walked out of the Botox clinic or perked up after a good colonic.  It's just different now. However, the one thing I wish was that our music festivals cost as much as theirs do. On this billboard, some of the biggest names in country music are coming for a 3 day festival this summer. $65 for a 3 day pass! I actually thought I should just go because I could! I thought about our little indie rock festival, MusicFestNW, in September playing to the tune of $115.  Now, I'm not saying this is a bad price because are you kidding me? One of my favorites Sharon Van Etten (who I just saw play at the Doug Fir a month ago) share the stage with Band of Horses and The Antlers belt out one of my favorites "Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out" from their breakout album Burst Apart while anticipating my headliner for the night, Iron and Wine, but not after hearing some Explosions In The Sky first.  Is it indie rocker heaven? $115 really is not bad for an alternative/trip hop/indie/folk orgasm in your ear.

But wouldn't it be awesome if someone said you could hear your #1 heroes of all time, that make you want to die when someone threatens to throw their albums out your car window or makes you think that they might've been the ones that saved you from daisy razor death in junior high, that you could see them ALL in three days for under $75? Sha! Maybe it's the demographic. Like all of the blue collar kids listen to the country stuff so they charge less and all of the white trust fund hipsters account for most of the indie rocker fests, so they just can. Oh well. I'm still not going to listen to Brad Paisley, so I can just forget about it.

When I got home this afternoon and before I gave myself the worst epigastric shooting lactose pains ever, I looked in my mailbox and found a nice surprise. I finally received my cheap-o tickets to The Naked and Famous/Surfer Blood concert in September. I got an extra one. Someone wanna be my date? 94.7 is sponsoring it. I would like to write a review on these up and comers, so I decided I would sacrifice $10 to the cause. Should be a good time. I might be stuck in a sea of 16-year-olds feeling old as usual, getting too tired before the headliner appears and wishing I was wearing my sweats the whole time but it's a shot, right? Oh me and rock concerts. I'm such a square these days. Great, now I'm using terms from my parents' generation.

Speaking of my parents' generation, here is an incredible song that is so dear to my heart.  Love it.

I may feel old at a concert but this bellyache reminds me of being a kid and in the wise words of Samuel Clemens: 

Age is an issue of mind over matter.  If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.  ~Mark Twain

The Year of Black Crows and The Season of the Phoenix.

Song of the Day is...."Love Like a Sunset II" by Phoenix.

What else to say about this song.  Nothing.  It's just beautiful.  In my humble opinion, it is what love feels like.  The title of this blog kind of says it all.  I sit here tapping my foot, trying to get the creative juices flowing but find that I am very tired on yet another gray day here in Portland and I feel that the creativity comes from this quiet introspection conjured up by my background music.  It most certainly has been my season of Phoenix.  When I want to play, I think to put them on. When I want to think, I put them on and heck, lately when I've been doing laundry and dishes, I think they would add to my experience of accomplished tasks.  I think this was a nice video to share for a Monday.  Whether you live in a sunny place and you read this or whether you are in Jultober (as Cassie so perfectly describes this), this band just seems to fit for me, and hopefully you feel the same way too.

The first time I heard Phoenix (I will not lie about this) was when I saw Lost In Translation.  If you don't remember, let me refresh your memory:

Very strange video indeed.

So since seeing the movie, I have been curious about this band.  If Sofia Coppola loves them, why shouldn't I? And yes, she does personally love them because I found this.  Okay okay, so she was dating Thomas Mars in this photo and maybe wanted to give him some spotlight in her film, but it worked!

 Phoenix is a French band (labeled as a French dance rock band) from Versailles.  Lead singer Thomas Mars (pictured above) has an incredible vocal range and gives the band their signature sound.  Some might protest that their songs sound very similar to one another but when you have a distinct front man for your band, it's going to be perceived that way by some.  However, this band is unlike any other in that I have found all of their acoustic material to be incredible, their live performances to blow me away, their videos to be visually stimulating and hypercreative, as well as creating remixes for many of their hits while never dismissing the essence of each lyric or each feeling the song gives.  To be frank, they're just FUN.  And very European.  If you don't believe me, just watch their videos.

The Parisian garage band started in 1995 with their fourth member joining them (and get this) by an incredible guitarist named Laurent Brancowitz, who is the older brother of Chris Mazzalai and was in a band with two other guys that later titled their band Daft Punk.  Zing.  So he leaves that little threesome band and joins up with these other three rockers to form Phoenix.  Gotta give these guys mad credit for not only starting up their own little French rock group in Mars' garage (a real garage band for sure), but that they even started their own label, giving it the title Ghettoblaster.  You have to hand it to them for being nobodies but releasing a single (a single mind you when they are not even famous or even kind of famous at this point) on their very own label.  BUT they managed to press 500 copies to the public and were quickly recognized by Paris-based Source Records.  So if that's not awesome enough, one of my other favorite French bands, Air fell in love with them and had them appear with them on stage several times as their backup band. We all know "Kelly Watch the Stars" yes? My personal favorite of Air's singles (I am convinced it was written for me) but they did all of the backup music for that song. I had no idea about any of this. I think that's pretty cool. That and that they are "best friend bands" with Daft Punk.  I always said I would be in Paris for my 30th birthday. Let's hope that happens and I can become their American in Paris stalker.  (just kidding. kind of.)

So there is a quick little introduction to my new found "friends" and hope you can appreciate them.  The song of the day was actually not much of a love song for me when I discovered it but was more of a subjective song for me as I was reflecting on the symbology of black crows in my life and stumbled upon it and right then and there dedicated it to the dead crow my friend Amanda and I found on the way to a movie theatre on our walk.  We walked right by it and stopped for me to inspect.  They are so massive and beautiful and majestic and I have encountered so many of them recently.  What started as a dying black crow refusing to leave my car and begging me to pick it up and put it out of its misery that fateful morning some fortnight ago but has turned into a consistent icon in my life at the moment.  They do represent transition and spiritual growth.  I like it. Seeing one atop a hearse last week, and then the dead one last Thursday, it's been a lot.  I wanted to bury that bird but instead we left it there and I told myself it was okay.  That night, back at home, I listened to none other than "Blackbird" a few times.

 It hit me. This song is all about what black crows represent.  It was kind of a musical and personal epiphany.

Not sure what it all means, and I may never know, but I am okay with that. For now.  Because now, I have music and all of the interpretations I choose.  And I have Thomas Mars keeping my ears company in the meantime.

IN OTHER NEWS:  The Killers' drummer, Ronnie Vanucci releases his self-titled debut album today! Hmm...I have no idea what's in store with that one.  Red Hot Chili Peppers release the first single from their 10th studio album 'I'm With You' today, with 'The Adventures Of Raindance Maggie' coming out. Oddly enough, even the GooGoo Dolls came out with a new album today. They're still alive??!?!

So there are some good things to check out and tons to look forward to.   My biggest highlight:  Portugal. The Man releases their album "In The Mountain In The Cloud" tomorrow!!!!! Finally!!!! Best Album of the Year for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JyZZIQC3v4



 Have a fantastic week!