Blitzen Trapper. Blitzen Trapper.

Blitzen Trapper are a Portland, Oregon band who have such unreal variety in the music that they put out that I've actually had to double take to make sure I'm still listening to the same band.  Sometimes that can be disconcerting to me, but in this case I have found myself more and more drawn to the depth it indicates.  I first was feeling them for their sweetly nuanced garage-sound but they offer so much more, too. Just go here and listen to the psychedelic, electronic garage-pop frenzy of 2007's Devils A-Go-Go.  Anyhow lately I am in to the folk-tradition of hearing a good story in a song so this is The Man Who Would Speak True off of their 2010 Sub Pop release Destroyer of the Void.  But be sure to listen to those other links so you get the multi-faceted-ness, too.

Rock and Roll Tuesday. Bruce Springsteen.

I remember about five or six years ago listening to a cut off of Born in the USA and thinking this man is a Shaman.  You know, someone whose intuitive understanding of lifes experiences is so deep that he translates it for the rest of us.  A few months later I saw him on a tv interview, saying that very thing--that he believed his role as a musician to be shamanistic.  Ever since, what I love the best about his music is his story-telling.  And how rootsy he is when he does so: you can practically hear the whole musical history of the americas in the layers of instruments he and the E street play.  And what is rock and roll, if not the pioneering, multi-layered rebel story of us?

The Bangles. Hazy Shade of Winter.

It is snowing out, there's a couple inches and it's totally covered the road and I was warm and cozy in my room, sitting reflecting on the year that's almost over.    Then the local radio station played this song--and like it always, always does the opening literally gave me chills.  I love the non-stop drum bang in this version, and sweet Susana Hoff's doll-voice singing Simon and Garfunkel's poetry over that sick sick guitar.  It's still an absolute favorite.

Rock and Roll Tuesdays. Liz Phair. Exile in Guyville.

Today my friend Marla and I had a long talk about good rock and roll, and though we parted ways at 80's hairbands we were in total agreeance over what came out of the 90's.  We made a list that spans several decades (Marla is a radio dj and is going to play my hitlist for me on air piece by piece over the next several weeks!) and elsewhere, you dear reader get to live out the birth of Rock and Roll Tuesday on this blog. 

So add me to the legions of Exile devotees...Exile in Guyville is without question one of the best rock and roll albums there is, released in 1993.  This clip is Liz doing her infamous Divorce Song a few years back.  The quality's not the best but it's one of the only ones I could find of this song live.  Go here for a vintage clip of another song off the same album. 

Snow Days. Real Estate.

Ok, so the melodic, melancholic chorus ohhhhhing of Real Estate in the background of this song, their layered instrumentals and the way they build the layers really reminds me of Fleet Foxes.  Which in my opinion is awesomeness.  This is Snow Day, off Real Estate's 2009 self-titled album which I am quickly loving through and through.  But it is this song (about the beach and reminiscing in the winter, go figure) that makes me happy and swoon.  They are East Coast as it comes, too.  Xtra yaayyy.

Phyllis Dillon. One Life to Live.

My buddy Sky mentioned this song by Phyllis Dillon in response to a post on my other blog.  The jam's really stuck with me--even though I suppose it's a love song--it's the I only have one life to live and I'm gonna live it that keeps resonating now and playing like a theme song through my head.  According to Wiki, Jamaican-born Dillon did all of her recording before turning 23.  She spent the years following focusing on her family, only to return to performing in the early nineties when she was 43.  She passed at 56 with an awesome sweep of soul-full reggae songs to her credit and several classic covers. 

The White Stripes. Jimmy the Exploder.

There is almost nothing sexier to me than the rawdog dirty sound of Jack White's guitar.  Seriously it gets me hot.  And together him and Meg epitomize to me all that's glory-full about good ol fuckin rock and roll.  She reminds me of Joan Jett.  Rebeliousness.  Nothin but her tight, gnarly loud ass drums breaking the beat. He makes me think of the only white guy back of the juke joint drilling licks in some past life almost memory of heat and oppression and music being the only saving grace. 

This is Jimmy the Exploder, off their 1999 self-titled release.  It makes my breath short.  Yummmmm.

Sea Wolf. Sea Wolf.

The first song I ever heard by Sea Wolf was You're a Wolf,  originally off their 2007 EP Get to the River Before It Runs To Low, and it spoke the way good poetry does to the mythic place inside my soul:  It immediately sparked my imagination in the alive-sensate place. Not too long after that a friend put Rose Captian by them on a mix CD for me and I was hooked for good.  Anyhow today I woke up feeling very Wicked Blood, which is another incredible archtypal song by them, and I got on here to post and whadya know turns out these guys are like famous for the Twilight series??  HUH?  Booooo.  But good for them I guess for making that cream?  Anyway they are pure poets, folk musicians at heart aligned with the same myth and allegory in their songs that for example Conor Oberst might bring to mind.  Also I saw them live at some point this past year and it was so dirty and real they could've been any no-name indy act, that's how much they keep it real.  I heart them.

Sea Wolf at the Rock and Roll Hotel, DC

Mia and Jonah. Shine I.

I fell resolutely in love with Oakland, CA's Mia and Jonah last year whilst the rest of the world unbeknown to me was also enduring a huge male/female-duo onslaught of bands like the xx and The Hoof and The Heel.  And while I dig both those examples, too, Mia and Jonah still get an I LOVE THEM and a THEY ARE MY FAVORITES specifically because they lac the cheeky showmanship and electric emphasis that I normally sweat.  They are classically acoustic, focused primarily on the singer/songwriter aesthetic.  I found them on Pandora.  Their 2005 album Shine I just sings the kinks out of my heart every single time.

Smithsoniam Folkways. Recordings.

This is a picture of famous jazz mistress Mary Lou Williams, as it appears in the magazine produced by Smithsonian Folkways titled the same.  Please go check out Smithsonian Folkways, which is a project produced entirely through the Smithsonian Institute and is all about documenting music of the people.  I ordered a box set of early American folk and blues recordings, which the Smithsonian happened to have archived, about five or so years ago and it was the only background music we listened to the whole winter through.  It was haunting and rich and sounded like old time crackling with vinyl and throaty back room soul in the low light. This sight is a music lovers requiem, a legitimate storehouse of dreams with sounds from virtually every movement and culture you can imagine.  Absolutely awesome.  HR.