Cover for Beirut's upcoming new album, 'The Rip Tide'
This week’s S-25 Mix features a random pick of 2011 songs that we really like – some are well-known, others are new material from established indie and alternative rock bands – like The Strokes, Beirut, Peter Bjorn and John, and Bon Iver – but many others are songs that we refer to as ‘rarely heard,’ because so few people – with the exception of indie music enthusiasts – have heard them. This also feels like a mix that is a good kick-off to summer. On that note, stay tuned for our Summer Songs 2011 series; in the meantime though, check out the smash hit series Songs of Summer 2010 if you want to load up your iPod with ‘summer’ songs. We hope that many of you come away with new songs that you really love from this mix. Let us know which are your favorites in the Comments section.
“East Harlem” – Beirut from The Rip Tide – out August 30th
“Breaker Breaker” – Peter Bjorn and John from single release
In a world full of troubles, news and chatter about the Royal Wedding 2011 are useless to most people, but welcomed distractions for millions of others, regardless of the innate elitism, pomp and circumstance – even silliness – of the British royals and their trumped up social events. This coming Friday, Prince William and Kate Middleton will wed at Westminister Abbey in London. The royal wedding date is set for April 29th. And, you’ll never believe what Will and Kate’s favorite song is – in a million years.
Apparently the biggest Royal Wedding Twitter hashtag is #rw2011. That is not an insignificant piece of information when you consider that the royal couple of William and Kate announced their engagement to the world via Twitter.
Anyways, we thought it’d be cool to pull together themes – like kings, princes, princesses, queens, royalty, weddings, marriage, love, and so on – to make a royal-sized music mixtape of songs for the royal wedding mania. Afterall, we haven’t seen any other interesting mixtapes for the royal wedding online – just a few mixtapes of ho-hum, predictable songs (“Chapel of Love” or “When A Man Loves A Woman”), mostly in lists that are not even playlists that you can easily listen to it.
So, we thought, we make mixtapes that people seem to like; we’ll do it. Unlike our other mixes, we’re not splitting up the mix with photos of bands and album covers. So, now there’s something reliable on the web for people to go to a search engine like Google and search for “royal wedding mixtape” or “royal wedding playlist” or even “alternative wedding songs.” *
* The inclusion of this awesome track from the legendary Icelandic band Sigur Ros was suggested in an article on Squidoo, and here’s the video to go with it.
** This is a rare Paul McCartney demo tape – which seems additionally fitting since he’ll be attending the wedding – and of course the song is about love. Afterall, this is the king of silly love songs; he said so himself. “Really Love You” is a real jam if there ever was one, and as McCartney explains in the intro, he just started out with a simple one-two bass line and became something bigger.
Currently, there is a waiting list on Amazon when the rare vinyl import, Twin Freaks, of which this song (not sure if the same version as above) is from, will be available. Sony has said this will be the last vinyl pressing of the Twin Freaks import.
Royal Wedding 2011 Website, Prince William and Kate Middleton’s Websites, Wedding Resources and Links
See the official royal wedding 2011 website with news, photos, information on the service, the royal wedding procession and William and Catherine’s wedding reception.
View the official Royal Wedding Procession map via Google Maps and the official royal video wedding guestbook.
Stream the official Royal Wedding live webcast on Friday at 5 am EST.
View Prince William of Wales official website and Prince William’s official Facebook page. Interestingly, the prince only has a little over 64,000 Facebook fans.
We also found what we think is the real official Kate Middleton Facebook page, but only by searching Google for ‘Catherine Middleton Facebook page’. That page, which really does seem to be the official one, mostly based on it’s customized Facebook web address URL, which is . That page has a more believable 35,000 fans/friends. If you search for Kate Middleton Facebook page, you’ll get a link to the Kate Middleton’s ‘Official’ Facebook page, but that page has barely 4,000 fans/friends. Facebook, still a young company, has kinks to work out, that’s for sure.
Seriously Will and Kate? Your Favorite Song?
According to U.K. Telegraph, the royal couple’s favorite song is “I Like The Way You Move.” Really? Seriously? With all of the amazing music out there, this is the song? That’s what they said. Well, ummm, alright.
The track is by the Australian dance/house duo Bodyrockers, consisting of Dylan Burns and Kaz James. In April of 2005, the song peaked on the U.K. Singles Chart at #3, and later become a top dance charts hit in the U.S. after being featured in a Diet Coke commercial.
People are still talking and joking about this in the cafe; they’re coming up with some funny answers to the lingering question(s) we yearn to ask the royal couple about their favorite song. For example: “If you will please, Prince William and Kate, tell us the story behind why you chose ‘I Like The Way You More’ as your official favorite song? What is it about this rather insignificant, and not very good, song that makes you pick it above all of the other great songs to choose from. Is there some special moment tied to that song, and that’s why? Was it something that was always the case, or just what you came up with because you were not ready for the question and couldn’t think of anything else? Do you want to change your answer?”
We’re dying to ask those questions, but we doubt Kate and Will are going to talk to us now because we’re making fun of them. British royals are fun to make fun of. We’re Americans for Pete’s sake, so naturally, it’s a joy to poke fun at British royalty. But still, the song. The song. Anyways, here it is, by the ‘Bodyrockers’. OMG. LOL.
How We Approached Creating a Royal Wedding Mixtape
The songs we looked for, sifted through, listened to again and again, and ultimately picked for this week’s S-25 mix are not intended at all to be literal or autobiographical of either William or Kate; it’s just a mix of songs we like that kind of fit the over-arching theme of the royal wedding. We broke the presumed 25-song limit (again) because we didn’t want to cut out any more of the songs we ultimately picked for inclusion in this mix.
Plus, we’re not trying to be formal or appropriate either – that’s up the folks at the palace; this is just an experiment in mix-taping, nothing more. While the songs are obviously not literal, they are meant to tell a story altogether, and with some free-roaming imagination. Essentially, it’s just another opportunity to share music we love with you, and which is not restricted to indie rock, both of which are what we love about the weekly Sunday Mix.
We have an obsession with creating playlist mixes that feature great songs about a specific subject, theme or other categorization. Over many years, we’ve amassed hundreds of these playlists, and update them regularly. Sunday is the day we take off from putting out new music in order to bring you all another one of our special.
But the original, and still existing, name for this series – The Sunday 25 Mix (aka, S-25), is admittedly not one of our best names we’ve come up with, so we are taking suggestions. The name for this weekly mix series needs to somehow convey the Sunday aspect as well as the fact that it’s a special series with a particular focus and not restricted to one genre or one era of music.
This week we chose 25 tracks from our huge “Time Travel” playlist, including tracks from Phoenix, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Submarines, The Radio Dept., The Clash, The Smashing Pumpkins, and many others. This mix is the first volume of what will be a re-occuring playlist mix series over the next year or so. Currently, we have more than 300 ‘time travel’ songs, so it’ll take time to whittle them down into 25 tracks per volume.
We are sure that there are plenty of great ‘time travel’ themed songs that are not included in this volume. In that case, it means they’ll be published in subsequent volumes in this series, or that we don’t have such and such a song (but probably did at one time). Somehow believing that Apple hard drives were indestructible, we failed to back up hundreds of playlists that had been in on-going development over the years.
One day last fall, we turned on the Mac to just a blue screen. Slowly but surely we were convinced that the hard drive was indeed fried. That broken hard drive is sitting in a box as we try to figure out if it’s worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars to try and do data recovery just to see what playlists can be salvaged.
So, in many ways, we had to start from scratch. It was a traumatic loss but we only have ourselves to blame for not backing them all up to an independent external hard drive. A loss like that you never really get over, especially when you know that you had so many amazing playlists that constituted probably hundreds of hours of organizing, updating, and reviewing songs and their appropriate playlist home. Lesson learned the VERY hard way.
That said, we hope you dig this first volume of the Time Travel Playlists series. Don’t forget to make your own lists in the Comments section because it’s very possible they’ll be included in subsequent future volumes of the Time Travel Playlists series.
“1901” – Phoenix from Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (2009)
“1999” – Shout Out Louds from Work (2010)
“1999” – Prince from 1999 (1982)
“1977” – The Clash from Super Black Market Crash (1977)
“We’ve Been Friends Since 1989” – Boat from Setting The Paces (2009)
The S-25 Mix is short for The Sunday 25 Songs Mix, where we put together a mix of 25 tracks (sometimes more) we love from all genres and time periods of music. Over the past two weeks, we put out the Songs About Cars mixes, many of which were recommended by our readers.
But this Sunday, we’re putting out a mix that only includes indie songs from artists and bands that we never – and perhaps many of you never – heard before.
At South By Southwest earlier this month, there were hundreds of bands – easily – that we’d never heard of before. But thanks to friends, a whole bunch of free SXSW samplers, and the official SXSW site, we heard for the first time more than a couple of hundred artists performing at SXSW 2011 that we’d never heard before, otherwise known as “New To Us,” which is a familiar theme mix that we haven’t done a mix for in quite some time.
Beause SXSW is still somewhat fresh, we wanted to share some of the 200-plus bands that are new to us. Hopefully, most of you will dig even few of these bands for the first time – making it all that much more worth it. Additionally, some of these bands will be featured in upcoming Bands to Watch in 2011 features, and part of what determines which those will be depends on which songs you guys listen to and download the most from today’s mix.
For next Sunday’s mix, we’re going to continue with the Songs About Colors mix series. A few weeks ago, we put a “Red Songs” mix, in case you missed it. Any suggestions for “blue” songs? We already have a mix of about 200 songs that we need to drastically par down, but we’re also taking suggestions too. Remember, it does not have to be confined to indie music, even though today’s mix is, as an exception, and since it’s timely with the connection to SXSW.
Formed abruptly among friends in Vancouver in 2010, Dizzy Eyes were on an earlier roll, being signed to Hardly Art Records, when one of their band member’s citizen application was denied. While they’re currently on hold, Dizzy Eyes put out a 7″ that included three tracks, including this one, which is ironically titled, “Let’s Break Up The Band.”
Lo-fi, garage pop is the hallmark of Brunswick, Australia band, Twerps, who’s band name doesn’t match their decidedly rock sound. In the past year, they’ve opened for bands like Deerhunter, Yo La Tengo, and Thee Oh Sees. Keep your ears out for their debut LP coming soon.
“Black Eyes” – Twerps from Black Eyes single Double-shot: “Bullies” – Twerps from The Ancient split single 7″
Everyone Everywhere is a Philadelphia indie rock band which has been turning heads wherever they show up in the past year and a half. Last May, the band released their debut, self-titled album, and are now working on the follow-up LP.
“Tiny Boat” – Everyone Everywhere from Everyone Everywhere (2010)
“Wanderingfoot” – Everyone Everywhere from Everyone Everywhere (2010)
From Los Angeles, the indie rock trio, Foster The People, owe their recent recognition to The Hype Machine and their performances at SXSW. The addictive track, “Pumped Up Kids” made the Australia pop charts in 2010. Their LP, Torches, will be released on May 24th, from which the advanced single, “Helena Beat” is taken from.
“Helena Beat” – Foster The People from Torches – out May 24th Double-shot:“Pumped Up Kicks” – Foster The People fromFoster The People EP (2010)
From Mexico City, indie rock band Chikita Violenta made quite a splash at SXSW, thanks to their alternative rock sound that takes its influences from bands like Built to Spill, Sonic Youth and Pavement. In 2007, the band reached out to well-known producer Dave Newfield (Apostle of Hustle, Broken Social Scene, Super Furry Animals and Los Campesinos!) to record their second album is The Stars and Suns Sessions. They also worked with Newfield on their recently released 2011 album, Tre3s, which you may have heard about in one of our recent posts for Best New Releases series. We love this band, and hope you do too.
From the Reims, France, the band The Bewitched Hands love lo-fi pop anthem-prone tracks, such as on the track, “Work,” from the band’s newest LP, Birds and Drums.
One of the buzz bands at SXSW was JEFF The Brotherhood, and for good reason. Their “kraut punk” mixed with “psychedelic grunge” and “noise pop” is alluring, catchy and provocative. The brothers from Nashville – on guitar and drums – have been touring the U.S. since 2006, bringing their unique blend of styles to venues across the States, and opening for bands like Sonic Youth, Jay Reatard and Battles.
Right out of the gates, Santa Cruz, California indie pop musician, Ash Reiter, got our attention, and not just because she lives right down the road from here. When we first heard the track “Paper Diamonds” on a SXSW sampler, we love her yearning and imperfect vocals, not to mention a penchant for a really catchy tune. On her tour across the U.S. and around Canadian, she recruited talented musicians from town to town to accompany her onstage. She plans to go into the studio again soon with a group called The Power of Positive Thinking.
We like the track, “The Other Summer” from New York band MiniBoone, a lot, and will be looking forward to hearing more of their music in the near future. The floating, melodic track “Trampolines” found its way into our hearts for its lush beauty and syrupy snyth keys and shimmering guitar work that puts Yourself and The Air on our radar.
“Trampolines” – Yourself and The Air from Who’s Who in the Zoo
We have become recent following of the roster of Dirtnap Records. The label has an excellent knack for picking raw talented punk and garage rock bands who can belt out asphalt tearing two to three minute lo-fi gems. Some of our favorites include River City Tanlines, Mean Jeans, White Wires, High Tension Wires, The Steve Adamyk Band. In fact, you can check out more tracks from Dirtnap bands in one of our Recommended SXSW Showcases post a couple of weeks ago during SXSW. Definitely digging these bands – and they’re all ‘new to us.’
“Black Knight” – River City Tanlines from All 7 Inches Plus 2 More (2005)
The White Wires, an Ottawa band, and Dirtnap recording artist, have quickly become a favorite city-wide garage pop trio over the past couple of years. The track featured here is from their sophomore LP, WWII, released last summer. They’re now in the process of recording WWIII, slated for release this summer.
We love the dance beat synth infused indie pop delivery of WIN WIN‘s “Releaserpm” (whatever that means). The track sounds a bit like a Bjork tune if she did a bright and shinny dub-step single. The song’s overall warm effect could not have been accomplished without the vocal contribution of Gang Gang Dance band member Lizzie Bougatsos.
The quirky, but engaging Boston band Hands and Knees would have to be one of our top ten favorites of new-to-us bands that we’ve heard for the first time over the past month. Plus, songs from The Torches, Mrenc, Karkwa and The Boat People.
Last week, we revved up the engines and put the pedal to the metal to set out on a road trip to gather up great songs about cars. Thanks to the help from our readers along the way – Songs About Cars (Vol. I), is perhaps the most extensive and diverse collection of songs about cars to be found on the web.
And if one mix didn’t achieve that goal, it’s a good thing that there were plenty of left-over, relevant songs to in fact put together another well tuned, all engines go mix of car songs for this week’s S-25 Mix.
Many of the songs in this second mix of Songs About Cars came from our own combined playlists, and of course the recommendations of visitors to the cafe. The songs are not in any particular order of importance, release date, artist, or any other categorization, other than they all have something to do with cars, and of course are songs we really like.
Also, as with all of the Sunday mixtapes on IRC, the featured songs are from various genres, and time periods, of music as long as they fit whatever happens to be the theme on any given Sunday.
As you can easily imagine, there are thousands of songs that span six decades of music in which cars are the central theme. Therefore, choosing which ‘car songs’ would be included in the mix, and which would not be, was accomplished through an evolution that relied heavily on a process of elimination, wherein a number of people rated the songs in iTunes from one to five stars (only songs with at least three stars are kept).
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Because there are so many fantastic songs about cars, we broke up the mix into two volumes, with the first installment published last Sunday.
Last Sunday, at the end of the mix for “Red Songs” (songs with ‘red’ in the title), we asked for song suggestions to help us create today’s S-25 Mix, “Songs About Cars.” IRC readers stepped up and provided more than a couple of dozen prime picks, ranging from Arcade Fire and David Bowie, Radiohead and Blind Melon, R.E.M. and Built to Spill, and Tom Waits to Beck, to name just a few. While some of IRC readers’ suggestions were already on our draft list, many others were not.
In our own playlist collections, we have hundreds of songs about cars – and activities commonly related with cars – so it was a challenge, to say the least, to choose which would be included in this playlist mix. Some artists have more than one song about cars that will be featured – like Arcade Fire, Radiohead, Cake, Belle and Sebastian, The Kinks – and in those cases, there will be just one in each installment. In fact, there are so many excellent car songs, that we had to break this mix into two volumes. The second mix will be posted next Sunday, so make sure to check back for that.
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For the most part, we decided to focus on songs that actually have the words ‘car’ or ‘drive’ or ‘automobile’ in the title (with a few exceptions like Led Zeppelin and Tom Waits) since, as you can imagine, there are loads of songs about cars, driving, road trips, racing, plus not to mention dozens upon dozens of songs about non-car vehicles (depending on your definition of what is and isn’t a car), like trucks (including pick-ups, trailers and 18-wheelers), vans, jeeps, limousines, and other ‘vehicles’ like motorcycles, scooters, and even some bicycles.
One of the best parts of the S-25 Mix series is that it’s not restricted to just indie music, but can include songs from any genre, and any era, of music. Every Sunday, we post a S-25 mix that is centered around a subject or theme, and then scour our music collections to find the best songs we can related to whatever the theme is.
Over the past few months, there have been very popular S-25 Mixes about Egypt, Love, Winter, and others.
Other popular S-25 Mixes have not had a theme, but instead featured a profiled band, along with a mix of various favorite songs from classic rock and punk, folk and new wave, alternative rock and golden oldies. Some of those S-25 Mixes highlighted bands like The Strokes, The Clash, The Decemberists and Beach House. But for right now, it’s all about cars.
This single from Paul McCartney followed not long after The Beatles announced to the world that they would be disbanding. As he apparently felt about many of the songs on RAM, John Lennon is said to have believed the protagnonists’ lines: “We believe that we can’t be wrong” in “The Back Seat of My Car” were directed by McCartney at him and Yoko Ono. The song peaked at No. 39 on the U.K. charts.
Blake Mills, one of LA's most in-demand session guitarists, released his brilliant debut LP, Break Mirrors, in 2010. He has collaborated with Band of Horses, Julian Casablancas, and Andrew Bird.
By Maxwell Silver
Without love, who would we be? The greatest human aspiration, and our most important asset, is arguably not money or power, but in fact, love. People of great power and wealth do not necessarily find love, and we know that love cannot be bought and sold. Our troubled world needs as much love as it can get.
In a week in which the world witnessed the liberation of 80 million Egyptians, achieved by the mainly non-violent protests of millions of people, a love of country, and a yearning for the sweetness of democracy, it’s safe to say that the forces of love, and of good, conquered the forces of evil and hate. In Tahrir Square, Christian Egyptians protected their Muslim neighbors during prayers, and vice versa. Now, a country in the cradle of civilization, a culture of 7,000 years old, begins the difficult, but necessary work of creating a democratic government, and a life free of tyranny and full of promise.
With Tunisia leading the way, the people of Egypt have triumphantly unseated a corrupt and brutal regime that lasted decades. The first social media revolution, or as Google’s Wael Ghonim called it, “Revolution 2.0,” of the new century is now spreading to Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, Algeria and other countries. Across the Middle East, an entire generation, 65% who are under the age of 30, are standing up to take control of their futures and breaking the chains of oppression that have kept them from fulfilling their natural born rights to life, liberty and happiness.
Note: There were so many other songs that we wanted to include in this mix. So, check back tomorrow because we’re going to publish them in our special Valentines mix.
Note No. 2:Last week there was no Sunday 25 Mix for a variety of reasons. One reason was the fact that much time was put into sifting through a pile of songs for the latest Fresh Tracks mix, one that people seemed to like quite a bit. Another Fresh Tracks mix will be out later this week.
Egyptian demonstrators in a fog of fire smoke and U.S. supplied tear gas
Due to the unprecedented demonstrations and protests in Egypt, this week we are dedicating the Sunday 25 Songs mix to the people of Egypt. All songs in today’s mix have some kind of relevance to the events in Egypt over the past five days. Therefore, we have songs about Egypt, peace, violence, democracy, the people, cities and figures of the ancient land. We can only hope that there is a peaceful transition from the 30 year dictatorship of Egypt to a new, open and democratic society.
Over the past few days, demonstrations have sprung up in Cairo, Alexandria (Egypt’s capital), Memphis and Suez, among others. Sadly, there are many reports of protesters being beaten, jailed, tortured, and murdered. (continue reading)
Note:Regardless of lyrics in some of these songs, we wish only a peaceful transition to democracy for the Egyptian people. As freedom lovers, we’re all for peace and freedom throughout the world. The youth of Egypt, and many other countries, deserve a better future than life under a brutal regime and murderous secret police organizations.
*Note: Please visit all the site’s that contributed tracks to this playlist
“Power to the People” – John Lennon
“Get Up, Stand Up (For Your Rights)” – Bob Marley
“All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace!” – Sufjan Stevens
The stakes are high in Egypt for the nation’s citizens, Israel, the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy. Two-thirds of the citizenry are under the age of 30, but it remains one of the poorest countries in the Middle East. The events that occurred in Tunisia are having a ripple effect across the region, with reported demonstrations in Algiers, Jordan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia.
Across the Middle East, a generation of young people under the age of 30 are standing up against the dictators that have for decades been oppressing – often in violation to human rights treaties – millions of people and denying their people the most basic rights we often take for granted. It is not crazy to wonder, that in coming weeks, young people may begin to rise up across the Middle East, from Egypt to Yemen, and Jordan to Iran. The consequences could have a disastrous effect on the United States, especially in regards to keeping Iran subdued, Israel safe from attacks, a broader Middle East instability, and of course, the price of gas.
The U.S. government has two major strategic concerns in Egypt, the replacement of the Mubarak regime with a government not friendly to the United States and the disruption of oil coming from the Suez Canal. America’s addiction to oil not only is threatening the future of the country, but it forces us as a country to make friends with, and give aid to, regimes like Mubarak’s. But Americans need to stand up and support for elections and a democratic government in Egypt, and hope that such a movement sweeps across the Middle East with the least amount of bloodshed. However, there is very little possibility that large scale democratic movements in the region will be successful without massive cost of life. As Americans, we believe that we have the responsibility to advocate and support democratic movements in the Middle East because it is central to our own future.
It’s Sunday, and that means it’s time for the Sunday 25 playlist. In case you are new to The Sunday 25 Songs (S-25) mix, each week we put together 25 songs we love from any genre and any time period; a chance for us to take a break once a week from bringing you the best new indie rock songs, bands, albums and live events.
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At the core of the S-25 mix is the band profile, in which we feature a band we love (and hope our readers do/will as well). In addition to a general overview of the featured band’s members, first big breaks, best songs and albums, influence on music, etc., we also include five to seven songs from their discography in the weekly S-25 mix. Today’s featured band is The Clash.
The Clash remain as one of the most influential and popular rock bands in British music history, and they were, for all intents and purposes, the first high-profile to combine ska, punk, rock pop and reggae into their songs, giving the band a unique identity in the annals of pop music.
“Train In Vain” – The Clash from London Calling (1979)
With unforgettable hit songs like “Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Rock The Casbah,” The Clash swayed in between underground music and the mainstream (especially in the U.K.), while staying true to their roots. Every day, new Clash fans from around the world are discovering the band’s music for the first time; whether it’s a 14 year old boy in Birmingham, U.K. playing his Dad’s old Clash vinyl records or a Mom with two kids in Des Moines, Iowa discovering the band for the first time listening to classic rock radio station, The Clash are definitely in the Top 100 Best Bands Ever, and for good reason.
The many different ways that music lovers are discovering The Clash is interesting, but if you really want interesting, and you enjoy the five Clash songs in this mix, we strongly recommend these Clash LPs: their self-titled debut (1977); Give ‘Em Enough Rope (1978); London Calling (1979).
In London during the late 1970s and early 1980s, The Clash, in many ways, would eventually surpass The Sex Pistols as the U.K.’s most popular punk rock band. Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote in the All Music Guide: “Where The Pistols were nihilistic, The Clash were fiery and idealistic, charged with righteousness and a leftist political ideology. From the outset, the band was more musically adventurous, expanding its hard rock & roll with reggae, dub, and rockabilly among other roots musics.
Furthermore, they were blessed with two exceptional songwriters in Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, each with a distinctive voice and style. The Clash copped heavily from classic outlaw imagery, positioning themselves as rebels with a cause.”
Joe Strummer and Mick Jones were the heart of The Clash during their glory years (1977-1982). Even after they finally broke through in America in 1982 with the release, and success, of Combat Rock, the band began to implode only months later. Despite line-up changes, worldwide tours, heavy promotion, and stops and starts, The Clash officially disbanded in 1986. But, we still have their awesome albums to play for the rest of our lives.
“Should I Stay Or Should I Go” – The Clash from Combat Rock (1982)
“Weird Divide” – The Shins from Oh Inverted World (2005)
“For Agent 13” – The Besnard Lakes from The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse (2007)
Winter is a drag for most people – less daylight, cold, snow, ice, rain, sleet, higher electric and gas bills, and depending on where you live, freezing temperatures that keep millions of people confided to their homes. Oh yeah, and transportation. Big storms like the one that hit the east coast the day after Christmas crippled major cities like New York, and in many other regions from the southern and the mid-Atlantic states, all the way up to northern New England and Canada. Under a foot or more snow, many streets in the nation’s largest city were impassible for days, and it caused all kinds of problems and outrage from the city’s news press and residents.
Tens of thousands of travelers were stranded in airports all along the east coast the day after Christmas, as the storm moved up the coastline from the south and mid-Atlantic, dropping large amounts of snow in white-out conditions from Philadelphia and Newark to Boston and Bangor. The day before, in southern states like Georgia and Florida, people accustomed to balmy winter temperatures suffered through days, and particularly nights, of freezing temperatures, in some areas breaking 100-year-old record lows. Atlanta, Georgia had a white Christmas.
On the west coast, from Seattle and Portland, to San Francisco and Los Angeles, a line-up of gigantic, powerful storms kept coming westward off the Pacific Ocean, like a conveyor belt of rain systems, for an entireweek, causing widespread flooding, mudslides, power outages and downed trees. At the higher elevations of the state, like the Sierra-Nevadas, three feet and more of fresh powder had fallen – hazardous conditions for drivers, but fantastic conditions for ski slopes. Plus, the mid-west and Canada got hit too as the video below shows.
A video collage of great photos taken in and around NYC during and after the Blizzard of 2010 basically shut down “the city that never sleeps.” Instead of the song used in the video, Frank Sinatra‘s “New York”, we opted for Bruce Springsteen‘s “10th Avenue Freeze Out.” Just put the video audio on mute and click the song below at the same time you start the video. Or do the same with one of the 24 awesome indie winter related songs below.
“Tenth Avenue Freeze Out” – Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band from Born to Run (1975)
There’s no question that the second half of December was one of the most eventful for storms across the nation. And there’s still something like 10 weeks of winter to go. But the trend is definitely heading in the right direction: the number of daylight hours are now getting longer than shorter, we’re in the second week of January, Christmas time has past and college students are starting to make plans for spring break.
“A Cold Wind Is Gonna Blow Through Your Door” – Bill Ricchini from Tonight I Burn Brightly (2009)
More Theme-Based Playlists on IRC in 2011
With winter a reality, might as well make the best of it. With music as a coping mechanism. Therefore, this week’s Sunday 25 Songs Mix (or the ‘S-25 mix’) has a slight alteration to its regular format. Instead of featuring 25 random, but amazing, songs that we love from all eras and genres of music, we’re taking a thematic approach to this week’s S-25 Mix. And being that the winter weather has been such a huge theme in almost every part of the country in recent weeks, it only made sense to make the first S-25 thematic playlist about winter.
So we collected a bunch of relevant songs, and whittled the list down to these 25 awesome songs. Chosen first for quality, each song is either directly or indirectly related to winter, or can be reasonably construed as ‘fitting’ for a winter themed playlist.
“Winter” – The Dodos from Visiter (2008)
We’re going to do more theme-based playlists in 2011 because there was such a huge and positive response to theme-based playlist mixes that we put together and published throughout 2010, including weekly posts like Best New Releasesand Top Ten Songs, plus, very popular playlists (that are still available now) like: Summer Songs Mixes,In Dee Mail, Almost Missed Releases, What’s Hot Right Now, and many others. Just explore the site’s different sections, search for music with the search engine, stream playlists of great songs for songs uninterrupted while you do other things. Plus, we love sharing great music with people, and creating theme-based playlists are one of our (and from the statistics, yours too) favorites to put together and listen to again and again.
There are many interesting, awesome playlists and mixes of great songs in the pipeline, and will be all throughout 2011. If you are so busy (and vast majority of you are) that you need to pick just one site to find about new bands and get new songs, we’d love if you picked us; because we can promise we’ll be on top of it all year. 2011 is already looking to be another great year for indie, alternative, or whatever you want to call it, music.
Also with this week’s S-25, we are not including a band profile. We hope you enjoy the songs in this mix more than the idea itself; because when it comes right down to it, the point is if the music is good, even great. Plus, you can stream the entire playlist uninterrupted from top to bottom just by clicking on the first song, and then save your favorites to your computer or MP3 player.
Click Album Titles to Purchase
Additionally, you can purchase all album from the artists and bands in this playlist simply by clicking the album title. This will open a new window to the Amazon page for that album. We get a very small referral fee for each album sold (it’s chump change, but helps off-set some costs of servers). Nevertheless, we’ve found that people like being able to click the album title to purchase, and download, the album in a matter of a couple of minutes. So, as much as possible, we’re making it a regular feature on IRC. In fact, over the next few weeks, we’re going to have huge playlist mixes of the best music of 2010, best rarely heard songs of 2010, best debut albums, best new bands, and plenty of great new music for 2011. We hope you will take part in all of the different polls and participate in the IRC Readers’ Choice Awards posts currently running (like the Best No. 1 of 2010 poll) on the site.
“Mrs. Cold” – Kings of Convenience from Declaration of Dependence (2009)
We hope this playlist introduces you to some great ‘new’ songs that you have never heard of before, and perhaps reminders of songs you had forgotten, as well as others that you’ve always been fond of. Oh, by the way, we are not including any Christmas songs in this mix, because as some of you know, we already have the largest indie rock Christmas songs collection on the web.
“In This Home on Ice” – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (2005)
“Deep Frieze” – Chris Letcher fromDeep Frieze (2007)
“Breaking The Ice” – Mojave 3 from Breaking The Ice (2006)
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“Winter Wooskie” – Belle and Sebastian from Push Barman to Open Old Wounds (2005)
“Winter” – The Rolling Stones from Goats Head Soup (1972)
“Angel In The Snow” – Elliot Smith from New Moon (2007)
“Ice Skating At Night” – The Ocean Blue from Beneath Rhythm and Sound (2005)
“Winter’s Love” – Animal Collective from Sung Tongs (2007)
“Cold As Ice” – Atlas Sound from Let The Blind Lead Those You Can See But Cannot Feel (2008)
“Winterlight” – Roman Candle from The Wee Hours Revue (2009)
“The Cold, The Dark & The Silence” – Seawolf from Leaves in the River (2008)
“Winter” – The Fireflies from Butterscotch EP (2009)
“The Cold Part” – Modest Mouse from The Moon & Antarctica (2004)
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“Sister Winter” – Sufjan Stevens from Songs for Christmas (2006)
“Wait For The Wintertime” – Yeasayer from All Hour Cymbals (2007)
“A Jagged Gorgeous Winter” – The Main Drag from Yours As Fast as Mine
“The Price of Winter” – The Amazing Pilots from South by Southwest (2005)
“Winter Windows” – Sea Wolf from Leaves in the River (2008)
“Winter Song” – The Fairways from Permanent Vacation (2000)
“Listen to the Snow Falling” (Yoko Ono) – Thea Gilmore from Listen to the Snow Falling (2010)
Finally, we should let you know that we have a few dozen more good to fantastic winter themed tracks that we’ll probably publish to our new ‘quickies blog’ we’re experimenting with at IRC’s relatively new Indie Quickies Blog. So far, although there is still work to do, the ‘quickies’ blog seems to be something that people are enjoying as a supplement to the main Indie Rock Cafe site (which you’re on right now). We’d love to hear your Comments, so please take a moment after listening to the playlist and let us know your favorite songs from it, or even ones that we should have included, as long as the song title can reasonably be considered to have an association with wintertime.
It’s 2011, and there’s so much happening. Not only are we working on our year end lists for the best songs, albums, bands and more of 2010, but we’re also prepping Advance Spins of upcoming releases from a bunch of artists and bands, ranging from Bright Eyes, Minks, The Strokes, The Decemberists, Smith Westerns and many others. In fact, January is looking to be a blockbuster month for new indie rock releases of 2011.
If you haven’t already done so, you’ll probably want to check out the Readers’ Choice playlist and poll of the top 50 No. 1 songs from 2010 – all of which were chosen by you. Now, we’re watching this poll – as many others as well – to see what will be the Top 30, 20, 10 songs all of you pick from the top 50. Once the playlist/poll closes on Jan. 13th, we’ll announce the winners in a special edition of IRC’s Best of 2010 series.
In the meantime, another Sunday is here, and we’ve got another playlist of 25 songs that we love from all decades and genres of music over the past half century. Each Sunday, we unwind to put together a playlist of of 25 fantastic tracks that is not restricted to our usual indie rock format. Since The Sunday 25 Songs Mix (aka, The S-25) started back in November, it has received a huge and enthusiastic reception from our regular readers, and tens of thousands of weekly visitors from around the world.
As with all of the other S-25 mixes, we also profile one artist or band that has made an impression on us – and others – in recent months, or even recent years. In the first five installments, the artists featured were WireTree, The Strokes, Beach House, Oberhofer and The Tallest Man on Earth.
This Sunday were stoked to focus on the music of one of the best bands to break out of Portland‘s robust indie music scene, The Decemberists. While one could make a convincing argument that The Decemberists betrayed some of their most loyal fans when the band signed with Capitol Records in 2009 for their last album, The Hazards of Love, the fact is that the band consistently releases excellent albums full of adventurous, wonderfully crafted folk rock songs. Because of this, the band have seemed to avoid, at least for the most part, the “sell-out” label that was predictably pinned on them by some die-hard indie purists. While we are definitely huge fans of their pre-Capitol recordings, The Hazards of Love still managed to make many 2009 ‘best of’ lists in the mainstream media, and especially among blogs, from Pitchfork to IGuessImFloating.
“The Rake Song” – The Decemberists from The Hazards of Love (2009)
In September, The Decemberists opened for Neko Case, who opened for Bob Dylan at the Bumbershoot Arts and Music Festival in Seattle, WA. During their performance, Colin Meloy annouced that the band’s newest album, The King is Dead, would be released in January (the 18th to be precise) with R.E.M. member Peter Buck playing on three of the album’s tracks.
The first single from The King is Dead, “Down by the Water” has been released in advance of the album’s January 18th release via Capitol Records. So, even if The Decemberists are no longer considered “indie”, that’s OK with us. It doesn’t mean that we just cast them away because they “crossed over”. They’re still putting out great music. Plus, it’s not like they are so big that most ‘mainstream’ music listeners have heard of them, even with their repeated appearances on the popular Comedy Central show, The Colbert Report.
“Down By The Water” – The Decemberists from The King is Dead – Jan. 18th
We guess that someone could make a good argument that The Decemberists are not mainstream, but are instead trapped in between the ‘indie’ world and the ‘mainstream’ (semi-celeb) world. However, first we recommend listening to Picturesque and The Crane Wife.
To order any of the albums featured here, just click on the album title and you’ll be taken to the Amazon check out.
“It Looks Like Love” – Josh Rouse from Subtitulo (2006)
Well, the holiday is over, and people will soon be getting back to their usual schedules. As you may know, we skipped the S-25 Mix last Sunday to present New Indie Christmas Songs playlist.
Now, it’s time to return to regular programming. If you’re not familiar with this relatively new playlist series, The Sunday 25 Mix is a chance for all of us to kick-off our shoes, sit back and listen to awesome music from all eras and genres of, including, and beyond, indie music. We love the S-25 because it provides us an opportunity to share songs we’ll always love, ranging from 1960’s pop and jazz to 70’s glam rock, 1990’s alternative rock, 80s FM rock, recent indie rock, and more.
A staple of the S-25 mix series is the band profile. For each mix, we profile a band we favor. This week it’s Beach House. When the Baltimore duo of Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand emerged on music blogs like Pitchfork in 2006 as Beach House, music lovers all around the world were drawn to the duo’s dreamy, hypnotic, even haunting, sounds. The first single that launched Beach House was the eerie, but alluring, “Apple Orchard”.
“Apple Orchard” – Beach House from Beach House (2006)
Just too months following the premiere of “Apple Orchard”, as demand for more Beach House songs were hitting a feverish pitch, the duo released their eponymous debut album on Carpark Records. People just ate it up, especially in United States, Canada and Europe.
By 2008, Beach House were already one of the hottest new dream pop bands around, and the duo reinforced their position as excellent songwriters and musicians with the sophomore release, Devotion, later that year. Among others, one of the stand out tracks on Devotion was the hauntingly beautiful “Gila”.
The success of Devotion, and the growing fan base for Beach House in the U.S., Canada, Europe and other areas prompted the legendary Sub Pop Records to sign Beach House in 2009. Therefore, with all of those pieces in the right place, it was no surprise that Beach House released perhaps their best album yet, this year’s Teen Dream. Legrande’s vocals are simply intoxicating, part Nico, part Cat Power; Scally’s splendid instrumentation and song-crafting are the centerpieces which Legrande so wonderfully blends her unforgettable vocals with. Teen Dream has already made the Top Five or Top Ten of many year-end ‘best of’ lists.
So, in addition to the six-pack of tracks from Beach House, there are two dozen songs from an eclectic array of artists, genres and eras of popular music. Enjoy, and please RT, Like, Stumble and leave comments below.
“Under Pressure” – David Bowie & Queen from single (1983)
** This is a rare Paul McCartney demo tape – which seems additionally fitting since he’ll be attending the wedding – and of course the song is about love. Afterall, this is the king of silly love songs; he said so himself. “Really Love You” is a real jam if there ever was one, and as McCartney explains in the intro, he just started out with a simple one-two bass line and became something bigger. 
