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1. BØRNS picks “Look Though My Window” by the Mamas & the Papas
Every week we ask one artist that we love to tell us about one song that they love. This week we are here with BØRNS.
Justin Barney: Garrett Borns, what is one song you can’t stop listening to?
BØRNS: There’s a Mama’s & the Papas record, and there’s this one song,
*Starts signing* “Look through my window out to the streets below/ See the people hurrying by”
Yeah, it’s very calming. All these songs could almost be like souped up lullabies. They always start off like, *Starts singing again* and it’s just like a lullaby and then all of a sudded it’s like DA-DAAA-DAAA-DAAA-DAAAAAAAA. And you’re like ‘Oh sh*t, I was just falling asleep, but, okay, guess everyone’s here to party.”
- “Look Though My Window” was released in 1967 on the album, “The Mama’s and the Papa’s Deliver.”
- Listen if you like: souped up lullabies, San Francisco in the late 60s, BORNS
2. Car Seat Headrest – “Fill In the Blank”
Now this album has been out for a minute, but I didn’t really get to listen to the full album. Matador, the record label, pressed 10,000 of them, and as they were ready to ship and sell they were threatened with a lawsuit over an unlicensed Ric Ocasek sample somewhere in the album, and the label had to physically burn the entire stockpile and put orders in for new ones.
So if you are a hunched back mouth breather like myself, checking into your local shellac seller every couple days, studying the new releases on the wall, “Teens of Denial” didn’t show up until last week, at which point I promptly purchased it and it’s been glued to my turn table since.
I’m obsessed with this record. Will Toledo is Leonard Cohen plugged in, dryly lobbing a lifetime worth of wisdom as if an old sage somehow found himself in a 24 year old’s body. Toledo’s got a lot to say and it seems as if he needs to say it all in every song, many of them between the 5 and 10 minute mark. Like a good book it’s hard to put down and in need of careful attention to detail and frequent re-reading, “Teens of Denial” is a piece of art in a sea of content.
- Car Seat Headrest’s album, “Teens of Denial” is out now, and finally in physical form via Matador Records.
- Listen if you like: Smart commentary, classic rock song structure, Pavement
2. Kari Faux – “Fantasy”
The song “Black Coffee” by Peggy Lee is one of my favorites. It’s so cool. Recorded in 1956 when jazz was at its coolest. But it’s got these lyrics that are not so cool, “A woman’s born to weep and fret. To stay at home and tend her oven. And drown her past regrets in coffee and cigarettes.” In this song she’s some man’s fantasy. At home all day, waiting for him to come home. But she is miserable, and bored.
Kari Faux new song is “Black Coffee” in 2016, musically, but lyrically she turns the song on its head. She’s no man’s fantasy and she never plans to be.
- Kari Faux new album, “Lost En Los Angeles,” is out now.
- Listen if you like: Peggy Lee, jazz in a new generation, Jamila Woods
3. Modern Baseball – “Everyday”
I’m into the fan culture of the band Modern Baseball. Modern Baseball is the kind of band that people live for. I guarantee there is some sixteen-year-old kid out there who had his friend prison tat lyrics to a Modern Baseball song on a calf half drunkenly in a basement somewhere. Go to a show and the kids in the front row will know every lyric of the set before they even leave the lead singer’s mouth, and they’ll sing them with more passion too. Modern Baseball has more cult status than Father Yod. This band is an identity. Their fan’s sub-culture rivals that of any group that goes beyond listening to music, and starts living it.
- Modern Baseball’s new album, Holy Ghost” is out now via Run For Cover Records.
- Listen if you like: The Front Bottoms, Pup, Pity Sex
3. Adia Victoria picks “Dollars and Cents” by Radiohead
This week we have TWO of our favorite artists telling us about music they love. Here we ask Adia Victoria.
Justin Barney: Adia Victoria, what is one song you can’t stop listening to?
Adia Vicoria: I am a huge Radiohead fan and I’ve gone back and listened to “Amnesiac” and the one song I really can’t stop listening to is “Dollars and Cents.”
Justin Barney: Why that song?
Adia Victoria: I think just getting into the music industry. Monetizing your art can have really harrowing effects on the artist. Unless it’s just your thing. But I feel like it’s a really cautionary tale by Thom Yorke about “Hey man! This stuff is real!” So he’s like my big brother.
Justin Barney: What are some difficulties you’ve had with that?
Adia Victoria: I mean, as a woman people think they can take the liberty of telling you like, “Hey you should look this way. You should wear this or wear that. And I had some issues with a certain person on my team, who is no longer on my team, who thought that they had the right to tell me what to wear on stage. And I was like, “We now have a huge problem between us.” So I think for me any time someone comes and tells me how to appeal to more people I’m just like, “Ya gotta get out of here. You gotta go.”
Justin Barney: Yeah, because we want you. I feel like that never works when someone else comes in and tells you what works, because we want you as an artist and that’s what is going to come through.
Adia Victoria: Right, well you give up so much control when you allow people to start playing those games with you because your sense of value and worth is predicated upon other people approving of you. So that’s a very dangerous game for me personally and I can’t do it. I will refuse. If it comes down to that I will just go back to my regular life in Nashville and “This was fun, okay bye.”
- “Dollars and Cents” was released in 2001 on the album, “Amnesiac.”
- Listen if you like: not-selling out, staying true, Adia Victoria
4. Jennifer Hall – “Beverly Drive”
Justin Barney: I’m here with our very own Ken Sumka.
Ken Sumka: Hey Justin.
Justin Barney: Hey Ken. What’s one song you can’t stop listening to?
Ken Sumka: You know, this gal Jennifer Hall. She’s from Chicago, I’ve known her a number of years, she does the National Anthem at Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park a couple times a year, so she’s got the pipes. She’s also become a road warrior. She’s on the road all of the time. She was part of our Emerging Artist Series at Summerfest. And she just has this powerhouse voice.
Justin Barney: So what’s the song?
Ken Sumka: The song is called “Beverly Road.”
Justin Barney: As someone who has never heard “Beverly Road” what does it sound like?
Ken Sumka: You know it’s got these swells and this orchestration in it, and it doesn’t really fit into the wheelhouse of stuff I usually listen to, but when she sent me this record I just couldn’t stop listening to it. And I’m not saying that because I’m on this segment! *laughs* I just kept listening to it over, and over, and over, it’s just so powerful. Live, while I was watching her on the stage at Summerfest people were coming up to me, knowing that I knew her, and were like, “This woman has an amazing voice.” And I was like, “I know!”
I just want the world to know about it. So hopefully we will do our little part to raise awareness for Jennifer Hall. Shout it from the rooftops!
- Jennifer Hall’s new album, “Jennifer Hall EP” is available now on bandcamp.
- Listen if you like: Sharon Van Etten, My Brightest Diamond, a powerhouse voice
4. LVL Up – “Pain”
What is the guitar solo in 2016? I think that guitar solos can be cheesy and self-gratifying. I’ve never really been into them, until recently. I’ve found myself loving them. I think it’s because guitars are no longer ubiquitous and guitar solos aren’t the end-all-be-all in music. Nor are they shows of technical perfection. Pay attention to the guitar solos in this song. They are super loose and kind of lazy. It’s a comma, not an exclamation point. They are there to remind you that they are fun and they add to the understanding of the message of the song.
- LVL UP’s new album, “Return to Love” will be out on September 23rd.
- Listen if you like: great guitar solos, classic indie stuff, fuzzy guitars and distortion
5. Clams Casino feat. Samuel T. Herring– “Ghost in a kiss”
I love the band Future Islands. But I’ve always thought that the real star of that show is lead singer, Samuel Herring. His voice, charisma, and his whole kind of “thing” is the star and the music accompanying it is just a vehicle for Samuel Herring’s voice.
I’ve preferred his voice being backed by BADBADNOTGOOD, or soddled up next to Milwaukee’s Milo, or riding a Madlib beat.
But it’s here that it has truly found its place. The power of Sam Herring’s voice is the power itself. You can almost see the brimstone burning in those lungs. It’s that of Virgil, guiding Dante down through the nine circles of hell into center of hell itself for council with Lucifer. It’s dark, it’s haunting and cinematic. Sam Herring has found his place.
- Clam’s Casino’s new album, “32 Levels” is out now on Columbia Records.
- Listen if you like: music from hell, BADBADNOTGOOD, Future Islands
5. Jonwayne – “Wonka”
Justin Barney: I’m here with our intern Eddie, AKA Fast Eddie. Eddie you have been haranguing me about playing one artist and a song in particular. Could you tell me what is the song and artist you can’t stop listening to?
Eddie: First of all the artist is Jonwayne. And the song that I really want to listen to is “Wonka”
Justin Barney: Why Wonka?
Eddie: So basically the little history is that Jonwayne was allegedly retired. He put out an album saying that Jonwayne is retired so he hadn’t talked to anyone in like two years, and then all of a sudden he comes out of nowhere at the beginning of the summer with “Wonka” which is the single. And “Wonka” is basically an ode to the new Jonwayne, and kind of a scathing review of everyone who doubted him. It’s like a diss-track but in like a really powerful way.
Justin Barney: Like an affirmative diss-track?
Eddie: It’s an affirmative diss-track, but in his own manner. He did an interview right before he dipped out on the public and he was like, “I hate rap. I hate hip-hop. I’m not rap. I’m not hip-hop. I’m my own person. I’m a musician and I don’t care about what you want to say about me. I’m here doing this self-gratifying level of music, and if you’re gonna disrespect me for being a hip-hop artist I don’t care because I’m not a hip-hop artist. I’m a musician.”
And I love that.
- Jonwayne’s single “Wonka” is out now.
- Listen if you like: MF DOOM, dogma rap, affirmative diss-tracks
