volume 11….coming soon!

…first, let’s start (again) with a little reminder, both for email subscribers and direct blog readers (where DID you stumble in from?): all the eddieo compilation CDs, dating back to Summer 2004, are here on the site for your listening and downloading pleasure. You can even podcast them, as I myself did with Rick Corson’s “Scrod” (also here on the site), which allows me to simply select it from among the other podcasts in my iTunes and play away. So, feel free to scroll down (way down), and you’ll find volumes 1-10.

Okay; commercial over! Volume 11, in the works, thanks to a couple of inspirational new tracks I’ve recently learned about (from reading other, better blogs!). First up, White Lies, and their song “Death“, which I learned of from dany at Exitfare (even NME steals from him!)

This UK trio, currently touring with Crystal Castles (they’re down below somewhere too), have just enough reverence for the fabulous eighties but also plenty of fresh attitude. I can be a little trigger happy with the tonearm, and I almost bailed on this one at 30 seconds. From 0:33 to about 1:00 it was mildly intriguing, than it smacked me around a bit, the way I like. This is the kind of song I like to listen to about twenty times in a row, to temper my infatuation. Listen, contemplate, feedback if you like.

Duffy serves as proof that there’s more to Britain’s retro soul fascination than just Amy Winehouse. As MixTape Maestro said in January, last year we all sang along “no, no, no” and this year we’ll be singing “yeah, yeah, yeah”, the infectious hook from her new song “Mercy”, added to Indie 103.1 just 3 weeks ago. Admittedly a bit easier on the eyes than my girl Amy:

…you won’t be surprised by the Dusty Springfield influence, which I found a very welcome element. Check out her MySpace, or click here:

“Not Nineteen Forever”, by Manchester (UK)’s The Courteeners was a little slow to win me over, but it’s in big rotation on BBC1, BBC6, and XFM, so it wore me down, and I’m glad it did. The guys have all been friends since they were ten years old, which, from the look of them, was a few hours ago.

As always, check the MySpace for some tastes, but the hit’s not there, at least not yet. Play it by clicking below.

There’ll also be some familiar names on 11 as well, with newish releases from Hard Fi and The Kooks, that great Nada Surf tune in the SXSW post, and some stuff I’m still unearthing…….more on that soon. Rock on.

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Mr. Know-it-all wrong again!

First, a little reminder/heads-up to email subscribers to this site: the email you get may not have all the mp3 players and links that are in the post. If you see something in the email you’re interested in, you may want to click on the ‘dj eddieo’ link at the top or bottom of the email and go directly to the website.

Now, on to my mea culpa…..when the Apple Mac Airbook commercials first aired (you know, the ones with the super-slim laptop in the manila envelope), we all loved the song “New Soul”:

I’m a new soul
I came to this strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit bout how to give and take
But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear
Finding myself making every possible mistake

I immediately identified it as Feist, which, of course, allows me to revel in having “discovered” her (see eddieo compilation vol 9, below). Leave it to G to second guess Dad! Turns out it’s Paris-born, Israeli singer/songwriter Yael Naim.

Play the mp3, above, or the video, below:

VIDEO

About a month ago, I was listening to XFM or BBC-6, I forget which, and scribbled notes all over my telephone bill (that’s how I know it was a month ago; it’s last month’s bill). The Ting Tings were the #2 hottest act that day or week (#1 was Vampire Weekend), and that was before the recent SXSW buzz. Kind of a bizarro-world White Stripes: he drums, she sings; they’re dance/pop, not rock; who knows if they’ll have the legs the White Strpes have, but they’re a lot of fun, especially for summer.

The hot cut is “Great DJ” (all deejays love songs that mention deejays), and you can hear the perfectly tasty original version on their MySpace page, or click below for a cool remix by Calvin Harris.

Maybe you want the video as well.

Another great UK band I scribbled about that day is Pete and The Pirates (free download at the website), whose song “Mr. Understanding” I heard that day.

This is another of those bands that doesn’t have any US dates on the horizon, so it may be a while before mainstream outlets take notice, but I believe they’re likely to catch on here.

Pete and The Pirates

Finally, The Enemy. The cut I heard was “This Song”, which you can find, along with a handful of others, on Sideload, a cool listening/sharing site I like. Of course there’s also their MySpace and website. Look for more ink on them soon.

The Enemy

Charlatans, Bauhaus: back? no, never left!

Back around 1990 or so, alternative was swept up in the hippy, drippy, “Manchester sound”, for what now seems like about five minutes. I remember making a mix tape (cassette!) with Soho’s “Hippy Chick”, Stone Roses’ “Fool’s Gold”, and, of course, The Charlatans’ “The Only One I Know”, among others. When I first heard that The Charlatans are back on the charts in the UK, I assumed they had recently reunited after years of rust, but no, they’ve never stopped. Personally, I’m less interested in bands with members that are my age, but I know that many of you out there don’t suffer from such blatant ageism, so look below for links to their MySpace and free downloads.

The Charlatans (UK, to us in the US), 2008

Here are the clicks:

MySpace; Download the songs; Download the whole album; Enter to win a rare white vinyl copy

Bauhaus, whose fifteen minutes was even longer ago, also never stopped, though they famously separated into Peter Murphy and Love and Rockets (hey, I know you know…..you don’t come here to get educated, just entertained). The new album, Go Away White, is billed as their last, and is already charting in the UK. Alas, they’re not giving anything away (though there was a free toothy face beer glass with a pre-order of the CD from Newbury Comics, but we missed that; sorry). Check out their (kinda cool) website for the story about how they invented Goth, and visit their MySpace to preview some new songs and re-hear some old. If you can’t tell the difference, is that a good thing or a bad one? For me, here’s all the Bauhaus I need (and I do need it):

Bauhaus, 2008