Name your band Bos Angeles and call your debut track “Beach Slalom” and you might as well send Gorilla Vs. Bear a birthday cake along with your press email. But despite the band’s potentially pandering name choices, there’s no sun and surf in “Beach Slalom”: it’s a brittle piece of Joy Division-style post-punk, with real edge (that’d be the drummer) behind the of-the-moment guitar tones. It’s also shockingly excellent. There’s still time to call the next track “Garage Despair,” fellas.

Bos Angeles – “Beach Slalom”: mp3

(via Bandcamp)

I made this compilation in the 18 months or so between Elliott Smith’s last shows before his death and the studio release of From a Basement on the Hill. I love the album now, but in many ways, I still prefer these takes — given the posthumous nature of Basement, it’s nice to have at least one version that’s pure Smith. Many of these songs date back a ways. “Let’s Get Lost” was performed (and recorded) as early as February 6, 2001 and December 20, 2001, as far as I know, but I went with a 2003 version. However, the first recording of “King’s Crossing,” from October 14, 1999, is my favorite take on the song. Enjoy, and there’s much, more more on the Elliott Smith archive page. (Got a better version of one of these songs? Please send it over.)

Elliott Smith – Performances from a Basement on the Hill: ZIP

Here are a few of the tracks:

Elliott Smith – “Coast to Coast” (acoustic): mp3
Elliott Smith – “Twilight” (full band): mp3
Elliott Smith – “Memory Lane” (solo): mp3
Elliott Smith – “Fond Farewell” (solo): mp3
Elliott Smith – “Pretty (Ugly Before)” (solo): mp3

In its opening minutes, Amanda Mair’s “House” sounds more like “Breakaway”-era Kelly Clarkson than the work of a signee to Labrador, label of Rawkblog heroes the Radio Dept. But as hi-fi pop as the ballad appears, the 16-year-old singer has plenty of substantive influence: note the Johnny Marr-ish lead guitars that enter on the chorus, or the way she curves the pre-chorus melody into something tight and urgent. By the end, it’s more “Running Up That Hill” than Idol-ready; if there’s any justice out there, Mair will be a star anyway. Or at least soundtrack the next Twilight film.

Amanda Mair – “House”: mp3

(The House single arrives on Labrador on June

Things I wasn’t expecting to hear this morning: chillwave remixes of Rose Melberg’s mom-folk classic, Homemade Ship. And yet, here is Homemade Ship (Remix), six tracks re-envisioned by Melberg pal Jay Arner (of Fine Mist). The singer’s porcelain voice works extraordinarily well over synthesizers and fake hand-claps — she could’ve taken these songs on tour with ’80s Kate Bush and been a big star. Stream/download the collection after the jump for $5 and don’t sleep on the Rawkblog heroine’s other new record, Brave Irene’s s/t EP. Read the rest of this entry »

The Elliott Smith documentary Searching for Elliott Smith will screen twice in L.A., the late singer’s adopted home, this weekend. I’ve seen it; I’ll let you form your own opinions, except to say I will happily watch any film that features people talking about Elliott Smith for two hours. You can find my interview with Searching director Gil Reyes over on Brand X. The film screens at 2:30 on Saturday and 8 p.m. on Sunday at the Hayworth Theater at the Los Angeles New Wave International Film Festival. Not that you need more incentive, but Jennifer Chiba, Elliott Smith’s girlfriend at the time of his strange death, is scheduled to join the screenings for Q&As.

For those not completely obsessed with Smith’s music, I’ve made a little introduction mixtape. For those who are, correctly, devoted to the best songwriter of his generation, you can comb through my attempts at gathering his rare/live stuff on the Elliott Smith archive page.

Elliott  Smith – “Angel in the Snow”: mp3

Wake Up Lucid, purveyors of clear-eyed, flannel-clad garage rock, were one of my recent picks for L.A. Unheard, my local music column over at Brand X. Here’s “Sugar,” the band’s anthem for a scorned lover and one of this year’s best guitar efforts.

Wake Up Lucid – “Sugar”: mp3

(The Sugar EP is out now; photo credit: Dominick Camera)

Most bands with guy-girl front-duos tend to improve when the guy stops singing: take Asobi Seksu or Camera Obscura. (The exceptions to the rule are generally Best Band Ever expectation-defiers like Yo La Tengo or, uh, the Velvet Underground.) On Elephant Parade’s Home, however, Estelle and Ido (who don’t list their surnames on FayBoo) share their duties with equal aplomb.

We hear Estelle’s first, on the album’s title track, and it arrives with breathy, waifish charm — Tracyanne Campbell in an East Village apartment. Ido’s tone is less pretty but no less affecting, as gravelly and sad as a wet dog dragged through a quarry on the pointedly titled “Happy.” Estelle matches his suicide-hotline readiness on the picked guitar ballad “Haystacks,” but a number of upbeat moments balance out the early ’00s Bright Eyes vibes: the title track bursts into a mini-Elephant 6 horn crescendo; “Crazy BF” borrows Postal Service synthesizers (and Ben Gibbard lyrical themes, though it’s a kinder, gentler heart possession); not to mention the ringing major chords and fine harmonies (!) of “Broken Fridge that Hums.”

You won’t make it through the record without a healthy tolerance for spare bedroom downers (two thumbs, this guy, etc.), but Elephant Parade offer a refreshingly capable spin on homemade sad-pop and sunnier efforts alike. Oh, and that battle of the sexes? Mission accomplished.

Elephant Parade – “Crazy BF”: mp3

Stream and buy the album after the jump via Bandcamp.  Read the rest of this entry »

The new song from Herman Dune’s upcoming album, Strange Moosic, is, yes, a Herman Dune song: an easy melody and a familiar phrase for a chorus, underlined by thoughtful verses, bittersweet humor and chugging guitar chords. As usual, it’s very good. Even better is the accompanying video, which features an adorable yeti puppet-thing and Rawkblog hero/handsome man Jon Hamm being his charm-radiating self. (Via TwentyFourBit)

Previously: More Herman Dune