Getting in a “now playing” post early-on in the month for a change! Check out Mr. “Pro-active” 🙂
- Silversun Pickups, “Swoon”
- Brand new release from this awesome band. Not too much of a departure from their last album, but that’s a good thing. I’m really digging the track “Growing Old Is Getting Old”.
- Doves, “Kingdom of Rust”
- ‘Twas turned on to this group via some co-workers. Very good stuff! I sense a Radiohead-type vibe, which isn’t an insult at all.
- Neko Case, “Middle Cyclone”
- Recommended by a good friend with similar musical tastes (thanks, Ken!). Neko Case has Northwest roots, but an almost alt-folk-country sound – with just a touch of rock thrown in. Very enjoyable, and the album cover rules 🙂
- Sarah Masen, “Carry Us Through”
- Old-school release from the mid-90s, but still in my top-10 favorite albums of all time. Seriously. Great music, melodies, and lyrics. I enjoy this album thoroughly each and every time I listen to it.
- The Decemberists, “Hazards Of Love”
- I had heard a bit of their previous album, “The Crane Wife”, but it didn’t do much for me. “Hazards Of Love”, on the other hand, is a very pleasant surprise! Sadly, one of the best tracks on the album (“The Rake’s Song”) has some content that’s a bit much for me to take. A great album nonetheless.
Y.I.P.C.A.N.J.O 
Oh cool! You were into “Carry Us Through” too?? Awesome! I picked that one up while I was on the Doulos, so I guess that was the era that I also discovered Lu and King’s X, though I already knew of Sara’s stuff from before. I had the previous, self-titled CD that had some kind of CD ROM thing on it. But yeah, that album (I still like calling them albums) had a real unique atmosphere to it, both in the production and the songwriting, it takes me to a place… Jennifer Knapp too, wish she would resurface. Now that I look at the track listing for “Sarah Masen” I’m remembering the songs, I must’ve lost that CD a long time ago, I’ll have to find another copy, there are some really good songs on there. When I came into my true faith I spent hours at Loaves and Fishes Christian Bookstore looking for music to fill the space left by the secular music that I was trying to leave behind. (At the time I felt a conviction that I needed to do that. Probably wouldn’t hurt now either.) I think the demos you could listen to were all cassette tapes! lol Wish I had found Lu back then, that would have been 1996. Maybe I could have come up to catch the Final Performance? :o) Oh well. King’s X too, that would have been awesome to see them in their Dogman/Ear Candy era. Ty auctioned off his guitar from Dogman a few years ago, wish I had had the money to bid on it. I’m sure I must have passed some Lu stuff on the shelf somewhere. There was so much that I had no idea what it was, I don’t even know how I picked the CD’s I did to listen to at the store.
Oh man, just looked up Loaves and Fishes. They closed in 2007. :o( Well, they’d moved out of the location I loved already to a more strip mall kind of place with better traffic. Still sad for them and it was an independent store too. We have an Illinois chain of Christian bookstores that are closing here as well. :o( Bad stuff. I need to go and support the other one we still have in town…
whoops, I keep making my smiley’s/frownies with a nose and they turn out like happy screamies throwing or getting hit by a boomerang.
We (the Lu guys) were first exposed to Sarah Masen while on tour with Black Eyed Sceva. They had her self-titled album and we all dug it a lot. Soon my wife and I considered ourselves “fans” and the rest is history.
Strangley, I didn’t like “Carry Us Through” when I first heard it. Seemed too conservative at the time, but I was quickly won over. As I mentioned in the post, it’s long since been one of my favorite albums of all time! Really good stuff.
I’ve gone through a few iterations of “need better, holier music than what I listen to”. I would sell off much of my music, find some good Christian stuff, and repeat the cycle a few years later. One of the *BEST* bands I ever discovered during a “purge” cycle was Scaterd Few. In fact, their ‘Sin Disease’ album is another one of my all-time favorites.
I remember my mom being into Sarah Masen for quite a while. I never did really get into her music, but then again, I also regularly listened to the more dour/metal type music back then, so who knows?
I’ve gone back to listening to Smalltown Poets’ first album, well, at least for a couple of songs. They’re great, but a little on the… safe side, musically, ya know? It gets boring for me if I try to listen to the whole thing all the way through.
I’m really looking forward to Jeremy Enigk’s new album “OK Bear.” I’ve already heard a few of the songs, two of which are currently on his MySpace, and I can tell that it’s gonna be a good one! Seems reminiscent of his older SDRE days, somehow.
I can see how Sarah Masen would be “too mellow” for many folk, and I don’t normally listen to *that style* of music. Still, the combo of a wonderful voice, great lyrical content, and “just a bit different” musical style really captured my attention. Evidently it still does.
“I remember my mom being into Sarah Masen for quite a while.” Awesome, man. Thanks for making me feel old. 🙂
No problemo! 😉
But either way, I’ll be there one day. As a gamer, I kinda already feel like I’m there since I work at Wal*Mart’s electronics section. Some customer will ask me, for instance, if I’ve played Ninja Gaiden II. I’ll say yes, but not for the 360!… ’cause I remember playing it on the NES when it came out 17 years ago.
And yes, there was Final Fantasy before 7!!
BAH! I’ll just be waiting for the day when the kids are like “Radiohead who?” or “They Might Be what??”
As the Silversun Pickups state on their latest album, “Growing Old Is Getting Old” 🙂