TVD's Idelic Hour with Jon Sidel

Greetings from Laurel Canyon!

As many of you may or may not know, The Idelic Hour comes beaming to you directly from my garage nestled above the legendary Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles. It's these beautiful and enchanting canyons of LA that are the inspiration for this week's Idelic Hour playlist.

As I look at the cover art of Joni Mitchell's 1970 release "Ladies of The Canyon," a pedigree of Californian artistry and songs come to mind more than our funky, bohemian neighborhood. Recently I've been posting segments of the super inspirational BBC documentary "Hotel California From Byrds to The Eagles" on my idleicsounds.com page as it feels like the spirit of the late 60's canyon scene has had a reemergence up here in the last couple years.



I have no problem laying claim to being at the very center of this revival. Bands have been piling in and out this garage for more than ten years. A couple of years ago I bumped into Alex Ebert wandering around the famous Zappa residence. It was on that afternoon he invited me into the pad across the street where he was recording and conceiving his new band Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros.

Now we in the "canyons" boast new comers like the "Zappa-esque" Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, The Mamas & Papas-like Best Coast, as well as groovy new harmonies from Local Natives, Jamie Drake, Harper Simon and Coconut Records.

So take and hour and join us.


The Idelic Hit of the Week:




xosidealer
idelicsounds.com | @sidelic

TVD Fresh Track | New from The Caribbean

Our friends The Caribbean return in a big way in 2011 with a brand new release on Hometapes. "Discontinued Perfume" is out on February 22 and we've got the first track "Mr. Let's Find Out" below for your listening and right-clicking enjoyment.

To put "Discontinued Perfume" in the context of The Caribbean's previous work, and hopefully introduce the band to some new listeners, Hometapes and the band created a retrospective compilation for free download. It's called "Make the Day Out of Range" and it draws from The Caribbean's recordings between 2000-2008. It's available right here.

TVD Takeover | Carol Bui

It's our 5th and last day with Carol Bui who has spent the entire week with us sharing music from her own collection that has informed her upcoming 2011 release, Red Ship, out on her own Ex Oh Records

Carol returns to DC next Wednesday at the Black Cat for a bit of a homecoming show, and you can grab some free tickets to see her live—on us! Til then, Carol has one last one for ya.


Fairuz - Oudak Rannan | Fairuz is from Lebanon and arguably the most popular singer in the Middle East today. She has been around for decades and enjoyed great success after collaborating with her son, Ziad Rahbani, an influential composer and producer.


'Oudak Rannan' is a traditional song and it translates roughly to 'The Banging of the Lute.' This was one of the first songs I heard when I first looked her up and it continues to be the most memorable for me. Before I knew anything about it, I thought it sounded rather dark and menacing, probably because of the slap bass in contrast to the yelping and her full soprano voice.



At the end there are loud, random drum hits that I originally thought sounded like gun shots and my reaction was 'wow this is so bad ass for such an old school singer'! Then I looked up the lyrics and turns out it's just a celebration of the oud, the arabic version of the lute.

It's a foot stomping, celebration kind of song, with a heavy debke (national dance of Lebanon) beat. Love it. It was a huge inspiration for the first song I recorded for Red Ship. "Mira: You're Free With Me."