TVD's Daily Wax | Pride Tiger "The Lucky Ones"

Their PR firm was scouring The Hype Machine for blogs that post about Thin Lizzy, and no surprise, TVD came up. A lot. And I wrote the guy back in about a minute after hearing the twin guitar attack and those vocals...

"Pride Tiger finds Matt Wood, Sunny Dhak, Bob Froese and Mike Payette coming together to produce a hook-laden, vintage rock album. On "The Lucky Ones", produced, engineered and mixed by Matt Hyde (Slayer, Monster Magnet, Fu Manchu), they weave Wood's vocals and Dhaks' guitar lines with ease, resulting in 13 exhilarating songs that range from the bluesy wail of "A New Jones" to the heart-pumping stomp of "Let 'Em Go." And this year Pride Tiger's "The Lucky Ones" was nominated for the Canadian Best Rock Album Juno Award. ...When I put on this Pride Tiger album for the first time it was 1976 for me all over again. They really do channel the spirit of the late Phil Lynott. These riffs, these drums and these vocals are truly from a simpler time when gas prices were high and so were our older brothers and sisters."

And for the record (ahem...) they sent me a promo copy -- on vinyl.

Pride Tiger - Let 'em Go (Mp3)
Pride Tiger - Fill Me In (Mp3)
Pride Tiger - The Lucky Ones (Mp3)
Pride Tiger - Forget Everything (Mp3)
Pride Tiger - A New Jones (Mp3)

TVD's Weekend Shots

I met Spike, your DJ for this weekend's Tenacious Ten, when I was 3 and he was 4. Spike tells this rather lucid story about how he peered over the redwood fence that separated our backyards and there was wee TVD, mashing blueberries into a Frisbee. Spike's my brother from a different set of parents -- and being adopted myself, it ain't a stretch. We grew up together, went to the same university here in DC, and even though he's lived in New York City with his lovely wife and gorgeous daughters going on 16 years now, (Spike, am I right...that long?) ...he's got some Friday tunes for the D of C. Now, if you'll forgive me, I've got some blueberries and a Frisbee to attend to. Take it away, Spike:

"I was fortunate this year to catch two shows during the Brooklyn Next series of concerts. Brooklyn Next highlights the innovation and diversity of the Brooklyn's music scene with two weekends packed with shows all over the borough. More so, the series made me realize how many bands in my music collection are Brooklyn based. So I present to you a sampling of some music made in the borough."

National - Apartment Story (Mp3)
National - Fake Empire (Mp3)
Bravery - Believe (Mp3)
Citizen Cope - Brother Lee (Mp3)
Ambulance LTD - Heavy Lifting (Mp3)
Ambulance LTD - Stay Where You Are (Mp3)
TV on the Radio - Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes (Mp3)
Sufjan Stevens - Chicago (Mp3)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth (Mp3)
Oneida - High Life (Mp3)

This is your Friday Forum, TVD reader. Ten tunes and a tale to tell?

Fashion advice from a music blog?

Indeed. Perfect for the church social, a business meeting, book club, the walk to work, or simply sunning yourself on the beach -- creepers. (And they're unisex!)

TVD: your friend in the street.
Ramones - Sheena is a Punk Rocker (Mp3)
Sex Pistols - EMI (Mp3)
Damned - Love Song (Mp3)

TVD | Friday @ Random

Johnny Carson. Merv. Mike Douglas. They all had them. Joan Rivers for Johnny (before the falling out, of course.) Totie Fields on Merv Griffin. Sammy Davis, Jr. in the afternoon for Mike. Heck, that's how Lettermen and Leno got their start.

Y'know, very early on in I had a few tips from the sorely missed Retro Music Snob. He said, "Kid... update daily. Give 'em a reason to come back. Make it exciting and thoughtful -- just don't make it a JOB." Which is a roundabout way of saying, "MAN, we were coasting this week, huh?" See, I think I missed my calling - I shoulda' been in radio, because each morning pondering posts for the day, I just wish I could flick the ON switch to a live mike instead of pushing pixels toward particular portions of a playlist. And there'd be no spell check either. Or syntax errors.

So, yea -- cohosts. Someone to guffaw next to Ed McMahon and take the reigns for a week. I'm dead serious. Think you could pull it off while I slather on the tanning butter in sunny Barbados? I'll hand ya' the keys to TVD HQ. (It's ok, I trust you.) Got it in ya? Be in touch because I'll be...right. Here.

Hand picked for your Friday Cube Dancing:
Adrian Borland - Lonely Late Nighter (Mp3)
Nilsson - City Life (Mp3)
Robert Palmer - Johnny And Mary (Mp3)
Modern English - Blue Waves (Mp3)
It's Immaterial - Summer Winds (Mp3)

TVD's Daily Wax | Pulp "This Is Hardcore"

Help the aged | one time they were just like you | drinking, smoking cigs and sniffing glue | Help the aged | don't just put them in a home | can't have much fun when they're all on their own | Give a hand, if you can | try and help them to unwind | Give them hope and give them comfort | cos they're running out of time | In the meantime we try | Try to forget that nothing lasts forever | No big deal so give us all a feel | Funny how it all falls away

Pulp - Help The Aged (Mp3)
Pulp - Party Hard (Mp3)
Pulp - Seductive Barry (Mp3)
Pulp - The Fear (Mp3)
Pulp - This Is Hardcore (Mp3)

TVD's Daily Wax | Manic Street Preachers "Generation Terrorists"

Find your faith in your security | All broken up at seventeen | Jam your brain with broken heroes | Love your masks and adore your stereo | We're a mess of eyeliner and spraypaint | D.I.Y. destruction on chanel chic | Deny your culture of consumption | This is a culture of destruction | Don't wanna see your face | Don't wannt hear your words | Why don't you just | Babes on the run with poisoned lips | Wrap your arms round this everlasting kiss | Clinging to your own sense of waste | All we love is lonely wreckage | Your school your dole and your chequebook dreams | Your clothes your suits and your pension schemes | Now you say you know how we feel | But don't fall in love cos we hate you still | Don't wanna see your face | Don't wannt hear your words | Why don't you just | Destroyed by madness | Destroyed by madness | Destroyed by madness | Destroyed by madness | Anxiety is freedom

Manic Street Preachers - Stay Beautiful (Mp3)
Manic Street Preachers - Democracy Coma (Mp3)
Manic Street Preachers - Motorcycle Emptiness (Mp3)
Manic Street Preachers - Little Baby Nothing (Mp3)
Manic Street Preachers - You Love Us (Mp3)

TVD's Daily Wax | Japan "Quiet Life"

Doucement, ne les derangez pas
Ilya des gens qui vive comme ca
Les artistes de demain
En desespoir agreable

Japan - Quiet Life (Mp3)
Japan - Fall In Love With Me (Mp3)
Japan - Despair (Mp3)
Japan - In Vogue (Mp3)
Japan - Alien (Mp3)

TVD's Daily Wax | Steel Pulse "True Democracy"

It's a funny thing about college...I have NO recollection of this photo being taken (circa 1986) YET I recall today's selection on constant rotation almost 24/7. And yea...where do the time--and styling products--go?

Steel Pulse - Chant A Psalm (Mp3)
Steel Pulse - Leggo Beast (Mp3)
Steel Pulse - Man No Sober (Mp3)
Steel Pulse - Ravers (Mp3)
Steel Pulse - Your House (Mp3)

So, there's like...an event coming up or something?

We never hear anything.

I Need That Record!

“I Need That Record” is a documentary feature examining why over 3000 independent record stores have closed across the U.S. in the past decade. Are they going to die off? Will they survive?

Record stores serve as important community spaces that provide foundations for new musical and artistic scenes and movements, a place where unique under the radar bands have been continuously supported, a place where the underground can thrive, a place where independent thought is encouraged and challenged, a place where people of different ages, races, and taste can mix and mingle face to face. Unlike the internet, physical stores are a real place, with real people, where community is formed and supported. Not just record stores, but original mom and pop main street stores are all in a fight to stay alive. Independent businesses are hubs for new jobs, new innovations, and creative thought.

Over the past ten years it has become increasingly harder to compete with big chain businesses that have big money and Congress protecting them. The rich and powerful in business and government have thrown a wrench in the wheels of progress. American culture has become more isolated and atomized as a result of homogenous culture and thought. Businesses and establishments that make different parts of America distinct from one another are disappearing. In order to save community, ourselves, and our world what we need are independent creative places where new ideas and thought can be nurtured. Not more of the same…

Some interviews include- Ian Mackaye of Dischord Records Fugazi/Minor Threat/Teen Idles, Chris Frantz of the Talking Heads, Pat Carney of the Black Keys, Mike Watt of the Minutemen/reunited Stooges, Noam Chomsky, guitar composer Glenn Branca, punk author Legs McNeil, rock photographer Bob Gruen, Bryan Poole guitarist of Of Montreal, Numero Records, Rhino Records, Bloodshot Records, United Record Press (the largest vinyl plant in the U.S.), and many many many indie stores across the U.S. (NYC, Boston, DC, Cleveland, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Minneapolis, Memphis, Nashville, L.A.). (Via thedailyswarm.com)

TVD's Weekend Shots

Music from the bus stop, cigarettes, pinball, a buttered bagel, and the Aquarian.

Todd Rundgren - Couldn't I Just Tell You? (Mp3)
Rolling Stones - Can't You Hear Me Knocking (Mp3)
Alice Cooper - No More Mister Nice Guy (Mp3)
Blue Oyster Cult - Don't Fear the Reaper (Mp3)
Led Zeppelin - Fool in the Rain (Mp3)
Pat Benetar - Heart Breaker (Mp3)
Queen - I'm In Love With My Car (Mp3)
Judas Priest - Living After Midnight (Mp3)
Rainbow - Since You've Been Gone (Mp3)
ACDC - Rock And Roll Ain't Noise Pollution (Mp3)

TVD Remembers Danny Federici

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band - 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) (Mp3)
(Live, February 5, 1975 at The Main Point, Bryn Mawr, PA)

TVD | Friday @ Random

No dice...no caution to the wind. The noble Friday experiment in unchecked shuffle play whimsy has come to an end. Oh sure, sure - it was fun for about a half hour...there were the regulars (cheers whiteray!) and the copyists...ahem...but basically, I'm just bored with Bored. It'll reappear every now and again, but from here on out the TVD bully pulpit begins each Friday morning...whatever is in constant rotation, the best of the blogs, or something that simply needs to be said. And played. And shared. It's here -- Fridays @ Random.

Blanket of Secrecy - Say You Will (Mp3)
Two People - Rescue Me (Mp3)
Fiction Factory - Feels Like Heaven (Mp3)
Peter Godwin - Images of Heaven (Mp3)
The Payolas - Eyes of a Stranger [Full Version] (Mp3)

TVD's Daily Wax | The Motors "Tenement Steps"

My buddy Shark owned the Trouser Press Guide to New Wave Records (pictured below, bottom left) which ostensibly became our go-to Bible regarding all sorts of Punk/Post Punk and New Wave band and record release ephemera. This handy reference guide put to rest many an argument back in the day. Once "slippery fingers" Ben "borrowed" the Guide and man, there was hell to pay in the house. After several tense phone calls, Ben admitted he had "borrowed" the book (without asking, natch) and it was returned to me in a nondescript brown bag ala contraband. The thing was GOLD.

So, it cracks me up to think that Ira Robbins--editor of the Guide and one of the founders of Trouser Press Magazine--and I probably wouldn't...get along. In polite company, we'd be hurling insults and trash-talking each other's taste in music for certain. (And I'd welcome it, because well, I'm a reluctant fan.) Now, after yesterday's rebuke of Spacehog (a band admittedly I wouldn't go to the mat for) he offers this take on today's LP:

"The Motors effectively disbanded after (their) second album. Garvey and McMaster continued working together using the group name, eventually engaging Jimmy Iovine to produce their next album in New York. Tenement Steps, the unfortunate result of far too much time spent in the studio, is an appalling, overblown mess, reeking of self-indulgence and artistic confusion. The chorus of the best-known track, "Love and Loneliness," sounds exactly like Steve Stills' "Love the One You're With" — and that's as good as the record gets."

Well, it ain't that bad. Sure, the keyboards on "Love and Loneliness" are a bit much...yet all these years on, I'm still singing the song in the shower. And that says something, yes? (Just don't say it to Mr. Robbins.)

The Motors - Love and Loneliness (Mp3)
The Motors - Metropolis (Mp3)
The Motors - Tenement Steps (Mp3)
The Motors - Here Comes the Hustler (Mp3)
The Motors - That's What John Said (Mp3)

Tickets. We get 'em.

...and now you will too, loyal TVD reader. We're giving away two tickets courtesy of The Frontier Brothers for their show TONIGHT at Iota in Arlington, VA. Most convincing plea for these passes either in the comments section or to us directly gets 'em -- but the contest closes at 3:00EST, so get those pencils moving.

Born in space, razed in Fort Worth, and now regenerating in Austin, The Frontier Brothers have only just arrived, yet early notices are truly something for the E.T.s to phone home about. "The Frontier Brothers cover the wicked terrain between The Beach Boys and The Kinks with just a touch of mad Syd Barrett," says Vivien Goldman (BBC America). While the Fort Worth Weekly declares, "(The Frontier Brothers) have a love for the pure pleasures of music-making." Individually known as Marshall Galactic, Brett Moses, and Travis Newman, TFB craft a new breed of danceable indie-pop inspired by artists ranging from David Bowie and ELO to Wilco and Arcade Fire. However you describe them, The Frontier Brothers are simply out of this world. The trio is currently on tour recruiting more terrestrial visionaries for their intergalactic exchange program.

The Frontier Brothers - Everyones A Neutron Bomb (Mp3)
The Frontier Brothers - Space Punk Starlet (Mp3)
The Frontier Brothers - Take It For Love (Mp3)



Update: We have a winner. Thanks to everyone who wrote in.

TVD's Daily Wax | Spacehog "The Chinese Album"

Oh, that Ira Robbins over at Trouser Press: " Pointedly copping melodies, guitar sound, vocals and a stylistic posture from glam-era David Bowie may be an odd choice two decades on, but it isn't intrinsically any more despicable than the usual pilferage that goes on in the rock world. If Spacehog — two brothers and two others from Leeds who emigrated to New York City before launching their miserable career — had a second idea of any merit, the group might be excused for such lightfingered designs...unmitigated rubbish, stupid and obvious."

...enjoy!

Spacehog - Lucy's Shoe (Mp3)
Spacehog - Sand In Your Eyes (Mp3)
Spacehog - Carry On (Mp3)
Spacehog - Captain Freeman (Mp3)
Spacehog - Beautiful Girl (Mp3)

TVD's Daily Wax | Danny Wilson "Be Bop Moptop"

Owing a heavy stylistic debt to yesterday's duo, Danny Wilson followed up the stellar "Meet Danny Wilson" with the wonderfully flawed release, "Be Bop Moptop". Wonderful because the song writing is top-notch, as are the arrangements, Gary Clark's vocals, and the subtle atmospherics and sonic touches. (Love those rainstorms.) Flawed because of the timing...not in a career sense but in a production-value sense. These songs SCREAM full band to me...not tinny keys and often abused drum machines. (Hell, it WAS '89 after all.) But strip those away (as Danny Wilson did in a live setting--which is how I KNOW I'm right) and you've got a little gem that just needs...a wee bit of burnishing.

Danny Wilson - Imaginary Girl (Mp3)
Danny Wilson - Charlie Boy (Mp3)
Danny Wilson - If You Really Love Me (Let Me Go) (Mp3)
Danny Wilson - Loneliness (Mp3)
Danny Wilson - The Ballad Of Me And Shirley Maclaine (Mp3)