Mac feels a little uneasy after stuffing a few dead bodies in the furnace.
The new Portastatic album, Be Still Please, is the best one yet. Check out the video to Song For A Clock.
Month: November 2006
usounds is looking for uwriters!
Dear Reader,
Have you ever read a CD review and thought to yourself: “Man, I gotta take a dump.”? And then after that, have you thought to yourself: “Shit, that music review I read 10 minutes ago was terrible and I can do better.”? Well, even if you haven’t, you can still apply to be a new member of the Happy Cool Fashion Usounds Writing Family. Here’s how:
1. write a CD review of something we haven’t reviewed already
2. write down a list of your 10 favorite albums from last year
3. send to (usounds@gmail.com)
That’s it! We’re looking for hip funny smart folks who want to share their creativity with the world wide web. The job is unpaid, so please don’t drop out of Community College. Instead of cash money, here are some of the perks that come along with the job:
1. Free stuff, like CDs and show tickets
2. The ability to write about whatever you’d like
3. Eternal Life
Sound good? Good. To be included on the soon-to-be-posted staff page, you’re gonna need to write at least 3 articles per month. This isn’t a ballpark figure….you really need to send stuff in. Otherwise the pages would be blank and the sun would have a huge frown face.
To be a contributing writer you need to send in at least one article per century.
If you’d like to find out more info, or if you’d like to apply, or if you’d like send us a cool forward that we have to send to 20 more people or we’ll die, make those emails out to usounds@gmail.com and hit send. You probably won’t regret it!
Sincerely,
Brandi H and Scott R
The Usounds Editing Team
The Who Endless Wire
You have to hand it to The Who for staying true to form, twenty-four years after their last release. Endless Wire finds the oldest punks in rock right were they should be, cranking out songs that do no less than pleasantly surprise—for the most part. Okay okay, I’ll cut’em some slack: they’re OLD.
And who’s to blame some old guys for making music? Especially if they’re a seminal singer and songwriting duo that has broken more ground than the Public Works Administration. Sure, Endless Wire conspicuously lacks memorable, anthemic numbers, but that’s not so bad. That’s already been done. Where the composer Townsend does recover some of that fleeting panache is on the pared down songs, the ones without looming, trademarked drum and bass: “God Speaks of Marty Robbins” is a pure and pretty acoustic guitar song, with songwriter singing; “Man In a Purple Dress” is equally pretty, if not for it’s acerbic subject matter, and Roger Daltrey on vocals.
Free Prix Tix!
In the LA area? The Prix (pronounced “pree” not like a band of assholes) have three shows left for the year, and we are giving away tickets to each show. Here are the dates:
11/18 – The Echo, Echo Park CA
11/23 – The Prospector, Long Beach, CA
11/25 – The Key Club, West Hollywood, CA (KRQQ Party)
We have one pair of tix for each show, so first come/first serve and please specify show date. Also, check out “It’s All The Way That You Trip” on The Prix Myspace page.
Ghostface Killah to release More Fish
Anyone smell a double entendre? Oh wait, that’s actually just haddock.
The new Ghostface album highlights Ghost’s crew: The Theodore Unit and his son, Sun God. More Fish will be released December 12th on Def Jam Recordings, and is a sequel to last year’s Fishscale. Here’s a track from the new album called, Good.
…And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead So Divided
For all you …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead-heads who considered 2005’s World’s Apart a gigantic harsh to your mellow, well I’ve got some news for you….their new one, So Divided, is a tiny bit better. So shake off those bad pop vibes and get ready to rock out, kind of but not really, with the new and confused Trail of Dead!
To put things in drastically simple terms: …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead slapped the sleepy masses with 2002’s Source Tags and Codes. The album put them on the radar, and in doing so, animated their most tucked away dreams. They wanted Top 20 airplay, and why not…if people were sheep then well why couldn’t the sheep at least get good music pumped into their fields? A couple years and tours passed and the band released World’s Apart, which was their application for the mainstream. The mainstream phoned back and left a message: “Um, this message is for that band with that really long name….we’d really love to have you but there’s like a couple hundred, er, thousand….a couple hundred-thousand rock bands, you know, that are like younger and um more impressionable and stuff. Happy trails.” Shaken up about the whole thing, in 2006 AYWKUBTTOD chopped off some words from their title, leaving TOD and doing for band name’s what Metallica did for hair-styles, ready to show the world that they haven’t disappeared….they’ve just changed form. Their release, So Divided, isn’t their Golden Ticket, and they don’t expect it to be anymore.
Sonic Youth Release Rarities Collection/Giveaway Alert
The Destroyed Room: B-sides and Rarities, a band-chosen collection of Sonic Youth songs, will be released on Geffen Records December 12th. The album contains tracks previously available only on vinyl, limited-release compilations, b-sides and international singles. The first person to email usounds AT gmail DOT com with “Sonic Youth” in the subject line wins a copy of this CD and a full-sized poster of Lou Diamond Philips.
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