Posts tagged with jim james

02/23/2011

Hypem Hunting vol.5 – Break

Time for another edition of Hypem Hunting. You know the drill by now, I assume. I search for a word on The Hype Machine and listen to a bunch of songs that appear in the search results that I’ve never heard before and I bring my favorites to you. This week’s word is “break”, because if I wasn’t 27, this might be the week when I had my mid-winter break, and because I’m not going to get any breaks at work until I go to Coachella in April. Also because I liked on “Friends” when Rachel said she’s never been this mad at Ross before, and he said, “What about that time I kept saying we were on a break?” Those are bad reasons but deal with it.

Don’t be surprised that the first tune I bring to you today is a lo-fi rock song, because it seems like there’s been at least one of those in every edition thus far. The song is “Please Don’t Break Me” by Catwalk, who is 19 year old Nick Hessler from Oxnard, CA and he says he’s been recording songs since he was 14, and I think all that experience shows in this tune.

Catwalk – Please Don’t Break Me
[via Rollo & Grady]

Not only is the next tune pretty sweet to listen to, it’s part of what sounds like a potentially epic jazz album. The tune is “Shake It and Break It” by Preservation Hall Jazz Band and features the vocals of Andrews Bird. The album An Album to Benefit Preservation Hall & The Preservation Hall Music Outreach Program is a benefit album for Preservation Hall, a historic New Orleans institution and it features vocals from lots of awesome artists like Ani DiFranco, Jim James and Tom Waits, on top of the jazz band itself. Cool stuff.

Preservation Hall Jazz Band feat. Andrew Bird – Shake It and Break It
[via Those Who Dig]

To this day, Grizzly Bear’s “The Knife” still gets me like no other, even though I’ve heard it ten million times. But in today’s hunt, I came across a remix by Expensive Looks, another band I’ve been meaning to check out (I’m bad at this, clearly). It technically qualifies because Expensive Looks decided to name it as a “break” instead of a “remix”.

Grizzly Bear – The Knife (Expensive Looks Break)
[via Drowned in Soundcloud]

And lastly, I leave you with some drum and bass. I think I’ve come to believe that the reason I’m feeling so good about drum and bass lately is that there’s an inherent buildup and release in just about every DnB tune (because that’s kind of the whole point, right?). This one is a remix of the Spectrasoul tune “Alibi” by drum and bass producer Break and I like it in all of its drum and bass glory.

Spectrasoul – Alibi (Break Remix)
[via Plugged Not Thugged]

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05/25/2010

The Roots – Dear God 2.0

It’s time for another album from America’s most lovable hip-hop group The Roots. You know, the superstar band who became the house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, a move so crazy that Fallon himself still doesn’t seem to believe that they were able to get THE ROOTS as their HOUSE BAND. Nuts. But I must say that I kind of like the show, with its intimate live show setting for its musical guests and the fact that its house band is The Roots!

The group is releasing their new How I Got Over on June 22, but we’ve already been given our first taste in “Dear God 2.0″. Just as their classic “The Seed 2.0″ from Phrenology was a remake of the Cody Chesnutt track “The Seed”, they’ve remade “Dear God”, the Monsters of Folk track memorably sang by Jim James. The track can be yours for free right over here if you so chose to accept it. Here’s the tracklisting for the album that was sent to us. And as you can see, the special guests abound per usual. I’m probably most excited to hear the Dirty Projectors track, because I enjoy the voices of those gals.

Interlude 1 feat. Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian & Haley Dekle of Dirty Projectors
Walk Alone feat. Truck North, P.O.R.N. & Dice Raw
Dear God 2.0 feat. Monsters Of Folk
Radio Daze feat. Blu, P.O.R.N. & Dice Raw
Now Or Never feat. Phonte & Dice Raw
How I Got Over feat. Dice Raw
Interlude 2
The Day feat. Blu, Phonte & Patty Crash
Right On feat. Joanna Newsom & STS
Doin’ It Again
The Fire feat. John Legend
Interlude 3
Web 20/20 feat. Peedi Peedi & Truck North
BONUS* Hustla feat. STS

The Roots – Dear God 2.0

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06/21/2009

my morning jacket – it beats 4 u

my morning jacket

my morning jacket is one of those groups that sort of snuck up on me. id heard about them for a while but for some reason, i thought it was going to be some sort of mtv punk group that i hated, a la fallout boy. so imagine my surprise when i heard their album z for the first time. not even close to anything i thought it would be. then i discovered the rest of their catalog and was fortunate enough to see them at the state theater last fall, and that just sealed the deal for me. definitely a top show ever. we actually got really lucky that we even got to see them because just 3 days after our show, the group was performing another show in, i think, chicago? or somewhere around there, when singer jim james slipped and fell and had to cancel a bunch of shows in the next few weeks (i actually have no idea how many shows were cancelled).

basically if you ever have a chance to see them live, you take it and ask questions later, at which time you wont have to ask any questions. the group is a bit of a regular at bonnaroo having played 5 or 6 of the 8 years the festival has been around. the other interesting fact that comes to mind is that singer jim james (im not sure if its the rest of the band or not) makes an insanely weird cameo in the insanely weird biopic (pronounced by’-oh-pic, not by-ah’-pic) “im not there”. it took me probably an hour to realize that all the weird characters were supposed to represent a stage in bob dylans life, but seriously, that movie went right over my head, and i usually like weird movies. but i definitely remember being more confused when suddenly my morning jacket was in the old west singing a song.

there were literally millions upon millions of songs i could have chosen from their repertoire and i would have been content. but in the end, the lucky winner was “it beats 4 u”. the first reason i chose this song is because it is awesome and i think it sums up mmjs sound quite nicely. the second reason is the use of text speak in the song title. the third is because i like to think that the whistler near the end of the song is andrew bird because really who else can whistle like that in the world? but then i also think it would be a random pairing…….

……so i just looked it up, and it turns out that andrew bird AND m. ward both appear on this album, and that andrew bird has also appeared on about a million other albums. without further ado, enjoy the show.

my morning jacket – it beats 4 u

My Morning Jacket - Z - It Beats 4 U buy this track on itunes
buy this track on amazon

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