Give 'em a listen: The New Pornographers

I have started a new feature on my blog called "Give 'em a Listen", and its purpose is to provide listeners with music from bands they haven't heard before. I'm using Mixwit.com to create playlists of the bands I'm showcasing.

The first band I am featuring on Give 'em a Listen is The New Pornographers. They are an indie rock/power-pop band from Vancouver, featuring alt-country artist Neko Case and Destroyer frontman Dan Bejar. The New Pornographers have been around since 1997, and all four of their full-length albums have been critical hits. I've been really obsessed with these guys and gals lately, so give 'em a listen! (There are 12 songs on this playlist!)

If you can't view this playlist, please click here.

New Weezer album on the horizon!

For those who haven't heard, Weezer is back...with the Red Album. Yes, after cycling through Blue and Green, they have decided to go for the color red.

You can listen to the new single "Pork and Beans" on their Myspace. It's very reminiscent of older Weezer material, and that makes me very happy. They have departed from their power-pop sound of the previous album, Make Believe, and have returned to their roots with a few twists.

"Pork and Beans" is now available to purchase on iTunes, and the Red Album will be out on June 24th.

This Saturday: Stefan Henegar and Swollen Spring Violets at USM!

My friends Stefan Henegar and Swollen Spring Violets will be playing for free at the Burnham Lounge in Robie-Andrews Hall on the USM Gorham campus this Saturday. This is going to be a very special end of the year event for residents in Robie-Andrews before finals week kicks in.

Stefan Henegar plays a solo acoustic set with influences from The Beatles, Cat Stevens, Kimya Dawson, and Nick Drake.

Swollen Spring Violets is a collective of musicians in Robie-Andrews led by Jakob Battick of Bangor band 1800s Sea Monster. Influences for SSV include Leonard Cohen, John Cale, Low, The Red House Painters, and The Smiths. This musical collective includes a plethora of instruments from acoustic guitars and electric guitar to piano, accordion and trumpet. I'd like to make a special note that I play trumpet and accordion for this band.

This is going to be a very unique and beautiful event, so I recommend you come on up to Gorham to check it out.

soloudTV: Record Store Day at Bullmoose Scarborough

I went to Bullmoose Music Warehouse in Scarborough last Saturday for Record Store Day, and I took a few videos of the happenings there.

Here's a video of South Portland Representative Jane Eberle presenting an official sentiment to the vice president of Bullmoose Music to give to the founder.

Two artists from the latest Greetings from 207 compilation were there, so here are performances by Darien Brahms and Dominic and the Lucid.

Record Store Day is on Saturday!

Did you know Record Store Day has been signed in by Governor John Baldacci as a national holiday? Yes, I'm telling the truth. This means all Mainers should celebrate Record Store Day on Saturday with their lovely independent record stores (not Borders, Best Buy, or FYE).

Participating local record stores in Maine will be celebrating Record Store Day with freebies, contests, and in-store performances. If there's any day to go to your local independent record store, Saturday, April 19th is the day!

At the Newbury Comics in South Portland, there will be a plethora of performers including Tim Cossar formerly of Hope Conspiracy, Chriss Sutherland and Micah Blue Smaldone of Fire on Fire, Mark Nelson of Machinery Hall, Hot Tarts, and other musicians and bands. Go to the Newbury Comics website to find out more!

Rustic Overtones "Letter To The President" music video debut!

Rustic Overtones has just released their music video for "Letter To The President" from their latest album, Light At The End. You can watch the new video right here!

soloudTV: The Mark Gennarro Band and Day Sleeper at USM!

soloudTV is a new blog feature that provides exclusive video for concerts, interviews, reviews, and other musical happenings.

The first edition of soloudTV features the Portland-based Mark Gennarro Band and Massachusetts indie rockers Day Sleeper and their live show at USM from last Saturday.

Here are three songs by The Mark Gennarro Band. Like Ween, Primus, and/or Tom Waits? You'd probably like these guys then!

If you want to catch them live, go to the Reindeer Rock-Off event at McAuley High School this Sunday. Click here for more details.

"Snazzy Shoes"

"Baby"

"Title Track"

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And here are three songs by Day Sleeper. If you're into the good ol' days of shoegaze indie music from the 90s such as My Bloody Valentine and Galaxie 500, you would like the sound of this band.

"For All I Know"

More mixtape love!

So if you haven't checked my Muxtape page from Monday, go there now and check out all the Maine musicians and artists I am showcasing. You will find bands such as Gully, The Mark Gennarro Band, 1800s Sea Monster and Satellite Lot. Give them a listen!

Remember, with this service you can upload your own MP3s and organize them to make your own online mixtape. Just go here and sign up!

I was tipped off for another online mixtape service the other day called Mixwit. This service has a more aesthetic appeal and uses available, streamable tracks found from seeqpod and Skreemr, two big MP3 search engines.

The big difference from Muxtape is that Mixwit allows you to make multiple mixtapes instead of one. It also has more visual appeal and only uses music readily available on the internet (if you have an FTP server, you can choose music from there as well). I also have the ability to embed my mixtape on various publishing/social network sites such as this one, Myspace and Facebook.

Here's the first mixtape I made from Mixwit:

I think I like this service a lot better even though I can't upload my own MP3s. Mixwit allows me to share my mixtapes a lot easier than Muxtape, and it just looks so cool!

So yeah, that's it for today. Make your own mixtape and share it with everyone here!

They Might Be Giants and Apollo Sunshine at the Somerville Theater - 3/28

My girlfriend Stephanie and I had initially bought tickets for the Mezzanine section of the Somerville Theater, but Chris Chafin of Girlie Action put me on the guest list for writing the review and we ended up four seats from the front.

The show started right at 7:30 with Apollo Sunshine, an experimental, psychedelic-rock group originally from Boston. I was immediately impressed as they started playing “Breeze” with Sam Cohen playing a distorted Autoharp, Jesse Gallagher mercilessly slamming away at the bass and Jeremy Black providing a clean and steady rock beat.

Click here to stream Apollo Sunshine music for free!

Many of their songs were upbeat, some surreal-sounding, some rock/blues-heavy, and most of them included Sam and Jesse singing together about moons and pissed-off lords made by pissed-off men. Their rockin’ blues song “Lord” included an amazing drum interlude with all three members playing intricate, layered drum beats giving off a very Blue Man Group-y feel. Jesse did most of the song banter that mostly involved him only saying “cool” in a very mellow, humorous way.