Rocking with the Shocking Pinks!

I've never been huge on Neil Young, which is why this post has nothing to do with his album Everybody's Rocking with the Shocking Pinks. It has everything to do with New Zealand's Nick Harte.

In my excitement over new LCD yesterday, I checked out a couple DFA acts I had never given a good listen to. Harte's band, Shocking Pinks, stood out as something I'll be listening to a lot more of. Check out the super new wavey video for the track "Emily".

Bonus points for the Black Flag Tattoo

I like "Emily" a lot, but my favorite track is definitely "Jealousy".

"Emily" by Shocking Pinks
"Jealousy" by Shocking Pinks

The track starts with this haunting atmospheric that's really well complemented by their grimy drum sound, then picks up with two beautiful interlocking guitar parts, one bleating and droning while the other melody dances over it. The song then jumps once more to a minimalist, percussion driven section, before returning to the lush atmospheric guitars. Like I said, it's definitely my favorite, but the rest of the album is absolutely worth your time.

I also found this video of Johnny Cash singing with Oscar the Grouch, one of several appearances he did with the muppets. It's fantastic.

It'd also be worth your while to check out Said the Gramophone for the Miracle Fortress cover of Digital Love, it's pretty awesome.

This Video is Fantastic

Sad Kermit

I really love this video, but I kinda feel like it's a bit overboard to flash to Jim Henson's picture towards the beginning. I was only five when he died, but I'd looked up to him for all those five years, and it hit me pretty hard. I still look up to Jim Henson. His death and the re-run of "Farewell, Mr. Hooper" (since the original ran two years before I was born) were probably the most depressing events of my early years that I can recall.

Yippee Ay Ey

"(Ghost) Riders in the Sky" by Johnny Cash

Roooooooosemaaaary

Well, I've returned from Florida and the Matriarch of my father's side is in good health for now. I realized on the plane that I never posted the list of the five albums most influential to my appreciation of music. I've had it written for weeks and done nothing with it. I have work soon, so I'm not going to go all out with the post now, but while I was down in Florida, I picked up Interpol's Antics, something I'm waaaaaaay behind on. I mean, I already knew a couple of these songs, but there are definitely some gems that I had never heard before. The radio sucks down there so I had to buy something, but everything I looked at in Walmart (the only place to buy CDs) was edited, save the Interpol CD and a 2 disc Johnny Cash Live set. Anyway, the Interpol disc came with some videos, the coolest of which is definitely "Evil", with its weird muppet singer.

O' Donny Boy

I'm sure that both the Black Hammer and MC Abstract Douchipster will agree with me wholeheartedly on this, if you're ever having a day that's kind of down in the dumps and this song comes on, man you have just hopped on a one way train to sadness time station, transfers available to frownytown.

"A Song For You" by Donny Hathaway

Same thing goes for "Air from County Derry", or "Danny Boy" as it's known to most Americans. "Air from County Derry" is an old tune that has had literally of hundreds of different sets of lyrics written to it, for some reason "Danny Boy" has just emerged as the most famous. I recently found out that the words were written by an Englishman who never set foot in Ireland throughout the course of his life and I'd by lying if I said I wasn't pretty bummed by this news. Nevertheless, (always the more) he did somehow manage to write beautiful lyrics for this song.

I love that the one in the middle, Ciaran Nagle, looks like a bum, even in a tux.

"Danny Boy" by the Three Irish Tenors

Johnny Cash also does a version of this song on his fourth album with Rick Rubin and American records. I love Cash, so strongly it could make most heterosexual men uncomfortable, but I have to say I prefer the Irish Tenors doing this song. Something about Cash's growl just seems slightly ill-fitting for this tune. I'm sorry, Johnny.

"Danny Boy" by Johnny Cash