Anny Celsi: Thanksgiving in Hollywood

We were recently sent a haunting track from local Los Angeles (Highland Park) based singer-songwriter ANNY CELSI via our friends at IODA, and we haven’t had a chance to get it up until today – the day after Thanksgiving, yet still in the holiday window.

This track was apparently being featured in iTunes Essentials’ ‘Thanksgiving Dinner’ collection (sandwiched between Adam Sandler & the Band) and is available as a promo track from Anny’s new CD “Tangle-Free World.” It was produced by Nelson Bragg of the Brian Wilson Band and music contributors include 60’s chanteuse Evie Sands, Phil Parlapiano (John Prine, Grant Lee Buffalo), Carl Byron (Michelle Shocked), and several more!!

Here’s an excerpt from a recent review… “…after the first few bars of the title track, this album grabbed my attention, and I turned the volume, up – way up!…Thanksgiving in Hollywood…starts out with a bit of a melancholy introduction then picks up the pace with plenty of jangly guitars (which I love) and some very cool organ and lead guitar contributing to a wonderful folk-pop sound. The mood is a bit dark and mysterious, yet uplifting at the same time. One of my favorite tracks on the album.” (Laurie Biagini)

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• Anny Celsi’s Website
• Anny @ MySpace

Anny Celsi
“Thanksgiving In Hollywood” (mp3)
from “Tangle-Free World”
(Ragazza Music)

Buy at iTunes Music Store
More On This Album

[Mixtape] Fresno: A Message To My Ears

Step right up!

We’ve got eighteen tracks from eighteen different indie artists hailing from the Central Valley region of California, with a regional bullseye on the city of Fresno – presented in the traditional yet beloved mixtape format.

This is the supplement to our last full length episode on the Southern California feed entitled ‘IR: The SoCal Sessions #27 – Party in Fresno‘. If you haven’t already taken a listen, head on over for more great music.

TRT: 1:11:40
WORK SAFE:  QUESTIONABLE, AND THEN UPON FURTHER REVIEW, NO
COMMENTARY: VERY LITTLE TO NONE

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TRACK LISTING

• The Argyle Pimps: Old School Metallica
• Subdue: Overture
• Rademacher: Arkansas
• From Indian Lakes: We Are Invincible
• It’s An Icicle: Donkey Kong’s Song
• 40 Watt Hype: Keep It Together
• Flywright: Velveteen
• Something From the Planet Hell: The Ghost of Rick James
• Mynis: Bye Tomorrow
• HateFX: Hide Off
• Six Ounce Gloves: Where Do I Go
• Sparklejet: Message To My Ear
• The Sleepover Disaster: Funnel Cloud
• Wheels of Fortune: I Know That the Answer is Nothing
• Blake Jones & The Trike Shop: Snapshots
• The Overdubs: Trying Bravery
• The Notones: Notown Nocturne
• Super Lucky Catz: It’s Alright

IR: The SoCal Sessions #27 – Party in Fresno

Per local musician Brian Kenney Fresno’s mission statement, the holy triumvirate of activities in the Central California city of Fresno are: car theft, methlabs and chop shops.   While you often hear the area lovingly roasted for such, the city does contain many more highly notable features, such as their rich musical legacy and tight-knit community that feels a little more real and less musician-migratory than a lot of major metro areas.  This may have been a possible factor that helped put Fresno onto the top #10 list of Esquire Magazine’s ‘Cities That Rock’ list in 2004, around the time Insomnia Radio was founded.

After several weeks of online immersion into the music scene and a few years of CA music programming, I’ve compiled a list of musicians from the area that were accessible online and span over several years, all the way back to the early 80’s during the rich punk scene that continues to this day.  Some of the artists are still around, while some have moved on.  The list is by no means all inclusive as I had twice the number of artists I would have like to have featured, but only so much real estate here to fit them into.

While there is some roasting in this show, consider this a toast to the area, its musical heritage, and the musicians who continue to call Fresno and its surrounding communities home.

TRT:  1:16:52, NOT WORK SAFE

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INVITE LIST

• Capitol Punishment – Elephant Man (clip)
• Something From the Planet Hell – Devilution
• The Basement – Natural
• The Sleepover Disaster – Hold My Tongue
• From Indian Lakes – We Thought Your Hearts Were Beating
• Sparklejet – Clever Personality
• The Aircrash – The Pursuit
• Rademacher – If U Got Some Magic
• Wheels of Fortune – Fresno Is a Good Little Town (Holiday Version)
• Kat Jones – Without a Sound (live)
• Super Lucky Catz – Semi-Unconditional
• Travis Oberg – Redemption
• Atari Champ – He’s the Astronaut
• Let’s Go Bowling – Bone Dry
• Flywright – Warm as the Womb
• Winter Wardrobe – Trouble With Friends
• Brian Kenney Fresno – That’s Who!

LOCAL RESOURCES

• Dorktown [podcast]
• The View Looks Good From Here, Fresno
• Fresno Famous
• Fresno Punk Scene History
• The Fresnan
• Party in Fresno (fake working title)

IR SoCal Presents: Foreign Born

Today we are celebrating the release of the latest album on Secretly Canadian Records by LA indie band Foreign Born, who we first played as part of our SXSW showcase compilation in 2008. The first track you will be hearing, ‘In the Shape’, was featured on that compilation and was a good taste of what was to come this year. June brought us the release of ‘Person to Person’, Foreign Born’s 2nd album, and 1st for Secretly Canadian, with a more lighthearted feel to the tracks.

The song following ‘In the Shape’ is from their latest release and was called ‘Early Warning’, featuring some African guitars, a perfect song for this summer and a great way to introduce the album to you.  We also have their newest single, ‘Vacationing People’, at the tail end of the featurette.  Now for a little history:

Their bio says they are a band that lives and breathes Los Angeles, starting off their career in San Francisco with different members, although finding their identity here; three of the group being native Los Angelinos – one whom is a groundskeeper in Coldwater Canyon Park.

Foreign Born basically wrote, arranged, engineered, and produced this record with horn arrangements, woodwinds, strings, synthesizers, and as they put it “enough harmonies to sink a ship”, albeit in a good way.

For more info on Foreign Born, do not go to foreignborn.com or you will find online services for immigrants. Check out our links embedded within the post.  Also our apologies. In this episode we incorrectly name the new album as ‘People to People’ when it is actually ‘Person to Person’.  Doh.

TRACK LISTING
1) In the Shape
2) Early Warning
3) Vacationing People

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IR SoCal Welcomes: Betty & The Werewolves – David Cassidy

Betty and the Werewolves are three girls and one boy from London who whoop and howl through the night as sweetly sung melodies collide with glitter-struck punk guitars. Taking inspiration from luminary lycanthropes Virginia Woolf and Grandma Wolf, they sing ditties about falling in love with David Cassidy and strange encounters on night buses, shouting all the while and scuffing up their party shoes.

This is their wonderful second single following their debut 7” last year on DG called ‘Euston Station’ and it’s a homage to 70’s super pop pin-up and Partridge Family member, David Cassidy. It’s backed with another live favourite ‘Plastic’

The Werewolves recorded this just after their recent tour dates with Fucked Up, who have been telling anyone that will listen that BATW are their favourite band in the world. This single will hopefully plug the gap for those who can’t wait for the debut album which is due out later in the year. [damaged goods]

Why feature them here on the Southern California feed? Well, we welcome most anything that has references to the area or the fascination towards such illustrious stars who got their start here. Dave always maintained that he hated the “bubblegum pop” style of music on The Partridge Family and wanted to be taken seriously as a hard rock musician. Perhaps with this tribute, people will now start paying serious note.

Then again…

• Betty & The Werewolves @ MySpace
• BatW @ Twitter
• BatW @ Facebook
• Betty @ damagedgoods | emusic | itunes | amazon

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IR SoCal Album Release: Still Time – See America

As a nice audial cannonball into Summer, we’ve got a handful of tracks from San Luis Obispo roots-rock group STILL TIME’s newest album “See America” which were recently passed along into our greedy little hands.

Just a short week back or so, we featured the first single from this album, “Come Alive” over at our Daily Dose feed – and have three more tracks we’d like to present to you here; a nice cross-section of the album, but certainly not the only quality tracks therein.

SAMPLER TRACKS
1) 27
2) Tedd the Monster
3) The Girl I’ve Always Loved

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See America is a musically diverse album full of instrospective lyrics, amazing musicianship and thoughtful well structured compositions from front to end.  The thematic vision of the album is appropriately topped off with a notable quote by mid-20th-century politician and diplomat Adlai Stevenson, underneath the plastic CD mount:

“When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England Hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea.  He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect.”

• Artist Website
• ST @ MySpace
• ST @ Reverbnation
• ST @ Twitter
• ST @ t61
• ST store | itunes | emusic | amazon | cdbaby

IR SoCal Welcomes: Hey Ocean! – A Song About California

“Got a long long way to go to California”

From their 2008 release, “It’s Easier to Be Someone Else”, Hey Ocean was apparently conceived on a beach in Costa Rica, their band name being an exclamation born out of the frustration of a stormy ocean caused by unrelenting torrential downpours while on a surf trip.

The band however is based far from sunny Santa Monica, Venice, and Hollywood as described in the song.  As usual, we felt it would be nice to bring other’s perspectives from outside the area into the mix, this time from Canada.

Hey Ocean! is a four piece from British Columbia, Vancouver to be exact – composed of band members Ashleigh Ball, David Beckingham, Dave Vertesi, and Dan Klenner.   Explore below:

• Hey Ocean! MySpace
• Hey Ocean! @ Facebook
• cdbaby | itunes

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IR SoCal Presents: THE dAY

Today we present to you a four-piece band from the city of Tarzana (in the San Fernando Valley) called THE dAY.

We’ve been holding onto their music for a while, waiting for an opportunity to properly present some of our favorite tracks from the group, who first came together in 1999 for their first show at a coffeehouse called Lulu’s Beehive on Ventura Blvd.

From 1999 to 2003 the band played at every conceivable venue in Los Angeles and Orange County, racking up about 40 gigs a year. The first album, ‘Souvenir for the Soul ‘was recorded in 2001 but never came close to the vision they were trying hard to reach.

They ended up a bit disenchanted by 2004 with the lack of success for their debut album, so put out a five song EP called ‘Belongs To You’. Fortunately they drew the attention of three major record labels and a few sizable publications at the time, but unfortunately nothing tangible emerged from the fruits of their efforts.

THE dAY is now back recording with an exceptional producer, Craig Sachlem from Theirmusic.com, supposedly with a working album title, ‘No Finer Line’. The band is about to finally put the finishing touches on the vision they’ve been working so hard for over the years, and we couldn’t be happier to see it all happen for them.

• THE dAY Website
• THE dAY @ MySpace
• THE dAY @ cdbaby | itunes | amazon

TRACK LISTING
1) Unstoppable
2) Belongs to You
3) Always Find a Way

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IR: The SoCal Sessions #26 – Not on This Show

Our newest episode opens with a farcical movie trailer we found, something about airplane flaps malfunctioning leading into a ridiculous crash in the mountains and subsequent survivalist breakdancing. It has nothing to do with the content which follows, so don’t let it’s cornball nature deter you from listening to eleven serious tracks that we’ve collected from a variety of talented artists located across Southern California.   Please visit, comment, and soak up the links provided below.

Once you are done listening to this episode we would like to urge you to complete the survey at the link provided below. Its primarily for those who have listened to the weekly music podcast put together by the Association of Music Podcasters (AMP), of which this show is a part of.  The survey about eight questions long and shouldn’t take too much of you time. We’d all really appreciate it.

More details are also available at the show’s end.

Rating: Work Safe
TRT: 54:25

THE ARTISTS

• Coco B’s: Modern Lover | itunes | store
  
• State Shirt: Computer | e-music | itunes | free t61
• The Spires: Riot | e-music | itunes
• Lal Meri: Dreams of 18 | free | e-music | itunes
• Polar State: Channel Islands | free EP | free t61
  
• Still Time: The Fabulous Life | e-music | itunes
• Maria Taylor: Time Lapse Lifeline | free track
  
• Red Cortez: Fell on the Floor | e-music | itunes
• The Oddfaces: In Time We’ll Bleed | free @ gb
  
• Nico Stai: Masters & Whispers | itunes | cdbaby
  
• Fontaine: La Linea | itunes | cdbaby

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LINKS

• Wander Radio (now feat. Megan’s Mix)
• Insomnia Radio: UK
• Association of Music Podcasting Survey (please take a few moments to fill out!)
• IODA Promonet

Red Cortez – “End of an Error”

IR SoCal: Local Daily Overdose #2

Over the course of several nights, this IR coffee-fiend powered through multiple cups of caffeine in order to bring you the following local tracks on our Daily Dose feed, amongst scores of others great tracks from outside the region.

The musicians featured here today are all from regions in the Southland, specifically:  San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, Costa Mesa, and San Diego.

Enjoy my second look back into some of the many choice selections of great artists that the Southern California region has to offer. All links below go straight to the Daily Dose, which contains the individual tracks and more information about the artists via the specific featured blog.

Our UK host actually picked several of these selections and will continue to help bring a nice healthy assortment of groups to the table to help balance out my tastes, so expect more in the near future as the quality tracks continue to keep rolling in daily.

• Still Time – Power of Now
• Japanese Motors – Single Fins & Safety Pins
• Incomplete Neighbor – Glorious New Weather
• Pic Vicious – LA Dreamer
• You Me & Iowa – Dress the Stage
• Secret Dakota Ring – The Fade to Black
• The Happy Hollows – Lieutenant
• Bag of Toys – Smile So Wide

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Original Image by Ben_Kreeger
(Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic)

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