Mimicking Birds: Shellacked in Tar

Summer will be arriving in a few weeks in the US and some of you coastal denizens and vacationers will be returning home from the beach, discovering that you couldn’t quite scrape the remnants of that washed up stray tar-ball from your heel.   I can only imagine Floridians delight as their kids whole feet are shellacked this summer from the deepwater oil rig volcano drift, a readily identifiable mark as to where they spent their time.

We recently featured Mimicking Birds over on our daily blog to much fanfare, and decided to place this track here on the acoustic feed. It eerily seemed to mirror some of the recent events in the Gulf, and well its just an excellent song from the crew’s free collection over on Virb.  I’ve tagged on some opening and closing commentary that fits in with the name of the group – enjoy.

Live MB photo by inger klekacz (via flickr cc)

Mimicking Birds Website
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Damon Castillo Band: Saint Cecilia (live)

It had been several years since I had first seen the Damon Castillo Band live, performing against the sun-drenched backdrop of the Pacific Ocean up in Avila Beach at the annual SLO Vintners Festival (held each November). At the time I had signed up for his mailing list in my grape induced haze, periodically receiving e-mail notices on upcoming shows and band updates over the next few years.

At the head of this Memorial Day weekend I had a bit of time to explore his most recent mailing which happened to feature a live track that he put together for the show “In Sessions” down in San Diego.  It’s a beautiful well executed track that the band wants to share with as many people as possible.  In that regard, they are giving it away starting this weekend – just make sure you visit the link below to get your FREE copy!

• Damon Castillo Band’s Website
• Social Media: Facebook | Twitter | MySpace
• Download for free @ the DCB website!

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Northern Room: We’re on Fire (live acoustic)

I had recently promised you all more Wisconsin-based rock over on my Twitter account after realizing that we were sorely lacking in showcasing the home state in which our trademark java is sent out to the masses for guaranteed all night rocking.

Well this is the first musical delivery to you after that announcement. Unfortunately our featuree – Milwaukee based band, NORTHERN ROOM, played their final show on November 8th, 2008. Regardless, we really enjoyed this track that was discovered via music-discovery site ‘thesixtyone’, and really thought it was time to bring this amazingly clean live and acoustic track to your ears.

A little history on these guys. They opened for Bon Jovi at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee after winning a contest in 2006 (out of 100 bands), to open for Mr. ‘Shot Down in a Blaze of Glory’ himself. At some point the group also signed to a Japanese label, BM3 Records, and after several releases, band-member Andrew Jonathan made the decision to leave the band, at which point the band decided to also call it quite. Later before they were entirely consumed by flames from today’s featured track, they released one last effort – “Blacklight”.

Enjoy and when you get a moment check out the album from whence this version came. In late 2007 the band combined the ten tracks from both of their EPs, three live acoustic tracks, and one previously unreleased song — Home — to create Last Embrace – Deluxe Edition. This enhanced CD, which also contains a music video for Last Embrace, was independently released internationally in November of 2007. Word.

• Northern Room’s Website
• NR @ thesixtyone.com
• NR @ Facebook
• NR @ MySpace
• NR @ emusic | itunes | amazon

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Efterklang & The Danish National Chamber Orchestra: Cutting Ice to Snow (live)

Two short years back in Copenhagen Denmark we would have loved to have been in-house when Danish indie 5-piece EFTERKLANG (translation: ‘reverberation’ or ‘remembrance’) tackled an ambitious live project, performing with the Danish National Chamber Orchestra for a limited edition LP/DVD set.

The performance occured live at DR Koncerthuset, Studie 2, Copenhagen on September 26th, 2008 and featured some notable guest musicians from Denmark who you may know – notably IR friendly artists Peter Broderick and Niklas Antonson of Slaraffenland. The live project is documented on their album ‘Performing Parades’ which is basically a performance of the entire 2007 album ‘Parades’.

We love the artistic vision in the set design for this performance (as seen in the accompanying video) and its nice that all the performers were good natured enough to wear their supplied elf hats which create a nice dimension with the faux snow-covered peaks in the background. Adding in some ‘rosy’ face paint splotches and colorful sprite-like clothing still doesn’t take away from their champion performance in this jolly fantasy setting.

Special thanks to IODA for bringing us this nice recording, and making it available for free download here on our live performance blog.

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Efterklang, The Danish National Chamber Orchestra
“Cutting Ice to Snow” (mp3)
from “Performing Parades”
(Rumraket)

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Mike Pinto: Addictions (live)

Despite the fact my vocal chords seem to be shredded due to ‘tussin induced coughing spasms, I was able to record a bit last night and property set up an intro to this live selection from our friend down in Ocean Beach, CA: MIKE PINTO.

Now if you remember, we had the opportunity to place Mike on one of the San Diego Soundscape CD’s we released a few short years back through the San Diego Visitors & Convention Bureau, thanks to the efforts of Jason Evangelho and Michael Catanzaro.

Following his first CD “Little District”, and our Soundscape Comp, he released a second self-titled CD featuring this live track Addictions, more of an upbeat ska track featuring back-up accompaniment by one of the members of Chapter 11. While I initially thought the track ‘Bad Luck’ was a good choice, I listened again, and Addictions came up on top for the feature selection today.

Today’s listening experience from Winston’s in Ocean Beach, CA on June 4, 2008 comes courtesy of Archive.org, and taper Jim Coffey. The lineup is: Mike Pinto: Guitar, Vocals * Glen Pfaff: Drums * Javier Contender: Bass

• Mike Pinto @ MySpace
• MP @ Facebook
• MP @ Twitter
• MP @ emusic | amazon | cdbaby | itunes
• Download this show!

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The Kissaway Trail: Tracy (acoustic)

If you don’t know where you’re going,
you don’t know when you will arrive.

Danish band THE KISSAWAY TRAIL released this acoustic track, “Tracy” over the holidays at the end of 2009. “Tracy” was originally the b-side on the single “Smother + Evil = Hurt” from their debut album, and this acoustic version was made for the UK market.

Get the free version without my vocal overlay here: 12/23 Kissaway Blog

• The Kissaway Trail Website
• tKT @ MySpace
• tKT @ Facebook
• tKT @ Twitter

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The Flying Change: Valentines Day (live)

You don’t know now, but I hope you will!

Today’s Valentines Day live feature is from the New York based group THE FLYING CHANGE, whom the network featured on the Dose earlier last year in addition to the New York feed.

The Flying Change describe their music as landscape pop, each song edited by the writers with red pen down to the point where every moment is incredibly vivid; small fragments of melody and emotion. They’ve adeptly captured it here, and the slow build in the intro swells to a raucous cacophony of varied instrumentation that really captures a feeling of raw joy and elation. Valentines Day has been recently featured as one of the last tracks in their live arsenal, and rightfully so. We think it is the perfect choice.

When done here, make sure you check out last year’s studio release, Pain is a Reliable Signal’ as well as the IR album review by the network’s own, Sarah Morrison.

Did we mention the group is giving away free downloads?  Just follow this link.

• The Flying Change Website
• tFC @ MySpace
• tFC @ Facebook
• tFC @ Twitter
• tFC @ itunes | amazon

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Namaskar: Don’t You Dare (Make Me Cry)

Over the course of the last several months I happened to find myself being subliminally spoon fed a few raw acoustic stylized tracks by Arkansas based group NAMASKAR, an experimental duo who really doesn’t have too much of a web presence. After slowly realizing I had been indoctrinated into their aural soundscape by obscure tracks dripping from my music feeds, I finally explored a bit and found that Namaskar is made up two musicians: Amanda Rook (lead vocals, guitar) and Craig Seager (drums, guitar, bass).

The band don’t have too many tracks up as the duo, but Amanda also has a solo site where she has some other promising compositions including one which I gravitated to called ‘Fireflies’. Check it out at the link below when you get a chance and leave em a comment.

• Namaskar @ MySpace
• Namaskar @ Garageband
• Amanda Rook @ MySpace
• Craig Seager @ MySpace

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I Fight Dragons: No One Likes Superman Anymore (live)

If you’ve ever played old console videogames, notably the Nintendo, and you happened to walk by a live performance by Chicago’s I FIGHT DRAGONS, no doubt you would instantly gravitate toward the sound by the overwhelming curiosity of discovering how this live retro-arcade full band sound was being pulled off.  Upon entering said venue, you would see a six-piece group of rock heroes incorporating six NES game controllers into their live stage performance along with your traditional instrumental setup; not to mention the inclusion of old gaming power pads, zapper guns and more.

Having just ended their recent tour victoriously, I FIGHT DRAGONS have recently had the chance to send out this live track from July’s performance at the Metro in Chicago to their fan e-mail list. Naturally, we jumped at the chance to feature it here on the live feed.

Kick back, enjoy the retro-onslaught and let the flood of chiptune bleeps & bloops take you back to a more carefree time.

• I Fight Dragons Website
• iFD @ MySpace
• iFD @ Facebook
• iFD @ Twitter
• iFD @ cdbaby | emusic | itunes | amazon

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Asobi Seksu: Thursday (live)

Live at the Echo 10/6/06 is the first live album by New York-based shoegazing band Asobi Seksu. It was recorded at The Echo in Los Angeles, California and contains mostly songs from the Citrus album, two from their self-titled, and a cover by The Crystals.

Spaceland Recordings has a nice collection of live tracks taken from a few venues here in LA, which we hope to dip into now and then and potentially share when time permits. Also, if you’d like there is a link below which contains a large number of live recordings over at the Spaceland Recs blog.

Asobi Seksu appears courtesy of Friendly Fire Recordings.
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• Asobi Seksu Website
• AS @ MySpace
• AS @ Facebook
• AS @ Twitter
• Spaceland Recordings

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Asobi Seksu
“Thursday” (mp3)
from “LIVE [at the Echo - October 6th, 2006]”
(Spaceland Recordings)

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