Music Recommendations #3
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The Longshot- Love Is For Losers
BUT WAIT! IF YOU CLICK HERE, THERE’S MORE JAMS MANG
Billie Joe Armstrong has a disease. The man can’t stop. He needs his fix. Time can’t go too long before he gets the itch. There’s a classic catalogue of close to 30 years of Green Day, the demented new wave band The Network, Pinhead Gunpowder, multiple contributions to the world of broadway, a tribute record to the Everly Brothers with Norah Jones, and Green Day’s blackout superhero alter ego’s the Foxboro Hot Tubs. But that isn’t enough, nor is it ever going to be. Now enters The Longshot featuring David S. Field and Kevin Preston of Prima Donna and the world’s most consistent man Jeff Matika. I personally this it’s poetic that ten years ago, Kevin Preston was the live guitarist in Foxboro Hot Tubs and he’s now making records with Billie Joe and his best friend. The Longshot’s sound could be Foxboro’s alter ego if The Reverend Strychnine Twitch just wanted to sing songs that feel good rather than destroy everything in his path with a tall can of PBR. Or maybe it’s the Look For Love kid all grown up. This is the release Billie Joe needed to get the melodies he hears in his head out without any constrictions or expectations of it being a Green Day album. Influences ranging from, 60s pop, 70s punk and rock n roll and 80s heartbreakers like the mighty Replacements. They even covered my favorite Ozzy song on the LP. Every song plays like oldies single on a jukebox. I think the Trilogy albums pair nicely with this album as well, which you’ll all get in five years. Everyone pretends they weren’t salty about The Clash’s Sandinista once upon a time as well, so keep that in mind. This feels like how rock n roll is supposed to feel; fun, spontaneous and a wink to our influences. Interesting things tend to happen when Billie Joe Armstrong creates a side project. Stay tuned and check out the Longshot on tour.
Released: April 20, 2018
Albert Hammond Jr- Francis Trouble
The Strokes have a seemingly complicated history as a band. It’s a part of the allure, but it also causes many people anxiety because they’re a cult band that made it incredibly big. Rock music in the early 2000s was put into strange territory, mainly because of the media. For the entirety of the past decade Albert Hammond Jr. has challenged the perception of fading into the rock n roll grave yard of obscurity while challenging himself to hone his talents to create something that can stand on its own two feet, independent of The Strokes. Life’s inevitability and curve balls can wake you up and command you to go for whatever your version of greatness looks like. All of you have something you could be incredible at given the skill set you were born with and hopefully cultivated. A curve ball for Albert Hammond Jr was learning about his unborn twin who died in a miscarriage. The impact that can have on your existence must be overwhelming. To a creative, that’s means to express. Francis Trouble is officially born in the alter ego in Red Suits who is love struck, a little lost but ultimately wants to just have a good time. I can relate to that. This concept freed Albert Hammond Jr to immerse himself further into the music and have a creative rebirth of his own. Liberate yourself enough to explore your identity. Then really go for the ridiculous things you want in life. I personally think this is his strongest material and I really thought Momentary Masters was a e new height for his songwriting. The vulnerability of almost wearing the mast of Francis Trouble allows AHJ to find his voice on record while crating the music landscape reminiscent of why we all copied his style of guitar playing in the first place.
Released: March 9, 2018
Label: Red Bull Records
Kali Uchis- Islolation
This album has been waited on by the majority of people not living under a rock. Kali Uchis is known for being the last piece of any puzzle an artist has been trying to put together musically as one of the better featured artists in the past ten years. But how would a full length work? Well I think you got what you wanted and there’s nothing remotely surprising about it. Isolation is an amalgamation of eclecticism using damn near every color of the palette of pop music. Compositionally this album is untouchable. Kali Uchis recruited an all star lineup of producers to help her create the world in her head. Thundercat, Damon Albarn, Kevin Parker, Tyler The Creator, Bootsy Collins, and Greg Kurstin to name a few. It’s April right now but this feels like a summer album to me, maybe it’s all the reverb or the reggaeton rhythms. If this our official introduction to her formally as an artist, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s mentioned Queen alongside Sade, Lauryn Hill, Erika Badu, Amy Winehouse or Hope Sandoval as I personally already do. Anyone wanting to hear generic pop bangers or wanted to hear ten songs repeating themselves showed up with the wrong intention. Go take a walk, somewhere preferably pretty, and hear this album in headphones. Be in your technicolored animated film.
Released: April 6, 2018
Label: Virgin/EMI
L.A Salami- CIty Of Bootmakers
I’m not sure if L.A Salami has consciously been making one long movie this entire time or intended on these albums being sequels to one another, expanding on the sound and topics the more knowledge he obtains through living in whatever that year had had to offer. This past year has been utter insanity. The world can’t decide if it’s getting way better or completely falling apart. If you told yourself even five years ago what this all looked like right now, you wouldn’t believe a word of it. It defies logic. We’ enter the city of Bootmakers by being being serenaded and briefed into being informed in a bedroom/Springsteen style anthem that we’re in fact a lost generation, trying to figure out what went wrong. City of Bootmakers analyzes the dichotomy's of life being a double edged sword. And it doesn’t really mean much of anything, except it means everything. It’s a lot to unpackaged all at once. Go line by line on this album, nothing short of reality is up for grabs. Fear mongering from our governments and media, gentrification, capitalism in general, or just figuring out how and why to exist. This time around it’s seems to be more about telling the listener the way it is, rather than asking questions. I enjoyed hearing the evolution of L.A Salami’s songwriting and conversations musically he’s having with his bandmates, making more concise tunes in the process. They have an excellent chemistry that pushing his sound forward. Musically this feels like a capitalization on what L.A Salami has been developing for the past few years. It just happens to get get better every time. What is This transitioning into Jean is Gone as a bonus track feels like an ending to something like a series of books or movies. That could just be me, but I am interested to see what could happen with the evolution of our favorite wordsmith.
Released: April 13 2018
Label: Sunny Day Best Recordings
Fiddlehead- Springtime and Blind
You want to know how to make a classic record? All you have to do is mean it.
Boston’s Fiddlehead consists of Patrick Flynn, Shawn Costa of Have Heart, Basement guitarist Alex Henery. Their debut full length LP Springtime and Blind documents the mourning of singer Patrick Flynn’s father. As a concept that inherently makes the album a heavy listen, and it’s just that. The songs are skillfully crafted and they result as a standout in the emo genre to the standard of every other release on Run For Cover Records. I would definitely call this an emo album above anything else. Frankly one it’s leading examples. Springtime and Blind is as raw as it gets emotionally taking on the perspective of Flynn’s mother coping with the loss of her spouse as well as being a child losing a parent. Emotionally driven music is typically to gain some kind of catharsis and Flynn seemed to have done just that. At the very least he conveyed his message and connected with the listener. Anybody dealing with loss of any kind or a rough transitional period in general give this a spin. Especially if you’re a fan of Jawbreaker, Rites of Spring, Get Up Kids, Adventures, Basement, Title Fight, Fugazi, Sunny Day Real Estate etc. this should be right up your alley. Enjoy.
Released: April 13, 2018
Label: Run For Cover Records
