Happy 4th of July!

Monday marks American Independence day and to celebrate the 235th anniversery of my country's independence from the British; I will be heading out of Brooklyn for the weekend to one of my very favorite places in all the world Fire Island where I will lounge on the beach, eat delish and fresh sea food, drink one too many white wines, drunkenly text Jesse Elliott about what a great time I'm having and how we should watch more John Waters films when he's back in town and watch other people blow stuff up in honor of America.

I hope what ever you do for the fourth of July you have a very happy and safe 4th.

In the meantime here are some clips of perhaps two of the greatest American pop rock composers/songwriters Brian Wilson and Frank Zappa.

Brian Wilson's latest album is "Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin", Wilson puts his own unique spin on the music of another great American composer George Gershwin, below is a clip from the Jools Holland show of Brian Wilson performing Gershwin's  "They Can't Take That Away From Me".



And this next clip is of the song "Heros and Villians" which to me is Brian Wilson's most brilliant song, the harmony and the production on this song is just so genius and beautiful it's better then anything the Beatles were doing at the time.



And Frank Zappa was a total genius he combined rock, jazz, classical and the absurd.

This is a clip of one of my favorite Zappa pieces of music "Peaches En Regalia" live from 1977



and here is one of Zappa's well known songs "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow-Father O'Blivion"



and last but not least here is Mike Nesmith and Frank Zappa in a sureal clip from the Monkees TV show from 1967.



Back to the current indie scene on Tuesday!

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian readers!

Check it out: Fanzine and "True Blue" at 25 years old

I've been totally digging on UK band Fanzine, the sound is catchy basic simple really awesome rock and Fanzine released an EP called "The Low".You can take a listen to the songs on "The Low" here. I know the song "Low" is going to be a summer anthem  for many including myself.

The song "True Blue" by Madonna turns 25 this year. As many of you well know Madonna to me is the QUEEN!!!. "True Blue" is one of Madonna's best songs but in my opinion she was at her least interesting at this point in her career.

My favorite Madonna periods are the East Village ragamuffin "Lucky Star" period, followed by the Warren Beatty dating, pissing off the Catholic church "Blond Ambition" era Madonna, followed by the sorta getting back to her East Village roots kinda doing the grunge thing and dating every NBA player mid 90's Madonna, followed by the giving birth to Lourdes earth mama late 90's Madonna.



And I forgot that when MTV played music videos they actually ran a contest to "Make My Video" meaning MTV was searching for someone who made their own unique video for the song "True Blue". The winner got their video played on MTV, Madonna herself to introduce their video and 25k. Below is the Madonna intro to the winning video and the winning video. Apparently actress Eva Longoria is the star of the winning "True Blue" video from 1986 and Madonna's accent at this time was tough South Shore of Long Island girl as opposed to the fine English lady accent she used during the whole "Evita"/"Ray of Light"/"Music" era of her career.

Archers of Loaf and The Black Belles

The lovely Shanda the edtrix of the Music Crush Girl blog has posted some pictures from the Whatever blog Northside Fest showcase, you can look at those pictures here.

Two bands that I'm obsessed with as of late are Archers of Loaf and The Black Belles. The Black Belles are signed to Jack White's Third Man Records and have a sound and look that can best be described as southern goth garage rock.



The Archers of Loaf have been around for a while the band broke up in 1998, they reunited this year and have been playing various shows all over.

A very interesting band with an interesting sound.