Hoku
Just a reminder to subscribe to her blog. Coming soon: mo' Ho fo' teenpo' bohos n' bozos.
Standing Waltz
French-Canadian new wave teenpop-not-teenpop. Dig the vocoders on the chorus, the echo effects are making me a little woozy tho. "Nouveau EP disponible maintenant!" The guy who led me here is also friends with Amy Diamond, Colette Trudeau, the Veronicas, and Katie Neil (most recent comment is from Sammy and Sasha and correspondence from Katie Neil reveals Skye reference on a first name basis) but sounds like noisy basement indie. Intrigued.
2XL
Ultra-depressing bio, out on Tommy Boy (that's not an indie, is it? Wikipedia sez 50% Warner-owned). Guest spot from E40 on "Kitty Kat," minimal bloopy hip-hop that vaguely recalls the Godz in the background...too vaguely. Note: humans howling like cats ALWAYS = great. The video for this could be amazing, only scenes from the set are available. It's the KITTY KING on KITTY PATROL and the whole thing is green-screened. Well played.
Wushu Productions
Found them looking for info on Paulie Litt, new RD incubatee with some serious punim power. The Wushu songwriting team (includes one Ithaca alum) wrote his insanely adorable single "Late 4 School." (Paulie "the Punim" Litt: "I'd like to bring back the days of Frank Sinatra, bring the good ol' days back.") Rest of the page is sorta notable for "Boys N Boots" by Bailey, fun little country novelty.
Madison a.k.a. Lil' Mad
Weirdo nightmare girl-pop, no idea how to classify this, "Madscientist" has hand-claps and Britney-tinged horror movie baby doll vocals and creepy chorus moaning...and then a breakneck rap section around 1:07. They sped that up, right?
Stacy Smith
She's done backup vocals for Britney and Aaron Carter, thought she was like a deadly dull Lisa Loeb Lite or something, but that's why ya gotta stick around for the second song (note: song 2 should be the FIRST song that plays on your page!)...the first was a solo piano performance (very LONG) that made me tune out about halfway through, almost missed some nice DIY girl-rock in "Happy to See You" -- "the dishes are piling up and the food here won't fill me up," oh my god she KNOWS me, I'm eating beans like five days a week here. Except we had tapas last night and they filled me up and we didn't even have to do the dishes 'cuz it's Restaurant Week! And then there's the Matrix-wannabe (well, she's collaborated with them, maybe it's just Matrix-be) "Turn Around," not bad as far as Matrix-mightbes go.
Tracing Days
The idea of killing a cliché may be offensive to those who prefer their music spoon fed as a mere means of background supplementation, simple entertainment or whatevers catchy as a radio sing-a-long. While Tracing Days' debut disc Control overflows with accessibility, its members have an underlying desire to shake up listeners' most obvious perceptions and misconceptions of rock n roll, diving to stylistic and lyrical depths sure to inspire, empower, educate and shake off the safe holds of anyone's comfort zones. "I dont like clichés because they dont challenge my own thinking," explains front man, founder and keyboardist Lonnie Bos. "I love hanging out with people who ask tough questions and Tracing Days is all about working through issues, asking hard questions and searching for honest answers."
Uh, ok. (Wonder how this dude feels about Paris Hilton.) From "Monochrome Rainbows" (wait, that's not possible, is it?): "Who wants a song like everyone else's?/ Do we lack some creativity?" Man, these guys have issues! You'll have to answer that question for yourselves and then get back to me.
HighFlightSociety
HFS, thought this was related to my old alternative rock station from Maryland at first (nah they're from Georgia), but WHFS has been replaced by a Latin pop station, much to their benefit. The only thing particularly notable about this band is their motto:
YOU BRING PAPER AND SCISSORS. WE'LL BRING THE ROCK!
Alexx Calise
Her titles have more attitude than she does, "C'mon" and "Touch My Hey" (which is a great title and semi-OK song). She advertises her vibrato but could stand a few classes at Rock School with Lil' Chris, who I guess is qualified to be a teaching assistant there now? Maybe he could hold master classes, I'd go.
Alison Ray
"Does the DJ Know" takes a Kylie-ish premise (the DJ is makin' me fall in love) and sticks it over some MOR adult-contempo rock that (probably unconsciously) is doing like the decaffeinated version of the neo-Max template (you could sing "U + Ur Hand" over it). "Dirty Little Secret" needs to be waaaay dirtier.
Ashley Rose/Orr
Some confusion on the name there. I would have sworn this was no-label, but wouldn'tcha know she's on Universal. She's got a slightly tortured chipmunk vibrato that, again, isn't in the same universe as Lil' Chris's power-bleat. I haven't determined what sort of animal Lil' Chris is yet, but it's definitely closer to goat than marmot, which truthfully is more of a whistle. (I just needed to be reminded what a marmot sounds like.)
Juliet B. Rock
Not bratty enough! C'mon, BE A BRAT. Bratz don't fade their songs out after a minute with a twenty second lead-in, neither. She says "major label" but I don't believe it.
The Pop Kids
Hmph, neither pop nor kids. Lead singer is somewhere between Julian Casablancas and the old Bill Murray lounge singer character. Post-punkish sub-Interpol stuff, not terrible. Not deserving of the name, though, and I doubt they even know whether or not they mean to be "ironic."
One Star Story
Shemo continues to transform the unbearable into the sorta-bearable, nowhere close to Paramore (a Top 8 Friend) and even further from Flyleaf (or Meg and Dia if they count), but not bad. You can see the anxiety on the background guys' (er, "band members'") faces, wondering when the lead's gonna wise up and realize they're superfluous.
The Good Luck Joes
Skye could probably do something with the opening line "scatterbrains and scuttlebutts" (sounds like the intro to one of her Myspace posts) but these guys can't.
VS.
NO CONTEST HAPPY SKYE FRIDAY END POST.
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