Category: Jam Session
Boys and girls, I've grown weary with the state of most radio stations on the AM and FM beat. The most popular music makes me squirm and even my most cherished genres are going through a lull of failure.
So, please. Kindly post your emerging artists, your indie favorites, your obscure not-quite-one-genre gems and your downright odd guilty pleasures that most people haven't heard.
Let's expand our musical minds.
Currently: Kings of Convenience, Franco.
I've heard Kings of Convenience described as a "modern" version of Simon and Garfunkel. Basically, two males with slight accents from Norway singing to each other with acoustic guitars. All in all, soft and pleasant music with gentle yet emotional and powerful lyrics. "My ship isn't pretty" is sad and somber while "Cayman Islands" is warm and pleasant.
Franco is a hard rock band from the Philippines named after the lead singer, Franco Reyes. I have never heard their music until today, but what I've heard sounds great. They have a fairly strong and heavy but clean sound, and I'm also hearing a bit of reggae beats mixed in. In fact, I'm hearing some noticeable Bob Marley vibes and ideals in their music but with a powerful and hard edge which is fine with me. It was hard to find a copy of their album, however -- I don't think they have any recognition at all outside of the Philippines. That's a shame, because they sound very talented. "Castaway," "This Gathering," "Song for the Suspect," and "Touch the Sky" initially caught my attention.
Brice
Well, mine not be totally unground kind of stuff, but here goes anyway.
Mae, note the spelling, is my favorite band at the moment, though that may change tomorrow. They have some recognition, but as far as I know, no radio airtime. I would describe them as death cab for cutie, dashboard confessional, and maybe early early fall out boy, before they sucked. Imagine those three bands having a love child that is much more musically versed than all three of them, and has more instruments, and you have Mae.
Next, Monty Are I. A cool band I've just gotten into, kind of techno rockish in a way, but with some ska flavor thrown in for taste.
Next, forgive durdan. A rock band with a nice sound that is good for background listening. Not really anything special though.
Then, bayside, better than ezra, and spitalfield. All are bands that have good songs, and bad songs, and who I haven't heard anything new from in some time.
those are the basics. I have many more, but it would take too long to wite. Hope you like some of those though.
Well, I'm out of touch with even modern underground stuff, but here's stuff I like.
First of all, Frank Zappa. Nobody has the balls to play him on commercial radio, well, one radio station I know of does, but still, his compositions can be long and weird, and sometimes the language and subject matter, especially of his later stuff, guaranteed him no airplay.
Second, the Residents. I'm not heavily into this band, but they're just so weird and out there. Sometimes their music is challenging, which guarantees them no commercial airplay.
Third, Negativland. These guys do sound collage. They'll take anything they find in the media, new or old, play with it, mix it, snip and re-arrange it, and set it to music. Also check out the Bran Flakes, who do the same sort of thing but with more of a thrift-shop sensibility. Lots of found sound stuff can be funny, too, which is refreshing when a lot of experimental music takes itself so damn seriously.
Fourth, poke around for some compilations of Sixties garage punk and psychedelia. Many of them can be found through music sharing blogs. Not sure where you could start, though, so just go to blogsearch.google.com and try some search terms.
Fifth, if you don't mind long complex music, check out some progressive rock. Radio stations will play some but most of it is too long. I like the work of Genesis when Peter Gabriel was in the band. Also check out Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, both as collaborators and separately. Let's not forget King Crimson.
There, that's some of my ideas about radio-unfriendly music, even though a lot of it is decades old.
I still like some of the long and complicated stuff, what my wife calls 'busy', namely early Yes and Emmerson Lake and Palmer.
Gotta love Genesis.
Also how many hard metal stations even play Suicidal Tendencies? Except maybe Institution which was really funny when I was in Junior high, and, I'll admit it still is.
Firehose was an interesting band, did some interesting stuff with the bass.
Devendra banhart. New wavey folksy strange stuff, but great.
Lisa o piu. Newage femail folk type stuf.
Frank Turner. More folky stuff lol
Venetian snares. Just about the strangist electronic music you'll ever hear, think classical drum and bass.
Mattmoss. Just plane weird electronic glitch stuff, aphex twin on acid if you can even imagine that.
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