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Mark Lanegan – Blues Funeral – Review

Posted on March 7, 2012 by B2 4 Comments

Mark Lanegan released his 7th solo studio album on February 6th, 2012, entitled Blues Funeral with the independant British Record Label 4AD. As the album breaks out into its lead track, “The Gravedigger’s Song”, my mind immediately began thinking of HIM’s Venus Doom album, although it’s a feeling that doesn’t stick with me long after. The album features an interesting mix of really slow background rock beats along with some what I would consider exploratory dark synth-pop patterns on songs such as “Ode to Sad Disco”, “Quiver Syndrome”, and “Harborview Hospital”. Of course it’s Lanegan’s vocals that really pull the feeling of the album together, his beaten voice and lyrics of personal vices really creates the overall dark rock feeling of the record.

I really have to applaud him for this one, it was great to hear an original, interesting and powerful sounding alternative rock album this year that really set the bar high so early in the year! I would defintely suggest scooping this album up, I don’t even know how many times I’ve listened to it now in the short time I have owned it, a solid 4 out of 5 star album at least.

Here is the only not live link I could find for a song off of Blues Funeral, but you really need the full record to get the full feel of how awesome it really is. Enjoy!

Track List:

The Gravedigger’s Song

Bleeding Muddy Water

Gray Goes Black

St. Louis Elegy

Riot in my House

Ode to Sad Disco

Phantasmagoria Blues

Quiver Syndrome

Harborview Hospital

Leviathan

Deep Black Vanishing Train

Tiny Grain of Truth

This entry was posted in Album Review and tagged 4 star, Alt Rock, Blues Funeral, Dark synth pop, gravedigger, Harborview Hospital, Mark Lanegan, ode to sad disco, Quiver Syndrome, Review. Bookmark the permalink.
The Punk Show with Mike Davies – 20 years of Fat Wreck Chords – with Fat Mike

Posted on February 22, 2012 by B2 5 Comments

Today I came across a link to listen to a punk radio show on BBC Radio One, the next two hours of my life was spent with some cool stories from Fat Mike of NOFX and awesome punk music from the past 20 years of Fat Wreck Chords all of it with absolutely no commercials! If you wanna check it out for yourself there is a link to it at the bottom of this blog and you won’t regret your decision, for those who may not have the time I have summed up some of the stuff they talked about in this post.

Fat Mike was on the show with Davies to celebrate his label, Fat Wreck Chord’s, 20 years of existence in the industry. They started off with a discussion on Good Riddance’s recent announcement to reunite for a tour and hinted at some Canadian shows (fingers crossed). One of the things I found most exciting was Fat Mike discussing his work producing Old Man Markley’s new album coming out this year. Also, apparently at some point last year Fat Mike worked on the sound track to a fetish movie entitled Rubber Bordello. The soundtrack also features members of the Mad Caddies as well as Tom Waits’ backing band, and is available on iTunes, if you want to watch it without the pornographic video content. Some more NOFX to look forward to in the future? Fat Mike mentioned that there will be more Cokie the Clown shows, although he wants them to be in smaller venues, and there is also a book being put together of NOFX stories from their 30 years together as a band.

Here is the link to the radio show, as well as a list of the music they played over the two-hour show (all of which is from bands signed to Fat Wreck Chords or album put out by bands while signed to the label): http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01c2xwp

Hope you enjoyed!

B2, out!

This entry was posted in Fat Wrech Chords and tagged 20 Year Anniversary, BBC Radio One, Fat Mike, Fat Wreck Chords, Good Riddance, Label, Mike Davies, NOFX, Old Man Markley, Punk Rock Show, Rubber Bordelo. Bookmark the permalink.
B2′s Bonnaroo Must See List

Posted on February 16, 2012 by B2 Comment

So The Bonnaroo line-up has been announced for a little while now, and I have gotten over the sadness period and have come to terms with not going once again. Instead I have decided to compose my own little list of bands that I would highly recommend seeing if you happen to be lucky enough to attend. So here it is:

Radiohead, RHCP, The Shins, Bon Iver and Foster the People (I feel these are pretty obvious as to why), there are a lot of other really great bands at the top of the line-up to but as I don’t know times and stages, if I had to pick my tops these would be them. Some others near the top I would also love to see there would be Feist, The Roots (loved their new CD), Black Star, Flogging Molly, Childish Gambino (Donald Glover is my hero!) and City and Colour.

There are a lot of really cool smaller supporting acts but I’m going to boil it down into what I consider ‘Must See’s’ here: Two Door Cinema Club, The Black Lips, The Kooks, The Joy Formidable (especially after the unreal set they played at Lolla last year), Mogwai, The War On Drugs, Blind Pilot (can’t suggest this one enough, saw them at Lee’s Palace this year and it was mind-blowing), and Here We Go Magic.

So that’s them, if you wanna check out some of those bands I’ll post some YouTube video’s below!

This entry was posted in Festival, music and tagged Artists, Bon Iver, Bonnaroo, Foster the People, Radiohead, Recommendations, RHCP, Suggestions, Tennesee. Bookmark the permalink.
Updates: Band of the Week

Posted on February 1, 2012 by B2 Comment

Hey everybody! Just wanted to give some further updates on my plans for the Band of the Week segment I will be starting, hopefully this week. My plan is to start the posts with some information about the bands such as, where they are from, how long they have been doing things, when they started to get bigger (if it has happened), and the genre of the music they fall into.

I’m hoping to kick this off tomorrow with the first one being on the post-rock band This Will Destroy You, focusing on the 2006 EP Young Mountains, their debut self-titled album and the 2011 release of Tunnel Blanket. On sunday I’ll be following this with some details on what I thought of their live set here in Toronto at Lee’s Palace. I guess this means I should drink a few less beers… but I probably won’t.

So that’s where I plan on kicking this off, tomorrow I’ll try to also add bands I plan on doing this on in the future. If you have any that you would like me to feature feel free to add it in the comments section below, tweet me @brianb2andrews or email me at Brian@btunes.ca!

In the meantime checkout this tune off their debut self titled album!

Check ya later!

This entry was posted in Band of the Week, music and tagged Band of the Week, Reviews, This Will Destroy You, Upcoming. Bookmark the permalink.
Update on Future Content

Posted on January 30, 2012 by B2 Comment

Hey all,

So I have been kind of quiet on here for the past week, kind of lost track of time as the week went on and btunes got pushed underneath the carpet, but this will quickly be changing! I got a lot of plans for what I want to be continuing to post on here. On top of continuing with music news pieces I want start a Band of the Week segment where I will review a few of their albums (or discography depending on the band), hopefully this will introduce some of you to music you haven’t heard and will enjoy. Concerts are also starting to pick up now so there should be more concert review pieces coming as well!

looking forward to diving back into this!

B2, out!

And if you haven’t seen this year it’s the trailer for Game of Thrones season 2 starting in April, so stoked!!

This entry was posted in Band of the Week, TV and tagged Band of the Week, Future Content, Game of Thrones. Bookmark the permalink.
Bruce Springsteen – We Take Care of Our Own

Posted on January 20, 2012 by B2 Comment

The first single, We Take Care of Our Own, off the boss’s next album, apparently entitled Wrecking Ball, dropped yesterday. I don’t know if it’s ‘anger’ I hear in this song, but the same kind of spirit you hear in the track Born in the USA, which unfortunately receives both good and bad responses.

I really do like this song, its got Bruce written all over it, with the combination of powerful, meaningful lyrics mixed with the amazing tunes of the E Street Band. I look forward to hearing the rest of the album!

RYETS AAWAAYYY!!

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.
One Man, Five Guitars

Posted on January 18, 2012 by B2 Comment

As Walk Off the Earth reaches its 27 millionth view of their cover of Gotye’s – Somebody That I Used to Know, other bands are beginning to take their own approach to the song. The band Envy took their stab at it with this video of one guy playing five guitars. Of course their is many other things than five guitars that make this video possible (for instance the looper is pretty key).

Anyways, I think this is pretty cool and hopefully is something that continues to progress. It once again goes to show that despite that vast amounts of music available out there, the good bands can pull through the shit music, they just have to be creative. The spark that Walk Off the Earth may have created with their five people, one guitar video may be very well be the best thing that video did.

RYETS!!

This entry was posted in music, New Release and tagged Awesome, Creative, Envy, Gotye, Somebody that I used to Know, Video, Walk Off the Earth, YouTube. Bookmark the permalink.
Paper Bag Records: Free Music Sampler

Posted on January 17, 2012 by B2 Comment

Paper Bag Records released a free music sampler today consisting of 10 songs from five different bands mostly within the GTA. There’s a pretty good mix of music ranging from the canadian electronic band Austra, who’s leader singer sounds earily similar to Florence Welch of Florence & the Machine, to indie rockers such as PS I love you and the folk sounds of Elliot Brood. The music sampler is a great way to listen to some new and upcoming music if you haven’t been able to find anything lately, and best of all its free!

Paper Bag Records has a lot of good artists on the label such as Tokyo Police Club, Born Ruffians, Stars and Memphis to name a few. The sampler they released previews the bands who really started to show signs of taking off in 2011.

You can download the 10 song sampler by clicking here.

and here is the songlist for the album with links to the songs on YouTube:

1. Austra - “Lose It”
2. Austra - “Believe Me”
3. Cuff The Duke - “Standing On The Edge”
4. Cuff The Duke - “Letting Go”
5. Elliot Brood - “If I Get Old”
6. Elliot Brood - “Lindsay”
7. PS I Love You - “Facelove”
8. PS I Love You – “Butterflies And Boners”
9. The Rural Alberta Advantage - “Under The Knife”
10. Cuff The Duke - “Tornado 87”

This entry was posted in music, New Release and tagged Austra, Cuff The Duke, Download, Elliot Brood, Florence & the Machine, Free, Music Sampler, Paper Bag Records, PS I Love You, Rural Alberta Advantage. Bookmark the permalink.
Silversun Pickups – EP and New Album

Posted on January 17, 2012 by B2 9 Comments

Silversun Pickups released a pretty cool EP in December, the three songs on the album entitled Seasick appeared a little earlier in the year on YouTube. You can check them out at the bottom of this post or spend three bucks for them on iTunes, definitely worth it.

The tracks are awesome and very Silversun-esque, except with a darker kind of feeling about them. This is the kind of feeling they want to continue with on their third full-length album due out later this year. Their previous two albums are both unreal and I have no doubt the third will follow suit! I have yet to see them live yet but can’t wait for their performance at Edgefest this year!

RYETS!

This entry was posted in Edgefest, music, New Release, Silversun Pickups. Bookmark the permalink.
Updates on the New Flaming Lips Album

Posted on January 15, 2012 by B2 5 Comments

In 2011 The Flaming Lips focused on releasing a series of interesting small projects as opposed to taking a whole bunch of time off tour to complete a full-length album. These included: a YouTube symphony designed to be played on 12 iPhones, a number of collaborations with artists such as Neon Indian and electronic musician Guillermo Scott Herren. They also released a number of USB sticks loaded with songs inside of gummy bear skulls and fetuses, they sold a strobe light toy designed to play along with three songs, a Halloween release of the “24 hour song skull”, and the 25 minute song entitled ”I Found A Star On The Ground”, which they adapted to be 6-hours and sold to raise funds for charities from the bands hometown. For more information on these check this link.

The Flaming Lips front man, Wayne Coyne, announced to Rolling Stone that they are now in the last stages of a collaboration album with a variety of guests spanning different musical genres. Most recently Bon Iver confirmed that he would be collaborating with the Lips on this album, which is definitely something I am excited to hear! Bon Iver received a significant boost in popularity after the release of the self title album last year. Other confirmed guests for the album include Nick Cave, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Plastic Ono Band, and Neon Indian. Coyne is also hoping to work on a “weird rap” song with Ke$ha as well as a track with Erykah Badu.

I’m really excited to listen to this album, which they hope will be available sometime in April. The one I really didn’t expect to see on the compilation was Ke$ha, but according to Coyne she has been a long time fan of the Lips who he thinks will fit because she is also a ‘freak’. Overall, I’m sure the album will be another Flaming Lips success, the originality and creativity of the band along with the talent they are working with is a recipe for awesome! This is definitely near the top of my list for anticipated new releases of 2012!  Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bon-iver-confirmed-for-flaming-lips-covers-album-20120112#ixzz1jYju9QVL

Here’s an interesting interview with Wayne Coyne on the six hour song release last year and the strobo toy

Ryet’s awwaayyyy!

This entry was posted in Bon Iver, Collaboration, Edward Sharpe, Erykah Badu, Ke$ha, music, Nick Cave, Rolling Stone, The Flaming Lips, Yoko Ono. Bookmark the permalink.