New Countdown! Less Ramble! More Rock!

So I made a valiant effort not to ramble this week. And it was tough! There was a lot to talk about! The Grammys were on Sunday and we had some big wins and some performances by people that are currently on our chart! It's a good episode. And it includes....SOMETHING THAT HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE...on this show...tune in, won't you?

Countdown #42

***Featuring***
The Black Keys
Cage the Elephant
Cake
Florence + the Machine
Linkin Park
Middle Class Rut
Mumford & Sons
My Chemical Romance
Neon Trees
Rise Against

Clandestine Countdown Posting

Shh. Don't tell anyone, but I'm posting this very quickly at work. That's how much I love you guys. Elizabeth, I'll buy you some tasty food if you keep this under your hat :)

Quick thing, though. Get this one and last week's soon. Because sometime next week, I have to cancel my box.net account because I can't afford to ACTUALLY subscribe to it! So, yeah. Do some quick downloading this weekend!


Countdown #41

***Featuring***
30 Seconds to Mars
The Black Keys
Cage the Elephant
Cake
Florence + the Machine
Linkin Park
Mumford & Sons
Muse
My Chemical Romance
Peter Murphy
Rise Against

New Countdown with extra parenty goodness!!!

So, my Dad and Stepmom were down visiting the lovely Little Distraction (as I've decided to refer to her) and they were kind enough to join me on this week's podcast! It's lots of fun, but it ran a little long. So I decided to try box.net for my "larger than Fileden can handle" needs. So, the file might not play the way it normally does, but it should download just fine! It's called "Long Version" because I made a shorter version to try to get it into Fileden range, to no avail.

Countdown #40

***Featuring***
30 Seconds to Mars
The Black Keys
Cage the Elephant
Cake
Florence + the Machine
Linkin Park
Mumford & Sons
Muse
My Chemical Romance
Neon Trees
The Psychedelic Furs

Oh yeah. And I do podcasts too :)

I've found myself really looking forward to doing this podcast this week. Not that I'm not normally excited to do it, but this week it's just been something I've been looking forward to. The blog seems like it has new life for me. And I think that it maybe has something to do with Tricia starting her blog. So thanks Tricia!

Countdown #39

***Featuring***
30 Seconds to Mars
The Black Keys
Cage the Elephant
Cake
Florence + the Machine
Linkin Park
Muse
My Chemical Romance
Neon Trees
Sick Puppies
U.S. Royalty

Guest review of Countdown tracks!

While I was in the hospital helping my wife have the baby (read: trying to keep out of everyone's way), I asked my friend Andy to write up his reactions to the songs that have been on our countdown over the past couple of weeks. I initially gave him the order of the songs as they appeared on the countdown, but since that has changed a bit over the last couple of weeks, I put them in alphabetical order by band name.

I'd like to do this occasionally. If you'd be interested in being on the list of people willing and able to give their impressions of 10 or so songs, leave me a comment or shoot me an email!

And now, without any further ado (I say this so often, but never type it...it's fun to type!), here's Andy!

Let's start off by saying that I don't listen to that much modern
rock, so I was pretty much hearing most of these songs for the first
time when writing this post.

30 Seconds to Mars - Closer to the Edge
I hated Jared Leto's acting career. But I'm loving his work with 30
Seconds to Mars. This latest album is the most polished I've ever
heard them. And this song makes me want to jump in the air and never
land.

The Black Keys - Tighten Up
The Black Keys have a distinct vocal sound. It's definitely one that
grows on you.

Cage the Elephant - Shake Me Down
Everyone's been raving about Cage the Elephant and now I can see why.
This song is very catchy and makes me want to sing along.

Cake - Sick of You

Cake continues their trend of light hearted fun rock music and even
their new stuff reminds me of 1998.

Florence + the Machine - Dog Days are Over
Quite a lovely song is all I can say about this track.

Kings of Leon - Radioactive

For some reason, I can't think of Kings of Leon anymore without
thinking about the bird that crapped in the lead singer's mouth at a
show. I'm not a huge fan of this song, but it is kind of catchy.

Linkin Park - Waiting For the End
I remember when Linkin Park was simply a hip-hop/rock fusion band.
They've changed over the years and now they apparently sound like 311.
Not a fan of the direction they're going in, but hopefully something
new and exciting comes out of it.

Muse - Undisclosed Desires
Muse is going to become the Radiohead of this generation.

My Chemical Romance - Sing

I'm glad My Chemical Romance has stopped screaming for an entire song
and worked on creating harmonies and catchy songs

Neon Trees - Animal
I've been in love with this sick ever since I first heard it back on
Record Store Day. James tells me this album is one of the best he's
hard in the past year. I have still yet to listen to the whole thing,
but he's usually a good judge of music.

Sick Puppies - Maybe
I really like the message of this song - breaking out doing something
on your own even though you're scared of what will happen. Very
uplifting and hits a personal note with me at this moment.

Countdown #38 (even though it's episode 40 or 41 or something)

Well, I apologize for the no show last week, but I was a little busy......helping my wife have our daughter! She's perfect and I've already started educating her in music!

So we're back into the good old Alternative Songs countdown this week and in addition to the top ten, I'll play you a second song from an album that has a song on the countdown this week and was released last week. Is it Cake or Cage the Elephant?! Listen and find out :)

Countdown #38

***Featuring***
The Black Keys
Cage the Elephant
Cake
Florence + the Machine
Kings of Leon
Linkin Park
Muse
My Chemical Romance
Sick Puppies
30 Seconds to Mars

Some alternative music for your probably snowy day!

Well, it appears that the snow of the season has begun! Enjoy the new show!

Countdown #36

Safe and sound back home

Well the file is back on its normal server, which means that you can download it directly from the site! Hooray!

I also will, for the first time, talk about a song that's on the podcast. I start off the podcast by talking about The Savings and Loan. They are on a label run by a blogger that I really look up to named Matthew. Here's his blog and here's his label's website. If you like the first song on the podcast then you need to go to the label website and get The Savings and Loan album. Also, might I recommend the Inspector Tapehead album as well.

Here's the countdown!

Countdown #35

It may be more difficult to download, but at least it's more rambly!

Well, here is the longest podcast I've ever created. I talk kind of a lot between a lot of the songs. It's so long, in fact, that I had to upload it to another site that hosts bigger files. The problem is that that means the file doesn't end in ".mp3" and so you can't play it from here. I'm really not sure how many people play it from the page and how many people download it and play it later. I have a feeling it's mostly the latter, which is why i didn't worry about it too much! You have to click on the link and then download it from the hosting site. Don't worry. I'm not going to be doing this often. Mostly, you'll be able to get it direct from here.

Oh, and sorry about the ads. Just think of it as a gig in a seedy part of town because that's where the venue is that holds more people. Maybe that'll help.

Countdown #34

Happy People Day, Turkeys! Wait....

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you have a marvelous day!

Here's the countdown!

Countdown #33

And, as promised in this weeks show (and...last week's show, too), here's information about the Festive Fifty vote!

This is the email that Tim sent everyone:

Hello Everyone,

It’s time for the final vote to determine the top fifty songs that will be crowned as this year’s Contrast Podcast Festive Fifty:

Select your favourite 10 songs from the shortlist of 100 below and rank them from 1 (your favourite) to 10 and send the list to our friendly 'statman' James ( janderson716@gmail.com ). You may also (if you are feeling evil) give a negative vote to any single song of your choice! The deadline for doing this isn't far away – Wednesday 1st December.

Please ask your friends, family, blog readers and anyone else you know to send us their votes too – everyone can take part!!

Here for your listening pleasure is a flash player with all of the tracks on it:

http://www.contrastpodcast.com/festivefifty

and here’s the list …

Aloe Blacc - I Need A Dollar
Arcade Fire - Modern Man
Arcade Fire - Ready To Start
Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
Arcade Fire - Suburban War
Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
Arcade Fire - We Used to Wait
Archie Bronson Outfit - Shark's Tooth
Band of Horses - Infinite Arms
Beach House - Norway
Beach House - Zebra
Ben Folds & Nick Hornby - From Above
British Sea Power - Zeus
Broken Bells - The Ghost Inside
Broken Bells - The High Road
Broken Social Scene - All to All
Broken Social Scene - Meet Me In the Basement
Broken Social Scene - World Sick
Caribou - Odessa
Cee-Lo Green - Fuck You
Danny & The Champions of the World - Henry the Van
Dead Heart Bloom - Someday Will Not Come Again
Deerhunter - Helicopter
Dessa - Dixon's Girl
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - Home
Edwyn Collins - What is My Role
Efterklang - Modern Drift
Elizabeth Cook - El Camino
Field Music - Measure
Field Music - Them That Do Nothing
Florence & the Machine - Heavy in Your Arms
Foals - Total Life Forever
Foster the People - Pumped Up Kicks
Frightened Rabbit - Living in Colour
Frightened Rabbit - Nothing Like You
Frightened Rabbit - Swim Until You Can't See Land
Frightened Rabbit - The Loneliness and the Scream
Frightened Rabbit - Things
Gorillaz - Stylo
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals - Paris (Oh-La-La)
Grinderman - Mickey Mouse & The Goodbye Man
Hot Chip - One Life Stand
Janelle Monae - Tightrope
John Grant - Marz
Johnny Cash - Ain't No Grave
Junip - Always
Kate Nash - Paris
Kings of Leon - Radioactive
Land of Talk - Quarry Hymns
Laura Veirs - July Flame
LCD Soundsystem - Dance Yrself Clean
LCD Soundsystem - Drunk Girls
Local Natives - World News
Lost in the Trees - A Walk Around the Lake
M.I.A. - Born Free
Maroon 5 - Misery
Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone
MGMT - Flash Delirium
Midlake - Acts of Man
Mumford & Sons - Little Lion Man
Mumford & Sons - The Cave
Neon Trees - Animal
OMD - Sister Marie Says
Phosphorescent - Mermaid Parade
Ra Ra Riot - Boy
Sade - Babyfather
Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings - I Learned the Hard Way
She & Him - Ridin' in My Car
Shearwater - Black Eyes
Shearwater - Landscape at Speed
Shout Out Louds - Fall Hard
Sleigh Bells - Tell 'Em
Spoon - Who Makes Your Money
Spoon - Written in Reverse
Stornoway - I Saw You Blink
Stornoway - Zorbing
Sufjan Stevens - I Walked
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - Bottled in Cork
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - The Mighty Sparrow
Teenage Fanclub - Sometimes I Don't Need to Believe In Anything
The Black Keys - Howlin' For You
The Black Keys - Tighten Up
The Black Keys - Too Afraid To Love You
The Decemberists - Down By the Water
The Divine Comedy - Assume the Perpendicular
The Divine Comedy - At the Indie Disco
The Drums - Let's Go Surfing
The Mynabirds - Numbers Don't Lie
The National - Anyone's Ghost
The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio
The National - Terrible Love
The New Pornographers - Crash Years
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Say No to Love
The Vaselines - I Hate the 80's
The Walkmen - Angela Surf City
Tracey Thorne - Swimming
Vampire Weekend - Cousins
Vampire Weekend - Horchata
Warpaint - Undertow
Yeasayer - Ambling Alp

Happy voting!