2011 Artists of the Year

This is one of my favorite episodes of the year. I look forward to it and I think that all my anticipation has paid off. I had so much fun putting it together and I think you'll have a lot of fun listening to it!

2011 Artists of the Year

***Featuring***
Dessa
Doomtree
King Post Kitsch
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
New Found Glory
NOFX
P.O.S.
Rise Against
Smashing Pumpkins
Wild Flag

So, they didn't have two of my top 10 (which I posted earlier this month) so I naturally replaced them with Me First and the Gimme Gimmes EP's. This is to vote in the Hype Machine's blogger category for their Zeitgeist 2011 (I love end of year stuff!!)

New Countdown...Running out of Clever Titles!

How the hell did it get to be December 18th already? One week till Christmas!?! Agh! Well, I'm writing this on December 16th and hopefully K and I have gotten a lot done by way of Christmas shopping/prep. Because right now? Not looking so good. But it'll work out. Probably.

Countdown #84

***Featuring***
AWOLNATION
The Black Keys
Bush
Chevelle
Coldplay
Foo Fighters
King Post Kitsch
Seether
Switchfoot
Young the Giant

Best Albums of 2011 #5-1

5. Wild Flag - Wild Flag A big part of this year, for me, was about female led bands. And one of the best female led bands was Wild Flag. This is a supergroup, but only if you're pretty familiar with the 90's riot grrl scene, which I am not. When I listen to this album, and the same goes for when I saw them in concert, I hear four women IN LOVE with rock and roll. It's refreshing and entrancing. And addictive.

Wild Flag - Electric Band

4. Original Broadway Cast Recording - The Book of Mormon God, what an amazing set of songs. I'm probably never going to see this musical on Broadway, but I almost feel like I don't need to, with this in my life. My favorite superpower of Parker and Stone is their ability to tease and mock and flat out ridicule something, all the while filtering the bullshit down to the essentials. This musical is about belief and how important it is to believe in something, even if it seems weird or stupid to other people. It was so hard to pick a song to feature from this. So I went with some exposition, to draw you into the story!

Book of Mormon - Two by Two

3. King Post Kitsch - The Party's Over Oh dear. I love this album so much. I think it's the effortlessness that gets me most. Charlie doesn't seem like he's breaking a sweat as he's cranking out song after song of glorious rock. It's catchy, it's addictive, it's hummable, it's amazing. I hope that 2012 is as full of KPK as 2011 was! For the featured song, I've chosen the song that started it all for me, nearly a year ago.

King Post Kitsch - Walking on Eggshells

2. New Found Glory - Radiosurgery 2011 was a great year for music, if you ask me. But the cherry on top of it all is this. New Found Glory charging back into my heart with this album of the kind of pop-punk genius that I have been yearning for from them, or Blink, or Green Day. Don't get me wrong, though. You can tell that these guys have matured as songwriters. I would feature "Summer Fling, Don't Mean a Thing" because that's maybe the best song on the album, but I wanted to show that there's even more to love, if you've already heard that one and you're still hesitant (although, I don't know how you can still be considered "sane" if that is what's happening for you)

New Found Glory - Memories and Battlescars

1. Doomtree - No Kings I don't even know where to begin. I suppose I could direct you to my review of this album less than a month ago. I had to wean myself off of this album. I'm still not sure why it hit me so hard. And it's not like all my friends are listening to this so I'm being social about it. In fact, I feel quite miserly about Doomtree in general and specifically about this album. Because what if someone listened to it and didn't like it? Or didn't get it? Or didn't like it as much as I do? It kind of feels like I'm dating a girl from outside my circle of friends and feeling wary about introducing her around. It's not that I doubt my taste. It's that I doubt everyone else's! And I mean that in the best of ways. You should buy this album and love it deeply. Like I do. Oh, and when you love an album as completely as I love this album, it's damn near impossible to pick a song from it to feature. So here's my best shot

Doomtree - Team the Best Team

King Post Kitsch Review: The Party's Over and I'm Sad

I'm writing this on Monday, June 13. And as I'm writing, I'm sad. It's because I made a pact with myself almost two weeks ago and I'm really planning to stick to it.

Matthew from Song, By Toad and Song, By Toad Records sent me a review copy of the new King Post Kitsch album The Party's Over (which, as it happens, comes out TODAY!). It's an album, that I've been looking forward to hearing since he played "Walking on Eggshells" back in January. I downloaded it and put it on my iPod on June 2nd, telling myself that, rather than just saying, "How awesome is it that I got is album I was intending to buy, absolutely free!", I would give myself two weeks to listen and review and fall in love with it and then I would erase it from my hard drive. That way, I'd go through withdrawal and NEED to buy it for my birthday, as I and been intending.

And my plan worked. I am absolutely head over heels in love with this damn album. Everything I liked about the EP's is here in spades. I think the best exampe of what I'm talking about is the transition from Track 2 ("Don't You Touch My Fucking Honeytone") to Track 3 ("Fante's Last Stand"). The former is a rocker the likes of which I haven't heard since I was first listening to Arctic Monkeys and the latter is a song that wouldn't be out of place as a soundtrack for lying in a field picking out cloud shapes. They SHOULD feel totally out of place being played back to back. But that's not how King Post Kitsch rolls.
KPK is all about the "what could possibly come next?" factor. And that's why I love this album and why I'll be playing it hard for the last three days of my review period and why I'll be ordering it and the "Don't You Touch My Fucking Honeytone" 7" as soon as it isossoble to justify it as a "birthday purchase".

King Post Kitsch - Fante's Last Stand from The Party's Over (BUY!)

Some Call It Rough, But It's Beautiful

So King Post Kitsch released a new FREE EP today. It's called "Some Call It Hell, But It's Home" and I don't normally quote directly from the press for the release, but if I tried to summarize, I couldn't word it half as well. Here's what's on the BandCamp page (where you can download the album for free!):

"Well I first recorded a bunch of acoustic songs on a four track to listen back and get a feel for where they should go. I then tried to re-record them with more guitars, vocals, harmonicas, melodicas, percussion... but they didn’t really improve on the rough demos. So here are three of those songs, complete with tape-hiss, scuffs, fumbles and additional vocals on 'Riverbank' from a seagull who was outside my window."

Despite this description, these are three beautiful and delicate songs. My favorite is "Rebecca" but that may just be personal preference.

In addition to this release, King Post Kitsch has a single called, "Don't You Touch My Fucking Honeytone", coming out on 7" on May 16th. That's a single from a forthcoming album The Party's Over which will come out on June 13th on Song, By Toad Records

You should get everything thing that King Post Kitsch releases. I certainly plan to.

King Post Kitsch

So I’ve been catching up on my Toadcasts and at the beginning of Episode 155 (The most recent episode, where he talked about what 2011 holds for Song, By Toad Records), he played an incredibly good song by a band called King Post Kitsch. He said that they had a Bandcamp page where they had 3 ep’s available for free download.

Having enjoyed the song (“Walking on Eggshells”), I raced over to their Bandcamp page (link below) and gobbled up all the songs. Then, while at work later that week, I just hit play for the whole bunch.

Let me tell you about what catches my ear. A band that can skillfully explore an eclectic range of musical styles. And that is KPK to a tee. They have catchy acoustic songs (“Movies and Magazines”), droney, hypnotic songs (“Monomania”), songs with both acoustic parts and electric parts, both of which give me chills (“Fante’s Last Stand”), and just plain rockin' pop songs ("Walking on Eggshells")

They are going to be releasing their debut album on Song, By Toad Records this year (that’s why he was playing the song on that episode) and I can’t wait. It seems to me that with such raw and varied talent displayed on these Bandcamp songs, their LP could be one of the best of the year.

King Post Kitsch – Walking on Eggshells from Monomania

Official Website
Band Camp Page
Song, By Toad Records