Posted in: March 2013

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One day, I was going through all the web development stuff for either/or and happened upon some Google statistics that informed me that some people have found our site via a search for The Two Man Gentlemen Band. By a serendipitous stroke, some people may have confused our gentlemen-infused tagline with that of this group: what luck! So now it’s time for me to cash in on this potentially ludicrous windfall of internet search hits by bringing you a post on The Two Man Gentlemen Band.

Luckily, The Two Man Gentlemen Band play aurally satisfying music for me, so this post certainly isn’t (entirely) a farce. Also, this song is about a girl with a certain proclivity for chowing down on pork chops: sounds like my kind of girl!

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Pete And The Pirates is another band that I’ve really liked for a few years and haven’t written about on here, so uhm, here they are now! They specialize in catchy pop rock that has reasonably intelligent lyrics. I checked to see if they had any albums that I was unaware of, at which time I learned they broke up. Balls! Apparently most of the guys are in a new group, so I will check them out later. Anyway, this is one of my favorite songs from their last album, One Thousand Pictures.

United by Pete And The Pirates on Grooveshark

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Owing to the fact that I played BioShock Infinite for an ungodly amount of hours, I kind of, sort of missed yesterday’s post. Whoops! And, like a chump, I foolishly revealed that I missed yesterday’s post, making the back dating of this one fairly useless.

While I’m not quite ready to post some of the music from Infinite on either/or, I’m sure as heck ready to pilfer it from the first game in the pseudo-series. This is a marvellously creepy piece, and one that perfectly matches its surroundings of a decadent but decayed underwater city. Perhaps you should just watch this before listening to the embed.

Welcome to Rapture by Garry Schyman on Grooveshark

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Hands up those who like somewhat sombre love songs? Ok, now put your hands down because this is a website and I cannot possibly see who’s raised their hands. However, if you did illogically signal your fondness for sombre love tunes, then I sure have a fix for you.

This is about as simple as music gets: just a lone voice and a ukelele here (and some slide guitar, as Arborea helpfully pointed out to me), but they’ve conspired together to create something that’s delightful and just a little bit creepy too. In a good way, trust me. The ukelele reminds me somewhat of the Sword and Sworcery soundtrack, which is most certainly a good thing.

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Somehow, I thought we’d already posted about The Features, but a search through our archives yielded only painful emptiness. Until I realised that I could post about them, and much whooping ensued. Suck on that, neglectful writers of the past! Which also includes me, and… oh.

The Features are still humming along it seems, with a new album imminent. For now, you can let this tune give you a kick up the bum before letting you gently sit down, before kicking it again, because it is a rollicking bit of indie rock with some punk mixed in, topped off with a liberal splashing of kapow.

Me & the Skirts by The Features on Grooveshark

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Greg Weeks is a fellow that gets around, it seems. Not content with creating his own music, he also runs the Language of Stone record label, and does engineering work for some of the artists currently on it. Some may call this greed! Though he does seem to be doing a bang-up job, so I’ll let him off the hook. FOR NOW.

Any way, if my incoherent rambling was not enough of an indicator, Lights is represented on the aforementioned label, and Weeks did indeed provide some engineering prowess for their self-titled EP. Aside from that, I really have no idea what this group is all about, aside from a couple of lines on the Language of Stone website (and good luck navigating that one). All I know is that this song is rather pleasant (if repetitive), and features some soothing tones and harmonies from what I assume are pretty ladies before tricking you by going a bit heavy, and then BACK to soothing. Oh those crafty musicians!

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I was in a record store the other day, buying Daughter’s album, and this song was playing. Thankfully, a music recognition app spared me the potential embarrassment of having to ask the store’s staff what was playing and not realising that it’s an incredibly notable/famous band or song (as has happened to me before, unfortunately). However, said embarrassment would not have come to pass anyway, as the band certainly isn’t widespread or famous. Though perhaps they should be with music like this! It’s a 70s-inspired bit of wailing guitars, gruff vocals and riffs a-plenty: you can probably understand why I thought it was some bit of classic rock.

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I think a little bit of a reprieve from sadness is in order, so today I bring you some bubbly indie-pop. Mock Orange have featured here before, but this song wasn’t around when we posted about them last time, so at least I’m not completely recycling old content! Any way, this tune is off their latest album Disguised as Ghosts (well, it came out in 2011) and is chock full of sweetness, charm and one super catchy guitar riff. Who needs crack when you’ve got this? Their website tells me that a new album is on the way this year too, which can only be a good thing.

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After being understandably shocked about Jason Molina’s passing, I figured it was best to give him a little tribute with a second song from Magnolia Electric Co..

This is possibly my favourite of his tunes, and a favourite song in general: it’s absolutely drenched in style and mood, evoking the mystery of a desert at night far better than anything I could ever write. Coupled with some amazing, evocative lyrics (♫ Mamma, here comes midnight, with the dead moon in its jaws, one of my most loved lyrics ever), you’ve got a recipe for utter brilliance.

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I wish I was better at writing heartfelt sorts of things, but unless you know Jiminy Cricket, that isn’t going to happen. So anyway, one of my favorite singers died a few days ago and that is just not awesome at all. Jason Molina, from Songs: Ohia and The Magnolia Electric Co., died at the entirely too young age of 39. While I’m happy that he’s left us with so many great albums, I’m sad that he won’t be able to leave us with anymore.

A lot of his music would definitely fall into the “depressing” category, which incidentally is one of my favorite categories. It perhaps makes his alcohol-related death more likely to predict, but this sort of thing always comes as a surprise to me.

You can stream his entire catalog here, and if you like this song, you should. I’ll be sure to post more of his songs on here later, and not sure why I haven’t really.

I've Been Riding With The Ghost by Songs: Ohia on Grooveshark