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NYC Show Alert: The Grates playing Pianos tomorrow

Australia’s The Grates will be playing Pianos Residency in Manhattan (Lower East Side) TOMORROW (7/14). You may not expect them to be my cup of tea, but then consider that the trio (two girls, one guy) meshes so many different sounds together – I feel like I’m listening to the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s […]

Bob

Morrissey: I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris

Now I present to you Morrissey’s latest single, “I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris.”

Thats my Morrissey.

Abby

Twenty fifteen and Crushed Beaks

Here we are on the fledgling wings of yet another year, thousands of bands vying for our attention in a sea of Soundcloud links, drop dates and nervously planned record release gigs. On days like this I’m glad to be a lowly consumer rather than an actual musician. While it makes me sound lazy (and talentless), I much prefer snuggling on the sofa with a cup of coffee and listening rather than wrangling up band members’ calendars and figuring out who is available on what date at X venue in X city. What a headache. Cast solely as the role of Listener, I have none of the drama I hear and see occurring regularly among some of my musician friends (and strangers alike). I can pick and choose the little nuggets of lovely I listen to rather than say, having to sit through a longwinded Skype yarn from my drummer who has to go to his kid’s 1st grade Noah’s Ark performance instead of playing a gig that’s been planned for ages. Because, you see, Abby’s Imaginary Band is made up of oldsters, like me, with decent taste, day jobs and offspring:

“HE’S THE MALE OSTRICH. I CAN’T MISS IT.”

What a fucking pain. Right. Happy New Year. Moving on.

I must admit that while I scour the internet, shops and magazines for new music, radio has proven itself an integral part in opening my ears to tunes I otherwise would have missed. Take new-to-me favorites Crushed Beaks and their airwave-friendly single ‘Overgrown’.

A few choice senders have been playing the grooves out of it, and for good reason. Hailing from SE London, Crushed Beaks have been tickling ears with several EPs since 2011. 2015, however, will play host to their full-length debut, Scatter. Armed with a mutual love of horror flicks, Alex Morris, Matthew Poile and newest recruit Scott Bowley present smart, hook-filled pop with just enough fuzz and grit to tempt the ears of staunch shoegazers and indiepop kids alike (hi).

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Lee

Knox Road’s Top Albums of 2014

As usual, we asked Knox Road writers to provide their Top Albums of 2014. We’re excited to provide you with the results just in time for the new year! We’ve got some great lists and even better blurbs. Have a happy new year.

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Lee

Guess what!? Knox Road back in action soon

Maybe even tomorrow. That’s right ladies and gentlemen and everyone else: we’re back.

Thank you all for your patience during this longer-than-anticipated hiatus. Life had made it difficult to keep up with the blog, but I’m in a place now where I’ll be able to continue the upkeep and writing. I’ll be back to finding […]

Lee

Knox Road’s Top Albums of 2013

Another year, another top albums list (some things changed, though — we turned 5 years old!). We asked Knox Road writers to provide their Top Albums of 2013. You know what ensued. Tears, laughter, debate. Actually not much of any of those. Just heartfelt thoughts. If these lists make you listen to one new album, it was all worth it. Have a happy holiday season and stay warm.

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Lee

Chris Flew

Dark is coming sooner now. Time to layer up. For some of us, hibernation becomes natural, and not just physical. It’s a state of mind. We’d like nothing more than to curl up in bed, clench our toes under our comforters, and stay away from it all. Tomorrow is a new day.

[…]

Abby

[Abby’s Road] Songs in the key of ache

”People don’t want to hear it, do they?” she said.

No one said anything, because we weren’t sure where she was at.

“This is how I feel, every day, and people don’t want to know that. They want to know that I’m feeling what Tom Jones makes you feel. Or that Australian girl who used to be in ‘Neighbours’. But I feel like this, and they won’t play what I feel on the radio, because people that are sad don’t fit in.”

-Maureen, 51 and semi-suicidal, upon hearing Five Leaves Left for the first time in Nick Hornby’s A Long Way Down.

She’s right, that Maureen.

As I put down my wine bottle and question myself daily about who I’ve become, I recently joined a gym (I swear I am going somewhere with this). I asked my better half, a master of seamless mixing, to put together some hour-long, no-break mixes so I don’t have to be subjected to the pap being piped in while sweating my ass off (as I’m in enough physical pain as it is when I’m there, you see). Though our musical tastes overlap right between Britpop and Post Rock, his electro leanings are way stronger than mine. Perfect for the fitness studio.

As I was exercising away one afternoon this, well, how do I put it lightly? This mindfuck (that’ll do) flowed through my ears. I was like..wait..is that…..?!? Yes..yes it is. It is exactly that.

For those of you wondering exactly what: Elliott Smith…all happy and dancy. That’s what.

This little yammer is not about cover songs or whether someone should mess around with Smith’s highly evocative catalog, as my jury’s still out on that one. It’s about what most music aficionados have, self-proclaimed or otherwise: a not so tidy package of records and artists we gravitate to when we are ascending or descending Sad Sack Mountain. That Smith cover, which I must admit is catchy as hell, was just a catalyst to listen to what I ordinarily reserve for the days I am feeling blue and hopeless while I was feeling particularly jolly. Doing so gives one (read: me) some clarity of instrumentation and song. Or whatever.

The top three artists for punishing myself while I am already down, in no particular order: Nick Drake, Tim Buckley and Elliott Smith, the runners up being Damon and Naomi, whose cover of Buckley’s “Song to the Siren” (DOUBLE WHAMMY) brings me to my knees in a river of my own tears every damn time. Everyevery. Interestingly enough I’ve never really been a singer songwriter girl. There is something about these men however, their words and the sound of them being ejected from their mouths, that draws me in when I am low. Sounds silly, but it’s like they get it. They’re my blanket. On those days they get me.

I listened. It doesn’t matter to which records. I listened. And while I was of sound mind I still sensed an overwhelming melancholic pall. Not because I was feeling sorry for myself. I got caught up in feeling sad for them as people. So tell me, am/was I wrong to feel such emotions? Like who am I to pity them, you know? Well…

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Lee

The Falls

An Australian band starting to make noise in the US. A relationship filled with heartbreak. Yet the guy-girl duo stuck together to make music. Foreigny folksy love-talesy guy-girl teams making inroads in the US? They’ll be swimming in American fame by tomorrow.

Ok, I may be slighting their music a bit by saying […]

Jamie

[Hype Hype Hooray] Spotify, You Beautiful Wench

Hype Hype Hooray is a biweekly “critique” of the music scene and the blogosphere that feeds it, told through the lens of Jamie Hale, a journalist who likes music about as much as he likes scotch and a firm leather chair. Please enjoy with a grain of salt.

I was somewhere in the woods of southwest Washington, hiking a well-worn trail on a cool spring day. My iPod sat in my back pocket, headphones nestled into my ears, pumping the sweet sound of Foxygen to my brain. It was somewhere during their acclaimed single “Shuggie,” in the middle of one of the song’s sudden breakaway bridges, that the feeling overcame me. I was in love, I realized–in love with Spotify.

I hadn’t known the app long. I was in the midst of its two-day trial, a coy courtship meant to lead to a monthly subscription of their premium service. With the trial I got all the perks a premium user gets: instant streaming of almost any album ever made, ability to craft custom playlists, and the oh-so-important offline feature.

I took a break on a log, turned on alt-J’s “An Awesome Wave,” and sighed.

Back in high school, after MP3s swiftly subjugated the reign of CDs, I used to tell my friends “Just wait, something will come by someday and make MP3s obsolete.” They would scoff and say “Sure, but what could possibly be better than a digital music file?” nearly a decade later we have the answer: limitless streaming.

It’s pretty amazing when you take a step back and look at the bigger picture. We can now, at the touch of a screen, listen to almost any album ever made. The original iPods, which required the external purchase of music, are now nothing more than mausoleums for our dated goods. Who needs to acquire music when we can just have access to it all?

Spotify isn’t inventing the wheel here, it’s simply taking advantage of the inevitable change in technology and marketing it better than anyone else. And, oh, does it market it well.

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