Power Pop #6: Sloan – The Rest of My Life

There’s two reasons to pick the wonderful Canadian indie rock / power pop group Sloan tonight. 1) This blog is celebrating 10 year anniversary next saturday at Pikku-Torre and Sloan has been quite a big influence over the years. One Chord to Another is an album by Sloan and another Sloan album Pretty Together was the first album I ever reviewed. 2) Today Sloan informed that they are offering a new digital singles album for free. It’s entitled Sloan – Select Singles 1992-2011, it contains 14 great Sloan singles and you can download it for free from NoiseTrade. It’s extremely difficult to pick just one song from it, because I pretty much love all those 14 singles. But I’m an extremely logical person and therefore I think I don’t pick anything from One Chord to Another or Pretty Together this time around and instead go with this beauty from their seventh album Action Pact (released in 2003).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygejqgBm9l0]

Sloan Website

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News: Doug Paisley at Dynamo, Turku on 10.09.2011

Oh my. This is something really wonderful. I’ve been focusing on Flavour Of The Month on 3rd of september, but it’s also about time to start promoting this upcoming concert at Dynamo, Turku that takes place a week later (I don’t have anything to do with this concert, I’m just excited about this). Doug Paisley is one amazing folk/country singer-songwriter from Canada. If you loved Damien Jurado’s Finland tour, you will love Doug as well. This guy is fantastic and will play his only show in Finland on 10th of september at Dynamo.

Doug Paisley live at Soundscapes

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPE738TYzBE]

Dynamon 2011-Klubien sarja tuo Dynamon lavalle jälleen poikkeuksellisen hienoa elävää musiikkia:

Doug Paisley on kanadalainen laulaja ja lauluntekijä, jonka musiikki versoo vahvasti sekä kantrin että amerikkaisen folkin maaperästä. Samalla Paisleyn musiikki on kuitenkin aivan omanlaistaan – kyse ei ole retroilusta tai perinteeseen verhoutumisesta. Paisleyn laulut ovat kauniita ja eleettömiä, tarkkaavaisia ja paljaita, sekä äärimmäisen tarttuvia.

Paisleyn uusin albumi Constant Companion (2010) on saanut paljon huomiota jopa valtamediassa, Mojosta The New Yorkeriin, ja mm. Rolling Stone -lehti kutsui sitä yhdeksi vuoden 2010 parhaista singer-songwriter-albumeista. Levyllä Dougia avustavat mm. The Bandin kosketinsoittaja Garth Hudson ja kanadalainen indietähti Leslie Feist. Levyä seuranneen kiertueen Paisley teki Bonnie “Prince” Billyn seurassa.

Dynamossa Doug Paisley esiintyy yksin kitaransa kanssa.

“…effortless and insightful, full of songs that draw you in with their peaceful, easy surface and then dump a big load of hurt on you.” – Pitchfork, Stephen M. Deusner

“Americana album of the month” – Uncut

“Minä pidän tästä musiikista, tämä tuo minulle rauhan.” – Elmeri Lehtinen, 3v.

Illan aloittaa turkulainen pitkän linjan musiikintekijä Niko Karlson, joka muistetaan mm. myrskyisän Navigations -bändin riveistä, mutta myös mestarillisena äänittäjänä ja studioteknikkona mm. Reverend Bizarren levyiltä.

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Power Pop #5: Velvet Crush – Hold Me Up

After mentioning the legendary power pop drummer Ric Menck in the previous Old Californio post, there’s only one place this power pop section can take me next. It’s obviously Velvet Crush, who were/are led by Ric and Paul Chastain. A really great classic power pop band from Rhode Island that has released so many wonderful pop songs that I could keep this section up for a few weeks just by using their material and the quality wouldn’t drop. The dearest Velvet Crush album to me is their second album Teenage Symphonies to God that came out on Creation Records in 1994. Hold Me Up is the great opener of that record.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqD6Z8KYUGw]

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Old Californio – Sundrunk Angels

I first heard about Old Californio when I red that the legendary power pop drummer Ric Menck recommended them. That was a year or two ago.. around the time their previous album came out. Even though I would happily follow Ric to moon and back and value his opinion, I never ended up buying the album. But the name stuck in my mind and a month ago when I noticed that my favourite record store, 8raita, had the new Old Californio album Sundrunk Angels in stock, it was time to get to know Old Californio a little bit better. A wise decision, because this is definitely my kind of music. Picking up plenty from the west coast tradition. Beautiful country-folk, some psychedelic rock’n’roll and a fair share of great pop melodies. It’s not perfect and I won’t start shouting their name from the rooftops at this point, but Sundrunk Angels is a very fine record indeed.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbbH4DI2-Vo]

Old Californio Website

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