Posts Tagged ‘ she & him ’

Thanks NPR for She & Him, but now it’s time for Shady Retreat by Peasant

March 16, 2010

I was going to try something a little different today. After yesterday’s She & Him love fest, I saw on the twitters someone comment on how after Merge kept She & Him to themselves to protect the possible leak, they let NPR stream it thereby creating the leak! Pretty funny.

So, I headed over to NPR to see what other potential leaks are there. There was Gorillaz, Joanna Newsom, & Frightened Rabbits, all already leaked out and about and on various iPods throughout the world. Thanks NPR! But there was a new one up from the band Archie Bronson Outfit called Coconuts.

I loaded it up, ready to do some sort of live review either here on on twitter, but two songs in I’m just too annoyed to bother. I think we’ll wait until a more “anticipated leak” shows up and we’ll do it then. Dear god, need to turn this off now. One sec.

There…. that’s better. That was rough.

But anyways, thanks again NPR for leaking out She & Him for us. Baby & I love it and it’s been on repeat since we woke up yesterday morning. I think my ice cream comparisons still hold! But alas it’s time to move on and maybe it’s the sun shining outside and Spring back on my mind, but I feel like keeping the sweet pop goodness going and Shady Retreat by Peasant is filling the bill perfectly!

Once again, just like She & Him yesterday, Shady Retreat — it’s sad, but I keep typing “Shady Retweet”, instead of Shady Retreat, DAMN YOU INTERNET!!!!! — will not “challenge your notions of what defines pop music” or whatever, this is simple folk/indie/pop, light, fun, and lovely. Sweet vocals (reminiscent to Loney Dear) and smart & light acoustic-based melodies & harmonies float up and into yer brain like (you ready for this) the rising sun (yeah, I went there). But yeah, seriously, this is sunrise/sunset music for a lovely Spring day and that’s exactly where my heart & head are at.

It’s funny, I see on the boards and twitters and facebooks and (insert social network here) some people question the need & room for another indie-folk-pop band, not against Peasant specifically, but in the “indie-as-genre” in general and to those people I say, “dude, what the fuck, man? why you trying to “harsh my vibe” as the kids say?” Look, good music is good music and there is no such thing as too much good music. That’s like saying there’s such a thing as too much sweet lovins!!! Does all sweet lovin-times have to be a progression into something challenging and abstract? People who complain about having too many indie-folk-pop bands are people who ain’t getting laid enough. The end.

Sorry for the distraction, that’s my brain. So, load up this gem, grab yer sweetie, get nekkid, & let the Spring sun peer into the windows of your bedroom and…. Enjoy!

1. Thinking
2. The Distance
3. Well Alright
4. The End
5. Pry
6. Prescriptions
7. Into The Woods
8. Tough
9. Hard Times
10. Slow Down?

Some Peasant love: Myspace | Label

Cheers,

Tsuru

Fun in the sun, back to the grind, and we hearken with Volume II by She & Him…

March 15, 2010

By Tsuru

Photography “Florida Strawberry Festival” by Me!

WE’RE BACK! Whee! Our little weekend down in Flo-Ri-Da was perfectly perfect, just what the good medicine man ordered. Came in to a rainy Friday which caused a bit of detox and relaxation before the weather turned PERFECT, and I mean PERRRRRRFFFFFECT! Seriously, in the 60s, breezy, & super sunny and, as you can see from the photo above, it was the last weekend for Florida Strawberry Festival! Now, I’m not a huge “festival guy”, hell, SXSW sounds painful to me and I’m a music geek, but something about wandering around Florida’s most awesome collection of, uh, people with Baby, Mama & Sister Tsuru, and my young nephew was just too much.

There were strawberries (the reason for the season, but the Strawberry Shortcake was not nearly as good as I remember as a wee-lad)..

NOTE: Photos via TsuruBride’s & my Tumblr…

There were rides (nearly got sick on a kiddie-ride, seriously), including one that simulates what it would be like to be a hamster in a ball on water…

There was carnie-food, caramel apples, funnel cakes, fried-everything, etc, etc

And, of course, there was the midway games where I, yes ME, won Baby her very first carnie-prize ever! A cheap little Beanie-Baby-styled stuffed dog by hitting a balloon with a dart. Novi got a goldfish by my mom getting a ping pong in a bowl, a goldfish that later that night their cat, who I call “Big Moosh” as it looks JUST LIKE a larger version of our cat Mushaboom, tried to eat.

There was arts, there was crafts…

(Made that all by myself!), and there was relaxation & good times…. it was perfect.

Then last night we fly back into 30/40s & misty rainy weather? Ugh. AND work??? Double Ugh. Welcome back to O-H… I-O. But that’s okay, because just as quick as the cold & wet hit us, so did we wake up to a big wallop of sunshine via the newly leaked via NPR full album stream web rip of Volume II by She & Him!!!

The word they give She & Him is “sun-soaked” and that’s a pretty good one, I’m sure 99% of the reviewers will us it, it feels right. It feels sunny, for the most part, which, considering the weather we came home to, it just what we need to keep that March Florida feeling going, but to blanketly — is that a word? — call it sunny isn’t quite doing it justice. The word that comes to mind for me is “hearken”, this is hearken pop. Pop that hearkens back to by-gone eras, a time in, oh, I don’t know, late 70s, early 80s, when Dolly Parton & Charlie Rich were bringing various mixtures of pop + honky-tonk + R&B, but then you add in flavours and flourishes of girl-groups and you got She & Him. Volume II picks up just where Volume I left off and given the names of the albums, that’s exactly what it should be. It’s comfort food, adorable & sweet & delicious comfort food, yes…… She & Him is ice cream.

So, while other may compare She & Him to the sun, I will compare them to that frozen treat on the sun-filled day. What am I talking about? I have no idea. This much I do know, M. Ward has inspired me… See this photo?

And see him in their video for “In The Sun”?

Well, given that I’m just a few years from 40 and mustaches are still “in style”, I figured this may be my last chance to grow lip hair. It will be an uncomfortable and patchy affair, and in the end, I’ll probably shave it all off before it gets a real chance to begin, but for now, the great facial hair growth experiment of 2010 has begun. Expect photo updates for as long as I can keep it going soon. Right now, I’m at just under a week of growth, so not much to report yet.

Where was we? Oh yeah, She & Him. My only complaint on this absolutely lovely album? The opening track, “Theives”… guys, you REALLY should’ve ended the album on that one. It’s bittersweet, it’s got grand finale feelings, and then “In The Sun” is the perfect lead-off track! What were you guys thinking?????

Ah, oh well. It’s not my album, so I shan’t complain.

Well, as random as this post is looking, and even with this weather, I’ll tell ya, it’s good to be back & it’s good to finally have She & Him, so let’s get listening, eh?

*** STREAM FULL ALBUM AT NPR ***

1 Thieves
2 In the Sun [ft. Tilly and the Wall]
3 Don’t Look Back
4 Ridin’ in My Car
5 Lingering Still
6 Me and You
7 Gonna Get Along Without You
8 Home
9 I’m Gonna Make It Better
10 Sing
11 Over It Over Again
12 Brand New Shoes
13 If You Can’t Sleep

Some She & Him love: Myspace | Official | Merge

Cheers,

Tsuru

TSURURADIO Presents… And She Was Born In A Bottle Rocket, 1929 Mixtape!!!

February 12, 2010

By Tsuru

Photography “Born In A Bottle Rocket” by Tsuru, Model by Isabella Misery

Well it’s time for the weekend. Finally, right? Can I get a high-five?

Sweet.

What you doing this weekend? Looks like more snow here, so my riding will be relegated to The Tank. BUT, if that good lard’s a-willin’ and the creeks don’t rise, Tuck and I will be driving out the route for April 3rd Super Awesome NO-FRILLS Bike Ride for Breast Cancer!

Keep an eye out for an update for a start location and route if all goes well!

WOOT!

I’m so excited for the ride. No idea how many will show up. But even it’s just a handful of people, it’ll be great and, of course, SUPER AWESOME! Haha!

Okay… got a little Friday mixtape for you today. Kept it old school, just built a nice collection of songs in the order I’d like to hear them. No “mixing”, no necessity for gapless play (though, I recommend it anyway because, well, those 2 sec gap things are just stupid).

This one was inspired by so many things. Matt obsessing over Rural Alberta Advantage, gud giving us a Tom Waits New Orleans song down in the Society, catching Velvet Underground in a movie the other night, or like when Colin Meloy was having his mind blown by Besnard Lakes. Just little things like that, “Ghost”, of course, appears due to the photo at the top of this post, plus our discussion of The Greatest Song Trilogy Of All Time, & my desire to have the lyric tattooed on my arm ASAP.

So yeah, it’s the little things that seemed to hook onto me, latching to my brain. Feels good, feels right. And after all this #musicblogocide2k10 madness going, I wanted to end this week on a good note. So, I’ll shut up and let’s just get to it.

Have a wonderful weekend, bundle up, and keep riding! Oh, and by the way, got a “special valentine’s day” treat for you this weekend, well, maybe more of an anti-valentine’s day treat, by way of our good friend Neil. Keep an eye out, should be ready by Sunday!!! Okay, let’s do this as…

TSURURADIO Presents…