Songs of the Future: September 17th

1a.  Vancouver -- Penalty Box

1b.  Vancouver -- Shape of Your Knees

If there is one band that I've found that shares the intensity and lyrical gusto that Ted Leo & The Pharmacists have it is Vancouver.  That is very evident in "Penalty Box" while "Shape of Your Knees" calmly strums along for nearly three minutes until the lyrics kick in.  It is a prime example of a band that is comfortable with their own song structure.  Both tracks are from Even My Winters Are Summers.

2. So Many Dynamos -- Search Party
From the Flashlights album.

3. The Dears -- Money Babies
This is from the upcoming album Missiles out October 21st.

4.  Brass Bed -- BBC Midnight Broadcast

From the Midnight Matinee album that came out yesterday.

5. Mystery Jets -- Half In Love With Elizabeth [Delorean Remix]
The Mystery Jets are my "unknown in the United States" British band and that might all change if their album 21 ever gets released on this side of the Atlantic.

Hollywood Fever

Question: Who is this quote describing?:

"He doesn't want to be our congressman anymore. It's clear he's left the building. The guy's got Hollywood fever, and that would be fine if he was using his national stature to actually get things done."

That is a quote from Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman, describing Dennis Kuchinich who is having some trouble holding on to his seat in Congress. Cimperman is running against everyone's favorite peacenik in the Democratic primary...and he is actually doing pretty well.

The Flaming Lips -- You Got To Hold On
From the W.A.N.D. single.

Hot Chip -- Hold On
From the Made in the Dark album.

Les Savy Fav -- Hold On To Your Genre
From the Inches album.

Jet -- Hold On
From the Spider-man 2 soundtrack.

Sam & Dave -- Hold On! I'm Comin'
From the Stax 50th Anniversary Celebration collection.

Sarah McLachlan -- Hold On
From the Hold On single.

Magnet -- Hold On
From The Tourniquet album.

Guided By Voices -- Hold on Hope (Live)
From a CD called The XFM Live Sessions from the great [but now defunct] British music magazine Select.

The Zombies -- You've Really Got A Hold On Me
From the Zombies collection Best of the 60's.

Dennis

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about Sam Brownback and wondering why conservative voters didn't find him appealing. Today Salon writes about Dennis Kucinich and asks why liberal voters don't find him appealing? The headline reveals all: "Stop lying to yourself. You love Dennis Kucinich"...

In early 2004 I travelled down to Iowa for the Iowa Caucuses and saw speeches from Howard Dean, John Edwards, and Dennis Kucinich...Edwards' speech was the best and he has essentially been doing the same speech in the years since...Kucinich's speech was very good as well and I hung around to get his autograph afterword...I agreed with almost everything he said but I would never vote for him. Why? Because of shallow reasons I guess...as we were waiting for Dennis to arrive we were subjected to the musical stylings of two neo-hippies with bad folk songs which were mainly original compositions. The group was named something like "John & Sunrise" or something similar...they were fine upstanding people I am sure, I just don't want them apart of anything close to running my country. Something was just off kilter about them if you know what I mean.

As a gigantic X-Files fan and a believer that there is probably intelligent life out there, I will not broach the subject of Dennis & UFOs, but the feeling I got when watching that musical group is the same feeling people get when they hear Dennis saw a UFO.

In our heart of hearts, didn't we already know he had seen one?

Mystery Jets -- You Can't Fool Me Dennis

Jens Lekman -- Jens Lekman's Farewell to Rocky Dennis

The US version [called Zootime here] of the Mystery Jets debut Making Dens is outstanding and can be picked up here. The Jens Lekman song comes from the Rocky Dennis EP which is out of print in CD form but you can download it from Amazon for only $3.61.