Hesta Prynn

I have received a few excited emails from friends about Hesta Prynn's new EP. I figured it must be great because my friends rarely use exclamation points as often as they did when trying to explain how much they liked Hesta's music and how much different it was from her band Northern State. I gave it a listen to see for myself and they were right, it is worthy of exclamation points and maybe a few sentences typed in all capital letters. 

Now that you're good and interested, head over here to pick yourself up a signed copy of the EP...and while you're at it, check the tour dates on Hesta's MySpace page to see if she's coming to a town near you. She is a force to be reckoned with onstage too- I have seen dozens and dozens of shows but Northern State was the only band besides Radiohead that made me shake my terribly uncoordinated hips. 

Because you've been such good boys and girls today:

[MP3] Hesta Prynn- Seven Sisters

with love,

Summer

PS: Scott Kanberg, stop stalling. 

PSS: "Paul's Boutique" is officially twenty years old. Goddamnit. 

Summer Is Not Dead (Yet)

Well, hello friends.

I know that it is quite unlike me not to post something at least once a week. I also know that you probably have been checking back here daily and thinking to yourself, "Hmmm...I hope Summer isn't dead or something..." Admit it. You've thought that at least once.

Rest assured, I am not dead. I have been recovering from a wisdom tooth removal and being creeped out by Faraday's mother on LOST for the past two weeks in a row. These aren't very good excuses, so all I can say is that I will make an effort to post something this coming week. Perhaps a new mix.

I promise.

[MP3] The Carpenters- We've Only Just Begun

xxoo,

-Summer

PS: The interview with Kristine Tuna is going extraordinarily well. It should be done within the next year or so. You know, right after I post that An Horse review.

PSS: Speaking of the Horse, they're playing with Wintersleep at the Echoplex in LA. It's 18+. Do you think they're doing this on purpose?

my life as a playlist

I was aimlessly trawling though facebook updates the other day and I came across a group titled something along the lines of ‘I wish my life had a soundtrack’. Although I didn’t join the group myself it give me the idea for the following question which I’m going to throw out to all you AATS readers, the question being ‘if you were having a film made about you/ your life, what songs would you add to the soundtrack?’
The ‘film’ doesn’t necessarily have to be serious, like for example if I were making a film about me saving the world (I dunno what from…zombies or something) I don’t think I could resist putting ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ in there somewhere.
Also I have a friend who once told me when they die they’re going to have ‘Sex Bomb’ as their funeral song.
The film could be based on your whole life, or it could just be one day (like Ferris Bueller style), I don’t really care as long as you make a rockin’ soundtrack.
So yeah I’m asking anyone who reads this to have a crack, be self-obsessed for a couple of minutes and lets us know what songs were made for YOU.
I reckon we’ll put up the best ones as downloadable playlists so others can listen to your life-soundtrack. The instructions may sound vague, but that’s because it’s pretty much open to your interpretation.
I’ll make one too in good time.
To tell us your suggestions, email, message (on myspace) or just comment below. It’ll be great to hear your ideas.

-lucy
who really does love a good soundtrack

Frusciante's 'The Empyrean'

(Before i begin i apologise, my blogs are few and far between, and they always seem to pop into my head, and onto your screen just after summer posts a great mixtape)

You may (or may not) know John Frusciante as the psykadelic drugged rocker guitarist from famous group the Red Hot Chili Peppers - i was trying to think of a better acronym, but the best i could think was Raging Heroin, Cocks + Prozac? ...look i tried -
anyway, in sight of lucy's blog about some new class of 09 albums, i remembered that John Frusciante, who, having embarked on a solo career in 1994, has released yet another solo album.

"The Emyrean" (John's latest album) comes from a long line of albums, proceeding an amzing 10 Albums in 11 years. However, his realeses are not at all timely and fluent,
in 2004 between February and November Frusciante pumped out an amazing 5 albums.




The Empyrean showcases a very similar style to most of his other albums:
songs are not usually under 4 minutes long, and often boast at least a guitar solo or two.
Although he has quite a sweet falsetto voice, most of the words are given effects, and are often hard to distinguish - the type of effect you might expect to hear while calling yourself 30 years in the future, which in my opinion subtract from his talent.

if you have the patience to give the album a listen, it might well prove an effort in vain. although i havent had it on constant playback, there seems to be no real stand out song, and they tend to blend together, seeming like one continuous song.



thats not to say he hasnt pleased my ears before, "Shadows Collide With People" (2004) was by far my favourite of his solo work, and full of hits.


if you want to listen, be prepared for a philosophical trip to understanding. completely drug free ofcourse....

for those bitTorrent users out there, the torrent can be found here,


let me just add, i never have been, or have ever given a valentine....how depressing. :(
thanks for the tape summer :)


~ RONAN

Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid*

Hello friends,

Secretly, I think I want to turn this little blog of ours into some kind of pathetic dating site. That is the only explanation I have for why I've uploaded so many love-themed mixtapes. Ironically enough, I dislike Valentine's Day. But this doesn't mean I didn't make you a mixtape to honor the day.

Valentine's Day has always caused an added bit of social anxiety (as if I don't already have enough) for me. When I was in school, we would have these little parties and hand out cards and candy to the people we liked. It was always terribly awkward because I wasn't too fond of the boys (although, they were always for some inexplicable reason, fond of me..bless them.) and I would chicken out before handing a card to the girl I liked in the class.

As I've grown up, I've never really gotten over that. I mean, sure, every once and a while I meet a girl who will give me a case of sea legs but I'm far too dignified and far too afraid that she would decline my request to be my Valentine. So I'll spend this coming Saturday like Rob Sheffield would- silently cursing my pride and the fact that I have never and will never have a better pick up line than, "hey, I'll make you a mix!".


That said:



Also, I had already made this before realizing that the Los Campesinos! song called "Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time" would have been perfect for this mix. If you'd like, you can download it now and place it between "No Other One" and "Sea Legs".


[MP3] Los Campesinos!- Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time


forever your girl,
Summer


*the title of this blog was stolen from the song above. Gareth stole it from Parenthetical Girls. All hail to the thief.

Chin up, the future looks bright...well kinda?

I apologize in advance if this is kinda sloppy even though this weekend I actually don’t have the pathetic excuse of being hung-over to justify such a slack and simply lazy blog-post, but oh well lazy is whatcha’ get when you have worked 6 days this week (I know, I’ve sold out) and you’re allowed to be slack when you can boast to spending your Saturday nights in as a productive manner as I did (which consisted of helping a friend fit a condom over his head so he could blow it up using their his= kinda like a conehead).
But anyway enough of my vulgar spare-time activities, the reason of this post is to say that my predictions for 2009 are that the year is in musical terms, gonna be pretty fucking awesome. I’m basing this assumption on pretty much the fact that in the past 2 weeks or so, 2 of my favorite artists have both released pretty kick-arse (for those American readers,our word ‘arse’ is the Aussie equivalent of ‘ass’ just so you dodn’t get too confused ha) records, those being Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Working On A Dream’ and Lily Allen’s ‘It’s Not Me, It’s You’. Both have copped a bit of shit by reviewers, which I think is mainly rather unjustified (however my view could be severely of the rose-tinted glasses syndrome as these two would have to seriously fuck-up to do any wrong in my books).
Seeing as though I was email/messaging Summer the other day in bullet point form, no reason ‘just ‘cause’ I think I’ll continue in that fashion and give you a little run-down of these 2 albums that have made February pretty great thus far:

Bruce Springsteen- ‘Working On A Dream’
+ Been hailed as a bit of a campaign record by reviewers, yeah I see that, the name is kinda obvious to begin with, but Obama won, so he’s allowed to flaunt it a little.
+ Full of good ol’ Springsteen rock n roll, which everyone needs a little of in their life however there is a sound he’s bringing to this album that’s so fresh you have to do a double take on a few tracks to check it really is The Boss.
+ Bonus ‘making of’ DVD shows that even at almost 60 years of age he’s still pretty damn sexy.
+ Track ‘Queen of the Supermarket’= about falling in love with a checkout chick (more charmingly known as a ‘swiper slut’), does Bruce really go to the supermarket? Oh well, this track does teeter on the verge of corny, but it gives hope to all those poor lonely swiper sluts out there that one day a filthy rich rockstar may one day fall for you and your grocery bag-arranging skills.
+ The only thing that shits me about this record is that the cover is a weird shape, too big to put with my CD’s and too small for the DVD’s, which really just fucks up my little alphabetizing system I had going on. Apart from that; I’m all smiles and thumbs up.

Lily Allen- It’s Not Me It’s You
+ Oh I don’t even know where to start with this record, I honestly think it’s one of the most important pop releases in years! Lily is just so cool, and funny and smart I think I wanna be her.
+ The track ‘Fuck you’ sounds like the sweetest little ditty, but underneath it’s actually got some of the angriest and most spiteful lyrics I’ve read in a long time, being able to make unsuspecting listeners innocently whistle along to such lyrics is pure sarcasm and genius at it’s best.
+ The track ‘The Fear’ is charting all over the world, and is the prefect remedy to chart music and trashy pop culture; watching it do so well is almost like satire.
+ Even though Lily can stick it to the Politicians (Fuck You) and over-affluent culture (The Fear) she can still write about bad sex (Not Fair), with lyrics like: ‘Oh I lie here in the wet patch in the middle of the bed, I’m feeling pretty dan hard done by, I spend ages giving head’ being sung with the cutest vocals and sweetest innocent music, it’s so perfectly sarcastic and strange; that’s what good pop music should be all about

But anyway with there being a Tegan and Sara release sometime this year, a new Flight of the Conchords season (and hopefully album) and the disappearance/ fade away of the once great but ear-bleedingly overplayed MGMT’s ‘Electric Feel’ and Kings of Leon’s ‘Sex On Fire’, oh 2009; it’s a good year to work in a record store.

Lily Allen- F--k You
Bruce Springsteen- Queen of the Supermarket

-Lucy


Also I don’t really care how soppy or lame it sounds but I just wanted to dedicate this post to those 108 (and counting) people who have lost their lives in the Victorian (Victoria is a state of Australia, my foreign friends) bushfires over the past couple of days, also to all those 700+ people who have lost relatives, friends, pets and houses our hearts go out to you all.

Radiohead to Perform at the Grammys

The musical loves of my life will be playing "15 Step" with the USC marching band on tomorrow night's Grammys. Enormous thanks to the lovely people from At Ease for sharing pictures of rehearsal (and a few words with Jonny) with us and getting me so ridiculously excited that I can't even compose a decent sentence. Twenty bucks says I'll be crying before Thom gets through the first verse. Hell, I'll be lucky if I make it that long. 

Anyways, what I'm trying to say is: get out the VCR, kids.

[MP3] Radiohead- 15 Step

love,

Summer

Family Bones

Hello friends,

My pal Grady Drugg sent me an email the other day telling me that he had recorded an impromptu live set of covers during a New Year's Eve party. He paired up with his friend Richard Herbsleb and as he puts it, "we were just playing guitar in the living room without the intention of receiving any applause, and for the most part, we don't, but it's still the happiest thing ever."

Grady is exactly right. I gave it a listen yesterday and completely fell in love with how simple, yet excellent it was. And because he's such a swell guy, he uploaded it for you to download for your listening pleasure! Here's the tracklisting and the link to the .zip file:

Live from the Living Room-

1. Bad Fish (Sublime)

2. First Day of My Life (Bright Eyes)

3. Knowledge (Operation Ivy)

4. At the Bottom of Everything (Bright Eyes)

5. You're Wondering Now (The Specials)

6. Four Winds (Bright Eyes)

7. Across the Universe (The Beatles)

8. Passin' Through

9. Dostoyevsky Gets Mugged Outside a Donut Shop in Jersey (Kind of Like Spitting)

10. Red Red Wine (UB-40)

11. Happy New Year!

You can hear more of Grady's music on his MySpace page. Tell him we sent you!

until then,

Summer