POST #214

Just a quick post to get everybody up to date on all the information that has been passed along to me in the past week or so.

First off, the biggest news. Jonny Rumble, who I mentioned a few posts back, is currently giving away their brilliant new album, JR, for FREE. I highly recommend you jump on over here and download it. Then head on over to their page, and sign up for their email list, so you can support them by catching a live show or two - or ordering the vinyl.

You gotta love free music - especially when it's this good.



Several bands (The Swell Season, The Shins, She & Him. . . ) have new music available for free download over at Levi's Pioneer Sessions. By the way, Glen & Markéta's song is a cover of Candi Staton's "Young Hearts Run Free", and it's excellent.



Frightened Rabbit have a new single and video out. "Living In Colour" is available for (paid) download over here, or you can try to get your hands on one of the (not yet available) extremely limited edition 7" single with individually hand-drawn sleeves!

Living In Colour from Soft City Lights on Vimeo.

NPR is currently streaming Herbie Hancock's new album, The Imagine Project. Among the many guests on this outing are The Chieftains and Lisa Hannigan. You can listen to it here. The album will be coming out Tuesday, and can be ordered here.

One more completely random note - if you were to get Bruce Campbell and William Shatner in the same movie, I don't care what the script is (buddy cops / zombie cow apocalypse / two older-than-twenty somethings starting a punk band. . . ) you'd make serious bank. I'm just saying.

H08 - THE CHIEFTAINS with ELVIS COSTELLO

The Chieftains with Elvis Costello - "St. Stephen's Day Murders" This will be my last holiday post for the year. I chose to wait until the day after Christmas for this one, as it's title is a reference to this day. (St. Stephen's Day isn't celebrated here in the States)

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Taken from The Chieftains' Christmas album The Bells of Dublin. (buy)

See y'all next year.

HOTHOUSE FLOWERS

I mentioned the Irish band Hothouse Flowers once before, in the post about fellow Irishmen The Frames. Back in the late eighties and early nineties, the Flowers were among my favorite bands. Strange because at the time I was big into angry and depressing stuff, which is the opposite of Hothouse Flowers.

By the mid-nineties, the original line up had split (alright, it wasn’t the original line up, but the line up from the first album), and I haven’t really taken the time to listen to their newer stuff.

That said, their early stuff was fantastic. Of course the songs on the albums were great, but many of my favorites were only issued as b-sides. Here’s a few from their first two albums to wet your appetite (I'll post some of the many many b-sides from their third album later):

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Hothouse Flowers - “Love Don’t Work This Way” (original version) This song later appeared on the first album, People, but in a very different form. This version is a duet between Liam O’Maonlai and Maria Doyle, who left the band shortly after recording this.
Hothouse Flowers - “Big Fat Heart” A radio session from 1988, released on the promo-only EP Just A Note.
Hothouse Flowers - “Carrickfergus” This is my favorite traditional Irish song, and this version is among the best I’ve heard (even better than Van Morrison and the Chieftains). Taken from the soundtrack to the movie Joyriders.
Hothouse Flowers - “Mountains” B-side of “I’m Sorry”.
Hothouse Flowers - “Wild White Horse” Taken from the soundtrack to The Courier.
Hothouse Flowers - “Bean Phaidin” Another traditional song. This one sung in Irish (or is that Gaelic?) B-side of the “Movies” single.


Hothouse Flowers discography:

People (1988) (buy)
Home (1990) (buy)
Songs From the Rain (1993) (buy)
Born (1998) (buy)
Into Your Heart (2004) (buy)

Hothouse Flowers are going to be touring the mid-west a little later this year. The dates are listed at their official site.