WWRM

Glenn Beck, host of The Glenn Beck Program, cries for GQ

I was nearly stunned into cardiac arrest when I overheared the Glenn Beck Program the other morning.  After a commercial break the intro music was none other than Tokyo Police Club’s “Graves.”  However, my elation was cut short by Glenn Beck’s barking voice a couple of seconds later.  He didn’t mention the band of course, and he probably had nothing to do with the choice to air it.  The contrast between the programming and the music was almost too much.

Afterward, I dug around the internet trying to find “Graves.”  Instead I found some important news.  Tokyo Police Club is working on their new album named Masterworks In The Key Of Mastery, Feat. Baron von Fantastic and the Even More Simon Express.   The guys are finishing recording their record in LA right now.  So far there isn’t an official release date but their blog allows adoring fans to follow their every move.  They’ve even posted a video of a hockey game with some of their fellow rockers.  Tokyo Police Club can skate.  They certainly aren’t putting Canada to shame.

Who knows, next time you listen to an obnoxious talk show you just might hear some of your favorite music.  If you want to listen to radio that has nothing to do with Glenn Beck but has everything to do with awesome bands like Tokyo Police Club, listen to Your Mom on Sundays from 3-5pm starting January 24th.

~itchy

Itchy and Kreig are coming back to the airwaves January 24th to kick off the last season of Your Mom.  We’re going to have oodles of new music to share.  We also plan to make this the best season of Your Mom.  That is, if you’re up to it.

January also means many many of our favorite bands are unleashing new records.  Your Mom has waited years for some of these CDs.  We’ve cried over tantalizingly delicious singles.  Beyond January, there’s a slew of Your Mom’s favorite bands who are looking to release new albums in 2010.

On January 12th, both OK Go’s CD, Of the Blue Color of the Sky, and Vampire Weekend’s Contra will be in stores.  OK Go’s last release, Oh No, came out in 2006 so it’s been a pretty hearty wait.  Ok Go were also one of the bands that pulled the creative geniuses of Itchy and Kreig together, so they have some history with Your Mom.  This CD was produced by Dave Fridmann, the same guy that produced MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular.  Frontman Damian Kulash says of the album, “I think it sounds more like us than anything else we’ve done.”

Vampire Weekend’s wild crazy popularity meant that they churned out Contra in better time than OK Go.  Their first CD, Vampire Weekend came out January of 2008 and went gold.  After their adoption by MTV, they became relatively popular in the US.  In the UK they became even more popular and broke through the top 100 on the UK singles chart with A-Punk and Oxford Comma.  Rolling Stone review of Contra gave it four stars, if their opinion matters anymore.  If that doesn’t win you over, listen to this remix of their single “Cousins”.

Of Montreal, among the most fantastic of the Georgian rockers, are planning to release their next album either titled False Priest or The Controller Sphere in August or September.  Kevin Barnes, of Montreal front man and David Bowie’s spiritual son, says that he worked on this record alone and drunk in the studio.  The result?  “Some of the stuff is wild and bizarre and terrible.  And some of it is wild and bizarre and kind of good,” said Barnes to stereogum this January.

Speaking of MGMT, their sophomore album Congratulations is coming out this Spring.  Los Campesinos!, soulful  Brit rockers, will release their Romance is Boring  on January 26th.  Adding to the list: Hot Chip, Sleigh Bells, Fleet Foxes, Band of Horses, The Thermals, Free Energy, Gorillaz and even The Strokes are releasing albums in 2010.

Will this be the best year of your life?  It just might.

~itchy

What, you ask, do beards have to do with music?  Well they don’t, not directly.  They do add something to the aesthetic of your average rocker.   They transform what once was a semi-precious stone into a true gem.  It’s like the perfect pairing of wine with a gourmet meal, or the perfect shoes for an outfit, or…the similes are getting cliché but you get the point.  An increasing number of musicians are sporting beards, be it a phase of scruffiness, to a full on commitment to something too intense to be the side effect of laziness or a dull razor. 

 That being said, I present to you some of the best beards on some of the best musicians.

Ben Bridwell, Band of Horses’s vocalist and guitarist, full out commits to facial hair.  Not only is his beard expertly sculpted, but he also combines flawlessly groomed mane with some awesome tats.  Just conditioning his beard must be enough of a power up to fuel an entire night of musical awesomeness. 

OK, so the beard of Weezer’s River Cuomo didn’t last for long, and arguably it’s more of a goatee.  As if to mark his middle age-ness, Rivers has experimented with all types of face fleece in the past year or so.  But it wasn’t only recently that Rivers has taken to facial hair.  Reportedly when Rivers went to Harvard after Weezer’s initial success, he sported a pretty thick beard.  Even the fans at the university didn’t recognize him.  From Rivers we learn that beards create both the roughly aged aesthetic and become a James Bond style disguise.

Talk about putting Santa to shame.  Sam Beam of Iron and Wine does the beard thing so well, it’s hard to imagine anyone who does it better.  If this doesn’t say folk to you, well I’m sorry because you’re missing out an a full sensory experience.

Nathaniel Followill (second from the right), Kings of Leon’s mighty drummer, grows his dedication to the band’s aesthetic.  Early in their career, KOL sported some wily 70s porn inspired facial hair because no one else was doing it and they wanted to stand out.  What better way to make a musical statement than with a Followill-style long hair and beard combo?

 L Magazine warns readers, “Trend Alert: Some People in Some Bands Have Beards.”  Beards aren’t only a trend, they are a lifestyle.  From whily to well-groomed, they help musicians go under cover, or stand out.  They are the cheese on top of the pizza, inseparably melted to the subtleties of a musician’s sound.  They can give a rocker that signiture style that sets him loose upon the music industry.

Just remember, not everyone can pull a beard off.  Use your razor judiciously.

~itchy

 The first single off of Ok Go’s latest album, Of the Blue Color of the Sky, has finally landed, video and all.  These are the same guys whose self-produced videos for “A Million Ways” and “Here it Goes Again” infected YouTube with plague-like irresistibility.  These are also the same guys whose keep redefining the three-piece suit.  They have worn jackets designed by Meritz Waldemeyer with built in scrolling LED lettering.

They’ve also shown their dedication to pattern when they wallpapered themselves for their Grammy appearance in 2007.

 OK Go’s sound has changed a little.  Of the Blue Color of the Sky, combines the 80’s pop radio that the band has listened to- from Jackson and Prince, Talking Heads to the B-52s.  Tim Nordwind, Ok Go’s bassist, describes the album as having a “lonely robot sound.”   The band has also described this album as having their “most heartbroken and honest songs.”  I’m feeling lucky already. 

We’ve had to wait four long years since their last CD, Oh No, and we’ll have to wait almost two more months for their newest album, Of the Blue Color of the Sky, which drops on January 12, 2010.  Thanks to the album’s first single, we know it’s worth the wait.  The name of the single?  “WTF?” Seriously.  “WTF?”s video looks like Easter’s pastel-colored toxic waste in a wonderful way, and it sounds, well, it just sounds really sexy. 

What are you waiting for?  Watch the video for “WTF?” right now.  No excuses.

 ~itchy

Weezer is riding the wave of their new found middle aged popularity as long as they can.  After three years of pretending that it was over Weezer got back together, Rivers grew a mustache and turned forty, and they banged out the Red Album which came out June of ‘08.  There were some good ones on that CD (Pork and Beans, The Greatest Man that Ever Lived) but many of them were a bit puzzling and awkwardly funny. 

And the weirdness continues.  Weezer’s newest album, Raditude, comes out November 3rd.  Mercifully Rivers shaved the ’stache, but don’t let that lure you into the Weezer-inspired happy place that you so desire.  Lil Wayne contributes a baby rap to “I Can’t Stop Partying,” Raditude’s fourth track. 

Why Lil Wayne?  Rivers described it well to MTV when he said that Lil Wayne ”gave it the edge I was looking for. You can hear in his voice, it sounds so dark, like he was gonna get shot or something when he walks out of the studio.”  So there you go, this may possibly push the world off into the first musical apocalypse. 

Don’t forget to listen to the track here.  That beat’s pretty stunna’ right?

Peace.
~itchy

Your Mom’s Mix Tape

I’ve been toiling away over here, doing collegey things but mostly delaying those collegey things to find awesome music to play on Your Mom.  There are two good things about that:
1) I found some cool music
2) It’s free. 

There are a lot of semi-known bands that try to coerce you into loving them by enticing you with free songs.  Sure there are some bad tracks out there, but the good news is if you dig, you’ll find little gems.

Another thing I discovered this week: the brits and/or dudes with beards make some crazy great music.  I’m not saying that beardless non-Brits don’t make good music, it’s just that people who fall under these categories more likely than not will wow your ears.

So as Kreig and I sat in the booth today broadcasting this week’s show we played some of the songs that you’ll find links to below.  All of them are 100% free.

Kreig and I also flipped on the band name generator and created some awesome band names derived from parts of other band names.  Some of the best were:

OK Jr. and the Undead
Wild Moth Lips
My Dead Punk
5 Foxes
Most White Mice

Feel free to use any of these band names.  Think of them as your first little shove toward rock stardom.

A reminder, YOUR MOM will not have a show this coming Sunday, October 18th, due to Fall Break.  We will be back the next Sunday, October 25th, and promise to rock.  

 While you’re pining for YOUR MOM this Sunday, listen to these songs and reminisce.

Fanfarlo- Sand and Ice

Ra Ra Riot- Can You Tell

Dananananaykroyd- Chrome Rainbow

The Rakes- Retreat

Narokotiki- Puma

~itchy

Procrastinating sleep lead me to this awesome picture of Spider Webb from The Horrors.

Now, doesn’t he just look like he’s about to eat the soul of some helpless little fawn?

So many awesome things have happened since we last talked.  Your Mom had her debut show a couple of weeks ago.  It rocked as always, and maybe even a little bit more since DJs Itchy and Kreig are older and wiser.

Your Mom also attended The Horrors’ concert at Sonar in Baltimore.  There were pros and there were cons and sometimes the cons were the pros.

For those of you who haven’t yet taken the time to freak yourself out by The Horrors, a brief introduction.  Originally fashionable, English garage banders with a macabre side, they have since moved on to some soul-searching shoe gaze.  They still are fashionable and they still are macabre.  Their net weight as a band must be around 45 pounds, which adds to their mythical status.

Long story short, Your Mom loves The Horrors.  Way back in the early years of Your Mom, The Horrors were one of the first a bands of the week.  That’s how important they are.

Back to the concert.  The venue looked like a big, black basement.  The bar, no lie, was probably bigger than the stage.  A weird dog was wandering around and ended up doing a pee and run.

Kreig and I tucked ourselves right up front, as in three inches away from Joshua Third’s boots and about one inch away from a speaker that blew our ear drums out.  They played their songs perfectly, wore crisp, well-fitted black outfits, and never smiled (though Coffin Joe, the drummer, grimaced a lot).  They came back out for their encore and finally played the hard core awesome stuff from their first album, Strange House.  I swear, hipsters grew out of  the floor and swung down from the rafters just to mosh.  One girl took her shirt off, a drunk guy behind me kept repeating this chant that sounded to me like, “Shit, Fuck, Rock and Roll.”

The Horrors’ concert definiately adds to our street cred, that’s for sure.

You’ll hear a lot more about the  concert including some songs that we heard there if you’d only listen to Your Mom, Sundays 3-5.
Peace.
~itchy

It’s almost time to start the next season of Your Mom but it’s still a hearty wait.  Hopefully this will tide you over until then.

Lately, there are some things I’ve found in the music world that I don’t like.  Actually, it’s not that I don’t like them so much as I’m not sure what to think about them.  Take Jack White (of White Stripes and The Raconteurs fame) and his new project The Dead Weather, for example.  When they streamed Horehound online I listened to just about as much as I could.  I can’t quite tell yet if it’s hardcore good or hardcore bad.  I will admit that Treat Me Like Your Mother is just as hardcore and freaky as I could ever want a song to be and that I’ve jammed to it many, many times, however the video leaves something to be desired.  Machine gun showdowns and leather jackets are cool but not that cool.

There are some bands, Boys Like Girls and Cobra Starship, who have come out with some really really lame singles lately.  I’m sure you’ve heard them on the radio and I hope you’ll agree.

Boys Like Girls sound ordinary and the pathetic lyricism is really pathetic.  The new single is called Love Drunk.  See what I mean?

Cobra Starship’s Good Girls Go Bad feats Leighton Meester from Gossip Girl.  Bravo for getting radio play guys, but does it have to be this song? And if the cover for their new album, Hot Mess, doesn’t make you want to gag I don’t know what will.

There still is good music out there, though.   The Maccabees’s Wall of Arms, is like a new version of Colour it In, their first album, plus some horns and more melancholy.  Both I and Kreig have been listening to White Lies, a post-punk revival/indie/synth awesome band from Ealing, England.  And the good old favorites are still the good old favorites: Band of Horses’ first album Everything All the Time rocks and The Horrors still have awesome hair.

Some awesome concerts going on soon, too.  The aforementioned Horrors are coming to the US, Lollapolooza has a fabulous line up (Kings of Leon, Passion Pit, The Killers, Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes, Vampire Weekend…), and The Academy Is… is on this Fall’s AP tour (and they don’t have anyone too lame like Armor for Sleep or Hey Monday opening for them).

Keep your ears open and remember, you don’t have to wait until September to listen to Your Mom.  WWRM streams last year’s broadcasts 24/7 online.

~itchy

New albums, that is.  An infinite number of Your Mom’s favorite bands are coming out (or have already come out) with new CDs to chill the summer months.   So get busy.

Out now:

* The Macabees - Wall of Arms

* Hellogoodbye - Not an album, really.  A baby ablum called the Ukelele EP (feat. ukelele, no jokes)

* Art Brut - Art Brut vs. Satan

* Cage the Elephant - Cage the Elephant

*Incubus - Monuments and Melodies (not entirely new but, what can you do)

Soon:

* Ok Go - The Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight and of the Blue Color of the  Sky (or: The longest most incoherent album title of all time) - September

* Iron and Wine - Around the Well (”collection of rare tracks ranging from out-of-print to never-before-released”- so says www.ironandwine.com) -  May 19

* Cobra Starship - Hot Mess (ha.) - August 11

* Regina Spektor - Far - June 23

* Party Shank

* Miike Snow - Miike Snow - June 9

* Taking Back Sunday - New Again - June 2

* Greenday - 21st Century Breakdown - May15

* The Dead Weather - Horehound - July 14

* The Horrors - Primary Colours - May

In the studio:

* The Strokes

* Oppenheimer

* My Chemical Romance

* Hellogoodbye (LP in progress)

Don’t hesitate to share these awesome jams with your friends, just be cautious when playing them at pool parties.  Uncontrollable Rock ‘n Roll induced thrash dancing + wet cement is never a good idea.

Peace.

~itchy