This Is Book's Music

In honor of the 45th anniversary of The Beatles‘ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the album in full from those who have covered it.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

With A Little Help From My Friends

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

Getting Better

Fixing A Hole

She’s Leaving Home

Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite

Within You, Without You

When I’m Sixty-Four

Lovely Rita

Good Morning, Good Morning

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)

A Day In The Life

Sgt. Pepper Inner Groove

When I received this album, I played it a lot and loved the fact that the opening track sampled the Beastie Boys. Since then, Adam Yauch has passed away but life and music lives on, and this album is a reflection of not only unity through music, but the unity of hip-hop at its best.

Straight, No Chaser is dialogue from writer and MC to fan and haters alike, to create something that will become a favorite among those who love well done music but also be favored in the next few years as a great “underground classic-to-be”. One of the best elements of this album is that he interacts with the music, it’s not just cool and funky samples slapped together to catch the ears of music nerds, but the music is at one with the voice and vice versa. This method is not unlike one of DJ Premier‘s best kept secret, and Reks is also not afraid to teach at the same time he is entertaining through dropping some dope sounding flows and rhymes. Let naysayers claim that hip-hop is dead, Reks proves that it’s vibrant in the 21st century.

(Straight, No Chaser is also available on vinyl, you can order it from Amazon by clicking the middle box shown below.)

Chaotic hip-hop left and right hitting everyone like sliding down a razor blade nude into vodka is how I would call the new single by Bigg Jus called Black Roses (Mush) and this one just pulls your eyes inside out or maybe it is in your ears tries to tie it into a knot you can’t reach because your arms don’t go that far behind you and by the time you catch up to it it just goes beyond you, for you, or against you uncontrolled like a “black rose on your casket”, which is a way of saying this is the kind of music that will kill you but since this is on that post-modern future boom bap and boof baf, you’re going to come back and resurrect yourself for the hell of it and if you were a fish it would be an incredible halibut, yeah this is that freedom in the music that was afraid to reveal itself but now that it has concealed itself, this is just that altera- funk that no matter where you touch, it’s going to burn and go into your internal oh holy shit and holy fuck, yeah I got explicit in this review because I feel it deserves it because this music deserves it.

This EP is an LP is an EP. What? I like a band who immediately plays around with format preferences. Realistically, Best Practices have released a new EP called The EP LP, but in brutal indie/punk rock terms, this could be easily taken in as an LP. Maybe. Well…

The EP LP (Tiny Engines consists of nine powerful and energetic tracks that’s not just about playing fast and loud, but there are some intricate things going in in these songs. On the surface, they revive the punch of bands like Superconductor, New Bomb Turks, and The Replacements. You might hear just sheer high voltage but what I like about these songs is the pop sensibility that will make this memorable, catchy, and future earworms. If they ever decide on creating The LP Boxset, I’m ready.

(Remixes From) The Nutty Tree (Mush) is a remix album of a project I really liked two years ago, and it’s nice to hear not only a return to it, but for Zoon Van Snook to allow others complete freedom to do whatever they want with the songs. I can relate to this.

This album features great remixes by Daedelus, Lost Idol, Fujiya & Miyagi, Woos, Ape School, and many others. The interchange between artist and remixer will be good, for fans of the remixers will discover someone new while Van Snook fans are able to open their minds to their favorite songs taken on into new worlds. It also comes off like a brand new Van Snook album with all new material, even though they are remixers so… dive into the pool.

Garage rock, surf rock, shag rock, soul, retro soul, a hint of Northern soul, or just sweet soul music: it is what Nick Waterhouse does in part to get his message across, and he does it quite well on Time’s All Gone (Innovative Leisure).

One might ask “does the world need yet another person trying to do the retro thing?” but I think a better question is, what is it about the old music that makes a lot of people fascinated by its sound, enough for them to want to revive it over and over? This is the end product of the influence of the source. This is not something that’s meant to have the high quality productions of a Motown release, this is something that is equal to a privately pressed record. It could have been done in a basement, a garage, or in a school gym, but what makes this work is its energy. It’s not something that is 100% soul, for I do hear elements of garage rock and surf rock, but if you know the history of all of these musics, the roots intertwined and became good bedfellows. These songs will make you dance, but it’s also worthy of rocking out to, and that’s a good thing. Time’s All Gone is swagger replicated for the 21st century, the kind of rock’n'roll that made a generation of older people panic and young kids pee in anticipation of how to upset their parents even further. Music that represents rock’n'roll pre-B.S.

I’m a huge fan of animation but never really featured it here unless it was music-related. While I did find out about this on a music-based mailing list, this has no connection whatsoever with a band or song.

The Obsession is a 7-minute animated video described as being about a young girl comes to stay with a man who becomes ever obsessed with her.. Pretty freaky, huh? This was put together by British animator Simon Marsh, whose works can also be viewed at Vimeo and also charts some cool discoveries (both animated and otherwise) on his personal blog.

It seemed for a short time, when one group wanted to share with the world the power of being album to rock as a duo. I’m sure some mainstream critics thought “oh no, another trend from the indie crowd” but there have been countless duos who have made some great music by keeping it simple. Redgrave‘s National Act EP (Lovitt) is stripped down to the essence: drums and guitar. Nothing more, and for now nothing less. It sounds more brutal than the actual ingredients, or that is to say that it sounds like there’s a 4-piece band here and when you realize “that’s it?”, you are content and want to listen further. But it is the songs that work beautifully, whether it is in duo form or perhaps one day when people take on Redgrave as an influential duo. Vocalist/guitarist Angie Mead sound like she was trained by some of the best screamers, and yet could sound quite remarkable if they were to go in country form. Drummer Stephen Howard compliments her and drives her dirges home, together creating the kind of grungy style that might make Melvins, White Stripes, Boris, and Jucifer smile from ear to ear. The grooves rip, they could be hard rock, metal, indie rock, grunge, or whatever trendy terms people want to use to say “wow, this is fucking awesome”. Then you have a vocalist who is indie rock’s version of Jennifer Nettles, where what you hear can only be touching the surface of everything else you’d like to hear her do. Take what you can get, but say thank you in return. National Act is bluesy too, perhaps due to their Chicago upbringing but whatever you get out of this, you’re going to want to side with them for life. This is a keeper.

(National Act will be released on June 12th.)

Good rock’n'roll doesn’t have to have mystical dragons on stage or be independent to be ballsy: it just has to be good. Adios Amigo play good rock’n'roll that also happens to be indie, with hints of country, folk, and Americana to throw people off or bring them in to their folds, and Dos signifies that this is their second release.

This four piece from San Francisco have all the chops of a band who aren’t afraid to show off and share their influences while getting a chance to try a new things in their sound. Their new EP is a cross between… well, let’s just say that if you love pop craftsmanship with all of the trimmings and extra toppings, all without being boastful, Dos is worth seeking.

(You can listen to a song from the EP, called “Chicken”, by heading to PrefixMag.com. If you are in San Francisco, Adios Amigo will be doing a show this Friday (June 1st) on the day of the EP release, which also doubles as a release party for a new album by Annie Bacon & Her OSHEN called Light To See Dark. The concert will also feature performances from My Second Surprise and Al Lover & The Haters. 10 dollar admission includes copies of Adios Amigo’s and Annie Ocean’s new music.)

Soundtrack To Your Life is a brand new 9-song EP from Wyldbunch and Hydro Law. Hydro is the MC also known in some circles as Howard Lloyd, and together their chemistry together shows a love for the whole “beats, rhymes, and life”, it’s very much about creating some great hip-hop just for the sake of doing so. Tracks like “Get Out My Life Woman” and “I Can’t Feel My Face” is, simply put, “feel good hip-hop”, and when you have two guys with two completely different-yet-distinct styles, it makes for great music. Plus, the moment you sample a track like “Instru-Mental”, I’m sold. Just the way I like, though, Wyldbunch & Hydro Law are psycho. Now I want a more out there album, and I’ll be waiting out here.