Local Natives - Heavy Feet

   When you listen to music, do you ever stop and think to yourself, wow, this is so great, I wish I had written it? As if just liking it is not enough, but maybe if you were to own it, to have created it, that might be. Heavy Feet by Local Natives strikes that kind of chord with me. I'm not really sure if I feel like that because of the each way of the instruments seem to weave past each other with hand claps here and there or the lyrics which seem to evoke a specific time and place so that by the end of the song you are left with the feeling of almost remembering a dream. Its ethereal, dissolving by the time its over.

   What's more, the video for Heavy Feet is just as beautiful, strange(there are singing sandwiches), and elegant. It depicts the story of three blind men who fly remote control air planes. It is a premise seemingly improbable, and yet you can only be filled with wonder while watching.

Local Natives
Heavy Feet


directed by Ben Reed

Almost, Not Quite

  In my time as a blogger and music lover I have viewed countless music videos. A dizzying amount to be sure. I have seen ones that I love and ones that I hate. There are videos that simply are so original and breath-taking that they are a wonder to behold aside from even the music that the video was made to accompany. There are also the dismal videos that don't seem to make any sense or are just plain weird or not enjoyable. But, there are also the ones that fall between the two markers, they are music videos that are almost, but not quite awesome, or also almost but not quite horrible. These valiant vids lie in limbo, and from this limbo I will show you a few of the videos that I think could be a bit better or worse.

  In this first installment of this segment, let's take a look at one of the latest videos from Metric for their song "Youth Without Youth". I think its a pretty good song, but the problem with the video is that it doesn't seem to know what it wants. The song is a bit dark and a bit edgy with heavy guitar and dark synths sailing throughout the song. The video on the other hand seems to have an odd gimmick of stacking things, contrasts of black and white and light tones, and a highly anti-climatic use of slow motion. Its artsy, sure, but to what end?

Metric
Youth Without Youth

Music of Summer

   Summer is a time for sprinklers in front yards. Dog walks in the late evening as the sun is setting. Children running to and fro. Bonfires that reach up to the night's sky. Green trees and gardens. Endless bike rides winding throughout the city. Summer is for sitting out on the rocks and listening to waves lap the shore as the stars wink in the sky. Shorts and t-shirts, water gun fights. A thousand books to read about adventures and romance and everything in between. Night kite flying, which I fully intend to do. Dancing in the street to the music in our heads and the bands playing at the street corner bars. Its a time for block parties and volley ball. Temperatures so hot the whole world feels like a sauna. Friends, long talks about nothing in particular. Road trips to the end of the world. Swimming 'til your lungs give out just to see how far you can go. Thunder storms that shake the sky as well as the foundations of building. Bubbles blown into gusts of wind. Rolled eyes at silly puns and climbing trees.

Summer is about all of these things and more, and so the music of summer should invoke these things as well. That I believe for sure. Here are some songs to get your summer started right. We'll start out with the effervescent shine put out by Kishi Bashi with his song Bright Whites. Its a song that might be about a breakup, but that doesn't stop it from making you want to get up and dance. Then we have Givers playing a wonderful zydeco cover of Paul Simon's That Was Your Mother off his Graceland album. From there we have Surfer Blood with a surf, rock, noise infused song to get to through to the other side. Finally there's The Lumineers with Ho Hey, a bit of folk rock full of stomps and claps. You might recognize the last one from the new Bing commercial.


Kishi Bashi
Bright Whites



Givers
That Was Your Mother (Paul Simon Cover)




Surfer Blood
Swim



The Lumineers
Ho Hey

Halfway Through

you been running
full-tilt
so damn long,
I'm not sure
if you can recall
what it feels like
just to walk

Halfway through that race
you just kinda stopped
your body
slowed and slowed
itself
With desperation
you gazed up
to the clouds above

a tear rolled
down your cheek
after all this time
you were
ready to give up
to give in

But I shouted,
"No, don't give in
don't let go yet!"
Despair surrounded you
a dark cloak hung from your shoulders

But I know
you're strong
so so strong
So please don't despair
You've almost made it
to the end
rise from the dust,
rise from the ashes
and continue on

Bill Callahan
Riding for the Feeling

Mattstache

I saw this really pretty entertaining music video about a month or so ago and meant to write about it and share it, but then never did. No time like the present, right? I don't normally listen to David Guetta, nor Nicki Minaj, but this video is enthralling and the song is pretty damn catchy. The story is that the man in the video had been growing a beard for quite some time, he decided it was time to shave it off, but instead of just spending 20 minutes in the bathroom, he decided to make a production of it. After who knows how many takes later and some thorough editing and a brilliant scheme we have a solid fan-made video.

Mattstache (Matthew Ferguson-video credit
David Guetta
Turn Me On Feat. Nicki Minaj

Not just a treadmill band

Hey guys!

How is everyone out across the interwebs? Good I hope..Hopefully nice and snug in bed as I'm typing this at 12:40am on a Monday night. I'm sitting here listening to Rilo Kiley, PJ's and glasses on, air conditioner rumbling in the background; life is alright. Should I be doing homework? Yes, probably, but it will get done, don't worry.

So are you guys familiar with the band Ok Go? I've posted some of their stuff on here before. If you've missed that, well you probably know them as the band with "the treadmill video". I think they are a pretty fun band sonically, their albums seem pretty solid to me and besides the infamous treadmill video(which I am a fan of) they have done some really cool things in the area of musical videos. They have one video from an older album where a guy does a back flip on a pogo stick, both he and the pogo stick are covered in matching wallpaper. And recently they went independent from their record label, it was an amicable break-up. This way they decided they could better market and produce music videos and music together which had been restricted before. So you get extremely cool things like this stop motion video, check it out:

OK GO
End Love



Am I going to bed now? maybe..no guarantees though