Don't Forget about Matt Durfee, Matt Durfee

i sincerely hope that matt durfee as a distinct musical entity is not entirely gone. his recent collaboration with a long time friend Mike Poulopoulos in the country-blues duo "Palatypus" has been keeping him very busy between recording EPs and playing a plethora of shows in New York and the surrounding provinces.

but for those of us who have been following the Durf-star around for months/years Palatypus is a bit of a trade-off. There's something about watching Matt Durfee alone with his guitar...maybe its his long skinny fingers dancing on his guitar doing things that normal fingers don't do, or it could the charming rural Schoarie county twang of his voice that he doesn't try to hide, or it could be the way he bobs his head, or maybe it's just the man-crush i have on him, and i know i'm not the only one.

he won much aclaim in the capital region before forming Palatypus, including Metroland's "Best Singer/Songerwriter 2006", which we used to start a fire one night when the b3nson crew went out to Indian Ledge southwest of Albany, the name of which they took for their music collective which includes Matt Durfee, Palatypus, Turtle Writing and Alta Mira.

"It's a Good Life" is a song that always makes me feel good. It's not gushing with optimism, in fact it's not even really that optimistic at all, but when he say's it a good life, you know that he's right.

last month he played a rare solo set somewhere in Troy for something, i missed it and am very dissapointed in myself for that. i will not miss the next one, which hopefully there is at somepoint. for now, Palatypus will suffice. don't get my wrong though, I'm as big a Palatypus fan as the next guy. they're much easier to catch around town, they play all over all the time and are definitely worth a trip to see.

but...

dear matt durfee,
please don't forget about matt durfee. "It's a good life" has a very special place in my heart, and the Gypsy Song makes me smile a smile that smiles for nothing else.

http://www.myspace.com/mattdurfee

http://www.myspace.com/palatypus

http://www.indianledgerecords.com

mp3: It's a Good Life

mp3: Etched in Red

(the mp3's will not be uploaded until later tonight or tomorrow for all of you up-to-the-minute Bensonites, you can no longer download them from his myspace so I have to track them down, but I will find them, for now go the ol' myspace-a-roo)

If I Were An Owl

I first heard Tinyfolk last Thursday while tuned in to the awesome Albany radio station 90.9 FM. The song was “If I Were an Owl.” I was in the kitchen, watching hawks fly overhead.

Talk about romantic... “If I were an owl and you were a mouse I’d eat you up for breakfast, I’d take you under my owly wing and I’d buy you presents for Christmas… I’d hunt the oak tree late at night…tryin’ to figure out whoo whoo whooooo you were.”

“If I Were An Owl” is off of Tinyfolk’s multi-syllabic release Platapeasawallaland: A Rainy Day Owlbum. Yet another band from what is turning into be the music capital of the world, Bloomington, Indiana.

When I listened to their song “William You Were On To Something” I immediately thought of Ponies in the Surf. Whom I will devote an entire blog to next week. The song smacks of Alexander McGregor’s vocal and guitar songwriting, and that makes it good. That, and the fact that following the song there’s an audio clip from the film Annie Hall. I love Woody Allen. He’s a funny guy. He’s like when you take a sip of coffee and then say, “hey, this ain’t coffee…this is kool-aid.”

Tinyfolk will shortly be touring the country, mostly with the band Real Live Tigers, which hails out of Austin. So if you happen to find yourself in Indiana, Nevada, Iowa, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Kansas, or Wisconsin it would be an owlfully good idea to check them out. And if you’re not heading west, just go online and check them out. They’re a hoot.

www.myspace.com/tinyfolksings

Ramona Cordova is Heavy on My Head

I'm a little behind the times musically speaking. I didn't listen to the Beatles until I was a Freshman in college, didn't hear Belle and Sebastian until two years ago, Neutral Milk Hotel, last October. And there's a few very good reasons for my lag. I won't burden you now with the reasons, just know part of one of them has to do with Christian parents, a steel curtain and the impending apocolypse.

So I don't feel like it's a problem to be writing about an album from last year right here in the middle of April. Especially when songs from this album are haunting me more every day that passes.

I'm speaking of the Ramona Cordova album; The Boy Who Floated Freely. The best part is: I've never even listened to the entire album.

I was introduced to Ramona Cordova through a campfire sing along in which every person singing busted a neck veign trying to hit the high notes of a serpentine beautiful melody. The song was Heavy on My Head and every version I've ever heard, from the first to the last is as good as the first time. I love this song.

It's achingly wonderful. It's so proximus to where you sit. No matter how loud or quiet you listen, how energized or mellow you are this song pulls you up next to the troubador and his guitar. It's starlight. I'm not exaggerating.

The album only gets more and more intruiging. Heavy on My Head is on the list of the best songs I've heard but other Ramona Cordova songs fit right in. Maybe thats because the album is concept album. Its a story about a boy marooned on an island away from home. Each song tells a piece of the story at large but each song is solid on its own. The Giver's Reply seems to get stuck in my mud like an ear worm no matter how long ago I listened.

It's Ramona's falsetto. It's one of the best falsettos to hit music since Al Green. And his vibratto is comparable to Devendra Banhart. His melodies... I don't think there's a comparable person in my small encylopedia. I leave that open for comment.

Give his music a listen on his myspace

http://www.myspace.com/ramonacordova

[strawberry] fields. [forever]

fields is an Anglo-Icelandic band formed in London that has been popping up on the indie scene/college radio stations these days. They've done some touring with the old Wolfmother and the old Bloc Party but now that their first full length album entitled "Everything Last Winter" is out they will be venturing off on their own.
Hearsay tells me that Pitchfork gave this record a nine out of ten. I tried checking, but couldn't find the review, most likely because I am internet-challenged. Regardless, I am not sure how I feel about "Everything Last Winter." The whole time I was listening I kept waiting for something significant to pop out at me and nothing ever truly did. The first two tracks really weren't all that significant, but the rest of the album was decent. fields reminds me a lot of MBV but much more subdued and poppy with a rather produced sound. (However this may be my extreme partiality to low-fi kicking in.) I think I would like this album better if each song had some sort of climax but the pacing of every song was always strikingly similar to the one before it. "Everything Last Winter" is a leisurely listen by a decent band that will probably do cool things in the future; but, for now, I'm sticking with the better bands they remind me of.

Don't Smoke Get off the Internet

I only recently stumbled upon this record on a blog entry, and I couldn't believe it. Phil Elvrum is recording under the Microphones moniker again and I hadn't even heard about it. Everybody should be flipping out, I am flipping out, how did I miss this? I don't know when the record was officially released but it says on the case "early 2007". I swiftly paid the 7$ that the record costs of at pwelvrum and suns and soon was the proud owner of some pretty white vinyl. The songs are awesome, it sounds like the Microphones, I highly recommend all interested parties get their hands on a copy, cause I don't have any mp3s to post. I wonder if this means there will be more new microphones? Maybe a full new record? Who knows.

Hop Along {with}, Queen Ansleis

take everything you've ever thought about girls with guitars and throw it out the window. i think i can confidently say that if you were to listen to only one of the bands i've written about in the last few months...i would recommend Hop Along, Queen Ansleis. in a world where seemingly every female songwriter is a genetic splice of sarah mclaughlan, jewel, and ani defranco; Hop Along's Francis Quinlan is a mutation that Darwin would hold to his heart and praise as the paragon of natural selection.

brash as it may seem, these opinions come from hearing only 6 of her songs. 4 on her myspace, and 2 more on her pure volume site. The 2005 release "Freshman Year" is on my list of things to buy, along with one of Chris Eaton's novels (check out Dave's post on Rock Plaza Central), a new tire (to replace my slashed one, those bastards) and pay a parking ticket, most likely all purchased in that order.

Whereas the gene pool of Mclaughlan-DiFranco monsters jump up and down the vocal registers to show how pretty and versatile their female voices are, Quinlan puts them all to shame without really trying to. sometimes she whelps, other times its almost a cry, and here and there she hops octaves into a beatiful falsetto; often times all of those and more jammed into one 3 minute song, creating a consistently up-tempo melody and showing her exceptional talent. yet in no way will you think she does it as a fanfare of her skills. the songs are humble and fragile, they might shatter into pieces if you stop listening, yet they burst out of the speakers with energy and excitment about her seemingly infinitely loving family, bonzai trees and spinach.

while frances' voice is a dominant force in the songs, often times with 4 or 5 distinct vocal tracks all happening at once, its not the only noteworthy sound going on. her brothers and friends contribute to the recordings on banjos, drums and kitchen utensil percussion creating a delightful sound that i envision can only come from a warm, sunlit room where you can see the dust particles in the air and everything in there has been placed in its location for some specific reason, which may or may not make itself known and that doesn't really matter.

maybe i'll do a follow-up post once i get the album. but if not, go to her myspace and copy down her address in brooklyn and send her $10 and wait as the days crawl by like a millipeed with a blister on every foot until it gets to you. there's only one song available for download, which i will post at the bottom, the others you will have to stream from her myspace and purevolume.

i fall in love with her all over again everytime a new verse starts.

i'm only posting one mp3 out of lack of having anymore than one, but my suggested tracks would be "Of My Brothers..." off her myspace and "Bruno is Orange" on her purevolume.


mp3: the bonzai tree u bought 4 me


www.myspace.com/hopalongqueenansleis

www.purevolume.com/hopalongqueenansleis

Jorge Ben Makes Me Hot

Normally I’m not a very definitive person, but I can say without a doubt that Jorge Ben’s recording of “Menina Mulher da Pela Preta” on his 1972 album A Tabua de Esmeralda is definitely the best song ever recorded. I was recently introduced to Ben by a friend whose Latin music mixed CDs will be pumping through the speakers of a vegetable mobile perusing the inner city streets of Schenectady, Albany, and Troy.

Ben is the epitome of warm weather inner city music, and his recording of “Menina Mulher da Pela Preta” (which freetranslation.com tells me means “Girl Wife of the By the Black One” and since my Portuguese isn’t very good I’ll have to take their word for it) captures in 2 minutes and 57 seconds the equatorial feel of Brazil (which I’ve never been to but I imagine to be hot).

As a lover of samba, salsa and other hot music, I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to find out about Ben, who wrote arguably one of the most well known bossa nova songs “Mas, Que Nada” (or “But That Nothing”) which was covered by numerous well known artists, such as Sergio Mendes. You probably know it, (think: women with high voices singing “oooh, waaaadeeeeaaah ooo oooohh baaa oohhh baaa”). I never knew it was Jorge Ben that wrote this classic song. “Mas, Que Nada” is one of those songs that you think doesn’t have an author, it just exists and always has. I felt the same way about “This Land is Your Land” until I found out that Woody Guthrie wrote that song. And the mystery authors revealed never disappoint me.

The only downfall to this recording of “Menina Mulher da Pela Preta” is that some silly producer cuts off his absolutely mind blowing vocal jam at the end of the song. But the same way in which some jazz connoisseurs say that the biggest mistake ever made in the history of jazz recording was arranger Gordon Jenkins’ addition of a Protestant Choir behind Billie Holiday’s unchoirlike voice in “God Bless the Child,” we realize that big mistakes cast upon great songs make the listener realize just how tough great songs really are. They can stand up to the mistakes and still leave you shaking your head in awe of it all.

Check out Jorge Ben’s sweet tropicaliaish web site, full of song clips and even sheet music, but brush up on your Portuguese because I don’t think freetranslation.com will be able to help you out with his lengthy biography.

www.jorgeben.com.br