In Our Eyes

Summer into fall soundtrack: Niki & the Dove, Instinct (listen on Spotify)

Instinct is one of those albums that I have had on repeat for months. I'm not much of a music editor / critic so I'm not going to even attempt to write up something to convince you to listen to it. Just do it! Start with Tomorrow, The Fox, In our Eyes and prepare for a mini dance party (or in my case, a craving for some good 80's style Jane Fonda aerobics).

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Photo: taken by me on an iPhone and then edited in Photoshop. Filter Culture Collide Fest October 7, 2012. Please note awesome floral headdress. Lead singer, Malin Dahlström, would be the best bargain-bin elementary school art teacher if this music career doesn't pan out! She was well-equipped with pony beads, floral earrings and anklets, and feather/popsicle-stick fans. Impressive.

Yet Again

We hooked up the new (old) record player and listened to the Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest yesterday as we unpacked. Bliss!

Can't wait to get my hands on Shields, coming out Sept 17th!

On Repeat.

Spotify Me.

First: an unrelated photo of one of my favorite Thai treats -- I was there last year! Sad. Had to get that out of the way...

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Music ADD (self diagnosed, of course) keeps me on my toes, always looking for new stuff to listen to. That's when I discovered a new Spotify app called Moodagent. It is similar to iTunes' Genius feature but it extends your playlist options to new music instead of limiting it to your own personal music library. All you have to do pick a track that you're into at the moment and it'll generate a playlist for you! It'll factor in "moods" like sensual, tender, happy, angry and even tempo. I haven't played around with it too much, but I'm going to venture to say that it is smarter than Pandora radio (which always gives me Jack Johnson songs no matter what I type in - NO THANKS!)

Here's a good mix based off of a Cold War Kids song, Hospital Beds:

1. Hospital Beds - Cold War Kids
2. SWM - Tapes n' Tapes
3. Details of the War - Clap your Hands and Say Yeah
4. Red Elephant - Born Ruffians
5. The Drawing Board - The Features
6. Suspended in Gaffa - Ra Ra Riot
7. Icky Thump - The White Stripes
8. 1 4 U & U 4 Me - The Decemberists
9. Rocking Horse - The Dead Weather
10. Fighting in a Sack - The Shins
11. Driver, Surprise Me - The National
12. So He Won't Break - The Black Keys
13. Red Paint - Matt & Kim
14. People C'mon - Delta Spirit
15. Joy - Islands
16. Trying Your Luck - The Strokes
17. The Immortals - Kings of Leon
18. I Only Wear Blue - Dr. Dog
19. Drops in the River - Fleet Foxes
20. Flash's Theme - Louis XIV
21. Camera Talk - Local Natives
22. Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl - Broken Social Scene
23. Eyes - Peter Bjorn and John

New Music Video From Josh Ritter

Wow. Stop-motion with construction paper. What next?! Whenever I see this kind of thing, I am just in awe and wonder of how these artists (apparently a team of 20) didn't tear their hair out throughout this whole process. I can't imagine the level of patience it would take to pull off these intricate cut-outs.

Apparently it took 12,000 pieces of construction paper and there were no extra effects applied in post. Insane.

Remember 2011?

Can't believe it's December already! How this year has flown by...

Winning tickets to see Adele at this intimate Artist Den event was certainly up there as one of my year highlights.

You can find me sitting next to Glee's Trouble Tones leading ladies, Santana and Mercedes. Mmhmm!

F E I S T

As good, as amazing, as wonderful as can be. These four-part harmonies in Cicades and Gulls still give me the chills.

She sassed the crowd, wooed the first few rows up on stage, went through Metals, Mushaboom'ed and left out the overly-played single, "1-2-3-4". A double-encore ending with a beautiful version of Let it Die and The Limit to Your Love (with Chilly Gonzalez on the piano)....all worth the wait.

Twice

We saw Little Dragon at the Avalon last month and while I was mostly excited shake my booty to Ritual Union live,  I was surprised to walk away with a new favorite song, Twice. Although it's an older song, it was the first time I had heard it. Talk about an absolutely beautiful and totally haunting way to close out a sold-out show. While each band member can definitely hold their own, the lead singer Yukimi Nagano has such stage presence. She can dance around in sparkly spandex and then silence the room with her arresting voice. I love that "Little Dragon" was her parents' nickname for her as a child!

Their latest album, Ritual Union, is one of my tops of the year and it's the perfect soundtrack for a Friday.

A Very She & Him Christmas

I know it seems a little early to be blogging about Christmas, but I can't wait to get my hands on this! Kind of tempted to buy a copy for everyone on my Christmas list. 

1. The Christmas Waltz
2. Christmas Day
3. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
4. I’ll Be Home for Christmas
5. Christmas Wish
6. Sleigh Ride
7. Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
8. Silver Bells
9. Baby, It’s Cold Outside
10. Blue Christmas
11. Little Saint Nick
12. The Christmas Song

Zooey Deschanel is everywhere these days. The big screen, the little screen, billboards, buses, all over my twitter feed...if it were any other pretty actress/blogger/chanteuse I may be a little overloaded. While I can't say I'm as impressed with The New Girl as everyone else, one thing is for sure: the girl can sing. And the boy can play a mean guitar. This'll be playing throughout my apartment and office throughout December!

feist * metals

!!!!!!

All I have to say is thank goodness I just sit around at a computer all day. 

Feist's new album Metals comes out October 4th and I cannot wait to get my hands on a copy. I'm absolutely smitten with single #1 (How Come You Never Go There) so when I got the chance to preview more songs from the album live I knew I had to go. 

Jackie and I headed to Village Studios yesterday to be part of a small audience for a Yahoo! Music / Starbucks in-studio session. We were about 5 feet from miss Leslie Feist herself and she didn't disappoint. Not one bit. Her voice defines "songbird" and seeing her play the guitar that close up was pretty inspiring. The chords she uses are pretty standard, but it's what she does in-between the chords that makes her an artist I can appreciate.

I wish I could have snapped a few photos from the night but cameras and cell phones were prohibited. We walked away with Starbucks/Yahoo goodie bags (as if the evening wasn't enough to brag about, right?) and I made a pact with myself to do more awesomely free things from now on.

The Yahoo! Music session will be streaming in all Starbucks locations in September and will go live on Yahoo! Music afterwards. Go see if you can find me...I'll be the little Asian with a goofy grin on her face.

Take me to the Greek

Last weekend was Lauren's 1-year anniversary of living in LA...and what did we do about it? We hung out backstage with the Gipsy Kings. Nights like these are prime examples of when work and fun can overlap. It was  beautiful night to spend in Los Feliz on the back patio with some old French gypsies. We ransacked the free snacks, enjoyed the open bar and bomboleo'ed with women 20 years older than us. 

Weekend Vacation

All work, lots of play. I'm lucky that sometimes the two are synonymous! This weekend I spent some time meeting up with Jose Gonzalez to show him some of the new guitars we're working on and to catch his band's (Junip) show at the Bootleg Theatre. We also received a fun surprise from Japan - our friend Akiko sent over a care package full of all things amazing. Her box included my favorite Asian shampoo and conditioner refills, special Japanese drinks and snacks from Muji and the cutest little black cat card (some of the snacks didn't make it into the shot, we were hungry). Akiko, if you're reading this, thank you so much! We could tell you put a lot of thought and care into sending it over...you're the best!

More fun surprises of the weekend included tomatoes (!) and snails in our "garden". I also thought I'd slip in a shot of the embroidery project that I'm working on.

Next weekend couldn't come faster. 

How Come You Never Go There

 This just made my Friday afternoon. I'm listening on repeat.

How Come You Never Go There by Feist

Can't wait for this entire album!

Can it Be?

 

Laura Marling has an amazing new single out (Sophia) and you can hear it on KCRW's site. A modern day Joni Mitchell...what do you think? If you're in town on Sept. 17th, get tickets to see her at the Hollywood Cemetery and tell me how it went!

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I recently had a conversation with my boss about how fleeting today's music can be. How come there aren't any legendary bands that came out in the 2000's? Did we run out things to sing about? Have all the good songs been written? Who is going to be OUR Elton John? Where is our Beatles? Our Joni? Just a thought....

Finally!

My favorite lady is back! According to this article, she'll be coming out with her fourth album, "Metals" in October. I can't wait. 

You'll know where I'll be November 12th!

Here's a little teaser...

i heart thao & mirah. a lot.

i also <3 kcrw. a lot. 

Music Monday - Brandi Carlile

This is a blatant re-blog from Paste Magazine but I could not contain my excitement for this new release (coming May 3)

Months ago, my friends Bonnie and Pierce called me from this very show featuring the Seattle Symphony - lucky lovebirds! Almost 99% of the time, it's obnoxious when friends call from a show - you can never hear the song and they leave their phone going for way too long (can't hang up on them either, just can't win). This wasn't the case - Brandi's voice and The Story came through loud and clear! All that to say that her unique and timeless voice transcends awful cell phone reception and bad iphone speakers.

Tune into the early-release of her "Live at Beneroyal Hall" here at Pastemagazine.com and prepare for chills.

Weekend Vacation: Coachella

What a amazing weekend full of some of my favorite things: friends, sun, pool, guacamole, dancing, and music music music. When the lineup for Coachella was released, I was secretly hoping to be disappointed so that I wouldn't be tempted to spend the extra money. No such luck. This year's lineup kept us busy! There was far too much to see and with the short set times, I was only able to catch a taste of some new favorite bands (ah hem Angus and Julia Stone!) Needless to say, my list of bands-to-see-live was quickly expanded in three short days. I suppose that's what this music festival season is all about.

Here's the weekend highlights in a few breaths: We kicked off Friday afternoon with Lauren Hill, The Black Keys and Kings of Leon...spent Saturday evening irish jigging to Mumford & Sons, singing our hearts out with Arcade Fire, and sweating with the Kills. Our last day was spent lounging to Damian Marly and Nas, basking in the desert sun with Best Coat, confirming our everlasting devotion to the National and finally tearing ourselves away from Kanye's jaw-droppingly douchey and awesome performance. New loves from Coachella are most definitely Foals, Two Door Cinema and Elbow - go check out these UK gems if you haven't already! I'm also even more intrigued by Sleigh Bells (this is after I mixed them up with Broken Bells, my bad!)

Learning our lesson from last year, we were able to stay at a friends' family condo just half an hour away from the venue. No more car camping! As we walked past the steaming hot tents in the parking lot, I had zero regrets of our decision. Every year gets better and better. Another go-round Coachella 2012?? We'll see!

More pics to follow. *PS: if you couldn't tell, I both love and love to hate Coachella fashion. This year was a little out of control with the hipster scene but I couldn't get enough out of all the self-expression that was happening out in the desert. Tried to take pictures but on many occasions, I was too in awe to remember to pull out my camera. How gross is that cigarette leg?! Mmmmhmm.

TV on the Radio

Found this song via Captain Obvious' latest "mixtape" and I'm a little obsessed. Putting this on my Summer 2011 rotation right next to The Naked and Famous and The Belle Brigade.

TV on the Radio - Caffeinated Consciousness

PS: IT'S FRIDAY! I feel like this:

Another Stellar Album Preview from KCRW

KCRW is streaming The Belle Brigade's new album, out April 12th! To me, this is what Summer sounds like.

Track listing
1. Sweet Louise
2. Where Not To Look For Freedom
3. Losers
4. Belt Of Orion
5. Shirt
6. Lucky Guy
7. Lonely Lonely
8. Punchline
9. Rusted Wheel
10. My Goodness
11. Fasten You To Me

Click to listen!