TWO FROM THE VAULT

Here are a couple good tunes from the vaults. First up is a nice jam with some old pals, Yo La Tengo, and "Stockholm Syndrome." This is a great song. I know it's wrong but I swear it won't take long.


"Born in the Seventies" by the Fruit Bats is an hilarious backwards glance at a decade you might remember. Vaguely. Great seventies pedal steel and appropriately opaque lyrics. The sands of time stuck in your shoe...that make you cross, they make you blue. Whatever happened to you? You were born in the seventies.

NEW SONGS I LIKE

Here's a mixtape of songs I've been listening to lately that you may not have heard. See, I don't just listen to old school rock--here is some indie music that really reflects low-fi values and personal vision. Or maybe it's just a bunch of wheedling vegans who can't hit the notes. You decide. Me? I've already decided. This stuff is decidedly cool.

cage the elephant

"Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" by Cage the Elephant

I want this on the jukebox at my favorite airstream diner. Love the intro slide guitar riff on this one, which is some sort of blues punk rock rave-up in which you can hear old blues and Beck and White Stripes, too. Nice.



yo la tengo

"If It's True" by Yo La Tengo

Yo La Tengo has it all. Great melodic oddball tune from their new album, "Popular Songs." The revered indie band--consisting of Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew--have been together for quite a while and are still making original music. They're absolutely wonderful in concert.



fruit bats


"The Ruminant Band" by Fruit Bats

Fruit bats are huge hairy flying creatures out of your worst nightmares and also a nice folk-rock band. This is one of the two.



benji hughes


"Went to See the Flaming Lips" by Benji Hughes

Yup, I already posted this tune a while back but you should listen again because this is a wonderful short story about a mind-altering road trip to see another band. Yeah.

JULIE CHRISTIE, THE RUMORS ARE TRUE

Beautiful, Academy Award-winning actress Julie Christie is still getting rave reviews for her acting, appearing recently in "Away from Her." In the 1960s, she was a pop icon of Swinging London.

Tom Courtenay is a British actor who was particularly brilliant in "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" (1962), "Billy Liar" (1963) and "Dr. Zhivago" (1965), the latter two with Christie.

Yo La Tengo is an indie rock band from New Jersey that played here last night. Unfortunately, I missed them. They wrote a song called "Tom Courtenay." They perform it here at the Fuji Rock Festival in 2003.

"Julie Christie, the rumors are true..."