Grant Manship

Merry Christmas

I hope all of you are having a wonderful holiday season.  In honor of today's festivities I thought I'd post something on a song I've fallen in love with over the last two weeks.  About two weeks ago I was walking around Everybody's Records when a song I'd never heard came on in the store.  I Shazamed it and found out it was called "A Christmas Camel" by Procol Harum.  I filed the song away for a potential Christmas post and after finding a somewhat grainy (but no less awesome) video of the band performing the song at the Bilzen Jazz festival in 1967, here it is.   

I will say, since this isn't the best quality I strongly encourage you all to pick up a copy of their self-titled debut which also includes the band's classic hit "A Whiter Shade of Pale".  Anyway, enough of all that, here is the video. Enjoy!

Violens - Spectator & Pupil

Some Wooden Shjips For Your Stocking

Bay Area psychadelists Wooden Shjips recently offered up a holiday cassingle which quickly sold out but don't worry if you missed out.  The band is clearly in the midst of feeling the holiday spirit and are now offering up mp3's of the tracks for free.  The band posted this note to those who missed out on getting an actual copy of the cassingle.

Our holiday cassingle is sold out, so we’ve made the songs available here as free downloads. All money from sales of the cassingle went to the SF Food Bank. If you enjoy these songs and have the means, please consider making a donation to your local food bank. Happy holidays!

Enjoy the tracks and don't forget to help your local food bank if you're so inclined.

• Wooden Shjips - "O Tannenbaum" from Holiday Cassingle
• Wooden Shjips - "Auld Lang Syne" from Holiday Cassingle

Won't You Take Me To... MusicTown

In what could certainly become a great addition to Cincinnati's music scene with just a little bit of community involvement, there's now an online forum for Cincinnati musicians and music lovers. As the name of this post implied, it's called MusicTown and is supported by CityBeat.  Musicians and music lovers alike are encouraged to, "talk about the scene, the artists, the challenges and the triumphs."  So with that being said, head on down to MusicTown and talk about it, talk about it, talk about it!!!

P.S.  I do apologize for the multiple references to Lipps Inc. 80's hit "Funkytown" and it potentially being stuck in your head now but I couldn't help myself.

Amazing Baby - Head Dress

Fol Chen - The Believers

BLK JKS Sign to SC and Give Away the MYSTERY EP for Free!

I had only heard a few passing references to South Africa's BLK JKS before today when I read they signed to Secretly Canadian.  I read they were giving away their debut EP away for free so I decided to give it a listen and see what the band's story was.  Needless to say, I've found their story to be an interesting one and the music to be even more so.

As for a little history, the band was founded in 2000 by two childhood friends Linda and Mpumi who lived on the same block in Johannesburg's East Rand and bonded while teaching themselves how to play guitar.  After the band's initial shows they added bassist Molefi and drummer Tshepang to round out the current lineup.  While their early shows began earning them national attention it wasn't until über-producer Diplo noticed them while touring South Africa that leads us to where we are today.  Following this meeting the band moved to New York City earlier this year, played the Fader party at SXSW, started to garner an increasing amount of critical attention and eventually recorded an EP at New York’s famed Electric Lady studios with Brandon Curtis of Secret Machines, and unabashed fan of the band, producing.  The EP in question is called the Mystery EP and luckily for all of us it will be available for free until January 5th at Other Music and eMusic.  After that you'll have to wait until March 10th to get your hands on a copy.  Check out the track that initially grabbed Diplo's attention entitled "Lakeside" below.  I think once you listen to the band's music you'll quickly see why they're starting to receive so much attention.

• BLK JKS - "Lakeside" from Mystery EP

After you grab your free copy of the EP, check out the documentary about the band which just premiered on Dig For Fire. You can watch it below now.

Honey Claws Go #2 For This Weeks Bathroom Break

Sorry but I couldn't resist making some kind of reference to bathroom humor when coming up with the title for my post on the second installment in the Bathroom Break series from Honey Claws.  Maybe my mother is right, I'll never grow up.  I should point out that the title of the post should NOT be interpreted as me feeling this week's track is less than great.  OK, now that I've preempted any potential confusion, let's get on with the music. 

Since I already dug and subsequently posted the first song that Honey Claws put out as part of this series and considering this one includes a Ghostland Observatory track, this was a no-brainer post.  Ghostface Killah makes an appearance on this week's track, appropriately called, "Ghostfaceland".  Check it out below.

• Honey Claws - "Ghostfaceland" from Bathroom Break Series

Lissy Trullie and Adam Green - Just A Friend

Honey Claws Get Wordy During A Bathroom Break

One of the many cool people I met at CMJ this year was Traey Hatch of Honey Claws.  I made it a point to introduce myself after his demo was played in front of moderator Matt Pinfield during the appropriately entitled panel, Major Label A&R Discussion and Demo Critique.  Traey and the Honey Claws material was easily some of the most well received music played during the demo critique.  Of all the artists that were brave enough to offer up their music for examination, Traey had to have been one of the most approached by other members of the audience who were curious about his work.

That little bit of history leads us to now and the recent bit of Honey Claws related material to land in my inbox.  The Honey Claws crew have set out to help their DJ brethren when nature calls and they have to step away from their rig. In order to help they're introducing the Bathroom Breaks Series.  The Bathroom Break Series is comprised of tracks that are a little longer than normal but no less danceable in order to relieve a DJ of his duties for a bit while he relieves something else.  Simple enough right?!?

Bathroom Break #1 is a mashup called "Words" primarily made up of the Tom Tom Club's "Wordy Rappinghood", the Chicks on Speed cover of the same song (at least it sounds like it to me) and Of Montreal's "Gronlandic Edit".  It's also important to note that the mix was created with the band's invention they like to call the Junkbox.  The Junkbox is capable of DJ'ing 5 tracks together simultaneously, smoothly, and in key. It also has inputs for live microphone performance, live resampling, and synthesizers.  Resourceful little mad scientists aren't they?  Anyway, check out the first track in the series below.

• Honey Claws - "Words" from Bathroom Break Series