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Hello faithful listeners. This is Dennis Scanland bringing you another weekly dose of the New Music Podcast from Music Emissions.

Today I am conducting duo electrolysis. Yes, musical hair removal by way of some cutting edge electro artists. Primarily duo acts.

• Not Me – Datarock (Red)
• Phantom Limb – Fuck Buttons (Tarot Sport)
• Silver Cruiser – Röyksopp (Junior)
• Servo Manual Chapter 1 – Beautiful Small Machines (The Robots In Love EP)
• The Gift – Jaz Klash (Thru The Haze)
• Archive – Down Review (From Here, For Anyone)
• Some Way Through This – The Black Ghosts (The Black Ghosts)

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Ahh, the almighty Animal Collective. Another one of those bands that doesn’t seem like it can do wrong. They’ve got a handful of classic albums already. Here’s a video that’s bound to be classic as well. It’s for In The Flowers. Happy weekend everyone!

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Up here in Canada Our Lady Peace is legendary. I remember watching them play a little club in Calgary called the Republik on their first tour and we all thought, “This band is going places”. That was a long time ago and OLP are still at it, having just released a new album called Burn Burn.

We caught up with guitarist Steve Mazur to get some of his favorite bands and albums. Check them out:

Ray LaMontagne–Until the Sun Turns Black: In this day and age where we are ambushed by music and so-called artists at every turn, it can be tough to discern who is worthy of checking out. Ray LaMontagne is one of those that you want to check out. Just because we have more and more people putting their music out there doesn’t mean that we have any more real artists than we did in years and ages past. Ray LaMontagne is the real deal, a real artist.

Devo–Duty Now for the Future: When I first got a Devo record, I thought it was cool and really quirky and all that but it didn’t stick with me. I’d like to think that I’m a better person now because when I dug their 1st two albums out recently again, I was floored. The arrangement of parts within the instruments are ridiculously original, intricate, and effective. They were such a one-pointed focus of a band and vision. Don’t cast them off as just goofy. There’s genius there as well.

TV on the Radio–Dear Science: I have grown cautious and somewhat weary of the word “eclectic” from past experience of artists who throw a bunch of different styles or instruments together without any depth and expect you to dig it ’cause “It’s so diverse, man….” You still have to have quality in there. That’s where TV on the Radio comes in.

Queen–A Day at the Races: Yeah Freddie was flamboyant. Yes they were dramatic. They probably were also the best band of the 20th century. To think that they cranked out an album or more a year of this quality and depth in the 1970′s makes me wonder if they were not of this earth. And it makes me feel lazy.

King’s X–Dogman: The best band that you’ve probably not heard of, and a great record of theirs. One part great guitar riffs and tone, one part crazy cool distorted bass, two parts killer Beatles-like harmonies, one part gritty gospel-like lead vocals, and many parts great, great songs. Please buy this record. If you don’t like it I will pay you back.

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Yeah, so I’m running low on creativity these days. Apologies for the Podcast title. Anyway, it’s been a busy couple months as we wound down our Indie Of The Year contest at the end of October. Full steam ahead with some new site features, coming soon!

Today’s podcast starts out in the UK, heads over to Athens, Georgia then takes a trip to Brooklyn, stopping by California and ending up on Long Island. No real theme to this one except all great music that I’ve been into recently.

Here’s a breakdown of the playlist:

• All Is Vanity – Manic Street Preachers (Journal For Plague Lovers)
• Cornerstone – Arctic Monkeys (Humbug)
• Made to Disappear – The Twilight Sad (Forget the Night Ahead)
• My Halo – Atlas Sound (Logos)
• Planting Seeds – Built To Spill (There Is No Enemy)
• No Intention – Dirty Projectors (Bitte Orca)
• I Get Lonesome – Beck (One Foot In The Grave)
• Gasoline – Brand New (Daisy)

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Unprecedented, we are doubling up our video of the week choice for Friday the 13th. Finally, a flick with an indie premise. Philip Seymour Hoffman and friends, I don’t think this largely marketed box office release will disappoint this Friday. Drop a comment if you end up checking it out…

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Happy Friday everyone. I found this on a blog I frequent. I had no idea that the man behind The Violent Femmes had a new project out. It’s called Gordon Gano and the Ryans. Here is a new video for a song called Man In The Sand. It’s no Blister In The Sun but it’s pretty damn catchy. Can’t wait to hear the rest of their album.

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Warning! Techie article. No musical merit in this post whatsoever. Skip to the pertinent content…

Note: If you can’t log in, close down your browser and open it again. Seems to be a cookie issue.

It has been a while coming and while I may be a web developer I tend to be a bit of a hack. When we moved over to the WordPress backend from PHPBB I ended up doing some heavy standard file editing which is a no-no on these packages. The reason isn’t that it may break something, the reason is that you will have a hard time upgrading. Basically when an upgrade is done in WordPress you overwrite all of your files with the new files then perform a database upgrade. In essence, overwriting ALL of the hacks you’ve done.

We haven’t really changed the way we do things, only this time around we’ve actually documented the files and changes that are needed to added the wonderful user extensions as well as Artist and Album tagging on posts. Nothing major but when you’ve got an entire site depending on the infrastructure you need to do it right.

What’s next…

We have a whole slew of plans moving forward. We were on a bit of a holding pattern with the onslaught of visitors during the Indie Of The Year contest but now that the contest is finished we’ll have some time to address. I won’t get into much detail about what plans are but I will reveal this, we are working on a micro-payment system for editorial reviewers. What does that mean for you as a “user”? You will want to prove your chops to us to get in on the editorial team! Start taking part in some of the comments and such throughout the site and most importantly, submit many user reviews. If we like what we see you will get a personal invite to join the team. We are so far behind on reviews we aren’t just looking for a couple. We’d like to expand to at least 10-15 full-time editorial staff to help out with reviews, blog posts, podcasts, posting artist bios and much more.

This micro-payment system has been on the table for quite some time but the resources haven’t been there to do the extra coding necessary in order to make it happen. Let me know your thoughts on this and what you might hope to see in such a system down in the comments below.

Thanks for your patience in this upgrade and please let us know via the contact form if you run into any bugs or glitches in the upgraded version.

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The Alternative Press said of this album, “Depending on your worldview, Art Brut are either the most whimsical folks in Britrock or the most sardonic bastards you’ve ever worshipped via air guitar. ” This about sums up this album perfectly – released in 2007 to universal acclaim from fans of art-punk and critics alike.

The thrashing, smashing guitars are perfectly placed and the lyrics tilt at everything from the ephemeral nature of popular culture to erectile dysfunction:

“I’m sorry // I’m so sorry // Can I get you… a cup of coffee? // Don’t tell your friends!”

It’s just sarcastic enough to not be pretentious, helped along by Eddie Argos’ perfectly deadpan singing voice. Art Brut have come along and made you fall back in love with music that relates to your life – how shit your hangover is and how you still harbour a crush for that girl you first kissed when you were 15. It’s a refreshing change from all the grandiose rubbish out there at the moment – Bang Bang Rock & Roll puts it all back into simple perspective for you.

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OK, they are really just from Sara but if I just put Sara up there then you’d be at a loss for who’s recommending these great albums!

I’m not sure if this is ok…but…what i am most struck by when I’m speaking to our fans is how many of them don’t know some of the bands and albums that were super influential on me when I was a teenager!

So instead of picking obscure bands, I thought I might just recommend five albums that people might not know about that are still as important and influential today (on me) as they were then!

1. Violent Femmes- Violent Femmes
This album came out when i was three years old. I discovered it in 1995. It sounded as contemporary and raw as anything i was listening to at that point in my life. I had never heard punk music performed this way. No electric guitars, no crazy drums or feedback. controlled power in the vocals, so much restraint. I wore a hole in my bedroom carpet charging around in a circle singing along to “ADD IT UP”.

2. Hayden- Everything I Long For
Similar to the experience I had with the violent femmes, this album had all the emotion and violence of the punk and rock music i was listening to in a single fist. quiet and tough and personal.

3. Bruce Springsteen- Nebraska
I loved this album in jr. high. I could sing the entire album acapella. the melodies and the haunting harmonies made me feel queasy. i didnt understand what made this record different from other bruce sprinsteen albums at the time. I now credit this recording with my obsession for/over demos. the music is sad and hypnotic. it still sounds so original and spooky.

4. Cyndi Lauper- She’s So Unusual
We did a half a dozen shows with Cyndi Lauper last year and i was SHOCKED that some of our fans didn’t know her or this album. It is still one of the most original, spastic, killer pop albums EVER. the live video of ms. lauper performing “MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING” makes the hair on my arms stand up. Still one of my top five favorite albums EVER. I wish people would compare us to cyndi lauper…I borrow from her shamelessly.

5. The Replacements- Let It Be
I discovered this album well after I had discovered “indie rock”. The guitar tones, the melodies, the torch and intensity were helpful in helping me connect my desire to be emotive but also reserved in my own songwriting. unsatisfied is still a slow burning scorcher.

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Hi all, this week’s podcast is brought to you direct from sunny (?) Manchester, where we’ve got a new wave of indiepop emerging from the depths of Britain’s underground clubs and pretentious indie cafes. And I (Archelon) am here to introduce you to some of them. Here’s the lineup:

• The Candle Thieves – The Sunshine Song
• The Hot Melts – Edith
• Raygun – Just Because
• The XX – Crystalised
• Let’s Tea Party – Reptiles
• And my classic rewind of the week: Blur – Entertain Me

It’s my first podcast for Music Emissions, I hope you all enjoy it and if not I promise to keep my mouth shut from now on.

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