OTD always waits until the very last second to turn in our Pazz and Jop ballot, because our minds are never really made up. Lists are not really our forte. But we like reading them, and we like big-upping stuff, so we feel kinda obligated. Also, we totally told you like twice this year what the album of the 2005 was, so to not actually award that honor would be sort of lame. For those and other bad reasons, we present the first annual OTD Boston-centric year-end list, which frankly we'll probably not agree with tomorrow because we're always changing our minds about shit. And also because, as we're rushing out the door, we realize there's a half-dozen good records missing from this list ... oh, well, there's always '06.

1. The Stairs, On Sleep Lab (ATV).
LISTEN: This Town Let Me Down (mp3)

2. Boston Bounce. Awarded jointly to the inventors and popularizers -- including but not limited to Wayne & Wax, DJ C, DJ Flack -- not exclusively for said invention but also for their many unrelated endeavors, some of which are listed below.  
LISTEN: DJ C, Boston, Bouncement, Baltimore, MIA's URAQT remix
LISTEN: Wayne & Wax, Boston Mashacre, Double Dub, More Than Frankie J, Unscrewed Music, etc.
LISTEN: DuoTone, Serve That Bouncy
LISTEN: DJ Flack, Kanye GP Bounce

3. LT, "Cut My Check" (Fishscale). LT is the only kid on this list who hasn't been mentioned here before, and that's sort of 'cause we're saving him for bigger stuff, but three things you need to know: Boston has native rappers and producers who don't give a fuck about "indie hip hop"; BostonHipHopOnline.com is running the game without competition; LT is only 18 years old.
LISTEN: Cut My Check (mp3)

4. Big Bear, Big Bear (Monitor).
LISTEN: Track 01 (mp3)

5. Certified Bananas, Lemon-Red Mix (Internerd only).  
LISTEN: August Mix (mp3)

6. Doomriders, Black Thunder (Deathwish, Inc.)
LISTEN: Black Thunder (mp3)

7. Compound 440r Soundsystem. Jointly awarded to Big Digits, Plunge Into Death, UV Protection, Cassette, and related enterprises.
LISTEN: Mark E. Moon, Crunkin' Donuts Mix
LISTEN: PTVN, Soundsystem 440 November Mix

8. The Hound/As Long As We're All Living We're All Dying, Split (Teenage Disco Bloodbath)
LISTEN: The Hound, Big Sky Country
LISTEN: ALAWALWAD, Fatigue

9. Edan, Beauty and the Beat (Lewis Recordings). 
LISTEN: Fumbling Over Words That Rhyme (mp3 via Think Tank)

10. Tunnel of Love, Tunnel of Love (ECA). OTD loves their second self-titled album almost as much as we loved their first self-titled album. This year, the rest of the city finally caught on. This is very good news.
LISTEN: Paint It Black (mp3)

Records That Very Clearly Should Have Been Mentioned in the Above List, Some of Them, Perhaps, Even at the Very Top of It:  

The Juan Maclean, Less Than Human (DFA)
LISTEN: Shining Skinned Friend (mp3)

The Receiving End of Sirens, Between the Heart and the Synapse (Triple Crown).
LISTEN: Planning a Prison Break (mp3)

Cave In, Perfect Pitch Black (Hydrahead)
LISTEN: Down the Drain (mp3)

Transistor Transistor, Erase All Name and Likeness (Level-Plane)
LISTEN: Powerchord Academy (mp3)

The Red Chord, Clients (Metal Blade)
LISTEN: Antman (mp3)

Mobius Band, City Vs. Country (Ghostly). Yes, we liked the EP better than the album. And we're not just being indie, either.
LISTEN: Starts Off With a Bang (mp3)

Radar Eyes, Ep (no label)
LISTEN: Nightwalker (mp3)

Clickers/Night Rally split (Honeypump Records)
LISTEN: Night Rally, Good Morning, You're Listening to Jazz (mp3)
LISTEN: Clickers, Proverbs for Paranoids 3 (mp3)

Certainly, Sir, TAN (Ralleye)
LISTEN: Midnight Again (mp3)

Aberdeen City, The Freezing Atlantic (Dovecote)
LISTEN: God Is Going To Get Sick of Me (mp3)

Major Stars, 7-inch (Twisted Village)
LISTEN: Pocket (mp3)

Boy In Static, Newborn (Alien Transistor)
LISTEN: Slept Fine (Real Audio)

Unseen, State of Discontent (Epitaph)
WATCH: You Can Never Go Home (flash video)

Chris Brokaw, Incredible Love (12XU)
LISTEN: Move (mp3)

Darkbuster, A Weakness for Spirits (Dumb Trumpeter)
LISTEN: Should Have Known Better (mp3)

Tiger Saw, Sing (Kimchee)
LISTEN: Singing With Ghosts (mp3)

The Rudds, Get the Femuline Hang On (no label)
LISTEN: Astrological Sign Choker (mp3)

12/31/2005 7:42:01 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

 

This here girl to the right may look innocuous enough with her diamond-playbook of a green sweater, teeny frame, and "distinctive" nose. (Her adjective, totally not ours). But hand Casey Dienel a pen and a set of ivory keys, and she's pretty damn dangerous. Frrrreal.

 

She plays piano. She sings. She writes killer lyrics, clever-poetic one liners that make us wonder why we ever hit the keyboard. On Wind-up Canary, the full-length she's been selling at shows but doesn't officially come out until March 2006, she decorates her song catalogue with a novelist's props (Polaroids, windshield wipers, barrettes, Playboy, needlepoint) and stocks her lyrical pantry with strawberry wine, baked Alaska, a Folger’s can, an ice-cream cone, a Cracker Jack box. And even if you're not into the whole voice/piano cabaret thing, you gotta 'preciate lines like "You can't slow a man with a pendulum down" from "Cabin Fever" or "I called in sick to the bathtub today" from "Tundra" (which you can download at Dienel's MySpace page).

 

If official-connection cred makes you a believer, Dienel got signed in 2005 to Hush Records, the label made famous for first putting out the Decemberists. She studied under reknowned jazz vocalist Dominique Eade at the New England Conservatory (where coincidentally, Colin Meloy's sister was studying last year). Manda from the Dresden Dolls even has an entire blog post about going to see Dienel at the Lizard Lounge. Plus, something we forgot to tell you, Dienel plays piano on the Tiger Saw track on the upper left of this page, "Singing With Ghosts" (MP3 file).

 

 

So on the Monday before Christmas, we went up to New Hampshire's The Red Door with Dienel (see above), who'd just returned from a two-week Midwestern tour of coffee shops and living rooms with her upright-bass-playing boyfriend Nat Baldwin. (Tour high point: Thirsty Thursdays in a Kutztown, Pennsylvania she sold about 10 CDs to a bunch of happy drunk girls. Low point: at the Ugly Mug in Ann Arbor, an annoyed/lame woman asked if Dienel's piano playing would disturb her studying.) Anyways, Dienel played second. She led two singalongs. She sipped from a whiskey sour. ("I like old lady drinks"). She introduced "Embroidery" (streamable through her MySpace page) as "This song is about making out. Because you're all gonna home and either do that or wish that you were doing that." She made people smile. Even the Texas Governor (this one, not this one), who was plopped on the floor and fidgeting with an Oragina cap.

 

As of tomorrow (yes, tomorrow), Dienel relocates to Brooklyn -- which is what makes the MP3 exclusive down below sorta special, since today's her last day a Mass resident. Since Dienel's been living in JP for a little while, Wind-Up Canary's filled with local references: Huntington Avenue, Cumberland Farms, Boston concrete. But the best is "Frankie and Annette," a Masshole revision of "Jack and Diane" with a kind of Bonnie and Clyde twist ("Frankie and Annette ran off at sixteen/And it all started at a Red Sox ball game"). It's a little bit of Boston channeled through a grand piano and a quirky-cool girl.

Tonight Dienel's at PA's Lounge, 345 Somerville Avenue, Somerville with Tiger Saw and Jason Anderson and an after-midnight dance party with Dan Shea at 8:30, $8.

LISTEN: Casey Dienel, "Frankie and Annette" (MP3)

12/31/2005 2:19:36 PM by Cami | Comments [0] |  

The GENDERS grew up studying American rock and roll, absorbing the sound and stance of bands like the Stooges and the Velvet Underground. And in that tradition, they sing about what they know: sex, drugs, and, uh, the Arab-Israeli conflict. See, the Genders hail from Tel Aviv, a relatively peaceful city in Israel -- emphasis on "relatively" -- and days before they started recording their new Rockin' in Ramallah (AMP), a coffee shop down the street from their studio was bombed. According to their MySpace blog, singer Amir Neubach has never been across the Green Line, but he likes to think of Ramallah as an idyllic Palestinian equivalent to Tel Aviv -- a place where the young and carefree can get their kicks, feel up chicks (or get felt up), and listen to loud music. Sample lyric, from "Horatio": "I ride a tank in the West Bank/I never leave/Who needs Tel Aviv?/Look out mama/My name is Horatio/I perform cunnilingus in return for fellatio." Can we get these guys in on the peace negotiations? Tonight they open for the IRREVERENDS, GOLDENWEST MOTOR LODGE, and WATTS at the Abbey Lounge, 3 Beacon St, Somerville | 617.441.9631.

LISTEN: The Genders, "Horatio" (mp3)
LISTEN: The Genders, "When I Grow Up, I Wanna Be A Fuckin' Stoner" (mp3)

12/29/2005 4:04:47 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

We're posting new songs...pre-mp3 indie rock DOWNLOADABLE for the first time:"Tree Stomp" - rare, rare, rare, from the Throbbing Lobster CLAWS comp from back in the day...CLASSIC old-timey Suns tune..."Room With a View" - which our friend M. Barton was so insanely complimentary of...Prescott beat Merchant Ivory to the punch on this one..."Cover" - One of Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan's favorites - when David Kleiler weirdly jammed with Yo La as their potential second guitarist back in '85, they played this song...obviously, YLT didn't need a second guitarist, and Kaplan needed to become the Jewish Jimi Hendrix...little did Kleiler know he'd be in the Suns years later..."Punching Bag" - from the Albini-produced CAREER IN ROCK..."samples" from the movie Raging Bull...our friend Screwball named her company after this song...

12/29/2005 3:53:40 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

Sorry for the lack of updates: we've been busy with some work stuff. (Some mistakes in that article -- like the launch date, which isn't until February -- but yes, big tings are in the works). Hope you like our new URL. Comments are now turned on retroactively, so if you ever felt like you wanted to add your two cents to our snarky appraisal of something, go apeshit.

Luckily for us, the kids at the paper have been keeping up with stuff in our absence. Tia OTD is in print today with a report from the wild and woolly Compound 440r Holiday Party, including the debut of the druidy c440r drum-machine circle Wind Cheetah (photos here, including the vagina mentioned in the piece). Thurston Moore: check your snail mail for the demo.

While we're on subject, both the Big Digits boys dropped new mixes this month. TD passed one off to us in the antiquated CD-R format, and it's killer: imagine an entire musical universe formed in worship of Le Tigre, albeit Le Tigre before (as TD will say, brow furrowing) they learned how to work their instruments. We had no idea there were that many electro-sleaze bands left in the post-Fischerspooner-bust era. Here's hoping it makes its way online.

Meanwhile, Mac Swell -- the other half of Big Digits -- has posted up the second installment of the Compound 440r Soundystem monthly mixtape series, which is about to become a serious problem. When those dudes are not remixing the Strokes or leaking the new San Serac Bowie cover that Trevor Jackson's putting out, dudes have been sharpening their cool-edit game. In any case, December version kicks off with Holland Boys' homo-for-the-holidays blank-wave anthem "Gay Christmas" -- great lyrics, too, about falling in love on the subway in winter, emotional temperatures rising with the street numbers -- then heads due south and warms up with glowstick-waving bubbletechno, Miami booty-bass, psycho microhouse divas, and the best Christopher Wallace duet that didn't make the album: this one with . . . Hail Social? Also, as you'd expect, there's some hot-wired Big Digitry artfully inserted.

LISTEN: Compound 440 Soundsystem, "December Mix" (mp3) (tracklist)

12/29/2005 3:21:12 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

We apologize in advance: every time we see the name of this band, we get a dreadfully un-PC reflex image in our head of Cibo Matto shouting the word "Delicious!"

So there's a new band on Metal Blade. And, y'know, this is the pretty much the label that every speedmetal kid worshipped in the '80s. Now it's 2006, and they've found some kids who play really authentic-sounding '86-'88 Bay Area thrash with deathmetalcore vocals. They've even got a ridiculously stupid name.

So: Demiricous. Their album has several songs that sound exactly like Hell Awaits- and Reign In Blood-era Slayer. Not a-little-bit-like: Ex-fucking-zactly, except for the singer. Those sharp, horror-movie King/Hanneman duets? Dave Lombardo's ride-cymbally strides? All there, detail for detail. At first it's such an astonishing impersonation that you kind of lapse into amazed silence. Then, if you're a stickler for pointless shit like originality, you start to think, "Do I like this because it sounds a lot like Slayer, or does it have any non-Slaytanic redeeming qualities of its own?" Actually, we never really got that far. After briefly attempting to discern whether there was any merit to these guys outside of their resemblance to Slayer, we came to our senses and realized we don't care. The mere fact that some kids from nowhere (sorry, "Indiana") are writing grade-A Slayer songs in 2005 is plenty for OTD. Approved, bitch. They even have a single called "Vagrant Idol": which also, coincidentally, is the name of NBC's new Interscope-funded pop-punk reality-show rock-band contest.

LISTEN: Demiricous, "Repentagram" (right-click to get it from the downloadpunk.com download page)

VIEW: oh, please, like anyone "listens" to "e-cards" anymore . . .

12/27/2005 11:52:00 AM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

The awsomest part of 2005 -- the year blogging broke -- was finding out we shared a city with people like Wayne and the rest of the Riddim Methodists, Chris Lemon Red (who in the long tradition of Boston outsourcing promptly got famous and moved to Brooklyn), dem Bananerz Bwoys, Makka, and the Compound 440r kids. Newspaper writing can be a pretty lonely game, especially if you write about music: unless someone writes in to tell you you're an asshole, feedback is pretty rare. Except when you meet people in bands out at shows, at which point they're obligated to be nice to you. But this electric blogaloo stuff is neat: you blog about shit, people blog back. (And more conversation is coming soon: with our switch to a new server next week, we're finally enabling comments -- at least until some jackass ruins it for everybody, which we're sure will happen eventually.)

If there was a man of the year in Boston blogland -- besides OTD, of course: fuck that humble shit -- it was Wayne Marshall, who executed some quadruple-threat shit (blogger/DJ/scholar/and-now-Phoenix-contributor) that left us feeling wicked lazy by comparison. This is a dude who not only knows enough that when "Do You Hear What I Hear" comes on the radio, it makes him think of the hook to TOK's homophobic anthem "Chi Chi Man" -- he's also the kind of guy who will make a mash-up of both songs, then post about it eloquently:

TOK have colonized my musical imagination in this case, so i find myself dubbing “blaze di fire, mek we bun dem!” over the refrain to the song. it’s a little absurd, really. annoying, sure, but so’s the original by itself. it’s the cognitive dissonance that i find most striking: as this very (new testament) christian song overlays with the very (old testament) christian sentiment of smiting abominations, i find myself thinking about all sorts of amazing contradictions.

That was like three days ago. Then in the past 72 hours, dude screwed the Chipmunks (or "unwinds" them, as he puts it) and posted a halfhour Christmas-song remixtape. Enough. He wins.

LISTEN: Wayne and Wax, "Remixmas" (mp3)
LISTEN: Wayne and Wax, "Do You Bun What I Bun (TOK v. Johnny Mathis)" (mp3)
LISTEN: Wayne and Wax vs. the Chipmunks, "Christmas Don't Be Late Slow" (mp3)

12/23/2005 4:25:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

Y'know what we learned this year? The Lot Six: you can't beat 'em, you can only hope to contain 'em. We'd give them shit for not putting out their freakin awesome unreleased album Get Baked on Youth Kulture except that all their members have been off collaborating on all kinds of other projects. This profusion of creativity has got Sixers forward Dave Vicini talking art collective -- which, as any self-respecting Elephant 6 fan or Broken Social Scenester can tell you, is just how-indie-do right now. Consider it officially named: the DIRTY THIRTY ART MOB/KULTURE KREW -- plus the irrepressible DJ Makka, of Write to Eat fame -- took over Thursday night at the Other Side Cafe, where visual artists John Allen and Esteban Hernandez were toasting the opening of their December photo exhibit. (You'd recognize both boys if you've hung out at ZuZu more than once, and John bangs on the drums in Reports). The night's special guests were the Vicini-fronted trio called Beat Awfuls, whose tunes are much like the previous TL6 side project Dave Cave and the Void (heck the Beat Awfuls are even recycling the old Dave Cave webpage). They feature Vicini's gruff, growling vocals over a more stripped, rootsier sound than TL6's ballistic rawk.

LISTEN: Beat Awfuls, "We Are Free" (mp3 via their Myspace page)

12/23/2005 2:45:00 PM by Tia | Comments [1] |  

Too funny. It's like if someone said, "Oh, yeah -- Ashlee Simpson just held up a bank."

Howie Day, for those who don't remember, was this real young kid from Maine who started out singing cover songs at frat bars, but somehow [and by somehow we mean bidding war] ended up signed to Epic on the let's-make-him-the-next-John-Mayer plan. Don't know if child-star syndrome is at work, but [ALLEGEDLY, the lawyer reminds us] popping pills, harassing stewardesses, and smoking in the boys room on a plane sounds like someone's throwing a my-record-stiffed tantrum. That said, the most disturbing graf in the Globe account is a flashback to an incident we must have missed:

"In March 2004, Day was arrested in Madison, Wis., for allegedly locking a woman in the bathroom of a tour bus after she refused his sexual advances. He then broke the cell phone of another woman who tried to call police, according to the criminal complaint."

As Kathlen Hanna would say, "What's your take on Howie Day: Misogynist? Genius?"

12/23/2005 2:26:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

First Cassette announced their break-up only for fronthottie and drama mamma Nate to bitch about gettin' too much love from the press two months later when they decide to reunite.

From a Cassette MySpace bulletin:

"Well, it was supposed to be an unadvertised chance for Michael and I to "put our feet back in the water" after taking two months off. SADLY, although michael swears he did not send out any press release, we got our picture in the Dig, we got the Phoenix pick of the week for tuesday, and, worst of all, a big spread on the cover of the Sidekick section of the Boston Globe.

We are doomed. We are married to this damn group no matter how we try to avoid it, or how much we argue. WELL, we love Cassette, and the people have spoken. Look for our triumphant true return in January/February, 2005."

Consider our X-Mas wishes fulfilled. [Let's not spoil it by pointing out it was the week before Christmas and nothing else was going on -- OTD] Tuesday night at Michael PTVN's Electrosocial Xmas party at ZuZu, Nate Browningham warmed up the crowd with his seamless 70's/80's synthpop lounge act/cheer demo (your time will be well spent sampling the tracks on Browningham's myspace audio player). Cassette cut him off mid-cheer to perform holiday tunes (off their Xmas 2005 EP, which they recorded that day, then burned copies to sell that night) and a few original Cassette favorites. [OTD cutting in here again: this X-mas EP is sooooo good: sad-baritone emoting on some Stephin Merritt/Calvin Johnson gay-cowboy shit plus dry, ersatz-audio synthpunk accompaniment equals a version of "do you hear what i hear" that walks like an egyptian, not to mention a bubble-pop electro version of "feliz navidad" that Momus asked Santa for in 1999.] You can download most of it, including "Do You Hear What I Hear," at the Cassette MySpace page. But here's one you won't find there:

LISTEN: Cassette, "Little Drummer Boy" (mp3)

12/22/2005 7:11:00 PM by Tia | Comments [0] |  

Whip it good.

Proving that they really have been paying attention to what's going on in music all these years, Devo have once again kicked pop muzak on its ear -- by embracing their inner They Might Be Giants or Kidz Bop or Mousketeers or something. No joke, Disney is actually putting out a Devo record . . . sorta. Since you can't make shit like this up, we'll just go to the press release:

Devo changed the way people thought of music in the 1980s. Now, with Devo 2.0, the band will change the face of kids’ music -- and introduce the concept of “de-evolution” to a new generation. The original band has re-recorded its iconic hits and asked five talented kids to sing them on cd. An accompanying DVD offers surreal animated music videos directed by Gerry Casale. Both feature the first new Devo tracks in twenty years: “Cyclops” and “The Winner.”

STREAM: Devo 2.0, "Whip It" (.wmv)

12/22/2005 12:12:00 AM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

Our friend Kelly Davidson is a former Phoenix staffer and rock photographer extraordinaire: her Rockers-with-Kids photo-essay got some deservedly awesome reviews earlier this year [not just saying that 'cause OTD and daughters were in it]. Last week she stepped out from behind the lens, gathered a bunch of local rock celebrities -- including a Dresden Doll, a Confidence Man, a Bourbon Princess, and a lesbian rapper -- and recorded a cover of one of our favorite holiday tunes: Low's "Just Like Christmas." Skip to the bottom of the post for the a/v links.

The play by play from Kelly:

"I got to jamspot around 3:30 to sing into a mic for the first time in my life. i grabbed a guitar, pluggedin and played and sang ... freaked out a little that i sounded, well, like crap. But then reminded myself that this was supposed to be fun, not perfect. i'm not a singer! Then brian (dresden dolls) showed up and he set up the kit to hisliking and we jammed. SO FUN! i've never played with a drummer. when i stopped singing and we were just playing the song i totally felt likea rock star. then linda viens (bad saints/angeline) showed up and she took over acoustic guitar. we hung out. they officially met each other. then erica (ej labb) showed up with her girlfriend whitney and we did a run through (minus bass and electric guitar). her rapping was AMAZING! linda was dying. we make some new arrangements for the song. we did another take then russell (confidence men/skypaint/amelia white) and monique (bourbon princess) came in. (followed by myfriends marissa and julie brown who were there to document the eveningwith video and stills). everyone plugged in. gabe (the engineer) was done setting up and we just played it. we did a few things to change where i was standing, and eventually had me facing the band and the stage so my mic wouldn't pick up the drums as much since we were recording it live. a few times and we got it! it sounds amazing (minus my singing). russell gets a guitar solo after erica's rap, then monique gets a bass solo, then brian gets a drum solo, then
it's back to the chorus. we go back in and do backup vocals. then everyone leaves but brian and linda and me and julie brown...and i redo my vocals...not trying to sing over a band and it's SO MUCH BETTER (still, not a singer, but definitely not as bad as the first time around). we go in ... tweak and listen and tweak..and it's done at 2am.*smile*"

Technology being what it is, they posted the song to MySpace a few hours later. In one weekend they got over 500 friend requests. They also shot a lo-fi in-the-studio video, a rough-draft of which appears below. If Kelly ever decides to make Star Matters a going concern, look the fuck out.

While we're on topic, Kelly's also got a new photo show called "(Behind the) Scenes" up at the Cambridge Common (the restaurant upstairs from the Lizard Lounge): "This is a collection of images from various band shoots i've donearound boston that don't have anything to do with the band. There's an image of the JP pond before the Mittens stepped into the frame, a shot of a billboard on Storrow Drive that i was passing on my way to the FleetCenter to photograph Bette Middler, a shot of a window sill that i was sitting near waiting for Apollo Sunshine to finish their sound check so our shoot could begin..."

LISTEN: Star*Matters, "Just Like Christmas" (mp3)
WATCH: Star*Matters, "Just Like Christmas" (quicktime video, under 6 mb)

12/21/2005 6:46:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

We'll be reminding you throughout the next week, but OTD is moving next Wednesday -- new server, new URL, and -- for those of you who do the RSS thing -- a new feed. As of December 28 we'll be at thephoenix.com/onthedownload. Some people have assumed that our low-rent look over here is a conscious aesthetic choice (ha!), but really it's just because when Cami and OTD started this thing back in April, this is literally the best we could do. It's still pretty much the best we can do. But now we're making some people help us, and you'll see a new look soon.

12/21/2005 6:20:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

. . . Five golden rings . . .

1. We've said it before, we'll say it again: the Click Five are the Monkees/Dave Clark Five version of what we always thought Waltham should be. Case in point: their meticulously-crafted Christmas single, atomically engineered to steer teens from MySpace to the mall . . .

"I got a cell phone, trampoline, a year's worth of magazine
I even got a new pair of chucks
I got a surfboard, swimming pool, a Mustang convertible
Still I didn't get enough

I got everything I wanted on my list
Except for one thing that I missed
(Just a kiss)

My girlfriend forgot me this Christmas day . . .

I got her earrings, chocolate, spa gift certificates
Waited a couple hours in line
I got her makeup, teddy bears, even bought her underwear
Now I'm down to my last dime

She got everything she wanted on her list
Except for one thing that she missed
(Just a kiss)
My girlfriend forgot me this Christmas day . . ."

LISTEN: The Click 5, "My Girlfriend (Forgot Me This Christmas)" (stream)
LISTEN: The Click 5, "Silent Night" (stream)

2. In the spirit of the above song, OTD finished our X-mas shopping yesterday, cued up the iPod, and promptly got smacked with the following song, which was probably not intended as a Christmas song but will work just fine as a seasonal corrective, or perhaps as just good advice for those of us who've overspent on credit. To wit: "If you ain't got no money, take your broke ass home." Ostensibly this is the Rub's DJ Ayres having his way with Gwen and Ludacris, but really it's in a league of its own. (Via Catchdubs, we think: it was a while ago. Check him pronto for more X-mas goodies.)

LISTEN: DJ Ayres, "Broke Ass Home" (mp3)

12/21/2005 8:25:00 AM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

1. Swear on our autographed Nick Cave novel, we emailed Tia the other day, all like, "We should do a Christmas post. Think anyone's got Christmas songs?" Then walked to our mailbox and found a package with a return address that said "Ho Ho Ho-Ag." While the envelope had OTD's name and address on it, we suspect there was a mixup at the mailer-stuffing party: the letter inside was addressed to one M. Brodeur. Oops. (Bro-Bro: they said to tell you they demand "instant holiday classic status" for this. If you want to swap notes, give us a ring.)

Appropriately for a band that's never found a style it couldn't master, destroy, and discard in under three minutes, this is a relatively straightforward but still deeply ominous cover of a really fucked-up 103-year-old song that we normally wouldn't be able to imagine anyone this side of Robert Goulet singing. It's a song you'd sing to your kids only if you wanted to remind them that someday -- relatively soon, cosmically speaking -- they're all gonna die, miserable and alone. Happy holidays!

LISTEN: Ho-Ho-Ho-Ag, "Toyland" (mp3)

12/20/2005 7:22:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

Is there any dirtier holiday than this one? (Photo by Amy Wallenberg)

We're being cute -- this is not a Christmas song -- but hear us out.

First we heard the guys in Officer May were changing their name. Then we heard they were changing their sound. Neither of these seemed like particularly welcome possibilities, because Officer May -- who managed to be loud, poingnant, ass-dirty, tragic, and gorgeous in a Shellac-meets-In Utero kinda way -- kicked the shit out of us on a regular basis. So to find out that they were changing both name and sound was, seriously, a bummer. Then again, we thought, how different could it be?

Pretty different. Frontkid Chris Warren put out put out about 100 copies of a solo album a while back, and if you heard him around town sketching those songs alone on guitar and piano, then the new band will make a lot of sense. In DIRTY HOLIDAY, he's split the difference between the sounds of filthy rock bands and introspective song-poets. Warren looks a bit like a cross between Kurt Cobain and Mark Lanegan, and has that kind of voice, too -- weathered, whiskey/smoked, wry, heartbreaking. This song -- taken from their debut album American Vulture -- sounds a little like those guys, a little like the Doors' "People Are Strange," and a little like the song you'd whistle on the last stagecoach out of Deadwood.

LISTEN: Dirty Holiday, "Who's Pulling the Strings" (mp3)

12/19/2005 8:31:00 PM by On the Download | Comments [1] |  

photos by Tia

Tia reports:

There hasn't been a night to rival the Great Scott indie-art-rock-kids-spin-hip-hop drunken dancefest that was Dynasty (RIP) until the Certified Bananas kids rolled into Great Scott Thursday night to DJ for an evening rich with hand-clapping, booty-shaking, and mannequin-fondling fun!

First up, Miss Fairchild the Maine based mannequin-obsessed smooth funky hip hop trio Miss Fairchild played to a crowd of obvious Fairchild-ites - perhaps some traveling down from Maine only to be scared off by the stylings of DC based punk-synth duo Hott Beat (think Le Tigre meets Freezepop, with fashion stylists Leslie Hall and Pleeaseasaure). Frontchick Andrea Melkisethian's running self-deprication comedy banter and spazz/strip dancing (including an amazing flyling nipple wardrobe malfunction!) freaked out most of the Miss Fairchild loyals, who slowly crept towards the bar at a safe distance from the stage. Then our favorite party rap boytoys Big Digits (we finally caught TD in the act of pre-show stretching!) rocked our drunk-asses 'till one a.m.

LISTEN: Miss Fairchild, "One of Those Girls"
LISTEN: Hott Beat, "Mall Song"
LISTEN: Hott Beat, "Hott Beat Down"






photos by Cami

Cami adds her two-cent:

Last January on Inauguration eve, I was hanging in DC for a Rock Against Bush show with the Casual Dots and our favorite Bratmobile spin-offs, Partyline. At one point, I ended up confabulating with Partyline guitarist and Iron-Maiden-shirt-wearing Angela Melkisethian, who was so insanely animated in dissing the anti-Bush action to Turn Your Back Against Bush, I quoted the only part of her rant I could get down (third paragraph): “All these people are dressing up straight tomorrow so that they can fit in and turn their backs on Bush. Fuck that! No way. I’m going to go down there and get my freak on. I don’t want to fit in and look like a bunch of Poindexters!”

Fast-forward 11 months and run into Melkisethian again at Great Scott, screaming onstage half naked as Hottesa, the insane(r) half of Hott Beat. Can’t even remember wtf she was squealing about because Tia’s correct: Angela scared the shit outta the Fairchild groupies with her mad witch-cackling and off-key everything. She wore that crazy side-ponytailed blonde-sunglassed mask the whole time--and when it nearly fell off and the confused-amused-soon-to-be-fleeing crowd started coaxing her to take it off, she cried, “Will you still love the real me?” Nope. Instead, she tore off her jacket and skirt to reveal a matching set of candy-necklace-styled bra and panties. To our dismay, no one was biting.

LISTEN: Hott Beat,"Uh Oh (4 Nazi Turd Bush)"
LISTEN: Partyline, "Unsafe at Any Speed (demo)"

12/19/2005 11:50:00 AM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

Not only do HARRY AND THE POTTERS have a lot more grist for the mill now that the fourth film is out, they also apparently have some competition in the realm of bands inspired by the ubiquitous child wizard. Just check out their new holiday album, which includes their smash hits "Christmas at Hogwarts" and, below, the winsome "Meet Me Under the Mistletoe." The album, a group effort, also marks the debut of their evil-nemesis band DRACO AND THE MALFOYS and sock-puppet geek-popists UNCLE MONSTERFACE WIZARDFACE. All of the above, plus K-Recs indie-folk superstar JASON ANDERSON, and TRISTAN DA CUHNA, will be on hand for today's 5 pm all-ages "Yule Ball" downstairs at the Middle East, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge 617.864.EAST.

LISTEN: Harry and the Potters, "Meet Me Under the Mistletoe" (mp3, via MySpace)
READ: Harry and the Potters' "Top 5 Scenes You Won't See in Goblet of Fire"

12/18/2005 1:02:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

The rest of the show will go on, but according to these posts, Chloe from AIDS Wolf got stopped at the US/Canadian border, and thus they will not be performing tonight. Hope it was nothing to do with anything we posted.

Just another reason to go see Ponies in the Surf tonight. (See below.)

12/17/2005 4:17:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

The oeuvre of the bro/sis duo known as Ponies in the Surf used to be recognizable primarily by Alexander McGregor's gentle tendrils of simple Spanish-style guitar, his voice intertwined harmoniously with Camille's breathy songbird chirp. Extraneous instrumentation was usually limited to some sprightly finger tapping. But on their forthcoming full-length debut, Ponies on Fire (Asaurus), the siblings go for broke, augmenting their old-timey sensibilities with a full-band sound and rich production that evokes chilly majesty of a band like Arcade Fire. Tinkling piano trills that sound like their showering from the outer reaches of space (or coming from down a dark hall). Undulating church-organ swells. Spector-al echoes, glowing hums, and ever-so-slight percussive touches.

Suddenly, what had "started out as a strummed lark on a summertime porch -- novelty songs, children's tunes, commercial jingles, Zombies covers, stabs at Edith Piaf melodies and other attempts to create the soundtrack to our lives" has blossomed into something big.

Alex and Camille will be sharing the stage at PA's Lounge Saturday night with their friends Pants Yell! (who describe their body of work as "cryptic bedroom pop") and Albany's Kamikaze Hearts (who describe theirs as "upstate porch rock"). The former will be getting all meta, covering Christmas covers from folks like Destroyer, Soltero, Vic Godard, Run On, and the Aislers Set.

(You can buy copies of Ponies on Fire there, and also t-shirts emblazoned with Alex's pen drawings of Mose Allison and Bix Beiderbecke. Both worthy purchases this holiday season.)

Saturday: Ponies in the Surf + Pants Yell! + Kamikaze Hearts at PA's Lounge, 345 Somerville Ave, Somerville, 617.776.1557.

LISTEN: Ponies in the Surf, "Little Boy Lost"
LISTEN: Ponies in the Surf, "Ventricle"
LISTEN: Pants Yell!, "Onward, Sailboat"
LISTEN: Kamikaze Hearts, "Boston Whaler"

12/17/2005 3:25:00 PM by Mike Miliard | Comments [0] |  

Taking care of business in a flash.

It seemed to us that after all the fucking hype about Wonderful Rainbow that Lightning Bolt's new Hypermagic Mountain -- which is, like, a totally better record and the one everyone should be screaming "breakout masterpiece" about -- is being strangely kinda slept on. Then we called their publicists and found out why: they're trying to hold all the press until LB embark on their 2006 tour, which should kick off in February/March. Nonetheless, our favorite new Phoenix critic James Parker managed to track down the elusive Providence proletarians, and to squeeze out of them one of the best Bolt interviews we've ever read: "I mean, what is the purpose of a show?" says Bolt bassist Brian Gibson. "That’s the question. What are you trying to give people? Because I think when people come to a show — and they forget this — but what they really want is to get lost."

LISTEN: Lightning Bolt, "2 Morrow Morrow Land" (mp3)

12/16/2005 11:46:00 PM by On the Download | Comments [0] |  

Matty Trump is a standout producer who has a great track out with the amazing 18-year-old Dorchester MC who goes by the name of LT (who, by the way, is literally the best rapper in Boston right now: everyone who hears him ends up with jaws around their ankles going, "He sounds like a young Jay-Z."). We met Matty in the studio with LT a few months ago; today he checked in to remember the Graveside kids: "Ya, J [Jason Bachiler] was a intern from the studio I worked at, he was a great kid. I saw him last week [and] told him to come work at my new studio. He said he was gonna give me a call. It's so sad, I met the rest of the group at the studio a couple of times. I remember Fat Boy as [being] a really funny kid, and EJ was more serious. They all seemed really into their music and I don't understand why or how this could have happened."

Mr. Peter Parker, who hosted the group's CD this summer (which, he believes, has never been released), offered to give us a listen to it, on the condition that we sign a release stating that the members of the group "would not be attacked in your piece." As we said previously, Pete's worried (and not without plenty of reason) that when it gets out that a group of nice kids who pretended to be thugs in their music ("they were on some Mobb Deep meets dirty south hardcore rap shit") got gunned down in a real-life reflection of their music, the press will suggest that this is some kind of poetic justice. In the meantime, Parker's trying to protect what's left of their dignity: "This is a tragic event and I am deeply saddened by the loss of my friends, they were passionate artists and good people."

Previously: OTD mp3 exclusive: Graveside

12/16/2005 11:05:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

Graveside, the Wakefield-based rap group gunned down Tuesday in a Dorchester recordings studio, was not well-known to most Boston rap fans -- we'd never heard of them, either -- but they'd already caught the ear of tastemakers including Hot/WILD 97.7 DJ Mr. Peter Parker and the influential web site BostonHipHopOnline (BHHO). Parker hosted the group's demo/mixtape over the summer, and they'd also contributed a standout track to Young Boy Game, a mixtape by the 19-year-old budding street legend DJ Moneybag$. Earlier today, BHHO founder Cublunk flipped the BHHO site's splash page in tribute to the group, and also posted Graveside's track "Moneybags" to the site's flash radio player. Confirming Parker's assessment, their shit was tight. Below, courtesy of BHHO and Moneybag$, OTD brings you "Stomp" from Young Boy Game -- a song BHHO's Cublunk had already singled out, in a feature on Moneybag$, as a track to be taken seriously. Here's seconding that.

LISTEN: Graveside, "Stomp" (mp3)

12/15/2005 6:12:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

Details still emerging from the quadruple homicide at a Dorchester recording studio that claimed at least three members of the Wakefield, MA-based rap group Graveside.

BostonHipHopOnline has posted a song from the group called "Moneybags" -- apparently a tribute to Boston's 19-year-old mixtape mogul DJ Moneybags -- on its pop-up flash-radio player. Over dark horror-movie keyboards punctuated by gunshots, the group rhymes about military personas and hollow tip bullets, then proclaims "You fuck with us and then it's heaven you'll be next in line."

DJ Mr. Peter Parker was quoted in both dailies, but most eloquently summed up the irony of the killing in a post on BostonRap.com:

"This is such a tragic event......I knew these kids, they were in a rap group called Graveside, I hosted and mixed thier cd this summer. I have been to the so called "Gospel" basement studio many times. These were good kids. When the truth about what went on and who did what comes out, the press is gonna go crazy when they hear the cd. It's on some Mobb Deep shit, mad gun talk, crazy violent, ignorant shit........but these were good kids. The fucking press is gonna have a field day. I know at least 2 of the kids who were killed and both were talented artists who were very passionate about thier music and had a lot of potential. So now here's the question.....does life imatate art? or does art imatate like? These were some cool ass kids who loved hardcore hiphop, like myself. BUT now the press is gonna make them out to be "Gangster Rappers"....not even close. I said to my dude, "they were cool kids that stayed out of trouble, they just rapped like that" and he was like, "they represented the same shit that got them killed, it doesn't really matter WHAT you actually do, heads are gonna believe what they see and hear". It was a "Rap House Massacure". like it or not.............those were my dudes, RIP!

12/15/2005 10:10:00 AM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

It's raining men.

1. We knew as soon as the emails got to our inbox that at least a couple bloggers would beat us to posting these two songs, but we made the principled stand to actually listen to them before we passed them along. Go figure: they're both really good. The Bloc Party song was utterly forgettable the first time around, but as DFA79 fans have already figured out, everything sounds better with a really thick bass sound and DFA-ripoff proto-house drums. Not mad at that in the least. Especially the refrain part that makes us think Kele is about to break into the same Gwen Stefani song that Franz Ferdinand just covered. Giving Paul "Phones" Epworth a run for his BP edit, this MSTRKRFT refix comes courtesy of the newly relaunched Vice Magazine homepage, where the proprietors came up with the magnificent idea of starting their own mp3 blog and cutting out the middlemen. Awesome.

The other song here, of the dame-mas-Guerolito variety, is yet another ridiculously hot outtake from Beck's remix album: you knew when a Diplo version gets doffed to a bonus 12-inch that the batch was going to be something special, and the bumped-but- Fader-leaked South Rakkas mix pretty much sealed the deal. The real weirdness of this here specimen is that it comes from the crazy-ass trio the Mae Shi, who on their own records do a pretty convincing impression of people who hate music. Except for their stunning 2004 Mae Shi Mixtape, where it sounded like they loved music -- lots and lots and lots of it -- so much that they had to knife it all up into tiny little pieces. In any case, they have never sounded like the kind of dudes who would get all worked up over producing a completely serviceable -- dare we say actually real solid? -- reggaeton remix of a Beck song. Better yet, it also came to our inbox complete with the kind of explication that'd make a Village Voice blogger run to IXLM: "So much of Beck's 90s output was a mythologizing of the 80s Los Angeles he grew up immersed in – lowriders, mariachi, turntables and microphones," writes Mae Shi's Brad Breeck. "Sure, it's patronizing at times – 'Odelay' was his gringoapproximation of 'orale,' as in 'orale vato' – but for some, it's the perfect whiteboy synthesis of pre-Rodney King Riots Los Angeles." Dedicating their refix to Daddy Yankee and LA's Latino 96.3, Breeck says the track is the group's "attempt to capture the sound of 2005 in the same way Beck captured the sound of 1985." Mission fucking accomplished.

LISTEN: Bloc Party, "Two More Years (MSTRKRFT Remix)" (mp3)'
LISTEN: Beck, "Que Onda Guero (Team Shi Latino 96.3 Mix)" (mp3)

2. We're sure someone else must've mentioned this already, but did anyone else jump out of their skin when Trick Daddy announces he's about to do it "MIA style" on Disco D's remix of Trick Daddy's "Shut Up"? Somehow that line slipped by us the first time around. It's still funny even after you realize he was under the impression he was rhyming over an old-school miami-bass track, even funnier now that Disco D has tricked him into laying it over, as D points out, "a 108 bpm techno track."

3. Multiple choice. The most awesome