You Love Stook!

It's ok to admit it, because it's a universal sentiment. You love Stook!, don't you? Stook! broke his way into your heart with the sing-along-ability of "A Song is More Than Just a Song" off his first release "The Soundtrack to My Minneapolis." He weaseled his way into your subconscious with his threats to sing AC/DC repeatedly at the Hootenanny if you didn't shut your pie hole... and that yellow hat, oh the yellow hat. Seriously tell me, how can you not love Stook!?

Lucky for all you Stook! lovers out there, Stook! has a new album out called "When The Needle Hits The Wax." It's a combination of good old school folk rock mixed with a country twang. It's a solid album and a good follow up to the first album, which you can't say of every band. Standout tracks like "Hennepin Avenue," "Diggin' On You," and "How Long We Gonna Dance?" make this one helluva enjoyable trip. Stook! sings from the heart and you can't have a Stook! album without a few heart wrenching lyrics. "Seasonal Affective Disorder" is one song I think everyone who lives in the land of winter can identify with, while "Sound of Lies" chronicles the situation some people seem to find themselves in when dealing with members of the opposite sex. Overall it's an enjoyable album and it's spun through my CD player more than a few times in the short time I've had it.

Stook!'s official CD release is slated for Friday, October 26th at the Varsity Theater. It's a joint CD release with Minneapolis favorite Dan Israel and promises to be a ton of fun. Come early and bring your friends!

Download mp3s from Stook!'s first album:
When It All Comes Crashing Down
Deliverance From Your Eyes

Buy the new album :

Stook!'s myspace for more information

Stook! on Minneapoliscast talking about the CD release & a live performance

Oh Brandi

Brandi Carlile is one talented woman, no doubt about it. It really doesn't matter if you like country, rock or pop, because you'll get a little bit of those and everything in-between. Carlile also packs a powerful punch of a voice in a tiny little body. She can wail (in a good way) like few singers I've seen. Her whole heart is out there for her audience, and it translates into hordes of screaming, singing, and weeping fans.

It also translates into a quickly sold out show at First Avenue tonight. Tickets bascially don't exist and I've heard more than one person begging anyone they can for entry to the show (including me). Carlile seems to be more underground than her rabid following would indicate, and I'm sure that those fans hold onto that like a closely guarded secret... while at the same time internally exploding for want to spread her music like wildfire to everyone.

You can hear streams of Carlile's most recent album "The Story" on her site at: BrandiCarlile.com She's also recently released a very cool acoustic EP that you can find supposedly at any indie record store. I'll have to pick one up tonight if they have any, or hit up the Electric Fetus soon.



Downloads/Streams:
Stream Brandi's May 2007 Concert in Boston
The Story mp3

In Case You Live Under A Rock...

Dan Wilson's solo album "Free Life" is finally out! It came out on Tuesday, October 16th and it's really a great sort of retrospective where all the songs are new, yet there's just something about them inherantly Dan Wilson. I was lucky enough to attend one of Wilson's CD release shows at the Bryant Lake Bowl, and it was amazing to see him in such an intimate venue.

CD Track listing:
1. All Kinds
2. Free Life
3. Breathless
4. Baby Doll
5. Come Home Angel
6. Sugar
7. Cry
8. Golden Girl
9. Against History
10. Honey Please
11. She Can’t Help Me
12. Hand On My Heart
13. Easy Silence

You can see Dan Wilson for yourself at the Electric Fetus tomorrow (10/19) for a free in-store performance. It starts at 7pm, but I would be more than a little early for this one. Word has it there's a one-of-a-kind free poster by local concert poster god Adam Turman for the first few hundred CD purchasers too, so get them while they last.

Things Are What You Make of Them

It's official. This has become a monthly blog... or something. I've been overrun with work, school, and shows. It's truely ROCKtober here in Minneapolis and there's so much good music coming to town (or just did) that I gotta have a breakdown in responsibility somewhere. Unfortunately this blog has been the first thing to go.

Rocktober in Minneapolis brings bands like Elvis Perkins in Dearland, Girl Talk, White Rabbits (omgwhiterabbits!*&!), Tokyo Police Club, Spoon, Voxtrot, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Regina Spektor, Ted Leo, Final Fantasy, New Pornographers, Architecture in Helinski, Brandi Carlile, The Polyphonic Spree, and Bishop Allen. Oh, and that's just a smattering. Can you see why my head threatens to explode?

To give you a starter taste of my concert attendance, I decided to begin with a band I saw and fell in love with at SXSW this past March, and just again at The Entry on Monday.

Bishop Allen is one of those bands that most people don't love or hate. They're sort of in the middle somewhere. They make enjoyable music for all people. It's low key, it's intelligent, and it's poppy. It's great background music with a smattering of tracks that I have to have in my listening rotation. There's never been a Bishop Allen track I haven't liked, and there are a few I'm in love with. "Things Are What You Make of Them," "Click Click Click Click," "The News From Your Bed," and "Little Black Ache" are all must-haves for me. Luckily, I have a few of my favs, along with a few tracks from their newest album, Bishop Allen & The Broken String, for free downloading at the bottom of this post. Check it out... and keep going to shows!







Download mp3s:
Click Click Click Click
Things Are What You Make of Them
The Bullet and Big D
Calendar
Rain



Buy their new album!