Canvas shorts and reggae music sound like summer spent by the water being lazy. Sean Bones is not lazy. Aside from holding down bass duties in indie sons Sam Champion, he designs and runs S/S Friends, Ltd.--a line of limited edition canvas shorts, zines, and vinyl based in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn--and cuts old-school reggae tracks under his own name. "Easy Street" is basically a classic pop joint with some give, all swelling B3 stabs, doo-wop harmonies, and Sean's wandering drawl over it all. For those that think Vampire Weekend too obviously cop African sounds, scope this track's perfect marriage of reggae rhythms and pop structure, the chord change on the chorus really pushes it next level.
Sounds like: Vampire Weekend, Toots & The Maytals, Jimmy Cliff
Every time we hear some dumb interviewer ask some amazing all-girl band like, the Coathangers or something a question like, "So, what's it like to be an all-girl band?" A) it makes us pukey and B) we get really pissed off when the band actually answer the question instead of doing what the Slits would do, which is obviously just be awesome, not care and do whatever (which is what the Coathangers pretty much do, but we were just using them as an example). Seriously, try it sometimes.
We recently busted out the Specials' debut album Specials at a BBQ (because it's perfect BBQ music) and it went down pretty well, so of course our next stop was the never-ending annals of YouTube.com. We unearthed this pretty awesome live footage from Japan of album track "Do the Dog", performed to an enraptured yet very polite Japanese crowd. Check it!
From Chromeo to Arcade Fire to The New Pornographers to Feist- Canada's high levels of musical standards has come close to convinced us to emigrate to the maple-leaf state. Well, it's time to add one more notch on the Canadian indie music totem pole: The Grand Analog Project, fronted by Odario G. Williams, crafts soul, ska, dub, hip hop 'Ghettotech" music. Yeah, you may have to listen to get my description. Below, the track "Around the Town" features Williams rapping, over a swaying dub-reggae beats and whistling flute. Check it and raise that Canadian flag, ey.
