Sweet Apple are alternative / power pop royalty

I'm a big J. Mascis/Dinosaur Jr. fan but until recently I was ignorant of the wonders of Sweet Apple. The band consists of J Mascis (Dinosaur Jr., Heavy Blanket), Tim Parnin (Cobra Verde), John Petkovic (Cobra Verde, Death of Samantha, Guided By Voices) and Dave Sweetapple (Witch, Vardlokk). Cool, eh?

If you're a power pop fan, you're gonna love this. Even if you're not, you gotta give this a listen. Here's "Boys in Her Fanclub" from their recently released The Golden Age of Glitter.

Here they are with Mark Lanegan on "Wish You Could Stay (A Little Longer)"

Here's "Do You Remember?" from Love & Desperation. And you alt-rock geeks know that Hüsker Dü is Danish and Norwegian for "Do You Remember", right?

Pic from Facebook.

Fear of Men at The Horseshoe

I usually spend some time checking out a band before I go see them live. I didn't do that with Fear of Men and I'm conflicted over whether that was a good thing. On one hand, they got to impress me with their songs and live presence without me having any preconceived notions about what they were going to be like. On the other hand, it takes a while for songs to grow on me and I would have liked to have had that familiarity with their catchy and fun tunes.

They're from Brighton, UK on their first tour of Canada and their new album Loom just came out on April 22. Their singer later joined The Pains of Being Pure at Heart as their keyboard player/female singer.

You can check out the whole album here:

Favourites: Frightened Rabbit

I don't know if it's the time of year or what, but I've been super exhausted lately. And I've been busy at my day job, so I really haven't had the energy I usually do to edit concert pics and seek out new music.

So, in the spirit of laziness and needing to boost my energy. Here are some of my favourite Frightened Rabbit songs from their brilliant 2013 album Pedestrian Verse.

Here's "Backyard Skulls",

"Holy" and

"The Woodpile"

And, for fun, going back to 2010 and The Winter of Mixed Drinks with "Swim Until You Can't See Land".

I'm still tired. But I'm smiling.

Pic from Facebook.

Cool new clip from Warpaint

I don't have much to say today. I'm listening to Warpaint. Here's their newest video. The it's for the tunes "Disco//Very" and "Keep It Healthy".

New Sia tune Chandelier

Sia has released a video from her forthcoming album 1000 Forms of Fear. Sounds scary. Check out the tune "Chandelier" below. Cool, emotive pop tune. The album's out in June.