cloud cult

Possibly my least productive day bandwise. I saw only 8 of them….. And I still can’t remember what I was doing between noon and 2pm. Everything else has come back to me.

SXSW has always been about meeting people. I met Sue while on the plane from Denver to Austin last monday. We talked for most of the flight, finding striking similarities between me and my twin brother and her two sons (twins as well), both of which were working in the music industry in Austin. As well, one is currently managing the infamous Daniel Johnston. *You might need to go rent this if you’ve never heard of him. Through High Wire Music and the help of a killer street team (nice work kids), they put together a solid showcase in town that day. I saw Daniel play. Great show, the crowd agreed.

Jumping backward, I’d like to mention seeing Loney, Dear perform at the team Clermont party. It was a perfect show for that part in the day. I found a good spot right by a circular fan. The room was dead quiet. I couldn’t help thinking about a folkier version of the Bee-Gees in his sound. Really nice songs, you can find a hell of a lot of them here, check out I Am John.
After dinner a bunch of us jumped around quite a bit. Saw Montreal’s Besnard Lakes at the Mohawk and Lo Fi Fnk from the alley way behind The Beauty Bar Patio. Really liked Cloud Cult‘s performance at Emo JR’s featuring two live painters on stage.

Champion had people dancing like crazy making me wonder if the patio at Maggie Mae’s could support the jumping. Datarock were a nice surprise as well.

Menomena was a highlight as well, but I’m going to hold off on writing about them just yet. Tomorrow night I’m off to see them, Field Music and Land Of Talk at the El Mo. Great lineup.

Loney, Dear – The City, The Airport
Cloud Cult – Chain Reaction
Menomena – Stream their new record here

Day 2

Indie Music Filter: Volume 2

I love making mix cds. or playlists.

I made one over the holidays as my ‘best of ’06’ double disc. My cd burner worked more hours than Rudolf did near the end of december, pumping out 50 copies (100 discs total). I’m going to skip a little bit of the work this time.

I’ve made a new mix of music I’ve been listening to over the last little while. You’ll hear some Voxtrot, Snowden, Cloud Cult, David Vandervelde, and a bunch others. The main goal in mind? To get you listening to these amazing artists.

Download Volume 2 here. *Its a big file (77Mgs) so it will take some time to download.

**One thing I should mention, all the tracks on this disc fall into a couple different categories. They either agreed to post their mp3 on my site, or their music has been made available on the net by a part of their team (homepage, myspace page, label page, publicity company, etc.). If you’d like off the disc, send me an e-mail.

I’m already looking forward to April, or when I’ll be able to get my hands on a copy of Cloud Cult‘s newest offering called The Meaning Of 8.

Great band from Minnesota fronted by talented songwriter and environmentalist Craig Minowa. The band’s 2004 release (Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus) took everyone by surprise, landing on college radio everywhere. Minimal marketing budgets. Word of mouth working overtime. The record was even put out on the band’s own label (Earthology Records), known as the ‘world’s most environmentally friendly not-for-profit record label.’

Based on what I’ve heard so far of the new record, this could be a great year for the band. Nice, I’ll catch you guys in Austin (only a month until my favorite week all year).

My favorite track is a song called Chain Reaction. Sample drums lead the song into what you would think is an instrumental number. Eventually the song rings with the lyrics ‘Put your face on mine..‘.

A couple more for you. Download Take Your Medicine and Pretty Voice. As well, you can find another track called Chemicals Collide at Stereogum, video here.
Cloud Cult