The sad, quiet, styling of Mr. Smith is hard to top.

match 6

shiv - AA Bondy - On The Moon : I don't think I knew this guy was the dude from Verbena. I remember picking up Into The Pink in the dollar bin based on some rave in CMJ. I never really liked it. This, however is the best AA Bondy song I've heard to date. If the echo-verb noise at the end of this track were gone i'd have no qualms bumping the score. 6/10

kingdom - Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings - She Ain't A Child No More : Interestingly enough, this is best Sharon jones song I've heard. I like it's authentic sound, I just wish the songwriting was as strong as the stuff I've heard from the original 60's funk/soul scene. 6/10

gosh dangit tie-breaker!

kingdom - Free Energy - Free Energy : Fun, fluff rock. If this song has a radio edit version, then it would be the song of the summer. 4:45 though is a tad too long to be a true rock/pop gem. 7/10

shiv - Floyd Cramer - On The Rebound : Yeah yeah a famous pianist. Nashville legend. Country and RnR Hall Of Famer. Easy-listening piano instrumentals is still a hard genre to score big on though. Kind of sounds like something you'd hear on the Lawrence Welk show when they really get wild. 7/10

fuckin' a

shiv - Manhatten Love Suicides - Things You've Never Done : femme fronted new school fuzzy indie pop twee stuff. There's a lot of this crap spewing out these days but I like this band. I think they have an edge because they remind me of Talulah Gosh. 7/10

kingdom - Iron & Wine - Evening on the Ground (Lillith's Song) : Hmm, the tag says this is from the Live at Bonaroo but it's really the studio version from the Woman King EP. I call for instant disqualification! Actually, no, I'll just rate this as normal. It's good, but not nearly his best. 6/10

a knock down drag out match, shiv advances.

fuckin' a indeed

if it's not always the avett brothers it's something similar, i've been on that kick for about... 10 years now.

more forgettable or less forgettable than vampire weekend or hold steady?

Tough question!

Only time will tell, I suppose.

i'd go with more forgettable.

Yeah, actually that's not a tough question at all. For better or worse, Vampire Weekend and The Hold Steady are both way more distinctive and memorable.

next match

drinky - Benny Goodman - Live Introduction 1950 Carnegie Hall : Sorry, drink, but when you pull a lastfm gremlin it still counts. Could've been a lot worse. Benny talking to the audience about finding some old recordings in his closet or something like that. I'd rate my enjoyment of listening to this on par with Lynch Mob. 3/10

ft - Broken Bells - Sailing To Nowhere : According to lastfm I've listened to this act twice before, though I don't recall it at all. Telling, I think. Not too shabby, though I'd rather listen to the Shins, Dangermouse, and more comparatively, Gorillaz. Though there's promise here, I should probably check out the album. 5/10

ft moves on with a textbook average score.

final match up of the first round.

paris - The Henry Clay People - Digital Kid : I grew up on Henry Clay Blvd. Anyway, this is better than I thought it would be. Sounds like something that will be on the LA Nuggets 2 Rhino Box Set that will come out in 2025. Would prefer it a little faster and tighter, but it's still a 6/10.

guns - The Morning Benders - Excuses : One of the best songs of the year. Wish the whole album was like this. 9/10

guns moves on with an impressive pull

Elite 8 match ups!

Radcliffe
Sanchez

wench
jsh

leon
shiv

ft
guns

well shit.

For me, memorable in a bad way. I'm not saying BoH is the best band on earth, but Vampire Weekend and Hold Steady are way overrated.

Yeah I don't like The Hold Steady, and Vampire Weekend are just OK for the most part. Still, BoH just sounds exactly like a bunch of other bands.

which bands are those?

Uh oh! Nobody! You got me! They're completely original! Unlike anything! I can't name a single band that they sound like!

my morning jacket

not entirely original, but not they don't sound like a bunch of other bands.

They do, actually. They started out sounding like My Morning Jacket, and now they just sound like generic alt-rock.

ROUND 2

Rads - The Hold Steady - Your Little Hoodrat Friend : This is one of those bands that I think are ok, but wouldn't go out of my way to track down their albums. If I catch 'em on the radio/tv/net I wouldn't change the channel. As usual, a pretty good song here but clocking in at almost 4 minutes stretches my punk attention span. 6/10

Sanchez - The Swell Season - Into The Mystic : Heck, I wouldn't even rate the original that high. Just plain not a fan of Van. This live cover is well executed but I can't take 6+ minutes of some acoustic indie singer-songwriter dude doing some old dude's acoustic singer-songwriter song. 4/10

rads moves on!

next match

wench - Avalanches - Since I Left You : Despite liking everything about it's components (electronics, sampling obscure stuff, digital beat juggling) I've never gotten into much plunderphonics stuff. I should probably change that. I rarely listen to this album but when I do I both enjoy it and admire it's creativity. 7/10

jsh - The Bug - Freak Freak : Coincidentally, a similar act here. I've never truly dug/understood E.A.R. (Experimental Audio Research), and I've never heard his other outfits Techno Animal or Curse of the Golden Vampire, but based on those names I'll continue to avoid. From a technical standpoint there are some great layers here, and the mood this music sets is pretty intense and deep. It sounds like I'm walking down a dark alley while it's raining with creepy robots fuzzing out and trying to get me to buy black market bloops and bleeps. Earns major points as a music project, not so much for... well, anything else. 5/10

wench moves on to the final four!

ROUND 2 match 3

leon - My Teenage Stride - Ears Like Bats : Sounds like the Breakfast Club soundtrack meets the C86 scene. It's got that electro-pop wit quick jangle strumming that i dig. the song is short and sweet but I'm mentally noting the band and mentally wishing they have some slightly better songs. 6/10

shiv - Morning Benders - Promises : above average song by a promising band. The verses are unfocused, but then it shifts and builds into something great, but then goes back to blah. Another band I'll watch closely to see if they blossom into something amazing (other than "Excuses", which already hits the mark, but why did they stop there?). 6/10

tie bullshit

shiv - White Denim - I'd Have It Just The Way We Were : For a bluesy indie garage band this sounds a lot like 70s AM white soul. I've heard other stuff by them that's ok though. 4/10

leon - Eminem - Marshall Mathers : Does lastfm censor bad language? I don't come across it often but it's really apparent here. Maybe it's from the album (it's some Greatest Hits collection) itself. I don't like this guy, and this song starts slow, fakes a build up, and then remains pretty mellow. The chorus is stupid. That can be said about so many hip-pop songs though. I guess I can't deny this dude's talent but IMO it's wasted on a track like this. Add in the gremlin and this barely earns a 3/10.

Shiv squeaks into the final four.

My Teenage Stride is good, the track you listened to is one of their weaker ones. Eminem, Dammit, I can't even remember the last time that I listened to that.

final match of the Elite 8

ft - Brendan Benson - Cold Hands Warm Heart : nice little singer-songwriter power pop lite stuff here. not that much else to say about it, other than it's a good song. 7/10

guns - These United States - I Want You To Keep Everything : Kinda reminds me of the Strokes or something from that realm. Kinda rocking, accessible, and turns me neither on nor off. 5/10

ft moves on!

FINAL FOUR LOOKS LIKE THIS!

rads
wench

shiv
ft