At long last, Local Natives are back, and with a new album. Early next year, January 29th to be exact, the follow up to the amazing Gorilla Manor will drop. It’s called Hummingbird and here’s the first leaked track from it. And it sounds spectacular. You can bet we’ll be seeing a lot of these guys in the spring, no Austin dates yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a few pop up soon.
Memorial Day weekend is a wonderful time – the unofficial start of summer, with BBQ, fun in the sun, and general good vibes for all on a three-day break. But it always used to have a pretty stellar soundtrack – the WOXY Modern Rock 500. If WOXY were still around, you bet I would be listening and listing everything I heard. The WOXY crew compiled a list of some of the finest songs to ever grace alternative radio, new and old, and the #1 song was different every year. After 97X left the FM dial and WOXY went Internet-only, the countdown continued until last year, when the station was suddenly taken from us. But we still have the music and the memories, and so, as a tribute this Memorial Day, I leave you with a sampling of tracks we might have heard today on WOXY.COM.
30. Cloud Nothings – Turning On
29. Thw Walkmen – Lisbon
28. ceo – White Magic
27. Drake – Thank Me Later
Drake – Shut It Down (featuring The-Dream)
26. Local Natives – Gorilla Manor
20. A-Trak – Twerk That Driver
19. Small Black – Photojournalist (Star Slinger Remix)
18. Two Door Cinema Club – Undercover Martyn Flexin’ It (Passion Pit Remix)
17. The Hood Internet – Someday We’ll Find Your Love (Drake x Grum)
16. Neon Indian – Should Have Taken Acid With You (Future Rock Remix)
15. Coolrunnings – I Am You (Star Slinger Remix)
14. The-Dream – Nikki (Gobble Gobble Remix)
13. Passion Pit – Sleepyhead (Le Chev Remix)
12. Deerhunter – Helicopter (Star Slinger Remix)
11. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Round & Round (Little Loud Remix)
20. The Hold Steady – Hurricane J
Craig Finn, while less belligerent, is still plenty drunk and emotional and frank on Heaven Is Whenever, and the group delivers one of their poppiest efforts thus far. “Hurricane J” is a plea to a lost soul he may be care a little too much about, spoken plainly and perfectly alongside a perfect tropical storm metaphor. We’ve all known someone like the person Finn describes, and we’ve all said the exact same things.
This year I made the big move from Lubbock to Austin, and the transformation has done wonders for my live music fix. I should have been writing down all the awesome bands I saw this year (and the years before, for that matter) but alas, hindsight, she is 20/20 once again. I think this post covers the highlights more or less, however. There’s plenty of great live music I saw this year that I’m leaving out, but after the jump, in no particular order, are twelve of the best shows I witnessed in 2010, eleven of them right here in the Live Music Capital of the World.
And for the record, I wanted to put the Sleigh Bells show on here, as fun as it was once they finally started playing, but everyone who attended knows Beauty Bar is at fault for that show’s omission. What a disaster.
Once every three months I list the best of what I heard in albums/songs/remixes for the quarter. I do this to personally keep up with all the awesome music I hear, as it ultimately helps me at the end of the year when I do my overall listing for the previous twelve months. I also do it to introduce you cool cats to tunes you may have missed independently.
