WORLD EXCLUSIVE -- New SP Song to Debut Tomorrow Night

In a world exclusive, we can tell you -- only here at DC Sounds -- that Washington celeb-journo supergroup Suspicious Package will debut four new covers, including Elvis' "Burning Love" at tomorrow night's show at the Red and the Black according to sources close to rehearsals in Tom Toles' basement . (After all, what is Tim Burger if not a hunk, a hunk of burning love.) The other three songs are a closely guarded secret that even DC Sounds has yet to crack. We'll see you there tomorrow night.

SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE
8:00 pm
The Red and The Black
1212 H St NE in DC
$8 cover.

Suspicious Package's all-star line-up includes Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post editorial cartoonist Tom Toles on the drums and vocals, star LA Times terrorism correspondent Josh Meyer on lead guitar and vocals, senior HUD official Bryan Greene on rhythm guitar and vocals, international man of mystery and investigative correspondent for Bloomberg News Tim Burger on the bass, and last -- but certainly not least -- America’s most glamorous trade envoy, the incomparable Christina Sevilla on keys and vocals.

Albums that are likely very good but I never got around to listening to

Ok, I admit that my half-cocked “Nine for 2009” list might not be what you'd call “comprehensive.” In fact it’s really not even close. It would be more aptly called “Nine Albums That Represent The Best Of The Music That Happened To Find Its Way Into My I-Pod in the Last Year.” But that’s kind of wordy, so we’ll stick with “Nine for 2009.”

The truth is that there's a pretty good chance some excellent albums that should have made the list were left off due to no fault of their own. I would hate to deny these talented bands the sense of accomplishment and adulation of the loyal readers of this blog (all five of you). In an effort to right this injustice, I present to you DC Sounds' first annual “Albums That Are Likely Very Good But I Never Got Around To Listening To.”

Eventually I plan to give these records a spin and post you some reviews. In the meantime, leave your thoughts in the comments section. If your insights are good, I'll use them in an upcoming post and claim them as my own (plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery).

TV On The Radio – Dear Science
I like this album just for the title. I imagine this album might contain songs like "Dear Science, Where the Hell is that Flying Car You Promised Us in 1963" but I wouldn't know because I haven't listened to it. If this album contains a song bitching about flying cars, they definitely should have made the list, and for that I apologize. As an aside, I think I’ll post a top 10 songs about science next week. Leave your ideas in the comments section so I can steal them.

Beck – Modern Guilt
There's no excuse, Beck. I'm sorry that I haven't listened to your album. It probably drips with angsty-genius tinged with whimsy, but I can't be certain.

Lil Wayne – Tha Carter III
Judging by the sales, I'm the only person on earth who doesn't have this album. Lil Wayne must be doing something right.

My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges
Everything else My Morning Jacket has given us is good, so I assume Evil Urges probably is too. But, I haven't spun it yet and assuming is not good enough for you. 

Lucinda Williams – Little Honey
Can't believe I haven't gotten to Lucinda yet. It's criminal.

Kings of Leon – Only by the Night
Probably great. Love the Kings. New Year's resolution: Listen to this album

Nine for 2009

Let's be honest. I missed the window for 2008 best-of lists (which is essentially what this is). So, I contrived this "Nine for 2009" thing so I wouldn't look like such a procrastinating chump for not getting this list done before the new year.  If you haven't outfitted your iPod with new music recently, here are a few albums you shouldn't miss:

Vampire Weekend – Mansard Roof
Vampire Weekend was the most hyped band of 2008 and deservedly so. Mansard Roof, the band's debut, packs more fun, exuberance, and sheer musical pleasure than any other album this year. Stop worrying about whether the lyrics make any sense (I'm pretty sure they don't) and shake it like you know you want to.
SAMPLE TRACK: "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa"

Emily Wells – The Symphonies: Dreams Memories and Parties
She's a violinist who makes music with a drum machine and covers The Notorious B.I.G. This sounds like a huge mess -- an ill-advised experimental jaunt by some self-indulgent kid trying to be different -- but, against all odds, it works.
SAMPLE TRACK: "Symphony 6: Fair Thee Well & the Requiem Mix"

Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid
What a sweeping grand album this is. Listening to the production on The Seldom Seen Kid -- the way the sound is put together, the way a large array of instruments and vocals are laid on top of each other just so -- is like admiring the detailed brushwork of a master painter. Plus, the songs are really pretty even if they can be a bit mopey sometimes (being a band from Manchester, this couldn't be helped).
SAMPLE TRACK: "Grounds for Divorce"

Drive By Truckers – Brighter than Creations Dark
Drive By Truckers wowed me with their 2001 epic Southern Rock Opera, a brilliant concept album that tells the story of a 1970s Southern rock band through the lens of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Since then, I've enjoyed but never really connected with subsequent albums -- that is until Brighter Than Creations Dark. There is something about this album that evokes the South of my youth in a mysterious and intangible way. Like certain smells awaken powerful memories, this disc takes me back to those high-school summer nights on the back roads of North Carolina and, for a time, makes it feel like I never left.
SAMPLE TRACK: "The Righteous Path"

REM – Accelerate
Man, has it been frustrating to be an R.E.M. fan over the last decade. Don't get me wrong; I love R.E.M. I buy every album. But, since New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996) it has been awfully hard to enjoy anything they've produced. I bought Accelerate hoping to just find something I could listen to without forcing myself to like it out of respect. But when I took it for a spin, I discovered something not heard for a very long time -- a real R.E.M. album. Finally.
SAMPLE TRACK: "Supernatural, Superserious"

Alejandro Escovedo – Real Animal
Real Animal is among the finest in a catalogue of very fine albums from Alejandro Escovedo, the Austin legend and mainstay of "most overlooked artist" lists. Real Animal reflects the variety of Alejandro's musical experience from the Tex-Mex-accented alternative country he's known for to rockers with a punk edge (Escovedo fronted a punk band called The Nuns early in his career).
SAMPLE TRACK: "Always a Friend"

Coldplay – Viva La Vida
Maybe it's not cool to like Coldplay, but I can't ignore that this album is very, very good. Some bands don't scale up well, but Coldplay seems to take advantage of every opportunity their success has afforded to make bigger and better-sounding albums. Just listen to the title track "Viva La Vida" then listen to "Yellow," the single that made them famous. Both great songs. But when your singles are topping charts around the world, you can afford to hire Brian Eno to produce your album. This is a band that uses everything available to make more and more spectacular music. Just when I thought I'd never want to hear another Coldplay album, Viva La Vida comes along.
SAMPLE TRACK: "Viva La Vida"

Ryan Adams and the Cardinals – Cardinology
Damn this guys' good … and not just because he dated Mandy Moore. No one produces more great music than Ryan Adams. He redefines prolific. Every year he releases an album, sometimes two, and maybe an EP or two to boot. While there is a white noise in all that volume, at 35 he's made more great music than many artists manage in a lifetime. With his latest album, he reaches past the country ballads of his solo work to big glamorous rock songs…and he doesn't miss.
SAMPLE TRACK: "Fix It"

MGMT – Oracular Spectacular
MGMT's new album is a funky, electronic, and yes, spectacular riot of an album that sounds like nothing you've ever heard. The swaggering single, "Time to Begin," a satirical ode to rock star egos, is such a grand song that it seems a shame to play it anywhere smaller than, like, a stadium. "Electric Feel" reinvents the best of 1970s funk in a thoroughly modern way. I don't even know what I mean by that … just listen to the album.
SAMPLE TRACK: "Electric Feel"

SPECIAL BONUS! COMING TOMORROW....ALBUMS THAT ARE LIKELY VERY GOOD BUT I NEVER GOT AROUND TO LISTENING TO

Suspicious (Christmas) Package

Our friends from Suspicious Package are back at DC9 tonight. No word if there will be any Christmas songs added to the playlist. Certainly plenty of Holiday cheer though.
7:30 pm – Happy Hour
8:30 pm -- Show
DC9 BAR in the U Street Corridor
1940 9th St NW (9th and U)
Washington DC

REVIEW: Vampire Weekend at the 9:30 Club (Mon. Dec. 1, 2008)

In the age of the internet, it doesn’t take long for a new phenom to rise to stardom. Case in point, Vampire Weekend. The New York four-piece were propelled by an adoring blogosphere to the top of the indie-rock scene in a matter of months shooting a cover for Spin Magazine this spring before their debut album was even released. For a band that was only just starting to get noticed this time last year, selling out two nights at Washington’s 9:30 Club last week was an impressive feat.

But, does the band justify the hype? Short answer, absolutely. In a brief but memorable performance last Monday at the 9:30 Club, the band who met as students at Columbia University just two years ago, gave fans everything they asked for and offered promise of greater things to come.

The Vampire Weekend catalogue is short, but what it lacks in volume it makes up for in richness. Each song is a small 3-minute gem that is at once instantly enjoyable yet possesses the depth to not wear thin. With catchy afro-influenced melodies, inventive instrumentation and memorable lyrics Vampire Weekend provides the listener pure musical pleasure that is accessible without resorting to tawdry pop hooks. It’s hard if not impossible to stand still when this band is on the stage.

At Monday night’s show, concertgoers were also treated to several new songs that stood up well to the high-standard of their existing catalogue. All this bodes well for the future. And as Vampire Weekend’s debut album makes its appearance this month on the best of 2008 lists of music critics throughout the nation, Monday’s show reminds us that sometimes the hype is well deserved.

Suspicious Package Goes Bigtime

Washington's favorite celebri-journo cover-band Suspicious Package goes big-time, headlining the Rock and Roll Hotel this Saturday night.

Don't miss.

Suspicious Package w/

The Engine Room

Collider

Memories From The Space Age

Doors 830pm Show 930pm

The Rock And Roll Hotel
1353 H Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002

Alejandro Escovedo -- A Living Legend May Finally Get His Due

When influential alt-country magazine No Depression (RIP) overlooked Wilco, Emmylou Harris, and many other deserving and better know acts to name Alejandro Escovedo “Artist of the Decade,” the magazine’s co-founder Grant Alden explained that Escovedo was just one of those artists you went to the mat for. People like to pull for Alejandro Escovedo. When he was diagnosed with potentially life-threatening Hepatitis C a few years ago, fans and fellow-musicians banded together to raise money for his health expenses. Alejandro is not just a musician, he’s a cause.

Despite piles of critical accolades, more than a decade on everyone’s “best band you’re not listening to” list, and even a spot on President Bush’s I-Pod, Alejandro’s fans have yet to enjoy the vindication of seeing the 57-year old Austin roots rock icon achieve widespread fame. But, with a Today show appearance scheduled tomorrow to celebrate the release of an excellent new album and a summer tour opening for the Dave Matthews Band, his fans may finally get their wish.

Alejandro’s newest album, Real Animal is among the finest in a catalogue of very fine albums. Real Animal, which is available in stores tomorrow, sounds in many ways like a career retrospective rather than a new evolution.

Real Animal reflects the variety of Alejandro’s musical experience (he fronted a punk band called the Nuns early in his career). The album-opener “Always a Friend,” is a foot-stomping post-punk anthem while “Sister Lost Soul” reflects more closely the alt-country aesthetic for which he is best known.

In his live show, Alejandro combines plaintive ballads, foot-stomping country in the key of Texas, and straightforward rock with a real talent for storytelling. Between songs and in them, Alejandro enthralls with sometimes touching, often funny, and always honest yarns of his life and the people in it.

Escovedo possesses a remarkable ability to say so much using the simple tools of song. The ballad “I Was Drunk,” from the 1999 album Bourbonitis Blues, was inspired by the exploits of a friend notorious for getting sloshed and kicked out of bars. As he was pitched out onto the sidewalk, the friend would call out the name of his patient and understanding wife. From these unlikely ingredients, Escovedo creates an intensely soulful love song that crashes with the cacophony of drunken confusion as he sings “I was drunk,” then resolves melodically as he sings “I called out your name.” In that transition, the heart and essence of a human connection is captured in a most unexpected and moving way.

Alejandro Escovedo’s songs tell the stories of the beauty, weirdness and heartbreak of life with an honesty and humility that makes him not only one of the best musicians you’re not listening to, but one of the greatest national treasures you haven’t heard of.

LIVE: The Today Show (Tue Jun 24)
LIVE: Sat Jul 12 @ 9:30 Club ($20)
ALBUM: Real Animal (out Jun 24)

http://www.alejandroescovedo.com/
http://www.myspace.com/alejandroescovedo