Joshua James

Joshua James: Myspace or Main Site Caught this guy on an iTunes Single of the Week with his song "FM Radio". Great sound to him, interesting and great unique voice. To highlight his songs listen to "Soul and the Sea" and "FM Radio" and "Lovers without Love". I consider him a good mix between Joshua Radin and Brett Dennen. Check him out regardless.

His "Fields and Floods" EP is a mix between winter songs and christmas songs, "Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel" is fantastic. (i wrote this up before christmas)

Free Track Friday

If you haven't been to AmieStreet go now and discover great music.

I'm on a newsletter of AmieStreet that sends out free songs every week. Here are this weeks: (to note, Joshua James is great, see our previous posts)
Joshua James - Build Me This
Michelle Lewis - Broken
Peal and the Beard - Oh! Death

New Artist Discovery: Gregory Alan Isakov

Well, he isn't "new" but he is new to me. He's been around since 2005 but I've never paid him attention before. Now I am after listening to his latest album "This Empty Northern Hemisphere", which is fantastic and worth the buy. Gregory Alan Isakov is categorized as acoustic, folk, singer-songwriter but he stands out above the rest. Throwing in a light banjo on some songs, using hard strummed acoustic rhythms and sparse drums, he does it different than most and that's where I find my like for him. If I had to compare him I would say he has some of the good elements of Joe Purdy but with more drive, some of Joshua James but with more upbeat songs. Combine that with very good songwriting and you've got one of the hardest names to say in the business: Gregory Alan Isakov.

You can listen to him on his site. Listen to "That Moon Song", "Evelyn", "Big Black Car", "San Fransciso", etc... In fact just hit play on the player and let it go. It's completely worth it.

ROCKtober over at Daytrotter.com

It's been a good month for Distraction Jackson friendly bands over at Daytrotter.com. Check out some cool (free) songs from:

Brendan Benson

Joshua James

Mat Kearney

Scroll through the archives while you're there and you are sure to find a treat!

Acoustic Lounge on KSFS

Check out the podcast from KSFS called "Acoustic Lounge". They feature a lot of great up and coming artists including a lot of unknowns. To name a few: Eric Hutchinson, Joshua Radin, Nizlopi, Teitur, James Morrison, Fionn Regan, Paulo Nutini, Jose Gonzalez, Glen Hansard, etc... Those are just the ones they've featured the last few months. KSFS will record a show by the artist when they come through San Francisco and then get an interview from them and combine those two into the podcast. What I like about the podcast is that it's a mix of interview and songs, both from their albums and live. It's gives you a couple of questions for the artist then plays a full length song, and so on. I just listened to the Eric Hutchinson one and the Glen Hansard one, both very good. The live sound quality isn't always the best because they didn't mix it, but it's still good enough to listen too. If you are looking for a good music podcast, I recommend this one. I wish I could iTunes link you but I don't work in the world of windows, thus no iTunes during the day. Search for "acoustic lounge on ksfs".

By the way, here are my other recommendations for musical podcasts if you missed it the first time around. And please comment on your favorite podcasts (both music and non-music), I'm always looking for more.