Take Away Show Friday - Jose Gonzalez "Fold"

Take Away Show Friday - Lykke Li ft. El Perro Del Mar "After Laughter Come Tears"

Take Away Show Friday - Jose Gonzalez "Abram"

Album Review - Xavier Rudd "Dark Shades of Blue"

Allmusic recently reviewed Xavier Rudd's latest album "Dark Shades of Blue". They chose it for one of their album picks and gave it 4 out of 5 stars...pretty good in my opinion. I wrote about Xavier Rudd a while back and I really think he's going to come onto the scene and be pretty popular, at least in the acoustic/aussie folk/surf rock world. I haven't yet listened to the entire latest album but I tend to trust allmusic's reviews so I'm excited they picked this album as their AMG Album Pick. The only thing that I'm tentative about is that he went a little more electric on this album instead of staying his aussie folk/reggae/acoustic style. But that's not going to stop me cause he's great either way. From the review:

Dark Shades of Blue is special, and unique to Rudd's catalog. First off, it's an electric record, full of barely contained squalling guitars, percussion, and a more textural approach to recording. That said, it's hardly a sellout; in fact, given how comfortably he inhabits this terrain, this may be the record Rudd has desired to make for a long time.

You can preview five of the tracks on his site.

Guku and Edge of the Moon from "Dark Shades of Blue"


One of his older songs "Let Me Be":

The Freeness is the Goodness

I heart free and legal mp3's: StereoGum mp3 downloads. You might not have heard of 90% of these bands but there are some great up and comers mixed in. And if you haven't heard of them this is a good way to try them out. Here are some of my picks:

Okkervil River - Lost Coastlines
Lykke Li - Little Bit (I recently posted their take away shows)
Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks
Conor Oberst - Danny Callahan
Damien Jurado - Where Lies My Tarp & Gillian Was A Horse
Joseph Arthur - Pretty Good Company & I Want to Get You Alone
Band of Horses - No One's Gonna Love You
Flight of the Conchords - Ladies of the World & Business Time
Bowerbirds - In Our Talons
Animal Collective - Taste
Bon Iver - Skinny Love
Bishop Allen - Click Click Click Click


There are a billion more on there. For more freeness explore my previous post about last.fm's freeness without jail.

Jeremy Fisher on VW

I was watching tv last night and a VW commercial came on and who other than Jeremy Fisher was the background music? They used my personal peppy favorite of his "Scar That Never Heals" ( listen here, should be the first song ). If you haven't heard of him, check out my previous post on him. His "Juno" style music video for "Scar That Never Heals":



Speaking of commercials, one of my top 10 favorite artists Joe Purdy had his song "Can't Get it Right Today" on a Kia commercial a while back. For more on this great artist see my "Where Do I Start?" post on him.

Joe Purdy - "I've Been To Holland"

(wait for the mandolin at 1:45)

(thanks jason)

Pictures Have It