Brian's Fave Raves for Fall '06

1) Midlake
A few weeks ago, at friends' house, I found myself unable to follow conversation because the music coming out of the speakers in the next room was seducing my auditory system. Trying not to be rude, I just had to inturrupt (you can bet it probably did come off as rude) "who is this?". The answer was Midlake.
Having now heard most of their recent album, "The Trials of Van Occupanther", I can say that they will go down as the band that defined this period of my life, much as The Clientele's "Suburban Light" is winter '01 or Beck's "Mellow Gold" is summer '95. Albums that just caught me off gaurd, seemed to come out of another world and made me excited to be alive in the present.
Midlake is like...(should I try?) Granddaddy divided by Fleetwood Mac times Meat Puppets plus Thom Yorke carry the one and the cubed root of Traffic with 3 teaspoons of early Todd Rundgren on a King Radio platter.
I.E. Earthy music that reminds you that Earth is just another planet in outer space.

2) Weeds
Thank the crappy selection of the Red Box thing at Stop and Shop. I'd remembered reading about this show. So we got the first season and were hooked. A week later a weekend spent at a house with Showtime, we saw the second season. A great show. Good soundtrack too (first season music director was Pixies Joey Santiago)

3) Jenny Lewis & the watson Twins at the Acadamy of Music.
Marisa's friend got her 2 tickets for this sow as a b-day gift. I liked the album, but the live show was something else. The Acadamy was the perfect venue. It was like a hip Grand Ole Opry meets Ike and Tina Turner show. The whole band just seemed like folks you'd wanna travel cross country with. They're from L.A. ('cept the Watson Twins, who are from Kentucky I think)

4) Don't laugh, but I'm willing to bet that the new Who album is not going to suck. It sounds like the production is minimalist, the Zak Starr drumming is awesome and the songs sound multifaceted and intriguing like Who's Next or Quadrophenia .
Check out the microsite with song clips
New Who

5) Lastly, what better to compliment another apartment move but suddenly having 8 gigs in the next 2 weeks?
I guess I'm now sorta in Matt Hebert's new projct Haunt. That new stuff is really sweet.
Then there's a handful of fun SFTD and Fawns (Naked Eyes? A fashion show? damn!)
Then there's a Sitting next to Brian show at the Basment on November 4 with my new favorite local band, Levelette, who wowed me opening for the Kamakaze Hearts at the Iron Horse a couple weeks back.

alright, back into my hole I go. So psyched to be complimenting the pain of moving with a lot of rrrrrock.