Results tagged “modestmouse”

I'm a music guy. I listen to a ton of music, and because of Phillyist, I've been able to hear a lot of great stuff I never would have heard otherwise. But, no matter how much of a music fan you are, there are always some great albums that slip through the cracks and you don't manage to hear, even though you really should. So here are ten albums from 2007 I really should have heard by now, but for some reason haven't. Some are on this list because of critical buzz, while others are based on my own thoughts about the artists. And I pose the question to you, dear readers: Which two or three of these albums should I use my lovely Amazon gift card to buy?

A sad week for LAist as they lose their trusted and amazing editor Tony Pierce to the LA Times, but what a blast his last week was. He shared his 25 Favorite CDs of 2007 and wrote a great review of just a good movie, No Country For Old Men. At UCLA, thousands of students celebrated the end of their quarter by running around campus in their undies (lots of photos in a two-part photo essay, one, two). That wasn't the only photo essay either: Joss Whedon/Mutant Enemy friends and Star Trek actors all joined in at the Writers Strike and KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas brought two nights of amazing bands that included Avenged Sevenfold, Linkin Park (Part I), Modest Mouse, Muse, Spoon and The Killers (Part II). Not only is L.A. a great music town, it has just been named the best city for bookish types. For those who are looking for something a little more active, American Gladiators are back (yes!) and if that's not enough, how about a Christmas gift of action and adventure?

There are few things in life I truly appreciate. Among those are dudes who are secure enough to admit that Justin Timberlake is totally deck and multi-instrumentalists. Last night, at North Star Bar, I was entertained by the latter.

You know who's cool? Modest Mouse. Even better, they're the kind of indie rock band who don't become less cool when they hit the mainstream, as they did a couple of years ago, when "Float On" was playing on every radio station, 24/7. The Mouse put out a new disc back in March, called We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, and by all accounts it's just as quirky, weird, dense, and thought-provoking as their previous releases, but the catchy pop hooks are still buried in there, too. We're looking forward to checking it out. You can check the band out live yourself this Thursday - if you already have tickets. We're afraid this show is sold out. Guess the folks in Philly already know how cool this band is...

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend...

If you tuned into 100.3 FM on your radio dial a few months ago, there was a good chance you would have heard Modest Mouse or Queens of the Stone Age. There was also a chance that you would hear that “Closing Time” song that has somehow survived as a jukebox legend (we point the finger at drunk sorority girls). But, that’s the tradeoff, as is the case with almost every radio station: take the good with the bad. But Radio One had the notion that Philadelphia needed yet another hip hop station and turned Y100 into The Beat, which apparently bangs the best hip hop and R&B in town. So Phillyist asks you, “Whatever happened?” It’s a cliché, it’s tired, and it’s true: you really don’t appreciate things until they’re gone. Alternative music fans throughout the city mourned the day Y100 died. Not because it was the best station, but because, for all its flaws, it was the only station playing alternative music. Now that it’s been killed we’re realizing how devoid our airwaves are of alternative rock options. The other rock stations, 93.3 WMMR and 94.1 WYSP, have tried to accommodate this gaping hole by mixing in some newer stuff that we may have heard on the fallen Y100 like the Foo Fighters, The White Stripes, and Stone Temple Pilots. Classic rock, though, is their thing. Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, AC/DC, and Aerosmith are too popular with their listeners for them to make any drastic changes. New and alternative, while not entirely accurate in its application to Y100, is something that this city’s radio dial desperately needs. It makes no sense that the 5th largest city in the country doesn’t have an alternative music station. At last count we’re up to 27 hip hop and R&B stations, one good college station, one oldies station, and a handful of others constantly rotating Three Doors Down and Nickelback. What we need is another option. We need a station like Y100 to come back, even if they have to play Semisonic from time to time. Image credit: Matt Groening (The Simpsons)