Posts Tagged ‘Pugwash’

The Friday Mixtape: 8/28/09

sumbitch

I know what you were expecting. “See You In September” or “Summer Nights” from Grease or, in a sarcastic vein, “School’s Out” — but we don’t need no steenkin’ kitsch. Your Popdose Pals have something else planned entirely.

September is more than just the unofficial end of summer; it’s also back-to-school time, and with the migratory return to dorms and classrooms comes the return to computers for the sake of homework. Did you know that new semesters are traditionally a heavy time for music downloading, probably because of all that new time at the PC or Mac? Neither did I, because I just made it up right here, but it kind of makes sense (even though it’s utter B.S. on my part.) The thought of increased downloading certainly wouldn’t cheer the beleaguered record labels, which through expansive & expensive special editions, Wal-Mart and Best Buy exclusives and the like are desperately trying to maintain market share. The Internet is evil, I tells ya.

Not really. To prove my point, I asked the staff to contribute a song, band or artist they found through the Internet. It could be from random surfing, suggestions via Facebook, Twitter or other social networks or even PR companies and their electronic press kits. The premise is that these introductions opened up new sounds, and new wallets, through this oft despised medium. Without further ado, I cede the floor to my colleagues and wish everyone a fine and functional new school year.

And to the rest who don’t have to go back to school, ha-ha! We don’t have to go back to school! (more…)

CD Review: The Duckworth Lewis Method, “The Duckworth Lewis Method”

61D9kn-ws3L._SCLZZZZZZZ_[1]Two of pop’s most studious classicists, Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy) and Thomas Walsh (Pugwash), converge on what could only be considered a monumental summit for UK pop fans, bestowing on the listening public a concept album – about cricket. Not about some girl named Cricket, but the veddy European sport thereof.

This could be very bad.

Fortunately it isn’t; in fact, it’s very good, and good news for anyone who likes their music tasty on the ear and cheeky with the tongue. The very notion of a conceptual album devoted solely to cricket as being a ridiculous idea is not lost on the boys, but at the same time, they are respectful and reverent to the whole thing, playing it less like a Monty Python farce and more like a Rutlesian good-natured poke in the ribs. They came not to bury but to praise. The Rutles inference is apt as both Hannon and Walsh have appropriated the Beatlesque in the past, and the opening “The Coin Toss,” for all of its minute and eight seconds, knocks your guard down straight away. After that, “The Age of Revolution” slips into a fine groove complete with a skiffle-jazz sample and a treatise on how the upper-crust sport of cricket opened up to the common man and the fields at Lord’s were never the same. (more…)