#30: Trailblazer @ Al’s Bar [Original Post] Man, what a great first Trailblazer show for me to catch. On record he can occasionally get a little noisy for my taste, but this set didn’t get too far from his solid guitar rock base. Solid songs and a great performance made this one of the best [...]

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If it’s December, then you know it’s Mixmas time at You Ain’t No Picasso! Each year I get a bunch of my favorite bands to contribute themed mixes and share their thoughts about each of the tracks MP3: Little Scream – Cannons Little Scream was my huge surprise discovery of 2011. She blew me away [...]

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#30: Fishboy – Classic Creeps MP3: Fishboy – Aaron the Afterthought Astronaut I don’t know which I find more impressive: that this album effortlessly weaves witticisms through incredible melody or that the entire album tells a complexly involved story. It’s easy to be dismissive of some pop records, but labels like “simplistic” just don’t stick [...]

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2011 was (another) odd year for music. It felt like the average quality of albums was raised a bit, but nothing really stood out as a life-changing album or single of the year. Still, there was a lot of great music to be heard. Here’s fifty of my favorite tracks from the year, ranging from [...]

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Little Scream, one of my favorite discoveries of the year, recorded a Take Away Show with the guys at La Blogotheque. Obviously Take Away Shows are beautiful and obviously Little Scream’s music is sublime, so you can understand why I’m not going to spend a lot of time trying to convince you to watch this [...]

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If only I hadn’t had a relaxing three-day trip to Atlanta, this wouldn’t be going almost back-to-back with my last Little Scream post. But hey, totally worth it. Here’s the official video for Little Scream’s “Red Hunting Jacket.” So watch the stop-motion beauty and then go pick up one of the year’s best records.

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Little Scream will probably go down in history as the most I’ve ever been impressed by an opener. Her set was incredible, start to finish. And though it’s been a long time since her show at MusicNOW, now’s the fun part: this is when I get to dive right into her album. MP3: Little Scream [...]

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Little Scream and her all-star band put on one of the best shows I’ve seen all year — no small feat for a band I’d only heard one song by prior to the show. And really, I can’t overstate how fantastic this show was. Part of it was her backing band, which consisted of the [...]

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I’ll have my review of the National’s fantastic show online in a few days, but here’s a sneak peek at the fantastic ending. They brought out all the performers who stuck around for the final day to sing “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks” with no vocal mikes. It turned into a giant singalong with the audience, Owen [...]

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