The Listener is Listening

And what does he hear ?

• Twin A - Disappear . My wife and I saw them in Rochester, NY a few weeks back, at a club called Milestones (where, back in the day, many of my old bands played). I assume they're still a local band, because I haven't seen much about them on the net. They were loud, the sound was crap, but we could make out enough of it to know we liked it - so we bought their CD. And, it is good. They sound like a band that could get a lot of college/alternative radio play these days - emotional guitar pop.
  
• Madeleine Peyroux - Careless Love. ... ... BILLIE HOLIDAY!! Ok. There's no getting around it, the woman sounds like the reincarnation of Billie Holiday. She does very approachable blues/jazz versions of standards new and old (including, to my surprise, Elliot Smith's Between The Bars). The whole thing has a nice, slow relaxed vibe - with the vocals up front and clean. I like it, but I just can't shake the feeling that I'm listening to Billie Holiday - which is a compliment, of course.
  
• Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed. What's to be said... it's everything you'd expect from a record that starts with Gimme Shelter and ends with You Can't Always Get What You Want. Well, there is a problem... the problem with buying Rolling Stones records these days is that all of them have two or three songs that you've already heard a skrillion times - why would I want to pay for a copy of You Can't Always Get What You Want ? Especially since I already have it, and all the others, on Hot Rocks. Luckily, iTunes lets you buy tracks individually, so I just bought everything but the first and last songs, then told iTunes that the Hot Rocks versions are actually from Let It Bleed (can't have a song on more than two albums ? WTF ?). Problem solved.
  
• Andrew Bird - Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs. An great blend of styles (folk, rock, swing, jazz, etc) with intelligent, oblique, and often dark lyrics that are delivered in a voice that reminds me a lot of Beck's quieter moments - or maybe John Mayer (gasp).
  
  
  Overprescribed
  Under the mister
  We had survived to
  Turn on the History Channel
  And asked our esteemed panel
  ‘Why are we alive?’
  And here’s how they replied:
  ‘You’re what happened when two substances collide
  And by all accounts you really should’ve died.’
  
  
  I like it quite a lot.