indie music

A nationwide commercial from Johnsonville Sausage that has been running for the past month or so has left plenty of people asking where they can get the song. So we did some digging and found the song is called “Roll On By” by OpusOrange, a music project by L.A. composer Paul Bessenbacher.

In an IRC exclusive, Bessenbacher has made the unreleased song available for the first time. “Roll On By” is a catchy summer pop song that had some people guessing it was a new song from Vampire Weekend. Even though the song may not qualify as ‘indie’ (it is used in an advertisement), it has that unforgettable pop song charm - like a one-hit wonder.

Putting the “in” in to Indie. Stop by Indie Rock Cafe for the best
bands, MP3s, videos, news, concert listings, festival updates, playlists and more.

A nationwide commercial from Johnsonville Sausage that has been running for the past month or so has left plenty of people asking where they can get the song. So we did some digging and found the song is called “Roll On By” by OpusOrange, a music project by L.A. composer Paul Bessenbacher.

In an IRC exclusive, Bessenbacher has made the unreleased song available for the first time. “Roll On By” is a catchy summer pop song that had some people guessing it was a new song from Vampire Weekend. Even though the song may not qualify as ‘indie’ (it is used in an advertisement), it has that unforgettable pop song charm - like a one-hit wonder.

Putting the “in” in to Indie. Stop by Indie Rock Cafe for the best
bands, MP3s, videos, news, concert listings, festival updates, playlists and more.

Summer is at full throttle. Long, warm days. Barbecues with family and friends. Kicking back on weekends that end way too soon. Hanging out on the porch on a sultry summer night gazing at a brilliant full moon. And of course music. What would summer be without music?

Almost everyone has at least one song that in some special way defines summer time for them. It could be an obvious summer song - I don’t know, like “Summer In The City” by The Lovin Spoonful - or a more obscure, personal song that connects to fond and precious memories.

The music blog I Guess I’m Floating described one of three criteria for a “perfect summer jam” as a way to “look back with a proud, fuzzy nostalgia of memories that have been elegantly reduced to a warm translucent haze of images and sounds that you can’t…quite…put your finger on.” Indeed.

For this summer mix, the focus is on new and upcoming 2009 indie songs, featuring mostly well-known indie and alternative bands including The Dodos, Foreign Born, Why?, Starlight Mints, Fun, Deastro, Passion Pit, Pains of Being Pure At Heart, Throw Me The Statue and Akron/Family.

Included in this mix is the new single from the band Fun, the new moniker of ex-Format (personally, I was bummed they broke up) frontman Nate Ruess who teamed up with band members from Anathallo, Steel Train and former Jellyfish keyboardist Joseph Manning, Jr. to record the album Aim and Ignite, slated for release in October. Enjoy.

“Fables” - The Dodos from Time To Die (2009)

“Vacationing People” - Foreign Born from Person To Person (2009)

“This Blackest Purse” - Why? from Eskimo Snow (2009)

“Paralyzed” - Starlight Mints from Change Remains (2009)

“Be Calm” - Fun from Aim and Ignite (Aug. 2009)

“Parallelogram” - Deastro from Moondagger (2009)

“Moth’s Wings” - Passion Pit from Manners (2009)

“Everything With You” - Pains of Being Pure At Heart from s/t debut (2009)

“Mirrored and Reversed” - White Demin from Fits (2009)

“Sun Will Shine” - Akron/Family from Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free (2009)

“Hi Fi Goon” - Throw Me The Statue from Creaturesque (2009)

“I Found The Bend” - Kid Bombardos from I Round The Bend EP (2009)

“Always The Same” - The Legends from Over and Over (2009)

“Cloud Hustle” - Blind Man’s Colour from Season Dreaming (2009)

For more songs not necessarily released this year, but all about summer, check out a summer mix IRC published last year (all songs still work) with songs from Beck, The Hold Steady, Queens of the Stone Age, Blonde Redhead, Pavement, Phoenix, Kings of Convenience, Grandaddy, The Kinks, Jens Lekman, The Flaming Lips and more.

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Seems like one of the most anticipated albums of the year is the upcoming release of the Arctic Monkey’s “Humbug” coming out in August on Domino Records. The band will also plan their first gig in two years at the All Points West Festival next month.

In addition to Arctic Monkeys, here is a 12-pack of great, new free MP3s from a variety of indie artists and bands including Dinosaur Jr., Yo La Tengo, The Got To Get Got, Birds of Avalon, Friendly Fires, Yo La Tengo, Sabrosa Purr, Rural Alberta Advantage, Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros, Other Girls and more. Enjoy.

“I Want You To Know” - Dinosaur Jr from Farm (2009)

“Here To Fall” - Yo La Tengo from Popular Songs (2009)

“Gettin’ Dirty in the Afterlife” - The Got To Get Got from Sahalee (2009)

“One Weak Moment” - Sabrosa Purr from Volaras (2009)

“Your Downtime Is Up” - Birds of Avalon from Uncanny Valley (2009)

“Skeleton Boy” - Friendly Fires from Friendly Fires (2009)

“Day Dream” - Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros from Up From Below (2009)

“Surprise Hotel” - Fool’s Gold from Fool’s Gold (2009)

“Frank AB” - The Rural Alberta Advantage from Hometowns (2009)

“The Moth” - Other Girls from Perfect Cities (2009)

“Pink Sabbath” - Dananananaykroyd from Pink Sabbath (2009)

“Mind Games” - Butterflies from Nothing’s Personal (2009)

Putting the “in” in to Indie. Stop by Indie Rock Cafe for the best
bands, MP3s, videos, news, concert listings, festival updates, playlists and more.

Seems like one of the most anticipated albums of the year is the upcoming release of the Arctic Monkey’s “Humbug” coming out in August on Domino Records. The band will also plan their first gig in two years at the All Points West Festival next month.

In addition to Arctic Monkeys, here is a 12-pack of great, new free MP3s from a variety of indie artists and bands including Dinosaur Jr., Birds of Avalon, Friendly Fires, Yo La Tengo, Rural Alberta Advantage, Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros, Other Girls and more. Enjoy.

“I Want You To Know” - Dinosaur Jr from Farm (2009)

“Your Downtime Is Up” - Birds of Avalon from Uncanny Valley (2009)

“Here To Fall” - Yo La Tengo from Popular Songs (2009)

“Day Dream” - Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros from Up From Below (2009)

“Surprise Hotel” - Fool’s Gold from Fool’s Gold (2009)

“Frank AB” - The Rural Alberta Advantage from Hometowns (2009)

“The Moth” - Other Girls from Perfect Cities (2009)

“Pink Sabbath” - Dananananaykroyd from Pink Sabbath (2009)

“Skeleton Boy” - Friendly Fires from Friendly Fires (2009)

“Gettin’ Dirty in the Afterlife” - The Got To Get Got from Sahalee (2009)

“Mind Games” - Butterflies from Nothing’s Personal (2009)

“One Weak Moment” - Sabrosa Purr from Volaras (2009)

Putting the “in” in to Indie. Stop by Indie Rock Cafe for the best
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Scotland alternative pop band We Were Promised Jetpacks appeared on the indie music radar last year when the band went on tour with indie rock band Frightened Rabbit. Now the buzz around We Were Promised Jetpacks is getting louder thanks to their new debut album These Four Walls. The album features a mixture of alternative rock, post punk and indie pop music, at times reminiscent of the Editors, The Strokes.

No good explanation can be found online for the origin of the band’s name, but it does, and yet also does not, seem to fit. Prefix Magazine put it nicely: “Their name, though quite clever, indicates that they might traffic in the nerd rock of They Might Be Giants or the hipster pop of Phantom Planet. When the earnest voice of Adam Thompson first cuts through the thin veneer of dissonance that blankets nearly every song on These Four Walls, it is almost disorienting.”

In addition to Thompson, band members include Michael Palmer (guitar), Sean Smith (bass) and Darren Lackie (drums). The Glasgow band was ‘discovered’ when folks at Fat Cat Records - label of Sigur Rós, Múm, Animal Collective, The Twilight Sad - had heard some of We Were Promised Jetpacks music on MySpace while browsing the friends section for Frightened Rabbit (who, by the way, are also signed with Fat Cat).

As one of the best debut albums so far this year, These Four Walls, demonstrates that We Were Promised Jetpacks are a band to watch.

“Quiet Little Voices” - We Were Promised Jetpacks from These Four Walls (2009)

“Conductor” - We Were Promised Jetpacks from These Four Walls (2009)

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The flow of popular new indie and alternative rock albums and songs in recent months has made it all the harder to keep pace. So, it’s come down to having to just pump out the music you probably should hear - and doing a bit less on more extensive reviews. The bands in this mix are more ‘mainstream indie’ so many of you will already known them. The music speaks for itself. To hear more great music, check out various pages from the posts menu and navigation menu.

Every page on this site you view can be streamed all the way through thanks to the awesome built-in Yahoo! Media Player - the most popular built-in, no frills streaming MP3 player used by the biggest music blogs on the web. It’s sort of like listening to indie radio while you do other things. Simply click on a song to start the player and it will automatically stream all the songs on any page. Enjoy.

“Easy” - Deer Tick from Born On Flag Day (2009)

“Paper Lace” - Deer Tick from Born On Flag Day (2009)

“Apollo & the Buffalo and Anna Anna Anna Oh!” - Sunset Rubdown from Drayonslayer (2009)

“Idiot Heart” - Sunset Rubdown from Drayonslayer (2009)

“Heavens To Purgatory” - The Most Serene Republic from And The Universe Continues To Expand (2009)

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Durham, North Carolina indie folk pop band Bombadil first got my attention last year with their stunning full-length debut A Buzz, A Buzz - making it one of my favorite indie albums of 2008. Bombadil’s latest release, Tarpits and Canyonlands, is an impressive follow-up, full of rich pop heavy songs on Ramseur Records.

Formed March 2005 when guitarist Bryan Rahija and bassist Daniel Michalak were studying abroad in Bolivia. Drummer James Phillips joined Bombadil in 2007. The band described their latest album as “a joyful document that celebrates all the flaws and sorrows of the human condition while capturing the whimsy, spirit, and charm that has enabled the band to win over fan after fan on a relentless four-year tour.”

Bombadil has open for bands like The Avett Brothers and Langhorne Slim and performed at Bonnaroo in addition to being featured in Paste Magazine, The Washington Post and New York Magazine.

“Honeymoon” - Bombadil from Tarpits and Canyonlands (2009)

“Kuala Lumpur” - Bombadil from Tarpits and Canyonlands (2009)

More About Bombadil

Biggest musical influences: Velvet Underground, Manu Chao, The Kinks, Elliott Smith.

Favorite albums: Led Zeppelin - III; James Brown - Live at the Apollo; Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die

Favorite songs ever: “Bring it On Home to Me” - Sam Cooke

Official website: www.bombadilmusic.com
MySpace: www.myspace.com/bombadil

Chicago indie band Shadows On A River originally played together as college students at Milkin University in Decatur as The Infinity Room, and once opened for Pedro The Lion. Following graduation, the band split up but recently regrouped to record their new debut self-titled album featuring strange and earnest art rock.

Lead singer/songwriter and guitarist David Henson lists “self doubt” as his main musical influence and compares the band’s sound to Elliott Smith, Radiohead and Mt Eerie. Henson’s favorite song is “Unravel” by Bjork and his favorite albums are The Glow pt 2 by the Microphones and Kid A by Radiohead.

“In The Water” - Shadows On A River from s/t debut (2009)
“Hurricanes” - Shadows On A River from s/t debut (2009)

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The Top 10 Indie Rock Songs is a new feature that highlights the songs people are listening to and downloading the most on IRC. The Twilight Sad’s much anticipated album is out today, July 21.

This playlist mix will be an ongoing series highlighting weekly and monthly ‘most played’ - top 10; sometimes top 20 - songs. This playlist focuses on the most popular songs during the past week from bands like The Clientele, Twilight Sad, The Kissaway Trail, Jay Reatard, Patrick Watson, Starlight Mints and more.

“Wonder Who We Are” - The Clientele from Bonfires On The Heath (2009)
“Reflection Of The Television” - Twilight Sad from Forget The Night Ahead (2009; out today)
“Smother=Evil + Hurt” - The Kissaway Trail from The Kissaway Trail (2007)
“Wounded” - Jay Reatard from Watch Me Fall (2009)
“Tracy Waters” - Patrick Watson from Wooden Arms (2009)
“Paralyzed” - Starlight Mints from Change Remains (2009)
“Changes Is” - Wheat from White Ink, Black Ink (2009)
“Now I’m In The City” - Creaky Boards from Brooklyn Is Love (2008)
“Octavio” - Viva Voce from Rose City (2009)
“Percussion Gun” - White Rabbits from It’s Frightening (2009)

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Some time has passed since the second installment of The Great Unknowns, a popular playlist series that highlights stellar songs, and albums, by relatively obscure indie and alternative musicians and bands.

Nevertheless, The Great Unknowns is one of my favorite playlists to put together, and based on the response, many regular readers of the site, and visitors as well, enjoy the music featured in this series.

There are bound to be songs or artists in these mixes that some people have heard, or heard of, but for the most part, they remain, largely, the great unknowns. Not everyone will agree - and I’m not claiming my tastes in music is the end all - but they are, in my opinion, damn good songs that never got the attention deserved.

For this installment of The Great Unknowns, there was a consideration in favor of “summer sounding” songs, but that was, again, just a consideration.

Kicking off this playlist mix is the rarely heard song “Smother + Evil=Hurt” from the Danish band The Kissaway Trail. “Smother + Evil=Hurt” is a catchy pop rock tune with some stellar lyrics. Not sure why this band isn’t a bigger blip on the proverbial ‘indie music radar,’ but then again, based on the cascading tide of independent music being released all of the time, there are many talented indie artists and bands that even the so-called indie blogs miss.

The second song in this mix is the title track from from Brooklyn indie band Creaky Boards, released an album last year that somehow bypassed a lot of people, even though it is solid recording. One of the best songs on the self-titled debut album “Now I’m In The City” sounds much like The Beach Boys repackaged for city life, rather than the beach.

Western States Motel is the moniker of singer and songwriter Carl Jordan, a one-man band from Los Angeles who’s 2000 debut received little attention in comparison to it’s larger-than-life brilliance. Jordan was also one of the first featured artists when Indie Rock Cafe launched in 2006.

Next up is AM/FM and the song “A Best Man” from their 2001 album Mutilate Us. AM/FM are a Philadelphia post punk duo featuring musician Brian Sokel - who played with the band Franklin - and former Of Science’s Michael Parsell. The band’s first real full length release, Mutiate Us, was released in 2001. There were many songs to choose from, but the standout track, “A Best Man (Put My Girlfriend On Fire)” is featured in this mix.

Hexes and Ohs is a is a Montreal duo, and high school sweethearts, featuring Edmund Lam and Heidi Donnelly. After transitioning from a pop quartet called Jolly Bean to an electronic band A Vertical Mosaic, Lam and Donnelly ultimately formed Hexes and Ohs in 2004, morphing the sounds of each former band into their own style of ’80s electro-pop. The track featured in this mix is “Alive Until Saturday Night” from their 2008 album Upstairs Recordings.

Paper Route is an alternative rock band that released an album last year “Are We All Forgotten” that won critical acclaim in the so-called indie blogger sphere. The song featured here is the title track from the album.

Earlier this year IRC featured indie band The Lonely Forest, who had released their debut album and sent it in for review. From the first listen, it was crystal clear just what an achievement the album is, and over time, it can grow on you, with each listen verifying The Lonely Forest status as a great unknown.

Arlington, Virginia band Barcelona’s 200X album Simon Basic, was one of the most under rated independent releases of the year - full of brilliant post punk influenced indie pop songs. The album’s was named after Simons’ BASIC programming language, developed for the Commodore 64. The best song on the album “Why Do You Have So Much Fun Without Me?” was chosen for this mix. The band’s music is often considered geeky with songs like “The Downside of Computer Camp”, “I Have the Password to Your Shell Account”, and “Paging System Operator”.

Canadian indie pop band Two Hours Traffic have been often compared to the massively popular pop band Big Star, who were a huge hit in the late 70’s and early 80s. The band prefers to pick Nick Lowe as their primary influence and the likeness in the song featured here, “Stuck For The Summer” from the 2007 compilation Stranded in Stereo.

Enjoy.

“Smother + Evil=Hurt” - The Kissaway Trail from The Kissaway Trail (2007)

“Now I’m In The City” - Creaky Boards from Brooklyn Is Love (2008)

“Oh World” - Western States Motel from Painted Birds Flying in the Orange Mirror Sun (2008)

“A Best Man” - AM/FM from Mutilate Us (2001)

“Alive Until Saturday Night” - Hexes and Ohs from Upstairs (2008)

“Are We All Forgotten” - Paper Route from Are We All Forgotten (2008)

“We Sing In Time” - The Lonely Forest from We Sing The Body Electric!

“Why Do You Have So Much Fun Without Me?” - Barcelona from Simon Basic (2006)

“Stuck For The Summer” - Two Hours Traffic from Little Jabs (2007)

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