What I love about Tiger Trap is that all their songs (from all three singles/EPs they’ve released) is that they’re short, they’re cute, and Melberg’s twittery vocals. Even though the term “twee” (I hate that word) existed since the 80s, I have often thought that Tiger Trap were pioneers of modernday twee-pop.

Melberg would continue her unique songs with Go Sailor and The Softies, sort of simultaneously in 1994. Between the two projects, it was obvious which one seem more important, since Go Sailor quickly went away after only three singles.

The Softies (Melberg’s collaboration would be with Jen Sbragia) was more significant, releasing four albums, their last one being Holiday in Rhode Island, available from K Records. The thing about The Softies, is that they were going for that two-vocals harmony thing and their songs are often pretty mellow… unlike their punk-counterpart with the same name (I think they were from the UK).

Since I left the radio station in the mid-90s, I will admit to not keeping up with the whereabouts of Rose Melberg and her various projects (working as a drummer in another short-lived band, Gaze, working with Elliott Smith, The Potatomen, etc). I did know she went solo, or at least had solo records, but I was still surprise to find out that Rose Melberg is back with her third studio album, Homemade Ship, released last Tuesday on K Records.

I was actually pretty excited to listen to the new album, but since my only knowledge of her music were pre-1996, it seems a lot more mellow acoustic than even the softiest Softies music. In fact, with all the background vocals by Larissa Loyva, one could mistaken Homemade Ship to be the latest Softies album.

The album seems very personal to me, especially on “Sidewalk” and “Old Days”. But I also get the impression that Melberg must really love two other things in life: nature and animals.

In the form of nature, she seems obsessed with water (”we watch the water float you“), moon, wind, ships, and sailing. As for animals, she just doesn’t just write about them, but often singing that she is an animal (”Bear in a Cave”, “Sharks”, crows on “Old Days”, raccoon on “Moon Singer”).

In some ways, the title track, “Homemade Ship”, about being lost due to instruments failure, is my favorite song, because I feel as if Melberg simply isn’t singing about sailing, but more about life and where she is.

If you were hoping for the new record to sound like Tiger Trap or Go Sailor, you will be disappointed. If you’re already comfortable with The Softies, then I think you’ll feel right at home with this very quiet and tender Homemade Ship album.

Can’t get enough of Melberg? Head over to NPR to hear “Old Days” as the Song of the Day for August 19^th. Pick up Homemade Ships at K Records (LP for $10, cheap!).

(500) Days of Summer is a movie about love, sure, but it’s also a movie about music. These songs build bridges between Tom and Summer and they tear them down. They can make you dance and they can make you cry. They describe how we feel and express emotions that just couldn’t get out any other way. Music is the soul of this movie.

- director Marc Webb

The Smiths-There Is a Light That Never Goes Out 3 comments

Of course, I’m familiar with all bands on the soundtrack, most of these songs I already have on various albums. Particularly, I’m keen on the old stuff. I mean who can say no to Hall & Oates‘ “You Make My Dreams” as you picture Daryl Hall’s legs flapping. Or just give into Morrissey as he whines “Please, Please, Please, Please, Please, Pease, Please, Please, No Really Please Let Me Get What I Want”. Or reflecting on a time of innocence with Simon & Garfunkel’s sweet and harmless “Bookends”.

If there is a theme on this soundtrack, it’s that these are all love
songs. While as usual, the more established alternative acts (Regina Spektor, Feist, Wolfmother) does a great job with their love songs, the unknown artists (at least to me) on this compilation actually does a great job introducing themselves to me. I was particularly impressed with “She’s Got You High” by Mumm-Ra (are they named after the Thundercats’ arch-nemesis? If so: AWESOME).

As a cover lover, I noticed there are two on the album. As I previously mentioned, “Please….” by She & Him does an excellent job with the cover, although it sounds pretty much like the original. Singer Zooey Deschanel does not bother changing the lyrics from a male’s perspective (and there’s no hint of desperation in her vocals) and M Ward does his best Johnny Marr jangly guitar. No problem here, it’s just that I’ve heard this before.

Pixies - Here Comes Your Man 1 comment

The really weird wild-card in this bunch is current-spouse of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian model-turned-singer, Carla Bruni. To be fair, she’s been releasing music since 2002, and her acoustic-folk French song, “Quelqu’un m’a dit” does a nice job as areak between all the English-based songs.

It should be interesting to see where the soundtrack play in the movie, so let me know if you see (500) Days of Summer. The romantic comedy movie is currently playing at selected theaters near you, while the soundtrack is available now via the great Sire Records. There’s always Amazon and iTunes (iTunes version includes the actors singing “Sugar Town”, “Here Comes Your Man” and “At Last”).

Trivia: The movie will be released in Australia on October 1^st, where the soundtrack actually have two Aussie bands: The Temper Trap and Wolfmother.

Anyway, she first came on the music scene via 2001’s SXSW*, where Chip Taylor met Carrie Rodriguez and was impressed with her that he asked her to tour with him in Europe. Since then, together, they released three albums and one EP.

By 2006, Rodriguez went solo and released Seven Angels on a Bicycle, however with the help of Taylor (who co-wrote and had a major influence on the first album). With She Ain’t Me, released late last year on the Manhattan Records (who I also just recently found out makes most of their music available on the BMG Music Club), Rodriguez is mostly on her own, employing the songwriting help of ex-Jayhawks Gary Louris, folk singer Mary Gauthier, producer Malcolm Burn (who won a Juno award for producer of the year for Emmylou Harris’ “Here I Am”), among others.

Listening to She Ain’t Me, I was immediately taken to the title track (”She Ain’t Me”). I marked it as a five-star track on iTunes and it became an instant repeat track for me. I feel that the song has a country folk influence, but the melodies sounds more like a great radio pop song. The singer warns the listener that this new woman might be perfect, but she simply cannot replace the singer (because she simply isn’t her.)

The most surprisingly thing I found about the song, having looked up the song credit as co-written by “D.Wilson”, I have concluded it is Dan Wilson - who you may all remember as being from Minneapolis’ Semisonic.**

I also enjoyed “El Salvador”, which is a long-distance (love?) song. If it’s not love, it’s definitely about missing someone… apparently that person is in El Salvador. The song is surprisingly optimistic in tone as well, despite all the waiting and wishing she could swim across the ocean.

The most surprising thing for me was that Rodriguez only wrote/play fiddle on a few of the songs (the rest, she settled on guitar). The most noticible fiddle song is “Absence”, which sounds like a southern bluegrass song and reminds me a lot of Bobbie Gentry. The reason why I bring this up is because she is known for her fiddles - and compared to her first solo album, the majority of banjo & fiddles gave that album more of a bluegrass feel to it.

If you love folk, pop, and a little bluegrass, you should want to check out Carrie Rodriguez. Judging from her major promotional tour, I think you will be hearing from her soon - if not already.

* I am happy to report that Rodriguez is returning back to SXSW in a few short weeks.

** From a Minneapolis point of view, she’ll be appearing on KARE TV and on Cities97, as well as playing at the Varsity, the same night (April 8^th). I would not be suprise if Wilson shows up at the Varsity show - so be on the lookout.

I bought everything I could from BMG music club. I still think it’s a great deal, you get 4 CDs for the cost of “shipping” - which usually works out to be about $4 a CD. BMG had a back catalogue of only some Smiths albums (they were missing albums like Meat is Murder and Rank to name a few) and only two Morrissey albums, Viva Hate and Bona Drag (the latter is more or less a compilation).

When those few albums wasn’t enough for me, I sought out singles, collecting cover artwork, fanzines, and bootlegs. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I can get a bit obsessive.

Just to let you know, for the sake of being faithful and for collecting, I still buy his singles. I no longer try and get all different version of a ‘greatest hits’ album or anything. For instance, I think there’s a new Smiths greatest hits out, which I’ll be ignoring… although there’s always this nagging voice in the back of my mind to ‘complete’ the collection, you know?

Okay, for those still awake, Morrissey’s latest album is called Years of Refusal. If you are only familiar with the ‘mopey’/depressing Morrissey of those Smiths days, I have to warn you that this album is very muscular and agressive. There is, of course, the odd sad song (”You Were Good In Your Time”), but they are quite outnumbered on this album.

You might have seen his “All You Need Is Me” tongue-in-cheek answer to all your woes or have heard “That’s How People Grow Up” on his last Greatest Hits album (that song was a brand new song at the time). The new “hit” single from this album is “I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris”, which sounds sweeping. I don’t know how to describe it, it sounds like the song should be epic, but it’s wrapped up in a two minute pop song. Typical Morrissey to end the song with “nobody wants my love“.

I really enjoyed the opening and closing songs (”Something Is Squeezing My Skull” and “I’m Ok By Myself”), they seem like fitting bookends to a great novel. The first song is just a fast song with an amusing Morrissey lyric of “don’t give me anymore“. The last song was co-written by Jesse Tobias, who is a semi-new collaborator. The rest of the album are written by old band rockabillish members, Alain Whyte and Boz Boorer, they’ve been with Morrissey since 1991.

Morrissey is definitely a more modern and mature musician since The Smiths… and easily his most poppiest album to date. New fans will be delighted, old fans may not really like. But you know they are going to buy it anyway, so it doesn’t really matter what I say…. although I will have to say this album is much, much, better than his last one, Ringleader of the Tormentors .

You can find Years of Refusal at any record store. If you can’t find it, then you are shopping at the wrong record store. Fans should be sure to only get the deluxe edition with bonus DVD.

Look for Julia Riley if you’re going to attend a show. I will at the Minneapolis show, so come say hi.

As a special bonus, here are some Morrissey songs I’ve previously mentioned:

A Note From Morrissey on Tour of Refusal

“I have survived the interrogation of Atlanta’s Immigration officials and Myrtle Beach shall have me tonite (Friday), and the world from then onwards … if the world can take it. One of the many penalties of being human is that tours often take a military push to start, well, all of our answers will be in our songs tomorrow night. The bloodbath starts at 7.30. Life is testing you out. Be ready for anything.”

They’ve been pretty constant because the music and direction are from mostly one person: Eric Ellbogen. He writes and records his music, usually at home on his mac. Well their latest album is called Oohs & Aahs and it was just released last Tuesday, March 3^rd, through Barsuk Records.

I managed to listen to the album three times, as I’m writing this, so it’s a really short, but sweet, album. Sweet songs includes organ-sounding “Audrey” and “The Stars Just Blink For Us”. Ellbogen’s vocals reminds me of lazy-man Strokes singer, Julian Casablancas, on these songs.

“November Was White, December Was Grey” was the lead single/song that they released in anticipation to this album, which had great a right-only speaker guitar playing, but forgettable. His singing on this one had a lot of breathing too, which I didn’t really enjoy. If you don’t believe me, you can download the song yourself via Spin.com. The only good news is that Winter is almost gone here… and yes, I’ll feel a lot better once Winter’s gone.

My favorite song on the album is quite upbeat. It’s called “One, Two … One” and it’s just one of those songs that I can just play over and over again. The low quality guitar and percussions makes it very simple to dance and groove to.

Plus clapping is always a bonus!

Overall, these songs are short pop songs, with analog/mono homemade sound quality - that’s endearing and personal. They are setting out on tour to promote this album for 2009, so be sure to check them out if they’re touring your area. I may try and catch them at SXSW, but since they’re returning to Minneapolis in April, it will be no big deal if I miss them in all the SXSW madness.

You can buy all of Say Hi’s records via our favorite record label or online at amazon.

This was a lot of fun. I had promised Ceji that it would not take more than 15 minutes of her time, but we ended up taking much longer than expected. Perhaps there will be an imminent part twoer.

I ended up taking out about 20 +/- minutes, to keep the podcast consistent. I felt that the iPhone talk didn’t belong with the music-related theme, so added it as a bonus at the end of the podcast. So listen to the end for about 5 minutes of iPhone/iPod love.

Taking a break from her moving day, I present to you:

CEJI
invisiblesparks.vox.com ♥ ceji.weheartmusic.com

Among some of the more interesting thing on our chat is that Ceji was named after Ciji Dunne of the soap opera Knots Landing. Like most television serial, “whodunnit” are big draws for ratings (think “Who Killed J.R.” or “Who Killed Mister Burns” and you get the idea). Well the big cliffhanger for Season 4 was a fast-raising starlet singer Ciji, who showed up, taking most of the spotlight and then ultimately murdered for the cliffhanger at the end of the season.

Incidentally, the actress Lisa Hartman, came back in the next season as Ciji’s doppelgänger, Cathy Geary.

Other things we talked about:

• Looking back at 2007, yes, 2007.
• Radio Milwaukee, Radiohead, Havana, etc
• Music discover, back in the day
• Our love for 120 Minutes and Matt Pinfield♥ (the clip I used was the parody of “Pat Minfield” for “120 Midgets”)
• Belle & Sebastian
• T.I.’s Paper Trail, Fleet Foxes, Little Dragon