Getting Gruntled

I saw this quiz over at Delusions and just had to take it. It’s something mcangeli and I ised to talk about once in a while when at work, b/c his kids have very traditional names, and mine don’t. :]

You Like Names That Are Cutting Edge and Exotic

You love creative names and names from foreign cultures. You believe names should be expressive and interesting. You like names that are unusual, striking, and powerful. You couldn’t imagine naming your child or pet anything “normal.” Some female names you might like: Amaya, Celestine, Danessa, Fawn, Kenya, Monet, Serenity, and Tia Some male names you might like: Drake, Flint, Harley, Kendrick, Pascal, Romeo, and Timber

A little while back, I got a comment from Zane over at AmieStreet.com which kicked off an email conversation about this whole Amie Street Music Wednesday meme. Apparently, The crew over at AmieStreet have been noticing a difference in sales and traffic from this bit of blogger activity, and wanted to show some love by sending a slick tee shirt. It is a gray American Apparel Tee with an awesome pinball table theme in pink featuring a bunch of terms used in the amie street community and on the site in general. I really dig it a lot!
Since a post like this is “nothing without pics,” I have a few shots here in my back pocket. (just ignore the pocket lint and empty gum wrapper):

They were out of my size, so this one is really huge now. I’m hoping that it shrinks up a bit when I launder it the first time.
The meme was thought up by Mark over at Mouseclone after some discussions about all the new music we were finding regularly on the AmieStreet website. After putting together the original tracker, he was able to get in touch with some of the development team, who helped in providing the embedded player with the “skinning” options, and then Mark’s work on the Wordpress plugin started to really take shape.

I’m glad to see the sites doing well, and have found amiestreet to be a great place as a music consumer to find new and interesting bands, and see it as a hot spot for independent artists to promote and sell their tracks, find new fans, and to connect with the community.

I’ve been holding the cards long enough on Simon Wilcox, and really wanted to share her tracks with you. She’s a singer and songwriter, and *yes* she has a guy name. If any of you were fans of The Kooks, the voice will sound familiar. I really like the fresh intensity of the “Eyes On You” track, and find that this is a good collection of tracks to have for driving or to listen to while indulging the right-brain, whether that be drawing, painting, photoshop work, or creative writing.

This week, I was getting back into some electronica, but kept looking for something that was complex yet danceable. Then I stumbled onto this single by Stella & The Doggs. Stella is notable for her involvement in the Manchester band called Intastella in the early nineties, and refers to this new band and album as “Dark, electro pop”. This track, “Supersize” has interesting lyrics and a building beat that also makes it a good accompaniment to night driving. “Star, you know how gorgeous you are/you lost your mind in my car/star - it’s all too much. More money, more love, more money, more sex. Look what they’ve done/They supersized…” The guitars are prominent without taking the front seat, all while keeping the European feel.

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This week, I am talking about a band called “ones and zeroes”, or more exactly, 0N3S & Z3R0S. This three-peice is from Northern California, and has a unique sound, melding the sounds of electronica loops and effects with traditional instrumentation and alt-grunge vocals. After you sample “Mind Run Free”, Click on the “more by this artist” button and make sure to hit “Nothing Left” and “Rose” while you are checking out the 0N3S & Z3R0S.

This week, I wanted to draw some attention to a band called Red Guitar, a band from Kansas City with a folksy rock sound and songwriting combination that makes me think of Tom Petty. They have also been compared to The Fray, Ryan Adams, and Coldplay. Red Guitar is another one of those bands I have found on Amie Street where I purchase all their music, and *almost* feature them for a few weeks in a row, then wait in a vain attempt to choose a single song to highlight. Be sure to listen to “Angel Across The State Line” and “Jump Out On The Water”.
This track, “Let’s Go Out,” is about feeding wanderlust as both an activity for both searching your own soul and for exploring relationships with your travelling companions.
Today, the national average for a gallon of gasoline is at 3.50, and traveling is a headache. Spring is in full bloom, and schools are out in another month. It’s more difficult and expensive to get out and roam, but that spirit is as important as it ever was.

This week, I found a band called Porchsleeper. They don’t have much in the way of detail on AmieStreet, but they are out of Ann Arbor, MI. The “Stinkeye” track I have in the player here really kicks, and has a pop-punk feel to it that reminds me of The Refreshments. Be sure to check out the “Bulletproof” track while you are here.

I found a lot of good female vocalists this past week on AmieStreet. One of these was Karma Lively, who has “a hundred songs of peace and war,” is from “North to the Future” Alaska. Besides having a light, fun acoustic sound, and having something to say with her lyrics, She’s donating all of her music sales for the year on AmieStreet to charity. She has a sound that is somewhere in the neighborhood of The Cranberries, Jewel, and Sia.
It looks like she’s laying down all of the instrument tracks herself, which always gains a lot of points with me.