Meligrove Band BUS FAIL $$$ RELIEF Party

By Less Lee Moore

From the Meligrove Band‘s Facebook page:

Friends! Our US tour in December hurt us real bad. We had to get our transmission rebuilt, stuck in the worst part of Orlando for five nights, missing the last half of our tour, and having to pay $4500! Our bank account is in ruins. Help us pay by partying with us and our friends!

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Win A Signed Copy Of Duffy’s New CD, Endlessly!

By Less Lee Moore

If you enjoyed our review of Welsh songstress Duffy’s latest release, Endlessly, you’re in luck.

We’ve got a signed copy of the disc to send out to one of you lucky readers. The contest has now ended.

Just be the fifth person to comment on this post telling us why you would like a copy . . . in a clever way, of course. (C’mon, it’s the holiday season and we’re feeling a little burned out on Christmas songs and crowded shopping malls.)

Contest Rules:

—Popshifter writers are not eligible.
—The contest is open until at least five comments are left in response to this Blog post OR Sunday, December 19, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. EST (whichever comes first).
—The fifth person to post a comment will win (EST). Personal attacks, spam, vulgar or otherwise unsavory comments will NOT be eligible to win.
— We reserve the right to choose a winner based on the above guidelines.
—Only residents of the United States are eligible.
—You must not have won anything from a Popshifter contest within the last six months.
—You must email us at editor@popshifter.com and provide a valid name and mailing address within seven days of us notifying you that you have won.

Dragon King Remix Of La Roux’s Grammy-Nominated “In For The Kill”

Click for larger image.

By Less Lee Moore

There’s a new Dragon King remix of La Roux’s Grammy-nominated “In For The Kill.”

La Roux’s Elly Jackson also called into Cherrytree Radio’s Morning Orchard last week and chatted a bit about her reaction to hearing the news about her two Grammy nominations.

“We’re very, very happy. The news broke . . . in the middle of the night here, so I woke up to like four text messages just saying ‘congratulations, you’ve got two Grammy nominations.’ I was like, ‘What?’ It was literally the first thing I read when I woke up. It was a nice way to wake up.”

As far as whether she thinks they’ll take home any awards, Elly says, “I think it’s highly unlikely that we’ll get it. I’m not going to prepare a speech. I’m not really a speech person; I’ll probably just stammer, and say thank you, and then run away.”

The Grammy Awards will take place February 13 at the Los Angeles Staples Center. For more on La Roux, check out the band’s website.

Time, See What’s Become Of Me

Back when I was 12, liking a certain band could get you in trouble. I remember that my classmates were almost violently divided between who was better: Adam Ant or Ozzy Osbourne. As a fan of the former, I was frequently the object of considerable disdain.
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Billy Joel, Glass Houses

By Less Lee Moore

My first “grown up” album was Barry Manilow Live, which I received as a Christmas present when I was five. My sister Summer’s interest in rock and roll started at an earlier age; she was so obsessed with Billy Joel’s Glass Houses album that she received it for a present when she was two.

I read a lot of music magazines when I was a kid, and though I can’t recall the specific ones that criticized Glass Houses, I recall that it was a bit of a deal-breaker for Billy Joel’s fans. One of the most vocal critics was my then-stepfather Larry, who thought Joel spent too much time trying to sound like other musicians on the album and not enough time just being himself.
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INXS, S/T

By Less Lee Moore

INXS was one of the bands that my peers actually made fun of me for liking, mispronouncing their name as “Ink-siss” and turning up their noses at my insistence that they were really good. I saw them open for Adam Ant in 1983 and became a fan of their video for “The One Thing” (including Michael Hutchence’s smoldering presence) which was aired frequently on MTV. During the Christmas season of 1984, I became obsessed with their most recent release The Swing, which placed them in an entirely new category of awesome (and should be written about at length at some point in the near future).

Soon after, when trolling the record stores, I chanced upon some of the band’s earlier albums, 1981’s Underneath The Colours and their self-titled debut from 1980. The sound they established and perfected with Shabooh Shoobah and The Swing was only hinted at on the somewhat-underwhelming Underneath The Colours album; their debut was something else entirely.
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Bauhaus, In The Flat Field

By Less Lee Moore

I first heard Bauhaus through a friend of a friend, but I first heard OF the band thanks to my frequent trips to Lakeside Mall as a teenager.

There was a cool-looking Chinese punk dude who also went to the mall frequently. He had spiky hair and wore a leather motorcycle jacket and a black T-shirt that said BAVHAVS. (I was soon to discover that he was a total lameass poseur, but that’s a story for another time and place.) In my ignorance, I thought that the band was actually called Bav-Haves until the aforementioned friend of a friend (or someone who took pity on me) set me straight.

Ah, those halcyon pre-Internet days.
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Echo Revolution, Counterfeit Sunshine

By Less Lee Moore

Counterfeit Sunshine, the new album from San Diego’s Echo Revolution, is anything but what its title implies. These tunes are sincere in their joyfulness; even the sad songs contain some optimism amidst the despair.
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Doctor Ew Presents Gadzooks At The Imperial Pub!

By Less Lee Moore

From the photo on his MySpace page and the rather suggestive name you might think Doctor Ew is a goofy tribute to Doctor Demento. Nope, try again.
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The Autumn Defense, Once Around

By Less Lee Moore

Wilco fans have known about The Autumn Defense, a side project featuring Patrick Sansone and John Stirratt, for years. For the rest of us, their latest album Once Around is both a surprise and a pleasure.
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