This has been available for awhile, but I wanted to point out that Brady Rymer has three new songs available for download as part of his Children's Dimetapp Breathe & Boogie Tour. Go here to download "Healthy Livin'" and "Even the Animals Sneeze," a couple mid-tempo folk-rockers that would've sounded fine on his recent Every Day is a Birthday CD.
Also available for download is "We are the Sniffles," which also has a video on the site. I'm sorta bummed because it's the best of the three tracks -- propulsive, great harmonies -- but it's got a couple shout-outs to Dimetapp (both in the song and on the video). It's worth a spin, though, because aside from the commercial reference (which kinda kills any repeat-listening value for me), it shows Rymer and his band at their best.
Rymer, incidentally, will be releasing his latest album, Brady Rymer and the Little Band That Could, on March 4. You can hear one of the songs from the upcoming CD, "Road Trip" by attending one of his final shows on this tour in Rochester (NY), Houston, Dallas, and Madison, New Jersey (details here) and picking up the free six-song Rymer CD they're distributing.
So, yeah, I'm just waiting for the edited version...
New Music / Video: "High Five" - They Might Be Giants
Well, if they hadn't pushed back the release 4 months, we'd all have been grooving to this for a month now, but They Might Be Giants have a video for "High Five," one of the songs off their upcoming CD/DVD Here Come the 123s. The animation is done by Divya Srinivasan, who did a bunch of videos on Here Come the ABCs, including "Go For G!" and "Alphabet Lost and Found." (See her videos and stills, including those from "Roy G. Biv," also off the upcoming album, here.)
As with "Alphabet," I don't think the Johns are taking the lead vocally on "High Five," which is the best disco song about the number five ever written. And, yes, it includes the phrase "down low, too slow."
You have go to Amazon to watch it, but it's worth 2:26 of your time. Go here.
(Hat tip to Amy for catching this.)
Video: "Cheese" - Mr. Richard
This video, for the song "Cheese," may make you smile a bit.
The song is from Mr. Richard's upcoming album Polka Dot Puzzle, due out December 11th. His voice isn't the smoothest of the bunch, but he's got a sly ear for kids' (and parental) frustrations especially, and he rocks the mandolin here. His legion of fans are undoubtedly waiting eagerly...
Sox? Rox? No, Rex.
Yeah, so that whole Diamondbacks - Rockies series didn't go well for this Diamondbacks fan. Can't say that the Rockies played awesome, but they sure played better than the D-Backs.
So as with any fan who watches their team completely blow their big chance, I felt a little down, like I needed some headbanging. By, uh, dinosaurs. Playing, uh, "This Old Man."
The animation is rudimentary, and I'm probably missing 95% (OK, 99%) of the references in the video, but as far aping metal cliches, Rockosaurus Rex has got it down pat. For more, check out their Myspace page, which includes a new demo song, a version of "Hush Little Baby" which is 100% guaranteed to not get your baby to sleep.
Song of the Day: "Alphabet of Nations" (A Video Review)
Many months ago, I had a feature I called "Song of the Day," where I'd ramble on about a song I'd heard recently that I was digging a lot. Now I have no time for such things as that, but I'm going to make an all-video exception today for one of my favorite songs off of They Might Be Giants' excellent Here Come the ABCs CD, "Alphabet of Nations."
What spurred this is the appearance on YouTube of TMBG's performance of the song on last week's The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. I've always loved the second verse they add to their live shows, and along with Linnell's physical stylizing, it makes up for the fact that somebody pointed their camcorder at the TV screen and pushed "record."
There are a bunch of other live versions on YouTube, with similarly dubious recording qualities, but rather than link to them all, I'll just send you to the original...
Video: "Night Mantra" - Renee and Jeremy
This is about as lo-fi a video as you can get, but it fits the song. "Night Mantra" is one of the stellar cuts on Renee and Jeremy's debut It's A Big World. You get the feeling listening to the album version that it was probably recorded just like it was shown here. Well, maybe there was a little less lounging.
This makes me a geek, but I love that green color on the wall behind them.
In other R&J news, they note on their website that they "are starting to write for the follow-up to It's A Big World which will come out sometime in 2008."
