Episode 23 – “I miss those southern sky, I miss those bedroom eyes”

Welcome to Songs That Don’t Suck, with your host, Mark Bradbourne.

What’s up everybody? Welcome to Songs That Don’t Suck, episode 23. And I’m going to start this music podcast by talking about movies for a moment, but bear with me, I’ve got a point.

I saw Air this weekend, it’s been out for a bit, but I finally got around to seeing it. It’s a fantastic movie. If you haven’t seen it, haven’t heard about it, it is the story of Nike and Michael Jordan and how that relationship came to be when Nike had nothing to do really in the basketball world and they basically pushed all of their chips in the middle of the table to make this deal work with Michael Jordan. And if you know anything about basketball, Michael Jordan and Nike, the rest is very much history, but while the movie was fantastic and I highly recommend seeing it if you have the opportunity, I’ve got to talk about the soundtrack and how good the soundtrack was. The movie set in 1984 and the authenticity of everything in that movie, including the soundtrack that was playing, is phenomenal. It was such a great kind of trip down memory lane. My wife and I, as we were watching it, every time a new song would come on, we were like, yes, this is so good. And it got me thinking about all of the other movies that have had soundtracks that in my mind kind of eclipse the movie. While the movies have been great, the soundtracks have lived on a little bit longer.

The first one that popped to mind was actually Dazed and Confused. That had a very kind of classic rock soundtrack, it’s got Aerosmith and Fog Hat and a lot of those kind of era bands, but the soundtrack fit the movie so well. The second one that popped to mind was probably my favorite movie soundtrack, which was Singles, which was basically a story about living in Seattle and relationships. And it’s a fantastic movie, but the soundtrack is just killer. I mean, it’s got Jimi Hendrix, obviously he’s not a grunge artist, but he was a Seattle artist, but Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, I mean, just Screaming Trees, it’s such a good soundtrack. I still listen to it fairly regularly, but I can’t tell you the last time I saw that movie, but if I ever see it like on TV, I will absolutely sit there and watch it. The third one that popped to mind, I’ve actually never seen the movie, but the soundtrack is so good, the movie is Garden State and I can’t tell you what it’s about, but the soundtrack is absolutely killer. Postal Service, oh what else was on it, Coldplay, Remi Zero, just at the point when it was coming out, these were all of the kind of almost broken bands, they were kind of the indie alternative, just haven’t hit the mainstream yet, but it was such a fantastic soundtrack. I’m curious, and let’s try something new, I don’t know if anybody’s going to take me up on this, but if you’re listening to this on the podcast platform, you have the ability to leave a voicemail, tell me your soundtrack that you think has eclipsed the movie, I’m interested to know, you can also send me a message on social media, whatever you feel comfortable with.

Alright, let’s talk brain bending cover. As I was doing the music review this week, I was listening and this really catchy song came on, and it felt really familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it, like what it was, and then the chorus hit and I was like, wait, this is a cover. The original artist was Rilo Kelly, it was released back in 2004 and it’s a song called Portions for Foxes. This version is by Lydia Loveless. Lydia’s originally from Coshocton, Ohio, moved to North Carolina and appears to be recording and operating out of Chicago now. Now the original, if you’re familiar with it, very indie rock, obviously it’s Rilo Kelly, very much in that indie rock early 2000s vein. Lydia’s version is a little more alt country, like think more Wilco, but it’s a beautiful touch to the song and honestly I was really excited to find this track this week, one it’s a new artist to me, and it also reminded me that Rilo Kelly existed, so it was a win-win. All right, let’s go ahead and get into new music.

If you’re listening for the first time, thank you. I listen to a bunch of new songs each week. I go over them, I throw out a bunch of ones that are no good, I find a few that are decent and I share them on the podcast each week for y’all to add to your playlists.

The first song that I want to share with you this week comes from Hotel Mira and it’s called Everything Once. Hotel Mira are from Canada and they now appear to be operating out of California from what I can tell. They started way back in 2007 under the name Japanese Girls with all of the vowels removed and they became Hotel Mira in 2018. Having been around a while, I got really curious because they have a bunch of music to check out, so I went back to their earliest release that was on Spotify and it was a 2013 EP called Shark Week and I can report that the DNA has not changed much. The song structures still really sharp, but their sound has matured, which I’m probably going to attribute to studio equipment, technology, and honestly years and years of playing music together. The lineups shuffled a little bit as you would expect to, you know, having been together for God, 15 years. Anyway, the production on Everything Once is really good. I really like the structure and I like the little musical breaks that happen that really just kind of keep it interesting for the listener as they’re kind of listening to it and it just works really, really well.

The second song this week comes from Jelly Roll and it’s a track called Halfway to Hell. Jelly Roll is described as a genre-bending singer-songwriter and that feels really accurate to me. This track definitely has a country rock vibe to it. It’s edgy and if I was just thinking about it as a pure country track, it’s just, it’s fresh. Like it stands out in the country category. Now in the rock category, right now it stands alone as well. The rest of the stuff that I’m hearing, it’s just not this cool. Now I will say he did win a CMT award this year and rightfully so, stuff is really good. So I guess he’s technically a country artist by their standards, but there’s enough rock here that I think some of the listeners who have given me grief repeatedly when I pull country songs into the podcast, I think they might be able to get on board with Jelly Roll. I think it’s pretty good and I really, really like this track. It just, it’s one of those songs that would fall onto my, Im going riding on my motorcycle playlist and I’m going to play it as loud as possible.

The third song this week comes from the Mysterians and it’s called Begin Again. The Mysterians are a band out of Liverpool in the UK and the first thing that grabbed me about this track was the lead singer, Leah Metcalf is her name and her vocals are really, really distinctive, really, really liked it. Very cool indie rock track, they’re getting a lot of hype on the UK music scene and it’s one of those things where I hope it bleeds over to the US, we can use some really good bands like this and I know there’s lots of good bands in the US, don’t get me wrong, but when I find stuff in the UK like this, it’s like, I want it to, I want it to get to everybody’s ears, which is why I included on the podcast, so check out the Mysterians.

All right, a touch of housekeeping as always here before we finish up, please talk to your friends and tell them about the podcast. It’s the best way for you to let somebody know that the podcast exists. I appreciate it when you like, follow, subscribe, review the podcast, that’s always awesome too, it helps with the algorithms. There are two versions on Mondays, there is a full music version on Wednesdays, you get the Cliff Notes version. We have a website, songsthatdon’tsuck. net, you can send me recommendations of artists that you find, you can find show transcripts, and you can find links to all of the other things that we do, including social media. I mentioned it earlier, mainly I’m on Twitter, but I do exist on Facebook and Instagram as well. And lastly, if you want to support the show, we have a very small merch station where you can actually purchase stickers and t-shirts through the website.

Fourth song this week comes from Crystal Tides, and it’s called Animated. Crystal Tides is the second British band this week, with the Mysterians being the last one. These guys come from the southern coast of UK, and they’re actually enjoying some mainstream radio play in the UK right now from what I can find. And this track is obvious, you can see why. It’s a great song, super catchy hook, and quite frankly, if you dig this song, check out the rest of their stuff. I kind of went through some of their different releases. It’s all got the same kind of vibe and energy, so if this really kind of got in your ear and you really liked it, definitely go on a little deep dive in their catalog, you will not regret it.

The fifth and featured song this week comes from a group called Half Moon Run, and it’s called 9Beat. Half Moon Run are from Canada, and I discovered them in the Folk New Music playlist, and that makes sense. I’ll give you three guesses about what caught my ear with this song, and the first two obviously won’t count because this should be completely obvious if you’ve listened to any other podcast episodes. The opening rhythm of this captivated me. And it took me a few listens to add two and two and end up with four. The song is called 9Beat, and it’s literally what it is. It felt weird initially because I’m like, well, that’s not a lyric. But as soon as I broke down that opening rhythm, I realized that it’s in 9/8 time. Please forgive the music nerdiness of what’s about to happen, because I have to just break it down. 9/8 time. It’s at least that’s the way that I’m hearing it. Nine beats to a measure, and the eighth note gets a single beat. If you’re a musician, you’re like, oh yeah, Mark, that totally makes sense. But this is the kind of stuff that made me love bands like Dave Matthews Band in the really early days when they would do something really musically challenging, but it’s super accessible to the non-music nerd. When the chorus hits, it switches to kind of the standard 4/4 time that we’re used to listening to most of the time. And then it slips back into that cool 9/8 feel, really, really killer find. And I started listening to some of their other stuff, and it’s all just as good, and there’s a bunch of it. So I’m a very, very happy guy this week.

So I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did, because it’s fantastic. All right, that is it for this episode of Songs That Don’t Suck. So as always… thanks for listening, and until next week, keep searching for and listening to Songs That Don’t Suck.