Artist Spotlight: The Main Drag

As a big fan of both music and video games, the Rock Band series of video games by Harmonix is something that I naturally gravitate towards. I love having the chance to sing songs by many of my favourite artists. In addition to hit songs spanning the last four decades of music, the games also feature a number of "bonus tracks", most of which are from bands formed by Harmonix employees or from bands near Harmonix's headquarters in Massachusetts. One of the bonus tracks in Rock Band 2 is "A Jagged Gorgeous Winter" by The Main Drag.

A few of my coworkers and I have fallen in love with this song after having played it a few times, so I decided to look up The Main Drag to check out some more of their music. To my surprise, they actually have several tracks that can be downloaded for free, which I naturally checked out. Based on what I've heard so far, The Main Drag is a band that seems to defy categorization, but I absolutely love what I've heard so far. Their mixture of electronic, electric, and acoustic elements creates a very fresh sound that is quite unlike anything I have ever heard before.

3 songs are currently available on the band's website at RPL Audio (with a promise of more to come), including the RB2 Remix of "A Jagged Gorgeous Winter". This song is currently one of my favourites. The lyrics evoke beautiful imagery of my favourite time of year, and are a perfect fit for the upbeat, frosty sounding music. Also currently available here are a cover of LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends", which features some very nice guitar work and goes through a few changes in its 7+ minutes, and "Love During Wartime", which has music that sounds like a quieter, darker version of "A Jagged Gorgeous Winter". It seems that there are 2 slightly different versions of this website, differentiated only by an underscore in the URL; the other one can be found here. I'm not sure why this is so, but in any case, the latter version features a newly recorded song called "Falling Forwards".

3 more songs can be found on the band's iLike page. Of these, I really like "Consequence", which is a beautiful acoustic guitar and piano-driven ballad, and "I'll Drink to That", a waltz with an upbeat, bouncy Beatles feel to it. "North Shore, Music Therapist" features some very nice dynamics and a dramatic feel that seems to be present in many of these songs.

That's all I've managed to find from this band so far, but it has certainly whetted my appetite for more. The Main Drag is a band that should be heard by anyone who loves music that is dynamic, carefully crafted, and thought provoking. I would highly recommend checking each of these sites so that you can hear this excellent music for yourself. Happy listening!

URLs:

http://www.rplaudio.com/RPL_AUDIO/THE_MAIN_DRAG.html

http://www.rplaudio.com/RPLAudio/The_Main_Drag.html

http://www.ilike.com/artist/The+Main+Drag

Halloween Treat Bag

Okay, it turns out that I have more Halloween music than I have time to post about, so I have decided to round up some of my favourites into one big post. If you still haven't found any good music for your Halloween activities, or you are just looking for some more, I hope that this helps you to find what you're looking for.

First up is an EP that I originally spotlighted back in the spring: Nine Inch Nails' Ghosts I. This first part of the quadruple EP Ghosts I-IV is available to download for free and consists of 9 instrumental tracks that range from haunting and beautiful to loud and noisy. While not Halloween music per se, ghosts are such a common theme at this time of year that this release is nonetheless very appropriate.

Next, we'll stop by last.fm for Februus' cover of "This is Halloween", originally from Tim Burton's 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas. To me, this sounds like a great cross between the original version from the movie and Marilyn Manson's cover version from the bonus disc of the 2006 reissue of the soundtrack: the instrumentation is a gothic metal style much like Manson's version, but the variety of voices in the vocals is much more like the ensemble style of the original.

Our next stop will be Jonathan Coulton's website for a pair of songs. "Creepy Doll" is a song inspired by "various 70s horror movies that scared the hell out of [him] when [he] was a kid," and "Skullcrusher Mountain" takes us to the secret lair of a misunderstood evil genius. You'll probably meet his half-pony, half-monkey monster and his hungry wolves along the way, if his doomsday squad doesn't ignite the atmosphere first. Like most of Coulton's songs, these two are a lot of fun to listen to, so if you like what you hear, I would highly recommend checking out some more of his songs - a lot of them can be downloaded for free.

Mary Shelley Overdrive is another band that I have discovered thanks to the Free Metal Albums blog. They have two Halloween-themed EPs available from their blog: Shock Theatre and Bride of Shock Theatre (download links can be found in the right sidebar of their blog). I was initially drawn to these releases for the covers of Rob Zombie's "House of 1000 Corpses" and Blue Öyster Cult's "Godzilla", and after a couple of listens their version of The Misfits' "Halloween" quickly became another favourite of mine. I love the movie samples that are sprinkled throughout many of the songs. Most of the music has a punk or metal feel to it, and much of it is rather noisy, but it could make a great soundtrack for whatever you're doing this Halloween.

Ondrej Kapov De Triste's Creeps Theme is a short but very sweet release featuring the opening and closing themes for a horror movie. There is some wonderful potential here and I would love to hear what this artist could come up with for a full film score; for now, please enjoy "Emotion" and "Emotioncreep" this Halloween.

As a bonus treat, why not help yourself to some free Smashing Pumpkins music, perhaps to listen to whilst carving jack-o'-lanterns? Hundreds of their live recordings, spanning nearly two decades, are available from the Internet Archive. The Smashing Pumpkins were also one of the first artists I featured on this blog for their freely available studio album Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music, which makes for an excellent listen at any time.

I hope that these last few posts have helped you to find some good music to listen to this Halloween. If you've found anything cool here or elsewhere, I'd love to hear about it in the comments. Have a safe and Happy Halloween, and Happy Listening!

URLs:
http://ghosts.nin.com/main/order_options
http://www.last.fm/music/Februus/_/This+Is+Halloween
http://www.jonathancoulton.com/songdetails/Creepy%20Doll
http://www.jonathancoulton.com/songdetails/Skullcrusher%20Mountain
http://freemetalalbums.wordpress.com/
http://maryshelleyoverdrive.blogspot.com/
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/24743
http://www.archive.org/details/SmashingPumpkins
http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/2008/01/album-spotlight-smashing-pumpkins.html

Album Spotlight: Silber Sounds of Halloween

Are you all ready for Halloween yet? Need some spooky music to help set the mood for whatever you'll be doing? Then Silber Sounds of Halloween, a free compilation from indie record label Silber, may be just what you're looking for. Much like the previously mentioned Calling All Fiends compilation, this is a collection of offbeat, cool, and often very creepy music that is great for establishing a Halloween mood.

The album opens with a beautifully haunting, almost Pink Floyd-like song called "The Dreaming Body" by Lycia, and is then immediately followed up with "Dawn of the Dead", a hip hop song by Peter Aldrich. This abrupt shift in styles in the first two songs alone is very indicative of the album as a whole: this compilation is not restricted to any one genre or style; you will find quiet atmospheric music, heavy metal, post rock, soundcapes, and a number of other genres. With such a broad range of styles represented, there will very likely be something that will interest you, and maybe you will find a new favourite band to follow.

A few of my personal favourites from the compilation are Rachel Goldstar's dreamy "Amsterdam"; The Wades' "Sídhe", a haunting track full of screams and whispers, all played over a slow metal groove that would not sound out of place on an old Black Sabbath album; and Cam Butler's "Does Your River Run Deep", a classical/rock hybrid which has an awesome groove. But with 30 songs and over 2 hours of music, I find myself discovering new things to like about the album every time I listen to it, and I am really looking forward to checking out some more work by many of these artists.

More information about Silber Sounds of Halloween, including links to many of the artists' own websites, can be found on the Silber Records site. The compilation itself can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Check it out, see what songs work for you, have fun listening to it, have a safe and Happy Halloween, and happy listening!

URLs:
http://www.silbermedia.com/comps/halloween/
http://www.archive.org/details/silber065-silbersoundsofhalloween