Froggystein - "The Flowers are Blooming!". This song might make you jump. It might make the flowerseeds in your eyes germinate. It's soft and yet it has a kind of pugilistic potency. It'll punch holes in walls. It's like falling, like falling in love, like falling dead. You're up and then suddenly you're down, or you're down and then suddenly you're up. You're stepping into the cradle someone's made with their hands and they're heaving you to lips-on-lips. "So flowers are blooming / and it's time to rise. / So get up to go on being you and me / you, me." This song has many sections, one for each time of day. You can wear it as a talisman as you swing your machete, cut through the jungle, wade through the lake, inflate your bike-tires, go inside, find her in the crowd, and kiss her on the mouth.
[MySpace - "Influences: jokes, xiu xiu, coffee, raymond carver"]
Eef Barzelay - "Lose Big". The narrator of this song - Eef himself? - is willing to stop his touring, to quit it all, just to linger with you. Only if: you really love him. "Do you really love me?" he asks, many times, and he never says "because I really love you". No, instead his love is in the rose and violet shades of the lyric at 1:09: "I told her all about you". I want someone to sing to me in those shades, but not with those words. Not quite with those electric guitars. I want more thunderclaps, more ivy. But the song's so good. It's Sunday afternoon as I write this and I'm feeling scattered all over the map.
[Clem Snide RIP. Eef's MySpace. (thanks, ross.)]
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There's an excerpt from Carl Wilson's upcoming Celine Dion book, over at 33 1/3. Great point about the opacity of the "quebecoise" as a cultural reference for most of the world.
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I am dumbstruck and baffled that so few of you had anything to say about our posts on Jay Bharadia or Ezra Furman.
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The Bleating Heart Shows are just a few days away! I hope we'll see all of you Montrealers there and with sparks in yr eyes. Did you know there's an exclusive track from the upcoming Christine Fellows album?
Posted by Sean at October 1, 2007 7:49 AMwow, what a voice on that eef!
Posted by doug at October 1, 2007 10:29 AMI don't have a good reason for not commenting on Ezra the other day. Guess I'm not much of a comment-er, really. But you're right, he deserves my exception...
I emailed the post to my brother and best friend, and then continued to plague their respective voicemails all weekend, begging to know if they'd listened yet. Text-messaged lyrics to everyone.
The last few times I've been this excited about a band were when I first heard Broken Social Scene, The National, Paul Westerberg...
And this song here rocks, too! Whetting my appetite for new Built to Spill... no?
Posted by ryan at October 1, 2007 10:51 AMI just checked Clem and Eef's myspace and can't see anything about them splitting up (tho' since CS is essentially Eef and who he's got backing him, this doesn't worry me as much as it might). Where's the info from, Sean? And many thanks for the new song.
Posted by David Belbin at October 1, 2007 3:33 PMRe: Ezra.
You are correct that more people should be talking about how brilliant the Ezra Furman and the Harpoons album is. Full random disclosure/boasting: I once sang "girl from the north country" with Ezra at a party, I guess that makes me the new Johnny Cash.
David, the Clem Snide website has "Clem Snide RIP" on the news page. That's as much as I know.
Posted by sean at October 1, 2007 10:50 PMwell, i had plenty to say about ezra, but i said it to myself, in my car, driving. most of it was just an appreciative "fuuuuck."
Posted by amber at October 2, 2007 2:04 AMThanks for that, Sean, but no RIP shows up on clemsnide.com in the UK, nor on the .org or the yahoo group (tho' admittedly it's rather quiet there). Strange...
Posted by David B at October 2, 2007 7:46 AMYeah, what's the word on this Eef Barzelay song? Upcoming album? Bitter Honey only came out 6 months ago, so that would be quick.
Thanks for posting it Sean, it's truly wonderful.
Posted by Eric at October 2, 2007 4:40 PMSomebody showed me this blog about me and I read that comment... I'm just wondering who matt is. It's exciting to me that I played a song at a party with the new Johnny Cash. You should come play soft sweet songs with me at parties here at my school; they'd probably be a lot better if you did.
Also thanks for all those nice things you internetters say about my band... you're a bunch of sweet-hearts.
Posted by ezra at October 3, 2007 4:13 PMThanks for the Eef!
Bitter Honey came out coming up on two years ago though, Eric.
Posted by Drew at October 15, 2007 5:12 PM
and it will begin playing. All songs are also available to download: just right-click the link and choose 'Save as...'
