Shinjak’s Listening Lounge

Archive for the ‘mixtape’ category

The Best Songs You Never Heard In 2008 – Part Four

December 26th, 2008

A Night In The Box – Let Me Know

Now for the moment you have all been waiting for. Ladies & Gentleman, I present to you the Best Music You Never Heard in 2008!

A Night In The Box hails from Minneapolis, Minnesota. When they aren’t re-defining the genre of rockin honkey funkgrass, they are busy giving Abe Lincoln help with the finer points of trombone playing.

But seriously, there have been alot of bands this year who have attempted to make it playing music that is similar to A Night In The Box. In fact, there are those bands who have made it playing music similar to A Night In The Box. But they aren’t this good.

In my opinion, this is the best music of 2008.

But like so many other great bands out their, the blogging world has generally overlooked these guys. So don’t let it happen again! Buy the album, spread the word, and look out 2009.

Like so many good albums, one song doesn’t really do the whole album justice. You really need to buy the whole thing to fully appreciate how talented these guys are.

Buy The Album – Write A Letter

A Night In The Box – Let Me Know

A Night In The Box – Fiddle Foot Jones

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And a little video to seal the deal:

PS – Drop these guys a line and tell them to play in NC pronto. Tell them Shinjak sent you.

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The Best Songs You Never Heard In 2008 – Part Two

December 24th, 2008

Thousands of One – Slaveship Mentality

My ignorance of all things hip-hop is embarrassing. It was even worse up until a few years ago. My exposure to hip-hop was through (this is even more embarrassing) the Beastie Boys, which I could remotely relate to. The only other exposure I had was to the “gangsta rap” of the 90’s, which I loathed. I dismissed a whole genre of music based on what was popular at the time.

Fortunately for me, MTV exposed me to De La Soul in the late 80’s. A few years back, I had a yearning to “rediscover” music like De La Soul’s. That’s when I found out that they were the pioneers of a movement. The Native Tongues “crew” focused on giving hip-hop it’s concious and social awareness back. Later additions include one of my favorite artists, Mos Def.

Thousand of One is reminiscent of those Native Tongues efforts, bringing a much needed social conciosness to the masses. Some of their songs crossover into the realm of the opinionated, but that’s what music is lacking these days. If more influential artists had an opinion on things that mattered, maybe more people would listen.

Buy there latest album, Soul Force, at cdbaby.

Thousand Of One – Slaveship Mentality

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The Best Songs You Never Heard In 2008 – Part One

December 23rd, 2008

The Broken Prayers – Little Black Heart

This is one of those aforementioned little tunes that I lifted from over at ninebullets.net (maybe if I mention his site enough, he’ll give me a linkback!) These guys hail from Philly in the PA. It’s really hard to pick the best song from these guys, because the whole damn album is good. But I’m really enjoying the lead vocalist and his solo on this tune. So head over to cdbaby or payplay and buy this one already.

The Broken Prayers – Little Black Heart

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Summer 2008 Mixtape – Hip Hop To Honky Tonk And Back

June 24th, 2008

Once again, it’s time to clean out my backlog of songs that I liked but don’t really have time to do a full post about. These songs have absolutely nothing to do with summertime, so those looking for ”the” soundtrack for summer 2008 need look elsewhere. Those looking to curb their appetite for a hip-hopping, honky tonking good time, please see below. For everyone else, enjoy!

Oh yeah, alot of these songs came from payplay.fm whose “fresh tracks” rss feed has apparently went the way of the dodo. So now I’m having to listen to other music blogs (gasp!) to hear some new tunes.

The Dirty Guv’nahs – Get Together

Mello Mahem – Possible

This one keeps creeping to the top of my playlist.

Heybale – Honky Tonk Mood

Charlie & The Welfare – Cross The Line

Dry Land Fish – Carla

A really catchy tune that will have you reminiscing about that girlfriend.

Dylan Kight – Arcadia

Lots of good stuff out there from this talented guy.

Emily White – River of Forgetfulness

Enemies Of The Secret Hideout – Dating For Dummies

L.L. Cooper – Harvey Keitel

Marsupial – The Chameleon

Up and coming NC jamband whose new album is worth a closer listen.

Mat. D – Midway Babylon

Matt Mackey – End Of July (Studio Cut)

Mohawk Lodge – The Heart Of Lovers

Caught Up – Inside Out

Micah Hinson And The Red Empire Orchestra – When We Embraced

This guy has been a music blog darling as of late, and he’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

Aesop Rock – None Shall Pass (remix)

What? This guys been kickin ass for years? Apparently I’ve been living under a rock somewhere.

The complete Summer 2008 Mixtape in zip format here

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2008 Extra Baggage Mixtape

March 14th, 2008

I really hate to call this conglomeration of tunes a “mixtape”, because there is no coherent theme. Other than it’s pretty good stuff that I don’t have time to post about. Most of it (but not all) was garnered from the bowels of payplay.fm, a great source of eclectic indie music. I tried to sort through the stuff that I “borrowed” from other blogs and eliminate it, but some of it was too good to pass up. Unfortunately, not all creators of mp3’s are as anal about creating tags as I am. So some of these tags may not read correctly in your mp3 player of choice. Enjoy!

The Black Keys – Girl Is On My Mind

Wooden Shjips – Lucy’s Ride

The National Lights – O, Ohio

Black Sheep – Similak Child (yes, I do listen to this and I do like it!)

10 Mile Crossing – Knob Creek

Hoax Funeral – Forest Road Two

Sol Driven Train – Sleeping People (more about these guys to come in the near future)

Stevie Tombstone – Highway’s Made To Run

Clash of Influence – Along For The Ride

Mice And Rifles – Carefree Americans (A random download that was a very pleasant surprise!)

Kellie Rucker – Take Me As I Am

Zac Brown Band – Whatever It Is (amazing how a song posted a year and a half ago could max out my bandwidth over a year later. Congrats to the success of the Zac Brown Band!)

Grinnin Barrett Band – House Up Ahead (Who new that New Hampshire could boogey?)

Nathan Davis – Carolina Sky (Brilliant North Carolina songwriter whose life ended tragically.)

Bamboojuice – Icicles

Arjun – Longass

Zegg – Send Your Blue Skies

Download the entire 2008 Extra Baggage Mixtape in one convenient zip file

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Best of 2007 Mix Tape

January 15th, 2008

I’m thinking this is more of what I had in mind for the previous post.

Here are the songs that were replayed for days, weeks, and yes even months on my mp3 player during that bygone year of 2007. Yes, I realize that all of these songs were not released in 2o07. But to dwell on that would be to miss some of the great songs that possessed my soul at some point in 2007. Enjoy!

The Hold Steady – Let’s start off the list with a surprise. The surprise being that I actually like this band. The Hold Steady is like a 21st century version of Smash Mouth that actually rocks. And this song is the one by THS that got replayed the most in 2o007:

The Hold Steady – Chips Ahoy
From: Boys and Girls In America – Buy MP3 at amazon.com

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Stephen Simmons – Here’s another guy that I discovered through Tammy at Moonstruck Promotions. Stephen Simmons is one of those alt.country singer/songwriter types who has received critical acclaim, and definitely deserves to be a household name. Fortunately for us, he has stayed true to his music and hasn’t sold his soul to the Nashville types who would cram him into their cookie cutter molds. Who needs another Toby Traceatim Straitumchesney anyway?

Stephen Simmons – Betty I’m Married from the album Last Call released in 2006 which you can buy here.

Here are some more great albums from Stephen Simmons:

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Jerry Jeff Walker - I’m cheating a little bit on this one. But this song is fun to sing along to. Go ahead, try it. You’ll like it!

Jerry Jeff Walker – Navajo Rug – November 12, 1990 Minneapolis, MN

If you are good boys and girls, maybe I’ll post this whole show at a later date. Or maybe not?
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The Gougers (fka The Sidehill Gougers) – The Gougers are a hot little Texas band that needs to come to the WNC to play! When I first heard the Train song, I was blown away. You will be too. Unfortunately, the Gougers acoustic endeavors have not captured my attention as much as this tune. But their latest release showcases the group’s songwriting skills.

The Gougers – Train Song (aka Boxcar Full Of Heartache)

Support the band and buy their newest release, A Long Day For The Weathervane:

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Hundred Year Flood – I have a message for the great state of Texas that I must deliver: Quit hogging all of your musicians and let them out of the state at least once a year! People all over WNC could be boogieing to this song if you would play fair and just share! Thank you.

Hundred Year Flood – Kingdom of Cold from Blue Angel

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The Bees / A Band of Bees - How did an entire year go by without me hearing this song? How do I not remember a blasted thing about eighth grade? Will somebody get Robert Stack on the horn, we’ve got a mystery on our hands. He’s dead? Huh?

A Band Of Bees – These Are The Ghosts from the album Octopus

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Of course my favorite bands of the year were on constant replay. I’m surprised my mp3 player didn’t start singing “All the Wine” during the night on November 3rd. Here are the winners for the most played tunes of the year (scientifically tabulated of course) which have already been featured elsewhere on the Lounge:

The National – All The Wine, Ada, You’ve Done It Again Virginia
The Everybodyfields – Don’t Turn Around, Everything’s Okay
Bucktown Kickback – Valley, A Shooting Star

Shinjak’s Listening Lounge 2007 Mixtape zipfile