Music Monday

I know, I know, I know. We've been kinda lax on the blogging lately. Honestly, it's due to a nauseating combination of massive business, total laziness, and travel, some fun, some not so fun. But you know what, that sounds like a whole lotta' whinin' to me, right? Right? So we're going to endeavor this week to make more blog posts, fewer excuses.

To start things off this Music Monday, we're featuring one of our favorite new-ish bands—Baltimore's Wye Oak. We went to a CMJ showcase a couple years ago to see Cut Off Your Hands (whom we reviewed WAY back when) and were caught off-guard when we were floored by the duo that makes up the spremely un-duo-sounding Wye Oak. They sway and swoon through songs, blowing them up to rocking, sonically-impressive heights and then pulling them tightly in to tiny wisps of emotions that endear you as a listener and as a human being. The drumming of multi-instrumentalist, Andy Stack, and guitar-playing of Jenn Wasner are both superb and work well with the surprisingly unique-but-familiar-sounding song-writing, but the real driving force of the music is Wasner's voice. Honest, exposed, and beautiful, it gives the lyrics a gravity that swallows you whole.

Stack + Wasner are releasing their third album, Civilian, on Merge Records March 8 and it's title track is our Song of the Week. Check it out. You will love it. We personally challenge you not to love it. When you're done loving it, head over to NPR, where you can stream the whole album for free until it's release next week.

Journal of the Movement of the World

Music Monday

As we all remain in prolonged mourning for Le Tigre and it's long-ago-announced hiatus, we also must celebrate, at long last, the debut from JD Samson's MEN.

Originally started back in 2007 as a DJ and remix side-project with the third Tigre, Johanna Fateman, Samson's slowly grown the group's presence over the past few years, bringing in her bandmates from Hirsute to record and play live shows while keeping Fateman on as a creative collaborator.

Now they've got a recently released full-lenght out on LA's I Am Sound Records, who've brought us such finds as Florence and the Machines and Restless People. What we've heard sounds pretty party.

Check out this week's Song of the Week to get a taste—it's a non-album version of their album track, "Who Am I to Feel so Free," and it features Antony Hegarty, of Antony and the Johnsons, on lead vocals. It's supremely disco-awesome...but we have to say, we LOVE the original. You can check it out on MEN's site, buy the CD at I Am Sound, and download songs on iTunes. Ah, digital choice. Oh, and they're playing Bowery in two weeks and the Music Hall of Williamsburg in April.

MEN photo by Donnie Cervantes; Antony photo by Alice O'Malley.

Music Monday

For some reason, Valentine's Day reminds us more of the cheesey, steel drum filled, synth-soaked 80's than anything else. Which is why, more often than not, we often think of our good friend and master entertainer, Billy Motion around this time every year (pictured, with me, above).

With his smooth stylings and finely crafted Caribbean jamz, it's impossible not to be put in the mood for love, as they say, and it's the perfect soundtrack for a day of red cellophane, super-sweet chocolates, and neon palm trees. To my knowledge, Mr. Motion has not yet graced us with what would certainly be sterling, jive-inducing studio recordings, so instead, on this luv-filled edition of Music Monday, we'll settle for giving you a taste of the next-best thing—the chilled-out funk of Toro Y Moi, AKA Chazwick Bundick. His songs somehow bring in some of the sounds of the early eighties without coming off as totally insincere. And, you've got to admit, they are catchy and will make you—ahem—shake your groove thing. In a chilled out Don Johnson way, let's say. Check out this week's Song of the Week, "Still Sound," from Bundick's second album, Underneath the Pine, out next Tuesday. He and his band will be playing Music Hall of Williamsburg and Bowery in April with one of our (and the rest of the interwebs's) recent favorites, Braids.

Need more? Check out TyM's video for the same song. Oh, wait, you need more MOTION! I see. In that case, check out the video AFTER that of Mr. Motion with Loverboy featuring...er...me...on...inflatable guitar. Mm-hm. That's right.

Thanks to Dennis for the Motion pic and Martha for the Motion vid.

Music Monday

We first heard of Brooklyn's Lia Ices two years ago, when our friends at Sir—a lovely independent Brooklyn boutique—held a Fashion's Night Out party featuring what we are told was an amazing set by the songstress (we were galavanting through the southern hemisphere at the time—huzzah!)

Checking out her debut album, Necima, we were really impressed with the song-writing and grace with which she both sang and arranged some artistically sparse instrumentation, but it lacked a bit of punch and creativity. Thankfully, that's not at all the case with her follow-up, Grown Unknown, just out on Jagjaguwar—the still-kicki'n-it label that started up just one college town away from us back in the mid-ninties. COINCIDENCE?! ...yes, definitely.

Back to the point, her sophomore LP shows a much more intricate and nuanced song-writing style, with Ices bringing in non-traditional instrumentation and building a latticework of shivering, wintery music around her beautifully soaring, ghost-like vocals. So, if you missed it as part of last year's Rock Your Own Adventure, be sure to check out the album's title track and, if you like it, head to Ices' MySpace page and take a listen to her duet with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, "Daphne." On that one, be sure to wait for the mid-song shift—truly cool.

Photo by Eric Ogden.

The Troyday Show

What's that graphic about, you ask? Well, reader, I'll tell you. NBC's Today Show announced last month that they'd be holding their first ever viewer chili cook-off and, realizing that I did, in fact, have the best chili recipe in the world, I entered. And you know what? I was THIS close (picture me doing that thumb-index finger thing and squinting) to getting on. I totally got a screening call last week (no, for real!) and, after what I have to admit was a pretty charming, wit-filled conversation with the PA who screened me, I felt pretty confident that I'd make the cut.

Sadly, as you may or may not have seen this morning, I totally did not. They instead went with 1) some dude who did a scary-ass pig call and made a beefy apple (?) chili; 2) a Texan who made a beanless, insanely meat-filled chili; and 3) a dude who did a chicken and turkey chili. Now, I'm sure I could go all jerky vegan on you and claim that they most likely felt like they'd get laughed out of the room if one of the three chilis in their first ever chili cook-off was totally meatless and, god forbid, VEGAN...but, as you well know, that's not my style. Plus Matt Lauer wasn't even there today, so what's the point in being on the Today Show?

No, no, there's no bitterness. Instead, I'll chalk it up to one of those 'honored to be nominated' moments and re-post the recipe here for anyone in need of some ideas for this Super Bowl weekend. I don't think we're alone in our view of the event, being more excited about the food involved than the reason for it, so do enjoy, dear readers.

We originally posted this recipe back in January of 2009, but have since slightly modified it, ousting the soy and opting for some seitan instead and making a few other minor adjustments over time. This is a somewhat spicy chili, but you can control that with how much chipotle you put in there, and it's totally one of our favorite, most frequently used recipes. As we mentioned with the original post, it's also AWESOME paired with a 'cheesy' sauce, making a delectable vegan chili-cheese sauce for dippin' and such. We're planning on exactly that this Sunday and usually make it by simmering some almond milk with spices (salt, a good bit of nutritional yeast, cracked white pepper, and maybe a dash of five Chinese spice) until it gets a good taste and then lower the heat, adding in some Daiya at the end. Anyway, the chili—

Smokey Jo's Chili

- 2 Large Vidalia Onions (or some sweet, yellow onion), diced

- 2 Large Green Bell Peppers, diced

- 5 Cloves of Garlic, smashed, peeled, and chopped

- 4 tbsp Olive Oil

- 5-8 Chipotle Peppers, depending on how spicy you like things, chopped

(these can be found canned in a lot of stores now and dried in specialty shops)

- 15-20 oz of Seitan, finely chopped so it begins to resemble crumbles or ground protein (two loaves or so if it's homemade, which is ideal, two pack or so, store-bought—here's a word or two on good seitan recipes in an earlier post)

- 40.5 oz Red Kidney Beans

- .25 cup Teriyaki or Sweet Soy Sauce

- 28 oz can Crushed Tomatoes (go Sclafani and never look back)

- 14.5 oz can Diced Tomatoes (you can go with whatevs, but we like using flame-roasted ones)

- 4 tbsp Chili Powder

- 1 tbsp Natural Hickory Smoke Flavor

- 1 tbsp Ground Black Pepper

- 1 tbsp Smoked Paprika

- 2 tsp Salt

- 2 Bay Leaves

- pinch of Ground Ginger

- pinch of Cinnamon

Dice the onions into small, roughly 1/2-inch pieces or smaller, chop the garlic into tiny bits, and roast over medium heat in a cast iron skillet with olive oil until the onions are starting to become translucent and garlic browns a little. Add the seitan, stir, and brown for about five minutes. Add the hickory smoke, quickly stir and cover so the mixture absorbs the smoke taste, cooking for about five minutes. Uncover and stir, scraping the mixture from the bottom of the pan if need. Cover and cook for another five minutes. Add diced chipotle peppers and teriyaki/sweet soy sauce to give the mixture a spicy sweetness. Simmer for another five minutes, covered, adding a bit of water or broth if the mixture starts to dry out or sticks too much. Add diced green peppers, again about 1/2-inch pieces or smaller, cooking covered for five minutes or until the peppers become deep green, but not too dark or too soft.

In a separate large pot (8 quart or so), toss in the drained kidney beans (not rinsed) and all the tomatoes. Back at the skillet, add 1 tsp of salt, 1 tbsp chili powder, and cook off most of the liquid for 2 minutes or so, leaving the mixture a little saucy. Once that's done, give it a taste. It should taste pretty good at this point, but very concentrated in it's sweetness and spiciness. Carefully toss the mixture in the large pot with beans and tomatoes, mix it all together and put it on medium-low heat. Bring it to a low simmer and add the bay leaves, the rest of the salt, rest of the chili powder, and all of the remaining spices. If you like things more on the sweet side, add a little more cinnamon. Spicy? Add a bit more chili powder and black pepper. Simmer all that covered on low for one hour, stirring every so often to make sure it's circulating and the bottom is burning at all. This'll make, I don't know, 74 servings? So feel free to freeze some after your initial meal. It keeps.

Have a great weekend! And go Jets! Wait...

Journal of the Movement of the World

We know. Valentine's Day—yet ANOTHER holiday that's been co-opted by commerce and, thus, has lost it's proverbial soul, watered down and reduced to the meaningless buying of terribly vapid cards, heart-shaped boxes of mass-produced chocolates, and cookie-cutter jewelry ("Oh, he went to Jared's..."). And don't you even get us STARTED on prix fixe dinners, man.

Don't get me wrong, we're not the don't-invite-them-to-the-party types that'll talk your ear off about how, since you're ordering Chilean Sea Bass, you're effectively putting a choke-hold on your unborn baby or anything like that. On the contrary—we spend much of our time making fun of those types. I mean, how many people do you know that went vegetarian or stopped going to the circus because they were yelled at or guilted into it by the higher-than-thous? Not many, and there's good reason for it.

But I digress, our point is, yes, Valentine's Day could very easily be viewed in a realistically negative light. Why do you need Hallmark to tell you that you should do something for someone you love? You don't. But, that said, I personally love an excuse for any sort of celebration. There are far, far, far too many moments in life that genuinely call for remorse or sorrow or hard work to make things better, so, in my mind, I will take any and every opportunity to celebrate a damned thing. Even if that damned thing has a copyright mark by its title. Thus my penchant for drinking heavily and singing Irish folk songs in March and my strong desire to smell a pine tree indoors and give prettily wrapped gifts in December and my unwavering habit of inviting far too many friends over to eat far too much food in November. So it comes as no surprise, to me at least, that I very unashamedly feel the need to celebrate my love for my dear wife February 14th, despite the fact that I know little to nothing about this St. Valentine or his supposed sweet tooth. Does that mean I don't want to celebrate said love every other day? No. But, on the 14th, I get a free pass to go a little overboard, and I like that.

To that end, I have a suggestion for anyone reading who may feel a similar need to, say, buy jewelry or some such pretty thing for a loved one—check out Falling Whistles. Because, in this case, you have the opportunity to pair your desire for gift-giving with your desire to do some good in the world—100% of the proceeds from your purchase of a snazy, cool, and unique Falling Whistles necklace or any other merchandise will be used to restore the lives of war-affected kids in Congo through rehabilitation programs and stateside advocacy. If you don't know what's going on Congo, don't feel bad—it's woefully underreported here in the US. We were recently exposed to the conflict there and just how terrible and wide-reaching it is through some educational work on conflict-related sexual violence for UNIFEM and simply couldn't ignore what we learned. We strongly urge you to check out FW's site because they put everything into context and explain the situation much more adequately than we could. In short, though, it's a living hell on earth for the people who live there and stands as one of the largest and deadliest wars since World War II. And the good people at FW, who have been there and seen this first-hand, are trying to do something about it. Of course, there are many, many worthy organizations that have been doing good work there for years, but we feel the need to call out Falling Whistles. They've created another access point for people to learn about the tragedy going on there and exposed many who may have never heard a word about it to this cause.

Each whistle comes with a very nicely done little 'zine that explains the story behind the group (why a whistle, for instance) and what's going on in Congo which, yes, is a very sad but still heart-warming read. And each whistle can be worn with pride, acting less as a totem of 'hey, look, I care about this thing' and more as a sign of protest—'hey, I learned about this thing and I won't ignore it.' So, if you're looking for that perfect gift, fuck Jared. Go with this instead.