Owen's X10 Blog

The Lola Report…

So if you’ve read my blog before you probably know music is a top priority in my life. If I’m not playing it myself then I most likely have my Ipod blaring my favorite bands (as I do most days at X10). Don’t worry, I’m only going to be deaf in one ear – I keep the other one open so I can hear Marko’s demands. When I’m at home I run to my computer and fire up my X10 Lola System so I can have the music throughout my apartment. I figured being that it is so important in my life I should do an occasional update on what bands and artists are on my playlist at the time.

This week: Bayside and Idiot Ghost

- Bayside –
I tried my hardest to avoid any band that could be thrown into the crowd of bands labled as EMO these days. Why, well because most of them are extremely annoying. I just checked wikipedia.org (one of my favorite internet valuables) to see how they define the genre of EMO.

They say:
“Emo is a subgenre of hardcore punk music. Since its inception, emo has come to describe several independent variations, linked loosely but with common ancestry. As such, use of the term (and which musicians should be so classified) has been the subject of much debate.”
See – even the wikipedia has trouble defining emo. To me Rock is Rock, if it’s good then it’s good and vice versa.

After that long intro about EMO, how about a bit about Bayside. Well let’s see after a long week of work I was drifting out of consciousness on my lazy boy with FUSE (a non MTV music channel) playing. Just as I was about to slip away into sleeping I heard a few chords that widened my eyes. On the screen I saw a few New York looking guys playing the kind of new music I haven’t heard in a while; the good kind. It got better when they went into a few guitar solos. It seems in the past few years the solo has faded from the world of mainstream rock – why – well I think the talent steeply declined as well but that’s a whole different blog. So I’ve downloaded two of their Cd’s and done a little research on them and I think they’ll be on my nano for quite a while now.

The Good: Fun guitars and the return of the solo. Fearlessly Interesting lyics.
The Bad: The music associated with Bayside. Some songs seem too similar.
Best Song: Devotion and Desire.

- Idiot Ghost –

A few years back a good friend of mine, Shelby, took me to see Dave Matthews at the Gorge. (Yay lets go see Dave, as his drone of fans would say). I used to like some of his music, but that’s not really why we were there. There was a band, The Peat Moss Band, which opened for DMB. Shelby and her family were friends with members of the band. The show was great; I clearly remember a very impressive cover of Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees”.

Well fast-forward to last week when Shelby handed me a new CD. Idiot ghost – comprised of the two lead members of and older band called Peat Moss. So I threw it in my cd player and I have to say it’s probably the best album from locals I have heard in quite some time. Written, Performed and Produced all by the same two fellows out of seattle washington. Tthe CD is a medium tempo Indie Rock style album. Hopefully I will catch them playing sometime soon.

So who might I compare the band Idiot Ghost to? Well their songs vary in style and tempo, but Sara mentioned Iron & Wine in her blog. I hear glimpses of Coldplay, and was told of a shins influence. What I find most amazing is the recording quality. There is wonderful layering, and vocal crafting. I believe they are without website at the moment. Infact if you search google for their name - my blog seems to come up around the third result. They do have a myspace page with songs and concert listings.

The Good: Exceptional Vocals and songwriting. Definitely My Taste.
The Bad: They aren’t on the radio.
Best Song: Undecided

Check out their myspace page for songs and band info by clicking here