I know very little about car models and brands. It is just something that I was never interested in. I never really enjoyed playing with model car kits or with hot wheels. Like most boys of the 80's though, I owned my share of toy cars. I didn't really choose my toys and I sort of just used my imagination. I much preferred the spaceships to cars, actually, and I really thought we would all be driving some sort of spaceship by now anyway. It is 2010! Remember when that seemed so far away? I guess it just seemed like the year you would turn 20 if you were born in 1990!...which is a bit crazy to me still. The children of the 90's are growing up too. Movies obviously played a big part of the way I thought about the future. They influenced us all, and often more than what we learned in the textbooks, although I do remember learning about the future in school a bit. I remember having to write an essay in elementary school about what I thought the future would be like. I had to "invent" something that would be commonplace in the future. I would kill somebody to get a hold of that essay! I still have most of my high school and college papers but I think in high school I decided I wasn't ever gonna need to read my papers on Harriet Tubman or the Challenger shuttle disaster that were from middle and elementary school. I think they have been recycled back into other paper products at this point. My essay on the future might have been influenced by the movie Back to the Future more than anything I had been taught in the classroom, but I do remember having a good imagination -- or maybe I just combined the movies Tron and Back To the Future in my mind. Back To The Future came out in 1985. Tron came out in 1982. I would like to think I wrote this paper in 1981, but it may have been a couple of years after that. Maybe my teacher actually took my paper and sold it to Hollywood and made off with a million bucks! I really need to find that paper. I was talking to one of my friends the other day about my first movie memory. Both Tron and Back To The Future are early movie memories. I can still remember the theater I saw E.T. in and where I was sitting. I can also remeber Empire Strikes Back, which I think is my first movie theater memory. Back to the paper... I wrote about these highways that were all tracks. You would just get in your car and tell it where you wanted to go and it would drive there for you. My invention was great because I remember that I claimed, "No more car accidents!" I think I drew pictures and everything. The cars looked more like miniature limos and they came with their own cassette tape boom box, of course. I guess I was not smart enough to invent the mp3 or the Ipod. Or maybe I did and I just don't remember. It was a long time ago.

You are probably wondering how I got to be talking about all this if you are still reading along with my journey through my memories. I will relate it all to a new album I love very soon, don't you worry. I loved the Delorean in Back To The Future. And the car doors in my future highway that I designed opened up much like the Delorean in Back To The Future. So of course I was excited about a band named Delorean! It could have been some lame metal emo band that got to the name first, but I'm glad it was this Delorean, a band with a new album out on True Panther. The album is called Subiza. And yes, it does sound like the future...or maybe some version of the future that I imagined in the 80's. It sounds a bit like a fun beachy Miami Vice soundtrack at times. Or what the hip grandchildren of the Golden Girls would have been listening to. It is also spacey and dreamy. Beachgaze dream pop! I love the new music coming out from bands like Washed Out, Best Coast, Surfer Blood, and The Drums. It's getting me excited for a new generation of musicians. I love the shoegaze so I am of course excited about all the nugaze coming out this last decade, but this band is not nugaze. They are more influenced or at least sound like 90's house and pop dance. They sound more like Pictureplane than Beach House. It's Marky Mark meets the Beach Boys. It's the KLF meets OMD. It's just good. They don't really need a category.  This is my first time hearing Delorean but this is actually this Spanish band's third album. It's a fun dancey album! You should love it. I am already in love!


Listen to "Stay Close" by Delorean from the album Subiza:




Another one of my favorites is the brilliant Joy Formidable. However, I have been loving this album for a long time now. I am so happy that it has finally made its way out domestically and with a much larger pressing on CD and vinyl. A Balloon Called Moaning came out originally in a very limited box set. I am proud to be the owner of one of the 500 boxes put out by a great little record store in England. However, I was worried that this band would disappear before they could be heard by everyone. I wanted everyone to love them as much as I do. The album is just brilliant! It is short and perfect. It reminds me of the first time I heard Elastica or PJ Harvey. It really is that good. Led by a female singer, it is a more punk version of Brit pop. But they could have come out right along with Echobelly and Sleeper. And mix in some Throwing Muses and you might get a sense of what they sound like! I could not stop listening to this record -- I had to give it a break for a while but it is now gladly back in my rotation. It was in my top albums list of the year last year and I might just have to put it in my top albums list of this year too for its domestic release. Get it and love it! You really can't not fall in love with the Joy Formidable.


Listen to "Austere" by The Joy Formidable from the album A Balloon Called Moaning...



Buy the new album A Balloon Called Moaning by The Joy Formidable!



The National just released their new album last week. It is called High Violet. The National has been around since 1999 but this, their fifth album, might turn out to be their biggest album yet! Their first two albums were released on Brassland. Alligator came out in 2005 and The Boxer was released in 2007, both on Beggars Banquet. The Boxer was a really fantastic album. Many of us loved it and had high expectations for this new album, but I knew it would not just be another Boxer. It is just as good, it just takes some time to love. You've got to give the album a couple listens and let it get inside you. I have always love the dark and brooding men of indie rock -- the Tindersticks, Smog, and The Black Heart Procession are all some of my favorites, as well as the older Magnetic Fields albums, Arab Strap. All good stuff! I do love these guys and am happy to have them back in my life. This new album is on 4AD, which is a perfect home for them. I like the album packaging. I like the violet. I like the National. The songs are dark and there is no denying it. Some of the songs on this album are titled "Terrible Love," "Sorrow," Runaway," and "Afraid of Everyone." These are not happy songs, but everyone needs some music like this every once in a while. This band might help you explore the darker side of life, but hopefully it will help you through those dark times. Thank you, National.


Listen to "Bloodbuzz Ohio" by The National from the album High Violet:



Buy the new album High Violet by The National!


also out 5/4...






More! by Booka Shade











Forgiveness Rock by Broken Social Scene











MCMLXXX by Lazer Crystal











Together by The New Pornographers











Optimist by The New Young Pony Club











Baby Ouh! by Stereo Total











At Echo Lake by Woods







also out 5/11...






Sea of Cowards by Dead Weather











Relayted by Gayngs











Latin by Holy Fuck










No Singles by Japandroids











Nothing Hurts by Male Bonding












Warm Slime by Thee Oh Sees