Inbox Pick: The Morning Benders

Last time I featured this upandcoming Bay Area band called The Morning Benders, it was for their very promising EP titled Loose Change. Since then, it appears these guys have been hard at work refining their craft, and the result is another forthcoming EP titled Boarded Doors. They've graciously offered up two tracks from the second EP for our enjoyment, and enjoy this you will. These songs have that neat classic rock undertone cast in staggering sing-along catchy refrains that beg for the right kind of appreciation - these guys are not some indie pretenders trying to impress with instrumentation skills, there is some real attention to detail here that will produce greater magic someday, soon.

Damnit Anna
Last Today

Buy Loose Change.

Jason Collett: Live, Roter Salon der Volksbuehne, Berlin, Feb 28, 2006.

Jason Collett is undoubtedly my favorite Canadian singer-songwriter, and it's always a pleasure to feature his rich sets on this blog. His last album, Idols of Exile, showed signs of greatness, and I know the next will be perfection. Can't wait. If you don't believe it yet, listen to this fantastic acoustic set played live in Berlin last year. This is the complete broadcast of the incomplete set, on RBB Radio1 "Sommernachtskonzerte", August 9, 2006. The sublime Feist even makes an appearance on "Hangover Days".

Bitter Beauty
Pink Night
Fire
Feral Republic
Hangover Days
Brownie Hawkeye
No Redemption Song
Pavement Puddle Stars

Josh Ritter: KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic Session, June 9, 2006.

Singer-songwriter Josh Ritter will play my town tomorrow, at the Powerplant. As luck will have it, I am away on bizness early Tuesday morning, so yours truly can't make it, regrettably. I was hoping this would be my chance to launch myself into Ritter-love, as I have criminally neglected getting into his music up till now. Well, thank God for KCRW, I can at least approximate my loss.

Note: The files that follow are tagged to the date of recording, not the date the show aired.

Download single zip of all songs.

Intro  
Idaho
In The Dark
Girl In The War  
A Good Man  
Best For The Best
Interview With Nic  
Other Side  
Wolves
Thin Blue Flame

Josh's latest is The Animal Years.