Songs By People I Know (Kinda).

These tracks are by musicians who I think are better than most performers you’re likely to hear out there. They’re not on major labels, and as well as making top notch songs, they’re all very approachable, nice people. You should get to know them, too. Me, I’m putting them in order of familiarity, from “lifelong pal” to “traded a couple emails once.”

Squeaky

Birdy and #1 For Takeoff

The very first time I ever stood up on stage and sang, Harry was playing bass. It was at a coffeehouse at New College. We were in a bunch of bands together and he’s one of my bestest friends in the whole wide world. He wrote a thesis on Sonic Youth, and loves nothing more than whacking his guitar into some weird-ass tunings and serving people a steaming dish of melodic rock. Which is what he’s been doing in Gainesville since 1995, as part of Squeaky. They played their last show at Harry’s wedding earlier this year, which is a great sadness. Before that, they opened for pretty much every indie band worth listening to who ever hit G’ville. You can get more of their melodic crunch over here, at Nook and Cranny Records. I’d love this band even if Harry wasn’t in it, because they make my feet move, my head nod, and my stomach tie itself in little knots.

Actionslacks

Close to Tears

Actionslacks is a band from California. (Well, now it’s California and Maine. They get around.) Anyway, Marty and I were both in a few different bands at New College, but never the same ones at the same time. He’s the smartest drummer I know – not just smart as a person, but smart as a drummer. His band’s pretty smart overall, too… smart enough to know that music should be fun. Their slick power pop reminds me of Cheap Trick in the best possible way. This track is from their upcoming album, which promises to be lots of fun. It’s on The Self-Starter Foundation Records, and J. Robbins produced it. There are more mp3s at their site. Check ’em out.

Burnside Project

He Never Knew The Benefits of Caffeine.

Burnside Project was one of the bands I found on mp3.com back when I first started putting my own music on the internet. Those were the boom days, when any new technology would get money thrown at it by ravenous packs of venture capitalists. Sebadoh was still relevant, people were still going to raves, and a bunch of us home recordists were getting to hear each other over our 56k connections. Burnside Project (at the time, Rich called it “Beacon”) had a sound I was sort of striving for… that earnest, anguished vocal over simple guitar lines. Only Rich was also really into dance music – breakbeat, acid hop, whatever. His was the first band I heard that put the two styles together: indie lo-fi over techno. I loved it. And the great thing about mp3.com was that I could tell him so. He liked what I was doing, too, and wound up recording most of my new album. (I had to plug myself somewhere, right?) But his new album is so much better. It’s out on BarNone Records, and there are more mp3s and a video at his site. So follow the link.

Krista Detor

Blue Sky Fallen

I met Krista when I was doing some other recording down in Key Largo. She’s the long-lost biological sister of my friend Erynn. (Odd story: Krista was adopted as a baby, grew up other side of the country, but she and kid sister Erynn are eerily alike – same likes, same affinity for music and musicians…). Anyway, her husband (now ex) played bass on a song I was recording. Turns out, I should have got her to sing a few tracks, too. Maybe even co-written a couple … cuz she’s got that modern folk-pop thing that makes me go all goofy inside down pat. She’s got a self-released CD she’s selling through her site. Buy one. G’wan. You’ll like it, too.

Rebecca Hall

Come Around

I found Rebecca Hall mostly at random, cruising around mp3.com at work, looking for something not too objectionable to put in the headphones while I type. And I found Ms Hall. She’s seriously ginchy. Her voice reminds me of Jacqui McShee, the singer of the 60s folk-jazz group Pentangle. And, as it turns out, she’s done some singing for Pentangle’s guitarist John Renbourn. Her voice has the kind of beauty that should be on the radio all the time, but just isn’t, which is proof that there’s something deeply wrong with the Way Things Are. Songs like this, though, give me some kind of hope. (If the above link to the song doesn’t work, blame mp3.com’s new corporate overlords, and click here instead.) We swapped exactly three emails each, then I started ranting about marmalade and she never wrote back. Which is actually pretty reasonable.