There's a hot tip from my girlfriend. She says she listened to these guys a while ago, then forgot about them and then found the link somewhere on her computer. I'm talking about Portland, Oregon-based quartet Botanist. It's very mellow indie pop with electronic beats and a soft voice. They've got some nice arrangements there and a new, selftitled album out. You can check out three of their new songs on their Myspace.

Another band whose awesomeness I had no idea about is indie rock band The Good Life from Omaha, and being on Saddle Creek they're probably pretty well-known. Anyway. The other day I came across an acoustic version of October Leaves and fell in love with it. There is actually a limited edition of their third album Album Of The Year which features very pretty acoustic versions of the same songs on a second CD. If you can, get your hands on a copy of this one because these versions are brilliant.

• Botanist — Rifles Shoot Hearts
  from Botanist
• Botanist — Fluorescent Microwave
  from Botanist
• Botanist — Motor
  from Botanist
• The Good Life — Heartbroke
  from Help Wanted Nights
• The Good Life — You Don't Feel Like Home To Me
  from Help Wanted Nights
• The Good Life — A New Friend
  from Album Of The Year
• The Good Life — Always A Bridesmaid
  from Lovers Need Lawyers
• The Good Life — I Am An Island
  from Black Out

Buy Botanist — Botanist and/or The Good Life — Album Of The Year (Limited Edition).

Au Revoir Simone are a bunch of girls from Brooklyn who play pretty and pretty sad keyboard pop.

There's a band that would have definitely worth checking out when they were still around: Neutral Milk Hotel. But one would have had to live in Denver in the 90s. Two Headed Boy has an intensity that peels off your skin.

Attention, download:

• Neutral Milk Hotel — Holland, 1945

And listen to this:

• Neutral Milk Hotel — Two Headed Boy

Over at beatcast.tv there are videotaped concerts of Pennines, of Dartz, of Cats And Cats And Cats and other english bands. The video and sound quality is extraordinary!

Plenty of Bands, England's going mad!

Dance rock band Dartz will be playing a little Europe tour in April. The other day someone said, Kopenhagen is beautiful, so go there and check them out:

• 12.Apr.2009, NBI, Berlin
• 14.Apr.2009, Lades, Kopenhagen
• 15.Apr.2009, Shadrak, Groningen

There's other cool bands touring soon, too: Colour are going to tour with Data.Select.Party in England.

Another recommendation of mine is the band Secondsmile, whose music constantly switches from silent singer-songwriter music to noisy harcore. I also like a band that sound like autumn light, they're called Pennines and the 90s emo revival band Look I'm A Ghost.

This week I fell in love with the band Scholars. One of their members, Tom Woodstock, (who also has an awesome project called Elevens) has a small studio in a shack where they record all this cool stuff.

There's a review on Scholars' Myspace saying they sound like Hell Is For Heroes, which isn't exactly true, but they were great as well. Their Myspace says they broke up one or two months ago. Too bad.

Gestern vor der Burlesque-Probe saßen Matze und ich im meinem Zimmer rum und haben The Anniversary gehört, und ich dachte so, hm, was machen die eigentlich jetzt so? Weil die haben sich ja 2004 aufgelöst und irgendwas muss man ja machen danach.

Kurz mal rumrecherchiert, drei von denen spielen jetzt bei The Only Children, und dann gibt's auch noch D*R*I, die letzten November ein Album gemacht haben. Plus Soloprojekte, Josh Berwanger und White Flight.

Auf jeden Fall runterladen:

• The Anniversary - The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
• The Anniversary - All Things Ordinary
• The Anniversary - Sweet Marie
• The Only Children - Change Of Living

Denn mal schönes Wochenende!

Hello highway, goodbye L.A.! Hier ein Schmankerl für die countryesk angehauchte Singer/Songwriter-Fraktion: Arabella Harrisson. Die Dame spielte seinerzeit Bass spielte bei den And/Ors und davor bei Jejune, welches beides auch endzeitgeile Bands waren.

Rechtsklicken, Ziel speichern unter, hören und freuen:

• The And/Ors - As We Play The Tape Tricks Us
• The And/Ors - Flexiclocks
• The And/Ors - Screams Nicole

John und ich machen gleich Roadie für Blast Furnace in Lübeck. Uff. Euch ein weniger arbeitsreiches schönes Wochenende!

Übrigens: Falls ihr mal zuviel Zeit habt: Bei epitonic und Insound kann man ungefähr ALLES(!) von irgendwelchem Indie-Zeugs runterladen, lesen undsoweiter.

So, ich hab mir da mal was ausgedacht. Gegen die Wochenendlangeweile gibt es jetzt Beschäftigungstherapie: Den Wochenendpost. Jeden Freitag oder Samstag (je nachdem wie ich Zeit hab) gibt es jetzt einen Post mit interessantem Gedöns aus der nicht-DDD!?-Musikwelt.

Also, Klappe die erste: Gäbe es sowas wie Doubledotdash!? Illinois, dann wären es diese Jungs und Mädels... guckt bzw. hört Euch alles auf joanfrc.com an, die Bands sind ausnahmslos ein Traum! Um nur einige zu nennen (Bandnamen klicken um auf deren MySpace-Seiten zu kommen): American Football, The Promise Ring, Cap'n'Jazz, Joan Of Arc, Owls,… die müssten auch alle untereinander verlinkt sein.

Dann mal Ohren waschen und rein mit den herrlichen Frequenzen! Schönes Wochenende!

PS: Wenn ihr Vorschläge für Wochenendposts habt, immer her damit!