1 – Something About You – Hayden James – Aussie producer is the purest of house, tinkering with tempo, slowing it down to a crawl on the bridge before readying a steady pounding mid-tempo sound. It goes deeper and deeper before free falling out -as far from dropping the bass as you can get – B
2 -Sun Came Out When I Met You, Son – Daytripper – Former Ramona and Girl Called Johnny lead singer Karen Anne, returns with Daytripper. I’ve only heard this acoustic demo sad song about happy things midtempo love song, but it is a goodie, working a euphemism for all it’s worth: “jump into my ocean… the water’s perfect every time of year” – B+
3 – New York’s Alright (If You Like Sex And Phones) – The Gotobeds – Eagerly awaiting this band’s gig at Cake Shop tonight, this is worthy of prime Strokes, I mean pre-2002 Strokes – A-
4 – Steve McQueen – Ramona – “Looking for something else…” Karen Anne on this sticky song with “oh oh ohs…” aplenty and a dream of a song chased and caught – A
5 – New York City – Ramona – Their strummy knockabout ode to nyc, her home away from home, I was in a bar with Karen Anne and her manager former Altered Images current Texas Johnny McElhone, when he tried to convince her to change it from New York to Detroit – A-
6 Detroit – Texas – So Johnny had his wife cover it, instead. Not bad, and it makes sense, I cmon, if not nyc, surely Motown. As an added plus, it tributes Bobby Bare – B+
7 – Excuse Me – A$AP Rocky – This is a big song, nice hook, funny “what you mean we got weed and cocaine and bricks for sale…” – A-
8 – SNL 40th – Kanye West – 4 songs, 17 minutes, from “Jesus Walks” to “Only You” to “Wolf” and it couldn’t be better. His best live moment this year. Especially “Wolf” – A-
9 – It’s Not A Joke – Charlie Funk – Charlie is funky as fuck and Tomas returns to his No Wave roots on this skronky weird horn ridden song… not released yet but it will be – A
10 – Platform – M.I.A. – How is it possible this woman still sounds ahead of the EDM curve. One of the strangest rock stars we’ve ever had – B+
