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Stolen Identity Offers Some Great Downtempo Chillout Music

I driving home from work the other day and tuned to KCRW which is the only station I listen to in LA for music when this song came on that I really liked. So when I got home I made my way to the KCRW Live Playlist to find out who the band was.

The name of the band was Stolen Identity and the track was “Hey”. As I often do when I really like a song I started to research the band to try and find more tracks. It was very hard to find any information online for them as the band name makes for a useless search on Google and it turns out they have a limited presence online.

Delicious downtempo, vocally stimulating chill out music for the beach or the poolside with chill house soundscapes, and relaxing, intelligent, groovy beats. Songs with soul and beautiful melodies that make you feel chilled out.

The description above is from CD Baby which provides lots of background on the band. Chris Paul is a highly proclaimed DJ and producer from London and vocalist Mia Victoria hooked up with him here in LA where they are now based out of.

I was finally able to find they had a page on MySpace as well as Last.fm and was able to listen to a few more tracks. I really liked them (including one titled Argentina…sweet!) and wanted more. So I made my way to Amazon where I was happy to find their first release Hearts & Stories available for download in the MP3 store (sample tracks and link below).

It became the first MP3 CD I have ever bought from Amazon and I’m really happy I did. If you like this style of music these guys are fantastic. I can’t wait to hear more from them.

“Hey” - Live

11 Songs I Think Should Have Made VH1’s Greatest Songs of the 90s

I really enjoyed the 5 part (and 5 hour if you don’t have a DVR) special “100 Greatest Songs of the 90s” that VH1 ran. You can see the complete list on the VH1 site here. It did make me wonder though whether there were some songs that were neglected from the list. So I opened up Winamp and started looking through my music to see if I could spot any. It didn’t take long to see that there were some blaring omissions. So behold my list of songs. One thing to note is that I didn’t bother to include a song if the band had any that made the top 100.

So here’s my list:

1. Depeche Mode - Enjoy the Silence - from Violator - 1990
I’ve been a fan of this band since the mid 80s. I’ve seen them live many times and I buy they’re new releases sight unseen. Martin Gore has a knack for coming up with some great lyrics that make the gears in your brain spin.
More 90s songs: Personal Jesus, Policy of Truth, I Feel You

2. Moby - South Side - from Play - 1999
You can throw a dart at the “Play” CD and probably have a worthy song but it was the track that paired him with Gwen Stefani that packed a 1-2 punch for me.
More 90s songs: Go, Porcelain, Anthem

3. Tori Amos - Silent all these Years - from Little Earthquakes - 1992
Tori is considered a great artist by many. And this is regarded as her best CD ever by most reviewers. Here’s one of the most powerful lyrics: “Boy you best pray that I bleed real soon. How’s that thought for ya?”.
More 90s songs: Crucify, Cornflake Girl, God

4. Nine Inch Nails - Hurt - from The Downward Spiral - 1994
Closer was the bigger hit, but man…Hurt is a very powerful song.
More 90s songs: Closer, March of the Pigs, The Fragile

5. Seal - Prayer for the Dying - from Seal - 1994
Many would argue that the tracks Crazy or Killer from his 1991 debut should have made it, but I’m a bigger fan of Seal’s Chill Out tracks that would come several years later.
More 90s songs: Crazy, Killer, Kiss from a Rose

6. Bjork - Hyper Ballad - from Post - 1995
I’ve always been a huge Bjork fan. It actually started when she was in The Sugarcubes. I was lucky enough to see them open up for U2 many moons ago. She’s also undeniably one of the best music video artists out there.
More 90s songs: Human Behavior, All is full of Love, Hunter

7. A Tribe Called Quest - Check the Rhime - from The Low End Theory - 1991
I was a fan of some Rap back in the 90s and this was probably the CD I played the most. These guys had a knack for the verse and some sweet beats. Qtip is dope.
More 90s songs: Buggin’ out, The Scenario, Award Tour

8. Dave Mathews Band - Ants Marching - from Under the Table and Dreaming - 1994
Dave came out of nowhere with a very unique sound and a bandmate who plays a mean ass fiddle. I first heard the song on KCRW here in LA.
More 90s songs: Satellite, So Much to Say, Crash into Me

9. No Doubt - Sunday Morning - from Tragic Kingdom - 1995
Before Gwen became a pop star, and there’s nothing wrong with that, she was the rockin’ voice behind her ska inspired band. This song still makes me want to jump repeatedly every time I hear it.
More 90s songs: Just a Girl, Spiderwebs, Simple Kind of Life

10. Hole - Celebrity Skin - from Celebrity Skin - 1998
I must admit to having both pre and mis-judged what Hole would sound like knowing that this was the wife of Kurt Cobain and was probably funded by him. Boy was I wrong. Celebrity skins has one of the most powerful openings of any song. Courtney proved she wasn’t a novelty. Well….musically speaking.
More 90s songs: Doll Parts, Miss World, Awful

11. Creed - Higher - from Human Clay - 1999
This is definitely a band that didn’t get the critical acclaim they deserve. Reviewers claimed they were “derivative” and “formulaic”. Uh, had they listened to pop music? And it wasn’t even as bad as it is now back in the 90s.
More 90s songs: With Arms Wide Open, My Own Prison, Are you Ready

Turns out that VH1 has a message board dedicated to their “Greatest” shows so you can join the fray if you want here

Mark Ronson and Daniel Merriweather Cover The Smiths

I first discovered Mark Ronson (as I do most of music) while listening to KCRW. He has a pretty interesting Bio.

Here’s a snip:

DJ Mark Ronson is a sought-after turntablist, born to rock royalty, who’s worked with such diverse artists as Macy Gray, Jay-Z, and comedian Jimmy Fallon. The son of legendary rock guitarist Mick Ronson and the stepson of guitarist Mick Jones of Foreigner

His recent work titled “Version“ features a diverse pairing of songs and vocalists. One song is a cover of The Smiths “Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before”. I’m a big fan of The Smiths (glad to see Johnny Marr join Modest Mouse) and have continued to follow Morrissey, and had heard the original song more times than I can count. I’m not easily impressed by cover songs, yet this one caught my ear by surprise. You can listen to the original and watch the video on Youtube here as a reference.

Morrissey-solo.com writes:

The segueing with The Supremes’ “You Just Keep Me Hangin’ On” is just one of many remarkable points on this excellently wistful version.

You can read the rest here and on that same page I read a criticism regarding the “yeahs” in the song which I hadn’t really paid attention too until listening to it again closely. One of them actually occurs in what has to be one of the strangest lyrics ever uttered in a song. “And the pain was enough to make a shy, bald, buddhist reflect and plan a mass murder”. Although I agree that the “yeahs” are un-necessary (especially after that lyric) it didnt’ take away from my enjoyment of the song.

The vocalist on the track is Daniel Merriweather. You can learn more about him and hear the track on his (gulp) MySpace page.

I wasn’t very impressed by the video, but you can view it on Youtube if you are interested.

The rest of the songs on the CD are good and another one that really stands out is a cover of Radiohead’s Just. This CD is definitely worth checking out.

Volunteering, Ray Bradbury, and Chalga

I have a hard time posting quick stream of conscious posts and usually feel the need to re-read, edit, research etc…before submitting a post. Reason being is that I usually don’t want to just splat something up for the sake of it. I want it to be something worth contributing that people will find interesting. Many times there’s just a neat site I wandered onto or some weird thing happened in the day. Now I have Twitter for some of these diversions, but for the most part I usually want to expand on them. So, in an effort to try and post more I will be trying to do post more when I have a group of items that I can lump together to create a single interesting post.

I think I already broke the rules by defining them in that previous paragraph. Oh well. On to it.

This was a great week. I had a kickoff meeting with a great non-profit organization that I will be doing some web contracting for. I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve always wanted to feel that my work was somehow making a difference and here’s a chance to do it. Along the same lines I also volunteered to be the coach for my daughter’s soccer team and yesterday we had our first game. Although for her age group it is encouraged not to keep score, the game unofficially ended with my team winning 1-0. We had about 3 practices prior to the game and it was really exciting to see the work payoff and the happiness they had. I think I may get addicted to this volunteering thing.

I also made my way out with my son to the Los Angeles Festival of Books which is an annual event that is held on the UCLA campus. This was my first year going, but I was very excited because I had recently been in touch with a friend that I hadn’t spoken to in over ten years. In our recent conversation he let me know that he had recently been accompanying Ray Bradbury to help him at book signings. I decided to go and surprise him as well as get an autographed copy of “The Homecoming” for my son. This is a beautiful book that was illustrated by comic book artist Dave McKean. The other thing my friend helped me discover was that Ray Bradbury is a great poet. To be honest I wasn’t a huge Bradbury fan, but after reading a few of his poems I have to say I probably will become one. His books of poetry are mostly out of print but I was lucky to get one from ebay. The one I was able to find on Amazon is called “I Live by the Invisible: New & Selected Poems“. I’m really looking forward to reading these and getting them signed in the near future.

Lastly I mainly listen to KCRW radio here in LA. It’s a great public radio station, and is the primary source for me to discover new music. They offer a webcast which I can’ recommend enough if you want to find truly alternative non-pop music. But I also listen to NPR as well. I was listening to a story the other day on Marketplace called “Working: Life as a Bulgarian pop star“. It’s an interesting story about a Bulgarian genre of music called Chalga. I recommend listening to story as it was pretty interesting. I’m always intrigued to discover international music I’ve never heard before. Here’s some videos for a quick introduction.