If It's Too Loud...

Photo by Laura Moreau The legendary Dean Wareham (Luna, Galaxie 500, Dean & Britta) is set to release his fourth solo album and has released the title track. "That's the Price of Loving Me" kind of sounds like if Wareham had been releasing music in the 60's. The song has a conga rhythm and vintage Moog synthesizers which makes the song have a delightfully 60's crooner sound. Of course, this is a Dean Wareham song, so there is plenty of vintage indie rock sounds to balance the entire thing out. "That's the Price of Loving Me" is a beautiful and fun song from one of our all time favorite artists. Plus, what more do you want from a song than a killer Moog solo? Dean Wareham says of his latest single: “‘That’s the Price of Loving Me’ is about our life on the road but also a dream I had about our tour manager and dear friend Kiko, who passed away a couple years ago; he drove us around Europe in his Mercedes Sprinter with red zebra upholstery." Yo...

"Happy Xmas (War is Over)" is a very divisive Christmas song. I'm personally on #TeamHappyXmas, so I was thrilled to see that indie rock vets Dean & Britta had released a cover of the classic holiday song. We all know the original, and if you're familiar with Dean & Britta (or their work in Luna and Galaxie 500) you're going to be able to figure out what their cover of the song is going to sound like. It's a dreamy, swirly indie rock song slowed down just slightly from the original. Both Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips' vocals perfectly capture the hopeful feeling of the original but let some melancholy in, too. This is the kind of song that you already know if you're going to love or not. For one, I'm fully in. You can listen to Dean & Britta's version of "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" below. The song is available as a single with an original song ("Little Altar Boy") via Bandcamp . All proceeds will go to The Sled...

I love Halloween. It's by far my favorite holiday, but musically it always gets the shaft. Sure, you're going to hear "Monster Mash" roughly 1000 times this weekend, but not much else. Last year, I snagged Rodney Anonymous of The Dead Milkmen's Halloween playlist , but this year I decided we needed our own. While metal is always an obvious choice, I tried to keep it to a minimum (Danzig), while focusing on our alternative classics (Jane's Addiction, The Magnetic Fields, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion), classic rock (Alice Cooper, Screamin' Jay Hawkins), and some of our newer favorites (Brown Bird, Speedy Ortiz, Walter Sickert & The Army of Broken Toys). Running at just around two hours, it's perfect to put on in the background for parties this weekend or while you're handing out candy on Monday. Enjoy!

This is starting to look like a very heavy covers week for us. Galaxie 500 are a pretty underrated band. Sure, they're beloved by most people who know them, but I always feel like they should be Neutral Milk Hotel level beloved. This is why I'm pretty excited about Blue Thunder, a Tribute to Galaxie 500. It's a free tribute album put out by The Blog That Celebrates Itself . To be honest, I'm not very familiar with the vast majority of bands on the album (some have great names, though: Lorelle Meets The Obsolete, Slow Down Molasses, The John Candy, etc), but Brilliant Beast are one of our favorites here, and they're doing "Another Day," which is one of my favorite Galaxie 500 songs. It's a pretty faithful version, with maybe a little more noise and aggression than the original. Maybe the bass is a bit heavier? Regardless, it's pretty great. You can listen to Brilliant Beast's version of "Another Day" below. To get your very own cop...