Category Archives: music news

How to Hug Your Independent Record Store

Record Store
“Indie record stores,” says Chrys Hansen of Modern Music, the Caribbean’s most visited record store, “are where you go when you first realize there’s a whole new world of music for you to explore.” The Internet notwithstanding as perhaps one’s first stop when searching out what the world has to offer musically, Hansen’s words ring sentimental and otherwise true.

Independent record stores, unlike the CD sections of Wal-Mart and Best Buy, often feature carefully procured selections of good popular music and local and alternative groups that are either too vulgar or not Hoobastank-y enough for other outlets. The quality of independent record stores is only enhanced by the personal touch offered by the staff.

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Avett Brothers Tour East Coast, Make West Coast Sad

The Avett Brothers
Anyone who reads Owl And Bear knows that we sure do love The Avett Brothers. Their beautiful harmonies, mournful acoustic guitars, and intensely relatable lyrics make them one of the most compelling bands making music today. In fact, The Second Gleam was the sole EP to ascend to the hallowed ranks of our Best Of 2008 list, which was otherwise populated entirely by full-length albums. They’re that good.

So it is with great joy that we announce that the brotherly Avetts have announced a list of summer tour dates, but it is with no small degree of sadness that we announce that San Diego is nowhere to be found on that list. In defense of our fair city, no other West Coast cities made the cut either, nor did any in the Midwest for that matter. Unfortunately, the fraternal folksters are keeping mostly to the East Coast, at least for the time being.

But we don’t fault them for that, and we’re not at all jealous of our readers who live in the cities that will be graced by The Avett Brothers’ achingly beautiful songwriting. That’s right. Not jealous at all.

Tickets go on sale today. Tour dates after the jump, jerks. Continue reading

The Moviegoers Want You to Be a Man (MP3s)

The Moviegoers
Soulful San Diego cinephiles The Moviegoers have released a new digital EP, entitled Be a Man, and they’d like you to have it.

The three-song release takes some of the sweetest elements of the 90s—Pavement, The Breeders, Elliott Smith, Yo La Tengo—and fuses them into a deliciously caramelized rock and roll concoction. Clocking in at an all-too-brief 12 minutes, Be a Man is so heartfelt and catchy you may find yourself listening to it 10 times in a row. At least that’s what happened to us.

You can experience the sugary goodness by downloading the EP—miraculously free of charge. We dare you not to love it.

Strange Connection: Wall Street and Billboard’s Top 10

Wondering when you’ll be able to look at your investments again? The answer may actually be in the stars—the pop stars, that is.

That’s the theory of Philip Maymin, assistant professor of finance and risk engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University. Maymin looked at more than 5,000 hit songs from a half-century of Billboard charts, measured them against the stock market, and found that the beat of popular music has an eerie connection to the performance of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

When Wall Street is jumpy, he discovered, we prefer music with a consistent tempo…Conversely, in a calm market, music charts are populated by songs with more unpredictable beats–tempos that slow down or gain speed, or even veer from the 4/4 rhythm that typifies most pop music.

[Boston]

Get Sum 41’s Greatest Hits Album For Free!

The legendary artistes of Sum 41 have a new fecal offering for the world, titled All the Good Shit. The best-of album contains fourteen tracks, compiling all of the Hot Topic punks’ hits to date, plus thirteen other songs.

But before you pre-order the album or start camping outside your local mall to pay 18 bucks for it, we at O&B have figured out a way for you to get the album for free. And, get this, it’s totally legal (we think).

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