Farewell to Luna....

After 12 years, 7 studio albums, and countless tours, Luna is calling it quits. Their final album, Rendezvous, is out now on Jetset Records, and the band is planning a farewell tour over the next 4-5 months.

I haven't kept up with Luna's latest releases, but their early stuff on Elektra is available through Rhapsody. HERE's a sampler of my favorites.

music lover for life

The Paragons

I'd never heard of The Paragons until I stumbled across a Trojan Records box set of classic Jamaican ska recordings, but I'm glad to know about them now. The group was one of the mainstays of the 1960s music scene in Kingston, and their music brings together tight harmonies heavily influenced by 1950s American soul groups with the syncopated rhythms of Jamaican ska. It's highly recommended listening.

Click HERE for a collection of the Paragons' 1960s work, collected from a bevy of Trojan Records box sets available in Rhapsody and a compilation of group and solo material by the group's lead singer, John Holt.

Dear Nora, thanks for the great first album

If twee pop's your thing, you can't go wrong with this criminally-overlooked debut album by California popsters Dear Nora. It's got shambling guitars, girl-girl sha-la harmonies, sparse production, and killer melodies. The album, which was recorded by Aislers Set frontwoman Amy Linton, came and went with barely a blip in 2001. I found my copy in the dollar bin that year -- for half-off. It was some of the best money I spent in 2001.

Anyway, we added the album to Rhapsody today. Click HERE to listen. My favorite songs include "Springtime Fall," "Everyone's the Same," and "Round and Round." But honestly, they're all good. Enjoy!

The Joy of Sox

I'm not the sports-fan type, and I'm ususally the last person you'd expect to be following a team, but it's different when your hometown team (Boston) beats the snot out of their arch-rivals (the Yankees) in a stunning upset that puts them into the World Series. To celebrate, I put together a playlist of songs that may be playing today on Boston's finer radio stations. Click HERE to listen.

"Mama Said Knock You Out" - LL Cool J
"The Harder They Come" - Jimmy Cliff
"Triumph" - Generation X
"New York Groove" - Ace Frehley
"Between Us & Them" - Moving Units
"The Distance" - Cake
"Blame It On Yourself" - Ivy
"Ooh Child" - Nina Simone
"A Sign Of The Times" - Petula Clark
"Ain't No Mountain High Enough" - Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
"Beat It" - Michael Jackson
"A Movie Script Ending" - Death Cab For Cutie
"There Goes The Fear" - Doves
"Crazy Town" - Velocity Girl
"Game Of Pricks" - Guided By Voices
"Comeback" - The Mendoza Line
"The Stars Of Track And Field" - Belle And Sebastian
"The Only Living Boy In New York" - Simon & Garfunkel
"Massachusetts (The Lights Went Out)" - The Bee Gees
"Thank You" - Bonnie Raitt
"Shame" - The Hidden Cameras
"Victory Garden" - Galaxie 500
"Paths Of Victory" - Cat Power
"I'm Set Free" - Velvet Underground
"Game On" - Catatonia
"Alive And Kicking" - Simple Minds
"Hungry Like The Wolf" - Duran Duran
"Winner Takes All" - The Isley Brothers
"Victory" - Kool & The Gang
"Change Gonna Come" - Otis Redding
"Alive" - Pearl Jam
"Who's the Greatest Red Sox Fan?" - Phil Coley
"We Are The Champions" - Queen

Shoegaze meets slowcore

Earlier this summer, a friend put a very s-l-o-w cover of the Ride song "Vapour Trail" on a mix for me. I'd never heard of the band, Trespassers William, but the song quickly became a favorite. I was happy to find that we added their album to Rhapsody today. The song is perfect coming-down music, sparse and above all, beautiful -- click HERE to hear it in its slow glory.

Gene Harris & the Three Sounds

In the mid-1990s when I was working as a lonely, underpaid CD store clerk, I started to run across Blue Note reissues of some of their artists' funkier output as part of the "Rare Grooves" series. One of those artists was Gene Harris, who was the leader of a highly-enjoyable and eminently-listenable group called The Three Sounds (and a talented artist in his own right). I've been rediscovering some of those recordings lately; click HERE for a taste of Mr. Harris and the other two of the Three Sounds. Enjoy.