Today's Hotness: Look See Proof, J. Mascis, Lilys

>> AngryApe posts information here about a forthcoming fifth single from dynamite Hertfordshire, England foursome Look See Proof, whose music we gulped down from various blogs in recent months and thoroughly enjoyed. We're surprised we haven't mentioned them previously, frankly, but our archives have little incentive to lie. The quartet's spiky, upbeat indie rock recalls the best Bloc Party singles, so we have been keeping an eye out for a full-length. Look See Proof's new single "Do You Think It's Right?" b/w "Don't Say A Word" will have to do for now. The CD version of the single contains a third cut, "Casualty (Os Darkroom Remix)," that we're eager to hear as the original version of the single (released last August) is a peppy rocker with great harmonies. North London's year-and-a-half old Weekender Records releases "Do You Think It's Right?" March 24 in the UK, and it can be pre-ordered from 7Digital right here. It is interesting to note that Weekender will issue Shout Out Louds' "Tonight I Have To Leave It" single and Our Ill Wills album in the UK. Anyhoo, here's what we believe to be Look See Proof's first single for your enjoyment. You should hit the link to EMusic below and get all four of the singles they have there, particularly 2007's "Casualty."

Look See Proof -- "Tell Me Tell Me Tell Me" -- "Tell Me Tell Me Tell Me" b/w "Start Again"
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[buy Look See Proof singles from EMusic here]

>> We found a used import of a 2003 J. Mascis set The John Peel Sessions at Newbury Comics Sunday that we had never heard of before, and we enjoyed listening to it. The piece of Pavement's "Range Life" tucked in the medley that opens the set performed with The Fog (a/k/a Mike Watt and George Berz) was what grabbed our attention when we picked up the disc, but that is actually pretty forgettable. Although when Watt takes the vocal for the piece that is "In A Rut," that rocks pretty hard. The first five tracks were mixed by Kevin Shields, which is interesting, and we love the warbly treatment on the backing vocals of "Same Day," which is the best J. Mascis and The Fog jam hands down, in our opinion. The Peel Sessions version lacks the dense curtains of guitars that makes the More Light track so awesome, but the extra space yields Watt's bass playing more of the spotlight, which is nice. Despite the lack of guitar crunch, there is a lot of really nice soloing on these Peel tracks, particularly when Mascis deploys what we think is a whammy pedal to wondrous effect.

>> Lilys are selling t-shirts. We love the Lilys. So buy their shirts. The end.

Today's Hotness: The Hooters, Spinto Band, Songerize

>> Un.Be.Lievable. Philly-based '80s rockers The Hooters released a new record, Time Stand Still, this week. It looks like you can stream most of it at the band's MySpace dojo here (we didn't think we'd ever type the words "Hooters" and "MySpace" in the same sentence), which we just did. We don't hear pop hits, but the set has an easy folk-rock vibe with the expected but not overpowering religious references. There was a year back there in the '80s when the quintet was bigger than big. We distinctly remember being a kid getting driven to The Mall in the way back of a station wagon the year that the follow-up to Nervous Night was released and "Satellite" was on the radio. A pretty damn good song, and certainly much better than "Johnny B," which one of the articles linked supra contends is something of a phenomenon to this day in Germany. Anyway, a lot of our Hooters memories are tied into being a passenger in the car -- no surprise given our age at the time. Nervous Night was huge one summer during which we drove most every day to the cringe-inducingly affluent "swim club" to which our family belonged. And of course a car plays a prominent role in this video for "And We Danced," which Sony BMG refuses to let us embed for you no matter how amazing the short bridge to the song is. The Hooters' Eric Bazilian ended up moving into a house across the street from one of our girlfriends back in the day, if memory serves.

>> Delaware-proud (Debella-ware, anyone?) indie pop septet Spinto Band -- this decade's Hooters? Man, that would probably be a hell of a touring bill -- is poised to release its eighth long-player this summer. The set is titled Moonwink, and the lads will support its release with a spring tour including the obligatory dates at SXSW, which is fun to type because all the letters are adjacent to each other. Too bad Austin isn't right next to Boston -- which would be particularly awesome not only because of access to primo Tex-Mex, but also because they rhyme. But we digress. No release date or label has been disclosed for Moonwink, according to this bit in CMJ, and the information is conspicuously absent from a presser that was flaregunned Tuesday. But we recall Philebrity reporting in Jan. 2006 [here] that Spinto Band has a 700,000 pound licensing deal with Virgin UK. So don't worry, the guys aren't starving. In fact they displayed an almost absurd degree of pep when we saw them sandwiched between Johnny Foreigner and Los Campesinos! Nov. 30 [review]. Spinto Band's most recent full-length Nice And Nicely Done was released three years ago -- or, roughly 10,000 years in so-called Internetz time -- on Bar-None. Because it never gets old, here is "Oh Mandy."

Spinto Band -- "Oh Mandy" -- Nice And Nicely Done
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[buy Spinto Band records from Newbury Comics here]

>> A few words about Songerize. Is this thing brilliant or what? It is bloody drop-dead easy to use. And although it doesn't have any advanced functionality such as playlisting, that very well may be the beauty of the thing. Songerize is a pure diner jukebox with almost endless inventory -- well, endless capacity, anyway. We wanted to hear "Destroyer" by The Kinks, we typed it in and boom. Huey Lewis and The News' "Do You Believe In Love?" or Bold's "Wise Up"? Well, no dice. But The Jam's "Down In The Tube Station," voila! Sure, there is no playlisting, but for people who want to actively consume and not passively consume, it is hard to beat Songerize -- assuming the song is available. Of course, it is probably not even close to legal, but -- as one of our digital music industry pals points out -- it may be the most legal thing that embattled media search engine creator Seeqpod has created (Seeqpod is currently being sued by Warner Music Group). It is interesting to note that Songerize doesn't seem to scrape music that is made freely available through Last.FM. We punched in a few titles by smaller acts (such as Nosferatu D2's genius "A Footnote") that we know that the Viacom-backed and UK-based social music play offers for free and none of the tunes came up.

>> Mobius Band is promising some form of Valentine's Day surprise. We're hoping it is a cover of Robert Palmer's "Addicted To Love." Either way, we're guessing the surprise is something the cyborg-rock trio recorded during the band's recent woodshedding in Western Massachusetts. Of course, the surprise could be anything. Time will tell.

>> Uhhh, given the touring history shared between the bands, the first fellow we'd call to fix this problem if we were Kevin Shields is J. Mascis. Might be hard to fit in his schedule, as Witch is just about to release a new record and tour Europe.