Out Now: Eldridge Rodriguez | Christmas On The Allston-Brighton Line EP

We made the coctails strong, we got the fire on... So let us be the latest to add our voice to the chorus of approval for Eldridge Rodriguez's jaunty holiday EP, Christmas On The Allston-Brighton Line. The three-song set -- the first in an annual series envisioned by the Boston-based feel-bad-pop luminary -- is as singular and as exciting as The Waitresses' "Christmas Wrapping," and as beautifully somber and evocative as Ted Pauly's "Christmas Eve, Molly Pitcher." Christmas On The Allston-Brighton Line caps a big year for Boston- and New York-based Midriff Records, which among other things also issued Eldridge Rodriguez' You Are Released in March. Mr. Rodriguez' live performance of You Are Released's "Run MF Run" was a highlight of the many shows we took in this year.

This new EP is led by the ridiculously catchy incantation "Baby, I'm Alone Tonight," which would be a certifiable hit in the overground were it dropped in the lap of a Top 40 "artist." As it is, the mid-fi production suggests the song was kind of dashed off. This isn't meant as a criticism; on the contrary, it suggests ER can bash out great songs with embarrassing ease. We picture him sunken in a worn, upholstered Bunker chair in his living room, fuzzy bunny slippers up, lazily surfing channels with the remote in one hand while he jots lyrics on the subscription card torn from a magazine and itches at his NicoDerm patch with the other hand. As clever a set of lyrics as ever turned out by Mr. Rodriguez, paired with cascading piano and guitar lines, makes the song a joy to play over and over again, and as we quipped to ER earlier today, the song cries out for a video treatment.

Christmas On The Allston-Brighton Line touts two additional numbers, the bouncing, roller-disco anthem "Christmas Eve (At The Old Country Buffet)" and the mellow gold of the snowy title ballad. The three songs come packaged with downloadable caroling sheets and alternate digital covers for all your desktop wall-papering needs. Buy the whole tomato at the Midriff store for three American clams right here; if you want to screw ER out of a little scratch you can instead buy the thing from any of the major digital music storefronts, which of course will take their cut and plow their record profits into price-checking jerkphone apps that will drive your friends' stores out of business. So, you know, whatever. When you coming back? When you coming back? When you coming back? When you coming back?

Stream "Baby, I'm Alone Tonight" via the embed below.



Eldridge Rodriguez: Hahahahaha | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

2007 Final Hotness: Elevator Drops, Ted Pauly, Frightened Rabbit

>> It's a Christmas miracle! Mere days after we bemoaned here the clear lack of a new Elevator Drops record in 2007, the band issued a MySpace bulletin announcing that OK Commuter is now available via all your favorite digital music storefronts. We recommend taking the cheap way out and getting it from EMusic here, especially since it is 13 tracks long. Unfortunately for us we've got to wait for our account to roll over Dec. 28 before we can grab it ourselves. Dang. But on the upside we've already purchased the single and compulsively horded the tracks posted to the band's MySpace wigwam earlier in the year.

>> Keeping with the Christmas theme: every band and their brother has issued a Christmas song this year, and some seem solely intended to ingratiate the bands with the blogosphere. Sure, there have been notable songs, such as the Evangelicals jam we posted here, the Frightened Rabbit jam we noted here, and also the very nice seasonal cut from Philadelphia's own The Swimmers, which we expect you can grab here. But the tune that takes the cake has just been posted here by :: clicky clicky :: favorite troubador Ted Pauly. The new jam is called "Christmas Eve, Molly Pitcher," and not only does it concern itself with a Jersey rest stop but it also describes various of our hometown landmarks. Fun fact: we and Mr. Pauly grew up on opposing edges of the same neighborhood. So when he name drops churches and fast food joints in "Christmas Eve, Molly Pitcher," we're -- as the kids say -- feeling it. More importantly, the track captures crisply those mixed feelings people of a certain age have about going home. Check it out.

Ted Pauly -- "Christmas Eve, Molly Pitcher" -- Bits, Bobs
[right click and save as]

>> According to this interview at Drowned In Sound, Glaswegian powerfolk trio Frightened Rabbit's sophomore set will be released in the U.S. in March, two weeks before the band appears at the annual South X Southwest music conference in Texas. The release will be preceded by another two weeks by a single for the track "Head Rolls Off," a -- gasp -- danceable track we've been loving for months, in demo version. It is going to be the highlight of the forthcoming record, we promise you that. Well, along with "Fast Blood" and all the other tracks. Hot indie rock coming.

>> We're taking the rest of 2007 off to celebrate with friends and family and to rest our wrists, which are back to bothering us again. We'll see you back here in the New Year. Thanks for reading.

Today's Hotness: The Answering Machine, Adrian Crowley,Ted Pauly

>> Manchester, England-based indie pop quartet The Answering Machine report here that it has been in the studio overnights recently demoing new material. No word on how and when we might be able to get our mitts on it, but with three singles under its belt, we expect the act is poised to release an EP or even full-length recording in 2008. The Answering Machine's third single, "Lightbulbs," was issued in the UK Nov. 5 on Regal. The first two singles, 2006's "Oklahoma" and the transcendent "Silent Hotels," are available for download at EMusic here. We expect it is only a matter of time before the digital music storefront will be offering "Lightsbulbs," as one of the editors over there is a huge fan of the band.

>> This Drowned In Sound item about Adrian Crowley caught our eye because five years ago almost to the day we reviewed the reissue of the Dubliner's debut A Strange Kind for SplendidEZine. We've never followed Mr. Crowley's career closely but one track from A Strange Kind has consistently beguiled us each time we listen to it. It is an ethereal, piano-anchored instrumental called "Trilogy," and we're posting an MP3 of it below. Crowley released his fourth record Long Distance Swimmer Nov. 15 on Tin Angel; his prior records -- including the sophomore set When You Are Here You Are Family recorded with Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in Chicago -- were released on Ba Da Bing! and are available via EMusic here.

Adrian Crowley -- "Trilogy" -- A Strange Kind
[right click and save as]
[buy Adrian Crowley records from Newbury Comics here]

>> Former Haywood fronter and current bedroom multitracker Ted Pauly has posted two new downloads to his Last.FM page here. The first is a new 76-second track called "Tomorrow I'm Starting Over," a basic acoustic guitar and vocal number with a bit of a twist: there are two, hard-panned vocal tracks that offer competing strategies for the new beginning. The narratives complement and occasionally overlap. It's clever. The second download is the "Laki F Megamix" of the previously posted (and issued in different form on the allegedly final final Haywood record) track "I'm All About Democracy." The gag here is that the "megamix" sounds like it is just the most-stripped version of the tune, with Mr. Pauly and acoustic guitar getting the job done with quiet determination. You can download both tracks at this link. Here's "Tomorrow I'm Starting Over."

Ted Pauly -- "Tomorrow I'm Starting Over" -- Bits, Bobs
[right click and save as]
[MySpace dojo / Last.FM hangar]

>> Glaswegian indie rock trio Frightened Rabbit's holiday single "It's Christmas, So We'll Stop" is available for download at EMusic here, so make sure to grab it before you start burning those indie rock Christmas CDs for your mates.

Today's Hotness: Ted Pauly, Neptune

>> "I love this song, I used to sing it falling asleep..." We were scrobbling last night after a crazy week of work when we noticed the little icon at Last.fm that indicated a free Ted Pauly track was available. We followed the thread to find that Pauly, fronter of the tragically defunct indie rock act Haywood, has posted 13 tracks for free download as a set called Tadpoley. Many of the tunes are re-recorded (or at least more crisp- and clean-sounding) versions of the demos that formed the foundation for the second posthumous Haywood set released earlier this year; we noted As Long As There Is Track, I Will Not Go Back's new availability via Insound here last week. Perhaps more exciting is Last.fm now hosts a somewhat sketchy video of Pauly performing "A Light At The End" live in a club somewheres (although we can't resize the video as we can with YouTube clips -- boo). There is sadly zero video documentation of Haywood left on the web these days. The erstwhile quartet once had shows available via Digital Club Network back when there was such a thing (someone tell us: who owns those videos now that DCN is dead? Seems like those shows would have greatly increased value now that video on the web has taken off), so this video is sort of a big deal for fans. Plus, it is funny when Pauly gets derailed by an audience member cheering. Anyway, of the Tadpoley tracks we particularly recommend the non-Haywood-ified tracks "Your Mix Tape Broke" and "No One Knows His Part," so here they are.

Ted Pauly -- "Your Mix Tape Broke" -- Tadpoley
Ted Pauly -- "No One Knows His Part" -- Tadpoley
[right click and save as]
[grab all the Tadpoley tracks at Last.fm here]

Ted Pauly: Interwebzez | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

>> Boston noise juggernauts Neptune have released a limited edition, five-song EP entitled Paris Green. The title track is taken from the band's forthcoming full-length Gong Lake, which will be released in February on Radium/Table of the Elements. Only 100 handmade copies of Paris Green are available, so compulsive collectors should click here now to get in on the action. The home-made instrument-wielding band is on tour now and will be out on the road for the next couple of weeks. If you haven't seen Neptune live, we just feel bad for you [see here], so get thee to etc. The trio is in Philly tonight. Here are the dates:

11/03 -- Philadelphia, PA -- West Philly Warehouse
11/04 -- Washington, D.C. -- Velvet Lounge
11/05 -- Winston-Salem, NC -- The Wherehouse
11/06 -- Asheville, NC -- Harvest Records
11/07 -- Knoxville TN -- The Pilot Light
11/08 -- Chicago, IL -- AV-aerie
11/09 -- St. Louis -- Lemp Arts Center
11/10 -- Iowa City, IA -- The Picador
11/13 -- St. Paul, MN -- The Turf Club
11/14 -- Bloomington, IN -- Bear's Place
11/15 -- Cincinnati, OH -- Art Damage Lodge
11/16 -- Columbus, OH -- Skylab Gallery
11/17 -- Cleveland, OH -- Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art
11/18 -- Buffalo, NY -- Soundlab