Married With Child

Most of the new tv season shows haven't meant much for yours truly, they all seem to clog into a haze of hype and half baked ideas. One show has stood above the rest and to my surprise it's Up All Night. Seeing the average life expectancy of recent Christina Applegate projects I thought this would be the latest in a line of nice tries. And then the guy was that dude who is married to Amy Poehler. But I was bored one day and thought I'd give it a try.

Despite having a tough sell on it's premise (Applegate is a tv producer of a daytime wanna be Oprah talk show starring self absorbed ex teen r&b singer host played by Maya Rudolph while ex-lawyer Mr Amy Poehler is now a stay at home dad) the characters are likeable and the stories are simple enough to get across to an audience. Up All Night is a nice show with warmth and humor. The best new show I've seen this season.

Famous Amos

It's been a looong time where I have gotten totally hooked on an artist, but a few months ago it happened. I decided to check out some Amos Lee, I had heard one song on a sampler a few years back ("Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight") and liked it. Then this year Itunes gave away free tracks off the Mission Bell album every few weeks so before I knew it I had amassed a decent selection of Lee. I gave these songs more play and thought he was really good. Got that awesome raspy yet smooth soul voice while laying out tasteful folk pop. Mission Bell became a regular in my car cd player rotation and I thought it was hella dope.

Amos Lee has a cool tone to his music, it has a feeling of weariness mixed with a searching sentimentality. Here's a few of my favorite tracks of his I've been listening to:

Freakin Sweet Art

As Joe Pesci would say "Ok OK Ok" I have a lot of catching up to do. So let's cut the crap and get down to it with an old fashioned multi post fest. I have had a lot of posts on me mind but haven't bothered to type them out, so here goes.

Matthew Sweet released an album called Modern Art that I downloaded about a month ago. And it is a really good album. Probably the most addictive one of original material for me since Blue Sky On Mars. Sweet pretty much said his approach to the music was a little more organic and it shows with delightfully quirky touches and loose ends surrounding his sturdy power pop stylings. As a result Modern Art has a broad palate containing Sweet's fave influences that includes White Album era Beatles ("Ivory Tower"), Brian Wilson precious melodies ("Modern Art")and Neil Young ragged chug a lug rock ("Ladyfingers").

Unlike the prior solo release Sunshine Lies there are some stand out cuts. The ghost story "She Walks The Night" has a bangin hook while the midtempo "Baltimore" finds Sweet in his forlorn zone. My favorite track is the music geek out "Late Night With the Power Pop".

This is Matthew Sweet's best work in a long time, so I give it a