Blog Posts by David Marchese

Summer officially started just the other day, but there are already plenty of songs kicking around the airwaves that deserve a place on your sun-splashed playlists. Below are five of the best. They're all easy to find online, so give a listen and lemme know what you think.

J. Roddy Walston & the Business, "Brave Man's Death" Download this ramshackle epic from the raucous Baltimore band's website. Seriously, do it. As Walston testifies in his raspy, drawling voice and the charmingly baggy song builds from voice and piano to a swaggering storm of thumping drums and group vocals, it sounds like he's dragging bell bottom rock into the skinny jeans era. Also, the guitar solo rips.

Brandon Flowers, "Crossfire" You can hear this, the first single from the Brandon Flower's forthcoming solo album, Flamingo, if you go to the erstwhile Killers frontman's website.The seductively slick sound and soaring melodies that he's known for are, pardon the pun, in full flower on this moody, mid-tempo

Funk music lost one of its unsung greats this week as Parliament-Funkadelic singer-guitarist and songwriter Garry Shider passed away on June 16, aged 56, from complications due to cancer. Anyone playing behind George Clinton, P-Funk's mad genius ringleader, was destined to spend most of his or her time in the shadows, but Shider distinguished himself with his wormily insinuating vocals and writing ability--he helped compose funk classics such as "Bop Gun" and "One Nation Under a Groove." (His tendency to wear a loincloth onstage also helped him stand out.) Shider was, and will continue to be, a beacon of funky freedom.

Though funk isn't the commercial force it was back in Shider's and P-Funk's late '70s heyday, there are still young musicians dedicated to the band's motto: free your mind and your ass will follow. Here are three of the best, all of whom approach the music from different, though equally booty-moving, directions:

1. Jimmy Edgar: This Motowner draws more from the

A couple years ago I went with a friend to a small club on Manhattan's Lower East Side to see a band called Francis and the Lights. I hadn't heard of them, but my friend knew the guitar player and said he was good. It was very dark in the club, and hard to make out what was happening on stage, but from my spot at the back of the room I could see a curly pompadour bopping in time to the band's pop-funk. The hair belonged to Francis Farewell Starlite, the leader of his namesake group. The show was okay - the music a nice blue-eyed take on the pared-down grooves of early Prince - but Francis's dancing made the biggest impression. When I got closer, I saw him jog in place, do the splits, juke and jitter. I wondered who this guy was, then I went home.

I'd forgotten about Francis until recently, when his name began popping up in conjunction with Drake's. The Lights opened five weeks of shows on the rap superstar's spring tour. He produced a track, "Karaoke," on Drake's upcoming debut album,

Last Saturday I was at a friend's housewarming party in Toronto. A fellow party attendee who I didn't know came up to me and asked what I did for a living. I told him that I was a music writer. Perfect, he said, he was a musician--a keyboard player in a pop-rock band. As struggling musicians often do, this guy began to talk about how it's harder for new bands to break through nowadays because there are so many more acts competing for a listener's attention than there used to be. The implication was that there was a lot of crap covering up the good stuff.

Is this true? Hard to say. Given the surfeit of bands on MySpace and covered on blogs and the avalanche of new albums on Amazon and iTunes and CD Baby and the many other digital outlets, it's easy to believe there are, indeed, many more musicians able to put their art out into the world than ever before. But it's not as if we're all scouring all of these websites--each of us has our go-to spots for recommendations. So for bands, I'd

May 31 is Memorial Day, the unofficial start to summer, the swinging open of the seasonal gate to backyard barbecues, lazing on the beach, and cruising around with the top down (or, if you live in New York City like I do, walking around with, uh, somewhat less clothing on than usual).

Naturally, the change in seasonal attitude requires a complementary musical shift. (See ya, dour folkies! So long, dolorous synthsters!) I need to hear upbeat music to soundtrack my days of outdoor drinking and ultimate Frisbee. I need to hear the albums I've listed below. Take a gander, give a listen, and then share your recommendations for best summertime music.

Band Of Horses, Infinite Arms: Anchored by frontman Ben Bridwell, this South Carolina by way of Seattle quintet has, on their recently released third album, proven themselves to be masters of breezily melodic country, folk, and ever so slightly grungey soft rock. Which is to say, the lilting title track, loping "Older," and crunchy "Laredo" are

On Friday night in New York City, I'm going to see a Pearl Jam concert for the first time in 10 years. When I last saw the band, I liked them well enough but was hardly a true believer. Two good friends of mine, both of whom had driven with me to Cleveland to see the Who earlier that year and both with whom I've since fallen out of touch, were fanatics, and convinced me to shell out for a ticket to the band's Toronto show. They told me that Pearl Jam live was a different beast than on record. They were right.

The Seattle quintet delivered one of the best shows I've ever seen. On then new tracks (from the 2000 album Binaural) like the bluesy "Insignificance," spacey "Nothing As It Seems," and smoky, enigmatic "Sleight Of Hand," the band played with majestic intensity. PJ classics "Better Man," "Black," "Once," and "Indifference" had the crowd roaring with an intensity that I'm not sure I've felt matched by any other audience I've been a part of. It was wonderful to witness.

But what

Towards the tail end of 2009, a Long Island duo called Small Black put out a self-titled five song EP of gorgeously downcast and hazy synthpop. Songs like the dreamy "Despicable Dogs" and sighing "Bad Lover" found frontman Josh Kolenik singing sweetly lolling melodies about tired love and aimlessness. His and bandmate Ryan Heyner's mini-album was beautiful and insinuating and got heard by enough of the right people before they moved on to the next thing. Now it's back.

Indie label Jagjaguar released a re-mastered and expanded version of the Small Black EP on April 27. If you're the kind of person who likes to wallow in some warmly catchy melancholy every now and then, I hope you hear it. Almost impossibly, the music sounds both deeper and more alluring than before; the synths cooler and sharper, the bass tones fuller, the drum patterns more shyly dramatic. There are definitely some '80s influences on display--"Despicable Dogs" could've played over a breakup scene in a John Hughes

Up until very lately, I was only dimly aware of Ariel Pink. But increasingly, the prolific L.A.-based veteran lo-fi oddball, whose woozy music generally sounds like psych-rock as heard through a wind tunnel, or maybe played at the wrong turntable speed, or put in a blender (you get the idea) has been heralded as the godfather of the recently sprouted genre of chillwave, whose practitioners (Neon Indian, Washed Out) add a wistful '80s synthpop gloss to Pink's intriguingly meandering sound. It's funny how these things work: a musician can go from being an obscurity to an inspiration in a matter of months.

At Pink's show on Tuesday night at the Mercury Lounge in Manhattan, there was a celebratory feel that, I think, came from a sense that the 31-year-old musician was finally getting his due. Funny then, that the man's upcoming album, Before Today (4AD), finds him reveling in a newfound sonic and songwriting clarity. Both on record and live, new songs like "Beverly Kills" and "Menopause