Root Down in the Shadow

According to most, the holiday listening season starts the day after Thanksgiving.  Black Friday starts the season off in a chaotic fashion for most, with people scrambling to re-load their collection onto their respective media players, filtering through the crap to re-find the good stuff. To help get right to the good stuff, I have put together a list of 10 songs that I am most looking forward to playing once the holiday listening season officially begins! 10.  She & Him .  I just downloaded this for $5 from Amazon.  It was too irresistible to pass up.  I can't wait to check out 'Baby It's Cold Outside'.  I loved the duet with Will Farrell on Elf , and I kind of like the duet with Leon Redbone on the Elf Soundtrack .  I'm very curious to hear Zooey Deschanel (She) with M. Ward (him) 9. Béla Fleck & The Flecktones - ’Jingle Bells' -  I love this totally nontraditional version of the song done only as Béla Fleck could do.  And I'm not just

I've heard about the Black Keys for some time now.  I rarely listen to the radio, so I missed their emergence. But from what I read of misunderstood rock band from Ohio, I had been intrigued to listen to them for some time. However, for me new music typically comes down to free stuff from podcasts, remembering to sit down and find them on YouTube, or getting music from my brother-in-law who is ten years my junior. The latter was the way Brothers finally landed in front of me. It was great! It was so good that when shopping with my sister, I put the album in her basket for my nephew to half cancel my copyright infringing sins. I of course loved, 'Howlin For You' the commercial smash hit. The song is somewhat reminiscent of The Fratellis 'Chelsea Dagger' (of Heineken commercial fame), but 10 times better. 'Tighten Up' is also excellent. It starts off with some catchy whistling and starts to rock out.  About 2/3 through @ 2:30 there is a pretty

On the blog, I have featured my top music of 2010 & 2011.  This isn't meant to be a billboard top 40 by any means.  But instead the best of music, that I'm listening to, and of course what you should check out.  Looking deeper, about fifty percent of it has roots in a track I first found via a free podcast.  In fact many of the songs themselves were free.  A few years back, after finding the AOL interface podcast (now just the interface) where I found recordings of the Raconteurs, Lady Soveriegn, Decemberist, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Ted Leo , and KT Tunstall , I branched out to find more song podcasts, rather than just performances.  KEXP & KCRW , two excellent NPR type radio stations each have a daily song with KCRW's 'Today's Top Tune" and KCRW's "song of the day". Today I'll feature the KEXP 'Song of the Day.' Some gems found include, a favorite of my brother in law with Passion Pit 'The Reeling' and radio mainstays, M