SONG OF THE DAY: 25/7/12

A song taken from The Veils second album Nux Vomica; Jesus for the Jugular has all the peculiarity of the early Nick Cave output, but yet having enough oddness of its own to keep it from becoming a cheap knock off. I heard this originally in the film The Devil's Double, a film that is worth a look at purely for Dominic Cooper's terrific performance. Cool song, cool film, check it.

SONG OF THE DAY: 14/7/12

Taken from their 2007 album War Stories and featuring the vocals of Gavin Clark, Unkle's Broken was a song I first heard on the end credits of 2008 film The X-Files: I Want to Believe and perhaps remains one of the few positive aspects of that film (even as a big fan of Mulder and Scully). I've never really heard many of Unkle's songs except maybe their remixes of Ian Brown's F.E.A.R. and a couple of Queens of the Stone Age tracks they did which were on a QOTSA B-Sides album. This song is a nice little melodic and atmospheric tune with decent vocals by Clark. The chorus in particular is a standout for me, where all of Unkle's production skills come to the fore.

SONG OF THE DAY: 13/7/12

One regret I will have for the rest of my life is not getting to see these guys perform live, especially their multiple visits to Dublin in the latter part of their career. R.E.M. loved Dublin and a collection of their Dublin concerts have become their official live releases. This song, The Ascent of Man, from their 2007 album R.E.M. Live exhibits all the range of Michael Stipe's immense vocal capabilities.  Never have the most basic lyrics of "Yeah" over and over again sounded so powerful with Stipe giving it his all. It is a wonderful little gem of a song. 

SONG OF THE DAY: 12/7/12

What I like about Seasick Steve is that he has been there and done it all before. His wise words are even truer because you know he has lived what he has said and has the life experience to show. As you go through life you learn things and often despite some peoples best attempts to unhinge and get to you, it only exposes their own direct lack of meaningfulness in their own lives. More annoyingly so, is the callousness and insincerity of people and lack of consideration of their actions and the hurt it causes. For that reason, Seasick Steve's opening track from the aptly named 2011 album You Can't Teach an Old Dog New Tricks, called Treasures is a wonderfully poignant choice of song for today. 

SONG OF THE DAY: 11/7/12

Jane's Addiction are a band that name was always familiar to me, but never know much of their catalogue (bar maybe 'Just Because') until one evening when I heard their latest single 'Irresistible Force (Met the Immovable Object) on Paul McLoone's radio show on Today FM. So I sought out that song on their new album, The Great Escape Artist, and along with Irresistible Force, I'll Hit You Back are the two stand-outs. I was surprised to find out that this was only Jane's fourth album since 1988 and in an age where disposable albums are released yearly in a overly-saturated and quality declining market, it's good to see bands like Jane's Addiction still going strong.

SONG OF THE DAY: 10/7/12

From what I would call a mix between Faith No More and Living Colour on their more funkier exploits; Fishbone's 'Fight the Youth' from their 1991 album The Reality of My Surroundings is a bombastic and catchy tune with political and social issues scrutinized to a funky groove. I came across this song while watching an old episode of Beavis and Butthead and I found myself humming along almost instantly and had to search it out. A band that never got the commercial success that some of their work deserved, it's a shame that songs like this one are forgotten but it is further proof that there are great undiscovered songs out there just wanting to be found.