Band(camp) of the Week: The Organ Beats

Most people missed out on Damone, the ’80s-hair-metal-meets-’90s-power-pop Boston band, that released a handful of great (but not-so-great-selling) CDs between 2003 and 2008. I’m not sure why the band, fronted by powerhouse Noelle LeBlanc, didn’t make it – maybe because while they should have been opening arena tours for Motley Crue and Def Leppard, they aligned themselves with Hot Topic-type bands and were trying to peddle their music to fashionable high school kids with no appreciation for the great music from the late ’80s.

Damone broke up in 2008 but Noelle didn’t stop. Hooking up (figuratively, not literally) with her brother Danny, Noelle formed The Organ Beats, a similar sounding band though she lost the band members that brought the hair metal influence to Damone.

Recommended if you like: Butch Walker, Paramore, Hey Monday

The Organ Beats just released a new 2-song single on Bandcamp and they’re inviting you to download for free.

If you like what you hear, check out The Organ Beats full length 2009 release, Sleep When We Are Dead, available for the lovely “name your own price”.

Justify Your Existence: Arlo

Up High in the Night(2001)
Stab the Unstoppable Hero(2002)

Must have gotten these two Arlo releases from a SubPop publicist. I’d have to go back and look at SubPop’s catalog releases during the early 2000s to see just how these fit into the stuff the label was putting out. Seems to me that it was between the mid-90s grunge/punk stuff and the later 2000s bearded folk stuff.
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Video: Jane’s Addiction – “Irresistible Force”

New Jane’s Addiction coming in October. The last album, 2003’s Strays, didn’t exactly bring the band back to their glory days (it wasn’t that bad, just maybe a little too modern) but the second single off The Great Escape Artist, “Irresistible Force”, is both amazing and nostalgic sounding.

Here’s hoping this is a sign of things to come.

New feature: Justify Your Existence

I’ve got one of those CD shelving units that holds 1,000 CDs and for years it’s been full. Every once in a while I go through a cleanse and trade-in, sell, or simply throw away CDs that I haven’t listened to in years and know that I’ll probably never listen to again. But for every CD that leaves the shelves, another one that has been housed in a cardboard box or in a pile next to the shelves, takes it place.

As a way to start listening to some of those CDs that haven’t been listened in years, I decided to start a new feature called Justify Your Existence. I’ll give a CD a listen, write a short review/thought/opinion about it, and then decide whether or not it’s earned the right to stay on the shelves or if it goes into a box to dispose of.

The CDs will be randomly chosen off the shelves and I’m hoping to get through a few every week. The first Justify Your Existence CDs have been chosen and listened to and their fate will be revealed this week.

Thanks to Metal Rob for the feature name.