The Nucka’s on Hiatus

Hey Fellas and Whores,
Over here at the Nucka we’re taking a break (or we kind of have been). The New World Order is looking for new UFO pilots and we’re applying. Enjoy old posts and our sister blog Ruminations of a Costcoholic.

James Husband – A parallax I

You’ve probably never heard of James Husband aka James Huggins III aka some member of Of Montreal. You probably weren’t even aware that he is putting out a solo record. You need to fucking keep up!

Now I know the cover above looks rather pretentious and I’m pretty sure it’s a tribute to the era that this album encapsulates, which is 70′s/80′s soft pop rock. Catchy words with simple refrains sung with a soft, pillowy sound. The drums are perfectly distant and the guitar is like driving an old sedan down the Technicolor highway of loveeeeeeeeee.

Little Thrills is the perfect album opener and draws you right into Mr. Husband’s world of Three’s Company sounding romance. The next few tracks are just as good if not better at times (e.g. Gray Scale). The middle can be pop psychedelic like a Sweet record or smooth like a mid 70′s Bowie..

It’s got amazing poo nuggets that I’d never skip on my iPod (Yea, you know you skip 90% of the shit you put on there!) and it works alright as a whole.

53%/57%
-Rubles

Little Thrills

some Great Beatles Cover via You Ain’t No Picasso – Here

LCD Soundsystem – Bye Bye Bayou

Anything new from LCD Soundystem is a treat. Though lately all we’ve been hearing is a lot talk from Mr. Murphy about an album next year (2010 can’t come soon enough) but now he’s tingling our taints just a little bit with this bad-ass cover of some song no one’s ever heard.
It could play forever in my mind (and at 14 minutes it seems to). If the new album comes at all close to the sound on this I’ll be heading to the thrift stores soon to pick up some rhinestone jumpsuits. Long live late 70′s LA.
23/22.99999
-Rubles

Bye Bye Bayou (full length)

Craziest Live Appearace of All-Time

Fucking Flaming Lips brought their insanity to Conan (used to be funny) o’Brien. Ginger NO!

2009 Summed Up: My Two Cents

Where’s all the great music of 2009? I can’t think of one true standout (except the Beatles Box-sets which contains music from 40 years ago). I miss my MGMT, Vampire Weekend bubblegum albums or new releases from all the great artists of yesteryear who either released nothing, useless comps, or lost their magic entirely=Modest Mouse. So I’m peeking on my iTunes and checking everything from 2009 that I bothered to get and well here’s the definitive list so far.

The best of 2009:

Handsome Furs – Face Control

Dead Man’s Bones – s/t
Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion
The Decemeberists – Hazards of Love

The biggest let downs of 2009:

Black Mother Super Rainbow – Eating Us

Sunset Rubdown – Dragonslayer

Animal Collective – Animal Crack Box

Modest Mouse – No One’s First

The Thermals – Now We Can See

Mount Eerie – White Stag

Wilco – Wilco the album

The lackluster 2009 aka what’s been overhyped to death (in no particular order):

Grizzly Bear – Vecktameist

Cymbals Eat Guitars – Why There are Mountains

Franz Ferdinand – Tonight

Neil Young – Archives

WTF Issac?

When did Modest Mouse become so damn pretentious? I’m not knocking the effects or concept but for a band like Modest Mouse this is way over the top. Too bad (shakes head) it was their last great song. Video Link via Pitchfork

Dead Man’s Bones is really f*ing good.

We at the Nucka mentioned a few weeks ago a release by young actor named Ryan Gosling,some kids, and some other dude I’ve never heard of. It’s a monster mash oriented album with plenty of doowop and singalongs. After a good few listens I have to say it’s my favorite Halloween album ever and really, really good. And, it’s definitely more than a novelty. Don’t get a big head though Ryan cause the first 4 tracks are BORING.

Red/Green

-Rubles

Two great tracks:

Paper Ships

Flowers Grow out of my Grave

New: Vampire Weekend – Horchata

I have several friends who’d swear by this stuff but no matter what you add to Rice Milk it still sounds like shit to me. But, on the other hand, if it’s spiced up with world beats, smooth vocals, catchy string instruments, and the friendly lyrics of Vampire Weekend, well then I’ll give it a shot. Check out this new track from the polo wearing, ivy-leaguers of Vampire Weekend and tell me you’re not anticipating their new super fun bubblegum, Contra.

Cheese/Dairy

-Rubles

Horchta

The ship’s deck now sags from the weight of our tracks

How I wish this cover by the dude from New Pornographers (AC Newman) and Will Sheff was nearly as great as the original but any version that’s not performed by amateurs in their sorry bedrooms is worth a listen don’t you agree faithful reader? Oh and can someone create a version for me where they edit out the awful singing of Will Sheff?

By the way this is from Okkervil River ‘s Stand-Ins covers project.

-Rubles

Just in case you haven’t seen the let down of a music video:

and a live video just for Zeus’ sake:

We Are the Village Green Preservation Society!

The Kinks, a band that is both revered and forgotten. The older kids think of You Really Got Me or Lola and the queers love thatWaterloo Sunset. Sprinkle a couple other greatest hit tracks or a few lost oldies weekend songs in and you think you’ve got them figured. They ain’t the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, or that influential right?

Then one day you take the early flight home from San Diego and…wait that’s Old School…but one day you listen and you drift and you drink a little cheap wine and it grows in you and its grows on you and you learn to respect all the “ditties” and the colloquialisms and more than anything spirit of it all.

Ray Davies is a brilliant man and an amazing lyricist. Each song seems to be a story and he doesn’t ditch the rhymes or the words to make it work he just fits them in.

The first real time I really heard all of the brilliance of a Kinks record was Lola vs. Powerman but it wasn’t until today and more specifically this early evening underneath a near full moon in my purple living room that I realized how much of a genius he and the band really are.

Most people who have any taste know the song, Village Green Preservation Society, and maybe Picture Book from a commercial or too but I think this album hasn’t been given the love that it deserves. Where would Blur or Okkervil River be today without Ray Davies and albums like this?

You may feel some songs don’t stand strong but they are fundamental to the whole of the project with songs like Village Green Preservation Society, Picture Book, Johnny Thunder, Last of the Steam Powered Trains, Big Sky, Sitting by the Riverside, and Starstruck being the load-bearing beams.

I call out to you now to sign me up any day to “save Donald Duck, vaudeville and variety,” or to rock out to the blues tribute of Last of the Steam Powered Trains. Melodies and British sensibilities abound on this album and if you, the brilliant anthropologist of great music, has never sat down with this album and given it a deserved listen then may I suggest so? No! Wait, I’m an American I god-damns that you do, otherwise you’re an unpatrtiot!

999/1000
-Rubles