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On this fourth episode of Man and Wife, a special guest joins the duo for a discussion on the best new music of the first-half of 2011. Man gets a lesson in hipster band name pronunciation and Wife tries to determine the secret identity of four wayward Mojo magazine buttons. The playlist comprises…

Metronomy “The Bay” from “The English Riviera”
Young Galaxy “Peripheral Vision” from “Shapeshifting”
Hauschka “Radar” from “Salon Des Amateurs”
Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie XX “NY Is Killing Me” from “We’re New Here”
Destroyer “Song For America” from “Kaputt”
Wild Beasts  “Reach a Bit Further” from “Smother”
DJ Quick “Boogie Till You Conk Out” from “The Book of David”
Toro y Moi “New Beat” from “Underneath the Pine”
PJ Harvey “The Words That Maketh Murder” from “Let England Shake”
Bibio “Anything New” from “Mind Bokeh”
Radiohead “Little By Little” from “The King of Limbs”
Battles “The Inchworm” from “Gloss Drop”
Elbow “With Love” from “Build a Rocket Boys!”
Beastie Boys “Make Some Noise” from “Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2″
Cornershop “Double Digit” from “Cornershop & The Double ‘o’ Groove Of”

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ENJOY THE SHOW, BELOW:

In the third installment, Man and Wife discuss their gross disappointment in missing out on the upcoming Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California. Through tourette-like fits of profanity and rage, Man and Wife let Coachella know how they really feel about its sold-out status and present eleven songs, all from artists Man and Wife are sad to miss. Enjoy the mother (bleeping) show.

This colorful episode features the following songs:

Cee Lo – F**k You
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Grafitti – Beverly Kills
Cut Copy – Future
Gogol Bordello – Supertheory of Everything
Needy Girl – Chromeo
Be Here – Raphael Saadiq
9 Samurai – Kode9
Agitation – Erykah Badu
Kids – Sleigh Bells
We Used to Wait – Arcade Fire
Golden Skans – Klaxons
Little Lion Man – Mumford & Sons
Miss Fortune- Aloe Black
B**ch, I Love You – Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears

Love and Marriage – Shinehead (introduction and closing song)

In September of 2010 I was invited to the Hard Rock Casino and Resort Hotel in Albuquerque to present a talk called “How To Write and Talk Music Without Sounding Like a Total Jerk” for the TEDxABQ conference. The TED tradition (the acronym stands for “technology, entertainment and design”) is a platform shared by people world-wide where they can share their passions and ideas.

I’d long considered myself a TEDhead, although I only recently discovered the witty designation. Some of the talks  have changed the way I approach my life, both creatively and professionally. In 2009, I was half-listening  to a TED podcast beneath the daily hum of another commute: “People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.” The man on the stage said it again. His name is Simon Sinek, a leadership specialist and author who participated in TEDxPuget Sound in 2009 with a talk called “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.” “People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.” Passionately, he made his case and 18 minutes and 5 seconds later I was looking at my work in music and communications with a fresh and inspired new perspective. Many TEDheads can attest to similarly singular moments.

Needless to say, I had become very fond of TED by the time I was invited to present. Earlier in the year, I had patched together a talk for Ignite New Mexico. Weeks prior to this lecture, I began to construct what I hoped would turn into an engaging and thoughtful talk on how we might better communicate with one another when dealing with the kaleidoscope that is popular music. I summoned all my journalistic prowess and churned out a five-minute showpiece, dense with attribution, accuracy and brevity. As it went, an hour before the night’s lecture I trashed the script – I hadn’t memorized it and it was pretty boring. I had a beer to calm my nerves and apologized in advance to my wife. Then, across the room I saw my banjo. I grabbed it, decided on three main chords (G, C, D), and started scribbling furiously, using my old script as a guide. It became a song. Then a memorable Ignite NM performance. Then the song evolved into my TED talk. Music, again, has saved my ass. Enjoy.

With music currently in a million tiny pieces, many new resources are available to help the music lover navigate the congestion

10. Sir Lucious Left Foot the Son of Chico Dusty
Big Boi
If you like this, try:
How I Got Over, The Roots
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Nightmare, Kanye West

9. Broken Bells
Broken Bells
If you like this, try:
Halcyon Digest, Deerhunter
The Suburbs, Arcade Fire
Familial, Philip Selway

8. The Guitar Song
Jamey Johnson
If you like this, try:
I Speak Because I Can, Laura Marling
Genuine Negro Jig,
Carolina Chocolate Drops
You Are Not Alone, Mavis Staples

7. Heartland
Owen Pallett
If you like this, try:
Lasted, Benoit Pioulard
The Age of Adz, Sufjan Stevens
Gorilla Manor, Local Natives

6. The Budos Band III,
The Budos Band
If you like this, try:
Earthology,
Whitefield Brothers
I Learned the Hard Way,
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

5. The Sea
Corrine Bailey Rae
If you like this, try:
The Lady Killer, Cee-Lo
Good Things, Aloe Blacc
Wake Up!, The Roots and John Legend

4. Black City
Matthew Dear
If you like this, try:
Cosmogramma, Flying Lotus
The Way Out, The Books
Lp4, Ratatat
Before Today, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti

3. Brothers
The Black Keys
If you like this, try:
This Is Happening, LCD Soundsystem
Contra, Vampire Weekend
Treats, Sleigh Bells

2. Teen Dream
Beach House
If you like this, try:
Write About Love, Belle & Sebatian
Disconnect from Desire, School of Seven Bells

1. The ArchAndroid
Janelle Monae
If you like this, try:
Plastic Beach, Gorillaz
Record Collection, Mark Ronson and the Business Intl.

It’s too bad Coronado isn’t alive today to see his vision of the (Seven) Cities of Gold Casino come true.

(Names have been changed to protect privacy.)

My name is Todd Eric Lovato — my father is a Lovato, my mother a Sigstedt (don’t ask) — and in my daily deeds I hear the following statement more than I should: “You’re a Lovato? You don’t look Spanish.”

I hear it, or some iteration of it, a lot. Always from Hispanics (or Latinos, or Chicanos, or Chihispatinos, or whatever), never from non-Hispanics (I will pick on them at a later time).

“You don’t look Spanish.”

Now that I’m back in my hometown, Santa Fe, I get it more than ever, most often during casual, introductory social exchanges — the bar, the work, the game, the party, the day trip to Española.

One time, I dropped off some slacks to be hemmed at a local mom-and-pop tailor shop off Cerillos road. The old Hispano owner in a veterans ball cap took down my name, then stopped midway and peered at me above his bifocals:

“Lovato? You don’t look Spanish.”

The “City Different” is a kaleidoscope of  high desert beauty, grand ol’ history and cultural contradiction. Some people still describe it as a tri-cultural utopia, a rose-colored perspective (usually made by wealthy white women) that views Hispanics, Anglos and Native Americans as aligned in some kind of harmonic convergence of cultures. Although the state wasn’t incorporated until 1912, Santa Fe is often touted as the third oldest standing American city and the oldest to the West of the Mississippi River, as well as the oldest state capital in the country. It boasts the oldest standing church; San Miguel Chapel, dating back 1610 A.D.; the oldest public building in the Palace of the Governors; and the country’s oldest standing community get down — Las Fiestas, which celebrates the Spanish “bloodless” reconquest of the area from the indigenous Tesuque Pueblo Indians in 1692.

Back in high school, my city league basketball team, The Skinny Kahunas + Joe (yes, it says that on the trophy), won an important playoff game against a local recreation center’s sponsored team. As we shuffled out of the locker room victorious, the losing team was waiting to receive us in the foyer. By this point, I had been in and around enough fights to know that a fracas was indeed brewing. We walked by, uncomfortable — we were on their side of town, a rough, poor quadrant that had yet to be gentrified by New Yorkers. Loud enough for everyone to hear, a young firebrand with a cursive neck tattoo and a family reputation for gang warfare, Chango, emoted, “I hate these fucking white boys!”

Just about any other epithet I would’ve ignored. Instead, I flared inside, walked up to him, preparing my best Spanglish accent: “I’m not white. I’m Hispanic.”

Chango threw a fake karate chop. I parried. The room got loud and raucous, and that was pretty much the end of it — I think the cops came or something. But that faux-punch stuck with me. It said something both sweet (not actually hitting me) and sour (fake hitting me). I can still see Chango’s message in those angry eyes. It said, “Lovato? You don’t look Spanish.”

I suppose I should have a boilerplate response prepared for the non-violent occurrences — something witty and self-deprecating so we could both have a good laugh and say “Bueno, bye,” and walk away feeling good about our respective prejudices: Me the over-educated, over-fed, long-haired, leaping gnome of a gringo; and he, the old tithing Spanish viejo, nary far away from a crock pot brimming with the best-tasting pinto beans in the land.

Sadly, presented with this statement, I find myself yet again stunned, feelings hurt and at a loss of words. A salvo of thoughts fire through my head, none more overwhelming than the following rumination: Multigenerational Hispanics in New Mexico who accept nothing less than “Spanish” as their pure lineage are wrapped up in a case of epic denial. In 2011, at the forefront of more than four centuries of colonization, hegemony, immigration and, frankly, fucking, for one to identify only with a singular strand of what is a lustrous braid of suramericano pedigree mashup is to xenophobic and self-loathsome at best.

Recently, I was at an outdoor juerga, a flameco jam session, on the outskirts of town. Women in brilliant folksy skirts and dancing shoes set up portable dance platforms made from plywood and two-by-fours laid on the earth. The tocaor tuned up his guitar and loosened his fingers with exotic scales and embellishments of difficult rasgueado flourishes. Cajons flanked his sides. Fireside, I was introduced to a guy with a salt-and-pepper pompadour and impossibly tight black jeans.

“I’m…Manuel Francisco de Platero.” He delivered his words like he was speaking in the third person. “They call me…”

“Nice to meet, you Manuel, I’m Todd…er,” I already didn’t like the way things were going, “Todd Lovato.”

“Lovato? You don’t look like a Lovato.”

Silence followed. Here we are again, I probably thought. Then I probably forced an awkward smile, kicked the dirt and tugged my earlobe or adjusted my glasses — gestures one makes when you are truly nonplussed. “Cool, nice to meet you, Manuel.”

The cuadro of musicians and dancers performed their impassioned song and dance out of twilight and into the chilly night. Meanwhile, I just sulked, drank too much silver tequila, and thought about what I should have said.

In his retirement, my grandfather, Joseph, tried to trace the Lovato gene pool back to our ancestors. I thought maybe it would be some high profile celebrity progenitor like Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, a gold-lusting Spanish conquistador who set out to discover and ransack the mythical Seven Cities of Gold in the name of the Spanish crown. But nearly a year and much collateral damage later, Coronado found himself in what is now northwestern New Mexico with little more than his helmet in his hand, glassing over the staid pueblo huts of the pueblo Zuni people. No gold. Just adobe and a passel of confused indigenous. Turns out, we are not related to this reconnoiter — at least not yet. Here’s another shocker: We aren’t related to Oñate (don’t ask) either — at least not yet. But you never know. You don’t see many Oñates or Coronados in the phone book these days. They could be anywhere.

(I wrote this while wearing cowboy boots. In Part II, I will discuss all the ways people mispronounce the name Lovato.)

In their latest episode, Man and Wife list the worst of the best — the worst songs ever to reach Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, from 1958 through 2010.

Thanks to Dad and Sister for helping. Enjoy the show.

You can also subscribe to Man and Wife on iTunes, here.

To download, right click and save file, Man and Wife II

As promised, here’s the track list:

• The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late) – Alvin and the Chipmunks (1958)
• The Lion Sleeps Tonight – The Tokens (1961)
• Smooth – Santana, Rob Thomas (1999)
• Every Breath You Take – The Police (1983)
• Kiss You All Over – Exile (1978)
• Butterfly – Crazy Town (2000)
• You’re Beautiful – James Blunt (2005)
• Grillz -  Nelly, Paul Wall, Ali and Gipp (2006)
• Silly Love Songs – Paul McCartney, Wings (1976)
• Afternoon Delight – Starland Vocal Band (1976)
• Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) – C+C Music Factory (1990)
• Kokomo – The Beach Boys (1988)
• I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That) – Meat Loaf (1993)
• I Will Always Love You – Whitney Houston (1992)
• MacArthur Park – Donna Summer (1978)
• Escape (The Pina Colada Song) – Rupert Holmes (1980)

(Originally published in Local iQ magazine.)

Bears, horses, bats, moths, mice and other ‘creatures’ clawed their way to the top of the music pile in 2009

Popular music in 2009 might best be summed up as the year of the beast, at least in namesake. Animal Collective, the New York City-based electronic art-rock group, placed themselves as head of the flock early in January of 2009 with one of the year’s finest albums, Merriweather Post Pavilion. Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest wowed listeners with its nocturnal introspection and hibernal melodies. England’s pop-rock darlings Wild Beasts clawed into widespread acclaim with Two Dancers and super-producers Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse teamed up with filmmaker David Lynch to produce the year’s best never-officially-released album, Dark Night of the Soul. After a dispute with his record label, Danger Mouse stopped just short of telling his fans to look for pirated versions of the album online.

While these albums make up the most dominant releases of the year, artists like the Fruit Bats, Moderat, Super Furry Animals, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Doves and Albuquerque’s own Le Chat Lunatique (The Crazy Cat) are all noteworthy releases.

In digitally charged era set to the hum of mp3s, iPods and multimedia electro-jumble, it’s refreshing to note that much of the year’s best music recordings maintained a connection to something determinably more primal. Of course there were a number of must-have 2009 releases that didn’t dabble in the wild and anthropomorphic, but it’s comforting to know that close, popular music remains unfettered and untamed. The following are my favorite albums of 2009.

25. TuMan Presents … Zack Freeman

Zack Freeman

Righteous postmodern soulful beatbox b-boy Americana.

24. Eating Us

Black Moth Super Rainbow

Instrumental Junkyard lo-fi electronica for a daydream.

23. Only Built 4 Cuban Links … Pt. II

Raekwon

Meticulously thrown back Wu-Tang soundtrack to the mean streets.

22. American Saturday Night

Brad Praisley

Key Track: “American Saturday Night.” Global country fare for a salad bowl ‘Merica

21. Under the Covers Vol. 1

Le Chat Lunatique

Filthy gypsy jazz and swing for the post-punk set.

20. I Feel Cream

Peaches

Bacchanalian woman’s lib electro pop-punk

19. The Ecstatic

Mos Def

Golden Age-steeped hip-hop propelled by crate digger astro-funk

18. Fluorescent Black

Antipop Consortium

Avant-electro hip-hop for the underground contingent

17. It’s Not You, It’s Me

Lily Allen

Clever, pragmatic Brit-pop singer/writer explores sex, drugs and fame.

16. Toeachizown Vol. 1: LAtrik & Toeachiizown

Vol. 2: Fly

Dam-Funk

West Coast drop-top hip-hop instrumentals

15. Warm Heart of Africa

The Very Best

Electro-Afro-pop for the global milieu 

14. Dark Night of the Soul

Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse

Desolate indie-electro-pop with an all-star guest list.

13. Dark Was the Night

Various Artists

A veritable who’s-who compilation of modern independent music.

12. Moderat

Moderat

Pioneering minimalist and experimental techno for a nightclub overdose

11. The Ruminant Band

Fruit Bats

Shins sideman Eric Johnson turns bedroom side project into infectious indie folk-pop.

Top Ten

10. Bitte Orca

Dirty Projectors

Joyous indie electronic art-rock collage for the mainstream fatigued.

9. Wilco (The Album)

Wilco

A sunny and to-the-point gem by the darlings of alternative country-rock.

8. Tongue N Cheek

Dizzee Rascal

Soundtrack for a ruckus by UK’s preeminent garage MC.

Video (See Calvin Harris below)

7. Bonfires on the Heath

The Clientele

Autumnal British folk for star-gazing.

6. Dark Days/Light Years

Super Furry Animals

Irreverent power pop and electronic Welsh rock.

5. Veckatimest

Grizzly Bear

Charming indie pop-rock from a creatively charged and introspective dreamers.

4. I’m Not Alone

Calvin Harris

Euro-nightclub hipster electro-funk and dance.

3.  5 Years of Hyperdub

Various Artists

Thirty-two track compilation of dubstep, grime and electronica by elite electronic music UK label Hyperdub.

2. Two Dancers

Wild Beasts

Hooting and Howling, Ziggy Stardust-laced dance rock.

1. Merriweather Post Pavilion

Animal Collective

Chillwave electro-art-rock for music lover looking to push boundaries.

Man and Wife at All Points West Music and Arts Festival, Jersey City

Nov. 15, 2010 — On their debut, Man and Wife discuss and listen to their favorite songs and albums of the year…so far. They also discuss some major musical disappointments, and one of them finds their way to the bottom of a vodka-laced apple cider. “We spent the year listening to new albums and traveling to live concerts so we could make this list for people to enjoy,” said Wife. “There  were so many good acts this year, it was difficult to choose only a handful. But it is an honor to blabber about it for 74 minutes.” “Enjoy the show!” said Man.

Listen here:

To download, right click and Save Link As HERE.

Featured Songs:

Gorillaz, Plastic Beach, “Stylo”

The Budos Band, The Budos Band III, “Black Venom”

Matthew Dear, Black City, “I Can’t Feel”…

Whitefield Brothers (Edan and Mr. Lif), Earthology, “The Gift”

School of Seven Bells, Disconnect from Desire “Bye Bye Bye”

Arcade Fire, The Suburbs, “The Suburbs”

Mark Ronson and the Business Intl., Record Collection, “Somebody to Love Me”

Mavis Staples (Jeff Tweedy), You Are Not Alone, “You Are Not Alone”

Broken Bells, Broken Bells, “Vaporize”

The Books, The Way Out, “A Cold Freezin’ Night”

Pantha Du Prince, Black Noise, “Abglanz”

Flying Lotus, Cosmogramma, “Nose Art”

The Roots and John Legend, Wake Up!, “Little Ghetto Boy”

Big Boi (T.I.), Sir Lucious Left Foot the Son of Chico Dusty, “Tangerine”

Janelle Monae, The ArchAndroid, “Wondaland”

Gonjasufi, A Sufi and a Killer, “Kowboyz and Indians”

Beach House, Teen Dream, “Walk in the Park”

The Black Keys, Brothers, “Tighten Up”

Send an email to todd@penguinorecords.com.

When middle-aged Levis-clad white women dance to blues, I’m telling you, they dance with uterus first.

They bounce and gyrate, tautly bending knees, shaking hips and squatting like wrinkly Western-themed barbie dolls. They clomp their boots to the live sounds of perennial white-guy blues pablum — at this moment the song is “Lay Down Sally,” which was lame enough when Eric Clapton  recorded it.

The revelry spreads like a hot flash. There are three women dancing. Six. More are bobbing in the wings. I look around the room, thinking “How big could this get?”

Like a toddler, a woman in salt-and-pepper hair and a peasant dress twirls and “drops it like it’s hot” — squatting to slap the floor with both hands. I am uncomfortable.

Men are there too. Donning collared shirts tucked into jeans, the studs traipse and spin with the graces of spinal traction patients. They have ruddy faces and brandy noses; they stare nowhere, locked in a blues-induced trance. I am reminded of the Gurdieff movements in “Meetings with Remakable Men,” repetitive, symmetrical spins and steps designed to enlighten the seeker. “I long to see the morning light, coloring your face so dreamily…Don’t you ever leave.”

The tao of Eric Clapton. Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in order to become a great bluesman. I’m certain he is serving out his eternal punishment in a club like this.

Ad infinitum, the musicians hammer out the obligatory I-IV-V, 12-bar blues progressions. The pentatonic guitar scale does its sensible work –  loyal, weary, trodden — like a pack mule. Tonight, repetition and familiarity is king. “I’ve heard this song 3,000 times!” a man says enthusiastically as the band fires up “She Complicated”.

I have a solid view of tonight’s boomer bacchanal. I am on the stage, a member of the guilty party.

(In no particular order):

Miles Davis – Kind of Blue

A Tribe Called Quest – Midnight Maurauders

Squarepusher – Hard Normal Daddy

Muddy Waters – Hard Again

Mahavishnu Orchestra – Birds of Fire

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention – We’re Only In It for the Money

DJ QBert – Wave Twisters

Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

Beck – Sea Change

The Roots – Do You Want More??!!!!!

Pink Floyd – Shine on You Crazy Diamond

Madvillian – Madvilliany

Herbie Hancock – Headhunters

Steely Dan – Aja

Beach House – Teen Dream