PSA: New Girl Talk Album Available For Free Download

Girl Talk has released his new album, All Day, and it's available to download for free right now via his label, Illegal Art. Also, it's great.


The Illegal Art download page lists the following license information:

"All Day by Girl Talk is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. The CC license does not interfere with the rights you have under the fair use doctrine, which gives you permission to make certain uses of the work even for commercial purposes. Also, the CC license does not grant rights to non-transformative use of the source material Girl Talk used to make the album."


PS: I know things have been spare here, again, to say the least. With a little luck this should be changing soon.

Max Rambles Mix Tape Vol. 3

So it's been a while since I've posted a mixtape, and since I moved to Halifax I've been listening to a lot of great new music. With that in mind I threw together a quick mix of mostly new things, though Josh Ritter and Futurebirds have shown up at least once before. This one's a shorter playlist than usual, not quite EP brevity but certainly not the length of an LP.

Anyway, enjoy! Click Here and scroll to the bottom of the page to download the mix. Here's the tracklist:

Day One - Sarah Slean
I See A Fox Drinking Wine Outside A Bar In France - Pat LePoidevin
Snow is Gone - Josh Ritter
Never Satisfied (Revisited) - Jackie Greene
Teen for God - Dar Williams
My Skateboard Will Go On - Anamanaguchi
Years (By One Thousand Fingertips) - Attack in Black
The Late King Henry - The Wooden Sky
APO - Futurebirds
The Gardner - The Tallest Man On Earth

It Gets Better Project

Today is Spirit Day and in recognition of that fact MaxRambles is purple. Around the world people are wearing purple clothing to honour all the teens who have committed suicide as a result of hateful anti-LGBT attitudes. In light of this I want to recognize the It Gets Better Project, which collects videos of people expressing their support to LGBT teens.

Huge numbers of LGBT teens experience bullying and have no support system to turn to when they consider taking their own lives. The It Gets Better Project is an effort to speak directly to these youths, to encourage them that no matter how dark things may be life does get better, and to show them that there are people in the world who support them. As Harvey Milk said, "You gotta give 'em hope," and the It Gets Better Project explicitly strives to do just that. Many people have contributed videos to the project's YouTube page, including public figures like Hilary Clinton and Neil Patrick Harris.

Hatred is a terrible force that can have devastating consequences and today we remember the young people whose lives it has tragically claimed. Even something as seemingly inconsequential as wearing purple clothing is at least a statement against hatred and a show of support for its victims.

The Wooden Sky 10/15/10

This past Friday I had the honour of seeing The Wooden Sky perform at The Seahorse Tavern in Halifax, NS.

The folk-rock band played tracks from their two LPs, When Lost At Sea and the sublime If I Don't Come Home You'll Know I'm Gone. Their sound covers a huge spectrum with both energetic, danceable numbers and slower, more pensive tracks. Whether I was moving my feet or just bobbing my head slowly, throughout the entire night the performance was captivating. These guys are nothing if not earnest and on top of that they've got some great songs at their disposal, and all in all it makes for a very good live show. In an incredible closer after a full electric set The Wooden Sky were joined by opener Yukon Blonde as they came out into the crowd and finished things off with a couple of acoustic sing-alongs. Highlights of the night included an exuberant cover of "American Girl," a haunting rendition of "Something Waiting For Us In The Night," and the acoustic performance of "Oh My God (It Still Means A Lot to Me)" in the midst of the audience. It was a show to remember and one that left me wanting more great tunes, as any good concert should.

I was first introduced to The Wooden Sky last summer at the Hillside Festival in Guelph, ON. There I saw them play alone and accompanied by The Acorn, and both sets were among the highlights of an incredible weekend of music. There's truly nothing like hearing fantastic music in the great outdoors under the sun. Ever since I've been listening to their albums on repeat and eagerly awaiting another chance to hear them play live. Friday's show only reiterated how great these guys are and made me want to see them as many times as possible.

The Wooden Sky have made a real impression on me this year and I strongly recommend giving them a listen. I'll be featuring a track of their on an upcoming mixtape, but in the meantime check out their MySpace page and the video below of their best songs:

Dar Williams' Many Great Companions

Dar Williams is an American folk singer-songwriter who's been active since the early 1990s. She's released around eight or so albums, and has worked with the likes of Joan Baez, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and the Indigo Girls. And until very recently I had never heard any of her work.

This week saw the release of Many Great Companions, a collection of Williams' greatest hits from the span of her career. It also features a disc of new acoustic recordings of some of her songs with special guest collaborators. I got a hold of the collection and sat down to give Williams a shot, and I must say I'm extremely glad I did.

Williams is quite the lyricist, covering topics like religion, sexual politics, adolescence, and love with remarkable maturity. She's at times poignant and introspective, as in the fantastic "Spring Street" or the introspective "After All." Other songs, however, demonstrate her serpent's tongue and brilliant sense of humour, as with the hilarious "The Pointless Yet Poignant Crisis of a Co-ed" (tragically absent from the greatest hits album).  In her more subdued moments she reminds me of other great female sing-songwriters like Sarah Harmer and Ani Difranco , but when Williams unleashes her biting satirical edge she enters a class all of her own. It’s been a long time since I’ve encountered a folk singer who's so adept at translating social politics into catchy tunes, and I will definitely have “The Christians and the Pagans” stuck in my head for days to come.

Many Great Companions gives a broad cross-section of Dar Williams' career, and seemed like a fantastic entry point for uninitiated listeners like me. For fans who already own the “best of” material here, the disc of new acoustic takes makes this release a worthy addition to any collection. Evidence of that fact can be found below via two mp3s of the new acoustic tracks.

Dar Williams - “As Cool As I Am” acoustic (with Gary Louris from The Jayhawks)
Dar Williams - "If I Wrote You" acoustic (with Gary Louris from the Jayhawks)

Update: FYI Tomorrow there will be a live acoustic set and Q&A with Dar Williams on LiveStream at 12:30 pm ET