I haven’t had much time of late to write. The house project of repainting walls, painting trim, pulling up carpets, and laying down bamboo has absolutely dominated my time. That and working on my BMW, which in the past few weeks has received a full tune-up (with exception of replacing points and cleaning the carb). (more…)

Being that my typical night consists of hitting the sack at around 10pm, and that my new radio show is Friday nights from 10pm to midnight, I figured that my second show would center around the theme of sleep. So I pieced together a playlist of bedroom pop, chill wave, dreamy shoegaze and what I’ve dubbed as psychedelic ambiance. (more…)

Take a little travel across the country from the evergreen-clad, rainy Northwest to the Southeastern United States. You may have seen these guys atop our Top 50 Albums of 2009, or caught one of the many features or reviews we’ve passed their way over the past year and a half. Today FensePost phoned up Venice Is Sinking for a rare interview; rare for us. We were pretty excited about it as, after all, we don’t do many of these. But questions were easy to conjure up for last year’s favorite. (more…)

Tonight I hit the kitchen to compile the second FensePost podcast, or FenseCast, while cooking up one of my signature dishes: spicy steak enchiladas with homemade sauce. For desert, a delicious slice of gluten free cake courtesy Andi (the girlfriend), whose cake photo you can see in this post. Unlike the first podcast, this one had a range of bands that stemmed into several genres rather than focusing on garage rock and pop. Within I reminisce on one of my favorite bands of all time, occasionally hover around bedroom pop, and pass along one imperative ingredient in my homemade enchilada sauce. (more…)

Dark and dreamy, “Falls City” is the first track available from the new Venice Is Sinking album, Sand & Lines. The song is a testament to this band’s versatility and ability to create a diverse set of music. Recorded using only two microphones in Athens’ Georgia Theatre, which burned down a few months after it was recorded, the album is set for a June 2010 release — one year after a fire destroyed the building. All proceeds from the album will go to the theater. (more…)

2009 is a tough year to judge. I’ve checked out more albums this year than any year in the past. Well over 1,000. And there have been quite a few great ones as well. When this list began, it had 110 albums. I abandoned my top 33 and 1/3 for 45, and then said “screw it” and upped the number to an even 50. These are the top notch albums of the year, all worthy of praise. (more…)

Not surprisingly, this list is filled with EPs by quite a few bands you know and quite a few you probably don’t. Of the ones you don’t know, many are likely from Washington; a quick count leaves me with five bands, or 1/4 of this list. Many of these bands I consider among the most promising artists to surface in 2009. All are worth checking out, and you’ll want to keep an eye on them as we head into 2010. (more…)

“Okay” by Venice Is Sinking is easily one of my favorite tracks of 2009 and the album on which it can be found, AZAR, will be a tough contender to beat for the best album of the year. In support of their new maxi-single for “Okay”, they’ve now given us a most excellent video to accompany its promotion. The video itself is a joyous montage dubbed “How to Achieve Musical Greatness.” It’s a testament to how great this band truly is; “Okay” as a song is absolutely brilliant, but combined with the video… well, I just can’t think of many things that can top this. (more…)

“Okay” by Athens, GA’s Venice Is Sinking, was released earlier this year on their album AZAR; the band is finally giving it due diligence in their extended single Okay, out this fall. Naturally, the EP begins with “Okay” before diverting into a few new tracks, “Compass” and “Give Up”. They then round out Okay with alternate versions of the two key hits off AZAR, “Okay” and “Ryan’s Song”, both recorded as Henslee Sessions. (more…)

We’re now half way through 2009, so I figured it was about time to collect a few favorites from the year thus far. I’ve put together 10 must-hear albums from the first half of 2009. To alleviate any bias, and because I’m totally obsessed with this style of categorization, I’m putting them alphabetically. (more…)