The Witzard

Touché Amoré & The Strokes (SOURCES: Epitaph Records / @thestrokes) It's the return of Bandcamp Fridays! While we really don't have the time to go through the endless amounts of emails we've received to give you some recommendations this fine day... we will say this: go and support your favorite artists, big or small. Today, Bandcamp is waiving their fees for 24 hours and providing the artists with 100% of their sales raised. We will, however, provide a recommendation released by one of our favorite bands, Touché Amoré. The Los Angeles-based Post-hardcore band led by Jeremy Bolm and featuring lead guitarist Clayton Stevens, rhythm guitarist Nick Steinhardt, bassist Tyler Kirby, and drummer Elliot Babin have shared something special in honor of today's Bandcamp Friday festivities. "To celebrate the 20 year anniversary of Is This It? by The Strokes, we did a cover of "Hard to Explain," which will be available tomorrow exclusively for Bandcamp Frid...

" The Alpacas are Nick Harper, Greg Lee, Brett Garner , and Brent Lee : a four-piece Rock "N" Roll band from Barrie, Ontario . The Alpacas aim to write honest, hooky, and heavy tunes that strike a balance between raw and refined. The Alpacas' live show is loud and quiet, fast and slow, tidy and unkempt—but above all, The Alpacas look to create some good time vibes and entertain an audience," reads a fragmented chunk of Canadian Pop-Punks The Alpacas' on-site Willow Music band bio. "Born in the year of the Horse , Greg Lee can sing like a bird and scream like a wildcat from Northern Ontario . Brett was naturally gifted with the calloused fingers of a sea-faring gentleman. His leathery paws give him the ability to produce very low frequencies on the bass guitar. Nick 's timing is impeccable, he’s never been late his entire life. Some drummers practice to metronomes, but metronomes practice to Nick Harper ’s drumming. At the tender age of ...

"I used to have tons of songs in my head, but since I couldn't play anything well and I didn't know how to use programs [so] I was never able to make them," Chicago emcee and former Cool Kids affiliate Hollywood Holt writes within his rather compelling Facebook Bio section. Now better known as simply HXLT (pronounced: "Holt" ), the former club-friendly rapper has returned with the lead-off single from his as-yet-untitled G.O.O.D. Music debut; " Holt 's manager told Billboard at the time of his singing that "it's like if Joy Division , The Strokes , and Dr. Dre made an album together."' Judging by "Live to Death," it would appear as though HXLT has somehow already managed to master the whole Psych/Punk Rock -leaning brand of Alt. Hip-Hop that Kanye 's former protégé Kid Cudi has spent the past five or so odd years aimlessly trying to hone and perfect. Although, prior to unleashing "Live to Death"...

Jacksonville 's very own genre-blending Alt. Country superstar Ryan Adams is in fact, no stranger to recording full-length cover albums; Adams reportedly recorded, and ultimately scrapped, a stripped down 4-track revision of The Strokes' critically-acclaimed debut Is This It? (2001). But for whatever reasons, Adams' " Blues cover version" has rather discouragingly still only been heard by members of his former backing band, The Cardinals . Ryan Adams' second attempt (or third, if you count his unheard Vampire Weekend album), at a full-length cover album: a self-described Smiths -indebted version of Taylor Swift 's recent career-redefining 1989 has been very well-documented through his own personal social media accounts. "Ryan's music helped shape my song-writing. This is surreal and dream-like. Countdown to [Ryan Adams' 1989] @TheRyanAdams ," @taylorswift13 frantically Tweeted Thursday afternoon, upon the sudden announcement ...

Death Grips have somehow already managed to "break up" via a napkin and "reform" in a matter of months, signed an Epic Records deal and purposely leaked private emails to get dropped, posed for a mysterious backstage picture alongside Robert Pattinson & Beyoncé (above), recruited Björk to contribute vocals to Disc 1 of their "comeback" album, The Powers That B , were surprisingly name-dropped on Rachael Ray by comedian Fred Armisen , bailed on a whole string of scheduled shows Axl Rose style, and licensed "You Might Think He Loves You for You Money But I Know What He Really Loves You for and It's Your Brand New Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat" for an Adidas Predator sneaker commercial... so, it would make sense that the newly-reformed Death Grips would need something of a fresh start; long-speculated Death Grips -affiliated Twitter handle @bbpoltergiest shared a cryptic zipfile link to a 9-track album called I've always been good...

While I wouldn't exactly go as far as to automatically mislabel Har Mar Superstar 's most recent album, Bye Bye 17 as "Blue-Eyed Soul" or anything resembling lazy new age Neo-Soul genre tags, frontman Sean Tillmann probably owes more to guys like Justin Timberlake , Mayer Hawthorne, and Robin Thicke than he would probably ever willingly like to admit. Tillmann's latest music video/single was directed by frequent Strokes collaborator Warren Fu , who's previously worked with long-time frontman Cult Records founder Julian Casablancas ; at it's core, "Restless Leg" is a charming, yet vaguely disturbing video centered around an interesting man-on-puppet pseudo-love triangle, which was co-directed by contained Viva La Puppet puppeteer Michelle Zamora . No matter how you may feel about a little tasteful man-on-puppet action, Bye Bye 17 is a very easily accessible album, chock-full of white boy Soul-Funk/R&B; something to the effect of mid...

Sonically, Mechanical Bull should have a little somethin' for everyone; swooning 18-year-olds and die-hard Kings of Leon purists alike. Just a few mere hours after unveiling their slow-burning new single, "Wait for Me," Kings of Leon uploaded a fairly stripped down music video for lead-off single, "Supersoaker." Director W.I.Z. somehow managed to implement some sort of Instagram -tinged video filter, which he describes as "an imagined hybrid of Pop-Art screenprint, hand tinting, and Technicolor film." "Supersoaker" kinda reminds me of a Southern -fried version of The Strokes or some other popular, dirty-looking early 2000's Garage Rock band(s). Throughout, Kings of Leon can be seen fiercely executing the track, surrounded by beautiful women that weirdly enough... they never really seem to fully acknowledge over the course of it's 4-minute run-time! W.I.Z. & Kings of Leon have quite cleverly crafted a bare-bones...

While well-groomed "heart-throb" types like Justin Timberlake and Robin Thicke are busy concocting smooth baby-making Future R&B , lone scantily-clad showman Sean "Har Mar Superstar" Tillman 's bringing the Ron Jeremy to old school-sounding Soul-Funk/R&B . Har Mar Superstar 's been doing his thing for the past 10-15 years now and has toured or worked with a wide variety of underground/mainstream talent: Ben Lee , Fabrizio Moretti (The Strokes), Father John Misty , Britney Spears , Neon Neon , Beth Ditto, Jennifer Lopez , and Drew Barrymore. "Lady, You Shot Me" were supposedly crooner Sam Cooke 's last words, which now effectively doubles as Bye Bye 17 's lead single, of sorts. Julian Casablancas' newly-formed Cult Records quietly unleashed the 10-track album a little while back on April 23rd. Bye Bye 17 feels like Har Mar Superstar's first honest attempt @ some tried-and-true LEGIT R&B music and while I...

It all started when my older cuz Josh burned me a stack of CD-R's full of pirated music; I couldn't really tell you what was in there... But probably some Beastie Boys , mid-90's Ska, Dave Matthews Band , Phish, mash-ups, and Ryan Adams - "To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High)." It's a self-loathing Alt. Country romper pulled from Adam's solo debut, Heartbreaker (2000), which was later featured in Accepted and Old School . Ryan Adams' abridged discography includes about 13 albums and he's recorded [and vaulted] records-full of everything from Death Metal to Hip-Hop and unreleased Vampire Weekend/The Strokes covers CD-R's. Judd Apatow 's latest film, This Is 40 showcases a specially-formed Ryan Adams Band along with keyboardist Ian McLagan (The Faces) who performed during it's final scenes. Ryan Adams even contributed re-recorded live tracks for inclusion on it's soundtrack, "Lucky Now" and "Shin...