Free Cross-Pollination Mixtape

While we haven't sorted through all the tracks here yet, we wanted to share with you this free Cross-Pollination mixtape we were sent last night. Cross-Pollination is a free weekly showcase held at Pianos that features up-and-coming NY-based artists. The evenings also feature the namesake "Cross-Pollination" set where the bands mix and mingle with each other and their music. This free mixtape features some great folks such as: Takka Takka, Jaymay, Jukebox the Ghost, Dinosaur Feathers and more. Previous artists that Cross-Pollination have hosted include: My Brightest Diamond, Kimya Dawson, Cloud Cult, Nicole Atkins. Enjoy and definitely check out at least one of these Tuesday night staples.

Best Of 2008: Artist Choices

For our grand finale, we present Stark's biggest achievement of 2008: pulling together some of the biggest and most diverse names in music, including My Morning Jacket, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, The Welcome Wagon, School of Seven Bells, Jukebox The Ghost, Lewis And Clarke, The Spinto Band, Valencia and dozens of others to contribute their own personal lists of their favorite records from the past twelve months. A huge thanks goes out to all the bands, labels and publicists who made this project possible. Enjoy!

Click Here For The Best Of 2008: Artist Choices

Jukebox The Ghost Gets Their Nightmare On; New Live Video

Lovable D.C. power-pop trio Jukebox The Ghost were in the Christmas spirit Friday night when their headlining tour brought them to The Knitting Factory in New York City. They performed a particularly theatric cover of the Nightmare Before Christmas classic "What's This?", which is above for your viewing pleasure. Pianist/vocalist Ben Thornewill did his best Jack Skellington before the band masterfully transitioned into "Where Are All The Scientists Now?", the penultimate track from April's Let Live And Let Ghosts. All in all, this makes a nice diversion from whatever you're doing at the moment, and it's scientifically proven that everybody loves this movie. So enjoy the video and two others from the same show we've included after the jump. 

Jukebox's tour finishes up Saturday Dec. 13 in Norfolk, Virginia. After that, there's a rumor going around that the boys may or may not be contributing to our year-end Best of 2008 Guest List next week. But you didn't hear it from me.


Jukebox the Ghost - Hold It In (Live at the Knitting Factory) from Ray Concepcion on Vimeo.
Jukebox The Ghost - Good Day (Live at the Knitting Factory) from Ray Concepcion on Vimeo.

Jukebox The Ghost

www.myspace.com/jukeboxtheghost

Jukebox The Ghost's Seven Great Records of 2008

as dictated by Tommy Siegel (guitars/vocals)

These United States - A Picture of the Three of Us at the Gate to the Garden of Eden. We're good friends with these guys from D.C., but that has nothing to do with my year-long obsession with this disc. The trippiest folk album I've ever heard.

Dr. Dog - Fate. I noticed that this album got some weird review-website/blog negativity, which seems totally baffling to us. "The Breeze," the album's opening track, is probably my favorite song on any album of theirs -- The melted-tape effect on the acoustic guitar in the beginning of the song reduces me to a heap of sentimental mush. In a good way.

Pretty & Nice - Get Young. The guitar on this album is obscene. Nasty. Think angular, early XTC meets angular, early Of Montreal and you'll get a sense of where they're coming from. We're good friends with these guys, but once again, that has no relation to the album's excellence.  Piranha has got to be the best song I've heard all year.

Ra Ra Riot - The Rhumb Line. We've played some shows with these guys/girls, and the record epitomizes everything we love about them. A beautiful and sad album with great songwriting and arrangements. It ends up being played in our tour van constantly.  

WHY? - Alopecia. I love pretty much everything Yoni Wolf puts out, but this album is probably his best, most mature album yet. The second track, "Good Friday," is one of the darkest break-up songs ever written, and the album just gets darker from there. Jewish-anxiety-hip-hop at its finest.

Champollion - Champ: A Space Opera. We recently met the producer/brainchild behind this album at his studio in Brooklyn and he passed off a copy of the disc. I'm a bit of a nerd for outer-space-related things, so this album really whets my appetite for space-dork-rock-opera. Oh yeah, and the songs are excellent too, of course.

Wale - Mixtape About Nothing. Listen to "The Kramer." Enough said.