Contest - Tickets for CA musiclovers

If you live near Irvine, CA, you've probably heard of the Playground Festival. This year, bands like The Bravery, Shiny Toy Guns, and Panic! at the Disco are playing. There are a ton of different bands and artists, of all genres, to check out. If you like music and you live in CA, it's a place you want to be.

If you want to win a pair of two-day tickets to attend the event this Labor Day weekend, just fill out the form below. The contest will end on Friday, and tickets can be picked up at Will Call. You can find out a full list of bands playing, as well as more info, at http://playgroundfestival.com/

Oh Mercy - Stay, Please Stay

Link.

Favorite lyrics: What can I do with a love that gathers dust in a busy room?

Oh Mercy has a really clear-cut sound with the kind of simplicity that's just about the music; Stay, Please Stay isn't overtly trying to grab your attention in a million different ways, but it still manages to grab it. There's some sonar-sounding guitar playing, an underwater call that could very easily drown you, and a xylophone melody that's beyond addicting. The vocals are equally entrancing and the whole song gives off an upbeat but moody vibe, like the singer's singing directly to a dying relationship and the band is playing over the good parts like it can bring them back to life.

Glitter Pox rating: 81% contagious

Hope you catch it,
The Glitter Pox

Forest Fire - Future Shadows

Fav lyrics: try and give this day a reason

There's a trance-like touch to this melody; as soon as you hear it, it's identified as one of those summer songs that remind you of humidity and gnats and lemonade. But the lyrics repel a kind of smokier edge over the usual windows-down type of music. It's a very endearing song, one to play at the ending of a season to keep some sort of nostalgia.

Glitter Pox rating: 58% contagious

Hope you catch it,
The Glitter Pox

Forest Fire - Future Shadows by Fat Cat Records

Gotye - Heart's a Mess

Fav lyrics: Let me occupy your mind
As you do mine

There's a smooth, smooth voice over the scratchy Indian-esque music in Heart's a Mess, and it sits well in your stomach. It's like the best, sugariest kind of cotton candy at the most twisted carnival of your life. The twitchy music slices throw the vocals and mimics a kind of bouncy, spacey walk through the sound. It almost has a video game background, the kind of meandering box-hitting, bowser-stomping sway you'd expect to hear in pixelated entertainment. It has a whole lot going on, but it's like the lights and flow of New York City - a welcoming kind of busy.

Glitter Pox rating: 89% contagious

Hope you catch it,
The Glitter Pox

Hearts A Mess by Gotye

Simone White - Blueprint

favorite lyrics: the city feeds and feeds and feeds

There's something really gentle and clean about Simone White's voice; it's like a dryer sheet fresh from the laundry, soft but with a little bit of worn grit. There's a regretful and jaded sound that comes from the contradiction of delicate music and weighty words, and it sounds bitterly smooth. Very quiet, but very easy to listen to.

Glitter Pox rating: 68% contagious


Hope you catch it,
The Glitter Pox

Simone White: Blueprint

Middle Class Rut - Busy Bein' Born

We're big fans of Middle Class Rut here - we featured their song New Low back in April - we obviously loved it, because music we love is the only kind we feature here. Middle Class Rut, especially, has a fantastic rock sound and is easy to listen to twenty million times over.

We wanted to post about their new vid for Busy Bein' Born, which is an amazing song and also a really intense, well-filmed music video. Take a listen! It'll be a well-spent 5 minutes.

Pretty and Nice - Piranha

Favorite lyrics: Oh what a beast you are, Piranha!
Oh what a mighty jaw! [...] Feed feed feed you little lazy things

Pretty&Nice's sound reminds us of a mix of Mindless Self Indulgence and The Fratellis. The music in between lyrics is so vicious, you can pretty much picture a school of piranhas swimming in it. It definitely has bite, and mashed up with the high-noted lyrics - words sung with so much ease they're almost tossed aside - it's a very talent-filled song. These people can sing and make music like it's something they just were born doing. Definitely a great find, and we're looking forward to seeing what these guys do with their career.

Glitter Pox rating: 76% contagious

Hope you catch it,
The Glitter Pox

Pretty & Nice - Piranha

Link time. If you want more, check this track out, too, because it's just as catchy. Also, their website is here. Bam.

Milo Greene - Autumn Tree

Link.

Favorite lyrics: a yard so full of leaves
hum the song that comforts me

This isn't so much a song as it is an immersion into music and voices that intertwine in a very labyrinthine way. You can get completely lost inside Autumn Tree's overlapping sounds. There's a kind of fluidity to it, and even with as many voices and melodies as it throws in, it's only overwhelming in the very best way. The kind of overwhelming that takes over your mind and lets you fall into the harmony without any kind of hesitation.

*These guys are touring with The Civil Wars and you definitely want to see them. We'll be at the Columbus stop. Check if they're coming by you here.

Glitter Pox rating: 85% contagious

Hope you catch it,
The Glitter Pox

The Civil Wars - Poison and Wine

Favorite lyrics: I don't have a choice but I'd still choose you.

The Civil Wars have been getting a lot of recognition lately, and deservedly so. The thing that makes their music so likable, I think, is that it manages to break your heart and comfort you at the same time. They have a sound and chemistry that works flawlessly, a duo whose voices perfectly compliment each other. In Poison and Wine, especially, it's easy to see how well Joy Williams and John Paul White's voices blend, but both musicians have equally gorgeous voices on their own. Together, they combine into a story only they can tell. Just the chorus of this song makes me crave more; the eight little words in it ("I don't love you, but I always will") are sung with so much depth and harmonization, it's hard not to adore. This song sends off an instant connection between its story and the listener, a kind of deeply rooted emotional investment inside its notes. The lyrics are fantastic, but the passion in these musicians' execution is what makes them such incredible, stand-out artists.

Glitter Pox rating: 99% contagious

Hope you catch it,
The Glitter Pox

Matt Costa - Mobile Chateau

Favorite lyrics: and with the trees we will sway

Matt Costa's voice is perfect for a hazy summer morning, right when the sun wakes up. Between Mobile Chateau and one of his more upbeat songs, Behind the Moon, you've got an artist who really knows how to make music. You can check out a lot more of his songs on his website, which streams his albums alongside lyrics (which every band in the world should do.) You should spend a day on there, because you'll walk away a little happier about life. It's like discovering Sufjan Stevens for the first time. Everyone needs that one softer-singing artist to listen to before your day fully starts, in that slow sleep-blurred period where your brain craves something to both wake it up and wrap it in blankets. Matt Costa is that artist.

Glitter Pox rating: 70% contagious

Hope you catch it,
The Glitter Pox

Mobile Chateau by Matt Costa

Tired Pony - Dead American Writers

Link.

Favorite lyrics: I've been waiting for the spark myself

There's a great balance of indifferent rock gravel and shaky, demanding intensity in the vocals of Dead American Writers. Tired Pony is a band that alters their sound in every song; they're not distinct in a way that, if you heard them, you'd instantly recognize them. But every one of their songs is filled to the edge with something, some kind of art form that not all musicians can pull off. They each tell a different story, and listening to their songs back-to-back pulls you in a lot of different ways. Would also highly recommend listening to their song The Deepest Ocean There Is so you can hear the difference in their sound.

Glitter Pox rating: 75% contagious

Hope you catch it,
The Glitter Pox