New music...

On Sundays I try to get around to updating my XMLified concert list... and today I did. When I do this, I tend to stumble upon new interesting music. Some things I've stumbled on lately:

Katy Perry: Katy is a very neat, clever and dynamic vocalist with great skin. She has a digital EP that's out now on iTunes and it has two notable songs you can hear from her homepage: UR So Gay (the title track of her EP) and Use Your Love (which is a heavy-rockin' psuedo-cover of "Your Love" by Outfield... which you've probably heard as the refrain goes, "I don't wanna lose your love... tonight"). Her website is a fabulous flash-disaster of sorts. Check it out... her voice is very rich, deep and I would be shocked if she didn't put on a kick-butt live show. BTW, she's playing new year's eve with the Moving Units (who rock) at the Mezzanine in SF.

Film School: These guys are headlining a show I'll definitely be at because A Place to Bury Strangers (the loudest band in NYC... from Brooklyn) is playing before them. They have a dreamy feel to them with some well-placed distortion and a very big big sound. Plenty of extended sounds and good slow determined movement music... I just got there latest Hideout from eMusic and it's good and growing on me fast.

Young Rebz: I saw this guy's mixtape, High Jump Champion, via the blog STRIVIN'. This guy can seriously rap and he's coming from straight outta Richmond, CA. Almost every song on his 26-song mixtape is at least four stars in my book with plenty of five-star gems in there. He also has a bunch of youtube videos up where he just raps into a webcam. Classic grassroots hip-hop. Also, check out his Anti-Hyphy song which gives some particularly interesting insight, from his perspective, into the backlash against the Hyphy movement and the movement's limitations.

Von Iva: Meg, Dan and I (iSchool reprazent!) saw the last song by SF's Von Iva when they played Friday here at UC Berkeley. I felt bad because there was no one there... it was a bit nippy and close to the end of the semester, so no mystery there. Especially kind of sad considering the two or three times I've seen them in SF, the place was packed and everyone was dancing. I picked up their latest disc, Our Own Island, at the show and it's definitely worth your time. Check out their tunes on their website.

UPDATE [2007-12-03T11:39:56]: If you like finding new music... go the random route. David Molnar has created a Facebook App called RandomSong that quite literally serves you up random songs from Amazon. You can spend hours with that thing...