Join the Street Team and help out!

PlayRadioPlay! - Demos

Various Unreleased Demos by PlayRadioPlay!

Track List:

1. 1,2,3 Entertain
2. Abe Lincoln's Old School Alibi
3. Bad Cops Bad Charities
4. Compliment Each Other Like Colors
5. Decipher Reflections From Reality
6. Even Fairy Tale Characters Would Be Jealous
7. Introduce Facts for the Sake of Fiction
8. Jello
9. Juice Box, Paper Hat, and a Line of Pixie Stix
10. Let It Shine
11. Loco Commotion
12. Madi Don't Leave
13. Oh, Happy Neighbor
14. Same Outfit
15. Sometimes I Doubt Your Commitment To Sparkle Motion
16. Symmetry
17. There Are Cooler Ways to Die
18. We've Been Searching the Sky for Answers
19. Without Gravity
20. At This Particular Moment In Time
21. Bound To Get Caught
22. I'm Guessing There's a Pill for That
23. I'm am a Pirate, You are a Princess

The Beatles - 1

Apparently, there was a gap in the Beatles' catalog, after all -- all the big hits weren't on one tidy, single-disc compilation. It's not the kind of gap you'd necessarily notice -- it's kind of like realizing you don't have a pair of navy blue dress socks -- but it was a gap all the same, so the group released The Beatles 1 late in 2000, coinciding with the publication of their official autobiography, the puzzlingly titled -Anthology. The idea behind this compilation is to have all the number one singles the Beatles had, either in the U.K. or U.S., on one disc, and that's pretty much what this generous 27-track collection is. It's easy, nay, necessary, to quibble with a couple of the judgment calls -- look, "Please Please Me" should be here instead of "From Me to You," and it's unforgivable to bypass "Strawberry Fields Forever" (kick out "Yellow Submarine" or "Eleanor Rigby") -- but there's still no question that this is all great music, and there is a bit of a rush hearing all these dazzling songs follow one after another. If there's any complaint, it's that even if it's nice to have something like this, it's not really essential. There's really no reason for anyone who owns all the records to get this too -- if you've lived happily without the red or blue albums, you'll live without this. But, if you give this to any six or seven year old, they'll be a pop fan, even fanatic, for life. And that's reason enough for it to exist.

-Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

Jenny Owen Youngs - Batten The Hatches

Jenny Owen Youngs looks like she might be another typical long-haired hippie waif with guitar; then she opens her mouth and your jaw drops. Her voice has that delicate, childlike quality that plagues many a folksinging female, but when she digs into a song the dissonance between her sweet alto and the acidic images she uses to paint her bittersweet portraits of life and love is startling. "Porchrail" opens the album with a backing band that sounds like the Violent Femmes. It's a simple acoustic rocker, with a swing feel that conveys the nervous energy that floods the body when you see someone you really want and probably can't have. The jittery beat and Youngs' pleading vocal create a mood of panting desire held in check by shyness and insecurity. "Fuck Was I" is a self-flagellating tale about being in thrall to a lover who can never do you any good, and in fact, is doing you a great deal of harm. And yet the love abides. Her matter of fact vocal and the song's lilting beat make her use of the F word actually sound shocking, something that's increasingly hard to do. (When this song was used on an episode of Showtime's Weeds, a dramedy about pot growing in the L.A. suburbs, it led to Youngs' current record deal with Nettwerk.) On "P.S.," Youngs plays the banjo in an arrangement with French horn, cello, bass clarinet, and foot stomps. It sounds kinda like a Tom Waits song, dripping with irony and full of unexpected musical touches. "Drinking Song" details the self-hate and confusion that lead to alcoholism, its dark lyric made bearable by a bright bouncy chorus and a lovely melody. Every song here uses the same basic formula -- dark thoughts set to uplifting music -- but it's a formula that works amazingly well. Youngs has an uncanny insight into the pains and insecurities that plague us all when we're in that vulnerable, confused position of wanting love and feeling unworthy, or wanting out of a relationship and being unable to cut loose from the obsession that makes the pain hurt so good. Youngs has an original voice and an ability to find light even in the darkest situations. It's hard to believe a work this polished and cohesive is only her first album.

- j. poet, All Music Guide

Lullaby For The Working Class - Song

The final offering from Ted Stevens' Lullaby for the Working Class is their most pensive and orchestral disc, but also their most beautiful. The revolving cast that also includes brothers Mike and A.J. Mogis as well as violinist Tiffany Kowalski would reappear in a similar fashion a few years later on Stevens' Mayday project, but this is more of a full-band effort, and the cohesive work of the artists involved truly pays off. From the gorgeously lilting opener, "Expand, Contract," to other lengthy but enlightening numbers like "Seizure," Lullaby for the Working Class are the predecessors to the slowcore movement and orchestral pop acts that followed a few years later, and this is their epic offering and inspiration. Almost creepy in its subtle nature and free-flowing structure, Song is a disc that takes a number of listens to fully appreciate. Once its complicated shell is broken though, the band's core is still incredibly emotional, but features far-from-sappy songwriting led by Stevens' surprisingly powerful and evocative vocals. Chamber pop acts like Matt Pond PA owe a lot to the work of Lullaby for the Working Class, and even those who might complain that the band stretches their tunes a bit too long should eventually succumb to songs like the cheerful and quick "Sketchings on a Baroom Napkin," wherein the Nebraska outfit proves that you can indeed make a happy-sounding tune without ever smiling.

-Peter J. D'Angelo, All Music Guide

Lullaby For The Working Class - I Never Even Asked For Light

1 (Untitled Track)
2 Show Me How the Robots Dance
3 Irish Wake
4 Jester's Siren
5 Hypnotist (Song for Daniel H.)
6 In Honor of My Stumbling
7 This Is as Close as We Get
8 TheSunset & The Electric Bill
9 Bread Crumbs
10 Descent
11 TheMan vs. The Tide (Part I)
12 TheMan vs. The Tide (Part II)
13 TheMan vs. The Tide (Part III)

Lullaby For The Working Class - Blanket Warm

Slowly crafted between 1994 and 1996, the debut album by Lullaby for the Working Class could be easily categorized along with the alt-country of Palace and Wilco that developed around the same time. And while the Nebraskan foursome certainly base their sound in the same acoustic Americana of these other bands, their extensive use of classical arrangements and chamber instruments gives Blanket Warm a gilded edge over its peers.

The hollow strumming on "Good Morning" builds to a crescendo with drums and violin that continues higher on "Honey, Drop the Knife." The group's pop-writing skills are displayed prominently on "Boar's Nest" and "Rye," while the lilting textures of "Eskimo Song Duet" and "Turpentine" show an equal ability to drop conventional arrangements and melodies in favor of mood and, in the case of the latter, which ends with the albums single histrionic outburst of voices which create an incredible impact.

Singer Ted Stevens approaches his vocals with a Midwestern neutrality that is mercifully free of hillbilly affect. In fact, Lullaby for the Working Class never resorts to any of the down-home clichés so often found in new roots music. Instead, the group achieves a majestic sophistication that is akin to finding a Faberge egg in the middle of a cornfield.

-Joshua Glazer, All Music Guide

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Pocket Symphonies for Lonely Subway Car

Short and sweet -- 16 songs in 34 minutes -- Casiotone for the Painfully Alone's second album is a pure delight, a collection of warm, wry, and most often melancholy songs that continues Owen Ashworth's exploration into the world of lo-fi synth pop for the emotionally bruised soul. While there's a definite Magnetic Fields vibe on Pocket Symphonies -- similar emphases on fraught romantic situations, the occasional participation of other performers, synths that are just messy enough -- the connection is more one of shared inspirations. The key point of difference is the productions, since Ashworth often drowns his songs in even thicker murk than Stephin Merritt sometimes does, but never to the point where it's completely lost in the fuzz. Everything is scaled accordingly, so the percussion, though often brutal drum machine crunch, never overwhelms the sweetly sad synth parts, and when everything connects, like the sudden cymbal crashes added to "Bus Song" or the steady drone surge of "Destroy the Evidence," it's a delight. His singing voice always sounds more one-room-over than whispered in one's ear, though the tone is equally conversational, almost as if one is eavesdropping. Ashworth is also blessed with some wonderfully sharp lyrics that stand out just right from the songs -- some good examples: "Frank Sinatra on the radio/But it might as well have been Li'l Kim/When every song you hear/Still reminds you of him" and "I know you're lying/When you start talking like your battery is dying." Everything about the melodies are straightforward enough, most often recurrent loops with an additional keyboard line here or there (and, at two points, thanks to guest Jason Quever, some lovely cello work), resulting in quietly meditative listens. Another nice touch -- opening and closing the album with the same song, "We Have Mice," though sung by different people.

-Ned Raggett, All Music Guide

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Twinkle Echo

Casiotone's third album finds the promise of Owen Ashworth's earlier work paying off ever more in spades. Despite a higher profile and a series of concert tours, he's not changing around the basic approach yet -- it's him, his trusty keyboards and machine beats, a guest appearance or two, and his own gift for sweet, murky, and involving songs. His gift for personal details -- an X marked on one's hand for a show, 'driving all night for no reason. . .until the tape's done' -- gets further reflection in many of the song titles, usually referencing some name in particular. "Toby, Take A Bow" is one of his best, portraying 'the greatest Smiths fan' ever with a series of sly references to song titles by said band that actually create a portrait instead of simply being a joke. Musically, meanwhile, Ashworth keeps on keeping on, wistful and warm synth lines mixed up with hollow clatters, and an overlay of enveloping murk that never drowns the songs entirely. It's a fine balance of the merry and the melancholic, as the clipped beats and low drones of "It Wasn't the Same Somehow" and the melancholia turned into an anthem approach of "Hey Eleanor" and "Blue Corolla" show. If one can argue that the Magnetic Fields already covered this ground to a large extent, then the counterargument is that Ashworth has just as distinct a voice -- lyrical and singing -- as Stephin Merritt (as it stands, Ashworth's a clearer and lighter singer in the first place). The most self-referential moment? "Casiotone for the Painfully Alone in a Yellow T-Shirt," a noticeably more clattering rhythm underpinning a calmly sung story -- backed beautifully by a guest turn on contrabass -- about using a summer night to the best one can, even if it's just nothing but 'riding all night under the street lights.'

-Ned Raggett, All Music Guide

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Etiquette

Etiquette, literate plastic keyboard maestro Owen Ashworth's fourth release under the moniker Casiotone for the Painfully Alone introduced non-bedroom production into the mix, utilizing guest vocalists, strings, woodwinds, pedal steel guitars, and various synthesizers and drum machines from other companies into what was once a simple recipe. What sounds like a major overhaul on the album jacket is less so when applied to the 12 tracks that fill Etiquette's exoskeleton with meat. Fans who swooned over Ashworth's previous collections of snide, affecting, and consistently heartbroken pop songs will find that he's only taken the first step up from lo-fi, with at least half of the songs still residing in the thin, insular confines of four-track distortion filtered through corner store six-packs. That's not to say that songs like "I Love Creedence," "Cold White Christmas," and the Steve Merritt-channeling-David Bowie's-"Five Years'" grandeur of "New Year's Kiss" don't resonate on a sonic level as well as an emotional one. In fact, those three, along with the jazzy "Bobby Malone Moves Home" and the hesitant "Nashville Parthenon" may be some of his finest works, but the inclusion of guest vocalists Sam Mickens, Jenn Herbinson, and Katy Davidson -- the latter leads four songs -- all of whom have lovely and expressive voices, keeps Etiquette from engaging on the kind of one-on-one basis that made Pocket Symphonies for Lonely Subway Cars and Twinkle Echo such selfish pleasures.

-James Christopher Monger, All Music Guide