It is often said that behind every great man there’s a great woman.  John had Yoko, Adam had Eve, and Bill had Monica (insert joke about Bill having Monica).  Likewise, every great music blog needs its own mix series.

Introducing Vinyl & Vodka’s very own Vodkast, a collection of songs compiled by Willis and Dan McGrath that will surely leave you three sheets to the wind (let’s see how long I can run with this alcohol motif…) Every issue will have a different one with a different cover. By the next issue, we will have it up on iTunes so you can subscribe. Download it and plug it into your iTunes and iPod. Listen to it on your way to work, make it your workout song, etc.! This month’s issue features music by Dragonette, Plastiscines, The XX, School of Seven Bells, Total Babe, and more.

1. Freelance Whales – Generator ^ First Floor
2. Dragonette - Pick Up The Phone
3. Wolf Gang – The King And All Of His Men
4. Total Babe – Short Stories
5. Morningbell - Marching Off To War
6. The Basics - With This Ship (Peter Cobbin Mix)
7. Plastiscines – Barcelona
8. New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle
9. Bell XI – Rocky Took A Love
10. Israel Darling – Samson The Mason
11. Robert Francis – Junebug
12. The xx – Stars
13. School Of Seven Bells – Half Asleep (Alternate Version)
14. M83 – Kim & Jessie
15. Erik Hassle - Hurtful (Penguin Prison Remix)
16. From – Fight for Your Right
17. Fyfe Dangerfield – When You Walk In The Room
18. Jason Mraz – If It Kills Me

Vodkast by vinylandvodka

Download: Vinyl and Vodka – Vodkast 1

Keep on reading for a song-by-song write up of the Vodkast:

1. Freelance Whales - Generator ^ First Floor
I was skeptical when these guys (and girl) started popping up on all the blogs I frequent.  What can I say, the hype beast and I rarely get along (case in point, I don’t really like Animal Collective’s My Girls… “Gasp!!!”).  However, this is totally the exception.  I’m a sucker for banjoes, harmoniums, and ethereal introductions, and lucky for me Freelance Whales rely heavily on all three.  This is one for the year end lists.

2. Dragonette - Pick Up The Phone
Dragonette has always been my favorite indie pop band, and “Pick Up The Phone” tones down the excitement from their previous single “Fixin To Thrill” but still remains Dragonette-cool.

3. Wolf Gang – The King And All Of His Men
It might just be my childhood fixation with Humpty Dumpty speaking, but man I love this song.  It’s quite catchy and could have fit seamlessly on Passion Pit’s debut Manners.  I haven’t heard anything else from Wolf Gang at this point, but I sure as hell look forward to it.

4. Total Babe - Short Stories
I have to admit, I only gave this band a listen because their name intrigued me.  Expecting some bass pounding euro-pop, I was pleasantly surprised when I heard fiddles and folkie vocals. Add them to your list of bands to watch in the upcoming year.

5. Morning Bell - Marching Off To War
This psychedelic-inspired indie pop band have some pretty interesting sounds backed up with screaming ’aaaahs’ from their single “Marching Off To War”.

6. The Basics - With This Ship (Peter Cobbin Mix)
Those of you who’ve heard of Gotye already know 1/3 of this band (those of you who haven’t aren’t living life to its full potential).  Lead singer and percussionist Wally DeBacker is another personal hero of mine and continues to wow with this track.  Only a true musical genius would think to add audio clips of garrrhhing pirates in the middle of a song about sinking ships.

7. Plastiscines - Barcelona
Get up and dance to this anthem by the French rock all-girl band. Who doesn’t like Barcelona?

8. New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle
99.9% of the time I would say nothing good has ever come from suicide.  However, in the case of Hitler and New Order (the remains of Joy Division post Ian Curtis’ death) I have to say otherwise.  That sounded a lot less insensitive in my head…  Often regarded as one of New Order’s best singles, this song has become a classic over the last decade and was ranked 201 on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.”

9. Bell XI - Rocky Took A Love
Seeing as how they are one of the biggest bands in Ireland, it’s befuddling (yes, you heard me, befuddling!) to me how this band hasn’t exploded stateside yet.  The lyrics are great, and it’s just so damn catchy! “If there was a god then why is my ass the perfect height for kicking”.

10. Israel Darling - Samson The Mason
Everything in this song is perfect. From the lyrics to the ‘hey heys’ to the band, you just have to put this on repeat.

11. Robert Francis – Junebug
This song was the free single on iTunes a few weeks back and after downloading and loving it upon first listen, I was shocked to see it had been absolutely torn apart by everyone on iTunes.  Then I saw that I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas was still the number one single for the millionth week in a row, and it all made sense… Part Ryan Adams, part Springsteen, with a little Delta Spirit thrown in, Francis shines on this track off his sophomore album Before Nightfall.  If you like this one you’ll like them all.

12. The xx - Stars
The xx exploded in 2009, and they were known for their minimalist sound. “Stars” is one of my favorites from the album, and both of the singers voices sound so beautiful in this.

13. School of Seven Bells – Half Asleep (Alternate version)
A good friend of mine sent this to me.  No explanation necessary, just watch the trippy video.

14. M83 - Kim & Jessie
This song reminds me of Molly Ringwald… probably because it reeks of the 80’s and would fit perfectly in any one of the John Hugh’s classics from that decade.   For this reason, I love this song and so should you.

15. Erik Hassle – Hurtful (Penguin Prison Remix)
Remember how shocked you were when you first saw a picture of Rick Astely (I mean come on, who would have guessed a skinny white ginger sang Never Gonna Give You Up)?  Well the same thing happened when I googled Erik Hassle… who strangely looks like Astley… Either way, this song is awesome and constantly stuck in my head.  You’d think after Susan Boyle I’d have learned once and for all to never judge a book by its cover… or in this case a cover by its book?… my head hurts.

16. From - Fight For Your Right
If you’ve never heard of From, you should, because their French cover of the Beastie Boys’ “Fight For Your Right” is truly amazing. Trust me.

17. Fyfe Dangerfield - When You Walk In The Room
Fyfe, when you walk in the room, I see things that I do understand. “I want you endlessly, I want you endlessly…”

18. Jason Mraz - If It Kills Me
Classic story.  Friend hopelessly feels for friend.  Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

V&V: I don’t know if you had a chance to check out the blog within the last couple of weeks. But I wrote a little preview about you guys and mentioned your style/genre. I referred to it as Dream pop with a stylized folk structure. Would you say this is accurate?

TB: I think we are all pretty bad at describing ourselves. But yeah that’s accurate.

V&V: what lead you all to start collaborating as a band?

TB: What lead us….Well…… We’d all been working on different projects that kind of fell apart. Then we all got together and tried again and it worked. And we knew Jordan who is really great at guitar. We started off by trying classical, acoustic Classical, and then finally settled on our current sound and got lucky. Our current drummer has been with us for about 5 months now the other one left the band. He is actually the longest we’ve had a drummer.

V&V: That’s surprising. Who would not be in a band that books shows regularly??

TB: I think he left our band to be in a Sublime cover band.

V&V: I bet he’s regretting that decision now.

TB: Well we felt bad, we talked to him last night and he asked if we were playing any shows. And we told him we just played in the First Avenue main room w/ Drinking with Ian. And he was just kind of like “oohh”. But he’s cool and congratulated us.

V&V: I saw on your Myspace that a German candy commercial used your song “Gary Coleman” as the back track. How exactly did they contact/hear about you guys?

TB: Well, The guys who recorded our album, one of their other professions are finding music and rating it. They liked our song “Gary Coleman” and submitted it to a licensing company for a German candy commercial owned by the company Mars. So after three months of waiting to see who got the spot on the commercial and being broke they finally contacted us and said we got it! It was really exciting!!

V&V: So you guys probably have quite the following in Germany, huh? Fans contacting you all the time?

TB: Oh my god!! You have no idea. Although, we’d have no idea what they are saying, since we didn’t really understand anything going on in the commercial.

V&V: Yeah, I took three years of German in High School and still had no idea what they were saying in the commercial.

TB: The only thing we know in German is “Heil”.

V&V: That could be your guys next CD name “Heil, Total Babe”.

TB: Ooooh Noo. LOLOL (we all had a good laugh)

V&V: Being so young is it a little daunting playing shows with people that are quite a bit older than you??

TB: We we’ve been around it for awhile now, and its fun playing with people who are older. But it is kind of weird because they ask “How old are you?” and we have to say we are younger. But it’s nice because it’s with people who’ve been around for awhile. That’s one thing that’s nice about the Minneapolis music scene it’s so intertwined and all the older people are always happy to pass their wisdom on to us.

V&V: So I take it you all have been involved musically in one way or another for pretty much your whole life?

TB: Lizzie Carolan: I’ve been playing Violin since I was about 6 and am classically trained. Timothy Leick: I’ve been playing drums for 6 years and am currently 18. Clara Salyer: I started out on the guitar when I was 12. Jordan Gatesmith: I started playing guitar when I was 13.

V&V: Where did you get the idea for the cover art of your EP – Heatwave? Is that like some sort of cracked out nun?

TB: The artists name is Derek Erdman. We saw one of his illustrations online and started following his work like crazy. We would go through his paintings and drawings and make like my top 5 list of what we would buy if we ever came into large amounts of money. Lizzie wanted a nun on the cover and he had this amazingly creepy nun drawing so we thought let’s just take a chance and email him on it, thinking he would charge lots of money for its use, but he was so kind and just let us so long as we gave him credit! He rules.

V&V: And would you say that’s pretty much a reflection of your personalities?

TB: Yeah, definitely. We’re weird!!

V&V: Where is your ideal place to tour?

TB: Europe. Or anywhere that would take us. Actually in a couple of weeks we are going to New York to play at a music Festival.

V&V: What are your future plans now that the EP is out?

TB: Take over the world!! Probably release a full length and be kids.

With cold weather inching closer by the passing minute it’s nice to be able to cozy up to some warm and comfy music to sort of compensate for the cold climates. Bands like Total Babe, give off that warm sensation that is undeniably needed in the brutal winters of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

We here at Vinyl and Vodka had a chance to see them perform live in Minneapolis at a venue called the 7th Street Entry, and also sit down and have a chat with them about their experiences as musicians.

Their set was only about 5 to 6 songs, but in my opinion was the perfect amount played. They don’t give away too much by playing everything on their list and they leave just a little up to the listener’s interpretation. Their stage presence seemed spot on they came out and played their music very efficiently. They didn’t interact with the crowd as much as desired but after all, they are musicians not comedians. By watching them play, their orchestration, vocals and all around presentation was straight forward without any buffer to fill gaps of sorts. Which proves they know what they are doing, they are being musicians and are coming out there on stage to put on a show for us the listeners. They understand that and execute it extremely well.

It could have been that or maybe it was just the essence of playing in your hometown in front of a crowd you are familiar with. But they seemed very comfortable onstage and were able to move around as much as possible given the smaller sized stage. But I guess this is a puzzle that only time can solve. Given their ages and experience thus far they seem to have an excellent understanding of music and how it should be performed. In my interview with the band they state that most of them have been playing music for only about 4 to 5. If you listen closely they have already developed a unique style.

With all the help and wisdom of bands they have played with, who are more than happy to give advice to them, makes it mind boggling to think of where they will be as musicians 10 years down the road, individually and as a whole. Just keep a watchful eye out for these youngsters as I am certain they will be showing up on everyone’s radar before too long. In the meantime head over to their Myspace and check out their great tracks and some other quirky photos of the band members.

- http://www.myspace.com/totalbabeband -

Check out this great band from Minneapolis, Total Babe! Armed with a quirky name and an even quirkier attitude, this trio blends Dream pop music with a stylized folk structure. Each song off their new EP – Heatwave – is brimming with personality .

I have uploaded two songs from the EP, “BearBones” and “Gary Coleman“,  my two personal favorites from the album. Listen to these two songs and visit their Myspace for information on the band, tour dates, blog entries and some just plain old goofy photos done by the band members themselves. Check back with V&V after October 4th; We will be on the scene that day at their show in Minneapolis snapping photos, interviewing the band and writing a review of the show.

Total Babe – BearbonesStream

Total Babe – Gary ColemanStream