Hi Everyone. We would like to thank everyone for reading our little blog. This week we reached out 100,000th visit. Something that we never thought we would ever reach. So we thought it was a good time to move the blog over to a self-hosted site and change the look up a bit. We will be constantly evolving the new site, and this original site will stay up indefinitely, but no new posts will be added here. For all new posts and to keep up to date, please head over to the new Bolsteryourholster.com. For all of our subscribers, please make sure to update your settings to the new site, and we look forward to the next 100,000 visits. Thanks again.

- Bolster Your Holster.

It has been a very long time (6 months) since Laura Marling has released a video for a track from her album “A Creature I Don’t Know”. As mentioned many times previously, I am a huge Laura Marling fan. So much so that my wife calls her my girlfriend. Fittingly, the video is for “All My Rage” which happens to be my wife’s favourite song off of the new album. Like her previous video, Sophia, it starts off with Laura singing alone and then the band joins in, and then more, uh, things join in. A great, and quirky, little video for what is a near perfect folk song.

At the beginning of the year, an interactive poetry and imagery site was created entitled “The Beast”. A very interesting and artistic piece that is worth checking out on its dedicated site: http://the-bea.st/

- Shaun

The Head and The Heart’s debut album never connected me on the first few listens. That was back in 2010. In 2011 I was fortunate to see them live at the Calgary Folk Music Festival and by the end they had won me over. They managed to create a concert experience unlike one I’ve ever been at. Everyone was dancing, everyone was singing, everyone could feel the emotion and you could tell the band was too.

There was a song they played called ‘Rivers and Roads’ that I had never heard and when I looked at the version of the album I had the song was nowhere to be found. It turned out that they had re-released the album in 2011 with ‘Rivers and Roads’ as an extra track. It suddenly made the album more poignant and enhanced the tracks around it. I still don’t like the whole album but the middle of it is pure gold.

Shaun recently texted me about how ‘Rivers & Roads’ had been featured in Chuck and How I Met Your Mother. Shaun and I both had this song in our Top songs of 2011 (which you can find here and here on the blog). Usually I’m upset when a song I love is brought into the mainstream, but this song is just so beautiful and heartfelt that it needs to be heard. It’s a song of longing, distance, love, happiness, sadness that can really take over your emotions. It is a track of many guises. This is what makes it so successful and why anyone should be able to relate to it.

Very few lyrics this year hit me as hard as the, “but I miss your face like hell”, especially the way it is used in the song. I’d have to think that this song really hits the band close to home as you can almost always see Charity Rose Thielen cry during the refrain.

Check out the video above and read the lyrics below:

a year from now we’ll all be gone
all our friends will move away
and they’re going to better places
but our friends will be gone away

nothing is as it has been
and i miss your face like hell
and i guess it’s just as well
but i miss your face like hell

been talking bout the way things change
and my family lives in a different state
and if you don’t know what to make of this
then we will not relate
so if you don’t know what to make of this
then we will not relate

rivers and roads
rivers and roads
rivers ’til i reach you

Matson on Music, from the Seattle Times, is doing a weeklong feature on covers by Seattle artists of Damien Jurado Songs. 2 of my favorite Seattle bands, Pickwick and the Head and the Heart have been featured thus far. The Pickwick track today is a short and sweet cover of a rare Damien Jurado gem, and Jon Russell (of the Head and the Heart) does a suitably pretty version of Beacon Hill. Go on over to Matson on Music’s site to read about and listen to the tracks in preparation of the release of Damien Jurado’s 12 release, Maraqopa, next week.

Download the Pickwick cover of “I am the greatest of all Liars”

Download Jon Russell’s cover of Beacon Hill

Hey, hey it’s Valentine’s Day. From us at Bolster your Holster to all of you out there we hope you have a great day no matter your facebook relationship status. Just don’t let it be the only day you tell someone you love them.

I’m unsure if I like Valentine’s Day. It has nothing to do whether I’m with someone or not, but the whole act of having a day where you HAVE to get something for someone else or HAVE to take them to dinner or HAVE to see them is disconcerting.

I’m all about the concept of Valentine’s though. Love is great, love is grand, love is hell, but it is always worth it, no matter how much joy or pain it eventually puts you through. Yes, the old adage is true: It is better to have love and lost then to have never loved before. So maybe I’m not feeling Valentine’s this year, but that doesn’t mean I can’t feel it any other day of the year. Probably the only place I could still get a restaurant reservation is at Dennys anyways.

So I’ve put together a Valentine’s mix for all of you out there. But due to some limitations with WordPress that is not going to happen today. Instead here are a couple tracks from the mix that either make you more in love or brighten up your day.

There appears to be a very large number of people coming to this site to learn about the great band fun. Well, the lovely folks over at ournameisfun.com have decided to let everyone hear the whole new album a week early. So make sure you listen to it. And after listening to it, I sure am happy I preordered it a few months ago. As much as I loved their debut album, this looks to be a step forward, kicking things up a couple notches, and will obviously be a commercial success.

The title track, Some Nights, is looking to be their next hit as it is a very upbeat anthem

Some nights I stay up cashing in my bad luck
some nights I call it a draw.

So listen to the full album here, or below, and then head over to their site and pre-order it.

- Shaun

It’s a line we have all asked at least once in our lives. Why didn’t you save me? It has so many possible occurrences. And unfortunately it is always a reactive question.

I have said it many times before, that sometimes you have to be in the right place to fully get a song or an artist. This is one of those artists for me. Nicolas Jaar has been around for a few years now. His full-length release from 2011 was highly regarded by many critics. I just couldn’t get into it then. There were big moments when I was brought in, but a few moments later it was gone. Nearly one year later, he releases a 2-track EP. I decide to give it a listen. Still nothing. Then one day it comes on in the car. And Bam. It hits me. It gets played over and over and over.

What has changed? Perceivably nothing? It was just the right moment. Life is full of the moments and instances that create reactions. A split second, and if you are lucky, more, where everything around you seems to click. These are the moments I live for. Music plays a huge part in so many of these instances. Maybe that is the main draw for me.

Both of the tracks on this EP start with a sort of foreplay. A long and seemingly subtle warm-up to the main attraction. “Why didn’t you save me” is what seems to be the B-Side of a 2 track EP. But, you could almost treat “Don’t break my love” as an extended session of foreplay to “Why didn’t you save me” (WDYSM). But that might be discounting the equal genius of that track. WDYSM starts off with a slow, barely there, static that generates into some organ hum, scattering electronics, and then cascades into a percussive frenzy beneath a filtered vocal sample. It eventually takes a darker tone when what sounds like a harpsichord chimes in. The layers build and separate all hinting at what is to come. Then a sombre piano piece fills in the space before being digitally shattered. And then it arrives. Everything combines into a perfect blend for just over a minute of dancey bliss to the sobering refrain of “Why didn’t you save me?” repeated for effect. And then is deconstructs and disappears. Leaving you alone with your thoughts. And the desire for more.

Of course, going back to his album, “Space is only noise”, I realize it was always there. I just wasn’t in the right mindset, or moment, for it.

You can hear both of the great tracks on this EP below, and in a generous move, you can also download it for free from his soundcloud site.

enjoy

-Shaun

Midnight City, a song featured on my top 111 of ’11, is everywhere lately. I hear it on Satellite radio, in the malls and stores, the bars, and even soundtracking scantily clad supermodels with wings. A Victoria’s Secret ad released a few months ago features the fantastic track, focusing mostly on the instrumental synth parts that pretty much define the song. Some might view the usage, or permission of usage, of a song to sell commercial wares as selling out, however it seems that in today’s music marketplace the placement of songs on TV, whether it be in commercial or a show, is one of the best ways to promote your song. Especially in an era of Shazam and google, it has become increasingly easy to identify a song heard outside of the traditional methods of song distribution.

It is also a great way to promote younger and less popular bands, as purchasing rights to songs by lesser known artists will be significantly less than that of an arena selling artist like Coldplay or U2. Recently Nike used a rather epic portion of the song Snjóljón by by one of my favourite new bands Lockerbie. The exposure that this will give Lockerbie could be invaluable in pushing them forward. Below is the commercial for the Össur Flex-Run with Nike Sole.

And with the recent success of previously (relatively) unknown bands based off of television show placement, it looks to be a mutually beneficial arrangement. THe artist/band gets paid or free promotion, and the show/commercial gets a better scene or a more noticeable ad. In the past several months, bands such as fun. and Adaline have benefitted from these situations. fun.’s song “We are Young” has exploded after being featured in a Glee episode.

And Adaline has received a lot more attention to her debut album after being featured prominently during a very emotional scene during the Fall finale of Grey’s anatomy (and another song again in January).

Selling out? Cashing in? Mutually Beneficial?

For a Song – 30 Rock Animated Short

-Shaun

I just realized last night that the Sasquatch 2012 announcement should be coming soon. I checked their website and it turned out they were announcing at a party happening that very night. Most acts have been announced already, but a schedule is still forthcoming.

Some of the big names this year: Beck, Jack White, Bon Iver, Tenacious D, The Shins, The Roots, Feist and so on.

But the ones that I’m most interested in are: Spiritualized, Shearwater, Girl Talk, Zola Jesus, The War on Drugs, Charles Bradley and Mogwai.

The complete list of bands, artists and comedians at this time is Jack White, Beck, Bon Iver, Pretty Lights, Tenacious D, The Shins, Beirut, Girl Talk, The Roots, The Head & The Heart, Portlandia, Feist, Silversun Pickups, Metric, Explosions In The Sky, The Joy Formidable, Mogwai, Nero (DJ), M. Ward, John Reilly & Friends, Childish Gambino, St. Vincent, The Civil Wars, Jamey Johnson, Little Dragon, Tune-Yards, Wild Flag, Blind Pilot, Wolfgang Gartner, Beats Antique, Apparat, The Walkmen, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Mark Lanegan Band, Spiritualized, Blitzen Trapper, The Cave Singers, Shabazz Palaces, Fun., Grouplove, Tycho, SBTRKT, STRFKR, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Deer Tick, Imelda May, Alabama Shakes, Dum Dum Girls, The Helio Sequence, Kurt Vile, Cloud Cult, We Are Augustines, Ben Howard, Here We Go Magic, Zola Jesus, The War On Drugs, Shearwater, Cass McCombs, Active Child, Trampled By Turtles, Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires, Araabmuzik, Star Slinger, L.A. Riots, Com Truise, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, I Break Horses, Walk The Moon, Dry The River, Allen Stone, Pickwick, Hey Marseilles, Gary Clark Jr., Purity Ring, Electric Guest, Yellow Ostrich, Nobody Beats The Drum, Coeur De Pirate, Lord Huron, Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside, Beat Connection, The Sheepdogs, Hey Rosetta!, Said The Whale, Howlin Rain, Gardens & Villa, Felix Cartal, Craft Spells, Vintage Trouble, Poor Moon, Black Whales, Gold Leaves, Greylag, Awesome Tapes From Africa
Thee Satisfaction, Dyme Def, Fresh Espresso, The Physics, Sol, Metal Chocolates, Grynch, Spac3man, Don’t Talk To The Cops, Scribes, Fatal Lucciauno, Fly Moon Royalty, Katie Kate, Nick Kroll, Beardyman, Todd Barry

I think on first glance it looks considerably better than last year, but I’m on the fence whether or not I should go. Who wants to road trip?