The Bunka Log
RSS Feeds

Entries by Becca Ruiz (202)

Saturday
Jul302016

The Friday Refrain: Saturday Edition!

What a gorgeous week. Today we went to the zoo and ate our lunch next to the ducks. Baguette, salmon with cucumber in yogurt, and cheese slices. Last night a delicious meal at Surly paired with delicious beers. The high tides of summer are fun ones. Adventures. Everyday I aim to find some sort of adventure for us - small or large. Even just a ride over the footbridge above the freeway to the other playground, attempting a new recipe, discovering new books at the library. Adventures everywhere. Adventures in music too.

Yesterday's new music has some fun items to share. Lori McKenna released The Bird & The Rifle, and I'm not sure if it's just the one headline or if there is a collective murmurring out there that this is something to seek out and listen to. Former Black Crowes singer Chris Robinson formed The Chris Robinson Brotherhood and released Any Way You Love, We Know How You Feel. Latin artists were gather together, including Ozomatli, to make Quiero Creedence, a cover album of Creedance Clearwater Revival songs. And then I don't recognize a lot of things. So I'm going to end it with two bands that aren't on many people's radar. Also yesterday a band named Viola Beach released a posthumous debut album sadly after the band died in a car crash in February. At Glastonbury, Coldplay played their single "Boys That Sing." On a brighter note, a band named Future Generations released a self-titled album yesterday that I put on and found delightful.

Last week's list. Half-listened to because Half Pints Whole Notes recorded this week and we picked a lot of bands with longer albums randomly.

Anyway, short naps abound these days and I must sign off. Happy Listening!

Friday
Jul222016

The Friday Refrain: A bit of what's new in music...

Sitting amidst the chaos of a hot week and thus little cleaning, I am thankful that it is not humid today. Because that means I can function. Sort of. Also, life is always better when I can actually sit down with my cup of coffee, and even better if that coffee is in my Coffee With Jeff mug. Let's dive on.

The founder of Fountains of Wayne now is doing his own thing in various projects, and today his project Look Back released Look Back. Stephen Marley released Revolution II: Fruit of Life where this one is more about how reggae has influenced different music. And that's kinda the big big news of the day. Besides a few reissues, including Dio, A Decade of Dio: 1983-1993.

I got through July 1st!

No odd lists today, I tried but it just didn't pop out at me. Just a boring list of things I like instead.

If You Like...

That Sasha Siem album last year? Try out Kelsey Lu, Church EP

Singer-Songwriters who have that Bon Iver influence? Try James Vincent McMorrow's single "Rising Water" for his upcoming September release

A bit of 90s rock? Strange Relations, Going Out.

a bit of improvisation and modal building, Tangents, Stateless

Okay, this is just weird but for some reason Johnny Foreigner, Mono No Aware makes me think that a cheerleader squad put together a garagey-noisy rock album. Haven't made up my mind on this.

Slower rock? The By Gods, Phone Calls

Weekend morning folk/country fix? The Moon Bros. These Stars

a bit of pop female singer music? Delta Goodrem, Wings of the Wild (she's running alongside a tiger on the cover!)

CA rock, try Terry, Terry HQ (has a little Velvet Underground tinge to it)

Yes and/or The Flower Kings, then make sure you listened to Anderson/Stolt, Invention of Knowledge

a little jazz, try Kenny Garrett, Do Your Dance!

There's a bit of variety for your ears. Check out the Spotify list for a few more suggestions too. And it's hot out there so make sure you're getting cool for a bit during the day, drinking your water, and if you're out enjoying the music don't forget your ear protection! Happy Listening!

 

Saturday
Jul162016

The Friday Refrain: Saturday Edition!

Welp. Time moves swiftly, does it not? As you may notice, I have done some redoing. Including my name. Bunkamade. Bunka is one of my nicknames made when my husband tried to say bear and becca and honey? I think, and it came out, "Bunka." So I came up with bunkamade. Like bunka made crafts. bunka made music. bunka made blog. Because I made it. Thank you, I think it's clever too. Anyway, we were delving into the past half-year of music for the podcast this week and sadly I haven't kept up with July well. So I'm going to do a July round-up over the next two weeks.

As for yesterday, Wilco celebrated the one year anniversary of their free album Star Wars last year with a single titled "Locator." PJ Harvey also sent out a single, "Guilty." Of Aerosmith fame and now with a solo album, Steven Tyler released We're All Somebody From Somewhere. Bluegrass band The Earls of Leicester released Rattle & Roar. Jeff Beck released Loud Hailer. One of my personal favorite musicians Amanda Palmer teamed up with her dad Jack Palmer to bring us You Got Me Singing. Speaking of Amanda, sometimes-collaborator Jherek Bischoff released Cistern yesterday as well. And that's the dig.

No list this week because seriously, I was so immersed in January-June that I didn't listen to a peep from last week. (take that back, listened to Heart yesterday but that was it)

Anyway, look forward to the next two weeks as I will be putting in some good effort. Instead, I have a pretty wide-ranging playlist of a bunch of stuff from the first half of the year that I've been enjoying. And with that, Happy Listening!

 

Friday
Jul082016

The Friday Refrain: A bit of what's new in music...

Sometimes it's hard to go about life and know how to approach it. I sometimes speak out here, mostly about my own life, not so much on the world around me. But my goodness is that getting hard not to do. I also think many others have written words beautiful and appropriate, and don't feel I have the ability to do any better. But I will say this. There are sucky people out there that do terrible things. Unjustifiable things. And it seems it happens enough now that it is easy to give into the sucky people and start to live lives of fear. But we can't. Fear doesn't bring us to good places. Fear doesn't resolve our issues. Which we know, because Yoda told us so. And many others. But today I'm thinking about Yoda. It's easy to find the bad, it's easy to focus on the scary, but we need to find the love and the commonalities among us. We need to talk about our issues and we need to talk about the good that happens too, to remind us and to bring us together. Let's stop living in this world like we're in a school cafeteria. Do you remember lunchtime? I didn't like the politics of where to sit at lunch, so I just played piano in the choir room. Anyway, my point is let's find the good, and you know what? Music can help us do that. It's cathartic, it's unifying, it can make you feel all the feels and help you through. Which is why I'm going to do the thing I do on Fridays and talk about new music.

This week is a light release week again. Record companies must be on summer vacation. However, amazing awesome Heart is out with Beautiful Broken. Big EDM releases this week: Aphex Twin with Cheetah EP and AraabMuzik has Dream World. The Pixies are getting some new material out later this year and released the single "Um Chagga Lagga." And then there is an interesting piece of music new this week regarding Sufjan Steven, a guy who dug in his dumpster and a possibly unreleased album he has in his possession. Check it out here if you want to know the story.

And then check out this List from last week!

It's Another Week of Aquatic References

Message To Bears, Carved From Tides - It's kinda just neat. It's a dude making ambient? Electronica with purpose/story? Something like that.

Curren$y, Stoned on Ocean - A rapper of New Orleans origins

High Water, Crush - Playground of Rock territory for sure.

Mark Barrott, Sketches From an Island 2

blink-182, California - if you don't know who blink-182 is, then you're probably not in my generation. So google it.

(Okay those last two were stretches but I started to get a little word associative, and I didn't include Snoop's Cool Aid even though I wanted to. But now I kinda got to. WIN.)

Other Things I liked After Sampling the Album

The Bongolian, Moog Maximus - well Moog is in the title so that gives you some idea. Instrumental from what I've listened to so far. Dancey, good for hangout music

Jacob Collier, In My Room - I do not know what to think or say about this one. There are so many musical ideas and styles mashed up together in this that I can't even give it a category. He uses a cappella harmonies but combines it with an early Bon Iver sound, jazz, latin idioms, and such. Which is why I need to listen again.

Gøggs, Gøggs - I just don't have the chance to listen to all the harder music that I want to and so I found a few tracks interesting musically, but don't know when I'll have the chance to give it a chance.

Above Top Secret, Above Top Secret - Rap/electro stuff. Something about it intrigues me.

Beyond the Wizards Sleeve, The Soft Bounce - Jammy electronica

Chelsea Grin, Self Inflicted - intense metal hardcore type of music.

Grace, FMA - I kinda like her cover of "You Don't Own Me" with G-Eazy

Rocío Dúrcal, Duetos - A little Latin music to round out my sounds of the week

Okay, still getting the hang of things and can't figure out how to rearrange the order of a playlist on Spotify, but below you'll find a Spotify Playlist of stuff! All right, good nap means long post. Time to go hang out with my family. Happy Listening!

 

Friday
Jul012016

The Friday Refrain: A bit of what's new in music...

Good morning! Yes, I'm starting this in the morning. Sleep schedules are a bit wonky around here lately so I'm up and no one else is and yes I checked still breathing... Anyway, it's a Half Pints Whole Notes week so head over to csicon to check that out.

It's a pretty light week this week, which is good because I have to put togeher my half year best-of list and I think it's going to be quite difficult. Also, this release day is shaping up to be a pretty awesome way to kick off the holiday weekend - NASA has hired a bunch of bands to soundtrack the 4th of July beginning of Juno's orbit around Jupiter, Weezer and Trent Reznor with Atticus are two of those hired. It's going to be an Apple Music release, so time to figure out how to get a free trial... Snoop Dogg releasd Coolaid today. Pop rock band American Authors released What We Live For (kinda kept with the 4th of July theme there with the American part of the band name). Sara Watkins released Young In All The Wrong Ways. And Blink-182 are back with California.

Fireworks! It's the List! Sparklers!

I need coffee. And then the boy didn't sleep again until evening. So there went my post. Ugh. I'm just going with what I've got and nothing clever. And again, I need coffee. Happy Listening!

 

Page 1 ... 8 9 10 11 12 ... 41 Next 5 Entries »