CONTEST: Cold War Kids Giveaway

The Cold War Kids are touring the States through April in support of last year's Loyalty to Loyalty, and to celebrate we've got a handful of things to hang on your walls and spin on your record players.

Here's all you gotta do: Write us a comment with your name and email address (please!), and tell us the best live band you've seen in the last year. If you haven't seen anyone in the last year (shame on you), just tell us your all-time favorite live act. And be sure to write in before Friday, April 3rd, cuz that's the deadline.

Then check out some songs below and a video of these guys performing my favorite track off of their first record, Robbers & Cowards, at the Reading & Leeds Festival in 2007. After that, check out their latest Daytrotter session here. And if these guys are stopping in your town, well then, you know what to do.

UPDATE: In the continuing saga of how much Blogger sucks, they've once again erased our post due to illegal mp3s. That means we've lost all the comments made so far! So if you already made a comment and still want a chance to win, PLEASE re-enter your comment. LAME, we know. Sorry guys.

UPDATE on the UPDATE: I didn't realize that we've got all our comments saved in our email. So we've still got everyone who's entered so far! Thanks guys!

CONTEST: Win A Signed Vinyl and Tee from The Little Ones

By way of clarification, only the vinyl is signed. Not the tee. The tee is unsigned. But they are both still awesome.

We love The Little Ones around here (read: here and here), so we're pretty excited to announce that they're heading back out on tour with Brett Dennen (check out the schedule here). And to celebrate, we're giving away a prize pack, including the afore-mentioned signed vinyl copy of their album Morning Tide, and an (unsigned but still awesome) tee shirt.

To enter our little contest, just write us a comment below with your email address (please!) and your favorite Little Thing. Anything goes, as long as it's little, and it's your favorite.

Also check out The Little One's live acoustic sessions on Daytrotter and LiveDaily. Fantastic!

UPDATE: Congrats to kimmi and roann, our Little Winners! Thanks for reading!

The Little Ones - Gregory's Chant
from the album Morning Tide (Amazon/iTunes)


The Little Ones - Lovers Who Uncover
from the Sing Song EP (Amazon/iTunes)

CONTEST: Win The Dears new album or 7"!

We're having another contest!

As you may already know, The Dears have a new album out that's fantastic, and we have some copies to give away. When Chris and I began brainstorming about what would be required for the contest, I volunteered that since the band was called "The Dears" why not have people just enter what their favorite animal is and why.
Great idea right?
Nope, wrong.

Chris had to sit me down and explain some of the finer points about the English language, spelling, and whatnot.
So instead of being named after a group of slender-legged ruminants, The Dears (spelled with an 'a' not another 'e') are something entirely different.
And I guess their uniqueness is why I love them.

Irregardless of spelling and meaning I'm still going to go with my idea.

So lets celebrate The Dears and my ignorance!

Just leave a comment (along with an email address we can contact you with) about your favorite animal.
(Even though The Dears hail from our great northern neighbor, no preference will be given to Canadian animals.)

In return we might pick you to be the lucky recipient of a copy of The Dears latest album Missiles or an exclusive 7-inch single featuring "Money Babies" and "Hamfest."


Free things just warm the heart.

The Dears - Ballad of Humankindness
from the album Gang of Losers (Amazon/iTunes)

The Dears - Money Babies
from the album Missiles (Amazon/iTunes)

CONCERT/CONTEST: Republic Tigers Review & Contest!

Let me just say, as a follow-up to my previous post concerning the Republic Tigers, I did find someone to go with me to their show at Kilby Court in Salt Lake (thank you), and it was amazing.

Having now had a chance to witness, in person, their unique fusion of electro-folk, I consider myself a full convert.

Their recent album, Keep Color, is an experience. Acoustica, electronica, and rock, all blended into an accessible pleasure. To be honest, I was a little anxious to hear them live and see if they could produce and capture what had made me fall in love with them. All my fears were quickly put to rest.
Listen to their music and you can feel the energy, attend one of their shows and prepare to witness that energy.
The Republic Tigers entered without much fanfare and got down to business right away, a business in which they excel.
The Republic Tigers gave us a taste of their best, Golden Sand, Feelin' the Future, Air Guitar, Stranger to the Eyes of a Child-Man, and The Nerve (my personal request which they were gracious enough to play. Bless them.)
Quality stuff.
But for Fight Song, their final song of the evening, they pulled out all the stops.
The driving drum beats throughout this song about blew the place apart.

Flawless, absolutely flawless. Unless you consider that their set was painfully short.

So in celebration of my conversion to all things Republic Tigers - let's have a contest!!

Here's the deal: Just leave us a comment with your name, email, and a description of your favorite tiger and why.

Yep, that's it. It could be a Bengal tiger, a Siberian tiger, that delightfully bouncy Tigger, or the one that got ahold of Roy from Siegfried and Roy. (I hope it's not that one, the world needs magic.)

Be creative. We'll pick our favorite and send you some free Republic Tigers stuff - from tee-shirts to signed copies of their album Keep Color. We'll keep it running for the next two weeks or so - so don't delay! Enjoy the little sample below and tell us about your favorite tiger!

The Republic Tigers - The Nerve

from the album Keep Color (Amazon/iTunes)

CONTEST: Thanks!

Thanks to all of you who participated in our first contest ever! We finally decided on a winner, and they will be receiving their very own Tristan Prettyman tank top very soon.

It was actually really hard to decide on a winner, because so many of them were pretty great. Really. You should go back and check them out here. And while you're at it, here's one more Tristan tune to spin to really make it feel like summer. Enjoy.

Tristan Prettyman - Hello

from the album Hello (Amazon/iTunes)

CONTEST: Our first contest ever!!

It's summer.

A change of seasons, a change of pace, and a change of mind.
Also, a new Tristan Prettyman album.
We don't think this is a coincidence.
Tristan makes music that heralds back to a warmer time.

And as a special treat to celebrate her new album, Hello, we're giving away a very special lady's tanktop that Tristan designed for Elwood Clothing , perfect for summertime wearing (click on the image for a closer look).

All you need to do to enter to win this lovely little item is leave us a poem. That's right. A poem. It doesn't have to be some great work of literary merit, but it does need to be about summer.
Road trips, family vacations, no school, no responsibilities, summer flings.....the possibilities are endless.
Just go wild with it, and leave it in our comments section.
We'll even give you an example:

I'm unemployed and friendless
Dating is one huge mess
Wish I hadn't woken up, wish I'd died
But I go on, cause it's warm outside.

Ok ok, so we may have just set the bar pretty high, but I think everyone can handle something like that, especially since we have an extremely liberal definition of what constitutes a poem.
Submit as many poems as you want, we'll be looking for our favorite. Make sure you check back often for when we announce the winner.

In the meantime, sit back, prop your feet up, and bask in the soft radiance of Tristan's voice.

Tristan Prettyman - New Soul (Yael Naim cover)