Tim Fite & Opinions on Disfear and The Breeders

Tim Fite mixes hip hop, folk, rock and blues with a heavy dose of humor and politics. Tune in to hear his conversation with Jim and Greg, plus a sampling of his genre-defying musical style. Jim and Greg will also review the latest from sister act The Breeders.

Tim Fite on Sound Opinions
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Jim and Greg have done many news stories about changing modes of distribution, production and sales in the music industry. But Jill Sobule recently presented a unique idea that caught their eye. They talk to the "I Kissed a Girl" singer about why she decided to ask fans to finance her new record. Depending at what level a fan gives they're entitled to gifts ranging from a free digital download of the album ($10) to a Sobule-recorded instrumental theme song ($500). So far Sobule has raised over $80K. Now listeners just have to wait and hear the result. And, Sobule says she's open to album title names.

Obituaries are sad to be sure, but as Jim explains, they are also an opportunity to honor important artists. Last week German art rock pioneer Klaus Dinger died at the age of 61. Dinger is one of Jim's heroes, so while he was crushed to hear the news of his death, he was also happy he could showcase the musician's work at the top of the show. Dinger was a member of both Kraftwerk and Neu!, two of the most influential Krautrock bands of all time. In fact, without both groups electronica as we know it wouldn't exist today. Check out Jim's blog post about Dinger and listen to his classic Neu! track "Hallogallo."

Tim Fite

When Jim and Greg were in Austin, TX for SXSW they met with music artist Tim Fite. In 2007, Fite made Over the Counter Culture, one of Jim and Greg's favorite albums of the year and released it for free. Now he's back with a new record called Fair Ain’t Fair that he's releasing the old-fashioned way. But, the artist explains that the subject matter of this album isn't as political and anti-consumerist, and therefore would be appropriate for sale. Plus he's happy to support a great record label like Anti. Fite's music is hard to classify, but you can hear the folk, hip-hop, rock, blues mix in the songs performed on the show, as well as in a special bonus track.

Live the Storm Disfear

Live the Storm

Switching musical gears entirely, Jim and Greg move on to the new album by Swedish metal band Disfear. Sweden is one of the metal capitals of the world, and Live the Storm is the band's sixth album. And with this latest release, Disfear, new vocalist Tomas Lindberg and producer Kurt Ballou, have brought their music up to a new level. Greg thinks their sound and playing have never been captured better. And, while they are hard to understand, listeners who want to parse the provided lyrics won't be disappointed. Jim puts his opinion more simply: Either you Live the Storm or you don't. In other words, either you want to rock out to Swedish metal or you don't. And if you do, you won't be disappointed by this album. Disfear's Live the Storm gets two Buy Its.

Mountain Battles The Breeders

Mountain Battles (Bonus Track Version)

Sister act The Breeders also have a new album out called Mountain Battles. While Kim and Kelley Deal had enormous success in the '90s  alt-rock era with Last Splash and the single "Cannonball," they've only released one album this decade. So is Mountain Battles worth the wait? Unfortunately Jim and Greg would say no. While pop tracks like "It’s the Love" hearken back to the willfully amateurish, hook-filled songs of Last Splash, Greg was disappointed with the remainder of the record. He suspects Kim Deal may have lost her hook-writing ability. Jim never really understood the appeal of The Breeders, and this album was particularly difficult for him to listen to. There were long stretches with no beat, no melody, and worst of all, no spark. Both critics give Mountain Battles a Trash It.

Greg

The Breeders' home state of Ohio inspired Greg's Desert Island Jukebox song choice this week. One of his favorite bands to emerge from the "fly-over territory" is Pere Ubu. Greg describes their unique sound as avant garage -- art rock combined with garage rock. But, the band created their own scene and didn't care what categories they did or did not belong to. In fact, even though they set a template for punk and post punk music, front man David Thomas denies the band has any relationship to punk. According to Greg, the best example of their sound is in the song "Final Solution," this week's DIJ addition. When the band was on Sound Opinions they also performed "Final Solution" live. You can listen to that performance and their entire interview here.

Dear Listeners,

For more than 15 years, Sound Opinions was a production of WBEZ, Chicago's public radio station. Now that the show is independent, we're inviting you to join the band and lend a hand! We need your support more than ever because now we have to do all the behind-the-scenes work that WBEZ handled before (like buying insurance and paying for podcast hosting, ugh). Plus, we have some exciting ideas we'd like to try now that there's no one to tell us no!