You Play DJ: Artists' Picks

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We asked some well-known musicians, NPR music reviewers and you the listener to tell us your favorite unknown artist - a band or musician whose work you love, but few people have heard. Below are our picks and the choices of folks like Lucinda Williams, Ryan Adams and Ben Gibbard. The listener picks will be available next week.

Go to the Listener Picks page.

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Urban Verbs

DJ: All Songs Considered Host Bob Boilen

CD: Urban Verbs
Song: "The Only One of You"
Label: Wounded Bird Records

Listen to "The Only One of You"

"I saw this band more than any other band I've ever seen. They inspired me to quit my job, buy a synthesizer (an Arp Odyssey) and form a band (Tiny Desk Unit). It isn't often that a band can change your life, but this band did. They were an inspired, danceable art band. Their sound was psychedelic, pulsating and fresh. They were responsible for invigorating a club scene in Washington DC. Although the band I played in was the first to take the stage of the 9:30 club in 1980, it was only because the Urban Verbs pioneered the downtown location. PS, the guitarist for the Urban Verbs, Robert Goldstein is now the music librarian for NPR."

-- Bob Boilen, All Songs Considered host

Five Eight

DJ: All Songs Considered Producer Robin Hilton

CD: Five Eight
Song: "The Liquor Song"
Label: Self Produced

Listen to "The Liquor Song"

Frontman Mike Mantione writes some of the most melodic, heartbreaking rock I've heard. He's one of the few artists who can make me jump up and down with my fists in the air and cry at the same time. Five Eight's previous album, The Good Nurse holds a spot on my top five all-time favorites list. On their latest album, Mantione, with his quaking falsetto, seems less tortured by his personal demons than on previous recordings. But he's clearly still a frustrated soul; this is an intimate collection of songs about love and loss, regret, addiction and recovery. You've heard these themes before. But Five Eight - simultaneously rock-hard and fragile - make them fresh and affecting.

- All Songs Considered Producer Robin Hilton


Visit the artist's Web site for purchase information.

Kenny Roby

DJ: Ryan Adams

CD: Rather Not Know
Song: "Rather Not Know"
Label: Morebarn Records

Listen to "Rather Not Know"

"I knew Kenny in Raleigh NC, where we both had bands, his was better than mine. We shared a few jobs, the most notably a plumbing job. I have been made to understand this record is partially inspired as the result of his father's death. Kenny has great internal dialogue concerning his relationship to God and to the more tangible ways of man. I think it's woven into the fabric of this record in more subtle ways than previous albums. The entire record really does more for any argument to this record's impact as a great piece of art, but this track is the first track on the album and the one that touches me even when I think I'm not listening. Also he is quite a good dancer apparently."

- Ryan Adams

Contact the artist by e-mail for purchase information.

Chuck Prophet

DJ: Lucinda Williams

CD: No Other Love
Song: "No Other Love"
Label: New West Records

Listen to "No Other Love"

"He's a great artist that more people need to discover."

- Lucinda Williams

M. Ward

DJ: NPR Music Reviewer Mikel Jollett

CD: End of Amnesia
Song: "So Much Water"
Label: Future Farmer

Listen to "So Much Water"

"I first heard this album back in 2001. I was living in San Francisco and got a call from tiny Future Farmers Records who were going on and on about some modern Bob Dylan-looking kid who could pick an acoustic guitar like John Fahey and write songs like Stephen Stills. There's something timeless and sad about "So Much Water" - but also something slightly off, like his classic folk or honky-tonk piano style has been soaked in a quart of Absinthe and played over the speakers at some cemetery in the middle of the night."

- NPR Music Reviewer Mikel Jollett

Jimmie Spheeris

DJ: NPR Music Reviewer Tom Moon

CD: Isle of View
Song: "For Roach"
Label: Rain Records

Listen to "For Roach"

"One of my favorite unknowns is Jimmie Spheeris, who recorded four albums for Columbia/Epic in the early '70s. His 1971 debut Isle of View, which includes this song "For Roach," is idyllic, just plain lovely singer-songwriter music with a touch of mysticism, and it comes along at the moment the genre's heavies (Jackson Browne, Neil Young) were beginning to really blossom. The strings, by David Campbell (Beck's dad), are particularly apt, not (as was often the case then) overwrought. As his career went on, Spheeris got into Scientology and explored various musical settings - jazz fusion, etc. But even on those later records his melodies were amazing and unassuming. He died in a motorcycle accident in 1984."

- NPR Music Reviewer Tom Moon

Chocolate Genius

DJ: Joe Henry

CD: Black Music
Song: "Half a Man"
Label: V2

Listen to "Half a Man"

"Marc has been writing and recording for many years under his own name, but I didn't discover him until he put out this first album under the project name "Chocolate Genius." And that was because I found we were constantly working with many of the same musicians. His name just kept coming up and I had to investigate.

"He is frequently described to the uninitiated as the musical link between Tom Waits and Curtis Mayfield; and I understand that short-hand, since Marc's work as a singer and songwriter shares a gritty darkness with the former, and a soulful introspection with the latter. But that really doesn't do him justice, because there is a reckless (though understandable) anger that informs much of his work, contrasted with a joy of life that makes him unique. Malcolm X and The Clash might be just as helpful as points of reference, come to think of it, though Marc's agenda is more personal than social. But it's all in there. And he's a very emotional singer to boot. And a good actor, I'm told."

- Joe Henry

Mark McKay

DJ: NPR Reviewer Meredith Ochs

CD: Ready for the Show
Song: "Rain"
Label: Dren Records

Listen to "Rain"

"A couple of years ago, I contributed a song to a compilation tribute to John Fogerty called "Chooglin'," and when I got a finished copy of the disc, Mark McKay's version of "Who'll Stop the Rain" was the opening track. I've been a fan ever since. He's got this big voice that's frayed at the edges, conveying a bit of vulnerability. Mark put out a live record last year, but this is a preview from his upcoming disc, which was produced by Eric "Roscoe" Ambel (Yahoos, Steve Earle), a well-known and much-loved New York roots rock luminary. Mark's stuff is roots rockin', but the song I've picked is a little more on the pop tip, it's got a great hook."

- NPR Reviewer Meredith Ochs


Visit the artist's Web site for more information on this CD.

Xiu Xiu

DJ: John Vanderslice

CD: Fabulous Muscles
Song: "Clowne Towne"
Label: 5 Rue Cristine

Listen to "Clowne Towne"

"Xiu Xiu, an art-pop duo living in Seattle, makes lyrically fearless albums that are the perfect antidote to the manufactured morality crises of the FCC and the seemingly endless supply of offended Americans. Not for everyone, but that's when art becomes interesting, right? I found them out from the on-line music 'zine Pitchforkmedia.com."

- John Vanderslice

Kap10kurt (Kurt Uenala)

DJ: Nellie McKay

CD: A single available on The Sound of Young New York
Song: "Die Sleeping"
Label: Plant

Listen to "Die Sleeping"

Nellie McKay recorded this song in her first paid studio gig, saying "it's infused with (Kurt's) spirit."

Cowboy Curtis

DJ: KEXP Morning DJ John Richards

CD: Observations / Assumptions
Song: "Nike Based"
Label: Self Released

Listen to "Nike Based"

"Out of Minneapolis, Cowboy Curtis (named after the Lawrence Fishburne character in Pee Wee's Playhouse) have an excellent debut album of poppy, New Waveish indie-rock with lots of agressive hooks and intelligent, heartfelt lyrics."

- KEXP Morning DJ John Richards


Visit the artist's Web site for more information on this CD.

Fraser and Debolt

DJ: WXPN DJ David Dye

CD: Fraser and Debolt
Song: "Gypsy Solitaire"
Label: Columbia

Listen to "Gypsy Solitaire"

"My favorite unknown album came out in 1970. It was the debut album from the Canadian folk duo Fraser and DeBolt with fiddler Ian Guenther on Columbia records. This trio included Alan Fraser and Daisy DeBolt who wrote independently but sang and played in complete transcendent union. I still marvel at how they communicate on this record, which was obviously recorded live.

"Their performance moves from absolute purity and as quiet as air to screeching dissonance sometimes in the same song. The writing is about love in its most intimate terms and also with great humor."

- WXPN DJ David Dye


This CD is out of print.

Danielle Howle

DJ: Vic Chesnutt

CD: Live at McKissick Museum
Song: "Wrestling Song"
Label: Daemon Records

Listen to "Wrestling Song"

"Not that she’s unknown, but I always thought she’d be Oprah-huge. She’s a bohemian Loretta Lynn with the pipes and great songs, just a bundle of raw talent, a chlorine shock of pure humanity, a school lesson in modern singer/songwriter solo performance."

- Vic Chesnutt

Joanna Newsom

DJ: Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie)

CD: Milk-Eyed Mender
Song: "Sadie"
Label: Drag City (Caroline)

Listen to "Sadie"

"My girlfriend is a freelance writer and was sent Ms. Newsom's record to review earlier this year (the album was officially released last month, I believe). I have fallen in love with her music so deeply over the last three months that I can barely listen to her without being moved to tears. Outside of having one of the most distinctive voices I have heard in some time, she is a brilliant lyricist who is somehow able to combine the absurd with the poetic observations of a David Berman or Lawrence Ferlinghetti."

- Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie)

Bill Carrothers

DJ: David King (The Bad Plus)

CD: The Blues and the Greys
Song: "Dixie"
Label: Bridge Boy Music

Listen to "Dixie"

"I met Bill when he was a piano player on the scene in Minneapolis several years back. He has an incredibly balanced approach between deep history and a sense of the future."

- David King (The Bad Plus)


Visit the artist's Web site for purchase information.

Bill McHenry

DJ: Reid Anderson (The Bad Plus)

CD: Bill McHenry Quartet
Song: "Social Unconsciousness"
Label: Fresh Sound New Talent

Listen to "Social Unconsciousness"

"He's a brilliant tenor saxophonist and composer. His music is personal and beautiful. He's a friend of mine from the New York jazz scene and we've played together quite a bit over the years in each other's bands."

- Reid Anderson (The Bad Plus)


Visit the artist's Web site for purchase information.

Thomas Adès

DJ: Ethan Iverson (The Bad Plus)

CD: Adès Asyla
Song: "Ecstasio"
Label: EMI

Listen to "Ecstasio"

"I love the British composer Thomas Adès, who is a master of modern harmony, surreal and true at the same time. His marvelous symphony Asyla (it is the plural of "asylum") has a fun disco movement "Estaciao" (3rd mvt.). The first time I heard this could not believe my ears."

- Ethan Iverson (The Bad Plus)

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