DOUGLAS SMITH AND 'HIS ORCHESTRA' MAKE COOL MUSIC PSA:











Photo: Greg Smith


Canadian actor/musician Douglas Smith and his band 'his Orchestra' have made the PSA about stealing music for the American Association of Independent Music (watch it below). He is probably most famous for his role as Ben Henrickson on HBO's 'Big Love' that just wrapped up it's third season, and is also in another band called 'Alaskan Summer' with his girlfriend Ashton Lunceford. Check out both band's MySpace sites to see about buying their cds or downloading them from iTunes.

NEW JAMES GRANT ALBUM:





















One of my favourite band's from the 80's/early 90's were "Love And Money". The band's lead singer James Grant has just released a new album called "Strange Flowers". After listening to the cd I was thinking how similar James vocal style is to Roland Orzabal from Tears For Fears. The cd is a pretty mellow affair but the songs are well written and it is nice to hear the Love & Money vocal sound again. You can order "Strange Flowers" here. Up for a week is the MP3 of the lead track "This Could Be The Day".
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FERRAS WRITES FOR ADAM LAMBERT:















Ferras has been in the studio with producer/guru Peter Asher and plans to release an EP soon with this new material. Apparently he is friends with Adam Lambert and hopes a song he has written for him with Lauren Christy and Desmond Child will make it onto Adam's album. He also hopes to work with Diane Warren in the coming weeks, once he returns from Vienna with Katy Perry! Just saw that on Twitter on June 7th Ferras said "Spent the afternoon writing with Adam Lambert! Havent seen him since before idol- we're writing a great song. Its gunna be sick ya'll. :)"
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LOVIN' "OWL CITY" FROM OWATONNA MINNESOTA:















I just recently discovered the sweet pop music of Adam Young and his band "Owl City". I had downloaded the new song "Strawberry Avalanche" and soon discovered the even better track "Hot Air Balloon". Adam's sound is somewhat reminiscent of The Postal Service, but the music and arrangements are much more "Pop music". I could see Owl City opening for Imogen Heap on tour, I think they would go well together and I'm guessing her fans would enjoy his music.

Owl City will be releasing their new album "Ocean Eyes" (order here) on iTunes on July 14th and in stores on July 28th. The band has a large North American tour (dates on their MySpace site) in September/October, very tempted to make a trip to see them live.
UPDATE: I just found out that Owl City is touring with Kate Havnevik and Unicorn Kid, should be worth seeing.

You can listen to "Hot Air Balloon" in the YouTube video below.

LO-FI-FNK:







Sweden's Lo-Fi-Fnk have a somewhat new website setup and seem to be a bit more active in updating it, check it out here. Some new songs are showing up in their setlists, I hope it means that they will be releasing a follow up to "Boylife" soon.