Today, the company I work for launched a really cool new website at http://www.blogs.com**. A team of editors is curating lists and picks of the best of the blogosphere, so you can go there to discover new blogs to read.
One of the coolest features is a bunch of Top 10 Blogs lists created by web personalities and a few celebrities. I couldn't resist clicking on Alyssa Milano's 10 Favorite Blogs, and I was shocked to find amongst her recommendations a link to a blog post I really wanted to read:
I love Chad VanGaalen, so I clicked right over to 3Hive and found a link to the song "Willow Tree" off his forthcoming album Soft Airplane out on September 9th on Flemish Eye Records.
- Listen to Chad VanGaalen "Willow Tree"
VanGaalen can careen stylistically from fuzzed out lo-fi punk to lullaby-worthy ballads, and this song lands in his underwater-y Neil Young-ish milieu, which we've heard on his prior two albums. In a short description of the forthcoming album, his label references his characteristic genre-hopping and even the rare gem that is Neil Young's On the Beach. But you can't get a read on a VanGaalen record from a handful of words or with just this one song. I'm very much looking forward to buying this record -- on vinyl as it'll have two bonus tracks -- as soon as it's released.
And now for some Chad VanGaalen appreciation videos:
CVG animates some of his own videos. Here's a great one:
CVG performs live from his basement, when he couldn't get across the US-Canada border to play at SXSW last year:
**I promise this isn't a thinly veiled promotion for Blogs.com, because I make it a point to keep my work blogging and personal blogging separate. This is just me marveling at how Alyssa Milano inadvertently led me to a new Chad VanGaalen mp3. Who would have thought?