Johnny Whopper episode 13

We're back! Winter break forced us to take a short hiatus from our radio show, but we're starting what will hopefully be a long and fruitful 2011. Also new this year is Adam's weekly column devoted to amazing and/or important tracks.

01. Dirty Beaches - Speedway King

02. California Wives - Blood Red Youth

03. World Champion - Dream

04. Beach Fossils - Calyer

05. Smith Westerns - All Die Young

06. La Sera - Devils Hearts Grow Gold

07. Young Prisms - If You Want To

08. John Lennon - Stand By Me [Adam's weekly column]

09. Ducktails - Art Vandelay

10. Kurt Vile - Jesus Fever

11. Clive Tanaka y su Orquestra - All Night, All Right

12. White Fence - Lillian (Won't You Play Drums)

13. Times New Viking - No Room To Live

14. No Age - Teen Creeps

Those Clive Tanaka and California Wives tracks were both beautiful and uplifting in a time when too many tracks just go for the "bummer" vibes. Also great to hear some new stuff from La Sera, whose upcoming S/T LP should be exciting.

On a related note, I've noticed that a lot of the hyperlinks in earlier posts are messed up - I'll go back and fix them sometime. For now, though, it should be fairly obvious where they should be taking you, even if they just lead to 404s.

Young Prisms

As of today, I have 12 artists in my music library whose names begin with "Young." With so many fresh new artists claiming the moniker, it's only fair to ask: is it the next "wolf" or "crystal"?

Anyway, I first came across San Fran psych-fuzz-poppers Young Prisms on No Nothing Publishing's prescient Deadbeat Vol. 1 mixtape, which also included up-and-comers Dirty Beaches and Electric Sunset. Their contribution was a 46-second whirlwind of a track called "Fourtwenty Friendly", which first appeared on their 2009 sold-out Mexican Summer 12". Now they've taken things in a more shoegaze-based direction, giving their songs room to breathe. Check the soaring melodies on "If You Want To," the second track from their debut LP Friends For Now, just released on Kanine Records.

Also catch them playing with Melted Toys and JW local favorites Niall at the Lightbulb Club in Fayetteville on Thursday, 1/27.

MP3: Young Prisms - "If You Want To"