SMOG, SOFT and The Monumental People

I finally got to see Bill Callahan aka SMOG live.  He stopped by Amoeba Records
in San Francisco on Sat, May 28th at two in the afternoon and played
about 6 songs.  Later that night he played to a sold out crowd at the Hemlock Tavern. 
At Amoeba it was just him and a Martin acoustic.  No intricate
strumming or fancy chord progressions, just a few simple repetetive
chords and that deep voice of his (he sports an Elvis-like lip lift when he sings).  He was not much of a crowd
pleaser.  He did not even utter a word to the audience (not even some
witty side armed remark between tunes).  I wasn’t completely
dispapointed, but not enlightened either.  SMOG like Leonard Cohen
or even Johnny Cash is a poet, a tale-teller of dark porportions. 
Here’s a new track that Drag City is graciously (and temporarily) offering:

SMOG : I Feel Like the Mother of the World

Also, I give to you some new sounds from abroad that have made contact with me.  I don’t know much about the band SOFT,
but they’ve got a good rockin’ semi-psychedelic, LA pop sound. 
Their webite doesn’t give much in the way of a bio, but they offer lots
of video and MP3 samples as well as a listing of their current tour
dates.  Listen for yourself:

SOFT : Droppin
SOFT : All That You’ve Shown Me
SOFT : You Make Me Wanna Die

The Monumental People
are out of Brooklyn (the Brooklyn music scene has not died, yet). 
They offer their new EP to the public (I think I’d like to take credit
for putting out the first free MP3 EP out here). 

The Monumental People : Evil Caribbean
The Monumental People : Golden Day
The Mountain People : Frank the Tank
and more tracks here