It's A Holiday/New Playlist/Giveaway!

Since today is a holiday I thought I should take the day off. I contemplated not posting for the day since I'm out of town visiting my favorite little town on the Central Coast of California.  Still I couldn't resist posting something. So instead of featuring a new artist I decided to give you a playlist of some songs I currently can not get enough of. I tried to pick ones that haven't been featured here so you all can still get your new music fix.

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

Now for the good part... A GIVEAWAY!!! I realized that its been a while since I've had one so here you go! However, this giveaway requires a little bit of creativity on your part. I am looking to change the name of my blog in the near future from Mary's Monday Musicology and get myself a url address that doesn't have .blogspot in it so it looks a little more professional. I would love something that could be like a brand name but without my actual name. I'm looking to turn this into a more than once a week blog. Possible even my own business someday. Who knows, but I need a good name to start it off!



If you would like to help out and be entered to win a $15 giftcard for iTunes leave a comment below with your suggestions. Couple things to note:

1. You must be a follower of this blog to enter
2. You can post as many name ideas as you want.

My favorite name will win the gift card!!

The Morning Benders

This week we are featuring another great indie rock band. The more I listen to bands such as Vampire Weekend, Yeasayer, Beach House and The Black Keys the more I am loving the world of indie rock music. This week’s band is no exception to this love. The Morning Benders is a band from Berkeley, California who started up in 2005. The band is made up of Julian Harmon, Tim Or, Jonathan Chu, and Christopher Chu and they just recently released their second album.

The Morning Benders may look young but their musical talents outweigh their years. The release of their second album, Big Echo, shows their advancement and change since releasing their first album, Talking Through Tin Cans in 2008. You can hear the difference when listening to the track in the player, “Patient Patient,” which is on their first album. In the five years since their start they have supported some huge indie bands on tour and they are continuing that streak by supporting The Black Keys, this summer on tour. The Black Keys just released their album last week and they are #2 on the iTunes album sales.

It only seems big things are to come for The Morning Benders. They are only just beginning and just from seeing the growth from the first album I know there is a lot of untapped potential. Below is a great video they made showing how they recorded the track, “Excuses” with all their friends crammed into a recording studio. Check it out.


Yours Truly Presents: The Morning Benders "Excuses" from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

I hope you have enjoyed this week’s featured band. Be sure to leave your comments below and share it with your friends.

http://www.myspace.com/themorningbenders

http://www.themorningbenders.com/

Photo 1 - by Brooke Sheridan

Photo 2 - By Dominick Mastrangel

Photo 3 - by Jason McDonald

James Morrison

This week’s artist comes from across the pond where is has made a name for himself in the UK. James Morrison was introduced to me by a friend who was so affected by Morrison’s voice that even her husband was became a little annoyed. After hearing his music I couldn’t blame my friend for being so moved by it. James Morrison’s soulful and raspy voice as well as his passion filled song-writing make for music you can’t help but love.

James Morrison was born in 1984 in England and in the short years since he started his musical career has already, performed for Prince Charles, toured with Corinne Bailey Rae, and has recorded duets with Nelly Furtado and Jason Mraz. You can find the duet with Furtado, “Broken Strings” on Morrison’s new album and with Mraz, “Details In The Fabric” on Mraz’s latest album. Morrison is currently on tour in the U.K. and Europe. While he hasn’t taken the U.S. charts like he has in the UK it is only a mater of time before he takes the red, white and blue by storm.

Morrison attributes his unique voice to a case of whooping cough that almost killed him as a baby. It was years later as a teenager that his uncle introduced him to the guitar teaching him how to play a blues riff. Eventually Morrison started writing his own songs and began playing at a local pub in England for several years building up a following until he was signed to a record label. In 2006, his debut single "You Give Me Something" became a hit in Europe, Australia, and Japan, peaking in the top five in the UK and New Zealand. His first album Undiscovered came out that year and in 2007 he had several U.S. television performances which resulted in is album reaching #24 on the charts when is was released here. His second album, Songs for You, Truths for Me, was released in September of 2008 and it did tremendously well on the UK charts.

http://www.jamesmorrisonmusic.com/

http://www.myspace.com/jamesmorrisonmusic

I hope you have enjoyed this week's featured artist. Be sure to leave you comments below of what you think. Also, if you would like to help and support this artist be sure to share this with your friends. There are some new buttons below to help with that. Have a wonderful week!

Molly Jenson

Most of the artists featured on MMM have only been in my music library for at most two years. This week’s artist, however, has been on my radar for the last twelve years. My history with Molly Jenson goes all the way back to the summer after freshman year of high school at Hume Lake Christian Camps. Molly was the back up vocalist for the worship band Everybodyduck and all of us girls were in total awe of her. She was beautiful, had an amazing voice and we all wanted to be just like her when we grew up. Her powerful vocals and harmonies are what inspired my own singing and I learned to harmonize by singing along with her on the band’s album. Years have passed since those summers at Hume but I never forgot Molly. When I heard she was releasing her own album last year I was pretty excited and am even more thrilled to share Molly’s music with you today.

Molly Jenson is a San Diego native who didn’t plan on pursuing a career as a singer/songwriter. It came about when Greg Laswell, not only a singer/songwriter himself but one of my absolute favorites, offered to co-write and produce Molly’s first album. That album, Maybe Tomorrow, was released in March of 2009. The album also features a duet with Jon Foreman, lead singer of Switchfoot, on the track, “Do You Only Love The Ones Who Look Like You.” Not only has Molly been signed to Bully!Pulpit/Nettwerk Music Group but she is also working on a second album with Greg Laswell producing again. Laswell has been a featured here on MMM and he just released his new album last Tuesday. You can preview the whole album on his website and I am purchasing it tonight!

Back to Molly, who has not only made waves in Japan and London with her music but is taking her tour away from the west coast and conquering the rest of the U.S. soon. She’ll be performing at the Lilith Fair in Arizona this summer as well. There is no date set yet on the release of the new album but I can only anticipate good things from it. You can find her album for download on Amazon.com and iTunes.

I hope you have enjoyed this little walk I took down memory lane to bring you an artist worth hearing. Check out more on Molly on her website, Myspace and Twitter.  

Make sure to leave your comments below on what you think and if you like it share it with your friends!! That is what this blog is all about! I've even added some new buttons below to make that easier. 

Molly's Website

Molly's Myspace

Molly's Twitter

Photo 1 by Christian Rios Photography

Photo 3 by Joseph Llanes

Live Photo – unknown

My Current Obsession - The Civil Wars

If they don't come and play in L.A. soon I might have to go to them. Nashville trip to see The Civil Wars perform anyone?? We can help with some flood relief while we're there.

The CO

Before I even begin to talk about this week’s featured band I want to send out my prayers to the Nashville community. A devastating flood has hit, destroying homes and lives with no mercy. I know that during and after this crisis we will see the community of Nashville all coming together to help its neighbors. I have seen what an amazing community of musicians are there supporting each other in their careers so I know without a doubt they will be supporting each other during this time. Already as I’ve been researching this week’s band I’ve seen their efforts to help their town by setting up sand bags and helping friends who have lost their homes. This week’s band, The CO, are some amazing guys who met at a local university in Nashville and have stayed there to pursue their careers as musicians. Another Brite Revolution find, the band supports the Dalit Freedom Network which you can learn more about at the bottom of the post.

The CO began with Collin Brace, lead vocals, and Troy Akers, keys and vocals, who started writing songs together during college. The two decided to form a band and were joined by Nate Fleming on drums and later Will Harrison on guitar and Jordan Hester on bass. The band is a pop/rock group that reminds me of One Republic with a little Kris Allen thrown in. Their songs sing of rough times and struggling faith in their tracks, “Keep It Together” and “Hold On,” as well as love in their track, “Come In Closer.” The song writing of this band shows great promise and I can easily see them going far in their careers.

The CO has one album out available for $7.92 on Amazon here and iTunes here. If you are enjoying this band I would recommend buying it through the links provided or through their website links below since it will not be easy to find their music just searching for it. I tried and quickly gave up and found it through the provided links on Brite. Since CO is a very common word when googling The CO you will find a million other companies and websites before finding anything related to the band, which made it a bit hard to research. Even a search on iTunes and Amazon resulted in so many other options before I found them. So, if I had one recommendation for this band it would be a name change. I know that sounds quite brazen of me to suggest that a band change its name but I believe that you want potential fans to find you easily online. If I had heard a friend mention them or heard them playing on the radio I don’t know that I would have had much luck following up with their music. For now I’m making it easy for all of you readers to find more of their music. I hope you can use this as a resource to share this music with your friends because The CO is really a great band that deserves to be heard. And boys, if you ever read this, know that my intentions are not to bash your name choice but help you to be even more successful they you already are.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s featured band. You can follow them on Twitter to get updates on the Nashville flood and learn more on their website, facebook and myspace page. Make sure to leave your comments below on what you think of the music.

The CO Website

The CO on Myspace

The CO on Twitter

The CO on Facebook

Dalit Freedom Network - Approximately 250 million Indians (a full 25% of the population), are Dalit. In a country where everybody is supposed to have equal rights and opportunities, one out of four people is condemned to be untouchable.

The Dalit Freedom Network partners with the Dalits in their quest for religious freedom, social justice, and human dignity by mobilizing human, informational, and financial resources. Learn more from the website.

Photo 1 & 3 - by michael sloane of strategic blend