This week, three love songs (one happy, two sad),  a song for fans of James Mercer and/or Garden State, and one of the cleverest drum parts of the year.

Have a jolly Monday, folks.

—

Parker Millsap – Pining / God I Wish I Were a Dog

Oklahoma’s favorite former Pentecostal singer-songwriter, Parker Millsap, will release his third album, The Very Last Day, this coming Friday.

In the meantime, you can brush up on all things Millsap by checking out his two previous records, 2012’s Palisade and 2014’s Parker Millsap.

The first single from the new album is below.  It’s a catchy, upbeat shuffle about indomitable love.

And you can click here for a great little unreleased b-side about man’s best friend.  Embedding is disabled on it, so you have to click through to his Soundcloud page to hear it.  It’s cool though, you can come right back when you’re done — the door’s unlocked.

—

Banta – Hungry Heart

Banta is a California-based indie rock band.  Their debut album, Dark Charms, is due out on Tax Day.  (That’s April 15th for you college kids 🙂 )

Think a little bit of Rilo Kiley, a little bit of the New Pornographers, and maybe some nag champa.

—

Carter Tanton – The Long Goodbye

Yep, here’s another good one from Carter Tanton’s new album, Jettison the Valley — bit of a Billy Corgan-ish vibe at the beginning of it.

—

Hotel Lights – Everything Hurts You Now

Pretty sure this one is a Shins cover, even though it wasn’t officially written by them — good stuff though.

You can preview and purchase the new Hotel Lights album, Get Your Hand in My Hand, right here.

—

Into It. Over It. – No EQ

This one sounds like two parts Dashboard Confessional and one part Saves the Day, but with a really good drummer.

Standards is out now on Triple Crown Records.

—

Until next week, cheers…

(So I wanted to make sure I used the term “shuffle” accurately up there and ended up watching about a dozen drum lesson videos on YouTube.  This guy is hilarious, and he’s gonna ‘splain all you ever needed to know about shuffles.)