you're so LAAAAAAME!!!!!!

Arguing between Nas's "Ether" and Jay-Z's "Takeover" is the most futile music discussion ever. Whatever side you are on (even if it is the wrong one) you will not change your opinion no matter how much convincing the other person tries. Let me say for the record that I am a "Takeover" guy and I am pretty sure that Green Hornet will back me. The reason I am thinking about this argument is that I was reading this list done by the blog Psychedelic Kimchi. I know it's just one guy's opinion, but check what song is at number 2 and guess what song isn't even there. It's a pretty good read all around though. Check it out:

Psychedelic Kimchi's Top Ten Hip-Hop Diss Tracks


Here are the songs

Takeover - Jay-z

Ether - Nas


It's not just the fantastic Kanye beat with the Bowie sample on "Takeover" that makes it better. It's not just the fact that the beat for "Ether" (a song that I actually don't hate as much as it might seem) really takes a good idea and beats it into the ground. It's more about the fact that on Takeover, Jay-z makes you feel like he owns Nas. He isn't just spitting insults: he is better, he knows it, and he wants you to know it. Got it? Good. Cuz after he gets rid of all foes worth getting rid of, he goes back to what he does best, which is 11 tracks of extreme narcissism (a.k.a. the rest of the fantastic The Blueprint).

Also

Lisa Bonet and Marisa Tomei together on the show Different World might be too hot for television. They are foxes.

Also

This guy recently started a blog where the whole point is for him to predict, based on hype and pure instinct, what pitchforkmedia.com will give an album. I love the idea as me and my friends play this game all the time. It's not as tough as it should be and so far this guy has been coming fairly close. Here's the link:

That's Mr. Tower (predictfork.blogspot.com)



The 9:00 show is completely different from the 7:00 show, enjoy the veal, goodnight everybody!!!

The guys in Steely Dan are really creepy looking

But despite their creepy looks, they did author a hilarious letter to Luke Wilson, on the subject of his brother's movie "You, Me, and Dupree". They're claiming it's a ripoff of their song, "Cousin Dupree". I don't know really, but the letter is funny. Check it out here.

It's another Fuck You Friday!

Now, some of you may be at home saying, "Hey wait a minute, isn't today Saturday?" and the answer is yes. See that's the beauty of Fuck You Friday. You can tell me that today is Saturday, not Friday, and I can reply, "Hey Fella, Fuck You."

So on this week's installment, I bring you a double shot of embarrassment. See, back when I was in high school, I kind of liked this song "Omnibus" by Laut Sprecher. I still like Omnibus. It's a cool song. The only problem is that it brought me to explore some other techno and a lot of the stuff I explored was just crap. Case in point, the following two songs. I don't even know what DJ put them together, when I downloaded em, the artist was tagged as Happy Hardcore. Now maybe that's the name of some rave DJ out there, but as far as I knew, it was a techno subgenre, not just one DJ. Anyways, the second song has sort of a jungle beat and is better than the first, but that doesn't say a whole lot. For whatever reason, even after I cleaned my computer of extraneous mp3s, I couldn't bring myself to delete them.




Rainbow Brite Happy Hardcore Mix

She really does kind of look like a candy kid. What a weird scene that is.



Sesame Street Happy Hardcore Mix



So now you know that at one point in my life, I thought those songs were pretty cool. Man, they really are not. Anyways yeah, you can boo me now, I'll see you next time on Fuck You, Friday.

read achewood.

d.r.u.g.3.

Usually Dick Dale's legacy is regarded as just being "Miserlou", or as most folks probably know it, "That surf guitar song from Pulp Fiction and tons of commercials".

"Miserlou" by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones

Dale was a remarkable guitar player, who really helped shape the future of rock and roll guitar. He was using post production guitar effects before it was the norm, he worked with Fender to create new equipment with richer tones and more volume, and he played his righty guitar upside down and left handed before Hendrix did. He incorporated Middle Eastern and Eastern European melodies into his songs, something that was not often done in American Pop music up to that time. He also is responsible for the first recorded surf music instrumental, "Let's Go Trippin". Now I don't know much about Dick Dale's hallucinogen intake, but I'll let you listen to the song and draw your own conclusions.

"Let's Go Trippin!" by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones

hail satan!

Sometimes I like to grow mini obsessions with groups where they dominate what I listen to for a while. Since February The Mountain Goats have been mine. The group is basically just John Darnielle, his offbeat voice, and his often furious acoustic guitar. They have a new album coming out on August 22nd, and there is a song from it that was released. I also posted a classic.

Woke Up New - Mountain Goats
While I can't say Darnielle is really blazing new trails and trying new things with this song, he definitely doesn't disappoint. He keeps his voice as intimate as possible throughout this song as he sings of the aftermath of a breakup. The delivery (especially the hushed chorus of "what do I do/without you") keep this song endearing. This is a good thing because the lyrics would have been fairly melodramatic without Darnielle knowing how to deliver them. When Darnielle says lines like: "the first time I made coffee for just myself, I made too much of it, but I drank it all, just cuz I know you hate it, when I let things go to waste," you can hear that this isn't a song about a guy who is sad, but about a guy trying to adjust to a new life.

Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton - Mountain Goats
Just a story about a group of guys trying to make it as a Death Metal band. Well, there is more to the song, some themes of youthful conviction and nostalgia (kinda makes me think of the band Brian Adams was a part of in the song "Summer of '69"). But we all know the real reason to listen to this song is the chanting of 'Hail Satan!" at the end of it.

Make way for the S-O-V

If you're not doing anything Sunday, shit even if you are doing something on Sunday, get your ass down to Central Park. I have a half written post that I've been meaning to post forever, the subject being the lovely Ms. Jean Grae, and I've just been sitting on it and not finishing it, I'm not sure why. Anyways, I bring this up because her and Pete Rock are supporting Sov at Summerstage on Sunday. Sovereign is on at 5:30, but the day starts at 4:00.



"Dogs of War" feat. Raekwon the Chef, Cappadonna, Sun God, and Trife Da God by Ghostface Killah (Produced by Pete Rock)


The guitar on this track is ridiculous. It's really cool too how they pull the vocals out at certain points, it really catches your ear when you're expecting them to say it. Such a good job on this one, Mr. Rock.



"Code Red - The Yakuza" by Jean Grae


I totally slept on Jean Grae for so long and I really can't even tell you why. Talib is down with her, that should be reason enough for me right there. I'll admit I don't know a whole lot about her, but I'm really excited that she's finally on my radar.


"Fit But You Know It" Remix feat. some cool people but right now we're focusing on Lady Sovereign by the Streets


I think her verse on this song is better than most of her own work, if not all of it. I really want to like Lady Sovereign, and I do, but the biggest problem with her is that she writes songs about stupid things. I really don't need commentary on fake tanning and shit in my music. It's just not that necessary. I did see her live though, and she really did well. I'm excited to see her again.

see you there.

Seriously, why can't I turn off the radio?

So let me tell you, I listen to a lot of top 40 radio at work. It's not by choice, I don't have any influence over the musical selection. Anyway, I heard what I think was a Ne-Yo song I had never heard before, and it started me thinking, "Damn, I haven't heard 'So Sick' in a really long time. I used to listen that song all the time," and it's absolutely true, I did go through a phase of listening to that song a lot. I mean, there's not a lot of contemporary R&B that I'm really interested in, but something about the way he sings the line "why can't I turn off the radio?" just really grabbed my ear the first time I heard it.



So is Ne-Yo now sponsored by Axe body scrub?



Anyways, I'm sitting at the computer after work and when I click shuffle on iTunes, the first song to shuffle up is, wait for it...

"So Sick" by Ne-Yo

Yeah, it was weird. I didn't even know I had it on this computer.

Band Geek Mafia

So I know I just trashed him the other day, but I have to come back and say that despite the downright silliness of the afore-quoted comment, I am really enjoying this track "International Swagger". Apparently it's a bonus track on the Japanese version of his new album. Bong Bong. Thanks for the link to Spine Magazine, a site I visit everyday.

"International Swagger" by Pharrell


I think one of Pharrell's main cool points is that he was in the high school band and that he was a drummer.



See the drummers are always the only cool ones in the High School Band, relative to the rest of the band that is. I was a drummer in high school, till my teen angst was just too much for the man to handle and I quit. This is one of the main reasons that I'm cooler than MC Abstract Douchipster, since his High School Band time didn't involve rebellious quitting or the drums.



zing!
peace.

That's That M.I.A. Slang

First of all, I changed the .wav files from yesterday's post to mp3 files. If anyone had trouble downloading them it should be easier now.

So until I start a job somewhere else, I think my posts are gonna degenerate into "what cool record I bought today" and I think I'm going to enjoy it. Yesterday when I was checking out, the owner told me I should check out his $1.99 bin, so today when I went back during lunch, I started flipping through. I saw a Dr. Buzzard's Original "Savannah" Band LP and snatched it up, knowing that M.I.A. and Ghostface had both sampled their song "Sunshower" for their songs "Sunshowers" and "Ghostshowers", respectively. It turned out to be the album with "Sunshower" on it, so I bought it with a handful of spare change. The original version sounds so crazy compared to its successors. The beat remains the same, and a couple cool drum sounds from M.I.A.'s version are plucked right from the original, but the original is incredibly dense with sound. I really enjoyed it and it was cool to listen to, already being familiar with the work it inspired.

"Sunshower" by Dr. Buzzard's Original "Savannah" Band

"Sunshowers" by M.I.A.

"Ghostshowers" by Ghostface Killah

While I was listening to the record, I noticed there's a song called "Cherchez La Femme, Si Se Bon" and sure enough it's the inspiration for "Cher Chez La Ghost". It looks like Ghostface was a pretty big Dr. Buzzard fan.

"Cherchez La Femme" by Dr. Buzzard's Original "Savannah" Band

"Cher Chez La Ghost" by Ghostface Killah

Also, Otis Redding's version of "Respect" is awesome. Just like Otis. Almost always, when I'm writing about a song, I have it playing, just so my writing is a little more on point. I just want everyone to know that as I write this, as I listen to Otis, I am dancing my ass off. At least, as much rock is possible from a sitting, typing, position.

"Respect" by Otis Redding

Sometimes it seems like this blog's title should be adjusted to "Cigar-Box Guitars, starring Ghostface Killah and the Wu Tang Clan". I don't really see a problem here, I'm just saying.

and we put it on Wax... it's the Newwww style

I found a record store a block over from where I do construction and I've been spending a good amount of my lunch breaks in there as of late. I guess as a result of all this shiny new (and dingy old - new to me) vinyl, I've finally set up my computer to rip songs from my turntable. Anyways, here's a bunch of songs that I am now able to post.



"Say" feat. Lauryn Hill by M.E.T.H.O.D. Man
I tried to post this one a while back but it never worked and I sort of forgot about it, since I'm not really the biggest Meth fan in the world. Today I saw that the single had just hit the record shop though, so I felt obliged to pick it up, and then to share it with you kind folks. Method Man over acoustic guitar is not something I ever saw coming and I can say I'm glad it happened.



"Huddle Formation Remix" by RJD2
A friend of mine picked me up this Go! Team single a while ago, and I've been forever indebted to her since. This remix lacks that Go! Team energy, but if you don't go into it looking for that, it's a really cool track.



"(The Best Part of) Breaking Up" by the Ronettes
Buying Phil Spector's top twenty for under five bucks was probably the best vinyl purchase of my life. It's an assortment of tracks from the Ronettes, the Crystals, Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, a young Tina Turner with Ike, Checkmates Ltd., Darlene Love, and the Righteous Brothers. I can honestly tell you that there was a pretty lengthy phase during which this album was played exclusively on my turntable. It's just a crowd pleaser. Ronnie Spector is also never sexier than on this track when she half sings, "come on, baby". Just plain saucy, and sultry, and any other s-adjectives you can think of. That is, except slutty, because Veronica Spector is a saint. This song came through kind of quiet for whatever reason. Turn them speakers up.



"Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours" by Stevie Wonder
Does anyone not like Stevie Wonder? The basslines are so overly funky, his piano sounds like it's actually being tickled, the trumpets rarely go below blast, and with his perfect wailing vocals, it all comes together into this one sonic package that should be a mess with all the things going on at once, but always comes out beautiful. This song in particular is damn near impossible to hear without hearing it in your head all day. I think in this case, that's a good thing. I got this off of a compilation LP that I found today called Million Performance Songs. Look at what a good find this is:

Side I
"Tears of a Clown" by Smokey Robinson
"Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours" by Stevie Wonder
"I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5
"Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell
"Sail On" by the Commodores
"Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)" by Diana Ross
"Sir Duke" by Stevie Wonder
"Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)" by the Temptations

Side II
"For Once in My Life" by Stevie Wonder
"Get Ready" by the Temptations
"Going To a Go-Go" by the Miracles
"You're All I Need to Get By" by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell
"Never Can Say Goodbye" by the Jackson 5
"All This Love" by DeBarge
"Superfreak" by Rick James
"Superstition" by Stevie Wonder

Apparently all these songs were performed over a million times. Good job, songs.

8 1/2 Mile

So I am actually not a big fan of Eminem's song "Lose Yourself", but I am a fan of Fellini's film 8 1/2. This is a surprisingly nice little video mixing the two.

Baroque Trumpet and Synths

So Pachelbel's Canon has long been one of my favorite songs. I really enjoy Wynton Marsalis' version in particular. So when I was reading through my daily blogs, I saw something on "I Guess I'm Floating" that caught my eye. This band called Ratatat has a song called "Tacobel Canon" and it is awesome. They're real different, as the names would indicate, but both are quite enjoyable.

"Tacobel Canon" by Ratatat

"Pachelbel's Canon for 3 Trumpets and Strings" by Wynton Marsalis

Pharrell Pontificates, The President Snorts, Phonte Guest Stars, and the Nico is in the spotlight.

"That was stupid," Williams now says of the single's ill-timed release. "But it was also about being an artist and not giving a fuck. Warhol didn't give a fuck. Basquiat didn't give a fuck . They cared about how they moved the culture."

-Pharrell Williams
on the release of his single
"Can I have it like that?"
roughly 6 months before
the album's release

Okay, I couldn't say I'm the biggest fan of Pharrell, but I do like a lot of stuff he does. Either way, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Pharrell is being downright silly comparing himself to Warhol and Basquiat. I mean, maybe you could make a case somewhere, maybe with a shoe he designed, but he's talking about a Gwen Stefani song here. Damn, man.



This Silly left wing propaganda has some G0! Team in the credits. Check it out.


I heard a DJ Shadow track today with the vocals provided by Phonte from Little Brother. This song is cool as hell. As the track continues, it goes further and further into the blues, and farther away from hip hop. Clocking in around seven and a half minutes, this is a really interesting move by DJ Shadow. I don't wanna give away the surprise, but the last line of the song is so key.

"Backstage Girl" feat. Phonte by DJ Shadow


This list of the "50 Most Influential Albums" was brought to my attention by the Douchiest of Hipsters. Although I don't agree with every number on the list (Sorry, I have to throw that in just to keep pretension levels high here at Cigarbox-Guitars. Not that it's ever been a problem.), but it is a really well put together list.

peace.

5 Songs I'd Love to Hear in a Strip Club

So I won't explain why I thought of this topic, I'll leave that up to you to figure out. I just feel like there are so many songs that would go great with some money makin rump shakin, but strip club DJs just aren't using them. I guess they don't really go for the most musically diverse DJs when they hire, but still. Anyways, in no particular order, these are 5 songs I'd play if I was Djing the strip club.


1. "Clipse of Doom" featuring Trife Da God by Ghostface Killah

Doom brings us this ridiculous, swirling guitar based beat that just really reminds me of behinds circling through the air. There really are a lot of Ghostface cuts that would do well in the titty bar (Cher Chez La Ghost, Jellyfish, and tons of others) but this one just sounds perfect. The guitar sound puts it a little closer to a lot of the cockmetal that you hear all the time in these places, and overall it has such a grimy feel to it.

2. "La La means I Love You" by the Delfonics

Now at least at the one strip club I've (allegedly) been to, they really never take the soul route, which I honestly think is a mistake. Listen to this song and tell me you couldn't imagine some nice body winding during the "la la la"s. Maybe they try to steer away from obvious love songs to keep horny single men from catching delusions of grandeur ("Bro, we totally had a moment. when they said, 'la la means I love you', I swear to god she looked at me bro. I'm gonna make a move"), but it just seems like the real answer here is that the DJs are just getting paid to play that cockrocking metal and top 40 rap.

3. "Into the Sun" by Diplo

Almost anything with sweet sounding female vocals and a good beat is going to work well for the booby shaking, this song just so happens to have both. The atmospheric instrumentation makes this song perfect for slow movements, but the percussion is lively enough to allow for some movin and shakin as well. It's totally versatile, or flexible, if you will.

4. "The Ride" by Alec Empire

If you find yourself in any place where you walk into the dark and are greeted by tons of flashing lights and colors, you're probably going to hear at least a touch of techno. That is, if you don't hear a ton of techno. Empire's opening screams of "come on get with it baby, I wanna ride you" are pretty much made for this venue. Although the punk rock influence was more evident in Atari Teenage Riot than it was in Empire's solo work, this song shows enough of it to achieve the same kind of grimy overall sound that makes it fit so well among all the naked ladies.

5. "Justify My Thug" by Young Hov himself

Booty rockin bassline. I could just leave it at that, but I really do love blowing hot air, so I'll keep going. Not only does this song have the right beat to keep those bodies moving, the vocal hook is jacked from Madonna. I mean, come on. It's Madonna. She's like 65 now and she's still all about the sensuality and the eroticism and what not. I mean, I know when I hear this song, my head bobs on its own, with no conscious instruction from my brain. I can only imagine what kind of bounce it could inspire in the booty.

Just on the off chance that someone is reading this, and on the slimmer off chance that they are any sort of feminist or anything, I hope I haven't offended you. I mean, if I have, no apologies, cuz it's all said and done. I'm just hoping no one got offended along the way here. I'm just trying to get strippers some better music to listen to. It's altruistic in a way.

peace.

things that start with V's

Voxtrot


This band is out of Austin, Texas. They have 2 EPs out, both of which are fantastic. Their sound is pretty much just a mixture of a bunch of influences. The first EP (Raised By Wolves) pretty much just steals straight from the Smiths, Belle and Sebastian, and The Cure (I guess that is why I prefer it to the second EP). The second EP (Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, and Wives) sounds more like most other contemporary indie rock, but with some pretty kick ass songwriting.

Wrecking Force - Voxtrot (Raised By Wolves ep)
Some basic math gets us this song: Sonic Youth's guitars + Morrissey's vocal delivery + the emotional payoff of a Belle and Sebastian song = this song. I think the ability to marry these influences so well as to create thier own unique statement by the end of the song is impressive.

Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, and Wives - Voxtrot
Rise Up in the Dirt - Voxtrot
(both songs from Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, and Wives ep)
These two songs are more conventional indie rockers, but man do they rock. The second ep has a little less of the direct ripping off of the influences from the first one giving the band their own personality. Can't wait for a full length from these guys.

but i promised more V's, so...

Videos

Stylus Magazine (www.stylusmagazine.com), one of the more tolerable zines online, just posted their list of the 100 best music videos ever. The list is actually a ripoff of a post from a few weeks ago by Pitchforkmedia.com (which i somehow have issues with both the people who are against this site and the people who are for it). But the good thing about these lists is that thanks to YouTube.com, they can post the videos along with the blurbs. It is definitely satisfying to read about a video then watch it.

Stylus left ALOT of great videos off. They were also a little heavy on certain directors, some justifiably (though Spike Jonze is fucking overrated). Now, without giving away where Stylus placed these videos in case you actually go read the article, I am posting a little list of my own right here. My Top 5 Videos on the Stylus List. These are not my definite top 5 favorite videos, but my top 5 taken from the hundred on the stylus list.

5.Rabbit in your Headlights - U.N.K.L.E. ft. Thom Yorke (dir. Jonathan Glazer)

4.Come To Daddy - Aphex Twin (dir. Chris Cunningham)

3.Sometimes - Kid606 (dir. Pleix)

2.Coffee and TV - Blur (dir. Hammer and Tongs)

1.Around the World - Daft Punk (dir. Michel Gondry)

Fuck You Friday

So welcome to the first ever "Fuck You Friday" here at Cigarbox Guitars. See the idea here is that every Friday, one of us here is going to post something embarassing from their music collection and attempt to justify it. Then all zero people reading along at home can see it and say, "All this pretension, and you've been hiding that Linkin Park single this whole time??? Fuck you , man!". Then everyone will feel much better. So to get the ball rolling here, I bring to you:

"Better Off Alone" feat. Jay-Z, The Lox, Ghostface Killah, Nas, Mobb Deep, Common, Dead Prez, and the RZA by Alice Deejay, mixed by DJ Whiskeyclone.

I don't even know what to say about this. There was a short phase among my friends this spring where we listened to the original version of this song pretty regularly. Even that's kind of silly. One day I was looking to download it, and I saw Ghostface's name pop up. We all know how I feel about Ghost, so of course I downloaded it. Man, this song sucks. I'd be lying though if I said I never listened to it.

So everybody get your rocks off at my expense and have a happy Fuck You Friday!

depression can be fun!

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (a.k.a. Will Oldham) gets a bad rap as a depressing dude. OK, so that is sorta true. But his songs have more depth and meaning to just pin the easy label "depressing" on them. His 1999 album I See a Darkness is one of my favorite albums ever, but many people I know hear a dark, spacious album about death and don't go any further. There is an uplift to his voice and his guitar that goes unnoticed on that album.

He has a new album coming out on September 19 called Cursed Sleep. I hate ruining things, so I have only listened to two songs from the album, but they make me think this could be a great one. Both songs are extremely different from anything on I See a Darkness.

Cursed Sleep - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
So this is Bonnie doing his best Sufjan impersonation. Folk Song + String flourishes = most stuff on Come On Feel The Illinois. This is a well produced song though, almost too much so. But Bonnie adds the right amount of grandeur to his voice for this song that justifies the gloss.

The Signifying Wolf - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
So one of the biggest reasons why I am anticipating this album is I am looking forward to seeing how these two songs I have posted can co-exist on the same album. The first one is a practice in highly produced folk, while this song is a rough little folk boogie. The rhythm section here bubbles along with Bonnie sounding downright evil over top of it. The song eventually builds to a climax with what sounds like a party of beasts, ghosts, scientologists, and every other scary thing imaginable having a party in hell, with Bonnie as the in-house band. This is the scariest song I have heard since I was a kid listening to Vincent Price's goth-rap in MJ's Thriller.

P.S. For those of you keeping track (probably no one), this brings my 2006 most anticipated albums list to 3, including this one and the Junior Boys (Thom's already came out). A post about the Mountain Goats new one is looming though.

thanks for the heads up, talib

Okay, so Talib mentioned on his myspace blog that Mos Def is currently recording with Madlib. I don't know about you, but that makes me feel raunchy as hell in the pants. I love me some madlib, and I love me some mos def, so I'm hoping I'll love Moslib even more.

"Sex Freaks" by Jaylib ( J dilla with Madlib )

"Peeyano Keys" by MadVillian ( Metal Fingered Villian with Madlib )

"Six Days" remix feat. Mos Def by DJ Shadow ( Mos Def and DJ Shadow without Madlib )

So yeah, all these songs are awesome and listening to them now is going to be even nicer, because everytime I do, I'll get that little sparkle in my eye thinking about the forthcoming Mos Def / Madlib project.



Also,


I have been digging Page France for a little while now. I actually got into them at first when I heard their song "Jesus", but today I was listening to music on shuffle and another song by them came on. It has kind of a beatle-y piano line -not neccessarily a bad thing- and there's a cool intro with a really heavily distorted electric guitar over a super clean acoustic. Give it a listen.

"Antarctica (my beloved home)" by Page France

"Jesus" by Page France



aaaand lastly,
if Mr. Douchipster is going to recommend Björk's movie, (yeah that's right, I used the umlauts. Yeah those dots are called umlauts. whatup.) then I get to recommend her husband, Mr. Matthew Barney's movie Cremaster 3. I don't really even know how to explain it, it's so weird. It showed at the Guggenheim as part of an exhibit. It's honestly too artsy for me to really even get into, I didn't understand it, I just kinda thought everything looked cool. Oh and also I was an extra in the scene where Agnostic Front and Murphy's Law play. So ya know.


peace.
and fuck mudvayne.

foxy with a capital F

I refuse to hear anyone disagree with the following statement:

Bjork = sexy

The best thing about her is her music though. It's weird, seductive, artsy, danceable, and a million other adjectives all at once. But her weirdest moment came before her solo career




Top of the World - Sugarcubes
Bjork was originally a child pop star in her native Iceland. She was eventually with this group of more Icelandic people who released this sugary Carpenters song. I think I sense a good amount of irony, but Bjork still sells the inherent happiness of this song nicely without it sounding overly sarcastic. The weird thing is to hear the woman we know for her industrial/electronic beats and lyrics full of surrealism and sexual imagery to be singing this song.

Possibly Maybe - Bjork
Here we go. This is more like it. Somehow in a 5 minute song, Bjork goes from having a crush on a guy ("your flirt finds me out/teases the crack in me"), to dating the guy and looking forward to the future ("uncertainty excites me baby/who knows what's going to happen"). By the next verse, the couple is already having problems ("electrics shocks?/i love them/with you a dozen a day"), and in the verse after that, it's over("i'm exhausted/leave me alone"). The last verse of the song is after the relationship as she spites him ("since we broke up i'm using lipstick again"). We get a description of a before, during, and after a relationship in this song. And, although I have listened to this song a million times in my life, the vocal delivery still gives me chills at certain points.

While I am on the subject of Mrs. Matthew Barney, I want to recommend the 2000 movie "Dancer in the Dark" by Lars von Trier in which she is the star. The fact that Bjork didn't win every award available to her that year is a travesty as she was absolutely fantastic in the film. Also, 5 bucks to anyone who can honestly watch the movie and not shed a tear.

One more thing before I leave.

A band was recently bashed by the Green Hornet, and I would like to defend them. Alright, so maybe not defend them, but I like them and I don't care. Face paint! Metal! Come on! Don't make me pull out my signed Ozzfest shirt from the summer after 10th grade. And so, just because I know how much it will piss off Green Hornet, I will post one of the best songs from the 2000 classic album L.D. 50.

Cradle - Mudvayne

hoo! war!

I owe Spine Magazine for directing my attention to this article over at The Observer. It's all about foreign war correspondents and the music they listen to. I thought it was interesting as hell. I was kinda bummed they referenced the Sex Pistols, since they suck, but at least they didn't mention them in name.

Also,
I don't like Gnarls Barkley. I will concede, however, that performing with a bigass band full of star wars characters is pretty awesome.
I mean, you can't really go wrong playing music in weird getups. Gwar, The Misfits, Plan 9 (ohmygod, there's a link to their myspace right on the sidebar!), Daft Punk, umm Gwar again... all prime examples of why costumes, helmets, facepaint, anything of that nature are cool. Unless you're slipknot or mudvayne or orgy... okay so I guess it's not so much a rule.

womp womp

"Modern Love" by David Bowie
This is a really great song for driving by yourself, or if you're pretty comfortable with someone. The weird, vague spoken part at the beginning is fun to imitate, the lyrics are easy to remember, and the timing is just right that you can sing the main vocals and the backup all by yourself. Someone told me that there's a version of it with Tina Turner and Bowie that they did for a Pepsi commercial. I'm not terribly keen on the whole corporate whoring thing, but damn, Tina Turner's voice must sound great on this song.

"This Modern Love" by Bloc Party
This is just one of those songs that the first time I heard it, it became one of my favorite songs of the moment. The way Mr. Kele Okereke-Okay, I didn't have to use his whole name there, or his name at all, but God Damn, that is a cool ass name, is it not?-alternates between the right and left side at first is pretty cool, nothing earth shattering, but it works well here. The instrumentation is all simple, but really well layered, and the effect is just... pretty. That's really the best way to describe this song, catchy and pretty.

"Modern Romance" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
This has always been one of my favorite Yeah Yeah Yeahs songs, the other one being Art Star. The drums and guitar are so simple that they have this hypnotic quality of sorts. The only time either changes is when both drop out momentarily, on a very odd place in the beat, and then come back in a second later. Combine all that with the the soothing nature Karen O's voice takes on in this one -quite the opposite of Art Star- and the guitar effects layered on top, and the song as a whole is so peaceful. It's the perfect instrumental vehicle for the lyrics, a very somber and accepting look at heartbreak. There's even a cool bonus track at the end of it.

***

I'm not sure why all these songs ended up with almost the same title, but they all do it very well, so I wrote about it.

peace.

Alcohol and Christianity

Surprisingly there's been no mention on this blog of the new (not so new anymore) Streets album. I was listening to some music on shuffle and "Never Went to Church" came on and I decided I'd share with the masses here. It's really nice to see that even though Mike Skinner's seemingly evolved into an even more egotistical prick, he's still capable of putting together a beautiful, touching song. Maybe it's because I identify with the subject matter, but Skinner just seems so earnest on this track that I actually get a chill up my neck when I hear certain lines.

"Never Went to Church" by the Streets



peace.

Don't You Talk to Billy Idol That Way

Before Billy Idol became the sneering poster boy for punk rock kids who weren't really punk, he actually played in a real live punk band, Generation X. They were pretty entrenched in the poppier side of punk, but they definitely had a fun sound. Check out

"One Hundred Punks" by Generation X

and this song, that graced more late middle school to early high school mixtapes than I could count,

"Ready, Steady, Go" by Generation X

So on a sort of related topic, there's this other band that was really awesome, Reagan Youth.

If you're not familiar with them, there's a good bio here. Since they used a lot of extreme right wing imagery in a tongue in cheek fashion, they were at times taken to be extremely conservative, which was not at all the case. Given the chorus of "Reagan Youth, Ziek Heil" on this track though, I could see how one might make the mistake.

"Reagan Youth" by Reagan Youth

What I'm getting at here though, is that when the movie Airheads was made, they used a Reagan Youth song as the Lone Rangers big breakout hit.

"Degenerated" by Reagan Youth

In the early 90s, a band came about in NYC by the name of DGeneration.

Being a part of the same scene as Reagan Youth, albeit a later generation, they often covered Reagan Youth's "Degenerated" at their shows. I mean, considering the band name it makes sense. I'm not really crazy about them, but if you're curious, here's one of their songs. I think it was on the soundtrack to that movie, "The Faculty".

"Helpless" by D Generation

I actually am SO tired

"I'm So Tired" by Fugazi

This song has such a cool vibe. It makes me want to rock back and forth gently, almost like a morbid lullaby. Actually now that I've said that, I'm realizing that's kind of what this song is. A sad little lullaby.

There's always room for Jello Biafra

So I stumbled across a cache of mp3s that were on my family's computer from my younger days, and I see "California über alles". At first I assumed it was the original Dead Kennedys version, but then I realized it was actually a cover from this tribute comp called Dread Kennedys, In Dub We Trust.

For the uninitiated, the cover is a takeoff on the Dead Kennedys' In God We Trust, INC.

This particular track is done by the London duo Sheep on Drugs. Honestly, I really don't know much about these clowns. According to allmusic, they apparently enjoyed some very mild success in the early to mid 90s. That being said, if you saw this compilation and thought it was going to be a cool Jamaican dub treatment of some punk rock songs, you were mislead. The dub they meant was more of the electronic variety I suppose, even though this track barely falls in that category. I'm not really that good at classifying techno, but I'd call this jungle. Anyways, check it out for yourself.

"California über alles" by Sheep On Drugs

Now listen to how it's not really so much a cover, as much as it's a repitition of the title and some incomprehensible lyrics over the beat.


"California über alles" by the Dead Kennedys

Apparently they also cover "I'm Waiting For the Man", but I wasn't crafty enough to snag a copy of that ditty. I think I'll live without it.

peace.