Thursday, March 27, 2008
Eastwood and Cash
I had the strangest dream last night. I was watching a music video fir a new Johnny Cash song, released after his death. It was a soulful ballad about a Ring of Fire, but in this song the Ring of Fire was also a metaphor for clairvoyance and seeing the future. In the video, Client Eastwood played a small time con man whose family possesses second sight.In the beginning of the the song, a flashback shows how Clint's dad could see Clint's older brother having a heart attack while flying a fighter jet. His father reaches through a ring of fire and revives his brother.
At the end of the song, Clint performs some elaborate con in Miami Beach, culminating in two hypnotized men blocking traffic on a beach-front avenue. As Clint's older brother, who is now a policeman, arrives to direct traffic, Clint steps out and hugs him as a Ring of Fire appears in the sky. The ring turns out to be an enormous asteroid that hits the sea and everyone is drowned in a tremendous tidal wave.
I really wish I could remember the lyrics. It really did sound like Johnny in my head.
Labels: Guitarmaggedon, My Musical 2 Cents, Sheer Awesome, We Who Are About to Rock
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Friday, January 18, 2008
There Will Never Be a Greater Band
Repeat after me: We want Sweet! We want Sweet! We want Sweet!
I picked this up on a whim at a Friends of the Library sale, and have never been more satisfied with a purchase.
Sweet is the perfect band. Three parts Queen, and two parts Electric Light Orchestra. Sometimes they sound like the Cars, at other times the Beach Boys, and sometimes like the Talking Heads. All of that in a glam rock package and some of the most infectious bubble gum pop I've ever heard.
Parker has virtually memorized the album. So have I. Yes, it's that fantastic.
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Saturday, December 15, 2007
Peace on Earth
And finally, a song that warms the cockles of my heart, from one of the most unlikely duos of all time. One of Bing Crosby's last performances, actually.
I looked for this song on CD for a long, long, time. When I finally found a copy of it, on a punk Christmas compilation (which is also where I first heard Fairytales of New York for the first time), I rushed back out to the car to play it for Kristin.
As the song ended, I said "That's a pretty little song"...just seconds before Bing said the exact same thing.
Bing and I are in complete agreement over this one. I dare you to say different.
Labels: Holiday Daze, Sheer Awesome, We Who Are About to Rock
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The Fairytale of New York
Of course, I have soft spot for this song - definitely one of my favorite nontraditional Christmas songs. It's Irish, it's punk, it's irreverant, and so much fun to sing along to.
Labels: Holiday Daze, Sheer Awesome, We Who Are About to Rock
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Ding Dong It's the Christmas Song
No holiday video retrospective would be complete without the awesome power of Gunther, Sweden's self-styled sex machine. Gunther tries to live up to the Village People maxim that macho men have mustaches, and the sincerity he gives to the image he tries to portray to the world is unparalleled.
Labels: Holiday Daze, Sheer Awesome, We Who Are About to Rock
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The Curse of the Holiday Album
Remember Billy Mack from Love Actually? The aging rocker who scored an unlikely Christmas hit with his ghastly Christmas reworking of a golden oldie?
Billy Idol has done him one better.
Labels: Holiday Daze, Sheer Awesome, We Who Are About to Rock
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Sunday, November 25, 2007
Mister Bo Jango
I signed up for yet another social networking tool: Jango.Jango is a streaming music radio station network that operates in a similar fashion to Pandora, although with a much more mainstream bent (Pandora's music genome relates artists I've never heard of to my preferred musical tastes, while Jango limits the artists to more recognizable artists). Jango differs in that it allows your radio stations to be accessible to outside listeners, who can then listen too and influence your rotation of songs by voting on favorites which then have increased play in the rotation.
It's a lot of fun and gives you yet another alternative for your listening pleasure during the work day. Check out my radio stations at Soundwave's Landing Page.
Labels: Fun on the Web, We Who Are About to Rock
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Saturday, July 07, 2007
Smooth Jazz
Parker has taken to listening to various radio stations as he goes to sleep, and its starting to have an effect.The family made our semi-weekly pilgrimage to Starbucks (it's kind of like the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, with caffeine substituting for rosaries). as Parker and I played some checkers, the melodic Jazz that store favors percolated through the air.
"What kind of music is that?" I prodded Parker.
Parker shrugged "A saxophone."
"Mm-hmm," I agreed. "That's Jazz."
"No." Parker objected. Then, in a voice two octave lower, we said "It's Smoooth Jazz. 97.3."
Labels: Parker, We Who Are About to Rock
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Record Robot
The Record Robot presents vinyl goodies from the past. Some are good, some are bad, and some, like the Stylers, Singapore's answer to the Ventures, are a fantastic musical experience that has to be experienced.Also, the album art is not to be missed - it's a great way to see the cultural and fashion trends of times long past. If I produced local band posters (I've always wanted to do it, I admit), I'd definitely mark this as a location for inspiration!
Careful - it's a definite time-consumer. Bad Robot!
Labels: Fun on the Web, Spot the Pop Culture Reference, We Who Are About to Rock
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Support the Radio Equality Act
Time is running out for internet radio.On July 15, the new rates for royalties due from Internet Radio stations will go into effect. Terrestrial radio pays 2 to 5 percent of its gross revenue as royalties; satellite radio pays 3 to 7 percent. But thanks to the rate hike, which is based on a per listener charge, Internet radio stations must pay between 50 and 1,000 percent of its gross revenue. This will drive most smaller stations off the air nearly immediately, as well as larger services such as Live365 and Pandora.
According to John Simson, the director of Sound Exchange (the branch of the RIAA created to collect internet royalties), the new unit of measure is not the CD, but the "listen":
"When you have services that are feature-rich like Pandora or Rhapsody, Yahoo or SomaFM, places where people spend a lot of time listening, that time that cuts into listening to CDs — that time's moved to listens instead of purchasing CDs."
What a self-serving argument! If this was indedd the RIAA's viewpoint, then the royalty rates for terretrial and satellite radio - which have a much higher listernship - should also be increasing. The royalty rate simply works to decrease listener choice by eliminating all competition to top 40 stations. The RIAA is blinded bya potential $1.15 billion windfall in royalty rates - which will never come through, because those stations they wanted to charge will simply cease to exist.
It is true that I do not by as many cds as I did ten years ago (I also don't go to the movies as much, buy as many books, or read any comic books, so it's not just an endemic problem for the music industry). However, nearly every choice I have made to purchase a CD or to buy a track from iTunes has been from a "listen" from internet radio. Cutting off a valuable venue for letting people expad their musical tastes and that encourages to delve deeper into label's catalogs that the surface will end up costing them revenue in the long term.
There are bills in Congress that would overturn this rate hike. The Internet Radio Equality Act would nullify the copyright royalty board decision and set royalty rates at 7.5 percent of gross revenue, which is the same at satellite radio. The house bill has 118 co-sponsors of a needed 216, so get on the phones (or the net) and let your opinion be known.
Labels: Anti-Fun, Art, Got a Permit for Breathing, Politics, Unbridled Hope for the Future, We Who Are About to Rock
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Tuesday, December 19, 2006
The Secret Life of Itunes’ Free Downloadees
One of the great unsung treasures of Itunes are the free downloads from up and coming artists found on the Itunes store. Some of the music in this section is utterly fanstastic – here are some of my favorite tracks I’ve gotten from this feature:- Aslyn: Be the Girl
- Anna Nalick: Breathe
- Kasabian: Club Foot
- Ellie Lawson: Gotta Get Up From Here
- Lokua Kanza: Mboka
- Polly Paulusma: She Moves in Secret Ways
- Flipsyde: Someday
- Bonnie McKee: Trouble
I went to go and find out about two of these artists the other day to see if I could get more of their music. What I found surprised and could definitely be turned into thirty-minute renditions of VH1’s Behind the Music.
Bonnie McKee was on the cusp of stardom. A teenage runaway who grew up in the club scene, she had hard-hitting lyrics and the kind of street-wise and growling performance of a pop Bonnie Raitt. She had appeared as Janis Joplin on American Dreams, and one fo her songs was featured in the 2004 film Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, garnering enough notice to cause her album to be released ahead of its (previously delayed) schedule.
Despite having been signed for several million dollars with Warner, Bonnie abandoned them to work with “Doc” McGhee, the manager behind KISS, Bon Jovi and Mötley Crüe. McGhee’s career had come to a crashing halt after being "arrested on a charge of assisting to smuggle 40,000 lbs of marijuana into North Carolina from Colombia in 1982". Now, Bonnie’s career has completely foundered, more’s the pity.
Ellie Lawson had a record made. Produced, recorded, boxed, and ready to go. She’d even been out of the promotional tour, and had performed nation-wide on Ellen. And then the studio decided she didn’t have it. Ellen, being the generous person is, pushed for the studio to release it, and even though they didn’t budge, they did allow Barnes and Noble to sell it exclusively from their site. I’d recommend it heartily to anyone that likes good and catchy pop riffs, a la Natasha Bedingfield but with a more acoustic feel.
Here’s to both of them, and all the other struggling artists out there. And a hearty thank you to Apple for trying to bring them to our attention.
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Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Guitarmaggedon and Cello on Earth
Micheal and I went to Common Grounds to see Rasputina, the world’s first and probably only alternative cello band. Their show was opened by ABerdeen City, a racous rock group with some deft guitar work by the most sardonic, laconic, and disassociated guitarist of all time (the fact he could play well while holding the guitar below his knees, or over his head, or next to his face, was simply incredible).
I'm getting old. I had to use ear plugs halfway through the performance. That brought the music down to an appreciable level. The place was thoroughly dominated by the club girl, whose personal presence could have supplied the entire Eastern Seaboard's electrical grid for several decades. Perhaps theis complex equation can explain her inherent magnetism:
Labels: Guitarmaggedon, Sheer Awesome, We Who Are About to Rock
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