new music again

it's like christmas every fucking month! i get six albums that i've either been waiting on (in my saved for later list) or something completely random that i've never heard of. awesomeness:



lyric 1 – get in on the ground floor

canadian hip hop. yeah, that's right. canadian. and you thought they were all so polite and nice. get over it. they're americans that can deal with the cold better than us. and with health care.

UPDATE (from Arjuna): ...groan... this sucks. there was one track i heard on cbc3 that was pretty good -- good enough for me to find and buy on emusic -- and now that i have the whole album i'm very disappointed. you know those guys that stand on haight street saying things like "support local hip-hop" and are selling home-burned cd's of their rhymes? they would kick this guy's ass for sullying the name of the genre. he sucks. he sounds like someone actually making fun of underground and unsigned hip-hop, except he's serious.

for good canadian hip hop, check out k'naan's "dusty foot philosopher" and cadence weapon's "breaking kayfab."



voxtrot – your biggest fan



voxtrot – raised by wolves

i think that these two are julia's fault. i have no clue what they sound like. please, oh hip and stylish scenesters with whom i am blessed to debauch, should i like or revile this group?



the awkward stage – heaven is for easy girls

canadians, again. blame cbc3.



songs: ohia – protection spells

songs: ohia/magnolia electric company is always a delight. i just wish they'd clear up the whole naming thing.



scarub – one for the road, volume one

i went looking for more m.i.a. or similar and this guy came up as an artist frequently downloaded by fans of m.i.a... anyone ever heard of him? know where he's from? anything?



tom waits – orphans: brawlers, bawlers & bastards

i really hope i don't need to explain myself on this one. i only wish i'd had more downloads so i could've picked up the bastards group along with the brawlers and bawlers. if any of you have the bastards, let me know...

long live emusic!

Ray Barretto's Acid

Holy Shit!

i was lying in bed last night, reading my book, and this little gem of a song comes on. truly a delight.

the song is the title track of ray barretto's album "acid".

as most anyone reading this knows, i have a thing for percussion. this song (and, really, the whole album) is delightfully rhythm-heavy and dripping with poly's. in a word, it's awesome.

i think it was my dad that first introduced my to percussion, but it was really the loadies in capitol park that got me into it -- drum circles and acid and long, warm sacramento summer nights can do that to an impressionable young man...

when i listen to music that is this good, i find myself imagining (or is it remembering) my earliest conscious memories of the genre being heard. in this case, it's to portola way, my childhood home. i'm in the living room, on a big blue couch, listening to something with timbales. it's the first time i've really given congas and timbales and clave and that zipper-sounding thing any undivided attention, and my mind is being blown. how do they all stay in time with each other? is this one drummer or seven? and where the fuck is the one?

then my dad got a pair of congas. i immediately started spending my afternoons playing (playing? well, more like hitting them repeatedly and learning how to make new sounds) them and annoying the neighbors. when i got back from holland two years later i started going to capitol park and drumming more... how shall i say... traditionally. trance-states and such. heart-beats and pulse rhythms. stuff that would probably annoy the shit out of me now if i were to try and participate in a similar circle.

anyhow, ray barretto is amazing. this song (and the whole fucking album) is amazing. check it.

where pop and country meet

in the neko-case-and-not-toby-kieth sort of way...

thanks to seth's month-past induction into emusicing, i've been granted another 50 free tracks. i decided to clear out some of my saved-for-laters and got two hem albums: funnel cloud and no word from tom. i also decided to take some risks and picked up two from the bottom of the main page, where the editors of the site put up albums they've been listening to at work...: the scanners' violence is golden and karen dalton's in my own time.





the hem albums are where pop and country meet in the neko-case-and-not-toby-kieth sort of way. i think i first heard about them on cbc 3's podcast, but that might be coming straight outta my ass... regardless, the track "not california" from funnel cloud is what initially caught my attention and got me to plop them down in my saved for later list. i'm sooooooo glad. go get 'em.



the scanners are a completely blind choice for me. i didn't even read the review (was there one?). i liked the cover art and figured, "what the fuck... i've got 50 free tracks... take a fucking chance, you pussy," and clicked download all. i hope they're at least entertaining.



and karen dalton, apparently, is the owner of bob dylan's favorite voice. as i am anything but a dylan fan this is pretty faint praise... but still, dylan has managed to stick around and even remain relevant for what, 40 years? maybe he's on to something. so yeah, i'll be checking her out soon, as well.

as a side note, a friend of mine recently told me of a thing another friend of her's does: a song a day blog. he picks a song each day and lets his readers know about it. sometimes he'll write about the song or artist or album or something else related, sometimes he'll write about how he's feeling that day (and maybe allude to the song's relevance) and sometimes it'll have nothing to do with the song at all, as far as anyone but him can tell... this sounds like a fruitful writing exercise, and directly in line with my intent for this blog. i invite you all to do this with me.

starting tomorrow.

on a more personal note...

i'm down in san luis obispo for the weekend for work. the last time i was in this town was 11 years ago, halloween weekend, and on a shit-ton of acid. the second-to-last-time i tripped, with only slightly less traumatizing and frightening results...

anyhow, i'm here again, for work. i am, as a friend so eloquently put it, herding the homeless. i gather a small group of down-and-outters, hand them each a sign exclaiming "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS!" or "30% OFF!!!" or "EVERYTHING MUST GO!" and set them out at pre-determined street-corners like little chess pieces in this grand game of overconsumption.

and the reason that i do this is because it pays well. the more class-conscious among us are probably at least a little disgusted. i know that i am. but i also know that without this little side gig (and the catering one, all thanks be to derek) i'd never get out of the city. i realized this morning when i was driving to the beach (nice directions, gretch... not!) that i hadn't left the bay area for months. i think i made it to oakland for a tool show a while back with the laura's, but that's really it.

and also, the guys working with me: they're great. they like that they're getting a little cash for sitting around holding a sign. one of the old timers said yesterday that he'd be sitting downtown anyway, and the fact that he's getting paid to do it pretty much blows his mind. one of the guys is actually trying to get his shit together again, and dropping forty bucks in his lap for a few hours of work helps him get a shower and a new shirt for an interview.

i recognize that if it weren't for capitalism's requirement of about 5% unemployment i wouldn't be able to get these guys at all. i see that the consolidation of ownership in all sectors of the economy is what is leading to the going-out-of-business sales that give me something to do. i'm well aware that the company i'm working for is a carrion-eating parasite, leeching it's subsistence from the dead and dying life-long efforts of the mom-and-pops. but shit, motherfucker's gotta get paid, ya' hurrd!

seriously though, this is a bit of a dilemna for me.

any suggestions?

yo... got me some tunes, bitches.

just got my new ninety:

ox - dust bowl revival. i heard these guys on the CBC Radio 3 podcast. they killed it.

josh ritter - the animal years. i'd heard of him from way back, and then emusic made one track from this album the track of the day (windows/explorer users should download the emusic toolbar; it gives you a free track picked by emusic's editors every day!) and now he's back up in my top.

heartless bastards - all this time. another freebee from emusic, i feel in love from the start. kind of country-rock, but better.

the national - sad songs for dirty lovers. i've had their alligator for a while, and really enjoy it. figured i'd check out another one of their albums, and how could i pass up an album with a name like that?

angela desveaux - wandering eyes. another CBC3 find. i don't even remember what she sounds like, but it was good enough for me to immediately add her to my save-for-later list on emusic.

the camaromance - empty picture frames. CBC3... again... damned canadians with their good taste and good manners and good music...

au revoir simone - verses of comfort, assurance & salvation. lame album name, but good music. yet another emusic freebee. interesting mix of natural and manufactured sounds layed down behind beautiful vox. i like me sad stuff.

erin mckeown - distillation. great mix of old-timey jazzy stuff and country/hillbilly and rock. at least, what i already had was like that. i'm hoping for more of the same...

the blow - paper television (not the whole album). i had four tracks left... it's in the editors' heavy rotation list. figured i'd check it out.

musical happennings in the city this week

who knew? the onion actually has a pretty good breakdown of what's going in the city each week... for example: tuesday at twelve galaxies (for twelve bucks) is vetiver ("freak folk" in the flavor of joanna newsom and devendra banhart, but more accessible) with women and children opening. also on tuesday, at the hemlock, is beach house (for six smackers) with over the atlantic and the parish. at mezzanine on tuesday (for ten clams) you can find lady sovereign (think m.i.a., but younger and faster) with mickey avalon and young blood opening. all of the headliners are in our emusic repetoir (lady sovereign on laura's, the other two on mine) and should be explored.

sometimes i fucking love this city... looks like tuesday night will be one of those times!

(also looks like emusic lost its distribution with vetiver's publisher. that sucks.)

the sky and the ocean

this one courtesy of arjuna. just discovered these kids from detroit. the volebeats :: the sky and the ocean. sweet country melodies, reverb-drenched desert rock, 60s-infected pop and rockabilly thrown into the mix and simmered until all the flavors run together. its got a loose, garagey feel... raw, sad, and oh so sweet. highly recommended.

(image courtesy of emusic.com. come join the fun.)

new friends!

fellow emusicers: we have another friend among us. SeTh (also the latest to join our blogging ranks) has joined emusic. i'm still waiting on his codes, but i know his tastes are refined and intelligent. as soon as he passes them my way, they'll get to you...

and yeah, where's all this musical musing that's supposed to be up in this piece?

for fear of what tomorrow may bring

in an attempt to preemptively start this blog on a good note, and for fear of what tomorrow's elections may bring, i want to say:

welcome!

this here is an attempt to get old friends talking about two of my favorite subjects (and any tangents that these might birth): music and politics.

comments are open, and if you know one of the "authors" and want in on this as an author rather than just a commenter, send that person an email and we'll set you up.

i'm gonna get going with a note to my fellow emusic members. i just got a shit ton of new stuff.

the be good tanyas

the diableros

aimee mann

kathryn ni donovan

the innocence mission

mojave 3 (though you shouldn't bother with the one i just got...)

various artists - badman records

go! let me know what you think! i'm especially liking the be good tanyas and the two aimee mann albums. seriously. lemme know!