No Fighting Zone

From The Ramones and me to you: Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight)

1000 Pounds

I don't know about y'all, but after that second piece of pumpkin pie I can truly relate to this nice little Superchunk ditty off of their fantastic "Come Pick Me Up" LP: 1000 Pounds

Hope your Turkey Day was Great!

Miguel

Can Somebody Please!

Here's a nice little "Help" warning sound for your computer courtesy of
Lashonda...

If You See Kay, Tell Her I Called...

Dig the crazy cool lyrics of Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo.mp3 from the Bloodhuond Gangs's latest, the oh so clever Hefty Fine.

"Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo"

Vulcanize the whoopee stick
In the ham wallet

Cattle prod the oyster ditch
With the lap rocket

Batter dip the cranny ax
In the gut locker

Retrofit the pudding hatch
Ooh la la
With the boink swatter

If i get you in the loop when I make a point to be straight with you then
In lieu of the innuendo in the end know my intent though
I brazillian wax poetic so pathetically
I don't wanna beat around the bush

Foxtrot Unifrom Charlie Kilo
Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo

Marinate the nether rod
In the squish mitten

Power drill the yippee bog
With the dude piston

Pressure wash the quiver bone
In the bitch wrinkle

Cannonball the fiddle cove
Ooh la la
With the pork steeple

If i get you in the loop when I make a point to be straight with you then
In lieu of the innuendo in the end know my intent though
I brazillian wax poetic so pathetically
I don't wanna beat around the bush

Foxtrot Unifrom Charlie Kilo
Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo

Put the you know what in the you know where
Put the you know what in the you know where
Put the you know what in the you know where
Put the you know what in the you know where pronto


All appologizes in advance for this song sticking in your head...

Miguel

Link Wray (1930-2005)

The great rock guitarist Link Wray died on Friday. In the 1997 edition of the All Music Guide to Rock, the late Cub Koda had this to say about him: "Quite simply, Link Wray invented the power chord, the major modus operandi of modern rock guitarists. Listen to any of the tracks he recorded between that landmark instrumental (Rumble--Lee) in 1958 through his Swan recordings in the early 1960s and you'll hear the blueprints for heavy metal, thrash, you name it. Though rock historians always like to draw a nice, clean line between the distorted electric guitar work that fuels early blues records to the late-'60s Hendrix-Clapton-Beck-Page-Townshend mob, with no stops in between, a quick spin of any of the sides Link recorded during his golden decade punches holes in that theory right quick. If a direct line from a black blues musician crankin' up his amp and playing with a ton of violence and aggression can be traced to a young, white guy doing a mutated form of same, the line points straight to Link Wray, no contest."


RIP Link (No Pun Intended...)
Rumble.mp3

Screwby Doodie Doo

Ok y'all, here it is, straight from the big dog's mouth - The Real Story of the Scooby Doo cast...

Uh, this ain't for the kids...

Miguel

Birth Of A Podcast iF:001 Podcast

Do you like music?

Me too.

I listen to tons of different bands in a broad range of languages introducing me to an amazingly eclectic array of genres, styles and hybrids of all of the above. If I'm awake, my soundtrack is on. Sometimes it's music, sometimes it's the birds in my backyard, I'm simply addicted to audio.

From real-time, streaming live performances from the other side of the world to fresh interpretations of compositions written before anyone ever even heard of Thomas Edison.

I'm lucky enough to own a modest collection of cassettes, reel to reels, 8 Tracks, cds and of course, vinyl.

Did I mention that I've also got a shitload of mp3’s, enough of which to fill about 8.5 60 GB iPods, 125 4GB nanos or 1,000 .5 GB Shuffles.

Really.

I'm guessing there's probobly not some magic software I can download from versiontracker.com that'll count and tag my albums for me, which means I gotta go analog manual in order to get some kind of tally in the form of a pie chart regarding ratios of release dates, categories and lable info.

I figured that I might as well convert to mp3 whatever it is I'm listening to that I might want to access and share in the future.

The result of each session's harvest are packaged into a little podcast project: iF: Irregular Frequency.

More later -
Get it here and let me know what you think: iF:001 Podcast Download

Make it louder, HMK

IF:TBR:ST:HMK:1961 Church Key Intro Mix: HMK 2:26
Go Down to the Beach: Casey O'Hara 2:22
Speaking Further Than Reason: Before The Period Lunatic 4:20
Megapills: Sunset Valley 3:19
Serves Me Right (take 5): Milt Jackson 4:48
Plummi A-Go Go: The Mysterons 0:28
Dirty Back Road: The B-52's 3:21
Space Age Express: The Space Agency 2:04
Surfin' Hearse 2:27 Quads
Moon Dawg!: Gamblers 2:14
Ajoen Ajoen: Kiyo Koyama & The Dynamic Echos 2:15
Jive Talkin': Bee Gees 3:44
Church Key: The Revels 2:17
Rock And Roll Part 2: Gary Glitter 3:03
The Ripper: Judas Priest 2:51
Deeper Than Beauty: Sloan 2:41
Mexico City Airport: HMK 4:24
Sunday In New York: Nadine Jansen 3:15
Cool Casa Rockin: Joe King Carrasco Y Los Crowned Heads 4:45
Hold You Down: Fat Joe, Jennifer Lopez 4:32
King Of The Wheels: Bobby Fuller Four 2:03
Beer Bottle Mama: Andy Reynolds And His 101 Ranch Boys 2:28
Ladies And Gentlemen Part I: POTUSOA 1:37
He's Got A She: Exene Cervenka 2:44
Radar Love: Legends: Golden Earring 5:06
Rock Woodpecker Rock: Nat Couty 2:00
Am Radio: Everclear 3:56
Une Very Stylish Fille: Dimitri From Paris 3:18
Shotgun 4:31 Tiki Bongo
Pinball Wizard: The Who 3:03
Friday Night (Is Killing Me): Bash & Pop 4:40
Amarillo By Morning: George Strait 2:54
Here's Where The Story Ends: The Sundays 3:55

I Love Math Rules!

Here's one of the proposed covers I did for the I Love Math Album along with one of my current favorite cuts, The Shape Of The Sum.

Make it louder!

Miguel

Somebody's Miracle

Playing Against Type

When Johnny Cash returned to the spotlight in 1994 with "American Recordings," the first in a series of records that presented him as a folkie with a goth-rock demeanor instead of a Grand Ole Opry standby, fans and critics rejoiced. In 1997, when the veteran crooner Pat Boone released "Pat Boone in a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy," covering Guns N' Roses' "Paradise City" - well, not so much rejoicing.

For a musician, changing stripes in mid- or late career is risky business. It can jump-start a flagging brand, as with Mr. Cash or the singer Linda Ronstadt (whose 1983 "What's New" transformed her from a faltering rock singer to a multiplatinum standards singer). Or it can leave old fans cold without cultivating many new ones.

Just how tethered must an artist be to fan expectations to succeed? That question is relevant to two new CD's by women playing against their established personas.

When Liz Phair was penning songs for her self-titled 2003 album, her first in five years, she was not intending to alienate her core audience. "When I write, I don't think about the fans at all," she said via cellphone last month. "I think about songwriting."

But the response to "Liz Phair" from many longtime admirers verged on outrage. The record, a glossy pop-rock affair that shamelessly courted commercial radio, seemed worlds away from the cool, lo-fi intimacy of "Exile in Guyville," the 1993 release that made Ms. Phair an indie-rock idol. Critics were similarly put off: a lengthy essay in The New York Times pronounced the album "an embarrassing form of career suicide."

Ms. Phair, whose semiglossy "Somebody's Miracle" is out this month and who plays Irving Plaza tonight, said she was "totally mortified" by the critical response to her last record. "But I get it, in retrospect," she said. Some fans thought that "I was supposed to be on their team, and I switched sides," she said. "But I was being a mom and changing things in my life. To make a record like 'Guyville' again would've seemed really false."

"Somebody's Miracle" improves on but does not backpedal from the "Liz Phair" approach; three songs - among them the addictive "Count On My Love" - are turbo-charged pop-radio wannabes written with John Shanks, whose work with ingénues like Ashlee Simpson and Kelly Clarkson earned him a Grammy in February for Producer of the Year. But the CD does find Ms. Phair sounding more comfortable in the playground of commercial rock, and occasionally letting her voice wobble off-key like back in her indie days. Lyrically, it is a somewhat darker affair.

"There's a lot of regret on this record," said Ms. Phair, who noted that the Tex-Mex-flavored ballad "Table for One" was inspired by the alcoholism of a relative. "It's about coming to terms with things, even if that means accepting that I've failed."

Despite the critical drubbing, "Liz Phair" sold more than 400,000 copies and its songs were used in numerous television and film soundtracks - not bad considering "Guyville" sold only around 500,000 and, as the singer admits, until "Liz Phair" appeared, "everyone thought my career was over, labels included."

Sinead O'Connor is another rock musician with a persona cemented in the minds of listeners long ago - one that she, like Ms. Phair, has outgrown. "There was a lot of misunderstanding and misrepresentation of me in the pop-and-rock arena, mediawise," Ms. O'Connor said in a telephone interview, "and it had an indescribably difficult effect on my life and my childrens' lives. I've laid to rest the previous incarnation of 'Sinead O'Connor' in inverted commas."

Of course, tearing up a picture of the pope on national television - as Ms. O'Connor famously did on "Saturday Night Live" in 1992 - is the sort of thing that can trigger misunderstandings. But while her desire to be a cultural provocateur has abated somewhat, her desire to address religion and spirituality in her work has not. She has recently recorded Gregorian chants with the monks of Glenstal Abbey in Ireland, and plans an acoustic record inspired by Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.

Her excellent new CD, released this month, is "Throw Down Your Arms," and it is a spiritual record, too: 12 classic reggae songs by artists like Burning Spear and Bob Marley, all steeped in Rastafarianism, the Jamaican cultural and religious movement. The set teams her up with Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, the Jamaican drum-and-bass duo that has played on countless recordings and is arguably the greatest rhythm engine in reggae. (They are to join Ms. O'Connor on a United States tour that stops at Webster Hall, in the East Village, on Dec. 8 and 9.)

Will fans respond? Ms. O'Connor, who concedes that at this stage of her career she is in the privileged position of not needing to make records for the money, says she is unworried. "If as an artist you put your pure heart and soul - all of you - into what you're doing, people see that," she said. "They respond to pure honesty in a singer. And I think my die-hard fans will totally get this record."

Thanks to Will Hermes of The New York Times

Happy Birthday John Lennon!

In celebration of John's 65th birthday, here's an acoustic version of Dear Yoko.

Peace,

Miguel

UT Does It Again!

No, I'm not talkin' the University Of Texas Longhorns perfect record. I'm talking about the genius that was (and quite possibly still is) Universal Truth. UT is the brain-child of my amazingly gifted and talented amigo, my brother from another mother, Sir Tom Rehkopf. Pharmacist and No 1 Dad most of the time, America's best kept secret all the time. Anyway, when Tom initially approached me about his new concept band I knew it would be, if anything, as funny and entertaining as it would be rocking. After weeks and months of discussion and BS, lots of casual drinking and general carousing we got down to it. We talked about branding, merch, and creating the right visual identity. From day-one, two things were a DUN deal. 1) like the music and live shows, the UT band logo should be iconic and thought-provoking, you know, not unlike the Stones Tongue logo, and 2) The UT mark should be intrigingly mystique in every context, and if possible, in the form of a double entendre.

With that said, here's more from Sir Tom Rehkopf Himself:
...

Sample the genius,: Show Me The Honey! The title was the inspiration of the Bobby mentioned in the song. Drunken, on the prowl battle cry, Show Me The Honey, courtesy of Mr. Bobby Nick...

Nothing But Trouble

Uh, I Can Be Nothing But Trouble...