A couple weeks back, Nina Gordon’s cover of NWA’s Straight Outta Compton got promoted to my ‘Getting Things Done’ smart playlist. I’m a sucker for a good genre-bending cover tune – Ever since Faith No More covered the Commodores’ Easy (still a classic in my book) and the Vandals’ cover of Summer Lovin’. Then there’s …
Category Archives: Music
Gentle Readers’ Hihoney Review
I picked up the (now defunct) Gentle Readers’ album Hihoney via Dave Slusher’s Evil Genius Chronicles’ Stuff package. I’ve never been one to listen to an album all the way through. On the rare occassions that I have a CD, I rip it into iTunes and wait for the individual tracks to come up on …
Tuesday’s Triple Play – Songs About Things Going South
For your listening pleasure, here’s 3 songs with the same “things are about to get much worse” vibe. Apocalypse Now – from The Transplants’ Haunted Cities Banditos – from The Refreshments’ Fizzy, Fuzzy, Big & Buzzy Beijing – from Melissa Ferrick’s The Other Side
Jonathan Coulton Spells Jonathan Coulton
I can’t believe I haven’t raved about Jonathan Coulton here yet. He’s been on heavy rotation since I stumbled across Ikea nearly a year ago. The honesty and bizarre humor of his song writing is matched with some of the catchiest guitar riffs. Everytime I hear Skullcrusher Mountain I envision Skeletor serenading an increasingly uncomfortable …
P2P is the Same as Used – What You Want Isn’t Always There
Inspired by We Jam Econo screening by MN Film Arts, I thought I’d blow out my fIREHOSE and Minutemen collection. Now, I haven’t set foot in a cd store since I stopped doing secret shops for Cheapo Discs and buying CDs from Amazon seems like a step backwards. Today, I thought I’d check iTunes and …
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Good Thing The Spoonbridge is Downtown
David Bowies’ ChangesBowie came up this afternoon on the shuffle. Made me feel like visiting the Walker or some other contemporary art museum and browsing through their pop art collection. Specifically, some Odenburg and Lichtenstein. No Warhol though. Save that for the Lou Reed.
Like MTV, Radio Doesn’t Find Music Valuable
Long ago, broadcast radio gave up with introducing their audience to new music. I first became aware of it sometime during the summer of 1996 [1] , I’m sure the tipping point occured long before then. Between Cumulus Media president/CEO Lew Dickey, Jr. promoting the talk radio proliferation on the FM dial, my conversation about …
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My 7 Most Influential Albums
Inspired by Kottke’s list of favorite albums, I offer mine. After looking at the list, I’m surprised at the emerging pattern. Yes, this is roughly in chronological order. Anthrax – I am the Man Take 5 white guys, a simple beat, some dorky lyrics, and hit record. I ate up the DIY attitude and the …
iTunes, Bringing Back Old Friends
Our CDs, DVDs, and VHS tapes are still in the boxes we packed them in when we moved from Chicago 3 years ago. The other night, Jen and I were trying to figure out the lyrics to Kenny Rogers’ Gambler, so we dug out the boxes. Most of the CDs in our collection went right …
Lucero Survived the Culling of SXSW Showcase Music
I’ve got a smart iTunes playlist set up entitled ‘Getting Things Done’ – it holds my tried and true favorites, songs that are just the right combination of ‘covering background noise’ (lawn mowers and road construction) and ‘keep me motivated’. Specifically, the list contains tracks I’ve rated greater than 2 stars that aren’t in my …
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