A VC

A Bigger Bang

If you've been reading this blog over the past couple weeks, you'll know that I love the Rolling Stones.

They occupy five slots out of my 50 favorite records.  Nobody else has more than two slots.

So they have a new record out called A Bigger Bang.

It's not officially released until September 6th, but you can listen to it right now at AOL.

I have no idea why it's not on Rhapsody as well, but that's the state of the online music business right now.

Back to the record.

It's the best thing they've done since Tatoo You, and may be even better than that record, which would make it the best thing they've done since Some Girls.

Jason Chervokas digs it too but he likes different songs than I do.

I don't enjoy Streets of Love, which could have been on the awful Alfie soundtrack.

And Rough Justice is a bit too "radio" for my taste.

But short of those two songs, most of the rest of the record is really great.

Rain Fall Down is superb, and was my MP3 of the Week this week.

Back of My Hand sounds like it was done on the Howlin Wolf Sessions.

Infamy is another great Keith Richards vocal.  As the Stones get older, I like Keith's vocals more and Mick's less.

Sweet Neocon is a little reggae/funk thing like the Stones did on Black and Blue but with some really biting lyrics that give me a chuckle every time I hear them: "you say you are a patriot, i think that you are a crock of shit".

It Won't Take Long captures the classic Stones sound perfectly and takes me back to Let It Bleed and Beggars.

Laugh, I Nearly Died is a great bluesy number with Mick singing in falsetto.  Gotta love that.

Oh No, Not You Again is Josh's favorite for obvious reasons.  It rocks and uses the f word.  That's pretty much all it takes for a nine year old.  And for me too.

There is more and most of the songs are solid.

But these are the highlights of the record for me.

I've already bought it on Amazon.

If you are a Stones fan, you should too.

Soul Music

I have always loved soul and gospel music.

I just finished listening to Jason Chervokas' new podcast on RH Harris, who according to Jason, is "the man who basically invented soul singing".

If you love soul and gospel music, give it a listen.

Portastatic

Earlier this summer, The Gotham Gal read a story about   Mac McCaughan and Merge Records in the NY Times.  If I could find the article on the web, I'd link to it, but for some reason I can't.

She went to Rhapsody and listened to the new Portastatic record, Bright Ideas, and told me it was great.  Portastatic is one of Mac's bands, the other being Superchunk.

We didn't pay enough attention because we moved on to other stuff.

Then we got into M. Ward, who is also on Merge Records.

And Raj, who is rapidly joining Chervokas on my music guru list, also had Portastatic on his listening list.

All it takes is three of four mentions to get my attention and so I've been listening to Bright Ideas a lot in the past couple days.

This is a great record.  It rocks pretty hard, but its the songwriting that makes the records so special.  I honestly don't think there is a bad song on the entire record.

Here is the link to bright ideas on Rhapsody.

Or you can buy the record at Amazon.

Mac played a free live acoustic show last night in NYC at Other Music. 

I sure wished I'd been there to see that.

Positively 10th Street

Our new weekly podcast is up.

This one got pretty hilarious as the kids are getting bored with summer vacation and let us hear about it live and in color.

We also were treated to a critique of the fall fashions by Joanne and Jessica.

Here's The Song List:

Joanne's Song - My Boyfriend's Back - The Raveonette's
Josh's Song - Rock and Roll All Night - KISS
Emily's Song - Kingdome Come - Coldplay
Jessica's Song - Happy Kid - Nada Surf
Fred's Song - Hi-Fi - M. Ward

Listen Live Here.

To listen in iTunes or on your iPod, get iTunes v 4.9, then select Advanced, Subscribe to Podcast, and then enter this into the box:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Positively10thStreet

MP3 of the Week

The Rolling Stones have been front of mind this past week.

First, I spent a lot of time last week listening to 60s Stones and that resulted in my final top 50 post.

And the Stones are on tour again and I got a glimpse of their Fenway Park show.

Then Chervokas, one of my main blog/music gurus, turned me on to the fact that some of the music from the new record is available online.

I am not sure how Mick feels about that, but frankly I don't care about too much about it.  I've said my piece on the online music thing and here is my MP3 posting policy for anyone who wants to read it.

What I do care about is the setlist for the Giants Stadium show on Sept 15th, when the Gotham Gal and I are going to take the kids to see the greatest rock and roll band of all time.

And specifically Mick and Keith, if you do by chance read this, please play Rain Fall Down.

Because after listening to the all of the music from A Bigger Bang that I can get my hands on, the one song I can't keep off the airwaves in the Wilson house, car, and iPod, is this funky groovy track.

Last night, as we were headed home with the top down, wind in our hair, we cranked Rain Fall Down and everyone in the family was singing along and digging that classic Keith Richards riff that runs through the entire song.

So with that, probably the biggest buildup for any MP3 of the Week track to date, here is Rain Fall Down.

I hope you like it because I sure do.

M. Ward

I just added M. Ward's Transistor Radio to my Heavy Rotation list becaue I can't stop listening to this amazing record.

Raj Bala turned me on to it with his top 10 list a couple days ago.

And since then I must have listened to it three or four times.

I really don't know how to describe this record.  It's a bit like Tom Waits I guess.  And a bit like The Eels. If you like either of them, get this record.

If you have Rhapsody, then here's the link to Transistor Radio.

If you have iTunes and are willing to spend three or four bucks, check out songs like:

I'll Be Yr Bird
Here Comes The Sun Again
Fuel For Fire
Hi Fi

Or if you are willing to spend 10 bucks, just download the record and get groovin' with M. Ward.

The Burning Building List

My Top 50 exercise is over, but into that void steps Jason Chervokas, whose musical knowledge and taste is way beyond mine.

He is building a list, pretty much the way I did, of the records he'd pull from a burning building. 

And unlike my list, he is ranking them.

His first choice?

Sinatra's Songs For Swinging Lovers.

I am going to try to listen to every record Jason picks for as long as he goes on with this list.  And I may reblog each selection with my reactions.

He didn't say how long his list is going to be.

I hope its a long one!

My 50 Favorite Albums (final post)

Back in November of last year when I decided to put together a list of my 50 favorite record albums, I started with The Rolling Stones' Exile On Main Street.

It is my all time favorite record by my all time favorite band.

And now its time to end this journey.

I made up my mind back in November of last year to end it the same way it started, with Mick, Keith, and the gang.

So I've spent the past week listening to these Brian Jones era records (all on vinyl):

Englands Newest Hitmakers
Out of Our Heads
December's Children
Aftermath
Between The Buttons
Beggars Banquet

These are not all the records that the Brian Jones era Stones put out.

These are, however, my favorites of that period.

And it is so tough to pick one from this list.

I love their debut record, England's Newest Hitmakers.  The Rolling Stones covered R&B, blues, and soul music like no other rock band. And this record is the best example of that.

December's Children showed the begnnings of the dark side of the Stones that they were to develop fully in the brilliant Mick Taylor era.

Aftermath is most everyone's favorite from the Brian Jones period and is the first Stones record that had no covers, just Mick and Keith's songs.

Between the Buttons is where the Stones do Dylan and features Brian Jones at this best on the harmonica and acoustic guitar.  I love that record.  It is by far the most underrated Stones album (even Mick hates it).

But the two records that I kept putting back on the turntable were Out of Our Heads and Beggars Banquet.

Out of Our Heads is simply fantastic.  It is pure Rolling Stones, still doing covers like Mercy Mercy, That's How Strong My Love Is, and Good Times brilliantly. 

But then you flip to the B side and they whip out Satisfaction, the greatest rock and roll song ever.  Then you get Play With Fire, The Under Assistant West Coast Promo Man and The Spider and The Fly, three great early Jagger/Richards tunes.

And Beggars Banquet. Wow.  What a record.  Sympathy for the Devil starts the A side.  Street Fighting Man starts the B side.  Mick describes the band the way I always think of them in Jigsaw Puzzle.  And they end it all with a prayer for the Salt of the Earth.

So I am going to do what everybody who tries to keep a list to a set number does.  I am going to go one over.

I am adding Out of Our Heads and Beggars Banquet to my top 50(1) list.

And this is it.  I am done.

I have created a separate page on this blog for my top 50(1) list and in a week or so, it will stop being blog bling and move to the back pages.

It's been a blast, as Rod predicted in his comment to my first post.

I hope you've all enjoyed it as much as I have.

The Glimmer Twins

I sure hope I've got this much energy when I am in my 60s.

I took this picture from a great gallery of photos that the Boston Herald has up on their website from last night's show at Fenway Park.

I'd love to find a complete set list.

Couldn't find anything on the Internet just now other than the herald article that has a partial set list.

UPDATE: Jason Chervokas pointed the setlist out to me.  Looks great. Here it is:

Start Me Up,
You Got me Rocking,
Shattered,
Tumblin' Dice,
Rough Justice,
Back Of My Hand,
Beast Of Burden,
She's So Cold,
Heartbreaker,
Night Time Is The Right Time,
The Worst,
Infamy,
Miss you,
On No Not You Again,
Satisfaction,
Honky Tonk Woman,
Out Of Control,
Sympathy,
JJ Flash,
Brown Sugar,
You Can't Always Get What You Want,
Its Only Rock And Roll

MP3 of the Week

Readers of this blog know of my current obsession with Bloc Party who, with Silent Alarm, have put out the best record of 2005 so far.

I came across a new Bloc Party song called Two More Years which aired on Steve Lemacq's Radio 1 show on the BBC last monday. From what I can gather, Two More Years is going to be the first single off of the next record which is due out later this year.

It's always great when young bands can follow up great debut records with more great music.

So I am making Two More Years by Bloc Party my MP3 of the Week.

Positively 10th Street

Our new weekly podcast is up.

The kids are back and made an instant impact on the attitude of the podcast.

Other than the fact that I still can't figure out how to get the sound right even with two microphones, it's a great podcast.  We may need to hire Smoke and Mirrors to sound engineer this thing if I can't get it straight soon.

Topics of conversation this week include  summer camp, some new music, and color war.

Song List:
Emily's Song - Good Riddance - Green Day
Jessica's Song - Banana Pancakes - Jack Johnson
Josh's Song - eBay - Weird Al Yankovic
Fred's Song - Busting Up A Starbucks - Mike Doughty
Joanne's Song - Kathleen - Josh Ritter

Listen Live Here.

To listen in iTunes or on your iPod, get iTunes v 4.9, then select Advanced, Subscribe to Podcast, and then enter this into the box:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Positively10thStreet

Mike Doughty - Army Brat

You gotta love blogging and podcasting.

We first heard Mike Doughty on Mass Hysteria's June 30th Podcast.

We dug him so we went to Rhapsody and played Haughty Melodic a bunch and dug him some more.

Then Jackson and D came to the beach and we went to see him at Stephen Talkhouse.

And then I made his song Grey Ghost my MP3 of the Week last Monday.

Maybe it was a subconscious thing, but the lyrics to Grey Ghost talk about two places that I know very well, the Grey Ghost and Stony Lonesome housing areas at the US Military Academy at West Point where I spent my teenage years.

It didn't click for me until after I posted the song on Monday.

But Tony Alva picked up on the connection in the comments to my MP3 of the Week post.

Well it turns out that Mike Doughty spent his teenage years at West Point too.

Probably hanging out and getting into trouble at all the places I did.

Cool.

I only wish I had known all this when we saw him at the Talkhouse.  There weren't more than fifty people there that night.  We could have traded war stories.

UPDATE:  My mom just told me that he lived next door to my parents after I left to go to college.  Go figure.

My 50 Favorite Albums

Since I put The Wailers Catch A Fire in the Top 50's first ten records, I've never had an opportunity to sing the praises of Bob Marley in a post.

I love Bob Marley; the man, his music, and everything he stood for.

Bob Marley rose up from the trenchtown ghetto to show the world what reggae music could be and should be.

Nobody did it better than Bob and somehow I doubt that anybody ever will.

We own most everything that Bob put out in his lifetime including two amazing live records, Live (featuring the definitive version of No Woman No Cry) and Babylon By Bus, both of which I highly recommend.

But Bob's masterpiece and the greatest reggae record ever made is Exodus.

Released in 1977 at the peack of his powers, Exodus is a concept album about faith, life, and love. 

It's Bob in his role as a the Natural Mystic.

I never tire of Bob Marley's music and I never tire of Exodus.

MP3 of the Week

We've been listening to a lot of new music lately.

One of our favorites this month is Mike Doughty.

We saw him live at Stephen Talkhouse with Jackson and D and a couple friends.

Since then, we've had his new excellent record, Haughty Melodic, on serious heavy rotation.

One of the best songs on Haughty Melodic is called Grey Ghost and its my MP3 of the Week.

Positively 10th Street

Our new weekly podcast is up.

We tried something new this week.

We went with two microphones, one for The Gotham Gal and one for me.

Somehow we didn't get the dials right because The Gotham Gal still sounds much louder than me.

But we'll get that fixed next week.

Topics of conversation this week include getting our kids back from summer camp, a couple movie reviews, and cooking.

Song List:
Magnetic Fields - I Think I Need A New Heart
Cake - The Guitar Man
Goldspot - Friday
The Concretes - Seems Fine Shuffle
Death Cab for Cutie - Marching Bands of Manhattan

Listen Live Here.

To listen in iTunes or on your iPod, get iTunes v 4.9, then select Advanced, Subscribe to Podcast, and then enter this into the box:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Positively10thStreet

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

Any record that was recorded almost 25 years ago that is also Josh's favorite has to make the list.

Zoso was sitting silently in my vinyl collection for the last 15+ years as I moved on from classic rock into new genres and new bands.

But thank god for the nine year old kid who brought it back out with a bang.

Hey, Hey Mama, said the way you move, Gonna make You sweat, Gonna make You groove,

Zoso is a decade for me, the 1970s, I was 10 when the record came out and its songs were the soundtrack of my teenage years.

Slow dancing to Stairway to Heaven until drums kicked in and it was time to rock.

Black Dog and Rock and Roll on the radio all the time.

Flipping the disk after Stairway to Heaven to get to the mellow side.

And my favorite Led Zeppelin track of all time, When The Levee Breaks.  I just can't get enough of the wailing harmonica and the hammering drums.

And the drums.  John Bonham was the greatest rock drummer of all time and he did his best work on this record.  I wish I could have seen Bonham play with Four Sticks.  I never did.

Well that's basically it for this one.  Time to go flip the record.

The Concretes

Raj Bala tagged a couple songs for me on del.icio.us from a band called The Concretes.

I liked them.

So I went to Rhapsody and listened to the record, twice.

Then I bought the record.

Here's their cover of the Stones Miss You. 

Great stuff.

Thanks Raj.

MP3 of the Week

Our friends Steve and Ilene came out to see us this weekend and turned us on to some new music.

The artist is named Citizen Cope, although his real name is Clarence Greenwood.

Citzen Cope's newest record is called, The Clarence Greenwood Recordings.

We listened to the entire record on Rhapsody this weekend and we really liked it.

It's kind of hard to categorize but a good description would be Dave Matthews meets Bob Marley with a little Jack Johnson thrown in for good measure.

It's on order at Amazon and should be arriving shortly.

But in the meantime, I am going to make my favorite song on the record, called Bullet and a Target, my MP3 of the Week.

Positively 10th Street

Our new weekly podcast is up.

We did this podcast on Sunday evening waiting for the kids to call from summer camp, after spending the weekend with our friends Steve, Ilene, Gail, and Ilan.

There is some great music on this one.

Song List:
Gail and Ilan's Song - Werewolves of London - Adam Sandler
Joanne's Song - Thank You - The Redwalls
Fred/Jo's Song - Soul Meets Body - Death Cab for Cutie
Steve & Ilene's Song - Bullet and a Target -  Citizen Cope
Fred's Song - This Modern Love - Bloc Party

Listen Live Here.

To listen in iTunes or on your iPod, get iTunes v 4.9, then select Advanced, Subscribe to Podcast, and then enter this into the box:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Positively10thStreet

My 50 Favorite Albums

Elvis Costello is one of the greatest songwriters of our generation.

Jackson says his best are his early trio, My Aim is True, This Year's Model, and Armed Forces.

As great as those three records are, they are not my favorite Elvis Costello record.

That title belongs to my top 50 pick of this week, King of America.

This is the record where Elvis explored american music, much like the Rolling Stones did with Exile on Main Street.

And the result is equally great.

While the entire record is stellar, my particular favorites are Brilliant Mistake, Elvis's cover of Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, Jack of All Parades, and the two amazing tracks at the end of the A side and the start of the B side (I own it on vinyl) - I'll Wear It Proudly and America Without Tears.

If you don't have this record and are an Elvis Costello fan, you should get it.

Positively 10th Street

Our weekly show is up now.

We had our first guests this weekend; Ted (aka Jackson) and Deittra.

Topics of discussion were payola, podcasting, New York in the summer and good and bad music, and The Stephen Talkhouse.

Song List:
Ted's Song - Summertime Rolls - Jane's Addiction
Joanne's Song - Closing Time - Semisonic
Fred's Song - I Shall Be Released - Kevin Kevn Kinney
Deittra's Song - Mean Sleep - Cree Summer
Group Song - Madeline and Nine - Mike Doughty

Listen Live Here.

To listen in iTunes or on your iPod, get iTunes v 4.9, then select Advanced, Subscribe to Podcast, and then enter this into the box:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Positively10thStreet

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

Normally today would be the day for my next top 50 record selection.

But with only four left, I am feeling the pressure and can't make up my mind on the next one.

So, I am punting.

Check back next week and hopefully I'll have another selection ready.

Mike Doughty and Steven Talkhouse

Here's Mike singing Madeleine and Nine

Goldspot

So the very first Morning Becomes Eclectic podcast was a big hit with me.

The band that played live in the KCRW studio is called Goldspot and I think they sound great.

Check them out:

Amazon

Rhapsody

Morning Becomes Eclectic Podcast

My Space

MP3 of the Week

While this song isn't new, it's new to me.

In the early 60s, a boxer named Davey Moore was killed in the ring.

Bob Dylan was aghast that such a thing could happen and wrote a protest song about the death which he played live a couple weeks later.

It was not released on a Dylan record until the Bootleg Series Vol 1-3 came out in the mid 90s.

This is a powerful song.

And its my MP3 of the Week.

Morning Becomes Eclectic Podcast

The best radio show in the country just started a podcast.

They are not podcasting their entire show which would be cool but the file size might be prohibitive.

Instead they are podcasting the live performances that have been a staple of the morning drive time show in LA for years.

I added it to iTunes and to my podcast list.

Here's the details on the show.

And here's the feed url - http://kcrw.com/podcast/show/mb

Positively 10th Street

Our weekly show is up now.

This show features songs contributed by the kids yesterday at visiting day.

And some good disussion and reviews from of our trip to San Francisco and Napa Valley last week.

Song List:
Mr. Brightside - The Killers - From Josh
California - Phantom Planet - From Joanne
Mid November - Jonathan Rice - From Jessica
Who Killed Davey Moore? - Bob Dylan - From Fred
Welcome To My Life - Simple Plan - From Emily

Listen Live Here.

To listen in iTunes or on your iPod, get iTunes v 4.9, then select Advanced, Subscribe to Podcast, and then enter this into the box:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Positively10thStreet

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

If I had to choose just one voice to listen to over all others, I'd choose Nina Simone.

Her smooth, smoky, soulful voice is sheer pleasure to listen to.

Nina put out well over a hundred records in her long career and you can get most of them on Amazon.

I have not heard very many of them, although I can say that Nina, Anthology, and Very Best are all must have records for Nina lovers.

But this is about my favorite records.

When I reach for Nina, it's most often for this record, called The Essential Nina Simone.

Jackson calls records like this "packages".  And it is.  But so what?  It's a great record and everyone should go get it and put it on and listen to it.  I can pretty much guarantee that nobody will send it back.

Bob Dylan - Bootleg Series Vols 1-3

Jason Chervokas suggested this three disc set to me and so I went out and got it.

I am listening to it on the flight out to San Francisco today.

Wow.

There are some really great songs on here:

Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues -  This is the song Dylan wasn't allowed to sing on Ed Sullivan

Who Killed Davey Moore? -  This song was written and performed within three weeks of Davey's death in the ring in 1963.  Powerful social commentary.

Moonshiner -  I first heard this song when it was sung by Uncle Tupelo. It's an old southern mountain ballad and Dylan sings it wonderfully.

Farewell, Angelina -  Written by Bob for Joan Baez who made it popular.  This is a rare version of Bob singing it.  I love songs that talk about playing cards.  Dylan did it the best.

Like A Rolling Stone -  Dylan plays the song solo to the assembled studio musicians.  Later that day, they recorded what is possibly his greatest song in a single afternoon.

I Shall Be Released -  The original demo from the Basement Tapes with Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, and Richard Manuel singing the harmonies.  Brilliant.

If Not For You -  George Harrison's guitar and Dylan's vocals from a recording session they did together in 1970.

Nobody 'Cept You -  An outtake from one of my favorite Dylan records, Planet Waves, with excellent guitar by Robbie Robertson

Idiot Wind -  The orignal recording of my favorite song on my favorite Dylan record, Blood On The Tracks.  Apparently Dylan didn't like the way the record sounded so he went back and re-recorded a bunch of songs.

Every Grain of Sand -  This is the orignal demo of another of my favorite Dylan songs.  With a dog barking in the background no less.

Series Of Dreams -  Great song from the Oh Mercy sessions in New Orleans that Daniel Lanois didn't want to put on the record.  He should have.

Someone's Got A Hold of My Heart -  Recorded in the Infidels sessions but not released.  Ultimately became Tight Connection To My Heart on Empire Burlesque.  I like this version better.
Tell Me
Lord Protect My Child
Foot of Pride
Blind Willie McTell -  One of Dylan's best unreleased songs.

These last five tracks are the reason I got this record in the first place.  They are all outtakes from the Infidels record.

I love Infidels.  It's probably my second most played Dylan record after Blood On The Tracks.

Anyway, if you are a Bob Dylan fan and don't own this Bootleg Series, I'd strongly suggest getting it.

MP3 of the Week

I have been getting into The Decemberists lately.

Their new record, Picaresque, has been in heavy rotation lately.

So I went searching for more Decemberists music.

I did a delicious search and found this cool blog called My Old Kentucky Blog with some good Decemberists covers.

I tagged some of them that sounded interesting with Fred'sPodcast and downloaded them to my iPod.

I liked them all, but the one I liked the best was their cover of Squeeze's Up The Junction.

So I am making The Decemberists singing Up The Junction my MP3 of the Week.

Positively 10th Street

There's a new show up.

Song List:
Has It Come To This? - The Streets
The Sporting Life - The Decemberists
Upon This Tidal Wave - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Goin Home - Dinosour Jr.
Build Me A Buttercup - The Temptations

Listen Live Here.

To listen in iTunes or on your iPod, get iTunes v 4.9, then select Advanced, Subscribe to Podcast, and then enter this into the box:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Positively10thStreet

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

1978. 

The summer before my senior year in high school.

This record comes out.

It hits the turntable and the funky disco groove of Miss You comes blaring out of the speakers. 

I don't think I took it off the turntable for months.  And I never have stopped putting it on the turntable, the CD player, the laptop, the iPod, and now the blog.

This is probably not the best Rolling Stones album.  I put Exile in that slot.

But this is the record where the intersection of their greatness and my current awareness met.

I love every single song on this record and always will.

Great Stuff

Stagger Lee and John Henry are legends of popular culture and popular music, and I've heard songs about them over the years, but never really knew much about who they were and what they did.

Jason Chervokas changed that for me and will change it for you, if you wish, with his latest edition of Down In The Flood, his weekly podcast on american roots music.

It's 39 minutes of history and music and its simply great.

You can listen live over the Internet here.

Or you can download it into iTunes (v 4.9) by selecting Advanced, Subscribe to Podcast, and then entering this into the box:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/DownInTheFlood

iTunes will do the rest for you.

Either way, I highly recommend this show to anyone with an interest in american music and popular culture.

Bravo Jason.

Bloc Party

Did I mention that I am really digging the new Bloc Party record Silent Alarm?

Yes, I know I did, but I just felt like mentioning it again.

It's a daily listen these days.

MP3 of the Week

My friend Mark, aka mediaeater, tagged a song for me called Little Thoughts from a band called Bloc Party last week.  I liked it so much, I played it three times in a row the first time I heard it.

That unleashed a torrent of activity.

Bloc Party is a young band from the UK who sounds like Gang of Four, The Clash and The Cure.  In more modern terms, they sound a bit like Franz Ferdinand.

We put their new record, Silent Alarm, into heavy rotation and have been listening to it on Rhapsody.

I bought the record from Amazon too so we can burn it onto our iPods.

And then we put their song Like Eating Glass on our Positively 10th Street show yesterday.

So it's been a Bloc Party week in our house.

And so I figured I might as well keep the ball rolling with a MP3 of the Week post as well.

Since Little Thoughts is on Fred'sPodcast and Like Eating Glass is on Positively 10th Street, I figure I'll post another song as my MP3 of the Week.

After yet another listen, I've decided to make a song called Banquet my MP3 of the Week.

Jackson's Podcast

My brother Ted, aka Jackson, has finally done what he's been threatening to do for the last month.

He's podcasting.  He's done two so far.

He explains the format of the show here, but I'll summarize.

The show is going to focus on music that he and his partner Chris record at their studio, Smoke and Mirrors.  But he'll also play a track from an artist that he's into.  And finally, he's going to let people send him music and he'll play anything that comes in that he likes.

Sounds cool.  I listened to the first one which is widely discussed here, but apparently is no longer available on the web.

I particularly enjoyed Tony Alva's country singing and some killer harmonies provided by Chris.  Nicely done guys.

The second show is up now and you can listen here.

The RSS feed isn't working, at least not for me.

I think Jackson needs to find a better hosting service.  Podblaze seems pretty weak.

Positively 10th Street

Our weekly show is up on the web.

A lazy day at the beach was the setting for our latest podcast.

Topics discussed include Shakespeare In The Park, a couple MOMA shows, buying works from young artists, the london bombings, and Amazon's 10th birhday.

Songs Played: Paul Oakenfold - Starry Eyed Surprise
Bloc Party - Like Eating Glass
Amy Rigby - Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again
Rolling Stones - Dear Doctor
Josh Rouse - Slaveship

RSS Feed is here
Listen Live here

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

I like it when artists get riled up and shout and scream. 

John Lennon did that a lot.  So did Mick Jagger.

The scream in London Calling is one of the all time great sounds in rock n roll.

But I also like when artists howl.  And the greatest howl of all time comes from Graham Parker on his song Howlin' Wind.  Graham Parker howls, screams, and gives everything on his songs.  He is a punk rocker who has an R&B swing to his music.  Graham Parker and the Rumor may have been the best bar band ever.

Graham was one of the "angry london new wave" artists of the late 70s, along with Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson.  Elvis and Joe are great, but I love Graham Parker.  Graham Parker never got his due.  His record company, Mercury Records, screwed him over and all he got out of it was a really great song called Mecury Poisoning.

Graham Parker has some really strong studio albums, like Howlin' Wind and Heat Treatment, but the best Graham Parker record is Squeezing Out Sparks + Live Sparks. 

Squuezing Out Sparks has the back to back songs You Can't Be Too Strong and Passion Is No Ordinary Word.  It's his best studio album.

But his second record label, Arista, combined Squeezing Out Sparks with 12 live songs from the Squeezing Out Sparks tour to create Sparks + Live Sparks. 

Hearing Graham live is something special.  The only thing that I wish was they put Howlin' Wind live on this record.  But you can't have everything I guess.

The last two songs, Parker's cover of The Jackson Five's I Want You Back, and Mercury Poisoning live are worth the price of the record alone.

Graham Parker never got his due from the music business, but I am giving him some on my blog.  Graham Parker gets into my Top 50 today.

Morning Bike Ride (continued)

  My View 
  Originally uploaded by fredwilson.

I love getting out on my bike in the early mornings.

In addition to the joys of spending an hour and a half on the Hudson River, I also spend an hour and a half with my iPod (one ear only so I can still hear the cars and other bikers).

This morning I listened to Fred's Podcast and Fred's Elevator Pitch.

I heard a bunch of great stuff.

I decided that since all of you are tagging this stuff for me, I will return the favor by tagging it back.

That way I can filter the best stuff and put it out there for you to hear.

So I've got a new tag, called Fred'sBest.

I will tag anaything that comes into my iPod via del.icio.us that I really like with the Fred'sBest tag.

This week's additions are:

Lance Armstrong Podcast
CosmoTV Elevator Pitch
Bloc Party - Little Thoughts   - Really Great Rocking Song
The Lucksmiths - After the After Party  - Another really nice song

If You Live in the Bay Area

Tune into 1550 AM today at 5pm and check out Positively 10th Street.

Our family podcast is now on during drive time in the bay area!

We may be moving to the 6pm slot next week, which would be great, but we are on at 5pm today.

Let me know what you think.

MP3 of the Week

Though I didn't see it live, I was touched by Pink Floyd's introduction to Wish You Were Here at Live 8 this weekend.

"It's actually quite emotional standing up here with these three guys after all these years.  Standing to be counted with the rest of you.  Anyway, we are doing this for everyone who aren't here, but particularly of course for Syd".

Three guys who haven't played together in close to 25 years standing up in front of thousands of people and playing a song for a friend they hadn't played with in almost 40 years.

That's big.

So its my MP3 of the Week.

Pink Floyd at Live 8

Hey its a big deal when Pink Floyd gets back together, including Roger Waters, and plays a live gig.

That happened yesterday in London at Live 8.

There was lots of speculation in the blog world about what they'd play.

Jackson's buddy Chris whittled it down to this list:

"Shine On"
"Comfortably Numb"
"Us and Them"
"Mother"

He got one right anyway.  They did play Comfortably Numb.  I knew that because they played it again on WEHM this morning when I was driving around.

Brad Feld saw the whole Pink Floyd set live on his computer via AOL and lived to blog about it.

Here is the actual set list according to Brad:

They started with "Breathe In The Air", then "Money", then “Wish You Were Here”, and finished with “Comfortably Numb.”

I missed it, and that's too bad, because I would have liked to see it.

My kids asked me last week what bands I'd like to see in concert but never have.

Pink Floyd is on that list for sure.

UPDATE:  I got mp3s of the four songs on bittorrent.  Here they are:

Breathe
Money
Wish You Were Here
Comfortably Numb

Vinyl

My brother Ted, aka Jackson, is a serious vinyl collector.

Check out some of his recent posts regarding his obsession and his collection.

Jackson, and his buddy Tony Alva, have filled the comment section of this blog with pro analog anti digital commentary every time I post on the virtues of some new digital music thing, like delicious playlists, podcasting, etc.

I know Jackson and Tony appreciate the virtues of digital music but they also fear the loss of analog music, which also has its virtues.

So this morning I am blogging about analog music, specifically Jackson's obsession - the vinyl record.

The Gotham Gal and I keep our vinyl record collection in our beach house where we are this weekend celebrating the fourth of july weekend.

Our collection isn't large by collector's standards, but we've got about 600 records.

Our collection is the combination of The Gotham Gal's collection when I met her in 1981 with my collection at the same time plus vinyl records we bought together between 1981 and 1985.  We stopped buying vinyl and started buying CDs some time in 1985.  Then our friend Leslie gave us his entire vinyl collection sometime in the late 80s and we kept the best of his stuff.

So there isn't anything in our vinyl collection that is newer than 1985 and most of it is 1960s and 1970s rock and folk.  There is some jazz, some classical, and a few comedy records.

In our beach house we've got a simple multi-room system driven by a single amp.  We can listen to music in almost every room in the house and outdoors on our back patio but we can only listen to one input at any given time.

We've got a bunch of inputs to this multi-room system:

Turntable for the vinyl collection
Casette tape player for our fairly large mixed tape collection
Tuner (not yet HD) for broadcast radio
CD/DVD player
An audio request digital music server that synchs with the audio request in our NYC house
A PC with Rhapsody and iTunes on it.
We use Rhapsody for playing music we don't own
We use iTunes for playing podcasts

So that's a pretty large array of inputs to choose from.

There's not much we can't listen to if we want to.

So what have we been listening to the most this weekend?

Vinyl.

Why?  Not sure. 

Maybe because we only have access to our vinyl collection here at the beach, we tend to listen go in that direction when we can.

Listening to vinyl is different for sure.

It takes more time to find the records.  Even though we try and generally succeed in keeping the records in alphabetical order, it just takes longer to find the record and put it on.

Also you have the option of not flipping the record to the second side.  We mostly listen to our vinyl records on both sides.  But not always.

And, yes Jackson and Tony, the record cover is a better experience than a jewel case or the Rhapsody screen for "augmenting" your listening experience.

This morning we've been doing a Dylan thing, we played Infidels, John Wesley Harding, and Planet Waves, all on vinyl.  It made for a really nice morning.

Positively 10th Street

We've got another Positively 10th Street show up.

This was one done exclusively by The Gotham Gal and me.  The kids are gone at camp and we couldn't even get them to contribute songs this time.  Maybe we'll get some song ideas from them when we talk to them tomorrow night.

The topics of conversation on this show include a couple reviews of broadway plays, the new IFC theater on Waverly and 6th Ave in NYC, a restaurant review, and a discussion of the Eels concert at Town Hall last Thursday night.

Songs:

Saturday - Josh Rouse
Babylon - David Grey
Home On Ice - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Sweet Home Alabama - Jewel
Railroad Man - The Eels

There are a bunch of ways to listen to this show:

1) Listen to it streamed over the Internet - Do that here

2) Download it into your iPod - get iTunes 4.9, install it, then select Advanced, Subscribe to Podcast, and then type this into the dialog box:   http://feeds.feedburner.com/Positively10thStreet

3) If you live in San Francisco, tune into 1550 AM KYOU, and listen to it over the air.  Here is the schedule.  Our third show is in rotation today.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

I have avoided "best of" albums for obvious reasons on the Top 50 list.

But I can't help myself as I am running out of choices. I've got only eight slots left.

And this one's gonna go to a "best of" album from probably my all time favorite musician - John Lennon.

Everyone loves the Beatles.  So do I.  But I love John more, way more.  Paul's songs are too neat and clean for me.  John rocked, he pushed, he screamed, and he told the truth, even when it was brutal.

Unfortunately there are no Beatles albums full of John's songs.

And his solo albums are pretty mixed.  I love Imagine and Plastic Ono Band, but when I am in the mood for John Lennon, I pull out Shaved Fish.

It's got Cold Turkey on it.  What a great song that is.  I'll never get addicted to anything after listening to that one.

And its got Imagine, maybe the most powerful song ever written.

And its Instant Karma, Power to the People, Mother, Woman, Whatever Gets You Through The Night, Mind Games, #9 Dream, Happy XMAS, and of course, Give Peace A Chance.

I love John Lennon and I love this record.

I am playing it in vinyl right now.

The Eels at Town Hall

  Mark Oliver Everett (aka E) 
  Originally uploaded by fredwilson.

Last night The Gotham Gal and I went to see The Eels at Town Hall.

It was among the most interesting, almost bizarre, concerts I have ever seen.

It opened with a 40 minute russian cartoon movie instead of a warmup band.

Then to the sounds of Gene Wilder singing a song from Willy Wonka, out steps Mark Oliver Everertt (aka E)dressed in a suit and smoking a cigar and accompanied only by a string section and a piano player.

He proceeded to sing Dust of Ages off the new album while smoking his cigar.  It was a taste of things to come.

He smoked at least a couple cigars, sipped scotch, played what seemed like about 20 instruments, and took the audience through most of his new record, Blinking Lights, and a smattering of his extensive other work.

Probably the most amazing thing was the piano player who turned out to also play steel guitar, electric guitar, organ, and a drum set consisting of a trash can and a keyboard carrying case.  That guy was amazing!

The Eels are an acquired taste, just like E's cigars and scotch.  But if you've acquired a taste for this stuff, then I highly recommend seeing them live on this tour.

My favorite's were his version of Railroad Man, which he sort of dedicated to Laura Bush, Souljacker, which he ended the main set with, and Things The Grandchildren Should Know, which he ended the show with.

I think I'll be on an Eels binge for at least the July 4th weekend!

UPDATE: Gopster has a great photset of the show on flickr of the show.  The ushers weren't letting me shoot pictures but that didn't stop Gopster.  Great stuff!

Sweaty Blog

Lot's of people have told me I'd like Weezer.

But for some reason, I've never really gotten into them.

The family doesn't dig Weezer so that's a big strike against them.

But last week, a blogger named Sweaty Blog tagged two songs for me.

Perfect Situation by Weezer (off their new disc - Make Believe)

and

Kill by Jimmy Eat World

Of the two, I like the Weezer song better, but both of them are quite good.

So, I am now going to listen to the new Weezer album in Rhapsody sometime this week.

And I've added Sweaty Blog to my feed reader.

I love that fred'spodcast thing.

MP3 of the Week

My friend Cliff turned us onto a bunch of new music last week.

My favorite so far of his recommendations is Josh Rouse.

He's a singer songwriter working out of Nashville but he's got a very midwest sound.

Josh Rouse has got a new record out called, suprisingly, Nashville.

It's been in heavy rotation for the past week and so I am going to make the first song on the record, called It's The Nightime, my MP3 of the Week.

I hope you like it.

Positively 10th Street

The sixth Positively 10th Street show is up.

This one is different because the kids aren't on it.

That's right, our kids left for camp today.

And they did that without doing one final podcast.

Actually, we were supposed to do this podcast last night as a final family project before our 2 month separation.

But in the craziness that precedes their departure for camp, we forgot to do the podcast.

So the Gotham Gal and I did this one solo. Which is the format for the next 7 weeks. But the kids did leave their song choices with us on the way to the camp bus, so they are on it in spirit.

Here's a picture of our podcasting studio in Long Island.

On this show, we talked about putting the kids on the bus, what we are going to do in all of our spare time, lazy summer afternoons, and lots more.

Song List:
Jessica's Song - Trouble Sleeping - The Perishers
Josh's Song - Black Dog - Led Zeppelin
Fred's Song - The Beach - Jonathan Richman
Emily's Song - The Summer of 69 - Bryan Adams
Joanne's Song - Sunny Afternoon - The Kinks

The Positively 10th Street RSS Feed

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

It's time I came clean about my 50 favorite albums. 

Yes, these are my 50 favorite albums, but I have penalized certain artists who have produced a bunch of great records and aren't really properly represented in my top 50.  That list would include The Stones, Dylan, Bob Marley, Wilco, David Bowie, Neil Young, The Replacements, and U2 for sure and probably a few more.

When I put the "short list" together I started with artists and then started listing records.  Every week I browse through that list for the pick of the week.  It's a really fun exercise and I recommend it highly for anyone who loves music.

But the result is that certain artists get penalized when its hard to pick one record over another.

No artist fits that bill better than this week's choice.

I do not think any artist has ever put together a string of amazing records to compare to what Steely Dan did in the five years from 1972 to 1977.

Can't Buy A Thrill - Nov 1972
Countdown To Ecstasy - July 1973
Pretzel Logic - March 1974
Katy Lied - April 1975
The Royal Scam - May 1976
Aja - Sept 1977

When I was in college and lived in The Lounge, we had a rule:

"When you don't know what to play, just play Steely Dan."

That worked pretty well.

And it never mattered which of these six records we played.  They are all that good.

But I have to pick one and its going to be Katy Lied.

I tend to lean toward Katy Lied a tad more than the others.

Every song on this record is exceptional.

And that is an amazing accomplishment considering that it was the fourth of six records produced in five years.

If you have never listened to Steely Dan, a distinct possibility for those of you who were born after 1970, then I highly recommend going to Amazon and buying this record.  You won't regret it.

Modest Mouse at Summerstage

  The Sun Goes Down 
  Originally uploaded by fredwilson.

We went to Summerstage last night to see Modest Mouse.

We had a beatiful night including an amazing sunset about 9pm which we captured in this photo.

The Gotham Gal and I had seen them last summer at Roseland and that's when we got hooked on these guys.

Their records are good but they are so much better live.

Isaac Brock, the lead singer and guitarist, is a force and he brings it all to the show.

They did all the favorites from Good News; Float On, Ocean Breathes Salty, Bukowski, Bury Me With It, Satin In A Coffin, and The Good Times Are Killing Me.

We also got a bunch of songs from Moon And Antartica and one long jam that I hadn't heard before that I am now going to find out where its from.

All in all, a great nite with a great band.

MP3 of the Week

Ever since I heard Jeff Tweedy's cover of "Love and Mercy" on the radio last weekend, I've been on a Wilco binge that shows no sign of abating anytime soon.

I've been listening to a lot of early Wilco, mainly the stuff on the fantastic bootleg called Outta Print, Outta Site.

The other thing I've been listening to is a 10 year old live bootleg of a show that Tweedy and Jay Bennett did at a place called McCabes Guitar Shop.

Apparently McCabes Guitar Shop is in Santa Monica, CA.  I've never been there but I'll tell you the acoustics are pretty sweet in that shop.

Whenever someone who is not a Wilco fan asks me what Wilco record they should listen to, I always tell them Summerteeth.

I love the songs on Summerteeth. I think they are Tweedy's best work.  But the arrangements are a bit of a turn off for me.  Maybe that's why Jay Bennett isn't in the band anymore.

That hit me over the head like a ton of bricks when I heard the acoustic version of "I Am Always In Love" on Outta Print Outta Site. "I Am Always In Love" is on Summerteeth and its one of my favorite Wilco songs.

But hearing it played simply on an acoustic guitar and sung straight up was like drinking good coffee black without sugar and milk.  It's the way this song was meant to sound.

So with that long prelude, the acoustic version of "I Am Always In Love" is my MP3 of the Week.

Positively 10th Street

The latest Positively 10th Street show is up.

This one was recorded in Amagansett, NY and features discussions of graduation, wedding anniversaries, new music, the NY Liberty, and Modest Mouse.

Song List:

Joanne's Song - It Ain't Right - The Shore
Emily's Song - Fix You - Coldplay
Josh's Song - Float On - Modest Mouse
Jessica's Song - Save Tonight - Eagle Eye Cherry
Fred's Song - I'm Always In Love - Wilco

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

There's a little rap on my top 50 list, but not much.

Dr Dre's on the list with The Chronic.

The Fugees are on the list with The Score.

But that's it so far.

Well this week's choice is from my favorite rapper, Eminem.

I have enjoyed everything that Eminem has done.

But the Eminem record that we always put on is The Eminem Show.

From the day it was released in mid 2002 until the end of 2003, we must have listened to this record about a hundred times.

People will say that this music isn't for kids.  That's probably true but we have never censored our kids from the real world and aren't going to start now.  The show on our street corner beats Eminem's show every day for grim reality.

The songs people talk about on this record are White America, Cleaning Out My Closet, Without Me, and Hallie's Song.  All of them are great.

But my favorites are Business, Square Dance, Sing For the Moment (with the great sample of Aerosmith's Dream On), and Daddy's Gone Crazy.

Welcome to the top 50 Slim Shady.

MP3 of the Week

It's Wilco time again.

Longtime readers of this blog know I am obsessed with Jeff Tweedy and Wilco.

Other music comes and goes in my world, but Wilco hangs around.

A couple things happened this week to bring Wilco back to the forefront.

Bead Feld finally took the plunge and listened to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and he liked it and emailed me to tell me.  Then I put it on and loved it as much as I always do.

Then Sunday morning I was driving around in Long Island listening to WEHM, possibly the best radio station in the country, and their awesome acoustic sunday morning.  I heard Jeff Tweedy sing Brian Wilson's wonderful Love and Mercy.  I had never heard that before.  So when I got home, I googled a bit and found out that there's a bootleg called Outta Print Outta Site that has Love and Mercy on it.

I've listened to that song about 10 times now and it's featured on last night's Positively 10th Street show.

So I haven't found out where to get the Outta Print Outta Site collection and if anyone knows where I can find it, please leave a comment or send an email.

But I have found the song list and was pleased to see that it has one of my alltime favorite Wilco tunes on it, At My Window Sad and Lonely.

So in honor of all things WIlco, that will be my MP3 of the Week.

I am tagging these MP3s of the week with my fred'spodcast tag on delicious as well.

Positively 10th Street

We've got a new show up.

Emily was absent from this week's podcast as she spent the weekend with some friends upstate.

This week's podcast features a bit more talk than the previous ones and comes in at 40+ minutes.

We've got movie reviews (3 of them), restaurant reviews, concert reviews, and a hilarious moment when Josh cuts the cheese.

Here's the song list:
Josh's Song - Staple It Together - Jack Johnson
Jessica's Song - Talk - Coldplay
Joanne's Song - Teen Spirit - Nirvana
Fred's Song - Love and Mercy - Jeff Tweedy
Emily's Song (by consensus) - Let There Be Love - Oasis

Positively 10th Street on KYOU

Our Positively 10th Street show was picked up by KYOU, the "podcast only" radio station in San Francisco.

You can listen over the air in San Francisco at 1550 AM or listen live over the Internet here.

According to the schedule, Positively 10th Street is playing at 5am, 1pm, and and 9pm.

I assume those are San Francisco times, but I am not positive.

My New Favorite Podcast (continued)

Damn this podcasting thing just keeps gaining momentum.

Jason Chervokas, one of the most knowledgeable and thoughtful people I know, has started podcasting.

His show is called Down In The Flood and it is a very serious effort.

Jason says the show "is dedicated to the noble quest of dowsing for the wellsprings of American music."

After listening to the first two shows, I can attest to the fact that this is going to be an amazing journey into american music for as long as he is wiling to be the tour guide.

Check it out and add it to your podcasting client.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

This is going to be one of those best vs. favorite debates.

The best Who album is Who's Next.  Every song on it is fantastic.  Five of the nine songs on the record made it onto their "ultimate" collection.

By my favorite Who record and one of my favorite double albums ever is Quadrophenia.

I love this record.  The sounds of the waves on the beach washing over every song gives this record its feel.

I suspect this record was the major inspriration for American Idiot.  The story and the songs are similar in many ways.

And the ending of this record, with Dr. Jimmy, The Rock, and Love, Reign O'er Me is simply fantastic.

Love, Reign O'er Me is my favorite Who song and in my top ten rock songs ever.

If you haven't listened to this record or haven't listened in a while, you really ought to.

Rhapsody Link: Quadrophenia.

My New Favorite Podcast

I keep changing the list on the left column of this blog where I link to the podcasts I listen to.

I cut back a lot recently and have narrowed my listening to four or five podcasts at this point.

I keep checking out new ones and hope to add some more soon.

Until the past week, my favorite was Mass Hysteria.  And I still listen to every new Mass Hysteria show the day it comes out.  I can't get enough of that one.

But to be honest, I've got a new favorite.  I called it Fred's Podcast and its shown on my podcasts list.

Fred's Podcast is a feed of mp3s that others have tagged with the delicious tag fred'spodcast.

Just this week, I've gotten two new mp3s added to this podcast/playlist;

Ben Bleecker - It'll Be Allright
Sven Van Hees - The Sun Goes Down

These two artists are basically unknown (at this point).  Ben Bleecker doesn't have any music available on Amazon.  And Sven Van Hees has a couple records on Amazon but not much activity around them.

So it's really cool that someone (maybe the artists themselves) are tagging these mp3s for me.

I manage this podcast/playlist in my iTunes program and delete a song every once in a while to keep the playlist manageable.  I think I'll probably add my MP3 of the Week to this podcast tag each week.

The result is I have a playlist that has songs I like but is changing all the time. It's being programmed by people out on the Internet that I don't even know.

I love it.

UPDATE: Hans (who tagged the Sven Van Hees song) writes this on his blog:

In other news, the song I tagged with Fred Wilson's podcast tag got a special mention on his blog! It's amazing when you think of the way it ended up in his iPod. The cd was bought by my friend Michael. I ripped it onto my computer. Then I read this post, and thought what the hell, he likes Thievery Corporation, why not make him check it out. So I uploaded it onto my own webspace, and then tagged it with del.icio.us. Feedburner automatically scraps all new links with this tag, after which ipodder burns them onto Fred's iPod. It has left the web, many thousands of miles/kilometers away from it's previous physical location, the original cd (and me).

Thanks to the web, I made someone I barely know (and he doesn't know me at all) check out a song that I like. This is only one of the many entirely new forms of communication the web has brought us, and I'm very much excited about what's going to happen in the coming years, as the web keeps on expanding and revolutionizing the way we look at the world. Every connected individual now has more access to more information on many more subjects and events than the entire world ever had, barely, say, 150 years ago. My mind is connected with the sum of all human knowledge.

And with this thought in mind, i'm going to bed.

MP3 of the Week

So I've got a new way to find and showcase MP3s this week.

On Friday, I posted a cool new way to tag MP3s on the Internet and automatically get them onto your iPod.

And at the end of that post, I threw out this line:

So start tagging and sharing mp3s with me and your friends.

Well, three people have taken me up on that so far.  They tagged an MP3 on the Internet with the delcious tag - fred'spodcast

Songguy tagged For Real by Okkervil River

Ghonzo tagged Nina Gordon's cover of NWA's Straight Outta Compton [what is it with these folk covers of rap?]

and Andrew tagged three Tegan and Sara songs

I liked all of them and hope people keep doing this.  I will keep tagging stuff with the fred'spodcast tag too.

But back to the reason of this post, my MP3 of the Week.

I really liked Okkervil River.  I am going to have to check them out.  And I am going to buy their record Black Sheep Boy.

So here is my MP3 of the Week.  For Real by Okkervil River.

The Cosmic Game

Those who check out my "In Heavy Rotation" list on the left column of this blog know that this record has been in heavy rotation lately.

It's called The Cosmic Game and its by Thievery Corporation.

I just bought it on Amazon.

I've been listening to it at least daily on Rhapsody and I finally hit the Amazon purchase button.

I am not a huge electronica fan, but these guys are pretty special.  They add to the mix a world music and bossa nova thing that is terrific.

I highly recommend this disc for anyone who likes electronica/chill music.

Rhapsody Link: The Cosmic Game.

The Killers at Summerstage

Summerstage was in full swing last night.  It was warm, the sky was blue, and the place was packed to see The Killers.

Louis XIV warmed up and were solid.  We spent most of their act in line to get water and beer.  They need to fix that aspect of Summerstage.

As the Killers came on we had a little excitement.  Jay-Z showed up for the show and walked through the crowd.  See if you can find him on this picture.

But the real show was up on stage.

The Killers delivered and the crowd responded.

They played pretty much thier whole record, Hot Fuss, plus three new songs from their upcoming record.  The Hot Fuss songs were great as everyone knew all the words.  The new songs were good and one of them, Indie Rock For Me, is the inspiration for a new t-shirt for the Gotham Gal.

The finished their set with Mr. Brightside, once an MP3 of the Week on this blog.

And then they came back and played Jenny Was A Friend of Mine and finished with a really rousing version of All These Things That I Have Done.

As the crowd poured out into Central Park, people were still singing, "I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier".

Great night. Great show.

Positively 10th Street

This week's Positively 10th Street podcast is up at Libsyn and on the RSS feed.

I think we've finally mastered the production part of this. The blends between talk and music are good and the volume seems fine for both too.

This week the topics of conversation are girls street basketball on the lower east side, how the star wars movie and josh's baseball game were similar, the upcoming keane and killers concerts, and Joanne's move to a Mac and our favorite podcasts.

The music is great too:

Jesssica's song - Spoon - I Turn My Camera On
Josh's song - Fountains of Wayne - Mexican Wine
Fred's song - The Sun - Must Be You
Joanne's song - The Mountain Goats - This Year
Emily's song - Keane - Everything's Changing

To listen to it over the Internet, click here.

This Is Cool

Have you ever come across an mp3 file on the Internet and wanted to download it and put it on your iPod, but didn't have time to deal with it?

This happens to me all the time.

So I heard of a cool way to do this and just tried it tonite and it works great.

If you find an mp3 file with its own URL, like my MP3 of the Week, simply tag it in delicious with a tag that is clearly your own.  For example, I use "fred'spodcast" as my tag.  Feel free to tag mp3s with that tag if you want me to listen to them.

Then you take the RSS feed for that delicious tag, in my case http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/fred'spodcast, and burn that as a Feedburner feed.

Make sure to enable that Feedburner feed with their SmartCast service.

That creates a new feed.  In my case, it's http://feeds.feedburner.com/Delicious/tag/fredspodcast.

Then you put that podcast feed into iPodder, iPodderX, or some other podcasting client.

That's it.

The next time you synch your iPod, all the mp3s you tagged will be in your iPod.

So start tagging and sharing mp3s with me and your friends.  This is a great way to get into delicious an enjoy great music at the same time.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

"I went home with the waitress, the way I always do.  How was I to know she was with the russians too?  ...  Send lawyers guns and money, the shit has hit the fan"

These lyrics sum up the warped, funny, wacky, and brilliant mind of Warren Zevon.

This record, Excitable Boy, came out in 1978 and immediately changed my opinion of southern california rock.  In my metal crazed mind, So Cal rock was soft stuff that required an instant change of radio station.

But when Warren strikes up the band on this record, he shows the So Cal rock can be great and it is throughout this record.

As one Amazon reviewer states, "This is a great party album, or one for a hot Saturday afternoon sitting on the back porch watching the birds play in the back yard with a couple of open Sam Adams. It's a great, classic rock album."

That it is.  And now its in the Top 50 where it belongs.

Rhapsody for the Mac?

The Gotham Gal is moving to a Mac this evening.

She's got her email figured out with Entourage and Exchange.

She's got Office for the Mac working.

She's got Firefox and Safari working.

She's got TypePad working.

But the one thing that she hasn't figured out how to replace is Rhapsody.

If anyone knows of a unlimited music service that supports the Mac, let us know.

MP3 of the Week

We were playing the May 22nd Mass Hysteria show on the iPod in our new minivan on the way out to long island on friday. 

The first song on that podcast was It Must Be You by a new band called The Sun.  Their record, Blame It On The Youth, comes out next week.

The whole minivan was singing and rocking to it. It's a great song.

Check it out.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

My freshman year in college, I got a copy of the Rolling Stone record guide.  This is the one by Dave March that came out in 1979.   I don't have it any more but it was thick red paperback and it was by far the most used reference book I ever owned.  It was falling apart by the end of college.

I used to go through it for hours sitting on the window bed in the lounge and look at all the five stars records.  I'd read the reviews and then I'd head over to Nuggets (a used record store in Kenmore Square)and buy one of them.

I'd come back and sit back and listen Tony Alva style.

That's how I found Astral Weeks.

It's only eight songs, apparently recorded in 48 hours with a band Van Morrison didn't even know.

And it is one of the greatest records ever made.

It has a mood amd a feel that is hard to describe. 

But when we put it on, and we still do that a lot, I know its going to take me to that place that only this record can.

Positively 10th Street

We are headed to long island tomorrow for memorial day weekend so we got our third positively 10th street show done before we head out.

Emily and Jessica didn't make this show because they were at the Liberty - Indiana game (Indiana won 67 - 59).

But we had fun anyway and the girls did leave a request which we played.

The show featured a bit more talk (which needs some amplification) and the topics included the play Pillowman, the NY Liberty, nights out in NYC, Rhapsody, and the Mass Hysteria podcast.

Song list:

Josh's Song - After The Goldrush - Neil Young
Joanne's Song - Losing Streak - The Eels
Fred's Song - Stranded - Van Morrison
The Girl's Song - Don't Panic - Coldplay
Fred and Jo's Finale - Crying Shame - Jack Johnson

MP3 of the Week

This week's MP3 of the Week goes out to the Gotham Gal.

When we first met, she was my Brown Eyed Girl.

But now she's my Dreamgirl.

This song is off the new Dave Matthews Band record, Stand Up.

Rhapsody Playlist of the Week

Rhapsody Playlist of the Week.

1. The Way We Get By (Album Version) - Spoon
2. Wish I - Jem
3. Trouble - Ray Lamontagne
4. If I Could - Jack Johnson
5. Have A Little Faith In Me - John Hiatt
6. Friends - Ryan Adams

Positively 10th Street

This week's show is now available.

The Gotham Gal took over as the host and she ran a great show.

The big themes of this week's show are rock concerts, rock stars, bat mitzvahs, and chocolate cake.

Give it a listen or add it to your podcasting software.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

Readers of this blog know that family is important to me.

And there are a lot of songs about family but there is one album that is the definitive record on the subject for me.

It's called Bring the Family and it was recorded by John Hiatt in 1987.

The supporting cast on the record is awesome.  Ry Cooder on guitar. Nick Lowe on bass. Jim Keltner on drums.

But its the songs that make this record so powerful.  The record starts out with Memphis in the Meantime which has a fantastic groove.  Most everyone's heard Bonnie Raitt's cover of Thing Called Love, but it was written by John Hiatt and recorded on this record first.

But its about halfway through when the record starts to really shine.  Lipstick Sunshine with the fantastic slide guitar is a great warmup for what's next.

Have a Little Faith in Me is one of the greatest songs ever written, period.  I get choked up every time I hear it.  I honestly don't know Hiatt can sing it without breaking down.

Other highlights include Tip of My Tongue and Your Dad Did.

I have listened to this record so many times I couldn't even guess the number.  It's a great record that I never tire of and its overdue in the top 50.

Rhapsody Link: Bring The Family.

Cold Roses

Jason Chervokas commented on my spiff post that the second disc of the new Ryan Adams record, Cold Roses, is great.

That's blogging.  A post on XSPF generated a comment that makes me go to Rhapsody and play some new music I haven't heard.

Here is Jason's blog post on Cold Roses.

You know what.  Jason is right.  It's just fantastic.  I have never listened to Ryan Adams very much.  I liked Whiskeytown but we don't own any of his solo records.

And Jason is also right about the first disc.  There are only a couple good tracks on it. 

But the second disc.  Wow!  The back to back numbers, If I Am A Stranger and Dance All Night, are stuck in my head and I can't get them out.

If you like alt-country with a little hint of the Grateful Dead, this is the record for you.

Rhapsody Link: Cold Roses.

MP3 of the Week

Last week I was stuck on hold with TMobile trying to consolidate all my family's cell phone accounts onto a single bill.  It was a major pain. But one good thing came of it.  The hold music system played a song that I hadn't heard in years. 

I couldn't recall the name of the song but I could see the birght Yellow album cover in my head as the song played.

I was pretty sure it was a Ry Cooder song and so I went to Rhapsody and punched in Ry Cooder.

Sure enough there it was, Paradise and Lunch.  Man I love that record. 

I played the record on Rhapsody and the second song on the record, Tattler, is the song that TMobile was playing on hold.

The next thing I did was add Paradise and Lunch to the short list for the Top 50 which is becoming a long list.

And now I am making Tattler my MP3 of the Week.

I hope you like it as much as I do.

Spiff

XSPF, which when spoken sounds like spiff, is  the XML Shareable Playlist Format.

So what?  Why do you care?

Because services like Rhapsody, Napster, and Y! Unlimited are the future of the music business.

One day, everyone who enoys music will be getting their music like they get a dialtone.

Music will be a subscription service.  It is already but there are lot of technical, implementation, and business model hurdles that need to get worked out before everyone gets their music this way.

But I am absolutely convinced its going to happen.  It has to frankly. Because the current way we get music is ridiculous in a digital world.

But back to spiff, why does it matter?

Because when everyone has access to all the music all the time, sharing music is going to explode.  Everyone will be a DJ, everyone will send music to their friends and family, and it will all be legal.

Spiff is the way that will happen.

Go back to my post on Y! Unlimited.  At the end I said:

Regardless of what Apple does, here is the thing I want Yahoo!, Real, and Napster to do.  Make your shared playlist links compatible with each other.  Create a standard for sharing music legally on the Internet.  That's what this market needs most of all.

That generated a few comments and emails.  All pointing to XSPF.  When I looked at XSPF, I saw what I have always wanted.  I can blog my Rhapsody playlist of the week but you can't listen to it unless you have Rhapsody.  What if I could easily publish that as an XPSF file and you could listen to it on Rhapsody, Y! Unlimited, and Napster?  What if Steve Jobs offered an unlimited subscription offer on iTunes and supported XSPF?

That's my vision.  And it's going to happen.  Unfortunately, it's going to take a while.

Introducing The Postively 10th Street Podcast

As I've been hinting in this blog for a week or so, we are now podcasting at the Wilson home.

Our show is called Positively 10th Street and was named after the street we live on in NYC and the great Bob Dylan song Positively 4th Street.

The concept is pretty simple.  We sit in our kitchen and talk about music, life in NYC, stuff that's happening, and we play five songs.  Each family member brings one song to each podcast.

We did our first yesterday and its available here.

You can also subscribe to the podcast via RSS here.

We have a few kinks to work out.  The main one is that we are better at mixing the audio in the software instead of manually on our little $49 mixer.  That means that the two songs the girls played on their iPods that we manually mixed don't fade in and out very nicely.

There is also a brief hum during one short audio part that I need to figure out.

But all in all, it was a pretty simple thing to do.  I recommend it highly to anyone who likes playing around with audio recording on their computer.

We hope to do one show a week.  There's no hard and fast schedule so they may come out during the week some weeks and the weekends on others.  Everyone enjoyed it and as long as that is the case, we are going to keep doing it.

If you'd like to auto load this podcast to your iPod, here's how to do it:

1 - Get a podcasting client. I suggest iPodder because it's open source, it's cross platform, and it's free.  You can download a Windows or Mac version here.

2 - Install iPodder on the computer where you have iTunes and synch your iPod.

3 - Select tools then scheduler to set a time every day when iPodder will go out and check for new Podcasts.

4 - Add Positively 10th Street to your subscriptions by selecting the subscriptions tab and then the + sign to add a feed.  Enter the following into the URL -  http://feeds.feedburner.com/Positively10thStreet

5 - Then hit one of the two large buttons on the upper left to cause iPodder to go out and download the first Positively 10th Street show.

After you've done all that, you will find Postively 10th Street in your iPod under Playlists and all new versions will be automatically loaded into that location.

We hope you enjoy Positively 10th Street!

Rhapsody Playlist of the Week

Link: May 14th Playlist.

1. Ain't No Way - David Lindley 2. Tattler - Ry Cooder 3. There's A Story In Your Voice - Elvis Costello & The Imposters 4. Crying Shame - Jack Johnson 5. Sweet Li'l Thing - Eels 6. Close I've Come - Ben Lee

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

Long time readers of this blog know that I really love Lucinda Williams.  I've seen her live a few times and that is a powerful experience.  She combines country, blues, gospel, and rock into a great sound.  And her words are raw and honest.  She is the real deal.

I had a hard time picking a Lucinda record for the top 50 because there are three that I love Car Wheels, Essence, and World Without Tears.  Each has something unique and special.  Essence is the quietest and most calming of the three.  World Without Tears is raw, honest, brutal at times, and the most powerful.

But afer listening to a lot of Lucinda this week, I have to pick Car Wheels on A Gravel Road as this week's Top 50 selection.  It was the first Luncinda record that the Gotham Gal and I got into and I think its her best.  It's the most consistent and most listenable record she's ever made.

And it's got my all-time favorite Lucinda song on it which is Still I Long for Your Kiss. Speaking of that song, Rhapsody has a live version of Still l Long for Your Kiss that was recently released as a single along with her new live record, Live At The Fillmore.

Give them both a listen if you've got Rhapsody.

The Stones

I've said for years that I would never go see The Stones again.  For my taste, they are way past their prime.  If I could have seen them on their 1972 tour, well that would have been it for me.

The idea of watching 60 year old guys sing songs they wrote 30 to 40 years ago doesnt' really excite me.

I told this to my friend Bob when he went with his brother and sister to see them on their last tour.  And Bob said I was wrong.  He said the three of them had a great time.

So when I saw the picture of Mick and Keith at Julliard yesterday I felt a pang of jealousy that I wasn't there to see them do three songs live.

And then when I came home and saw Josh wearing his tie die stones lips shirt, I knew I was going to see them this tour and take him with me.

I got five tickets last night and its going to be a family affair at Giants Stadium this September.

Yahoo! vs. Rhapsody & Napster

Readers of this blog know that I love Rhapsody.

I honestly have never tried the new Napster.

Both of these services let you listen a huge music library over the Internet on demand.

You want to listen to a song or a record, you just type it in, and the music just starts playing.

Both services also allow you to burn music to a CD for just under $1/song.

And recently, they've both added "to go" services that let you synch whatever songs and playlists you like to your portable music device.

The two big problems with these services is that they don't work on the Mac and they don't work with iPods. That's not their fault (at least the iPod part).  Steve Jobs wants you to use iTunes if you have an iPod and to date, he hasn't seen the need to offer unlimited listening.

The other really big deal with these services is the ability to share playlists.  I am posting Rhapsody playlists to my blog and emailing them with my brother.  If you have Rhapsody, all you do is click on the link and you can listen to the playlist.  That's the way music sharing should work.

The problem is that there just aren't that many Rhapsody or Napster users.  It's not a mainstream thing yet.

Enter Yahoo!.  Yesterday they launched Y! Music Unlimited.

Here is the comparison of the three services, according to Yahoo!

Unlimited access to subscription music catalog (when purchased on an annual basis)† $4.99/mo $14.95/mo $13.32/mo Unlimited access to subscription music catalog (when purchased on a monthly basis)† $6.99/mo $14.95/mo $14.99/mo Share music with friends using Yahoo! Messenger Transfer subscription music to portable player Burnable downloads $.79 $.99 $.89 Personalized recommendations for subscription music Pre-programmed commercial- free radio stations 120+ 50+ 80+

At first glance, Y! Music Unlimited looks to be a fantastic deal.  I am going to download this service and give it a try.

Possibly the biggest thing about Yahoo!'s entrance is that they've integrated this service with a new music search engine that not only searches their music service, but also the rest of the music on the Internet.  Vertical search for music.  Cool.

But Yahoo! hasn't addressed the two big issues I outlined.  There is no Mac client and there's no iPod compatibility.

Probably the best thing that can come of Yahoo!'s entrance into this market is lowering the price for Rhapsody and Napster, which certainly should happen, and hopefully pressure for Apple to offer unlimited listening and a "to go" service, which may not happen because it may negatively impact Apple's iTunes margins.

Regardless of what Apple does, here is the thing I want Yahoo!, Real, and Napster to do.  Make your shared playlist links compatible with each other.  Create a standard for sharing music legally on the Internet.  That's what this market needs most of all.

Here are some del.icio.us links to the Y! Music Unlimited story.

UPDATE:  Here is the blog post from the guy who built the Y! Music Unlimited service.  I found this link via del.icio.us.

In Between Dreams

Lost in all my talk about the Eels is the fact that the other record heavy in rotation these days is Jack Johnson's In Between Dreams.

Rhapsody Link: In Between Dreams.

We loved Brushfire Fairytales and listened to it a lot at the beach when it came out in 2002.

On and On was an OK record, but it didn't get a lot of airtime.  Then we went to see Jack at Summerstage last year and were bored by his music and his show. I thought that was the end of Jack Johnson in our house.

Then he puts out this really terrific record.  It's better than Brushfire.  The songs stay with you and keep you coming back.  It's more than a lazy day at the beach record.  This guy writes and sings great songs this record is a must.

MP3 of the Week

My current musical obsession is the Eels latest record, called Blinking Lights and Other Revelations.

Rhapsody Link: Blinking Lights.

This is a big record, 33 songs in all, and very moody. There are downright depressing songs followed by uplifting pop songs. If you aren't an Eels fan, it could be a difficult listen. And like all Eels records, it takes about 5-10 listens to really connect with the songs.  But when you do, its powerful stuff.  We have had it in heavy rotation since it came out a week and a half ago and it just gets better and better.

With 33 songs to choose from, it was tough to pick one for this week's MP3 of the week.  I've already posted the single "Hey Man" and I put Railroad Man on my Rhapsody Playlist of the Week, so I am going with another favorite this week.

The song is called Losing Streak.  I hope you like it.

Rhapsody Playlist of the Week

I am going to start a new weekly blog post.

I think sharing playlists you can listen to without having to purchase the songs is a great thing.

I've tried a bunch of ways to do this and so far, I think sharing Rhapsody playlists is the best way.

I know most of my readers don't have Rhapsody, but for those who do, I am going to publish a weekly list of songs that are in heavy rotation in our house.

Here's my first playlist.

It starts out with Sweet Transvestite from Rocky Horror Picture Show because Jessica is singing that song in the middle school play this weekend.

I hope you like it!

May 7th Rhapsody Playlist.

1. Sweet Transvestite - Richard O'Brien
2. Close I've Come - Ben Lee
3. Hear Me Out - Ben Kweller
4. Anyways All Right - Paul Westerberg
5. Railroad Man - Eels
6. Jesus Was An Only Son - Bruce Springsteen
7. Good People - Jack Johnson
8. Girl - Beck
9. Peace Officer - Jimmy Cliff
10. Hate It Or Love It - The Game

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

There are a bunch of great reggae musicians, but there are only two who I can listen to anytime.  They are the master and all time greatest Bob Marley and the man of joy and optimism, Jimmy Cliff.

The truth is that Jimmy's music is easier to listen to than Bob's.  The Gotham Gal loves Jimmy Cliff and we used to listen to his record Special, which came out in the early 80s, all the time when we first lived together in NYC.

There are two Jimmy Cliff records that are Top 50 candidates and they have one overlapping song on them.

The first is the Soundtrack to The Harder They Come.

This is a gritty Jamaican movie featuring Jimmy Cliff as a Robin Hood type. 

I can't honestly recommend the movie, but the soundtrack is another story.  It's some of the best reggae music ever recorded and features four fantastic songs by Jimmy Cliff as well as songs by Toots and the Maytalls and several other great reggae musicians.

If you like reggae music and don't have this record, you should get it.

But the Jimmy Cliff record that we always come back to and must have played a thousand times is called Wonderful World Beautiful People.  The title alone speaks to Jimmy's sunny disposition.

Jimmy's masterpiece, Many Rivers To Cross, is on both Wonderful World and Harder They Come.  But the rest of this record is different.

I am particularly fond of Use What I Got, Hello Sunshine, and the protest song, Vietnam.  But the whole record is fantastic and I am thrilled to add it to my Top 50 today.

MP3 of the Week

Every time I land in NYC and get off the plane, a song pops into my head. 
That song is Back In New York City by Genesis (the Peter Gabriel version of Genesis).
I've been travelling a fair amount lately and so I've had that song in my head recently.
But also, Jackson is back to the blogging thing in earnest and he has a great post on The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, my favorite Genesis record by far and the one with Back In New York City on it.
So it was an easy choice this week. 
Back In New York City is my MP3 of the Week.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

I've been waiting for a good time to add Bruce to the Top 50.

I figure now is as good as time as any with the release of Devils and Dust this week.

While Bruce's body of work is as good as anyone's, there are really only three of his records that I considered for the Top 50.

They are Nebraska, Greetings from Asbury Park, and Darkness on the Edge of Town.

Nebraska is an amazing record.  I listen to it more than any of his records and maybe it should be Top 50 too.

Greetings was my introduction to Bruce and I've always loved it.

But Darkness is it for me.  It is great from the opening Badlands to the closing title track.

It has a drive, an energy, an attitude, and a desperation to it that makes it essential Top 50 material.

I am particularly fond of the hard rock sound that Bruce and the E Street Band make on Adam Raised A Cain.

There's probably something to the fact that this record came out in 1978 when I was 17 and full of the feelings that are expressed so intensely on Darkness.

Darkness speaks to me and that's why its my pick this week.

Welcome to the Top 50 Bruce.

Listen to Darkness on Rhapsody.

Paul Westerberg

  Photo_042705_001 
  Originally uploaded by fredwilson.

My friend Steve got tickets to see Paul at the Supper Club and The Gotham Gal and I went with him. 

Another friend named Steve hooked us up with some great seats.  But we forgot to bring a camera so all we had was The Gotham Gal's Treo.

Paul put on a hell of a show.  It was basically a Replacements concert.  At least 2/3 of the songs were from the five records Let It Be through Don't Tell A Soul.

Paul cranked out the songs, never really stopping.  He must have played over 30 songs in less than 2 hours.

Highlights were:

1 - Paul switching to drums on Can't Hardly Wait
2 - Taking a request from the crowd to sing Things (from his first solo record), forgeting the words, and getting the guy who made the request to feed him the lyrics
3 - Going from the line "I Will Dare" in Anywhere's All Right (from the new record) to the real thing.
4 - How Can You Like Him from the new record
4 - Ending the first encore wtih Left Of The Dial
5 - Coming out and doing Alex Chilton for a second encore.

God bless Paul Westerberg.

Replacements Playlist on Rhapsody.

No Rhapod :(

Well Rob Glaser did his thing yesterday at Radio City Music Hall here in NYC.

I had an invitation to go and I wanted to but in the end I couldn't make it.

It's just as well, because Rob did not stand up on stage and show off the Rhapod that I am dreaming about.

What Rob did unveil is nice but certainly not the promised "groundbreaking initiative in digital music".

There's a new version of Rhapsody that I will download as soon as I finish listening to Bruce.

And the bigger deal is Rhapsody to Go which is pretty much a knockoff of Napster to Go.  This service lets you synch Rhapsody to a portable music device and take your songs with you.  It doesn't work with iPod of course and in fact it only works with two devices right now, the Iriver H10 and the Creative Zen Micro portable music players.

Since I am already an iPod user and none of these devices comes close to my dream device, I don't think I'll upgrade to Rhapsody to Go.  But maybe the Gotham Gal, who doesn't yet have an iPod, might want to give Rhapsody to Go a whirl.  We'll see about that.

Bottom line, Rhapsody is great, Real is making it better, but they aren't in iPod killer territory yet.

Rafat Ali has extensive coverage of all of this stuff on his blog.  It's certainly the best place to get the skinny on the new Rhapsody.

Devils and Dust

I am listening to the new Bruce Springsteen record Devils and Dust on Rhapsody this morning.

It's in the Nebraska vein but not as stark and powerful as that amazing record.  My friend Craig, who is a huge Bruce fan, compares it to Bruce's mid 90s record Tom Joad.

I like Bruce when he sings dark folk songs and I like this record.

Links to Devils and Dust:

Amazon

iTunes

RHAPSODY Link.

MP3 of the Week

I love The Eels.

Their new record comes out tomorrow and its called Blinking Lights and Other Revelations.

I've only heard one song off the record so far, its called Hey Man.

It's my MP3 of the Week.

Pining For Jazzfest

The Gotham Gal and I are normally in New Orleans for Jazzfest at this time of year but Passover and other things have gotten in the way this year and we'll be missing it for the first time in five years.

I am listening to a great Rhapsody Jazzfest playlist.  No po boys and beer.  No sweat and sun.  No New Orleans.  But its the best I can do this year.

My MP3 Posting Policy

I got a few comments questioning the wisdom and ethics of posting MP3s on my blog.

I've been doing this at least once a week for well over a year and I've thought a lot about these issues and have come up with the following policy:

1 - Encode the MP3s at 64kbps so that they'll load quickly and the songs will be listenable.  This also means that if the MP3s are downloaded, most listeners won't find the quality acceptable enough for repeated listens.  If you listen to the MP3s on my blog, you'll almost always hear the "swirls" that are associated with low bit rate audio.

2 - Always provide a description of the song and band and a link to a place to buy the music.  I have linked to iTunes in the past but because not everyone has the iTunes client, I've recently been linking to Amazon instead.  I don't normally go to the trouble of configuring the link to compensate me via Amazon Associates for this, but if there were an easy way to do that, I would.

3 - Do not make the music play automatically.  I thought about this and decided that it would be annoying to readers.  So you have to click on the link (or the new flash player) to hear the music.  I have no idea how many readers do this.  I hope the new flash player makes it more common.

4 - Don't post too many MP3s.  I always post a song on Mondays.  Sometimes its a new unsigned artist.  More often its a signed artist.  Those posts are always titled MP3 of the Week.  Every once in a while, I'll post another MP3 or maybe even two during the week.

So that's my policy.  I realize that people think its wrong to play music like this.  I don't share that view obviously.  I believe that I am introducing my readers to music that they'll like and the result will be more music sales.  If I felt otherwise, I wouldn't be doing it.

New Flash MP3 Player

My new friend Sean, who Clay Shirkey introduced me to, worked this up for me.

It's so cool.  I am going to use this for all the MP3s I post on my blog from now on.

This song is by The Rolling Stones.  If you dont' own it, you should buy the record.  It's on the Top 50.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

In 1982, my friend Bob convinced me to go on a road trip with him and some friends to some place in upstate NY (from Boston where we were all at MIT) to see Peter Gabriel.  I wasn't really a fan at the time but Bob was and it sounded like a fun time.  So I went along.

It was the greatest show I had seen at the time and certainly one of the greatest shows I've ever seen.  When Peter Gabriel jumped into the crowd singing "Lay Your Hands On Me", I was blown away.

It was artist meets audience in its most fundamental form and it was amazing.  It wasn't a cheap trick to get the audience going.  Gabriel was living out his music and he meant it.

That tour was for Gabriel's fourth record, called Security.  It is a brilliant record, many say his best.  And I love it as I do all of Gabriel's records (and his Genesis work before he went solo).

But it's not my favorite Gabriel album.  I've gone back and listened to all of them this week.  And the one that makes my skin tingle and brings tears to my eyes is Gabriel 3, also called Melt.

What a record this is.  The drumming, the bass, the singing, the lyrics, the sound, everything about this record is stunning.

There is a part of this record that may be my favorite song sequence in rock music.  No Self Control into Start with its haunting sax solo, into I Don't Remember, then the devastating Family Snapshot, and finally And Through The Wire.  Wow.  Music like that just doesn't get made very often.

The Eels and Mass Hysteria

I was listening to Mass Hysteria on the way to work today.

They have a new podcast dated Wednesday, April 20th.

I have to say that they are my favorite podcast these days.  I listen to all of the podcasts listed on the left column, but Paul and Janine just do it better.  They share a lot about themselves and their family in addition to playing great music.

So the second song they played on this week's podcast was the new single (called Hey Man) from the new, and as yet unreleased Eels album, titled Blinking Lights and Other Revelations.

The Eels are it as far as I am concerned.  We have four of their records, Daisies, Electro Shock, Beautiful Freak, and the Top 50 candidate Shootenany!

This new record is already in our Amazon shopping cart.

So as I walked up Fifth Avenue toward a breakfast at the Coffee Shop a big smile crept onto my face.  The Eels are back and I have high hopes for this record.

Thanks to Paul and Janine for playing the Eels and also for the mention of this blog at the end of the podcast!  I guess I've been sending them some traffic.  Cool.  They deserve it.

The Dead 60s

We went over to the Hammerstein Ballroom last night to see The Dead 60s play their first show in america.  They were great.

Gotham Gal has a photo a great review.

MP3 of the Week

One of the best things about blogging is getting to meet new people.

I've been doing a lot of that lately.  People email me and introduce themselves.

Sometimes it develops into an email dialog, sometimes a phone conversation, and sometimes a meeting.

Last week I met with Rags Gupta, someone I'd met through blogging and a shared interest in technology, digital media, and music.

It turns out that Rags favorite all time band is Luna and when we met he came with a Luna sampler CD that he'd made for me.  What a nice treat.  I've always loved mixed tapes, playlists, CD samplers, etc. 

Although we have a number of Luna records, one that we don't have is Penthouse.

There is a great track on the Penthouse record, courtesy of Rags' CD sampler, called Lost In Space.

And so because I like Rags, his CD, and this song, I am making it my MP3 of the week.

Rhapod Please Rob

Real Networks is planning a big event on April 26th in NYC.  I can just imagine Rob Glaser standing up and doing his best Steve Jobs impersonation, holding up some new invention that will jumpstart his "groundbreaking initiative in digital music."

I hope he holds up a Rhapod.

What’s a Rhapod?

It’s an iPod that works with Rhapsody, the best online service in the digital music world.

I can get almost anything I want on Rhapsody.  There are a few holdouts, but not many.

Generally, I’ll hear about some band or remember a record that I love listening to, type it into Rhapsody and viola, I am listening to it.

But that’s only when I am on my laptop.

I want Rhapspody in my iPod, in my car, and on my stereo.

That’s where the Rhapod comes in.

As we all know, with all the great accessories that have been made for the iPod, you can use the iPod to play music wherever you are.

I want Rhapsody to work just like that.

So, here is what a Rhapod needs to do:

-    It needs to be able to synch with any of the music that is on Rhapsody.  If I can listen to it on my laptop, I can synch it my Rhapod.
-    It needs to have wifi built in.  If I am in Starbucks, it should allow me to listen and synch to music that isn’t currently on the Rhapod
-    It needs to integrate into my car radio.  Ideally, it would have a FM transmitter like the iTrip built in.  87.9 (or any other frequency you choose) becomes Rhapod radio everywhere.
-    It needs to integrate into my home stereo.  There should be a Rhapod connector that uses wired and wifi connections to allow me to play the Rhapod in any stereo I want.
-    Rhapsody needs to include a podcasting client so that I can download my podcasts to my Rhapod no matter where I am as long as I’ve got some kind of IP connection.

That’s my dream machine.  That’s the iPod killer.  That’s what Real needs to announce on April 26th.

Because Apple has become (or maybe always was) a they company.  They aren’t going to open up the iPod and iTunes.  So Rob should.  And while he’s at it, he should make the hardware spec and the software for the Rhapod open for anyone who pays Real a license to make one.  Do to Apple what Microsoft did to Apple the last time.

That’s what I want to see.  And if he does it, I’ll sell my Apple stock and buy some Real.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

I love The Flaming Lips.

Like many of the best things in life, they are an acquired taste.  Many people can't get into lead singer Wayne Coyne's voice. Other's find the music too spacy or the lyrics too trite.

None of that matters to me.  I can listen to the Lips anytime, day or night.  They are the closest thing our generation has to Pink Floyd.

The Flaming Lips make majestic, beautiful, mind blowing music.  My only issue is that I want more of it and they've been very silent lately.

Anyway, on to the record.  There are a bunch to choose from including the awesome Yoshimi which may also make it into the top 50.

But one of the genuine masterpieces of rock music is The Soft Bulletin.

This record came out in 1999 but the music is timeless.

Waiting For Superman alone makes this record a must listen.  I don't know if there is a heavier song ever written:

Tell Everyone Waiting For Superman
That They Should Hold On As Best They Can
He Hasn't Dropped Them, Forgot Them, Or Anything
It's Just Too Heavy For Superman To Lift

But the rest of the songs are just as good.  Race for The Prize, A Spoonful Weighs A Ton, Buggin', and Suddenly Everything Has Changed are particular favorites of mine.

If you haven't heard the Lips, you should give them a try.  This record is the one to start with.

The Fenway

Yesterday was a big day at Fenway Park.

The Red Sox got their World Series rings and then went out and trounced the hated Yankees 8 to 1.

I am not a Red Sox fan nor am I a Yankees fan.  But I am a fan of sports, rivalries, drama, and fandom.

And for all of that, there is nothing better than Yankees vs. Red Sox.

I am also a fan of Boston.  I spent four years there in college and lived in Kenmore Square in the shadow of Fenway Park.

There is another Fenway Park in Boston, called The Fenway [click on this link - it's a cool satellite image of The Fenway and Fenway Park].  It's a grand urban park in the vein of Prospect Park or Central Park, but its fallen on somewhat hard times.  It's not what it once was.

But I loved to wander around The Fenway when I was in college.  It has this magical feel to it.

Jonathan Richman also loves The Fenway.  His Rockin and Romance album is out of print, but I got my $15 copy of the digital master from TwinTone yesterday.  I listened to it last night.

My favorite song on the record is The Fenway.  Jonathan captures the magic of the place so well.  Give it a listen in tribute to Boston, Fenway Park, the Red Sox, and The Fenway.

MP3 of the Week

This week, in honor of one of my favorite podcasts, Insomnia Radio's Double Shots, I am going to do a double shot.

Two songs were stuck in my head this weekend.

The first is not a new song, its 6 years old.

We have a digital music system in our house and every once in a while we just let it play randomly from the songs on it.  It's a fun way to listen to stuff you haven't heard in a while.  We were doing that on friday night and this first song came on.

It's from a favorite of ours, Paul Westerberg.  We'll be seeing him in a couple weeks here in NYC at The Supper Club.

This song is from his Sucaine Gratification record from 1999.  It's called Tears Rolling Up Our Sleeves.

The second is a new song.  It's from Jack Johnson's new record called In Between Dreams.  Jack Johnson makes music that is easy to listen to and always enjoyable.  This new record is really very good, maybe not quite as strong as Brushfire Fairytales, but its always hard to top that first record.

In any case, this song is called Never Know and I really like it.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

Gimme, Gimme Shelter, Or I'm Gonna Fade Away

Did you hear about the midnight rambler, Well, honey, it’s no rock ’n’ roll show

Well, I hope we’re not too messianic, Or a trifle too satanic, We love to play the blues

Come on now, honey, Don't you wanna live with me

I'm sittin' in a bar tippling a jar in Jackson

The blue light was my baby and the red light was my mind

Well, we all need someone we can lean on, and if you want it, you can lean on me

Oh babe, you got my soul, you got the silver you got the gold

You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need

Let It Bleed

Podcasting (continued)

I am not announcing anything yet, but the subject of podcasting is being bantered about in the Wilson household a lot these days.

First, I'd like to publicly thank Mass Hysteria, ie Paul and Janie, for being the inspiration for what a family podcast can be.  The Gotham Gal and I both listen to Mass Hysteria and love it, for the music and the banter.  Great stuff.

I'd also like the thank Paul from Mass Hysteria and Jason from Insomnia Radio for clueing me in what it takes, equipment and software, to get a podcast up and running.  Though they use different techniques, between the two of them I now know what I need to get to make a great podcast.

Finally, I'd like to welcome a friend (whom I've never met face to face) to the podcast world.  Scott Partee from Halfass.com is now podcasting.  I've got a link to his podcast on my Podcasts I Listen To list.  I listened to my first Halfass podcast this morning and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Well done Scott!

MP3 of the Week

I love reggae music. 

Of course Bob Marley is my all-time favorite reggae artist and he's represented on the Top 50.  But there are other great reggae artists, like Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh, Toots and the Maytalls, and Burning Spear that I love too.

While I have records from all of these artists and more, one of my favorite reggae albums is Firehouse Rock by The Wailing Souls.

I hadn't listened to Firehouse Rock in a long time.  I have the vinyl record at my house on Long Island so I felt totally legit going onto the Internet and grabbing the songs via a file sharing network.

What a great record this is.

Here's the title track, Firehouse Rock.  It's my MP3 of the Week.

Radio Envy

I spent last week in LA and southern california and although the weather was fantastic, I did not come back with a tan.  That's because I don't tan, I burn.

But I did come back with some serious radio envy.

LA's radio rocks!

And NY's radio sucks.

Here in NYC, I have two options for radio. 

WFUV 90.7 which I cannot recieve with any quality most of the time in Manhattan
WBGO 88.3, a great jazz station but I am the only one in the family who wants to listent to it.

Everything else on the NY dial is programmed garbage as far as I am concerned.

In LA, I also had two favorite radio stations, but they are so much better than my two options in NYC.

Indie 103.1 - a great indie rock station with a strong signal that I could get all over LA
KCRW 89.9 - a better version of WFUV.  The Morning Becomes Ecletic show alone makes this station fantastic

In addition to these two stations, I regularly found other stations playing music I wanted to listen to in LA.  This never happens in NYC.

I imagine this has something to do with the fact that people in LA live in their cars, but I still think there is something really wrong with this picture.

As regular readers know from my exploding radio posts, I sure hope the bandwidth upgrade that is coming with the conversion to HD radio fixes this problem.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

George Clinton is the all time master of funk.

If you haven't listened to any of his stuff, you are missing out on some amazing music.

One of the reasons I love Dr Dre is that he samples so much from George's bands - Parliament and Funkadelic.

But back to George Clinton.

There are three records that I spent this week debating back and forth between.

The first is Parliament's Mothership Connection.  This is the most pop music oriented of the three essential George Clinton records.  The title track is terrific and there isn't a bad song on it.

The second is Maggot Brain. This is the best of early Funkadelic.  I think Eddie Hazel's guitar solo on the title track is one of the best guitar solos ever recorded.

But my addition to the Top 50 this week is One Nation Under A Groove.  It's Funkadelic at their best. 

My friend John Bernstein turned me on to this when I was in business school and I have loved it ever since. 

My favorite George Clinton song, Who Says A Funk Band Can't Play Rock?!, is on this record. The title track is also fantastic.  And as a bonus, the record ends with a live version of Maggot Brain.  It doesn't get better than this for funk music!

MP3 of the Week

They had a bluegrass band playing at Redtail Camp yesterday.  As The Gotham Gal and I came down the bumps under the Grouse Mountain Lift, they were playing California Stars, a great Wilco song off the fantastic Mermaid Avenue album in which Wilco and Billy Bragg collaborated to create songs from a bunch of Woody Guthrie lyrics.

It’s the perfect segue song for me.  We left Beaver Creek today and are headed to California tonight.

So with that backdrop, here is California Stars, my MP3 of the Week.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

If there's one musician who I'd love to be friends with, its Jonathan Richman.

He started out as a punk rocker following in the footsteps of Lou Reed and the Velvets.  He then merged into a singer songwriter  singing cute ditties about Ice Cream Men and Vincent Van Gogh.

And his most recent 15 minutes of fame came as himself in There's Something About Mary.

And he hasn't really put out anything interesting in years.

None of this matters to me.  Every time I listen to Jonathan's music, I get a big smile on my face. His music is happy music.

Jonathan's music has to be in my Top 50, no question about it.  But what record to include?  That's not any easy choice.

There are three distinct phases of Jonathan's music:

The punk phase where he played with a band called The Modern Lovers.  The seminal record from this period is the The Modern Lovers.

The next period is where he went solo and became a singer songwriter.  The seminal record from this period is Rock N Roll With.  That said, all the records from this period are fantastic.

The final interesting period for me is the early/mid 80s where he went even more cutsie and his material became more uneven.  There is one absolutely classic record from this period that The Gotham Gal and I love and that is Rockin and Romance.   This record is out of print, but the link is to Twin Tone's web site where you can buy a CD with the 1985 production master.  If you like Jonathan's music and don't have this record, go get the master.

Another problem is so much of Jonathan's music has been released in different compilations both here in the US and in Europe.  So there are great compilations, bootlegs, and live records that could easily make the Top 50.

But when its all said and done, I have to go with the original Modern Lovers record. 

With songs like Roadrunner, Girlfren, Pablo Picasso, Astral Plane, and lots more, this is a classic record by a one of kind master of modern music.

Welcome to the top 50 Jojo!

MP3 of the Week

Podcasting has been great in terms of finding new music.

A band that I am really enjoying as a result of podcasting is Meet The Day.

I sent them an email last week and asked if I could feature one of their songs on my MP3 of the Week post.  They said "sure" and sent me to Pure Volume to get their MP3s.

The song I like best is called A Smile Like Yours and its my MP3 of the Week.

Give it a listen.

Sondre Lerche (continued)

I've said it before, but I am going to say it again.

Sondre Lerche is one of the best new musicians out there.

I just spent the morning listening to the three CDs we have of his; Two Way Monologue, Faces Down, and Don't Be Shallow.

As one commenter on Amazon said, he is a "dreamy genious". 

His music is perfect for a rainy lazy Sunday morning, which is what it is in NYC today.

Give him a listen.  Unless you require your music loud and hard, I am certain you'll like it.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

My friend Mark Leavitt has been urging me to include the great film soundtrack to The Talking Head's Stop Making Sense in my Top 50.  That was a great concert film, possibly the second best concert film after The Last Waltz, which is in my Top 50.  The start to Stop Making Sense is simply brilliant theater and I never tire of seeing it.

But when it comes to the Talking Heads, there are a bunch of studio albums to consider.  The debut record, 77, is fantastic. Remain In Light and Speaking In Tongues are also truly great records.  And the rest of their records aren't too shabby either.

My pesonal favorite by a long shot is Speaking In Tongues. 

It reminds me of the time when the Gotham Gal and I moved to New York City in the summer of 1983. 

This was the soundtrack of our first real home and David Byrne's best song of all time, This Must Be The Place, was the theme song for that apartment.

So tonight David Byrne makes to top 50.

Ben Folds Does Dr Dre

I thought Ben Folds had lost his mind when he hooked up with William Shatner to do Has Been.

But now I am sure he's lost his mind with his recording of Dr Dre's classic foul mouthed rap opus called Bitches Ain't Shit.

Dr Dre's Chronic is on my top 50 list and its my favorite rap record of all time.  But it's also incredibly foul mouthed and vulgar.

As this is a PG-13 rated site, I am not going to post the MP3.  If you want to hear it, its available on iTunes, where its made it to the top 10 list in less than a week of its release.

But I will link to one of my favorite sites, CollegeHumor.com, where they have a video of Ben's live performance of the song. 

I am not sure if Ben Folds is a comedian or a musician.  And I am not sure it matters.

Catch My Disease

I've been sick for the past couple days and trying to pretend that I am not. 

I decided to acknowledge it and stay home and stop subjecting my coworkers to possible infection.

So with that as a backdrop, I give you Ben Lee's new song, Catch My Disease.

This is a great pop song. 

I particularly like the part about Good Charlotte, Sleepy Jackson, Beyonce, and Ben.

Give it a listen.

MP3 of the Week

I posted in the past about a UK band called The Dead 60s.

They are a ska funk band that has had a big hit in the UK called Riot Radio.

The Dead 60s are coming to the US on April 19th to open for Garbage at the Hammerstein.  I hope to go and see them.

Another great track from their debut record, which should be out shortly, is called The Last Resort.

It's my MP3 of the Week .

Bettie Serveert

Jackson and I went to see Bettie Serveert last night at the Bowery Ballroom.

I can still hear Carol van Dijk singing "untie the knot" in their epic song Leg which they closed their set with last night.

The show was great, but I most enjoyed their "old songs" as Carol called them.

The wrapped with Kids Allright which rocked the house.

My ears were ringing as we walked out into the snow at 2am.

Great show by a great band.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

Tonight is a special pick.

I've had this record on my short list for inclusion in the top 50 for months but have been waiting for the right moment to add it.

Tonite is the night because I am going to see them in concert for the first time.

The band is called Bettie Serveert and the record is their first album, Palomine.

The thing that makes Bettie Serveert special is singer Carol van Dijk.  As a commenter on Amazon said, "she has a great "lived-in" voice that sounds like she's been drinking whiskey and smoking cigarettes since she was age 3. it's so rough around the edges, yet so charming and adorably sweet."

There is a Velvet Underground influence for sure, but there is also a grunge influence in this record.  It was recorded in 1992/1993 afterall.

Here's another quote from Amazon, "I listen to palomine all the time to this day, and no matter how long it's been since I last heard this record, I still get that same feeling every time I hear it. It, quite simply, never gets old."

I feel the same way and that's why Palomine is on my Top 50 list.

More Cowbell

People talk about memes and I really don't know what that word means. 

But if there is a meme that I keep bumping into these days, its More Cowbell.

Inspired by the great Blue Oyster Cult song, Don't Fear The Reaper, Christoper Walken, Will Ferrell, Jimmy Fallon, and a host of other Saturday Night Live regulars came up with the greatest skit in the modern history of Saturday Night Live.  If you haven't seen this skit, you gotta click on the link and check it out.

Wilco's been covering the song for months, there's a great music blog called More Cowbell, and I got myself and a bunch of friends this great More Cowbell shirt at Busted Tees.

I got a fever and the only prescription is More Cowbell!

A Ghost Is Born (continued)

Wilco remains the coolest band around.

Today, they are making an EP of unreleased songs from the Ghost Is Born sessions available for free over the web to anyone who has the Ghost Is Born CD.

To be honest, I am trying to download them now and having some problems.  The site appears to be overloaded.  That in itself is a ringing endorsement of the idea.

But regardless, the idea of music as a subscription service is cool and I like that Wilco is using the web as a way to distribute music directly to their fans who own their record.

And in addition, Jeff Tweedy is joining Larry Lessig and Steven Johnson on April 7th here in NYC to discuss "Who Owns Culture?"

It's at the New York Public Library at 7pm.

Tickets go on sale Thursday, March 17 at 10 a.m via Smarttix.

I'll be there unless all of you beat me to the tickets!

UPDATE:  I got the downloads to work great this morning.  The site must have been swamped last night.

Meet The Day

This podcast stuff just keeps delivering the goods.

Today I was listening to Insomnia Radio's Double Shot podcast.

The show featured a band from Boston called Meet the Day.  They sound a bit like Dave Matthews with some Ben Harper thrown in for good measure.

If you can't be bothered to set up a podcasting client yet, just go to their website and listen to three of their songs that are broacast right from the main page.

My favorite song is called A Smile Like Yours.

Enjoy.

Luna's Last Show (continued)

Recorded the morning after Luna's last show, here is Mass Hysteria's Luna podcast.

It's a must listen for all the Luna fans who read this blog.

MP3 of the Week

I heard a great song on one of my new favorite podcasts this morning.

The podcast is called The Tragically Nameless Podcast and its put together by a teenager living in the midwest somewhere.  He plays good indie rock music and has some good laughts along the way.

He played a song by a band out of Austin Texas called Cruiserweight.  The song is called Goodbye Daily Sadness and its my MP3 of the Week.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

It's incredibly hard to follow up one of the all time most loved records with anything that can stand up to it.

Pink Floyd faced that challenge in 1975 when they released the follow up to one of the all time greatest records, Dark Side of the Moon.

What they produced is a 4 song concept record about their lost friend and bandmate Syd Barrett that is one of my all time favorite records, called Wish You Were Here.

If my list were 10 records instead of 50, this record might still make it.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Welcome To The Machine, Have A Cigar, Wish You Were Here, and then back to Shine On You Crazy Diamond.

I must have listened to this record 500 times in the past 30 years.  It is that great.

By the way, which one is Pink?

UPDATE: Russell emailed me a link to a cool live video of Shine On You Crazy Diamond.  Thanks Russell.

Podcast List

I've added a new list on the left column of this blog.

It's the podcasts I am listening to.

There are two on there now; Coverville and Insomniac Radio.  Both are really good.

As I listen to more over the next week, I'll be adding some more podcasts.

Luna's Last Show

I missed it but Jackson was there and blogged it.

Chromewaves also has a good piece on the end of Luna, one of the great Velvet Underground inspired alternative rock bands.

I never saw them live and I guess I never will.

MP3 of the Week

I suppose its not a surprise that I like Interpol.

If you look at this Liveplasma map, you'll see they are surrounded by new and old favorites of mine.

Plus they come out of the NY scene along with the Strokes and a host of other great bands.

Their second record, Antics, is really good which always says something about a band.

My favorite track on it is Narc with its Psychedlic Furs sounds.

And so Narc is my MP3 of the Week

Dead Zeppelin

Josh is into Led Zeppelin.  That's cool. 

So we decided to download some of their greatest songs (Rock and Roll, Whole Lotta Love, Black Dog, Heartbreaker, Immigrant Song) from iTunes.

Guess what?

You can't do that.  There are no Led Zeppelin songs on iTunes.

So I figured I'd check out music.msn.com.  Nope.  Not there.

What about Napster? Not there.

How about Rhapsody?  Not there either.

I guess Led Zeppelin doesn't believe in online music.

Well I guess I don't believe in paying for Led Zepplin's music either.

There are other places to get Led Zepplin's music online.

Idiots.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

I have not yet done any "best of" records.  And I have not done any "live albums".  And I haven't done any soundtracks.

Well its time to do all of that in one fell swoop.

The best rock movie I have ever seen, the best live album I have ever listened to, and the greatest "best of" record I own is one and the same.

It's called The Last Waltz.

I remember when I went to see it for the first time at the Eisenhower Hall movie theater at West Point in 1978, my junior year in high school.

I was blown away.  And I still am every time I listen to the record or watch the DVD.

Neil Young, Neil Diamond, The Staples Singers, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison etc, etc.

But its Levon Helm, Robby Roberston, and Rick Danko that make this record so amazing.

I love this record and always will and it joins my Top 50 tonite.

MP3 of the Week

Since I am laptop challenged right now and my music library is on my infected machine, I'll just link to a free music download instead.

Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes has recorded a song called "When the President Talks to God" and its available for free on iTunes.

It's very early Bob Dylan and a bit over the top, but the essential question has been rattling around my head too.

If you've ever wondered what transpires when the President talks to God, give this song a listen.

American Idiot (continued)

Readers of this blog know that I really dig this record.

I've blogged it a bunch of times and songs off the record have been my MP3 of the Week a couple times.

But I've never blogged it as well as Tom Watson does in this great post that makes me want to put the record on again.  Only its 6:25am in Colorado and the family is still asleep.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

A reader named Shant commented on my MP3 of the week post this week.

He said:

Killers are definitely a takeoff of the 80s Manchester scene. Certainly a Cure influence there, but if you watch their videos, the lead singer is definitely a Morrissey man.

Which leads me to wonder, can we ever expect a Smiths album in the Top 50?

Shant, you don't need to wait any longer.  I am adding two records to the Top 50 this week because I've been in a 80s Manchester mood this week.

The first is my favorite Cure record, Disintegration.  This was the beginning of the disintegration for the band, but its also their best record, combining the post-punk pop songs the band is known for and a darker, more brooding sound that was a sign of things to come. We listened to this record non stop when it came out in the summer of 1989.

The second is my favorites Smiths record, Strangeways.

This record came out in 1987 and it was in heavy rotation for a couple years after that.  The song Girlfriend In a Coma in particular reminds me of the late 80s every time I hear it.

Both records capture a time in our life and still get airtime in our house, and now they are on my Top 50.

Grammys

The Gotham Gal and I watched most of the Grammy's last night.

But Josh missed it as he had to go to bed early.

And since it's his birthday, we are watching the Tivo recording of the show tonight.

My highlights:

Joss Stone ducking the cameras when she was announced for her Grammy nomination.  She's still a kid after all.  And her Janis Joplin tribute too.  What a voice that girl has.  And we love that she sings barefoot. I hope stardom doesn't change her.

U2 singing Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own.  Bono and the Edge never fail to entertain me.

Green Day's performance of American Idiot.  It rocked and they rock!!!!

Kanye West's acceptance speech.  His ending was awesome, "Everyone wondered what I'd do if I didn't win.  Well I guess we'll never know".  You got that right Kanye.

Ellen DeGeneres's American Express ad.  I love her and the ad.

Freebird and Sweet Home Alabama. Yes, I grew up in the 70s.

And one thing that wasn't on the show - Wilco's first Grammy for Best Alternative Rock Album.  I suspect the fact that Wilco decided to honor an obligation to play a show in Birmingham, Alabama last night had something to do with being left out of the show.

Regardless, as Bono said, it was the best Grammy's I've seen in a long time.

MP3 of the Week

Every once in a while a record comes along that takes me back, time machine style, to a time that's come and gone.

So it is with The Killer's record, Hot Fuss.

This record takes me back to the late 80s when the Gotham Gal and I were married without kids and living in the east village.  We loved The Cure and listened to them all the time.

The Killers sounds so much like The Cure, particularly before they began their Disntegration.

The songs that have gotten the most airplay on this record are the Grammy nominated Somebody Told Me and Mr. Brightside, which is quickly moving to the top of the iTunes Top 10.

Stuck right between them on the record is my favorite track, Smile Like You Mean It. If you heard this song on the radio, you'd think it was The Cure.

So, Smile Like You Mean It is my MP3 of the Week.

I hope you like it.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

I was getting dressed yesterday morning and I heard Emily strumming her guitar.

The tune was so familiar and I found myself singing along:

Ziggy played guitar, jammin' good with Weird and Gilly,
The spiders from Mars, he played it left hand
But made it too far
Became the special man, then we were Ziggy's band

I went downstairs and peaked my head into Emily's room and she looked up and said, "I just love the sound of this song".

Well I do too Emily.

It's been hanging out on my short list for the past month and so now its time to put David Bowie's greatest record onto my Top 50.

I love Alladin Sane and Hunky Dory too, and who knows they might make it onto the list as well, but I never tire of listening to Ziggy.

The Killers

Thank god for kids with good taste in music.

Jessica and Emily told me to get the Killers' debut disc.

It's great.  The Smiths meet Oasis meets Franz Ferdinand.

Excellent stuff.

UPDATE: On second listen, I hear a lot of The Cure in this band too.

MP3 of the Week

I blogged about Conor Oberst's new record, I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, over the weekend. 

This record sounds like The Band and Uncle Tupelo with a little Bob Dylan thrown in.  And I am really digging it right now.

The first song that grabbed me on the record is called We Are Nowhere And It's Now and so its my MP3 of the Week.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

Ten years ago, The Gotham Gal and I were rockin' the suburbs in northern westchester with this record.  We had recently left the city in an attempt to become suburbanites. The attempt failed and we came back to NYC in 1999.

Oasis' Morning Glory was one of the records that provided the soundtrack for our life in the 'burbs.

This is the best record from a band that never quite lived up to its hype.  But what a great record this is.

I think Wonderwall is their best song, although I might like Champagne Supernova better.

The Gotham Gal loves Oasis and so do I.  And we never tire of this record.  And so it goes onto My Top 50.

Bright Eyes

I've been reading that Conor Oberst is the second coming of Bob Dylan for over five years.  We've bought three Bright Eyes discs in the past couple years; letting off the Happiness, Fevers and Mirrors, and Lifted ...

And yet we've never got into Bright Eyes.

His earnest, emotional delivery was too harsh for my ears. Just when I was enjoying the music, he'd start talking or screaming, and it would ruin the experience for me.

And then there's the fact that he just can't stop writing and putting out music. There are so many songs and so many records.  I always thought Conor needed an editor to package him better.

Well Conor's finally put out a disc that we really like. 

It's called I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning.

It has Jesse Harris on guitar and Emilylou Harris on backing vocals and its consistently good from start to finish.

In typical Bright Eyes fashion, the record starts out with a shocking story about a plane crash, but it quickly gets going with a great folk song called At The Bottom of Everything.

The next song, called We Are Nowhere And It's Now is the best song Conor Oberst has written to date.

The rest of the record is just as strong.  So if you, like me, have been looking to join the Conor Oberst train, this is the record to do it with.

UPDATE: Ryan commented that he likes the song Lua better than the ones I mentioned.  After a couple more listens, I think he may be right.  It's a great song.  I also really like why Conor does with Ode to Joy (which he calls Road to Joy).

Sondre Lerche

Emily's teacher Jeff recommended Sondra Lerche last fall to The Gotham Gal so she went on Amazon and got his 2002 disc titled Faces Down.

His music sounds to me like the Kinks meets Belle and Sebastian. And that's a pretty good combo.  If you like either of them or Kings of Convenience, you should get this album.

According the to rave reviews on Amazon, his 2004 disc titled Two Way Monologue is even better.

It's in my shopping basket at Amazon already.

MP3 of the Week

I put Green Day's American Idiot into heavy rotation on December 2nd last year and it has stayed there since.

I really love this album, every song on it.

Including the last song, called Whatsername. 

A bunch of records I like seem to be ending on a high note these days.  U2's How To Dismantle ends with Yahweh, my favorite song on that record. Eminem's Encore ends with Encore which is my favorite song on that record.

And so it is with American Idiot.  Whatsername is a great ending to a great record and its my MP3 of the Week.

Four Fellas (continued)

Well the boys made their debut on the stage last night to a packed house at the LREI Coffee House.

They were the fourth act to go onstage and their introduction brought loud cheers from the friendly crowd.

They'd done all of two rehearsals of their new song, Rock and Roll All Night, but they didn't seem to be concerned.  And they rocked the house.

That's Ben up front singing, Max on guitar, Josh banging the drums, Will in the back on keyboards, and Ethan (their coach and manager) on bass.

I sure hope there will be more gigs as they had a blast and so did we.

Has Been

My first "new music" discovery of the year is William Shatner and Ben Folds' awesome collaboration called Has Been.

Where do I start? The songs are great, Shatner's delivery (speaking more than singing) is just classic.  The lyrics are hysterical.  The guests on the record include Joe Jackson, Henry Rollins, Aimee Mann, Lemon Jelly, and Brad Paisly.

This is an immensly listenable record.

The Gotham Gal got turned on to this from her brother.  Thanks Jerry.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

When I first posted that I was going to put this list together, I got a ton of comments. One of the most popular bands in the comments was R.E.M., for obvious reasons.

R.E.M. is one of the great bands of my generation (that being people in their late 30s to early 50s). They put out great records from the early 80s to the mid 90s. They are making an effort at a comeback, but I am not holding my breath.

Their greatest album and a record that makes it into rotation in our house at least a couple times a month even now is Automatic For The People. It's not the driving rock and roll that they are most known for, but has their best songwriting on it.

The first four songs and the last three songs are all classics.  And the songs in between are geat too.

So this week Automatic For The People goes onto my Top 50 list.

Four Fellas

I came home from the girls basketball game last night and heard the familiar chords of Kiss' Rock and Roll All Night out front of the house.

I went up to Josh's room and heard them singing/shouting:

You drive us wild, we'll drive you crazy!

His band, The Four Fellas, were rehearsing for their first gig, which is tonite at the LREI Coffee House.

I can't wait to see them in action.

MP3 of the Week

Back in early December, I posted about Paul Westerberg's new record, Folker.

I put in heavy rotation then and it's stayed there ever since.  The record is raw and real and largely about life and death.  It's just Paul, in his basement with a guitar and some recording equipment.  And its wonderful.

My favorite song, and possibly one of Paul's best songs ever, is called Breathe Some New Life and its my MP3 of the week.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

Of all the albums recorded in the 60s, this is the one that feels the most like it could have been made yesterday.

Sure the great Dylan, Beatles, and Stones ablums still get rotation on my ears from time to time, but The Velvet Underground and Nico gets more.

Starting with the cool xylophone sounds on Sunday Morning and ending with the Wilco-esque noise of European Son, this album never fails to provide thrills and chills.

I particularly love the three Nico songs, Femme Fatale, All Tomorrow's Parties, and I'll Be Your Mirror.  Nico is what makes this album my favorite VU album. Her voice is so cool and german. And that's Andy Warhol's major contribution to this album.

I also think these are Lou Reed's best songs (with the possible exception of New York).

People say the album's too druggy and it sure is.  This record takes you right up to 125th to wait for the man or to Union Square with Margarita Passion.  And Heroin is certainly the most gripping and realistic drug song of all time.  A masterpiece in my opinion.  I never tire of hearing that song.

So there it is.  The Velvet Underground and Nico joins my Top 50.

33 1/3 (continued)

I blogged once before about this collection of short books about classic records.

I started out with Let It Be, by Colin Meloy, written about one of The Replacements' greatest records.

I got two more last week and polished them off this weekend.

The Velvet Underground and Nico is an amazing record. 

I still listen to it often, almost 40 years after it was made.

Joe Harvard does a great job of describing the people involved, how the record got made, and how the band's sound came together.

If you are a VU fan, I recommend this book.

Another 60s record that gets too little credit is The Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society.

My friend Pete VanVoast turned me onto the Kinks when we were in college and I've been a fan ever since.

This is their best record and this book by Andy Miller does a great job of describing how it got made.

I am going to get some more of these 33 1/3 books.  Amazon has them all.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

My blogging musician friend Peter Burakowksi (we've never met, but he's a relative of my friend Bob Struble and we've emailed and blogged a bunch) recommended that I include Radiohead's OK Computer on my Top 50 list.

I like OK Computer a lot and maybe it will get on my Top 50 list, but the Radiohead album I love the most is The Bends.

I never get tired of listening to this album.  It's just so damn good.

And I've been listening to it a lot in the past week.

So it goes onto my Top 50 list.

My Bloody Valentine

When I went back over the numerous comments to my Favorite 50 posts, I didn't find many discs that I hadn't heard before.

But one disc was mentioned three or four times, and I had never heard it.

It's a disc called Loveless by a band called My Bloody Valentine.

So I bought it at Amazon.  It came this week and I loaded it onto my digital music system and my iPod.

I am listening to Loveless for the first time as I write this.

It's a great record.  It sounds a bit like a mix of Gang of Four and Radiohead if you want something to compare it to.

I don't know if it can get enough listens over the next year to make it onto my Top 50 list, but I am sure glad I got this album.  I intend to give it some serious airtime.

MP3 of the Week

It's been a couple weeks since I posted my last MP3 of the week.  But it's back to the swing of things for me.

I blogged the Wilco/Flaming Lips show on New Year's.  Unfortunately I didn't get to see them live.

But thanks to the wonderful technology called Bit Torrent, I have been listening to the show for the past week.

The highlight for me was Wilco and The Lips teaming up for a rousing version of Thunderclap Newman's Something in the Air.

So that live version is my MP3 of the Week.

I apologize in advance for the slightly larger size of this file.  I usually encode them at 64kpbs but since this is live and the sound quality isn't fantastic to begin with, I encoded it at 128kpbs which take longer to load.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

I've gone back and read all of the comments to all of my "top 50" posts.  The huge amount of suggestions has been incredibly helpful.  They've reminded me of so many records/CDs that I love but don't listen to much anymore.

One that I came across and have been listening to again is The Stone Roses self-titled first album.  This is one of the best records ever made.  And the bizarre thing is that this band never amounted to much after this record.

But who cares.  It's brilliant.  The Gotham Gal and I used to listen to this record all the time.  We put it back in rotation and we could sing along with every song on the record after having not heard it in probably ten years.

So The Stone Roses get into the Top 50.

Musicplasma

My friend Steve Goldstein emailed me about MusicPlasma today.

It's totally cool.  You type in the name of a band, artist, musician, and you get a visual map of that artist's influences, who they sound like, etc.

It's not perfect by any means, but if you are looking for some new music, it's a good way to find some stuff you might like.

I Sure Wish I Had Been There

Wilco and The Flaming Lips played at Madison Square Garden on New Year's Eve.

When I heard about the show back in October, I knew I was going to miss something good.

But I just checked out the Wilco setlist and saw that among a host of covers, they did Judas Priest's Living After Midnight, Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear The Reaper, I Shall Be Released, and one of my all time favorite tunes, Thundercap Newman's Something In the Air.

Damn.  I downloaded the show on Bit Torrent.  I guess I'll have to live with that.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

Sometimes there’s an artist who produces albums of such quality that its impossible to prefer one from another.  And any one of them produces the exact experience you were seeking when you put it on.

For me Gillian Welch and her partner Dave Rawlins are in that category.  Gillian is one of many musicians that the Gotham Gal discovered for both of us.

Three discs of Gillian’s are favorites of ours; Soul Journey, Time (The Revelator), and Revival are all fantastic and “must listen” records in my book.

A friend of mine manages Gillian.  He feels that Time (The Revelator) is her best work.  And with songs like I Dream A Highway, and April the 14th on it, I must agree.  So Time (The Revelator) goes onto my 50 favoritre list.

Not many musicians are making such hauntingly beautiful music as Gillian and Dave right now.

Chronicles

I read a bunch of books on vacation.  They are listed on the right column of this blog.

One of the books was Bob Dylan’s Chronicles.

I can’t recommend it really.  It seems like he sat down one day and starting writing and when he was done, he published it.  Total stream of consciousness.  The Gotham Gal called it “one long run-on sentence”.

But there was some great stuff in there.  Jackson will dig the stuff about the work Bob did with Daniel Lanois in New Orleans making Oh Mercy.  It was a great illustration of the tension that exists between the producer and the artist.

The part I liked was where he stitched together all of his influences.  Music is like open source.  Whose code did Bob take and extend to create his own code?

Well it was Woody Guthrie first and foremost.  The stuff about Bob going out to the convalescent home in NJ where Woody was dying and play Woody his old songs was really touching. I am going to get some Woody Guthrie recordings.  I have always loved his songs and I don’t own any of them.

But there was also Robert Johnson.  And Dave Von Ronk.  And Jack Elliott.  Even Bertolt Brecht.

And from that came Bob Dylan.  An original.  And a genius.  Who has inspired a ton of musicians in turn.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

Inspired by the story of Colin Meloy, I am going to go back to my teenage years for my next top 50 record.  Though I don’t listen to heavy metal much anymore, it was the defining music of my teenage years.  Judas Priest, Scorpions, UFO, Van Halen, and plenty more.  But above all else reined Black Sabbath. The original Ozzie Osbourne-led Black Sabbath.

I was at Josh’s school music performance earlier this week.  There were great performances all around, including Josh’s loud, aggressive, and perfect drumming on Foxy Lady.  Near the end, a young guy came out and played Iron Man. Just one chord into that song and I knew exactly what he was going to play.

Black Sabbath’s music is etched indelibly into my brain.  And it has served as an inspiration for lots of other great musicians. The Replacements got started playing War Pigs and Iron Man in Bob and Tommy Stinson’s basement.  Uncle Tupelo often played Black Sabbath encores.

So, which record is it going to be?  There are some great ones to choose from.  For me, it comes down to Volume 4 with Snowblind and Supernaut or Paranoid with all the great classics.

Tough call, but the record I reached for to give Josh a taste of the music was Paranoid so it goes onto the Top 50 list.

Welcome Ozzy.

33 1/3

The Gotham Gal found these little books, short stories actually, that are based on great records.  This series of books is called 33 1/3.

I just polished off Let It Be, by Colin Meloy.  Colin Meloy grew up in Helena, Montana and loved alternative rock and roll music.  His favorite band was The Replacements.  They got him through his teenage years.  It’s a nice story, quick, and easy.

I am going to read more of these.

MP3 of the Week

Continuing in the holiday theme, started by last week's MP3 of the Week, I am going with the first song on Rilo Kiley's More Adventurous.

On this song, Jenny Lewis sings:

"I'm a holiday for hanging, I'm a holiday yeah"

By the end of this week, I'll be hanging on my own holiday. 

So the MP3 of the week is It's A Hit . 

Enjoy.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

It's friday night.  Time to add another record to my top 50 all-time list.

The Gotham Gal and I debated what should come next.

The Beatles' Rubber Soul?

Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville?

Jimmy Cliff's The Harder They Come Soundtrack?

Van Morrison's Moondance?

They will probably all make the list at some point.  I love every one of those records.

But it's time to put the Ramones on the list.

Rocket To Russia is their greatest record.

And my trip to Rockaway Beach last weekend sealed the deal.

Welcome to the Top 50 Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, and Tommy!

The Ten Best CDs of 2004 (continued)

The Gotham Gal responded to my post with her own top 10 list.

Not surprisingly her picks are damn close to mine.

But she also posted Josh's top 10. 

And points out that we have the same taste in music as an 8 year old kid.

That made my week.

The Ten Best CDs of 2004

My friend Cliff sent around an email last week to a group of his friends with his list of the best CDs of 2004.  It was a great list and I replied to him with my thoughts on his selections plus some of my own.  That inspired me to make this post.

The idea is to list my 10 favorite discs of this year.  I missed by one, and I have 11 on my list because I couldn't pick only 10 that I loved.  This list appears with album covers which are Amazon links on the lower left column of this blog.  I've moved the "Top 50 All Time List" which is still a work in progress to the lower right column.

Here we go, from best to almost best.

American Idiot, Green Day - Maybe the best rock record put out this century.  There isn't a bad song on the record.

Good News For People Who Love Bad News, Modest Mouse - This was number one for most of the year and would have been the winner if American Idiot hadn't shown up late in the year.  I hadn't heard of Modest Mouse until 2004 and now they are one of my favorite bands.

A Grand Don't Come For Free, The Streets - I was obsessed with this record for most of the summer.  I love The Street's music.  This, like American Idiot, is a concept record which is perfect for iPods and travelling when you can really listen.

Van Lear Rose, Loretta Lynn - This is a fantastic record.  Many people will put this record at the top of their lists this year.  The secret is Loretta's incredible songs and voice, combined with Jack White's production.

Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand - The best new band of the year.  Josh and I saw them live in September with Cliff and his kids.  That was a show to remember.  This record is great.  We'll see if they can follow it up with something as good.

More Adventurous, Rilo Kiley - Another band that I didn't know about before this year that has made it onto my favorite band list.  This was a breakthrough record for them and it's going to be on a lot of top 10 lists.

Transatlanticism, Death Cab for Cutie - Great band, great sound, great record.  It's easy to listen to.  The songs stick with you.  Plus, my girls like them too.

Encore, Eminem - Cliff thinks Jay Z is the best hip hop artist working today.  I think Eminem is.  And I think Encore is great.

Final Straw, Snow Patrol - We attended a party this summer and met a guy who recommended Snow Patrol and Keane's new records.  Both records are great and we listen to them a lot.  But I like Snow Patrol better so they make my top 10 list.

How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, U2 - It's softer than previous U2 records.  So what?  I love it.

Let Go, Nada Surf - I couldn't keep this record off my list because it was my favorite record for a good part of this spring.  I haven't listened to it recently, but I am going to change that today.

Some notable records that didn't make the list include Wilco's A Ghost Is Born, Keane's Hopes and Fears, Paul Westerberg's Folker, Kings of Convenience's Riot On An Empty Street, The Postal Service's Give Up, and Damien Rice's O.

I hope you all like this list.  If you are looking for a gift for a music lover this holiday season, any and all of these, including the ones that just missed, would be great choices.

Aging Punk Rockers

Aging punk rockers is clearly the theme of the day. 

I stopped by the Apple store in Soho on the way back from a meeting today.  If you haven't been to this store, it is disneyland for a guy like me.

I had to get some accessories for my iPod.  I got in line to check out and David Byrne is in line in front of me, buying essentially the same stuff I am buying plus some blank CDs so he can rip, mix, burn.

Beside the fact that David Byrne is one of the coolest people alive, and a great musician, and in his day one of the best punk rockers ever, he's a real person, who stands in line, carries a back pack, and buys his own stuff, and is a member of the iPod generation.

I thought for a second about snapping a picture, but decided that I don't want to be part of the snapperazi, one of the few digital trends that I don't particularly like.

That was a nice moment in an otherwise hectic day.

Folker

We got a ton of new music in the past month.  And it's all been on my Heavy Rotation list.  U2, Eminem, Green Day, Rilo Kiley, Badly Drawn Boy, etc.

We also got the new Paul Westerberg record but I didn't dig it when I first heard it and it hasn't been on my list.

But The Gotham Gal loves this record and she's been playing it every day.  And you know what? This record grows on you.  There is a lot of good songwriting and if you like Westerberg the whole record makes for easy listening.

But there are some gems on this record, Lookin' Up In Heaven, As Far As I Know, and a three song stretch near the end with What About Mine?, How Can You Like Him?, and Breath Some New Life which features Paul doing some killer guitar playing.

Killer punk rockers normally do not age this well.  And so this record goes into Heavy Rotation.

MP3 of the Week

The album of the week in our household has been Green Day's American Idiot so I am going to select a song off that disc for my MP3 of the Week.

It's a hard choice.  American Idiot, Jesus of Suburbia, Holiday, Blvd of Broken Dreams, Give Me Novacaine, and Extraordinary Girl would all be excellent candidates.

But nothing gets me going like that first guitar riff on Holiday.  Plus its the holiday season.  So Holiday is my MP3 of the Week.

Badly Drawn Boy

The Gotham Gal has had a hot hand on the airwaves today.

When I came down for breakfast, there was a song that I had never heard called Year of the Rat.   It's a great song and I went over to the crestron to check out who was singing it.

Badly Drawn Boy (aka Damon Gough) of course.

If you like Belle and Sebastian or Kings of Convenience, you'll dig Damon's music.

His new record is called One Plus One is One.

We've got two other Badly Drawn Boy records, Bewilderbeast and Have You Fed The Fish.  They are all great.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

This list is in danger of becoming a greatest hits list with London Calling, Joshua Tree, Kind of Blue, Nevermind, and Exile on Main Street. 

It's not supposed to be the best records of all time.  It's supposed to my favorite 50 albums. 

Now I don't feel like I've strayed from my mission which is to list my 50 favorite records, but maybe I've leaned toward to most obvious choices.

So it's time to reach deep down and come up with a record that's going to generate some controversy.

Tonight I came home from a long week at work and The Gotham Gal had one of my all time favorites on the airwaves.

Martin & Me is J. Mascis' version of going "unplugged" with his favorite Dinasour Jr tunes, and a few other songs like Carly Simon's Anticipation, Lynyrd Skynyrd's Every Mother's Son, and The Smiths' Boy With The Thorn In His Side.

I have always loved Dinasour Jr. and the reason is J. Mascis. He is among the best guitarists I've ever heard.

I could listen to this record every week for the rest of my life and never get tired of his raspy vocals and some of the most incredible acoustic guitar playing I have ever heard.

Thanks Jo - you get an assist for this one.

American Idiot

The opening and title song starts out "Don't wanna be an American idiot."  I knew instantly that I was going to love this record.  And I do.  It's certainly the best record that Green Day has made and it may be one of the best records that has come out this year.

Like all great records (London Calling, Joshua Tree, etc) the first four or five songs just get better and better.  It makes you listen to the whole record, which is becoming a lost art.

But make no mistake.  Green Day is a punk rock band and this is a punk rock record.

But it's also a rock opera, concept album, or whatever term you want to use.

If you like rock and can take driving punk from time to time, get this record.

Rilo Kiley

I love finding out about cool new bands.  Rilo Kiley fits that bill.

They've got an alternative/country/rock sound that is somewhere between Pavement and Bettie Serveert.

While the guitar playing is great, the thing that really does it for me is singer Jenny Lewis' vocals.  If I didn't know, I'd swear it was Carol van Dijk from Bettie Serveert, and I love Carol's vocals.

Here are a couple tracks from their best record, Execution of All Things.

Spectacular Views

With Arms Outstretched

Rilo Kiley also has a new album, More Adventurous, that made Amazon's Best of 2004 list, and that's how I found out about them.

I hope you like them.

My 50 Favorite Albums (continued)

I've taken my time adding another record to this list.  It is, as my brother Rod said in his comments, "a monumental task".  It is also, as my friend Bob said in his comments, " An age old effort, which never fails to satisfy".  I hope its more of the latter and less of the former for all of our sakes.

With that said, I am going to add a new album to the list every week until I get to 50 (albums not years!).  That should make it less "monumental" and more "satisfying", at least for me.

This week's addition, spurred on in part by U2's ubiquity on the public airwaves and on my private airwaves this week, is their finest album, The Joshua Tree.

I know that Ted and Tony have a preference for Unforgettable Fire, driven at least in part by U2's greatest song, Bad.  And Bob is a fan of Achtung Baby.  I like that record too and I also really like All That You Can't Leave Behind.

But The Joshua Tree is the U2 record I never can get enough of, like The Stones' Exile, and so that's why it ends up on my 50 favorite list.

MP3 of the Week

The thanksgiving holiday was an excellent opportunity to listen to a bunch of music.  The two albums that got by far the most airtime were Eminem's Encore, a favorite of the whole family, and U2's How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.

I can't choose between the two, so I am going to run with two MP3's of the Week this week.

From Encore, I've got to go with the title track and the last and best song on the record.  It's such a pleasure to hear Dr. Dre and Eminem go at it together with some help from 50 Cent.  Dr. Dre is hip hop's greatest talent and his two proteges do him justice on this one.

I also have to go with the last track on the U2 record, titled Yahweh .  Bono gets religious on us with this one.  When U2 does these anthem style ballads with the Edge's guitar cranking in and out, I can't resist.  Vertigo is getting the airtime right now, but I think Yahweh is the best song on this record.

Don't Fear The Reaper

I guess I am not the only one who is digging Wilco's cover of Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear The Repear.

Since appearing on their setlist at their Halloween show at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago, Wilco has played this song eight times and it appears that they've been ending the show with it for the past couple weeks.

Great Gift Idea

The Gotham Gal got me this great knit hat for the winter. 

The best part is it has mini speakers sewn into it and you plug it into the iPod or any portable music player.

What a great gift idea!

Music to Cook To

I don't cook.

But The Gotham Gal sure does.  If you are into food, you should read her blog.  Check out her thanksgiving stuffing recipe.  I'll be checking it out tomorrow!

My brother Ted, aka Jackson, cooks too.   He doesn't blog enough about food, but maybe he will start.  Maybe this post will be the inspiration.

I came across a new blog today by a friend Pete Burakowski.  Pete's a musician and generally up and coming talented guy from Buffalo, NY.

He has two posts that list music to cook to.  It's an album and a recipe, although he needs to beef up the recipe part.

My favorite is John Coltrane's A Love Supreme and sunday brunch.  Been there, done that.  And I intend to do it a whole lot more.

Your Audience is Your Collaborator

More thoughts on the Architecture of Participation on this rainy day before thanksgiving.

Tracy, a reader, sent me some quotes from Jeff Tweedy of Wilco that are so dead on that I want to blog them.  Here they are:

"A piece of art is not a loaf of bread. When someone steals a loaf of bread from the store, that's it. The loaf of bread is gone. When someone downloads a piece of music, it's just data until the listener puts that music back together with their own ears, their mind, their subjective experience. How they perceive your work changes your work. Treating your audience like thieves is absurd. Anyone who chooses to listen to our music is a collaborator."

Well said Jeff.

My 50 Favorite Albums

First, I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of recommendations in response to my Top 50 Albums post.  Please keep them coming.

Nothing yet from Tony Alva, other than his threat to stop reading this blog if I left out Exile on Main Street.  I did not, he has to keep reading, and I expect a longer comment than that from him.

Now for some explanations, prompted mostly from the comments.

This is my 50 favorite albums.  It's not the 50 greatest albums and its not the 50 most popular albums.  It is a living list in that it can change at any time and it doesn't have to have 50 on it.  And I am going to take my time building it.

It is limited to the album/CD format and honestly its also limited to "popular music".  As much as I enjoy classical and opera when others play it, I don't listen to that music enough to put any of it on my favorites list.

It may include comedy and spoken word.  I hadn't thought to include that, but now I might.

I hope that clears things up for those of you who were wondering.  Please keep coming with your recommendations.  I've got a lot of music to listen to now and that's a good thing.

MP3 of the Week

I talked this morning in my broadcatching post about my efforts to download Wilco's cover of Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear The Reaper.

I finished downloading, converting, and listening to it.

And now I am going to make it my MP3 of the week.

Top 50 All Time Albums (continued)

The Gotham Gal looked at my list and told me that I'd left out Nirvana's brilliant Nevermind. 

She's right and so it goes onto the list at my 11th choice.

Top 50 All Time Albums

I've seen a number of lists appearing in the blogworld.

Jackson has a nice post on the best live albums although it displays his constant disrepect for anything recorded post the mid 80s.

I have always like music lists.  This is the time of the year that the top albums of the year lists come out and I regularly find gems that I somehow missed.

But I also recognize that its hard to sit down and compile a list of top records without missing something important.

And I like the idea of dynamic lists that can change over time, like my In Heavy Rotation List.

So with that prelude, I am launching a new feature to this blog, called Top 50 All Time Albums.  It's a TypePad list, a feature that I really dig.

And it will not have 50 records on it for quite a while.  It could take as long as a year to build this list.  And I want recommendations.  I'll only take them if I agree with them, but I am sure we share a few favorites among us.

And I will change albums out over time as they no longer make my top 50.

The list is at the lower end of the left column.  I hope you enjoy it.

Old Habits Die Hard

We were listening to satellite radio this morning and a song came on that I'd heard a few times in the past week.  It was a duet between Mick Jagger and Sheryl Crow.  I looked up the song, artist, title info and the song name was Old Habits Die Hard and its on the Alfie sound track.

Jessica told me that Joss Stone sings a song with Mick Jagger on the sound track and I figured that can't be all bad, so I downloaded the record on iTunes and loaded it onto my iPod.

It was a moment of temporary insantity.  Because Mick Jagger hasn't done anything good since Some Girls in 1979, 25 years ago, the year I graduated from high school.  But old habits die hard.

This record, a collaboration with Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics, is  particularly bad.  Mick is just pathetic, singing bad ballads with insipid lyrics that make me want to puke.

Can this really be the same guy who sang Gimme Shelter, Let It Bleed, Stray Cat Blues, and Salt of the Earth?  It must be an imposter.  I can't deal with any other explanation.

As for Joss Stone, she's forced to do a sappy rendition of What's It All About Alfie which won't do much for her blossoming career.  But there is one highlight on an otherwise miserable record. 

Joss Stone and Nadirah "Nadz" do a duet called Wicked Time that reminds me of the Fugees or Lauryn Hill's solo record.  And Mick does some backing vocals on this track that are the only redeeming contribution to an otherwise sickening effort on his behalf.

MP3 of the Week

The new Eminem disc Encore has been at the top of my listening pile this past week.

There are a ton of good songs on the record.

My favorites are Crazy In Love, Like Toy Soldiers, Never Enough, Mosh, and Just Lose it.

The samples in Crazy In Love (Heart) and Toy Soldiers (Martika) are both great.

But my favorite track is Never Enough and so its my MP3 of the Week.

Shady's Back

"Shady's back, tell a friend."

So goes the start of the hit single, Just Loose It.

Eminem is certainly one of the most talented musical artists working today and his most recent effort, Encore, has been in heavy rotation this past week.

I think its another excellent effort from Marshall Mathers, aka Slim Shady, aka Eminem.  He's got Dr Dre producing again and help from 50 Cent and others.

If you like Eminem, you should get this record.

Sponge Rock

When my kids were young, we went to most every kids movie.  I saw them all.  Now that the girls are teens, we don't do that as much.  Josh loses out.  We try to take him alone to see Disney, Pixar, etc, but after sitting through ten years of that stuff, the Gotham Gal and I aren't dying to see another kid's movie.

So when we saw the trailer to The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie, we gave each other that look that said, "you're taking Josh to that one".

Well I take that back.  I'll take Josh because this movie has an incredible soundtrack featuring original songs from the likes of The Flaming Lips, Wilco, Ween, The Shins, and a host of other good bands.

I downloaded the Flaming Lips, Wilco, and Ween from iTunes yesterday.  The Lips haven't put out anything new in a while so just hearing something new from them was great.  The Wilco song is a fun kids tune.  My favorite is Ocean Man by Ween.

I've always loved Ween.

The Lone Star Cafe

Three blocks from where I live, at 13th Street and 5th Avenue, is the former home of the Lone Star Cafe. 

Today its a 24 hour convenience store, called 61 Convenience.  Oh how the mighty have fallen.

In its prime, it was a great place to see a live show.  And we saw a few amazing ones.

The one that I still remember was rockabilly great Robert Gordon.  What an amazing show that was.

I am in purgatory walking by that place every day and looking at the late night deli and thinking about what was.

Bring back the Lone Star!

MP3 of the Week

My newest discovery, The Kings of Convenience, have a great sound.   As I said in a previous post, they sound like a mix between Simon and Garfunkel and Belle and Sebastian.

Their most recent record is called Riot On An Empty Street and my favorite song on the album is Misread.

So it's my MP3 of the Week.

In Heavy Rotation

I've been thinking of what to do with the real estate on the left column where I had the electoral college images.  They came off on wednesday morning and I haven't put anything in their place.

Today, I decided to add a new section to this blog.   I call it "In Heavy Rotation."  It's the five CDs I am listening to the most right now.  Currently, I've got Eminem's Encore, Modest Mouse's Moon and Antartica, The Replacements' Please To Meet Me, The Clash's London Calling, and The Kings of Convenience's Riot On An Empty Street.

Thanks to Peter Burakowski for turning me on to The Kings of Convenience.  They are like Simon and Garfunkel meets Belle and Sebastian.  Great for a lazy saturday afternoon.  Which is what I am enjoying right now.

I hope you all enjoy "In Heavy Rotation".  The album cover images link to Amazon in case you want to purchase any of them.

London Calling

No this is not a threat to move to London in the wake of four more years of George W Bush, although I have read a number of blog posts threatining to do just that.

I went biking this morning and put London Calling on the iPod. It's been a while since I listened to this record.

London Calling is one of the all time great rock and roll records. Recorded the year I graduated from high school, this record has been with me for the past 25 years and still does it for me. Check out this song list:

1. London Calling
2. Brand New Cadillac
3. Jimmy Jazz
4. Hateful
5. Rudie Can't Fail
6. Spanish Bombs
7. Right Profile
8. Lost in the Supermarket
9. Clampdown
10. Guns of Brixton
11. Wrong 'Em Boyo
12. Death or Glory
13. Koka Kola
14. Card Cheat
15. Lover's Rock
16. Four Horsemen
17. I'm Not Down
18. Revolution Rock
19. Train in Vain

There is not a bad song on this record and at least 10 fantastic songs.

And those screams on the title track never fail to fire me up.

Plus it takes about an hour and fifteen minutes to listen start to finish. The perfect bike ride record!

MP3 of the Week

On the way back from the Jets/49ers game a couple weeks ago, I played the Franz Ferdinand disc for my brother Ted (aka Jackson). After a couple songs, he said to me, "this sounds like Gang of Four".

Hit the rewind button. 25 years ago - 1979 - the year I graduated from high school, The Gang of Four released their debut album, Entertainment!.

Since then, numerous important musicians have been influenced by this band and this record. To name a few; U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, and as Ted pointed out, Franz Ferdinand.

I've had Entertainment! on my iPod in heavy rotation since that trip home from the Jet's game two weeks ago and so my favorite track on the record, Not Great Men, is my MP3 of the week.

If you are a Franz Ferdinand fan, you'll hear the influences immediately.

The Sleepy Jackson

This could be a post about my brother Ted (aka Jackson) when he wakes up. But it’s not.

It’s about a band called The Sleepy Jackson that my sister-in-law Susan turned us on to.

We’ve been listening to them on and off for the past couple months. I put them on my iPod for the flight from LA to Pittsburgh, and decided to blog about them.

Here are the influences I hear; Velvet Underground (not surprising, it seems they are on everyone's influence list), Beatles, Wilco (or maybe Uncle Tupelo). There's even some David Bowie and Rolling Stones in there.

There’s a lot to like in this music. If you like new artists who package up sounds from the sixties and seventies, I think you’ll like this band. You can get their album Lovers at Amazon.

New Year's Eve at MSG

Just got an email from Wilco alerting me to the show at MSG this New Year's Eve.

Wilco, The Flaming Lips, and Sleater-Kinney.

Wow.

Makes me wish I was going to be in NYC.

But that's not happening.

If you are looking for something fun to do on New Year's, I highly recommend this show.

It should be great.

Internet pre-sale begins Monday, November 1 @ 10 a.m. EDT. Public on sale is Friday, November 5 @ 10 a.m. via ticketmaster.

MP3 of the Week

My new band of the week is The Dead 60s. Check out my prior post on them.

The other song I really like of theirs is You're Not The Law.

So it's my MP3 of the Week

The Dead 60s

We have a friend in the music business. He manages artists. He was over one night this week and told us of a trip he'd just made to Liverpool to meet a band he might want to manage. I asked him what made him do a 24 hour back and forth trip to Liverpool. He told me he heard their hit song and knew they had something special.

The band is called The Dead 60s and I spent some time this morning on the Internet and finally found their hit song Riot Radio available on Napster.

It's a great song. And sure to be a hit here in the states eventually. They've got another song called You're Not The Law which is also great.

They sound like the Clash with a little bit of the Specials thrown in for good measure. There are a number of young bands out of England that take their sound from the Clash. Another of my favorites are The Libertines.

Here is their hit single, Riot Radio, encoded at 64kbps. If you want to hear a high quality version, go get it legally on Napster.

Minneapolis

What was in the water in Minneapolis in the 80s? Some of the all time best alternative rock came out of there. If you read this blog regularly, you'll know of my obsession with the Replacements, recently rekindled by Steve Goldstein.

But there was more. Husker Du led by Bob Mould who went on to record some great stuff under various other names. Soul Asylum. Gear Daddies. This was the place to be in the early 80s if you liked alternative rock.

Well most of the guys who made this scene gathered last night in Minneapolis to raise money for the Soul Asylum guitarist Karl Mueller. I'll have to see if the show was recorded and is available in Bit Torrent.

How do I know about the show? Because Jackson clued me in to Bob Mould's blog.

Now that's something I've got to subscribe to. Bob Mould. What a musical genius he is.

MP3 of the Week

On Saturday morning Josh and I stopped off at the Grey Dog on the way to soccer. As we were eating our muffins, they were playing Belle & Sebastian, one of my all time favorites.

So I went back and listened to some of their older albums this weekend. My favorite is If You're Feeling Sinister and the best track on that record is Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying.

So it's my MP3 of the Week.

MP3 of the Week

I'm in love with that song.

Keane and Snow Patrol

This summer we were at a party at a friend's house and the Gotham Gal got to talking about the music we like with another guest at the party. After hearing that we like Death Cab, Franz Ferdinand, Coldplay, and others, he recommended two bands, Keane and Snow Patrol.

We went to Amazon bought the Hopes and Fears disc from Keane and the Final Straw disc from Snow Patrol.

Snow Patrol rocks out more. Keane's got more pop sensibility. Both are worth getting if you like the Coldplay/Death Cab style of music.

Emily and the Gotham Gal prefer Keane. Emily told me they played a couple songs from the Hopes and Fears disc on One Tree Hill this season. That doesn't surprise me.

Josh and I prefer Snow Patrol. They have an edge that Keane doesn't have.

Here's some links to iTunes songs from both records:

Keane (Emily's two favorite songs on the record)
Somewhere Only We Know
Everybody's Changing

Snow Patrol
Run
Spitting Games

Wilco

Jackson and I went to see Wilco at Radio City Music Hall last night. Since when did Wilco get big enough to sell out two shows at Radio City? Just this spring the Gotham Gal and I saw them at Irving Plaza.

Tweedy was clearly energized by playing in such a beautiful room. The show was great. The sound was also amazing. I've never heard Tweedy's acoustic guitar sound so loud and crisp.

The highlight of the night for me were the two 9/11 songs (strangely written long before 9/11), Jesus and Ashes of American Flags. He sung them back to back and dedicated them to the crowd and the city.

Here's the setlist for any Wilco fans who want to see the whole show.

Another highlight was Kingpin, a song off of Being There that I've never heard played live.

The last two songs were political statements, War on War and Be Not So Fearful. Before both songs, Tweedy encouraged everyone to vote and to vote against the current adminstration. No argument there.

MP3 of the Week

I've been listening to the Magnetic Fields all weekend since reading the Nonesuch article.

So my MP3 of the Week is from the 69 Love Songs album.

A great tune called I Think I Need A New Heart.

The Magnetic Fields

There is a good article in the Sunday NY Times Magazine section on Bob Hurwitz' Nonesuch Records.

This is a rare record label where you can trust the quality of the music based on the label that puts it out. Nonesuch's artists include one of my favorites, Wilco, and other greats like David Byrne, Caetano Veloso, Laurie Anderson, Kronos Quartet, Brian Wilson, Orchestra Baobab, Ry Cooder, and plenty of other incrdible artists.

One of the coolest things about this label is their deal with Carnegie Hall where Nonesuch artists perform at Carnegie's Zankel Hall. It's called Nonesuch at Carnegie.

As I was reading the New York Times article, I realized that we really liked one of the Nonesuch artists called Magnetic Fields. We have one disk of theirs called 69 Love Songs. We bought the record about five years ago and it was on our CD player for about a year before it slowly worked its way off our playlist.

I went back to that record yesterday afternoon and it's great. Many of the songs are catcy pop tunes, but it also works as great background music. I bought their new disc called I and I'll let you know what I think.

The Replacements (continued)

Jackson is right. Don't Tell A Soul may be the best Replacements record.

Back in the 80s, when these guys were all over my turntable (that's right, they were vinyl guys for me), it was Let It Be, Tim, and Pleased To Meet Me that did it best.

But as I've immersed myself in The Replacements over the past week, the record I keep coming back to is Don't Tell A Soul.

It has aged better. It's a real Talent Show.

Encore

Eminem has a new album coming out called Encore, produced again by Dr Dre. It's not even up on Amazon yet. I have to get my hands on it. This guy is brilliant. And he's writing about some interesting stuff.

Punk

Jackson has a nice short post on the history of punk rock. It's a good read as I listen to The Replacements sing Gary's Got A Boner. I love that driving energy that punk injected into the rock and roll playbook.

MP3 of the Week

My brother Ted, aka Jackson, dropped off the CD he and his buddy Chris have been working on.

We've listened to it a few times and we like the disc. I think, like all records these days, that it has 4-5 songs too many on it. The vinyl album was a better medium because it forced artists to put out fewer songs and the result was a higher standard of excellence.

But back to the record, called Brain Shivers. There are a bunch of tracks we like, but our favorite is called Self Control.

As Emily put it, the music on Self Control is really good, but the song gets too repetitive at the end. "Tell Ted to add another verse or two at the end and it will be better". So I am doing that with this post and also making it my MP3 of the Week.

The Replacements

It's been a while since I put on a Replacements album. And that's gonna change because my friend Steve sent me a Wilco cover of the brilliant Color Me Impressed off of the Hootenanny album. And its got me in the mood to listen to The Replacements again.

There are three albums recorded in the mid 80s that belong in every rock music collection. They are, in chronilogical order, Let It Be, Tim, and Pleased To Meet Me.

The stuff they did before these records was garange punk and the stuff they put out after these records was missing the essential edge of the band. But even that stuff is pretty good.

The genius behind The Replacements is Paul Westerberg. He is among the best rock and roll songwriters of all time. His songs have this amazing way of combining the driving energy that defines great rock with an emotional side that makes the music mean something more.

Paul is still making music as a solo act. His solo records aren't nearly as great as the best of The Replacements, but I did really like Stereo, and a few others aren't bad either.

But I am going back to the 80s and listen to the great ones.

MP3 of the Week

Considering my newfound obsession with My Morning Jacket, it should be no surprise that my MP3 of the week is from their most recent record, It Still Moves.

But which song? My three favorite tracks are the opener Mahgeetah, Golden, and One Big Holiday.

As I sit here listening, Golden comes out on top. So it's my MP3 of the Week.

My Morning Jacket

How come nobody told me about this band? They are great.

About six months ago, my friend Steve gave me a mixed disc that his friend Mark made up.

Here is the playlist.

This is an amazing mix. I was already into Neil Young, Elvis Costello, The Flaming Lips, The Smiths, Nina Simone, The White Stripes, Joe Strummer, and I had just gotten the Franz Ferdinand disc.

But there were three bands on this mix that I hadn't heard before and upon hearding them had to find out about immediately; Modest Mouse, My Morning Jacket, and The Shins.

You've heard me rant and rave about Modest Mouse already.

But now I am doing the same about My Morning Jacket. It's hard to describe, but if you combined The Flaming Lips, Wilco, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, you'd get My Morning Jacket. I have only listened to It Still Moves. I just got At Dawn which one commenter on Amazon called Neil Young meets The Flaming Lips. Can't beat that.

Here's One Big Holiday. The guitar solo at the end reminds me so much of Freebird or one of great Allman Brothers jams.

Bye Bye Johnny

Johnny Ramone died wednesday afternoon in his sleep after a five year battle with prostrate cancer.

Jackson did him right with his post, so I'll just send you all there.

How am I going to break the news to Josh?

UPDATE: I broke the news to Josh and he was OK with it, but he wanted to know why only the drummers didn't die. He's a drummer, btw.

Also, Tom Watson has another great post on Johnny. Man were these guys loved.

MP3 of the Week

We are taking the whole family to Summerstage Monday night to see Jack Johnson.

The first time I heard Jack Johnson was on G Love's Philadelphonic when Jack sung Rodeo Clowns.

But it wasn't until WEHM started playing Flake non-stop in the summer of 2002 that we got really into Jack's music.

That whole album, Brushfire Fairytales, is great.

He has this great folky groovy sound that fits perfectly with his beach bum, surfer, background.

My favorite track on his new (and second) album is Wasting Time and so its my MP3 of the Week.

Joss Stone (continued)

Almost a year ago, in one of my first posts, I wrote about hearing Joss Stone's Soul Sessions disc for the first time. I was blown away by her voice.

That post continues to get comments and at one time was the top page on Google's "Joss Stone" search term. That's long gone, mainly because she has risen from a nobody to a star in one year.

We continue to be big fans of Joss and this week we got the twin benefit of getting a preview of her new album, Mind, Body & Soul, and seeing her in concert.

Actually it was the Gotham Gal and the girls who went to see Joss, while Josh and I went to see Franz Ferdinand.

Apparently Joss was great in concert. I am sorry I missed that.

But I've had a chance to listen to Mind, Body and Soul a few times now.

The first five songs are really great. The album opens with Right To Be Wrong and Jet Lag, my two favorite songs on the record. Then two out of the next three are the singles, You Had Me and Don't Cha Wanna Ride.

The record is a lot more commerical than Soul Sessions and I don't like it quite as much, particularly the second half which feels very run of the mill.

But for those of you who loved Soul Sessions, I think you should absolutely get this record.

As I've said in prior posts about Joss, this girl can flat out sing.

Franz Ferdinand

Part Talking Heads, part New Order, part driving punk, exploding out of Scotland comes Franz Ferdinand.

Josh and I went to see them last night at Roseland with some friends.

They were great. Tight, loud, and fun.

They played pretty much the entire record and it was all great.

The highlight was the final encore - This Fire.

The place was going crazy and so were we.

MP3 of the Week

Earlier this week, we were hanging out with some friends at their house on Shelter Island.

Our friend is a great guitar, banjo, mandolin player and he had another friend who can sing like no get out.

They got going after dinner and did a fantastic rendition of The Everly Brothers' "Love Hurts".

When I was a teenager, I didn't know this song was an Everly Brothers' song.

The rendition of this song I heard first and loved was from a band called Nazareth. I still can't get enough of that song.

But Gram Parsons and Emmy Lou Harris do a version that was clearly the inspiration for the version that our friends played last week.

So I am going with that one as my MP3 of the Week.

MSN Music

I went and bought some music at the MSN Music Store today.

In case you are interested, it was Lean Back by Terror Squad. My kids love that song and I have to admit, its pretty fun to listen to.

Anway, the experience left me a little empty. First, I had to become a .NET Passport user. That sucks. I am not particularly interested in doing that. Second, there was nothing new at the MSN Music Store that I haven't been getting from iTunes for over a year.

I did like the browser based interface at some level. It feels more open and standard, but also its not integrated with my music player and since I still run Win 2000, I can't get Windows Media Player 10 to work on my laptop.

The worst thing is the music comes down in Microsoft's proprietary WMA format. I bet that means I can't play it on my iPod. No way am I going to get a new portable music player just to use Microsoft's store.

Brian Cooley at ZDNet thinks its just a matter of time before Microsoft wins the digital music store battle. I am not so sure about that.

The Unwelcome Guest

I woke up this morning to this picture on the front page of the New York Times.

It reminded me of why I am not in my hometown this week.

Because its been highjacked by an Unwelcome Guest who in a cynical attempt to wrap his re-election campaign in the cloak of 9/11 has taken possession of a city whose values stand in stark contrast to his own.

And so for my MP3 of the week, I reached for the man of the people, Woody Guthry, who wrote a moving song about fighting the rich and powerful called The Unwelcome Guest. This version is sung by Billy Bragg and Jeff Tweedy and appears on the first Mermaid Avenue record.

Golden Smog

We went to see Golden Smog at the Bowery Ballroom last night. This is a "supergroup" featuring members of The Jayhawks, Soul Asylum, and sometimes Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. Last night they played without Jeff but had a number of good stand-ins.

I wish The Jayhawks were as fun in concert as Golden Smog. Something about this lineup brings out the best in Gary Louris. They clearly have a lot of fun up on the stage and it makes for a more entertaining concert.

They played most of the songs on their two albums, but the highlight of the night were the covers.

The best was a fantastic rendition of The Talking Heads' Life During Wartime which mid-song turned into Carly Simon's You're So Vain.

Great Stuff.

MP3 of the Week

Golden Smog is a supergroup featuring members of The Jayhawks, Soul Asylum, and Wilco.

They are playing at Bowery Ballroom tonight and I am going with a friend.

I am looking forward to seeing them.

So my MP3 of the week is Golden Smog's Looking Forward To Seeing You.

MP3 of the Week

I try to go to see live music as much as I can. There's no better way to get to know a band, its music, its repertoire, and its musicians.

Last week we went to see Modest Mouse. We only knew one album, the terrific Good News for People Who Like Bad News, which in my mind is certainly one of best album of 2004 so far.

The band played a lot of songs that I really liked but hadn't heard before. So I went searching around the Internet for a set list which I never found. But along the way, I came across a bootleg CD that the band sells off their website called Baron Von Bullshit Rides Again. It's a live recording of a show earlier this year. And it has most of the songs that they played at the show we went to last week. So I bought it.

It's really great. Live versions of songs like Paper Thin Walls, 3rd Planet, Bankrupt on Selling, and the massive Doin' The Cockroach are on it.

One of my favorites is Broke. So its my MP3 of the Week.

Lucinda

We went to see Lucinda Williams again last night at Summerstage.

Wow. What a woman. And such great songs.

Modest Mouse Live

The Gotham Gal and I went to see Modest Mouse at the Hammerstein Ballroom last night.

We went because we love the new album, Good News For People Who Love Bad News.

As with many shows we see, this was eye opening.

This band rocks hard in sort of punk/grunge way, but they do it with some very different instruments. There's a cello up front and lead singer Isaac Brock plays a banjo a fair amount.

Isaac Brock is a piece of work. He sings on Bukowski, "God who'd wanna be such an asshole?" Which seems funny to me, because he sure seems like one up on stage.

There were a bunch of great songs that I've never heard. I'll have to find the set list or even better, go back and get all the old albums.

The Basement Tapes

Those of you who are Bob Dylan and The Band fans have surely listened to The Basement Tapes. I have always loved the feel of those recordings. The songs are easy, the band is having fun, and it makes for a great listen.

I wish more basement tapes were available. I don’t really understand why there should be one “definitive” version of a song. But that’s usually the way it is unless we are talking about hip-hop where they do a number of mixes for commercial distribution.

One of the real possibilities of digital music distribution is that artists can sell more music and more versions of the songs they record.

I am listening to the demo tapes from Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot record. I found them on the Internet available via Bit Torrent. I read a review of them in Popmatters and then just did a Google search and found them. It was simple.

It’s a great set of songs. Many are different, and sometimes better, versions than what’s available on the record. Many are songs that didn’t make it on the record. I’d have easily paid another $10 for this set of songs but nobody is making them available commercially so I’ll just get them for free.

Imagine if every artist was able to offer a much larger library of music than they currently offer. Sure the record label isn’t likely to spend a lot of marketing dollars against anything other than the final version of the record. But for those fans who want more, they could make it easy to buy more music and make more money for everyone involved.

MP3 of the Week

Jeff Tweedy of Wilco and Gary Louris of The Jayhawks front a wonderful group that is called Golden Smog. They've recorded a couple records and the one to get is called Weird Tales.

My favorite song on Weird Tales is a Woodie Guthry-style folk song written and sung by Jeff Tweedy called Please Tell My Brother. It's a song about family. Since I am about to spend a week with my parents and one of my brothers and his girlfriend, I thought it would be a good choice for MP3 of the week.

MP3 of the Week

I spent the weekend at the beach. It was a great beach weekend.

Now I am back in the city. It's hot, humid, and code Orange here in NYC.

To make matters worse, the Gotham Gal did the smart thing and stayed on the beach.

So my mind is On The Beach.

And so my MP3 of the Week is On The Beach by Neil Young, from his brilliant album of the same name.

As Neil says so poignantly, "I think I'll head out of town".

So I'll be blogging from the road this week, in DC and LA.

EXTRA: Jackson blogs the entire record. Seems like we were listening to the same thing last weekend.

The Streets (Continued)

Max commented in my original post on The Streets. He said, "i like the first cd, original pirate material, a lot more. better melodies. better stories. have you listened to it?"

Well I hadn't.

But I went straight to Amazon and got Original Pirate Material.

Max is right that the melodies are better. I don't know if I like Original Pirate Material better than A Grand Don't Come For Free. But its great and I know its going to be on my iPod a lot in the next couple weeks.

Great CD, Great Cause

Those who regularly read my blog posts on music know that I love the following bands/artists:

Death Cab For Cutie
Ben Kweller
R.E.M.
Bright Eyes
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Fountains of Wayne
Nada Surf
The Flaming Lips
Tom Waits

Well guess what? My brother Ted, aka Jackson, just pointed me to a great CD compilation featuring all of these artists and more doing political protest songs.

You can get it right now by making a $25 contribution to MoveOn.org. I just did.

Check it out.

MP3 of the Week

As popMatters says about The Streets' A Grand Don't Come For Free, "Mike Skinner is now in a class all his own; nobody else is making music like this."

I can't stop listening to this album so my MP3 of the Week comes from it. The seventh song, about admiring a girl who admires herself, is called Fit But You Know It. Give it a listen.

MP3 of the Week

I just realized its Monday and therefore time for MP3 of the week.

I've been travelling a bunch and must have lost sight of my weekly routine.

I haven't had much time to think about this one, but since its been almost three weeks since I've seen my eight year old son Josh, who is at camp this summer, I think I'll go with his favorite song right before he left for camp.

It's Franz Ferdinand's Jacqueline

The song's best line:

"It's always better at holiday, that's why we only work when we need the money!"

MP3 of the Week

One of my top 10 all time songs is Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill. When I first heard it when I was in college, it inspired me to step away from all my comfort zones, to reach out, explore, and grow. Even today, 20 years later, I still get chills when I heard it.

So when I used Bit Torrent to get Dave Matthews' performance at Bonaroo in June of this year, I was hit hard by his rendition of Solsbury Hill. He uses some kind of computer synthesizer on his vocals. It's a great rendition and its my MP3 of the week.

The Streets

I've been reading about Mike Skinner, the British cockney rapper for the past year. He's got a new album called a grand don't come for free. So I figured it was time to see what all the buzz was about.

I bought the album (you have to listen to the whole album) and synched my iPod and went for a bike ride up the west side to the George Washington Bridge this morning.

In about five minutes I was nowhere near the west side of Manhattan. I was in Mike's girl's london flat roaching a spliff and sitting on the sofa watching the TV with his girl.

All great art does this. It takes you to another place and you can feel what it's like to be there.

But there's more. There's this whole thing going on throughout the record with Mike's need for a thousand pounds. And there's also this hilarious stuff about his TV that doesn't work. In the end, it's all cleared up. It's a short story with each song a chapter.

What does the music sound like? Well Mike's a cockney Eminem and the music reminds me of Badly Drawn Boy.

This record's not for everyone. The Gotham Gal doesn't dig it. But I do. And you might too.

MP3 of the Week

I was talking to a friend at lunch the other day about the National Anthem. I read somewhere recently that there is a movement afoot to lower the key in which the song is sung to make it easier to sing and more pleasing to the ear. I don't know if that's a good idea or not, but one thing is for sure, its a song that is usually sung badly.

I think the best way to sing it is to do something really different with it. Jimi Hendrix' Woodstock treatment is the classic case of that.

All that said, my personal favorite is Marvin Gaye's rendition and that is my MP3 of the week in honor of our nation's 228th birthday.

Van Lear Rose (continued)

You all have heard me sing the praises of Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose record.

Metacritic gives this record a 95 rating which is the highest rating this year and the second highest ever.

I guess others share my view.

MP3 of the Week

For all of you Charles Bukowski fans out there (I know of at least one), here is a song called Bukowski from the most recent Modest Mouse record.

As I've said in a number of other posts. This Modest Mouse record is really good.

metacritic

The Internet is a great place to check out what people think of music, movies, books, DVDs, videogames, restaurants, hotels, etc.

The best place I've found to do this kind of work is metacritic. They take real reviews, apply a numerical value to them, and then aggregate them into a single score that they call a metascore. They also show a short summary of the reviews sorted by the metascores.

It's brilliant. You want to see the worst review. Just go read the review with the lowest metascore.

I love it. I just wish they'd cover more than film, music, and videogames.

Lollapalooza Cancelled

I read this news on Chromewaves.

I was really looking forward to this year's show at Randalls Island in NYC in August. The Flaming Lips, Wilco, Morrissey, Modest Mouse, Broken Social Scene and a host of other good bands made it a must see.

I wonder if all these bands will now try to tour this summer in some other way. Let me know if you hear anything.

A Ghost Is Born (Continued)

A Ghost Is Born came out yesterday. If you are a Wilco fan, then you must get this album. If you aren't or you don't know if you are, then I suggest you go get Rhapsody and listen to it, or download a few songs from iTunes.

My favorite songs are Hummingbird, Theologians, Company In My Back, and At Least That's What You Said.

Thanks to the Internet, I've been listening to this album since April.

I dowloaded the entire record over the Internet in May.

I downloaded the tour opening concert via Bit Torrents in late May.

I bought two tickets to their show at Irving Plaza on eBay in early June.

And I downloaded that show via Bit Torrents two days later.

So I've been listening to this record for a while now. And it's great.

If you are wondering, I bought the CD on Amazon yesterday. Just because I own it already in digital form, I still feel like I have to pay for it at some point. I just wish the record labels would get that fact that when its out, its out, and stop this silly game of holding it back. I think they are losing money by doing that.

MP3 of the Week

The best collaboration in the music business this year comes from Loretta Lynn and Jack White.

The album is called Van Lear Rose.

The songs are all great, but my favorite is The Story Of My Life.

MP3 of the Week

Here's Ben Kweller playing a song called Commerce, Texas at the Laga Club in Pittsburgh.

This show also features Death Cab for Cutie and was the last show ever played at the Laga Club.

Two Great New Albums

I was flying through my RSS feeds and stopped at the iTunes Music Store's Top 10 Albums List (yes, Apple send me that via RSS).

On the list are two of my favorite albums right now. Franz Ferndinand and Modest Mouse

The links are to the iTunes Music Store because Apple sent me the feed.

Wilco at Irving Plaza

I scored two tickets on eBay and the Gotham Gal and I went to see Wilco at Irving Plaza tonite.

The band was great. The songs are great.

But what I really want to say is that Jeff Tweedy is a genius. He's up there with the great rock/folk musicians like Neil Young and Bob Dylan. Singer/songwriter/guitar player - he's the complete package.

Here's a an example of what we heard tonite.

MP3 of the Week

Inspired by Burned By The Sun, I am going to post an MP3 file every week. Ironically, Burned By The Sun doesn't do it anymore. So, I'll continue the tradition.

In memory of all the soldiers we've lost in Iraq, here is "When The Roses Bloom Again" as sung by Jeff Tweedy at Wilco's opening concert on May 19, 2004 at Otto's in DeKalb, IL.

Modest Mouse

My friend Steve's friend Mark made a CD mix that had a song called Float On from Modest Mouse on it. I loved that song the instant i heard it. It was the only song on the Mixed CD that really stuck with me.

So I finally got around to listening to Modest Mouse on Rhapsody today. Wow. These guys are great. I have to go out and get their new album.

Franz Ferdinand

This band reminds me of a lot of the bands I used to listen to in the mid-80s.

They’ve got a great sound and the song "Take Me Out" is a total romp.

I am surprised it isn’t a big radio hit.

I first found this album on Burned By The Sun.

Ben Kweller

This guy is great. We saw him live in New Orleans and i've been into his two discs big time ever since.

The PopMatters blog has a great interview with him up right now.

A Ghost Is Born (Continued)

I just read this review of the first concert of the Wilco tour. I've got to scrounge up some tickets to the June 8th show.

Oldies But Goodies

I read today's New York Times story on Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Randy Johnson. The headline is "Owning the Hill, Instead of Being Over It".

Then i headed out the door for my ten minute walk to work. I put on my iPod headphones and tuned into Patti Smith's Trampin'. I read about this new disc on Tom Watson's blog earlier this week. Tom's right, this is a great effort by Patti Smith.

About half way up Fifth Avenue, i realized that there's another "Older is Better" story to tell. Some of the best music in the past year has come from women who are a long way from the Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Avril Lavigne crew, both in terms of age and quality of work. I'd put 50-year olds Patti Smith, Bonnie Raitt, and Lucinda Williams, and a 70-year old Loretta Lynn on this list. There are probably a few others that should be on the list as well.

SummerStage

New York's Central Park is an amazing place. Behind every hill, there is something magical.

One of the best things about Central Park is the free concerts they host at SummerStage.

They kicked off the season last night with a benefit concert (ie not free) to raise money for this year's program.

The featured band was The Strokes.

We had a great night with clear blue skies. We went with the whole family, had a picnic, and listened to some great rock music under the stars.

The Strokes are a lot of fun. These guys met at the Dwight School in NYC in the mid-90s and have put together a great rock band. They are two guitars that create a wall of sound, a solid bass and drum rythm section, and a lead singer, Julian Casablancas, who has a great voice and is a natural on stage. That's it.

We left a bit early because the kids have school today. But the crowd was digging it and we were too.

For thos of you who haven't heard the band, here is one of my favorite songs, 12:51.

Van Lear Rose

If you like country music, get this album.

If you like the White Stripes, get this album.

If you are like me and like country music and the White Stripes, get this album now.

The Gotham Gal found this album on Amazon and I am sure glad she did.

The songs are great and were all written by Loretta Lynn. The almbum was produced by Jack White of the White Stripes. Jack also plays plenty of his signature guitar on this album. But in the end, this is a classic country music album showcasing the incredible talents of a 70-year old coal miner's daughter, Loretta Lynn.

A Ghost Is Born (Continued)

I've been eagerly awaiting the release of Wilco's new album, A Ghost Is Born.

It will be released on June 22nd, but you can do like I did and pre-order it at Amazon.

Then I heard that Wilco is playing at Irving Plaza on June 8th.

So I figured I'd better get a preview of the new album before the show.

Which was easy enough to do on the Internet. I don't really know why music labels wait to release an album if you can get it online for free. I'd rather pay Amazon or iTunes and get it legally, but the waiting thing is just nuts.

Anyway, the album has some highpoints, but all in all will not likely be as commercially successful as the amazing Summer Teeth and the popular Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

It seems the band has decided to lose the electronic experimentation. And i think they've been listening to a lot of Jimi Hendrix. The distorted guitar solos on At Least That's What You Said and Spiders (Kidsmoke) will make for great live music, but will in all liklihood be a turnoff to the mainstream listener. Spiders is over 10 minutes long and I am not sure many will get past the third song before taking it off the CD player.

But I'm a Wilco fan and I like the album. I particularly like the first song, At Least That Is What You Said, and the tenth song, Theologians.

The only bummer is the Irving Plaza show sold out in an hour this afternoon and I was at a baseball game with Josh. So I've got to scrounge up some tickets.

Transatlanticism

While not technically new (it came out last October), I can't get this album off my iTunes/iPod, my Rhapsody, and my Audio Request system. It's really great.

Rhapsody

It was sometime in 1998 when my friend Rob Reid came into my office and told me about the new company he was starting. It was called Listen.com and he was going to develop an Internet service that would allow consumers to listen to any song they wanted at any time - all delivered over the Internet.

I thought it was a really good idea, but I had my doubts that he would get the record labels to cooperate. We were having a terrible time at Reciprocal getting the labels to do anything online with their music.

But Rob wasn’t daunted. And he got it done. Listen.com launched Rhapsody in 2002 and it has become a great service. Rob’s company was sold to Real that year and under Real, Rhapsody has continued to develop and add more music.

At this point, there isn’t much you can’t listen to on Rhapsody. I gave my brother Rod a subscription to Rhapsody for a holiday gift in 2002 and he is addicted to it. He came out of his own pocket to renew it. In fact, he just commented on one of my posts that I should get Rhapsody.

My friend Cliff swears by it too. He always checks out new bands he hears about on Rhapsody.

So I bought a one year subscription today. My only complaint so far is I can’t use it on the airplane. I guess that’s what iTunes and the iPod are for. Wouldn’t it be great if they combined Rhapsody and iTunes?

Ben Kweller and Death Cab For Cutie

We saw a great show at Howlin' Wolf last night. Ben Kweller opened for Death Cab For Cutie. Both were fantastic. We bought Ben's Sha Sha disc when it came out in 2002 and liked it. After last night, we'll have to go out and get his new disck, On My Way.

But the highlight of the evening was Death Cab for Cutie. These guys are great. We have The Postal Service disc that i blogged about a couple months ago which features the lead singer from Death Cab. We are going to have to get everything they've put out. They are really that good.

NY Dolls Reunion?

Just in from Burned By The Sun:

New York Dolls Rumors Fleshed Out
So, the Boston Globe reports that the New York Dolls are reuniting for Morrissey's Meltdown Festival, with original members David Johansen, Sylvain Sylvain, and Arthur Kane being joined by G'n'R alum Izzy Stradlin on guitar and Libertines drummer Gary Powell. For more on this, as well as a brief explanation of who the Dolls are and why they're important, click here.

A Ghost Is Born

If you are Wilco fan like me, you can listen to their new album, A Ghost Is Born, in Quicktime on their site.

I liked what i heard, but unfortunately, I had a hard time getting the Quicktime to work right.

Joe Strummer

The best moment in the recent history of the Grammys was last year when Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, Steve Van Zandt, and Tony Kanal came out and did a rocking rendition of London Calling.

It was a fitting tribute to a Joe Strummer who was among the great rock and rollers of all time.

I am not sure exactly where, but recently on someone's blog or on my comments, i read about Joe's last album, called Streetcore which came out last year. I bought it and its been on my playlist non-stop for the past week. It's great.

UPDATE: There is a documentary called Let's Rock Again! made in the last year of Joe Strummer's life that is showing at the Tribeca Film Festival. The premiere is on May 7th at 9:45pm at United Artists in Battery Park.

Tune Circle

John Battelle points to a new social networking service called Tune Circle.

This service uses the FOAF protocol to connect people of similar music tastes.

I have joined Tune Circle and if any of you want to connect to my music libary, join Tune Circle and connect to me.

The Flaming Lips

The Gotham Gal's current ring tone (courtesy of Jessica) is "Do You Realize" by the Flaming Lips.

Every time her phone rings, it reminds me how badly I want these guys to put out a new album.

Yoshimi came out almost two years ago. I am running out of patience.

More Feedback

The second most commented post was also back in the early days of my blog. This shows that even though these posts are long gone from my front page, they are still read and still generating comments.

That day, Sept 26th, i had lunch with my friend Steve Greenberg who owns a record label called S-Curve. He gave me a CD that he was about to put out called The Soul Sessions by Joss Stone.

That night i went home, put the CD on, and was blown away and i wrote this post.

The cool thing is that post was the first thing written on the web about Joss and so very soon after that i started getting a ton of traffic on that post from Google. My post was the first link on the search term "Joss Stone".

Well that's changed and my post is now the 129th link on that search term. And The Soul Sessions has gone gold and the album is now the 22nd most popular album on Amazon and has been much higher.

But i still can't get her cover of the White Stripes "Fell In Love With a Girl" out of my head.

Clash Clones

One of my top ten all-time bands is The Clash. They won't be making any more music because Joe Strummer died in late 2002. But there's a great new band that sounds a lot like them.

They are called The Libertines and their most recent album, Up The Bracket, was produced by The Clash's Mick Jones. Just listen to the second song, called Death On The Stairs, and you'll think you are back in 1979 listening to London Calling.

I found out about this band from a discussion between Jason Chervokas and Tom Watson about Tom's post on Johnny Thunder.

Led Zeppelin Clones

I've always thought that The White Stripes sounded a lot like Led Zepplin.

But i was blown away when my daughter Jessica played the new hit single from Jet, Are You Gonna Be My Girl.

If she had told me it was Led Zepplin, i would have believed it.

We really are stuck in the 70s.

New Music (Continued)

Irishman Damien Rice's O has been in rotation at our house for the past month and its taken a while, but its been worth the wait. His beautiful Cannonball in particular is worth an immediate download if you like acoustic folk music.

Discovering Music

I am a curious guy. I want to discover new things. And I want to use blogs to do that.

It works great in my business. I post things, read other blogs, and learn new stuff every day.

It works great in politics. I found out that John Kerry won every state but Vermont today around noon today at Slate (which is technically not a blog but i got there from a blog).

But what about music? I want to find new music.

Tom Watson recommends Johnny Thunder. I go but it.

Jason Kottke recommends Broken Social Scene. I go buy it.

But these guys, as good a source of music ideas as they are, don't blog about music that often.

I want music blogs. Can you send me some recommendations?

Van The Man

At the risk of being called an old fart, I have to say that I really like the new Van Morrison album, What's Wrong With This Picture.

I haven't bought a Van Morrison album in years, but my wife bought it and its been on my playlist for weeks. I've been hearing Once In A Blue Moon on the radio a fair amount, but I also really like the whole album. As the guy writing one of the Amazon Customer Reviews says, "turn down the lights, pour a glass of wine, and enjoy." If you like Van, get this album.

New Music (Continued)

If you loved 80s synth-pop like Pet Shop Boys, Depech Mode, New Order, OMD, then go out and buy Give Up from The Postal Service. If you buy music on iTunes, get it here.

This album is really great. I learned about it on Jason Kottke's blog. He's got a bunch of recommendations up there now. Based on his tips on Broken Social Scene and The Postal Service, I'll probably go buy all of them.

New Music (Continued)

Kudos to Jason Kottke for turning me on to Broken Social Scene and their great album, You Forgot It In People.

This album is fantastic. 2003 was a great year for music and this album is up there with the best and would be in my top 10 too. Even though I didn't buy it until 2004.

It's hard to describe, a little like the Flaming Lips, a little like The Strokes. But not that much like either. If you like alternative pop music, just get it and listen.

iPod Colors

These things look great.

I love the Green.

My daughter likes Blue.

My wife things Blue will be the best seller.

What do you think?

1000 songs on a device the size of a business card. Wow!

Outkasted

Jeff Jarvis has outed himself.

He likes Outkast.

So do I Jeff.

Try the Speakerboxx disc out. It's great too.

New Music (Continued)

My friend Cliff turned me onto a band called Nada Surf. I had never heard of them, so when he told me their new album, Let's Go, was one of the best albums of 2003, I was curious.

I got the disc yesterday. I've played it four times. It's fantastic. If you like alternative rock with a soft side, then you'll love this disc.

Like too much great music, it's not available on iTunes. I hope they fix that soon.

New Music (Continued)

Two more discs i just bought that i really like. These are both indie alternative rock, in the vein of the Velvet Underground, Pavement, White Stripes, etc.

The Strokes - Room On Fire - My sister in law Susan turned me on to this one. It's great. Click here if you want to buy it on iTunes.

Bettie Serveert - Log 22 - I loved their disc Palomine that came out in 1993. Haven't listened to this dutch indie rock band much lately, but my wife Joanne put on Palomine recently and i remembered how much i loved the voice of lead singer Carol Van Dyk. So i went out and bought this disc that came out earlier this year. It's terrific. Unfortunately, they don't have any Bettie Serveert albums on iTunes yet.

New Music

I buy a lot of music. I listen to all of it at least once. Some albums don't get played more than once or twice. Others I can't stop listening to.

Two albums I've bought recently that I can't stop listening to are the new Dave Matthews album, Some Devil, and the new Dido album, Life For Rent.

If you like Dave Matthews or Dido, I suggest you go out and buy them. You can get Dido's Life For Rent on iTunes at this link.

Joss Stone (Continued)

I went to see Joss Stone last night at the Beacon Theater in NYC with my wife and a couple friends. She was terrific. When you see her live, you really sense how young she is. But when she sings, it just blows me away. She's this 16 year old kid with the voice of a 60 year old woman. Just amazing.

As I suggested in my earlier post on Joss, if you like soul music, go get her album.

Lucinda

If you could combine Keith Richards and Patsy Cline and throw in a little Koko Taykor, you'd get Lucinda Williams. But just like these great artists, Lucinda is an original.

I've loved her music since discovering her when she released the great Car Wheels On A Gravel Road in 1998. For the past five years, I've kept coming back to her timeless music.

But I had never seen her perform live. Until last night. She's doing a two day stay at the Beacon Theater here in NYC. I went last night with my wife and some friends.

And I was blown away by this gutsy humble woman who belts out her songs and just tells it like it she sees it. The words are raw and powerful. Sometimes the songs are gentle and beautiful. Sometimes she puts on the electric guitar and rocks out. Either way, she's great.

If you love rock, country, and the blues, my bet is you'll love Lucinda too.

My Favorite Lucinda Williams Albums:
Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
Essence
World Without Tears

Joss Stone

If you love 70s soul music, then you absolutely must get the new disc from Joss Stone called Soul Sessions. My friend Steve Greenberg's S-Curve Records put out this disc and she is sooo great. The first three songs are just amazing. I can't get her cover of The White Stripes "Fell In Love With A Girl" (Boy in her case) out of my head.

BTW - she's only 16 years old. Go figure.

Get the disc at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000C0FKA/qid=1064589435/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-4800996-8288115?v=glance&s=music&n=507846