tag/playlist

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from March 3, 2024

2024.03.03
New music playlist. Pretty meh month? Or maybe I'm just judging more harshly. Tried to keep my ears open when I was in Mexico...

4 star:
* Black Skinhead (Jacques Slade, THURZ & El Prez)
Went to see Ari Shaffir live, he had a lot of praise for this song. This remix has even bigger brass.
* Só Quer Vrau (Mc Mm & DJ RD)
Heard this at the resort, weird how it's based on "Bella Ciao"

3 star:
* Kozmic Blues (Janis Joplin)
* Firestarter (The Prodigy)
* Posh Spice (Iggy Azalea)
* Live Forever (feat. Kotomi & Ryan Elder) [from "Rick and Morty: Season 7"] (Rick and Morty)
* Cannonball (The Breeders)
* Elvis Is Everywhere (Mojo Nixon)
(I think I mostly looked for this because of the reference in "Punk Rock Girl"
* Running Up That Hill (MEG MYERS)
* Axel F (Crazy Frog)
* Eleanor Rigby (Zoot)
* Mystery of Love (Sufjan Stevens)
Played at Anna + Kellie's wedding...
* Pepas (Farruko)

from February 5, 2024

2024.02.05

4 star:
* Firestarter (Torre Florim DE STAAT)
Very odd lounge-y cover of Prodigy's Firestart, used in the intro to "Just Cause 3"
* On the Road Again (Live) (Willie Nelson)
Always loved this song as a kid. (Once upon a time I thought the lyric was "my wife is making music with my friends" and he just wanted to split and get away...)
* Walk on the Water (feat. Ruby Amanfu) (The Chosen, Matthew S. Nelson & Dan Haseltine)
"The Chosen" is a pretty thoughtful Christian show, great rocking Gospel-singer theme.
* Stick Season (Noah Kahan)
Heard this the night job lobby... guess it's making the rounds. First time I heard a pop song referencing COVID.
* Yes No Okay (Charli XCX)
From the kind of middling movie "Bottoms"

3 star:
* Moon Patrol (Tanuki Suit Riot)
Interesting cover of a video game I play all the time in Band...
* Pitfall (The Louvin Brothers)
* Gee, Officer Krupke (Eddie Roll, Grover Dale, Tony Mordente, David Winters, Hank Brunjes & West Side Story Ensemble)
* The Man (Aloe Blacc)
* Alone Too Long (Daryl Hall & John Oates)
* Annie Oakley (Lizzie No)
* Tim to the Rescue (Leo Birenberg)
* Rio Antigo (Camarão)
Possible song for JPHonk.

from december 2023 new to me music playlist

2024.01.05
Really anemic month for new music for me. "My Bubble Gum" is the ring tone song in the borrowed fliphone in the first "Paul Blart: Mall Cop"

4 star:
* Missed the Boat (Modest Mouse)
* My Bubble Gum (Rasheeda)
* Henry Ford vs Karl Marx (Epic Rap Battles of History)

3 star:
* All Night (Parov Stelar)
* Cut My Hair (Mounika. & Cavetown)
* Lived in Bars (4 Shades)
* Robo Booty (Opiuo)
* Think I'm Gonna Like It Here (Elisa Cariera)

from via "Midlife: A Philosophical Guide"

2024.01.04
Read Kieran Setiya's "Midlife: A Philosophical Guide" as my first book of the year. I do appreciate applied philosophy but it took the book a bit to get to places I responded to... (and is one of those books where I do more quoting who they quote than the work itself.)
To wish for a life without loss is to wish for a profound impoverishment in the world or in your capacity to engage with it, a drastic limiting of horizons.
Kieran Setiya, "Midlife: A Philosophical Guide"

What has a price can be replaced with something else, as its equivalent; whereas, what is elevated above any price, and hence allows of no equivalent, has a dignity.
Immanuel Kant

I think with sadness of all the books I've read, all the places I've seen, all the knowledge I've amassed and that will be no more. All the music, all the paintings, all the culture, so many places: and suddenly nothing.
Simone de Beauvoir on her inevitable death.
I was really struck by this as a strong contrast to the more commonly expressed frustration with mortality - so often the emphasis is on books, places, knowledge, music, paintings, culture we WON'T encounter within our lifepan, but I think this points out we can also mourn the loss of what were externalities that we have made out of ourselves.
[Every] profound political protest is an appeal to a justice that is absent, and is accompanied by a hope that in the future this justice will be established; this hope, however, is not the *first* reason the protest is being made. One protests because not to protest would be too humiliating, too diminishing, too deadly. One protests (by building a barricade, taking up arms, going on a hunger strike, linking arms, shouting, writing) in order to *save the present moment*, whatever the future holds. . . . A protest is not principally a sacrifice made for some alternative, more just future; it is an inconsequential redemption of the present. The problem is how to live time and again with the adjective *inconsequential*.
John Berger in "Bento's Sketchbook", on the social activism of Arundhati Roy
I appreciate this point - with all the activism I support through music, there are some positive results but a lot of futility.

I was tempted to snip out the "inconsequential" bit. Because I think redemption of the present is a consequence, but that word might sour any note of reassurance for a non-careful reader.

from new music finds playlist november 2023

2023.12.02
So-so month for new music finds:

4 star:
* Aqua Teen Forever Intro (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
Youtube rip... this show has some fun with hiphop.
* Hot in Herre (The Bosshoss)
"Germans pretending to be American Cowboys" remains one of my favorite subgenres of music...
* Spider-Man India (Pavitr Prabhakar) (Daniel Pemberton)
"India Spiderman" theme from "Across the Spider-Verse" - I always love the instrumentation of India
* Turn It Up (Remix) (Busta Rhymes)
Nice use of the Knight Rider theme...
* Crazy (Gnarls Barkley)
New Old R+B Classic... bless your soul
* Big Spender (Peggy Lee)
Hit me that this would be a good song for JP Honk...

3 star:
* Goodbye Blue Sky (Pink Floyd)
* Flava in Ya Ear (feat. Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J, Notorious BIG & Rampage) [Remix] (Craig Mack)
* Boss (Curtis Cole & Ofrin)
* Sink or Swim (Kris Delmhorst)
* You Feel Me (Otis McDonald)
* Now And Then (The Beatles)
Story of the last last song with all 4 Beatles is amazing
* Love Man (Otis Redding)
* Walkin' After Midnight (Patsy Cline)
* Pregnant Sonic (Omri & Auntie Boy)
I'm almost said to miss the prelude of this
* Wir singen beide Do-do-do (Oskar Dénes)
* Chameleon (Buddy Rich)

from November 2, 2023

2023.11.02
kind of an anemic month for new music tbh...
4 star:
Chocolate Drop (Howlin' Wolf)
Finally persuaded Melissa to watch Backbeat, the semi-documentary about the early Beatles in Hamburg... Stu Sutcliffe is painting to this song
Use Me (Bill Withers)
Melissa sent me an instagram post about the James Gadson drumming in this...
Opening Theme (From "Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm") (Run The Jewels & Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
I never got deeply into the cartoon, but Run the Jewels is always a good sound

3 star:
The Preacher and the Slave ("Pie In the Sky") (Joe Glazer)
Perfect Timing (This Morning) (Orba Squara)
Pop Goes the Weasel (3rd Bass)
Corazon de Tango (Doctor Deseo)
Barbie Girl (Aqua)
Hits 2000' (feat. Trinix) [Mashup] (Trinix Remix)
Desperado (The Langley Schools Music Project)

from new music playlist

2023.10.03
5 star:
Maybe (Dan Reeder)
Another 5 star! Thanks to Andrew Mills for pointing this one out to me... just a very plain spun and elegant recollection of experiences with death, and a humbly skeptical view of the chances of an afterlife.

4 star:
Futurama Theme (Ben Morfitt (SquidPhysics))
An extended cover... at one point I got 1967's Psyché Rock with its clear influences (especially the chimes) but the Modem-noise aesthetic of it was too grating so I got this.
Wake Me up Before You Go - Go (Scary Pockets & Swatkins)
Scary Pockets makes these fantastic funky covers...
Don't Let It Bring You Down (Annie Lennox)
I finally got to rewatching "American Beauty" - obviously a problematic movie in a few ways, but also interesting to see in going through middle aged struggles in American suburbia. Anyway this lovely, richly orchestrated cover was in it.

3 star:
Shave 'Em Dry II (Lucille Bogan)
The most raunchy imaginable old song!
Planet of the Bass (Kyle Gordon)
You've Got Your Troubles (Re-Recorded Version) (The Fortunes)
there was a question on the "Strong Songs" podcast about the haunting counterpoint in the last part.
Ned Nostril (And His South Seas Paradise, Puts Your Blues On Ice, Cheap At Twice The Price Band) (Ray Stevens)
Ray Stevens turned into a conservative putz but I had a tape or two of his, he could be kind of funny!
The Universe Is Weird (Hank Green)
Coffee (beabadoobee)
Hell Is Round the Corner (Tricky)
Interesting song based on that Portishead piece...
I Got It from My Mama (will.i.am)
23 (Projekt Atma)
Nookie (GH Version) (Limp Bizkit)
Public Service Announcement (Interlude) (JAY-Z)
Happy Hour (Ray Stevens)
I'm In Love Again (Fats Domino)
Because (Elliott Smith)

from September 2, 2023

2023.09.02
August was a decent month for music, especially from what Melissa's old coworkers had on during a getaway weekend...

5 star:
Hate On Me (Jill Scott)
Oh man I love the power and slow grind of this - joins the ranks of 5 stars.

4 star:
Clink, Clink Another Drink (Spike Jones & His City Slickers)
Goofy Loony-Tunes-esque novelty song, I just love the lyric "Trinkle, trinkle, trinkle, trinkle / Slice of cheese and bite of pickle / Doesn't even cost a nickel / Now to wash it down"
Hey! (I'm Dead) (Jank Sinatra)
Kind of a novelty song, but a real earworm.
Ken Makes a Discovery (Mark Ronson & Andrew Wyatt)
JP Honk does a "2001" version, and this one from the Barbie movie has some great funk.
Quality Control (Jurassic 5)
Jurassic 5 was a conscious throwback, and the way they dip into unison is great. Also fantastic groove.
Jock-A-Mo (Sugar Boy Crawford)
Been doing some due diligence about "Iko Iko" that JP Honk has taken on, this recording is big in its history.

3 star:
Boom Clap (Charli XCX)
Strange Things Will Happen (The Radio Dept.)
Alors on danse (Stromae)
Bomfalleralla (Afasi & Filthy)
Light (Michael Kiwanuka)
All Shook Up (Ry Cooder)
Opus 12Eee (Harry "The Hipster" Gibson)
Personal (Ice T)
Tap In (Saweetie)
Cumbia (Mexican Institute of Sound)
So What (Biréli Lagrène & Sylvain Luc)
Barbie World (with Aqua) (Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice)
Sinfonía Agridulce (Mexican Institute of Sound)
New Partner (Palace Music)
Which Side Are You On? (Rude Mechanical Orchestra)
Psyché rock (Les Yper-Sound)
Clearly a big inspiration for the "Futurama" theme song (especialy the chimes) but the modem noise makes it insufferable, and I may banish it to "2 star"

from August 2, 2023

2023.08.02
New (to me- or sometimes old to me, uncovering originals of remakes I previously liked) music from last month - kind of a weak month overall, maybe it's the summer break effect...

4 star:
Amen Brother (The Winstons)
(The source of the famous "Amen Break" but the song itself is a banger - I like how even without hearing a vocal you know the lyrics are "Aaamen / Aaaaaamen")
One Tree Hill (U2)
(I actually fell for this song on a "Tufts Amalgamates" a cappella CD that was weirdly important to me in my college years...)
To Turn You On (Roxy Music)
(I prefer the Nataly Dawn cover but there the haunting roots of this song are laid out here.)
Rock Around the Clock (Bill Haley and His Comets)
(I think I had this on that McDonald's "Shake Burger and Fries" mix tapes...)

3 star:
Get Down (feat. Genesis Lynea) (SIX)
Yuppies In The Sky (Tom Paxton)
Mercy, Mercy, Mercy (Buddy Rich)
Bob ("Weird Al" Yankovic)
Africa (Weezer)
vampire (Olivia Rodrigo)
Kiss Me (Sixpence None the Richer)
Harlem Shuffle (Bob & Earl)

from june 2023 new music playlist

2023.07.03
OK month for music.

4 star:
* Romeo And Juliet (2022 Remaster) (Dire Straits)
(I went on an Indigo Girls kick, and tracked back to the original thinking of their cover that I've always liked. (Also Douglas Adams praises the romantic qualities of some Dire Straits albums, I wonder if this song is part of it.))

* Express Yourself (Remix) (N.W.A)
(Good hip hop with great sample (Years ago a friend of a friend put this beat under a riff I made on a Casio SK-8 .. https://kirk.is/2003/04/27/))

* Born This Way (Lady Gaga)
(Leftist Marching Band plays this song, and I've been toying with an arrangement for my bands. Great message. Interesting how Madonna "Express Yourself" it's like.)

* What's Up Danger (Blackway & Black Caviar)
(Heather Anne Campbell mentioned this song getting her through the time of her double mastectomy. I don't absolutely love the song, but the attitude of helping turn anxiety about threats into excitement seems so useful. )

* The Battle of New Orleans (Digitally Remastered) (Johnny Horton)
(I remember my mom singing this song for me way back when... "We fired our guns and the British kept a-comin' /
There wasn't as many as there was a while ago")


3 star:
* Trash Day (Parody of "Hot In Herre" By Nelly) ("Weird Al" Yankovic)
* Predator (Yvng Patra)
* I've No More Fucks To Give (feat. Damian Clark) (Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq)
* All That You Are (Bear's Den)
* A Box of Porn in the Woods (Heels)
* Nomad Shuffle (Southside Aces)
* The Drunkard Song (There Is a Tavern In the Town) (Rudy Vallée)
* Mowin' Down the Roses (Jamey Johnson)
* Into the Great Wide Open (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers)
This "Pac-Man meets Sinistar" cracked me up.
(by Tom Northrop, via Atari Force - - Hmm - I guess the glider harkens from Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures)

from June 9, 2023

2023.06.09
Been a poor time for me discovering new music, between a busy band season, anxiety about job transition, and much media freetime being sunk into the new Zelda - a great and rewarding game but not much for the kind of music I have an ear open for.

4 star:
Hello (Why Are We Whispering Remix) (Martin Solveig & Dragonette)
Hyperballad (Björk)
Praising You (feat. Fatboy Slim) (Rita Ora)

3 star:
The Telescope (Theme Song) (Her Space Holiday & PCP)
Life Goes On (Oliver Tree)
Hey Bartender (Koko Taylor)
Dancing Queen (ABBA)
Dear Prudence (Siouxsie & The Banshees)
Kelen ati leen (Orchestra Baobab)
Hey, Mickey! (Baby Tate & Saweetie)
Lipstick Lover (Janelle Monáe)
What's up Doc? (Can We Rock?) [with Shaquille O'Neal] [K-Cut's Fat Trac Remix] (FU-Schnickens)

from May 2, 2023

2023.05.02
Kind of lame month for new music. Worried life stress might be making me less attentive or something...

I like the midtempo melancholy of "Out of my Head" and I'm happy with how my arrangement of "Misirlou" for JP Honk came together...

4 star:
Out of My Head (Fastball)
Misirlou (Dick Dale & His Del-Tones)
3 star:
I'm All Right (Madeleine Peyroux) Nemesis (RYLLZ)
Story of Bo Diddley (The Animals)
Ms. Jackson (Outkast)
Que Si Que No (Funiculi Funicula) (Gipsy Kings)
Sledgehammer (Peter Gabriel)
Mm Mm Good (Big Freedia)
Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Queen)
Tessie (Radio Version) (Dropkick Murphys)

from April 6, 2023

2023.04.06
This month's new music. (I admit I'm tired of the old song and dance I used to put into this...)

4 star:
Mercedes Benz (Janis Joplin)
Simply Irresistible (feat. Brad Davis) (Pickin' On Series)
Follow the Leader (7" Edit) (Eric B. & Rakim)
Otis (feat. Otis Redding) (JAY-Z & Kanye West)
Mercedes Benz I had all the way back in college, but weirdly didn't make the cut when I ripped my DVDs (also does she change the key halfway through?) Simply Irresistible is a fun bluegrass-y cover. The other two are just good sounding hiphop.

3 star:
We Shall Win (Euphonium Multi-Track) (Jorijn van Hese)
Just a Girl (feat. Loah) (Wyvern Lingo)
I See a Darkness (Johnny Cash)
Tina (La Integracion)
Break Through It All (feat. Kellin Quinn) (SEGA / Tomoya Ohtani)
1985 (Bowling for Soup)
Toujours gai (From "Shinbone Alley") (Eartha Kitt)
Goodbye Earl (The Chicks)
You're Gonna Go Far, Kid (The Offspring)
Play Ball (Kenny Mason)
Jumpin' Jack Flash (7" Mix) (Aretha Franklin)
Gritty Man (.45 Soundtrack) (Timothy Sean Fitzpatrick)
Survivor (2WEI & Edda Hayes)
Mad About the Boy (From "Words and Music") (The Piccadilly Dance Orchestra)
A 9-year-old girl didn't want her goat slaughtered. California fair officials sent deputies after it JFC, maybe ACAB after all.

from new music playlist february 2023

2023.03.06



Found
Toulouse
beautiful, soft, sweet.
Sweet Dreams (feat. Holly Henry)
Trinix
Cool cover of the old classic, who am I to disagree?
Do Whatcha Wanna
Rebirth Brass Band
One of Two versions of this songs I grabbed this month as we played it for New Orleans



Seven Nation Army
Fercho Triyei
I just collect these covers! This is like the second most abrasive.
This Beat Is Military
K-9 Posse
Charlie Murphy's rap group. Kind of like a cheesy attempt to make Public Enemy more commercial.
Lean on Me
Club Nouveau
Was thinking this would be a good song for my band to play, but maybe a version that's less "We Be Jammin'" as this one.



With Arms Outstretched
Rilo Kiley
Very sweet early 2000s chick singer vibe.
See Me
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
My friend Duane noticed it uses some odd tuning and half-step kind of stuff. I keep seeing this on a very odd "Come And See Him" tumblr video.
Bangers & Mash Theme Song
Chas & Dave
Intro theme to a UK cartoon, fun "rockey" ("pub singalong, music-hall humour, boogie-woogie piano and pre-Beatles rock 'n' roll") goof.



I Wanna Know
Becca Hannah
Becca played this song to open a comedy show Melissa and I went to... I like her acoustic version much more than her studio version.



Praise You (From the Series "Derry Girls")
Jordyn Shellhart
Always such a sucker for "cover of a pop song but slow and female vocal'd"



Dreams
The Cranberries
Another from "Derry Girls" -- the Cranberries had such a distinctive beautiful sound.



Good Rockin' Daddy
Etta James
Sexy r+b rocker of a song.



Do Whatcha Wanna, Pt. 2
Rebirth Brass Band
Grabbed this version because I think it's closest to what my band is trying to learn..

from January 2023 New Music Playlist

2023.02.07
Hark! Starting with a rare 5-star.




I Listened
Apes of the State
This song resonates for me on a few levels - the defence after being accused of not listening, the sense of dumb but self-aware feminine longing....
Angel in Flip-Flops
Steve Martin & Only Murders in the Building – Cast
Funnyish song... its onomatopoeia for flip-flops ('pitta putta' is catchy)



Obsessed
Addison Rae
"You say you're obsessed with me / So I took a second and I said me too / I'm obsessed with me as much as you"
The Slow Drug
PJ Harvey
I think I missed out on PJ Harvey a bit. I always think that when I hear Dan Bern's song praising "Chick Singers"
Bad Liar
Selena Gomez
This mode of music is very catchy.



Swingin' The Alphabet
The Three Stooges
Ripped from the youtube - merry nonsense pitterpatter song, makes me think of my Papa Sam, from traditional watch stooges on NYE.
Re: Your Brains
Jonathan Coulton
Novelty song about zombies. Funnier in theory than practice.



Amazing Grace
Judy Collins
I'm a secular person but this song is transcendent. If you squint really hard you can make a poetic, non-supernatural interpretation.
Imperfectly
Ani DiFranco
Melissa reminded me of this song, and its mood of being scared of the other person's reaction.
Beat Goes On (Rhythm to the Brain)
Campbell
Goofy fun clubby sound
Sah Sah
Nancy Ajram & Marshmello
Saw this on a Tik Tok about "when you tell your arab mom you're craving hamburgers" (and the bit of food-porn that results)
Tetris
Flap!
Arun got pointed me to this group, kind of a Squirrel Nut Zippers energy, and love this take on "Tetris" (Korobeiniki) - with lyrics about the game. And a tuba.
Pump It Up (2021 Remaster)
Elvis Costello & The Attractions
My friend Carrie mentions if you want this bassline played at about 2/3 to 3/4 speed, she's your woman.



Enjoy Yourself
Flap!
Always love the vibe of "Enjoy Yourself / It's Later Than You Think" (Thanks Arun)
Hi Ren
Ren
Singer personifying and singing with his mental illness



Beastie Boys Tribute
Paul Meany / Beastie Boys
I think cmg posted this one ... 3 beastie boy tracks with additional drum and guitar and keyboard tracks you can see being put down live in studio...

from 2022 december playlist

2023.01.06
Middling month but with some really good songs from the series "Conversations with Friends"...




Let It All Go
The Sei
5 Stars - This song is really somber and beautiful. The call to "let it all go wrong", reminiscent of that verse from "Hallelujah", somehow it really speaks to me, the importance of embracing the life even when it's not what we wanted.



I'm So Humble (feat. Adam Levine)
The Lonely Island
Finally got to watch "Never Stop Never Stopping". Weird Al-level rhymes - I love the 60s rock (doo wop?) intro and bassline.



Skibidi
Little Big
Saw some tumblr point mentioning how their 5 year old play this over and over skewed their Spotify end of year list... a lot of goofy fun and catchy as hell.



Sin Wagon
The Chicks
"Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition"



Remember Me (Sure Is Pure 7 Inch Edit)
Blue Boy
Old 90s from Derry Girls.



RU Ready
"Macho Man" Randy Savage
Macho Man's delivery reminds me of "Chuggo"
Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto
James Brown
Trader Joe's has some really good music in the background...
Saguaro
Austin Lounge Lizards
Based on a true story about a jerk shooting majestic old cacti.
Run the Track
Cosha
Some nice percussion in this one.
Wicked Game
Tenacious D
Fun cover, not sure it improves on the original all that much. But I love the original.
Atmosphere
James Blake
More slow and stately and somber music.
Christmastime For the Jews (Saturday Night Live / SNL) [feat. Darlene Love]
TV Funhouse
SNL goof. Impressive how they reconstructed the old "Wall of Sound" sound.



Hot In Herre
Nelly
"can't believe that on the day hot in herre was recorded, nelly walked in the booth & hopped on that neptunes beat with "good gracious, ass is bodacious" & not a single person was like hey wait a minute man" --@NifMuhammad
Up On The Housetop
Reba McEntire
Solid Christmas song.



It's a Big Old Goofy World
Alice Howe & Freebo
Got tagged by a friend on this for obvious reasons.
Frozen Logger (Live)
Derroll Adams
My mentioned this one, the whole line - "no but a logger stirs his coffee with his thumb".
The Season's Upon Us
Dropkick Murphys
New Seasonal Classic.

from november 2022 new music playlist

2022.12.02
So grateful for the app "audio highjack" letting me cleanly rip soundtracks from youtube etc... I mean I always try to buy music when I can but I don't want e-availability to stop me...



Everybody Wants To Rule the World
Lorde
Good cover right out of the How To Make A Blockbuster Movie Trailer playbook...
30,000 Lbs. Of Bananas
Harry Chapin
Was listening to Strong Song's deep dive into Weird Al's Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota and now I really think of it as basically a parody of this song...
St. James Infirmary
Louis Armstrong & His Savoy Ballroom Five
JP Honk was playing this for halloween and I got interested in different versions... always one of my favorite standards.
DATURA [paroxysm]
Crywolf
via tumblr
Someday I Suppose
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
I was really getting into the idea of their dancer Benn Carr and wanted at least one song that wasn't The Impression That I Get....



Last Wave
They Might Be Giants
So I guess this song was originally a bad lip reading of the Run DMC/Aerosmith "Walk This Way"???



Lady Mine (feat. Chad Kroeger)
Josh Ramsay
My friend JZ sends me songs he thinks I'll like... this is one of the few straight forward rockers that hits, a lot of 80s/90s feel to it.




I Really Want to Stay at Your House
Rosa Walton & Hallie Coggins
5 star! I really love the juxtaposition of wistful title and great funk tinged percussion...
Exactly Like You
Rebirth Brass Band
Another song JP Honk does.



Mind Your Manners (feat. Icona Pop)
Chiddy Bang
Forget where I heard this modern hip hop, like the chorus sound.
Give Me Rain
Spoonbill
A fire spinner at a party JP Honk was hired for did some of her routine to this song--



Girlboss Tuba Solo
Nora Nalepka w/ Lucky Chops
Little excerpt I'm trying to learn from... she really knows how to command a crowd with her tuba...
Is It Wicked Not To Care?
Belle and Sebastian
Heard at "Squealing Pig" after our trip to the MFA.... love the title, kind of like "Is It Evil Not To Be Sure"...
Like a Virgin - Blond Ambition Tour
Madonna
The new Weird Al "biopic" had a weird amount of Madonna... I ripped this fron youtube from her stage performance, on the bed with the male dancers in cone bras...



Freestyler 2019
Bomfunk MC's
House music... Another one I had to rip from youtube... kind of a classic, the 2019 version seems pretty close to the original...
Super Mario Bros. Theme
Scott Bradlee
Fun ragtime cover of Super Mario Bros.

from october 2022 new music playlist

2022.11.03
Everything's Sweet
Kai Straw
Just a decent modern song.



Seven Nation Army (feat. Alice Russell)
Nostalgia 77
Rayyan posted this one. It makes at least my seventh version of Seven Nation Army...



You Want It Darker
Leonard Cohen
Super deep and dark song with religious overtones, via the trailer for "Bones and All"
Ghostbusters
Run-DMC
Kinda by the numbers rap version of the classic theme.



In Love With the World
Aura Dione
Mostly here because I dig the concept of "you're in love with a girl who's in love with the world"



Skeleton Sam
LVCRFT
from the soundtrack to "Hocus Pocus 2" that my friend Sophie is an extra in.



Take over Your World
The Party Band
Great, great, great closer for a local HONK favorite. Has that SNL-ending closer energy... take over your world / make it a better place / do real good things / and together we'll sing / just try your best / that's all we can ask / to bring world peace / and harmony



Gotta Work
Amerie
A lot like her other song but damn I love those horns and drums
Family Reunion (Live/1999)
blink-182
Goofy profane celebration of "The 7 Words You Can't Say on Television"
I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink (Re-Recorded)
Merle Haggard
Cracked says to give country a chance
Kryptonite
3 Doors Down
Cracked also talks about the reign of the razor scooter. I feel like I should know this song more than I do.
Please Don't Go
KC and the Sunshine Band
So, I loved the clubby Double You version of this song when I heard it in Portugal, and amazingly was able to find it at Newbury Comics by talking to the clerk. Had no idea it was a cover. This version is slower but good.
Got to Get You Off My Mind
Solomon Burke
Classic R+B referenced in "High Fidelity" when he's talking about the rules of the mixtape (he thought it might be too much to lead off with for a gal he was crushing on so he buried it on side two)



Shutdown
Skepta
I do dig english hip hop - used to parody the UK government in this twitter video
June
Gizelle Smith
Throwback R+B they play at the bar at Simon Pearce in Woodstock VT.



Don't You Want Me (feat. The Weather Station)
Bahamas
Amazing slow cover... Sometimes you just don't realize how dark a and menacing song is until you slow it down...

from new music playlist for september 2022

2022.10.03



Dear Mr. Fantasy
Traffic
There was kind of a dumb Quora asking if "Hey Jude" was a rip off of this song...



Same Song (Edit Version)
Digital Underground
For some reason "The Humpty Dance" was bouncing around our house a lot, and so I looked him up - didn't realize he was a persona of Shock G, who died last year. Interesting seeing Tupac running around Digital Underground (and all the culturally responsible references to condoms...)




Weird Goodbyes (feat. Bon Iver)
The National
Melissa pointed me to this song, crushingly sad, the idea of trying to impress a moment into memory as a stand in for a longer time in a place really resonates. Tantalizingly ambiguous - is it a break up song, or of another life transition?



Glory Box
John Martyn
Male-vocal, R+B-ish cover of the Portishead. I think it brings something out, but the genderbent lyrics lose something.
Fever
Neko Case
Melissa and I went to see Neko Case who is one of her favorite performers.
Shots (feat. Lil Jon)
LMFAO
Just wanted the source of where my friends go "shots shots, shots shots shots" Raunchier lyrics than I expected.
The Teddy Bears' Picnic
Henry Hall & The BBC Dance Orchestra
My friend Nick was wondering if there was a name for the the "derp de derp" song some tuba players will use to mock alt-right assholes... I was wondering if this could be the source. I had a teddy bear w/ a built in music box that would play this.
A Shot In the Arm (Remix Version)
Wilco
There was a "Strong Songs" episode about "Jesus Etc" but it mentioned this song's lyric of "The ashtray says / you were up all night"
The "In" Crowd (Single Version)
Ramsey Lewis Trio
RIP Ramsey Lewis... admittedly I hadn't heard much about him but this song is a bop.
Would You... ?
Touch & Go
I mostly know the high energy Trailermen Go To Rio remix version but the original has its own charm. I mean how could "Um, I've noticed you around. I find you very attractive. Um. Would you go to bed with me?" not be alluring?



Stay
Cat Power
A friend of mine going through a rough time mentioned learning and doing this rough-edged cover of Rihanna's original.
Ur So Gay
Katy Perry
Someone one on tumblr mentioned Katy Perry's first song was this stridently anti-metro-sexual and kind of regressive piece...



On and On, Pt. 2 (feat. Ty)
Hocus Pocus
Some great, friendly rap (mostly in french) via this iPhone 14 hardware review
Who's Ready for Tomorrow
RAT BOY & IBDY
From the "Cyberpunk" anime, mentioned on the "Get Played" spinoff "Get Anime'd", derived from the recent large scale video game.
Black Sweat
Prince
Funky Prince. Heard during a late hours Trader Joe's run. I'm always struck by the sexy thang/prude ambivalence of mid to late era Prince.

from new music playlist july 2022

2022.08.09
Huh. On the one hand I've been grabbing a lot less songs lately, but most of it is pretty good! Not sure if it's because of the other media I'm consuming or what.

Also I've gotten really good at ripping songs straight outta the browser via "Audio Hijack" - as long as the song is under 10 minutes you can use the free version.



Dig Down
Muse
Lots of George Michael callbacks here, heard about it on the "Strong Songs" podcast.



Rice Krispies
Rolling Stones
Cracked thinks this might be the actual Rolling Stones doing a 30 second spot for Rice Krispies.
Americus (Religious Right Rock)
Grand Buffet
Parody of rightwing dumbassness, on a Suicide Girls dvd some of the performers are having a shout sing of it.



Insane Dryer Noise Remix
Tik Tok
Someone found their washer machine making a funky beat, and musicians riffed on it.



Just a Gigolo / I Ain't Got Nobody
Louis Prima
Checking in on the "Diamond Dave" version of this, it's almost surprising how little it adds. Anyway grabbed this because one band I sometimes swing with wants to try it.



Mario Raceway
Magnificent Danger
Fun HONK-ish cover of Mario 64 music. Ripped this MP3 from the video, don't think they've release it for reals... saw MagDan at a recent brass afternoon at the Medford Condon hatch shell.



Special Powers
Grand Buffet
from the Americus folks - love this song a lot more, REALLY strong mid-era Beastie Boys energy.
What's Inside a Girl?
The Cramps
Surfer Punk or maybe "haunted house" vibe - I remember being a bit scandalized by a xerox'd 8.5x11 poster for this song, some woman standing provocatively w/ a bunch of question marks around...



It Comes in Waves
Long Haul Paul
Heartbreaking song about a father losing his sun to drugs, via the Over the Road podcast about long-haul truckers

from playlist 2022 june

2022.07.06
Another month another playlist.

What's weirding me out is I haven't added any new songs yet THIS month.




Psycho (feat. GAWNE)
Crypt & Joey Nato
Visiting JZ (one of the few people who can sort of predict my music preferences) in Austin, we caught up on songs including this hip hop bop - fast patter along with scary psycho violins.
Booty Swing
Parov Stelar
Old-timey swing w/ some modern elements (played at my dr's waiting room)



Creep (feat. Karen Marie)
Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox
Another from my dr's waiting room, retro-cover.



Eu Na Rua
Antonio Pinto
from the movie "Nine Days" - very soft and sweet
Sweetie, You're Wild
Flying Girls
Dylan wrote "can either of you tell me why this song is both catchy and unsettling? Is the rhythm on the up-beat? I love it/it makes my brain hurt."
Through the Valley
Ashley Johnson & Chris Rondinella
Get Played podcast mentioned this from the end theme for Last of Us Part 2... femalre voice and guitar with an apocalyptic vibe.
Abla Deme Lazim Olur
Lalalar
Funky grindy pop used in an Apple Keynote (not the part in arabic I guess)



Bridge Over Troubled Water
Johnny Cash
I've been looking for more Johnny Cash ever since "When The Man Comes Around" wasa a little bit too apocalyptic for my taste...
We Ain't Came to Lose
Raekwon & Ghostface Killah
Making the rounds, some of the Wu-Tang doing a track for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game.
The Good Book (Live)
Tim Minchin
I remember this jokey book about the Bible from wayback when, especially "I know the Good Book's good because the Good Book says it's good / I know the Good Book knows it's good because a really good book would"



Start with Goodbye, Stop with Hello
Eliza Rickman
Kind of haunting, toy-piano song, heard it Courtney's party recently but feel I know it from somewhere else.
Jolene
Me First and The Gimme Gimmes
high energy version of Dolly Parton's classic via My dad is addicted to rock and metal covers of pop songs...
Oh Mary, Don't You Weep
The Swan Silvertones
Old school Doo-Wop... reading up on "Bridge Over Troubled Water", this song was an influence on Paul Simon...
Rolling in the Deep (feat. Monique)
Urban Love
Heard this in a Japanese restaurant in Montreal... it's a Bossa Nova cover, but it's maybe too close to the original...



99 Red Balloons
Nova Bossa Ltd. & Lizette
Another Bossa Nova cover from Montreal... really dig it.

from april new music playlist

2022.05.09
Surprising number of songs based on bands I'm in pondering playing them, but I don't think any that I actually played.
If We Were Vampires
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
Folksy, saddish song playing the "well if we're vampires we'd be immortal but we're not so let's make the most of what we got."



Mahna, Mahna
CAKE
The old "muppet" song - some folks on JPH want us to try an arrangement maybe sometime.
Jesus Walks
Kanye West
Big hiphop.
via this tweet.



Phone Wallet Keys (Single Version)
Adam Sandler
Comedy rap.



Dispatches 1
Blue Man Group
Cool percussion but I keep expecting it to turn into "Magic Carpet Ride"
Inspired to for more Blue Man after this Vulture Oral History of the show.



In Your Head
Isabelle Brown
Nice modern fast R+B
on the Hulu show "Woke"
Giacometti
Blue Man Group
Cool didgeridoo-ish noise in it... Blue Man Group really pursues cool noise making.
I've Found a New Baby
Ted Lewis and His Band
Old Time Jazz.
Another thing folks in the band would consider trying to arrange.
Lost at Sea
Oshima Brothers
Sad modern pop, a bit like The National
via This American Life
Dynamite
BTS
K-Pop! School of Honk is thinking about trying an arrangement.
Liquid Dance
A.R. Rahman, Swapna Madhuri, Palakkad Sriram
Really cool blend of modern electronic and that one classical India form, the vocal percussion they do.
Mentioned on a "Strong Songs" podcast episode.
Sting Ray
The Jazz Crusaders
Some nice fast jazz. New Magnolia Jazz band messed with this a bit, I think because the leader thought it was near my own "Space Cadet" bassline.
Fried Pork Anus Boxer
Dicktown
Very brief comedy interlude I mp3'd up for Melissa from John Hodgman's Hulu cartoon series.
Stand By Me (Live from the Late Show with David Letterman)
Tracy Chapman
Really nice cover spotify introduced me to.
Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 27: No. 2 "Moonlight Sonata": I. Adagio sostenuto
Steve Anderson
More or less straightforward version of the classical piece, though I think with a subtle choir.
Originally I was looking for Pianist SHOCKS Audience With Moonlight Sonata Dubstep Remix but you know I think the simpler form works allright. It is a moving piece.



The Way I Am
Ingrid Michaelson
Oh, such a sweet modern indie song.
From a Melissa playlist.
Excursions
A Tribe Called Quest
Classic Hip-hop.
Via Strong Songs episode on "So What"
What Time Is Love?
The Williams Fairey Brass Band
Odd Brass cover of KLF's techno hit.
The Ballad of Kami Jean
Mama Digdown's Brass Band
NOLA street band stuff.
One of the songs I was asked to study up on when I swung in with Second Line Brass Band.

from new music playlist for march

2022.04.08
Music I added last month - pretty good selection, really. A lot from that "Inventing Anna" documentary...



Bayraktar
Ukraine Russia War
Catchy little tune making the rounds in praise of the Turkish Drone being used by Ukraine forces to destroy Russians from the sky.
Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home
Bobby Darin
High energy version of old classic, grabbed it after playing it at a mardi gras gig. Fun for me to sing solos to.



Fictional Aisle
Tall Boy Special
Funny song about impossible or at least very unlikely foods, from Dog Eggs to Celery Farts and Reverse Watermelon... From a tiktok where one of the musician's partners is amused by it from the other room.



100 Miles and Running (feat. Wale & John Lindahl)
Logic
Funky hiphop (I think sampling "Apache" ala Young MC's Know How) with some TRULY incredible stunt-FAST lyric delivery (go to like 5:17)



UNSTATUS QUO
DUCKWRTH
Hiphop do heavy samples of James Brown esp "Good Foot", found it on the Netflix "Inventing Anna" series about Anna Delvey.
Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!
Kay Kyser and His Orchestra
Novelty WW2 song, the title has been in my head for awhile, probably inspired by thoughts of Ukraine.



Spiderman
Young Fellaz Brass Band
Great NOLA Street Music - big stuff.
Own It
Rico Nasty
Hiphop from that "Inventing Anna" documentary.



East West
Omer Agca
Excellent little "middle eastern" crossover(?) beat used when Anna Delvy goes to Morocco in that Netflix documentary.



Always Be You
Montaigne & David Byrne
I love the idea that "A Writer At Pitchfork Critically Said [[David Byrne]'d Collaborate For A Bag Of Doritos", and I know Montaigne from her MBMBAB cover. I like the line about This Daniel Kitson quote which is astonishingly beautiful.



La La Blues
Pokey LaFarge
Sophie mentioned this song when I brought up Bill Bailey... guess LaFarge is known for doing this old style really well.
Drum Cadences
The Ohio State University Marching Band & Dr. Jon R. Woods
This SNL skit on OSU's cover of Don't Stop Believin' made me search... I didn't go for the song but the drumline from the same album. is pretty dope. "Do you guys hear it? Its TUBAS playing the BASSLINE! Like, who thinks of that?"
Drunken Sailor (feat. Bobby Waters)
MALINDA
This tumblr video - a farmers sea shanty - made me look for a cover of this song (which I sang in Elementary School) I do love the seep bass voice of the guy singing on this...



Friends Like Us
Danger Twins
Kinda corny retro honky tonk piano modern piece that I heard playing at a CVS.
Raising Hell (feat. Big Freedia)
Kesha
Somehow this video made me want to hear some bounce music, so I looked around - this song is a nice mix.



King
Florence + the Machine
"We argue in the kitchen about whether to have children, about the world ending, and the scale of my ambition" is a helluva lyric, recommended from here on the McGST blog

from februrary new music playlist

2022.03.04
I WANNA BE YOUR SLAVE
Måneskin
genderqueer etc pop rock
I think they were on SNL.



Life Goes On
OMGkellz
Kinda gospel-twinged hiphop.
On an epsidode of Awkwafina is Nora from Queens.
Shotgun
Junior Walker & The All Stars
Awesome R+B.
An article about where did the high pitch sample used in K Pop / that "Jump Around" song come from cited this as a possibility.
New Orleans
The Blues Brothers & Louisiana Gator Boys
From the Blues Brothers 2000 sequel... an all star band.
During the Beatles Get Back documentary, I wanted to learn more about Billy Preston, I guess he made this song?



Come Back Home
Seotaiji and Boys
Classic K Pop... super strong Cypress Hill influence...
Watched a video "K Pop Explained" (was disappointed the video didn't get into KPop fans rallying as a force for social justice online...)
Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight
Sha Na Na
Sha Na Na was such a weird bid of 50s/60s greaser nostalgia of the late 70s/early 80s...
I remembered this song randomly saying goodnight to Melissa.
Surfin' Safari
The Beach Boys
Classic surf song.
I am kind of obsessed with why every version I can find is "some honeys will be coming along" and "singing our song" instead of the version on the McDonalds promotional tape I grew up, "some honeys will be making the seen" / "put on my faded blue jeans"...
It's Not My Fault
Princess Nokia
I got to thinking about her old song "Tomboy", looked to see what she was up to.



Rock Tonight
Altitude Music & MC Justo
Hiphop from the Ronny Cheng youtube special
Let It Be
Aretha Franklin
Melissa really likes this cover. The original of the song is pretty important to me.
Gotta Move
Barbra Streisand
via a Bud Light Ad during the Superbowl
Eleanor Rigby
Ray Charles
Not quite the same version from this Strong Covers Vol 1 episode of Strong Songs, a great podcast breaking down music and showing how the sausage was made...
Master Kohga Battle
Manaka Kataoka
Videogame music from this video about fooling around in Breath of the Wild
Bah Bah Conniff Sprach (Zarathustra) [Single Version]
Ray Conniff
This weird 2001-cover was used in a Superbowl ad



Mary, Mary
Run-DMC
One of those songs I heard quoted a LOT in the 80s/early 90s ("Mary Mary, Why you Buggin?") but maybe never heard? Sought it out after I read about the Amen Break - this beat from the Monkees was on a small record of reusable beats
California Love
2Pac featuring Dr. Dre & Roger Troutman
One of the songs I didn't know much about from the Superbowl show...



Amen "Break"
The Winstons
The original beat that launched 1,000 hip hop songs, as seen on this cracked article on the Amen Break
Moanin'
Charles Mingus
Eze is arranging this song for JP Honk to cover.
Dark Eyes
Stanley Black and His Orchestra
Another song JP Honk is experimenting with... though we're not trying it as a Tango, like this is...

from january 2022 new music playlist

2022.02.05
je t'appelle (acid radio edit)
Armand Van Helden feat. Sahara
Clubby electronica
From my friend Arun's collection.
Bull Jine Run
Odetta
A Black folkish/spiritual version of a kind of sea shanty?
Found after looking up their version of Battle Hymn of the Republic.



Plastic Jesus
Kenny 3
Funny countrified song. "I don't care if it rains or freezes / Long as I got my plastic Jesus / Riding on the dashboard of my car."
I remember this from my youth but it was recently mentioned on an episode of Baby Geniuses podcast.



Happier Than Ever
Billie Eilish
Dreamy mournful ukulele-ish piece.
From her appearance on SNL.
Tools
AKA Me
Female pop.
I think some incidental music on "This American Life"



Beautiful Machine
The Shrinks
Funky little... not even sure of the genre, kinda rock, kinda indie, maybe a shade of punk.



Arrow
The Irrepressibles
Such a beautiful gay anthem. You must watch this video... the gayest thing I've seen, in the loveliest sense of that word.
Blue Monday
Orgy
Classic club song (sigh Man Ray), guess it's not quite the original.
The podcast 99% Invisible had a piece on how the floppy disk album cover for this single was super expensive.
Alligator Dance (Seneca)
Leslie Bowen, Avery Jimerson, Richard Johnny-John, Herbert Dowdy, Sr., Johnson Jimerson & Marty Jimerson
Seneca music featuring Richard Johnny-John, who sang when my folks were ceremoniously adopted into Seneca clan families.



Words of Advice
Material
In the spirit of "Everyone's Free (To Where Sunscreen)", sardonic advice with a beat.
Something from "This American Life".
Spaceman
Harry Nilsson
Kinda corny 60s rock.
From end credits of the first season finale of "Space Force"
Zinda Rehti Hain Unki Mohabbatein (From "Mohabbatein")
Lata Mangeshkar
Music that sounds like it's from Bollywood musicals, starts with percussion I dig.
From this tweet about WFH



Goldeneye 007 (Trap Remix) [Mission Status N64 Pause Screen]
Trap Remix Guys
Cool cover of the old N64 video game pause music, with an appealing little skittery skritch of trap music.
Sought out a version after this clip on a "watching people die inside" video... it's so much more of a lowkey banger than it needs to be!
Streets Favorite
Capone
Mediocre hiphop sampling overwrought 60s song "(Remember) Walking in the Sand"
background on one of these watching people die inside clips.



Power of Yet
Janelle Monae / Sesame Street
Funky little piece about the power of persistence...

from new music playlist november 2021

2021.12.01



Beatbox
The Joshuan Project
Short track with some great human beatbox.
Via this tumblr post about cute bugs.



Super Mario 3D Land Demo Underground Powerdown
Nintendo
The classic Mario song with a fun slow to a halt,
via this "small mario findings post, it's an unused track from Super Mario 3D Land.
Shine On Harvest Moon
Betty Carter
Slick torch song.
Mentioned in Tom Stoppard's play "Jumpers"
One More Second (Future Islands Remix)
Matt Berninger
Indie Mood Song - really sorrowful breakup piece, I didn't think about the lyrics enough during the month it was playing it. I added it to my playlist "saddest".
Mentioned by my friend Leigh on FB I think, by the main singer of The National.
Let's Get It On
INFINITE
Late-90s hip hop, smooth flow, the character select screen music for Street Fighter: 3rd Strike
Mentioned on the podcast "How Did This Get Played" -- awesome podcast, having writers/improv people who love games talk about games makes this one the best.
Technicolour
Montaigne
Solid Eurovision song, love that shouty girl chorus stuff...
Learned about Montaigne when she did the My Brother My Brother And Me podcast soundtrack, wanted to see if she did something I liked better.
Destination Calabria
Masove, Brendan Mills & Tess Burrstone
(content notice, video is a lot about T+A) Dance hall stuff with awesome fun sax.
Some random tiktok.



Want It All Back
Mai Yamane
Awesome funky R+B song - I love the way it sounds like the singer is singing lower, out of her comfort range.
from "Cowboy Bebop", the anime series with a legendary soundtrack, been watching a bit.
Tokyo Drift (Fast & Furious soundtrack)
Teriyaki Boyz
Hiphop, leans heavily into asian stereotypes I think.
Mentioned on the hilarious video game podcast "How Did This Get Played", talking about songs from video games, and a few from movies.
The Magic Bomb (Questions I Get Asked) [Trap Remix]
Trap Remix Guys
Electronic/Trap.
from a random Tik Tok, where it's considered a good track to dance to while FAQs and their answers appear onscreen.
Stand By Me
Florence + the Machine
Nice sweet cover of the old standby.
I guess they used this in a Final Fantasy game soundtrack, via the funny videogame podcast "How Did This Get Played"
Mannish Boy (Single Version)
Muddy Waters
You know, I think this is like the Ur- blues song, that has the rhythm everyone would sing when they were clowning and singing a blues song in the 80s.
via Apple news talking about a series of Levi Ads in the 90s with famously great music.

from october 2021 new music playlist

2021.11.03
Moribiyassa
Kaba Blon
Some great percussion in this one from "Music from Saharan Cellphones" - music that had been passed around from phone to phone.
via this tumblr post
Forever
Mumford & Sons
Mellow indie.
Via Ted Lasso.
Ben Franklin's Song
The Decemberists
Kind of cool stompy indie about Ben Franlkin.
Final song I'll grab from Hamilton Mixtape. For once, it IS the Decemberist, not just a group that sounds like the Decemberists.



Smells Like Teen Spirit
Too Many Zooz
Awesome small horn and drum cover.
(Found just kicking around youtube I guess)
GOGO霊幻! - モブサイコ
Mob Psycho OST
High energy music with a middle eastern vibe.
via this tumblr post with some great Japanese mascot dancing.
Jolene
Lil Nas X
Straight ahead (well, not straight, so much) cover of Dolly Parton's classic from BBC One.
via this tumblr post
I Like It Like That
Rebirth Brass Band
Good ol' NOLA stuff, if a bit too raunchy gross.
Playing in background at Anna's dinner party



I am not a woman, I'm a god
Halsey
Intense Electronic Pop.
She was playing on SNL.
Bella Ciao
Chumbawamba
Straight forward cover of the leftist classic.
(Just googling around what other songs they did besides tubthumper)
yankee and the brave (ep. 4)
Run The Jewels
Most of their hiphop songs are a bit same-y, but still a great sound - and an awesome Adult Swim Video.
Heard it closing up a Ted Lasso episode.
My Humps (feat. Black Eyed Peas) [JBroadway Remix]
JBroadway
Funky cover.
My friend JZ is one of the few people who understands the percussion I like in music...
Father and Farther
Jim Boyd & Sherman Alexie
Thoughtful kinda country tune, "Sometimes Father, You and I, are like a 3-legged horse that can't get across the finish line..."
From the Native American produce film "Smoke Signals"



Tainted Love
Hannah Peel
Amazing "music box" cover of the new wave classic.
Playing on an generally unwatched TV at Miller's pumpkin carving party.
Conga
Miami Sound Machine
Amazing crossover hit of the 80s.
this Cracked article mentioned an easteregg in the game Far Cry 6 about this song, and I got to thinking about it in general.
Pity The Downtrodden Landlord
Bob Hill
Folksy sardonic protest song.
A woman sang a verse of this at a BABAM protest for the tenants of the Forbes building.
Brotherly Love
Olive Oyl (Mae Questel)
From this old Popeye cartoon
"'Cause what we need is brotherly love..." from this old b+w cartoon I remembered from my childhood was stuck in my head. (Heh.... I think we just had a black and white TV back then, so maybe I didn't realize it was a black and white cartoon...)



Can’t Help Falling In Love (Live At Daytrotter)
Ingrid Michaelson
very How To Make A Blockbuster Movie Trailer vibe to this (i.e. haunting unexpected female cover a pop song.) - love the out of tune piano of it though.
(things I was just googling around after having had some other songs by this artist)



Via the wikipedia page on the Incoherents art movement.
An article on tough truths on leadership reminded me of something I heard on a podcast but forgot to remember the attribution: basically it's that every leader should ask people reporting to them "what is some bad news that I don't want to hear?"

I love the meta-reversal of that. It mirrors an excellent principle I've always tried to apply for myself - when I realize I'm hiding something from myself, semi-deliberately distracting myself away from a threat, that tells the other part of my brain "oh, beware, this thing must really be bad!"

Now this idea doesn't work all the time and in all situations or for all people. If you aren't able to keep the context that hardly any bad news is the final word (or embrace the existential bleakness "well someday the sun expands to engulf the Earth and then its the heat death of the universe anyway, so cheer up for now, kid") then diversion can be a good strategy. But I think it's good to cultivate leaning into bad stuff.
My 5G Coverage was getting a little spotty so I scheduled my Pfizer booster shot for today.

from september 2021 new music playlist

2021.10.03
My Life Is Better With You (My Brother, My Brother and Me Podcast Theme Song)
Montaigne
Decent indie pop.
Theme song from the "My Brother My Brother And Me" podcast. Honestly it sounds way too slow to me, since I usually hear it at 1.5x to 1.8x speed.



Beast Unleashed
Vin Jay
Dumb video but I like the chanting in the song, and the beat.
My friend Jonathan Z is one of the few people who is pretty locked into songs I'll likely like. I think it's a pretty shallow thing about the percussion.
Hootie Hoo
Outkast
Old school slow flow hiphop.
Was tracking down a character saying "Hooty Hoo!" as a greeting on Ted Lasso. (I also remember it referenced in a Missy Elliot song.)



I Can't Decide
Scissor Sisters
Kind of playful old-timey sound, but with a serious dark edge.
via this tumbler post



End of the Road
Noga Erez
Her vocals remind me a bit of the background of will.i.am's Trump song GRAB'm by the PU$$Y
Found digging up her cover of "I Walk The Line" below.
I Walk The Line
Noga Erez
Slow female / orchestral cover of "I Walk the Line", right out of How To Make A Blockbuster Movie Trailer playbook....
Trailer for Netflix "Sex/Life"



Seven Nation Army
The White Stripes
Indie rock with an infamously catchy bassline.
I have and love a number of covers of this song but never had the original, looking to it when someone said I wasn't playing the bassline as it was written on a chart.
Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
Nina Simone
So the original, with a more famous cover. (Along with "Tainted Love", songs I'm chagrined how I assumed they were work of their more famous cover artists.)
from the movie "Nobody"
Heartbreaker
Pat Benatar
late 70s/early 80s Rock!
played in the movie "Nobody". I missed out on a lot of classic rock by being a nerd who pretended he only liked classical and jazz.
Witness (1 Hope)
Roots Manuva
UK hip hop... like the glissando sound and the line "Breakneck speed we drown ten pints of bitter"
Dr. Sharon Fieldstone in "Ted Lasso" was listening to this on her bike (and then got hit by a car :-( )
Crazy (Radio Edit) [feat. Joie Tan]
Teemid
female cover of modern r+b song
Playing at my dermatologist's office... I really love Shazam sometimes.
El Sueño
Javi Colina & Quoxx
South/Central American club music.
Played by DJ at a friends retirement shindig.
Hard to Handle (Live)
The Black Crowes
Big hit Otis Redding cover (speaking by white folks making bigger hits covering black folk's songs)
Went to see these folks live with Leigh... didn't really know a ton about them...
Brick
Ben Folds Five
Jesus, I didn't really think about this song's lyrics until just now... wow is that raw and dark.
From this goofy meme "She's a brick"... "house"? "and I'm drowning slowly"?



Chief Rocka
Lords of the Underground
Pretty cool oldschool hiphop. Shades of Beastie Boys and Onyx.
Playing from an open air restaurant near harvard square



Falling In Love
Julia Wolf
Sardonic modern indie pop. (Warning, cuss words.)
Apple blogs, that's like an iPhone 13 new camera mode exploration.



Dear Theodosia (feat. Ben Folds)
Regina Spektor
Moving song from Hamilton, to an illicit daughter. (I need more Regina Spektor in my life)
From the Hamilton Mixtape, now that I've finally watched the musical.



An Open Letter (feat. Shockwave) [Interlude]
Watsky
Old school beat box behind a clever bit of Hamilton lyrics.
From the Hamilton mixtape.
My Shot (feat. Busta Rhymes, Joell Ortiz & Nate Ruess) [Rise Up Remix]
The Roots
Hiphop rework of Hamilton song. I do love Busta Rhymes sound and flow.
from the Hamilton Mixtape

from august new music playlist

2021.09.03



Since I Found You Gone
The Exploding Voids
Kind of lovely break up song from a pretty obscure but great European group.
Final song I didn't already have from their new album... been their biggest American fan since I heard their transcendent As It Comes at the end of their indie horror film "Welk"
Alone Again Or
Love
Old rock, nice mix of latin sounds.
From the movie "Bottle Rock"
Goosebumps (Remix)
Travis Scott & HVME
Club pop.
Played by a DJ at a highschool graduation party afternoon.



Let the Tiger Out
Andy Cooper
Hiphop with a ton of funk.
Via this Dance Flash Mob video.
Elvira
The Oak Ridge Boys
Cornball countrified 80s song.
I so remember this from, like, summer camp in like 1983 or something. But Dave S mentioned it for some reason at a Vermont reunion weekend.
Xiquexique
Tom Zé & José Miguel Wisnik
Art song with interesting sounds that goes on a bit but... I think it has a strong "sound of toothbrushing" influence?
Matthew Greene played this at a Vermont getaway weekend.
War
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble
Nice NOLA style brass.
During Vermont reunion weekend, Sean mentioned this one.
Solitude of Sirens
The Exploding Voids
Great indie sound. "Are you the siren, or the lighthouse, to my thoughts?"
Penultimate song I didn't already on their latest album
My First Girlfriend (Slowed)
MattyB
Inane kid hiphop that becomes transcendent slowed down...
Found on tumblr... check out the link, I also love the animated GIF she used to post it.



Be OK (Acoustic Version)
Ingrid Michaelson
Upbeat song, a gal and her guitar and just a little production seasoning.
Playing in an open roofed outlet center in NJ.
This Feeling
Alabama Shakes
Gentle and lovely song about arrival after hard times.
Used on the show "Fleabag"



Rumors
Lizzo & Cardi B
Excellent empowerment hiphop, dig the bass.
Jim W wrote: 'So…I slept on Lizzo and Cardi’s “Rumors” and gotta be honest, it’s even better than Fleetwood Mac, and I love Fleetwood Mac 🤣'
Kryptonite
Joey Nato & Atlus
Obscure hiphop, nice beats.
My friend Jonathan has the single best track record at recommending new music that I actually like. I feel like there's probably a pretty simple formula about percussion sound he's figured out...



Strange
Celeste
Slow, sad, beautiful.
From a poignant scene in "Ted Lasso"

from july new music playlist

2021.08.03



The Rich Man's House
Anne Feeney
A cappella protest song, soulful and rich.
This is a song that is sometimes requested on BABAM gigs, fortunately it's very easy to play. Heard it as a recording during a recent "Free Her" march for clemency for women.



Freedom (Homecoming Live)
Beyoncé
Big marching band cover. Surprised I didn't grab even more of the Beyoncé marching band stuff earlier after we watched "homecoming", just love that sound.
Another song that was played on the "Free Her" march.



Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
Sly & The Family Stone
Classic funk.
The "Summer of Soul" documentary covered how important and talented Sly was - kind of like a prototype for Prince.



Backlash Blues (Live)
Nina Simone
Live protest blues.
(Probably slightly different version than what I grabbed) Another song I heard on "Summer of Soul" - the live versions have Simone pounding so much harder on the piano than the studio cut.
BLK presents "Vax That Thang Up" (feat. Mannie Fresh, Juvenile & Mia X)
BLK App
Homebrew pro-Vax public service hiphop.
via this (now deleted) tweet.
My Platform
The Exploding Voids
Indie.
Continuing my "acquire this album from these brilliant europeans one song at a time" mission.



Hava Nagila
Günter Noris
Bing-bandish Lounge cover of the Jewish classic. I'm really impressed by the sheer technical excellence of this genre!
via this tumblr. A rip because I couldn't find a digital version to buy.
Over and Done With
The Proclaimers
Scottish indie.
The movie "Bottle Rocket" had this.
Suit & Tie
Nataly Dawn & Ryan Lerman
Playful cover of a Justin Timberlake faux-rat-pack song. I love the percussion car noises ala Needing/Getting - not as well-fleshed out but still.
One of my favorite ever songs is Nataly Dawn's cover of Roxy Music's "To Turn You On", and I found this looking around for other songs where she collaborates with Ryan Lerman.



Hallelujah
Willie Nelson
Great cover of the classic song.
from a Top 50 versions of Hallelujah list. This song makes up for the other month when the download version of the Snoop Dogg / Willie Nelson song My Medicine was weirdly light on the Willie Nelson.
Money, Cash, Hoes (feat. DMX)
JAY-Z
Hiphop, love the fat pseduo-record-scratch percussive sound was also used on Ice Cube's You Can Do It
via Cracked.com's Famous Songs That Ripped Off Video Games (And Hoped We Didn’t Notice) though I've heard other explanations of the keyboard gliss or whatever it leans on.



Nothing Else Besides
The Exploding Voids
One of my favorites thus far from The Exploding Voids new albums. I feel like "You and Me and Nothing Else Besides" isn't a line a native speaker would be as likely to come up with.
Kernkraft 400 (Original Radio Edit)
Zombie Nation
Famous to the point of corny bit of club rock turned stadium anthem... turns out it was ripped off from the C64 game Lazy Jones
via Cracked.com's Famous Songs That Ripped Off Video Games (And Hoped We Didn’t Notice)
Bring It On Home to Me (Live at the Harlem Square Club, Miami, FL - January 1963)
Sam Cooke
Soulful classic.
We heard a cover band play this on Hickory Hills Lake as we pontoon-boated around.
If I Knew You Were Coming I Would Have Baked a Cake
The Fontane Sisters
Old-timey song. A little weird how the recording sounds like it gets sped up near the end... wonder if that was at all deliberate.



Israelites
Desmond Dekker
One of the earliest reggae hits.
Someone at JP Honk mentioned it. I wouldn't mind the band covering it!

Good office chair but the main physical issue I notice w/ too much sitting is, like, fluid accumulating in my elbows...
just me?
When you look into Chick Bowdrie's black eyes it's like looking down the barrels of two .44s with their hammers drawn back.
from a publisher's description of the book "Bowdrie's Law"




from june 2021 new music playlist

2021.07.03
Shelter from the Storm
Bob Dylan
Classic folk.
via the movie "St. Vincent", though I also read a Harper's article about a guy who might be Bob Dylan's secret son, his mom is clearly referenced in a verse.



Call Me By Your Name (Montero Cover)
SuperKnova
A beautiful layer of guitar added to the song.
maybe via this reddit but mostly from tumblr maybe?
Worried Blues
Gladys Bentley
Blues. I adore the trumpet singing she does, it's so rich and detailed.
Via this cracked article.
Mind Your Own Business
Delta 5
New Wave Girlz.
via the recent Apple Ad about privacy



Chug Jug With You
Rok Nardin
This sweet fan song about the game Fortnight redone with a huge how to make a blockbuster movie trailer vibe.
via tumblr.
Traffic Cone Traffic Jam
Moon Hooch
Funk band stuck in traffic.
Johnny the drummer mentioned this crew to me.
good 4 u
Olivia Rodrigo
sk8r boi / early 2000s energy here.
Introduced via her exposure as artist and reference on SNL.



Fine Azz
Kamillion
Dig the percussion in this strong woman hiphop.
Title to HBO's "A Black Lady Sketch Show"
Riches and Wonders (Remastered)
The Mountain Goats
The lowfi aesthetic is amazing, like I just love how you hear the recording machine itself.
I forget how I stumbled into this song but I always think about how much author John Green adores this group.
Highlights
Courtney Love (Lois Maffeo + Pat Maley band)
I think this band's name is kind of hilarious. Like the song's Goofus and Gallant reference.
Idiosyncratic backing music for this Simon Biles slow motion video.
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me (than a frontal lobotomy)
Randy Hanzlick
A Dr. Demento Classic...probably kind of insensitive now.
Got It Boomin
Oren Major & The Grand Mess
I like the big blatt horns of this hiphop.
from a "Love Death and Robots" episode.
Prove It On Me
Ma Rainey
Interesting early gay anthem.
Trumpeteer Annie of "Annie and the Fur Trappers" mentioned this song after I mentioned Gladys Bentley's "Worried Blues"
Yard Sale, No. 1
The Exploding Voids
Indie pop.
I ran into The Exploding Voids when they used what became one of my Top 5 ever songs As It Comes. And they just released a new album which I am adding to my collection a song at a time.
Watermelon Man
Maynard Ferguson
Jazz and Mayo on the high trumpet.
A staple of some of my honk bands, ken from "New Magnolia" mentioned this version when I suggested he had it to his band's set.
Lean (Quickie Mart Remix)
Boyfriend
A bit too repetitive but some nice sounds.
from "Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens"
How Come My Dog Don't Bark (When You Come Around)
Dr. John
Great storytelling in song form.
My friend Sophie asked if "I ain't got nobody" was well known, and my other friend Dave mentioned the line referencing it in this song.



Home
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
Cheesy fun faux folksy romance.
From songs you hate more than anything.
Accusations
The Exploding Voids
I do like the soft voice of the Voids.



Black Betty
Ram Jam
Dig the drums and general rollicking nature.
From songs you hate more than anything. Guess I'm a contrarian. Though even after looking on the wikipeida page I'm not sure if there's a weird racial portion of this.

from new music playlist may 2021

2021.06.02
Walking On Sunshine
Träumeler-Musig Ebikon
Brass band cover of the 80s classic.
This Basic Instructions comic says this "is still the best musical shorthand for happiness.", but I wanted to find a cover of it.
Fast Car (feat. Dakota) [Radio Edit]
Jonas Blue
Club-ish cover.
Background music at IKEA, of all places. The song has been on my mind after I participated in a Tufts A Cappella groups distanced cove of it. (Tracy Chapman went to Tufts but I don't think she liked it.)
Pachuco
Maldita Vecindad y Los Hijos del Quinto Patio
Don't know the genre of this Latinx music but I dig it.
Playing on a radio station in GTA5



Yesterday (feat. India Carney)
Scary Pockets
Funk cover.
Now I'm hearing about Scary Pockets everywhere, didn't realize it was the Pomplamoose/Patreon guy.
Chasing Cars
Snow Patrol
Pop.
This tumblr entry What was it about Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol that sent TV producers in the mid-2000s absolutely buck wild?



Hot Girl
Megan Thee Stallion
Not to be confused with "Hot Girl Summer", pretty good sex rap, big WAP energy.
Theme song, with puppets, from "A Black Lady Sketch Show" on HBO
Marble Machine
Wintergatan
Machine made music with marbles. Like that old 3D card graphics demo but... unbelievably real?



Get By
Talib Kweli
Uplifting Hip Hop, nice instrumentals.
Mentioned in Patrisse Khan-Cullors' book "When They Call You A Terrorist" as an empowering performance.
The Girl from Ipanema
Elise Trouw
Sweet cover. Gives the impression of being a one-person show?
I always want the lyric to be "But each day when she walks to the sea, she looks straight ahead not at he" despite the grammer.
My Medicine
Snoop Dogg
This version has Willie Nelson backing the chorus, which my version doesn't.
Mentioned in Cracked's Facts about Snoop Dogg



drivers license
Olivia Rodrigo
I am a sucker for high school nostalgia stuff.
Even before she performed it live there SNL had a almost promotional skit about it.
Memphis Tennessee
Elvis Presley
Rockabilly, liked it a little better than Chuck Berry's original. The reveal is a bit jarring til your realize he's singing about an estranged daughter.
The Johnny Rivers version of this song was allegedly played in Vietnam.
Killing Me Softly (feat. India Carney)
Scary Pockets
I think the last of the Scary Pockets covers for me for a while
Wannabe ala NiN
OpenAI Jukebox
An AI trained on Nine Inch Nails is then told to try to finish up "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls.

from april 2021 new music playlist

2021.05.03
Into the Mystic
Van Morrison
Good ol' Van Morrison, his recent frustrations with quarantine not withstanding.
Thought about this song as we moved next to the Mystic River, but listening more closely realize... it's about the sea! And I don't remember noticing the clever foghorn sound before.
Groove is in the Heart
HonkyTonk Party Band
You know, usually I'm a sucker for goofy country covers and ANY cover of Groove, but... I guess because it uses the bassline as an intro and then loses it, it's not so interesting.
Someone posted it on the School of Honk FB group. and I do love playing it with them :-D



Boomers Got the Vax
SNL
SNL has these really polished hiphop videos... "money- stacks. pants- khaks. arm- vaxxed. no- mask" "i m m, u n, i, t y - that's what I got. I got bodies, anti-"



Fix A Fault
The Sound Down Cellar
The first (and my favorite) of 3 songs me and my tuba appear in this month! (All by some work I did last year w/ The Sound Down Cellar.) I even have a cameo in the music video.




Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (feat. Swatkins)
Scary Pockets
Five stars! This band is like the best funkifying-cover band ever.
Cut Your Losses
The Sound Down Cellar
More sedate song, again with me and my tuba Scheiny in it.



You and I and George
Rowlf the Dog
Novelty song, a little shmaltzy. (googling I'm surprised to find it's not a muppet original.)
Found in a ranking of the 25 best muppets
Frankie and Johnny
King Oliver
Late 20s (the 1920s), Tuba-heavy cover of the classic.
I got to thinking about tubas in jazz and what not, and this was referenced in A Contender for John Coltrane's Favorite Tuba Player



Creep (feat. India Carney)
Scary Pockets
Another great funkified cover.
Hungry Eyes
The Sound Down Cellar
Final of the 3 I worked on with The Sound Down Cellar. I do like that bump bump badumpabump bassline.
Reasons I Drink
Alanis Morissette
More recent autobiographical stuff!
Melissa mentioned this song, was surprised I hadn't heard of it.
Let It Be
JP Cooper
Polished cover, but I'm not sure it brings much new.
Buy Me a Condo
"Weird Al" Yankovic
This song from my childhood came to mind last month, mostly 'cause of the title. I guess it's more making fun of suburbia, but listening now the rasta parody swings a bit near musical blackface, though it's not mean spirited.
If I Only Played The Tuba
Pat Scanlon And Friends
I see Scanlon at Veterans for Peace events, and he gave me or I bought his 2 CD set, finally got to listening to it. This was my favorite, mostly because of the tuba reference. But he's a solid folk protest singer!



You Can Do It
Ice Cube
I missed this one back in the day, even though Mellisa quotes the refrain a lot. Acoustically it's so interesting - kind of a mix of skipping CDs or Windows 95 sound glitching...
Saw it in this INCREDIBLE AMAZING DANCE instagram video that leans into the computer-glitching theme in a totally organic way.

from music of the month, march 2021

2021.04.05
Pretty solid month for music last month!

Oh, and a music project my tuba and I chipped in last year has borne fruit, Interstate Abbreviations by The Sound Down Cellar, a 3-song album available on Bandcamp. Those will be showing up here next month. I'm also briefly in the video for Fix a Fault





tolerate it
Taylor Swift
A 5 star-er! A low 5-star, but still. The "reverse lover's complaint" of it (she should be celebrated, but the dude feels like he's just tolerating it) seems real somehow.
From this video on songs in 5/4 time.



Count It Off (feat. The Muscle Shoals Horns)
The Saturday Knights
Raunchy street music with a cool slouching swag.
From the comedy "We're The Millers"
Played Like a Piano (feat. Ice Cube & Breeze)
King Tee
Old school hiphop, dig the use of the piano that unabashedly mirrors the title/refrain.
From GTA V's hip hop radio station.
Work (Freemasons Radio Edit)
Kelly Rowland
Modern R+B, dig the "Knight Rider" theme like vibe.
Another GTA 5 radio song.
I NEED YOU
Jon Batiste
Sweet blend of old and new school sounds, jazz, hiphop, very bright and friendly.
Shared on the School of Honk FB- SOH is very fond of Batiste! Some of us played WITH HIM on his "I'm from Kenner" when he played the SInclair.



Feeling Good
Nina Simone
Big, beautiful soul/jazz. Love the horns.
via the movie "The Intouchables", about the assistant to a wealthy quadriplegic and the friendship they build.
You Can't Judge a Book By It's Cover (Single Version)
Bo Diddley
Classic rollicking Bo Diddley.
Used in the Martin Scorsese / Fran Lebowitz thing on Netflix.
I'm a Hustla (Street Mix)
Cassidy
Hiphop. Kinda had trouble w/ the heavy use of the N-word to lead it off, but it's got an amazing beat.
via Sara Hopkins Vines. Damn I miss that platform!!



Louder (feat. Icona Pop)
Big Freedia
I love Big Freedia so much. Good use of "I Got The Power" clip, and her awesome Bounce Music.
Last month Big Freedia did a verse in the Rebecca Black "Friday" redux...



Galway Girl
Ed Sheeran
Pop/Irish Folk blend. For some reason I really love that invitation "Do you want to drink on?"
Via this b3ta robocop parody - I think the joke is that this song or Sheeran is overplayed, but all kind of new to me.



Can't Take My Eyes Off You
Selah Sue Feat. Walk off the Earth
Oh, love the oddball ukulele arpeggios in this! From the movie soundtrack "How to Be Single" I guess, and only avaialble on that soundtrack.
I think the melody showed up in something then I deliberately went hunting for a cover of this.
High Anxiety
Mel Brooks
Shmaltzy Mel Brooks, from a movie of the same name.
When a friend mentioned she had high anxiety, I thought about Mel Brooks who says he basically made this movie so he could sing "Hiiigh AnnnnnXIety"
Meu Nome é Zé
Antonio Pinto
Background music from "City of God". The dialog in portuguese... something about the gangster's tone and measured way of speaking reminds me of villains from Star Wars.
Funk da Virada
Antonio Pinto + Ed Cortes
More background music from "City of God"
Man, if you ever want to see a good argument for gun control, watch this movie and think about what life would be like if every punk was carrying a pistol.
Toccata
Sky
70s modern cover of part of "Toccata and Fugue in D minor"
Someone on an atari group pointed out this might have been what inspired the music to the arcade game Gyruss, another electronic cover of the same song. I think the music to the 2600 version is the most amazing thing on the platform.
Such Great Heights
The Postal Service
Modern indie. It's no "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight" but it's ok
Daring Fireball mentioned the old Apple ad The Intel Chip totally ripped off this song.



Think About Things
Daði Freyr
I think this a classic Eurovision piece... I really love how it uses "Baby" in a literal sense! And just the general good feeling of new baby potential.
From some talk about Will Ferrell's Eurovison Movie... like this being a real entry from Iceland.
Song to the Siren
This Mortal Coil
Melancholy, or maybe hopeful piece. I think the singer is known for going more for feeling than sense of song.
I was skimming through the Justice League Snyder Cut and I think this is playing as The Flash is exploring his speed powers, dealing with a local disaster explosion.
Summertime
Steel-Band de la Trinidad
Island cover of the amazing song.
My friend Beth (who does music cataloging) mentioned finding this one, and she wishes she knew more about it.
Gourmet
Nikoline
Hardcore Danish Female rap. Basically singing how she's gourmet (Your Burger King, I'm michelin)
The actual music video for this is the weirdest thing... pretty explicit porn.

from new music playlist february 2021

2021.03.03
Laid Back
Kirk Joseph's Backyard Groove
Nice laid back NOLA groove
Ordered Kirk Joseph's CD, loved his work from the Dirty Dozen Brass Band



Ruff Ryders' Anthem
DMX
DMX is so visceral.
Referenced in this meme.



I Give Good Parent (feat. Rachel Bloom)
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Cast
Very witty bit if hip hop from her show.
(Think I was looking up "You Can Touch My Boobies")
I Can't Get Started
Kirk Joseph's Backyard Groove
Dr. John joins in.
Baby I Can't Please You
Sam Phillips
A long time ago I read the line "I know you say love when you mean control" and it really stuck with me... not sure if it came from this song or not.
Blackout
Kirk Joseph's Backyard Groove
I sense a bit of Maynard Ferguson in this one too.



Love You Madly
Cake
Haven't heard much Cake in a while!
Intro to "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"



Flava In Ya Ear (GTA Remix) - Franklin, Lamar, Michael, Trevor, Niko & Roman
Claude Gnome
Really clever combination of clips from the GTA games to become a kind of parody/homage of a classic hip hop track - amazed at how well it works.



Most Hyped JIG 2 at Pep Rally
Newnan High School Drumline
Great drumline cadence!
I'm always looking out for these, I really miss the ones they had in my high school marching band.
It's Time To Get Laid
Micucci/Macy
Little promotional ditty for an indie movie.
tetris OST cover
MayTree
Decent acappella cover of the classic Russian song.
Friday (Remix) [feat. 3OH!3, Big Freedia & Dorian Electra]
Rebecca Black
Electronic Remix of the old youtube meme-worthy song. Dang I love Big Freedia
Hard Drive
Cassandra Jenkins
Kind of a spoken word piece, reminiscent of the song "Rock Me Now"...
Looked up the artist when I thought about her brilliant cover of "Wild World"
A Bale Ndikuwuzeni
Gasper Nali
via Gasper Nali and His Homemade Bass Guitar



You Move Ya Lose
Extra Crispy Brass Band
Nice, tight cover of a HONK! classic.



I Know the End
Phoebe Bridgers
Modern melancholy pop
Saw it on SNL.



Nicotine
Jane Birkin
French song, nice groove!
from that Netflix Fran Lebowitz thing.
Loco ft. Bad Bunny
SNL
The video for this SNL skit is really well done...

from new music playlist january 2021

2021.02.04
Decent, not great month for music. A lot from Spotify.
Hooked On Polkas
"Weird Al" Yankovic
One of the few polka medleys I grew up with but didn't have in my collection!
My mom bought me a book going over all of his songs...
Effortless Elegance
Keith Mansfield, Alessandro Rizzo & Elliot Ireland
Funky little background piece I think they use in one of the Saints Row games.



This Year
The Mountain Goats
"I am going to make it through this year if it kills me..."
via this tumblr post



Twister
"Weird Al" Yankovic
Weird Al Beastie Boy pastiche.
Brings me right back to summer camp when I played this tape again and again in my walkman.



That's the Way It Is
Daniel Lanois
Melancholy Cowboy song from "Red Dead Redemption 2"



Champage
Liz & Lisa
Wistful late 80s indie.
Like almost a decade or so ago Amber mentioned not being able to find this one song "Chamapagne" on an old Lisa Loeb tape from 1989, but now it's here on Youtube, and I ripped it as an mp3.
I Don't Want to Miss a Thing (Acoustic Version)
Karizma Duo
Nice cover of a cheesy song.
Hunted around on iTunes for a more palatable cover that caught the grace of it, after seeing it in Saints Row or something.



The devil wap down to Georgia
Dj Cummerbund
Crazy mashup
Some of these mashups are doing interesting tricks to make the vocalist sound like they're changing the words (like it opens with the guy saying "devil wap down to Georgia"?)
Walk on the Wild Side
Suzanne Vega
Cover.
I was wondering "huh, what is Suzanne Vega doing these days.



Wellerman
The Longest Johns
Sea Shanty (unless your pedantic on wikipedia, then it's a "whaling song") making the rounds...
Guess I saw the same aux cord video other folks did.
Da Doo Ron Ron
The Crystals
Wall of sound at its best.
RIP Phil Spector.
You, Dear
Eloise
Modern torch song.
Random spotify recommendation, I think looking for makeout music.
Burn
Ray LaMontagne
Folk tinged smokey song.
Melissa likes this one.
Too Repressed
Sometymes Why
Very blunt folk. ("I want to f*** you, but I'm too repressed...")
That Spotify playlist.
New York's My Home
Shirley Horn
Love song to NYC.
The Fran Lebowitz thing on Netflix had a different version of this song.



Revelry
The Careful Ones
Indie sounding pop. I just dig that sharp, high contrast percussion.
That Spotify playlist.

from new music playlist for december 2020

2021.01.08
Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See
Busta Rhymes
Not my favorite Busta Rhymes piece, though I do love that video style he had in this era.
Mentioned in Cracked One Man's Crusade To Officially Name A Island (... After Busta Rhymes?)



Fight The Power: Remix 2020 (feat. Nas, Rapsody, Black Thought, Jahi, YG & Questlove)
Public Enemy
Great update of the Hip Hop classic. Love hearing women's voices on it too.
recommended by Youtube off of “Public Enemy Number Won” from the same album.
Dig It Up
Holes Soundtrack
A little too polished, but the the rap / piano swing works well.
via Cracked Meryl Streep Is Now Apparently A Rapper (err but not in this song)




Crash of Worlds
Rocco DeLuca
Lovely, plaintive song for a cowboy game.
From "Red Dead Redemption 2" which I played through.



Funky Christmas feat. Big Freedia
Too Many Zooz
Great holiday song! Love Freedia's voice, and Too Many Zooz always has a great sound.
Youtube recommendation.
Sump'n Claus - SNL
SNL
The skit isn't all that funny but I love the concept.
Youtube recommendation.
Joe Hill
Paul Robeson
Damn, that voice.
Mentioned in a McSweeny article.



Times Like These
Foo Fighters
There's something stirring in the way he holds "I...."
They were on SNL recently, and they did this song.
Far Away
José González
Another cowboy song.
Sought out more from the Red Dead Redemption 2 soundtrack.



Unshaken
D'Angelo
This is like a set of tracks from "Crash of Worlds" but I think I prefer it... the sound is amazing, and playing it over a crucial lonely death scene was amazing powerful in the video game "Red Dead Redemption 2"
Dixieland
Steve Earle & The Del McCoury Band
Spirited war song, by one of the good guys.
The original song "Dixie" has been popping up for me a few places, like on Veep, mostly with people making fun of racists.



Hands To Myself
Selena Gomez
Kinda sexy! I think Janelle Monáe's PYNK drew from this, maybe?
Credits music for an episode of "Big Mouth"



Under Pressure
Karen O & Willie Nelson
Random spotify.

from New Music Playlist November 2020

2020.12.02
100 Days, 100 Nights
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Great R+B.
From my work shared playlist.
Stress Me Out
Pomplamoose
Nice pop.
I like Pomplamoose and pay attention when stuff surfaces on my Youtube recs.
I'm a Fool to Want You
Billie Holiday
Soulful.
Mentioned in Obama's "Dreams from my Father": I fell back on the couch and lit a cigarette, watching the match burn down until it tickled my fingertips, then feeling the prick on the skin as I pinched the flame dead. What’s the trick? the man asks. The trick is not caring that it hurts. I tried to remember where I’d heard the line, but it was lost to me now, like a forgotten face. No matter. Billie knew the same trick; it was in that torn-up, trembling voice of hers.
Defaal Lu Wor (Once In a Lifetime)
Wasis Diop
Very different Talking Heads cover...
My friend Candace mentioned it.
Gone
Babet
Mellow pop.
Thought I heard my neighbor playing a song with the line “I’ll pack myshit” on his guitar... not sure if this was it or not.
Lose Yo Job (feat. DJ Suede the Remix God)
iMarkkeyz
musical remix of a meme, talking no crap from the cops
via The 5 Most Ridiculously Glorious Memes Celebrating Joe Biden’s Election Win, Ranked



Public Enemy Number Won (feat. Mike D, Adrock & Run-DMC)
Public Enemy
Awesome homage.
Youtube rec.



Never Going to Let You Go
Madison's Lively Stones
Weirdly I couldn't find a youtube video (and someone gifted me the MP3) but this video gives the spirit of the Trombone Shout Chorus.
I played tuba behind a School of Honk trombone sectional and they introduced this one.
Go Your Own Way
The Cranberries
I do like the vocalist's trademark sound.
Just browsing for covers.
Don't Look Back (feat. Kotomi & Ryan Elder) [From Rick and Morty: Season 4]
Rick and Morty
End credits, soft pop.
Not sure if they're commissioning music for the show or what...
Seagulls! (Stop It Now)
Bad Lip Reading
Strong David Byrne (or in the negative view, Robin Thicke)
From a pleated jeans entry.
Saints
Brass Monkey Brass Band
Kind of a more somber edge to this one, a more minor key.
My friend Candace mentioned it.
Send Me On My Way
Rusted Root
The old 90s song.
from this BoobsRadley tweet "I hate when a car is parked rudely but has bumper stickers I agree with. Taking up two spots? *Not* the way to represent Rusted Root."



Bad Guy
Too Many Zooz
Very nice cover of the Billy Elish song.
Youtube rec.

Emira didn't love doing anything, but she didn't terribly mind doing anything either.
"Such a Fun Age" by Kiley Reid

So (and please, not to be starting in any anti-trans-folks sentiment, thanks) - Elliot Page said his pronouns are "he/they". Took me a second to realize this probably meant "use he or they, either is fine" and not like "use he if subject of sentence, them if object".

I always assumed saying "he/him" was splitting a phonetic difference, shorter than "he/him/his" but less ambiguous / hard to parse than a bare "he" might be.

Declaring oneself as "he/they" is interesting. I'm a fan of singular they, especially when talking about a role that hasn't been filled yet ("when the programmer presses return, they should see ___") etc. I recongize that "they" can used as a tool for a low-key style of misgendering, like when someone is rejecting someone else's correct pronoun but doesn't want to be called on it.

With parallels to people trying to pretend we are in a post-racial wonderland and can stop working to be anti-racist, I kind of wish people weren't so binary, but also respect that some folk- trans and cis alike- want those opposite poles to hang around. But like does that mean well meaning lefties should be careful? Like can saying your pronouns are "they/them" just mean "I wish people weren't making such a big deal about gender" or should it be reserved for people who don't feel comfortable at either end of the spectrum?

from New Music Playlist October 2020

2020.11.02
Ultra Black (feat. Hit-Boy)
Nas
Great steady Black pride hiphop.
Random youtube recommendation.
Play That Country Tuba, Cowboy
The Vandals
Cornball novelty.
Who knows.



Grace Kelly
MIKA
Strong Freddy Mercury energy. (Called out in the song, actually.)
Some random tumblr post "do kids these days know about grace kelly by mika"
The Suburbs
Arcade Fire
The (Spike Jonze) video is kind of haunting juxtaposition with a middle class American suburb turning into a war zone.
The reprise of this REALLY hit me one morning on the Jersey Shore.
On the Dummy Line
Wayne Erbsen
Old-time novelty song.
Almost as good as my family's version!
Blue Song
Mint Royale
Rocking club-y song with a inspiring video.
(A Cracked article mentioned this video was kind of a test run for the famous opening scene from "Baby Driver")
Funny Song
Bensound
Playful Royal Free backing track music... like the nice beat and array of instruments - from banjo to kid's chimes.
Background to a video ad.



Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan
Rollicking Bob Dylan.
Ken Jennings' book on humor pointed to this as a rare example of humor in non-novelty music.




What Makes A Good Man? (Radio Edit)
The Heavy
First 5 star for me in a bit. Just has the percussion on soul choir effect and general great feel.
At work we put together a joint Spotify "music to put on to get heads down at work" playlist.
Can't Put It In The Hands Of Fate (feat. Rapsody, Cordae, Chika & Busta Rhymes)
Stevie Wonder
Protest song w/ great hiphop guests in on it. I think the beat is DC-area Go Go?
Some news article mentioned Stevie Wonder was coming out of retirement, this was one of the 2 songs he was releasing.



Intergalactic But It's Ghostbusters
Beastie Boys / Ray Parker Jr. / William Maranci
Brilliant mashup of two great songs! At around 3:15 it shifts gears tho, REALLY focusing on the one time the Beastie Boys make a pun on "Uranus"- I tell iTunes to cut it off at that point...
Posted to the School of Honk group ("Ghostbusters" is one of SoH's staples.)
Can't Get You off My Mind
Sister Sparrow
Soul/R+B feel.
From the shared work spotify playlist.



Hello Hello Hello
Remi Wolf
Nice Tik-Tok era melange.
Soundtrack to some snapchat post or ad Melissa was looking at.
Hello Good Morning (Remix) [feat. Nicki Minaj & Rick Ross]
Diddy - Dirty Money
I really do like Nicki Minaj's flow - other rappers on it are good too.
Found while trying to find "Hello Hello Hello" on iTunes music.



Moliendo Café
Fanfare Ciocărlia
Added this at the end of the month, so the 4 star is a little conditional... still catchy as hell Balkan brass music.
This group saw a lot of play in the Borat films, and I hear about them in HONK adjacent stuff.



Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)
LITTLE BIG
euro club cover of the 1991 hit...
Ending credits to the new Borat movie.

Oh good. Just like every month that starts on a Sunday we get a nice Friday the 13th this month.

I like what some folks added to my more or less vanilla Chameleon bassline:

(I just wish people would tell me when my bell cover is crooked)

from new music playlist september 2020

2020.10.03



It's the End of the World as We Know It
Pomplamoose
Solid cover of the REM song, I remember when a Cleveland radio station played this for like 72 hours straight as it changed format - felt kind of apocalyptic.
I often poke around and see if Pomplamoose has done any good covers.



Nine Inch Nails - Closer But It's Funkytown By Lipps Inc.
William Maranci
Ha, such a mashup. In itunes I use the title "Funk You Like an Animal", suggested by a youtube viewer.
Random youtube recommendation.



Uh Huh
Jade Bird
I do dig this delivery of girl rock, or whatever a less sexist descriptor of it is - also the jaded attitude of the lyrics.
From Arun's collection.



Star Trek Theme w Lyrics
Tenacious D
Infamously, Gene Roddenberry penned lyrics to the original Star Trek theme in order to snag some royalties.
Cracked mentioned this Tenacious D version.
Daydream (feat. Alia Farah)
M. Ward
Sweet cover of the classic song.
Music behind a Stella Artois beer commercial
Addicted To Bass
Puretone
So Very 90s.
From my buddy Arun.



Cock Block
Little Jackie
Whoa, delightfully vulgar lyrics ("My mind says no, my heart says maybe so / And my body says go go go go go / Sorry I can't see straight there is a cock blocking my vision")
Random recommendation researching last month's playlist.
Don't Worry 'Bout That Mule
Louis Jordan
Haven't heard enough Louis Jordan since that "Five Guys Named Moe" soundtrack I had. This video which also covers his more famous "Caledonia" has delightfully decorated instruments
A list of quotes from John Madden quotes mentioned “Who cares if the horse is blind? Just keep loading the wagon.” Found this trying to find out more about the expression.
Behave Yourself
Booker T. & The M.G.'s
Mellow R+B.
Found this video of Steve Cropper talking on the history of Green Onions.



It's Bigger Than Hip-Hop (Hip-Hop Remix)
Dead Prez
Great flow.
Walk-on music for the Dave Chapelle show. (I also love his African colors "C" logo)
Signs
Five Man Electrical Band
70s crunchy protest-y.
Guy at a Whole Foods protest rally suggested we do this one.
The Diarrhea Song
John Roberts, Eugene Mirman, & Bob's Burgers
cover via Bob's Burgers... I envy Gene's sampling keyboard, I used to have one (the "Casio SK-8") Don't know why they don't make them any more.
I always wonder about this song, like if started as a "camp song" or if there was another origin.
If and When I Die
The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die
Artsy, existential.
Saw a sweat shirt with the name band's name "The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die" at a rally and I had to find out what it was about.



Hitch It to the Horse (Bonus Track)
The Fantastic Johnny C
Funky!
Harper's magazine mentioned a different B-side, "Cool Broadway", got this as another recommendation.

Oh, these are so good! Reagan Ray isolated the lettering of the artists' names on 100 jazz records. I've always loved this kind of design work.













(via kottke)
Happy German Unity Day! 30 Years Ago West + East Germany were reunited, a highpoint of Western Triumphalism and marking "The End of History" that... lasted about a decade? Maybe?
On my devblog: I just realized the breakout hit "widgetsmith" offers a version of the "time in words, roughly" time display that I was prototyping a decade ago...
kirk.is/drawing - my vacation project was a free, minimalist shared whiteboard webapp. (Worked to make sure it was reasonably mobile friendly) Basically if you're on a call and need to express an ideally visually, and both sides have a gadget handy, you can run here and fire up a new board. (Some messaging apps have something similar already built-in, of course, but I still think this might be handy...)

from new music playlist august 2020

2020.09.03
Evil Boy (F**k You In the Face Mix)
Die Antwoord
This month's songs are bookend by two of the dirtiest and/or raunchiest hiphop videos I've posted, I think...
I guess I got this from a Quora What is the most R rated music video put out by a band?
No Diggity (feat. Dr. Dre & Queen Pen)
Blackstreet
Love the infectious slow groove of this.
Via defining the 90s musical cannon - kind of weird I didn't know this song very well.
Watermelon Man (Single Version)
Mongo Santamaria
Version of this Herbie Hancock song built the genre "Latin boogaloo"
This is one song my bands play a lot. Easy and cool and delicious, just like watermelon.
Home
O'Death
Haunting.
A friend was posting on some kind of genre, like dark ambient country or something?
Jock Box
The Skinny Boys
Oldest school hiphop here.
The show "Workaholics" use bits of this as bumper music.



Moderation
Florence + the Machine
Do I Look Moderate to You?
Recommendation from Arun
Rock Hard
Beastie Boys
This is... kind of bad? But it's interesting to hear something I hadn't heard so close to tape that meant so much to me as a teen.
via the Beast Boys documentary on Apple Plus or whatever it is.
Barcoders Jamming
ELECTRONICOS FANTASTICOS!
Two guys using barcode scanners wired for sound! Amazing.
via this tumblr post that said "My brain was transported about 10,000 years into the future while listening to this."
Big Daddy vs. Dolemite (feat. Rudy Ray Moore)
Big Daddy Kane
Classing playing the Dozens...
Watch the Eddie Murphy "Dolemite" movie tribute....man what ever happened to Big Daddy Kane...



Slippery When Wet
The Commodores
Sexy 70s.
from the Dolemite movie soundtrack.



Alison
Holly Cole
Tender cover of the Elvis Costello song.
Some of my favorite covers ever come from Holly Cole... I've Just Seen a Face, Waters of March, her Tom Waits stuff...



A Hero's Death
Fontaines D.C.
Sink as far down as you can be pulled up / Happiness really ain't all about luck / Let your demeanor be your deep down self / And don't sacrifice your life for your health
I think my cousin Bill posted about this song...
Hey Heartbreaker
Dream Wife
Girls rock.
Recommended by Arun.



WAP (feat. Megan Thee Stallion)
Cardi B
Heh. Kind of weird that there is a "radio" edit. (Wet and Gushy? huh) Am so enamored of the opening verse of the explicit version...
Making the rounds...

The flashbacks in Breath of the Wild play out like Zelda is a dating sim protagonist who flubbed all the sidequests and didn't understand the resource economy and did the relationship events all out of order and ended up getting such an incredibly Bad Ending that it literally destroyed the world, and the entirety of BotW proper is about the obligatory Childhood Friend NPC who was supposed to be the default endgame relationship if the protagonist didn't reach ten hearts with anybody else dealing with the fallout from that.

Jack Anderson's Gastrointestinal Map:

Taking a shit without looking at your phone counts as meditating now

from July 2020 New Music Playlist

2020.08.02
Candy
The Bouncing Souls
Rock cover.
from a playlist Boys Will Be Girls, maleish cover of femaleish songs



Live a Little
Florrie
Nice horns and drums and vocals.
Arun trying to zone in on the kind of music I dig - modern but with brass + good percussion is a good bet!



Lola
The Raincoats
Man, the idea that the original made it so big just blows me away. And also that Weird Al used it for a parody...
from a playlist Girls Will Be Boys, femaleish covers of maleish songs.



You Were Cool
The Mountain Goats
God, such a resonant song - I can also think back to the people being treated badly in high school, how we got to bear witness to people working out lots of things about their identity, and we were hardly ever kind enough about it. I hope the kids today are better.
I listen to John Green's The Anthropocene Reviewed podcast, and The Mountain Goats are profoundly important to him. I couldn't find a version to buy so I had to make a rip.
Righteous Rocker (Hard Rock Version)
Larry Norman
Not a bad funky 70s rocker. Why can't all Christian music be so light handed?
via the movie "Knives Out"



Uproar (feat. Swizz Beatz)
Lil Wayne
Excellent well-hooked new hip hop.
My friend Jonathan Z is probably the most adept at catching songs I'll dig...



Coolin' With Da Homies
Savan Kotecha
Kinda inane like everything in Eurovision (I keep my chains low (woo), they droppin' to the floor / They're really, really, really low, they're droppin' to the floor, uh / I don't need gin and juice, I got a caffe latte) but hella catchy
from the Will Ferrell‎ Eurovision Song Contest movie, in-movie done by Swedish act Johnny John John.



Only So Much Oil In the Ground
Tower of Power
Not my favorite Tower of Power song but not bad.
BABAM played a Filk version of this at an Extentinction Rebellion Die-In protest
You Gotta Hear This Funk Band
Key & Peele
Pretty authentic sounding Parliament/Funkadelic sound, even if the end joke falls a little flat.
Random Youtube recommendation
Got Your Money (feat. Kelis)
Ol' Dirty Bastard
Older hop hop, dig the "Blacksploitation" aspect of the video.
Random Youtube recommendation
Land of the Living
Kristine W
Clubby Pop.
Another from Arun's set of music
Mbube
Lebo M
From the new CGI Lion King.
Mentioned in Cracked's Black Creators Who Got Their Material Stolen though sadly I liked the percussion in the Disneyfied version better.



Power to the People (Ultimate Mix)
John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band
Probably don't need another white dude protest song but I do dig the percussion of this.
Ibram X. Kendi's "How to Be an Antiracist" mentions the Black Christian group Soul Liberation as their famous song, but I couldn't find reference to them doing it.

I just finished "Art of Atari" by Tim Lapetino, about all the art that tried to push the clunky pixels the Atari 2600 could offer into new worlds of drama. (Also with a side trip into the industrial design of some of the hardware.)

I learned my favorite Atari artist was Hiro Kimura. Probably the best find of the book's author was this unused art for Pac-Man- I just love the weight of the ghost monster concept.


He also did Yars Revenge and Joust and a bunch of others. But growing up it was the B+W illustrations inside the manual for "Berzerk" that really grabbed me, the nod to Da Vinci and then the internal workings diagram that I think is a nod to some classic Astro Boy:



Another specific influential (on me) cover was Terry Hoff's art for Star Raiders (reused for Solaris) - I must've drawn starfighter cockpit interiors based it dozens of times as a kid:

from june 2020 new music playlist

2020.07.02
Definite slow down in finding new songs last month. Not a bad selection despite that though.



Rule the World
Easy McCoy
I like the big percussion and general sound of this.
From an Old Navy Ad...
When I Meet My Maker
Toots Earl & Etienne Lecomte
Crazily authentically old sounding for a new song.
via "What We Do in the Shadows" -- great series!
You'll Never Walk Alone
Marcus Mumford
A little shmaltzy, and hasn't moved me yet, but it might.
Mentioned in the Anthropocene Reviewed Podcast.
Knight Rider for 8 cellos
Samara Ginsberg
Awesome instrumental cover.
Somewhere on Twitter...



Love Is Like a Bottle of Gin
The Magnetic Fields
Sodden song.
The "Watch Out for Fireballs" Podcast quoted "Love is like a bottle of gin / But a bottle of gin is not like love"
Shit Kickin'
Indigo Girls
Awesome the Indigo Girls have been making music together for so long.
The "Baby Geniuses" Podcast mentioned the new album, though they liked "Country Radio" better.



Let Me Live / Let Me Die
Des Rocs
Suicide Girls energy.
Youtube recommendation off of the Easy McCoy piece above.



Too Young to Remember
Florrie
Love shouty girl choruses like this, that little pop of "Hey!"
via Arun's gift of songs.



Dumb Ways to Die
Tangerine Kitty
Was this from a funny public service message?
via Arun's gift of songs.
You Must Be Out of Your Mind
The Magnetic Fields
Nice old torch song.
My friend Leigh mentioned this as her favorite Magnetic Fields song after I posted "Love is Like a Bottle of Gin"



Unbelieveable
Tom Jones & EMF
Loved this song in high school... surprised the collaboration with Tom Jones didn't make it onto one of his albums of duets...
Forget how I found out about this but been meaning to rip it from Youtube for a long time.

from May 2020 New Music Playlist

2020.06.02
Afternoon Fireworks
Duke Herrington
Nice and jazzy with a little funk.
(background to this animated infographic)



Alive
Beastie Boys
Nice hip hop, not sure how I missed it. "Isn't it nice, to be Alive..."
(random youtube suggestion)



Chicken Noodle Soup
Webstar & Young B featuring AG aka The Voice of Harlem
I totally missed this in 2009 - love the woman rapper in this, and I kind of always like that air raid siren.
"Today kids will never know the adrenaline rush us 10 year olds got when we heard DJ Webstar’s Chicken Noodle Soup at the school dance" (via)



Use Your Brain
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band
Awesome NOLA street music.
(via Street Brass Podcast)
Rollin' Stone
Muddy Waters
Blues classic.
(Melissa was asking - why both the band and the magazine named after the same thing...)



It Ain't My Fault 2
Mystikal & Silkk the Shocker
I really like Mystikal's flow.
(this brilliant tweet that has King of the Hill's Boomhauer lip-syncing it.)



People Who Died
The Jim Carroll Band
Adore the cheerful macabre vibe of this, it's like "88 lines about 44 women" for dead people
(Melissa randomly thought of this song after the premier of “Solar Opposites” ended with an “in memoriam”)
Send Me Some Lovin'
Little Richard
The man invented Rock and Roll.
(RIP Little Richard - via Little Richard’s Music Was Dangerous, but So Is Freedom)
When Doves Cry
Prince
The lyrics of this are such a reflection of the way he was balancing masculine and feminine energies...
(realizing I only had covers of this song, after Prince's recent "live" concert stream)
Caravan
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band
Cover of a classic.
(via Street Brass Podcast)
You Were a Good Hand
Long Haul Paul
Kind of long, but touching tribute to a real driver.
(Over the Road podcast, where Long Haul Paul is the narrator.)



We Will Rock You
Max Raabe
Charming 1930s-radio cover.
(via)
Junko Partner
Dr. John
Aw, I miss Dr. John. Glad I got to see him live.
(Melissa got her dad a Dr John cd for his birthday, and he recommended this song to me.)



Here Comes the Hotstepper (Heartical Mix)
Ini Kamoze
Surprised this hadn't made it into my collection before. Also, didn't realize the echo chorus was "Murderer". Tempted to try and back a HONK cover of it.
Always Sunny in Philadelphia waterpark episode.


One thing I miss is the time when America had big dreams about the future. Now it seems like nobody has big hopes for the future. We all seem to think that it's going to be just like it is now, only worse.
Andy Warhol, "America"

It's sort of my philosophy--looking for the nothingness. The nothingness is taking over the planet.
The Andy Warhol Diaries

If it's dumb to think all cops are bad, then let's not think all protestors are looters.

(Also, tear gas a church to go stand in front of it waving a bible, good look.)

from april 2020 new music playlist

2020.05.02
Kind of a slow month, not surprisingly. My friend Arun gave me a birthday gift of a lot of music, and while I'm super selective about what I add into my collection, it's been nice skimming through and finding some real gems.

Super goofy but fun 5 star song!



Watch the World
Ben Cocks
Kind of sweet indie song.
From a "Farming Simulator" trailer video.



Ieva's Polka, Ievan Polkka
Loituma
Such charming and unintelligible (to me) a cappella!
from Arun's collection.




The Squat Song
SQUAT TEAM
Super goofy song promoting squatting... but so funky! Albeit in a very polished way.
Been on my "find an mp3 list" for a long while.



Mississippi Goddam (Live at Carnegie Hall, New York, 1964)
Nina Simone
Racism protest song. Not that there's any reason for Boston to feel smug.
Beyonce's Homecoming video introduced me to Simone in general.



Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime
Beck
Really melancholy song, especially in the context of the movie.
Recently saw a film series version of my favorite movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"
Paradise
John Prine
Folksy.
Prine wasn't much on my radar before his death, heard this was a campfire song in some parts.



Chameleon
Rebirth Jazz Band
Interesting that this one doesn't have the classic bassline. Also, not the version I'm listening to, but this longer version adds the lyric "Oh Lord Oh Lord, Tell Me What Did I Do Now" which is less square than "Herbie Hancock Curiosity is Good" I came up with to try and keep my band in time.
from The Street Brass Podcast



Bad Education
Tilly And The Wall
I love shouty women singing.
from Arun's collection.
James Bond Theme (Moby's Re-version)
Moby
Nice James Bond theme cover, always love songs that play w/ the big brass.
from Arun's collection.



Let's Get Lost
Cyrille Aimée
Sweet French and Bouncy
from Arun's collection.
Rich Girl (Remastered)
Daryl Hall & John Oates
Hall + Oates were kind of under my radar. Man, I wish I had some old man's money like that.
My friend Sophie posted the Hall and Oates Emergency Hotline: 719-26-OATES
Boyz-N-The-Hood
Eazy-E
Nice old schol hiphop.
Melissa pulled up a classic hiphop Spotify playlist.
Distant Pyramids
Sight of Wonders
Kinda cornily "middle eastern"
from this infographic animation on oil production
For Her
Fiona Apple
Oof. I wanted to skim through the knew Fiona Apple album, I picked this one for the percussion, but man are the lyrics tough.
Just making the rounds as a bit of Quarantine time art.

from new music playlist march 2020

2020.04.03
Not a bad month! Can't believe I hadn't heard of Beyoncé's Homecoming before now... also I found out I am re-empowered to rip youtube to MP3s, thought that's always, always a last resort for me... but I had a backlog of things to check out.
Wynona's Big Brown Beaver
Primus
Driving indie. Freaky video!
From this tumblr post but I think the band was a favorite of my ex Mo.
Volare
Gipsy Kings
A more authentic feeling version than Dean Martin's...
Just randomly started singing it one day...
News Background A
Sammy Burdson
Sneaky sounding music... a little manufactured but good.
Background music in the movie "Logan Lucky"
Atomic Power
The Buchanan Brothers
Bluegrass with a cornball modern apocalyptic edge...
Like I write here, from the Hidden Brain podcast...



Crazy in Love
Sofia Karlberg
Total How To Make A Blockbuster Movie Trailer energy...
Maybe some show had it on?



Make Way For the King
Ohana Bam
Awesome big horn hip hop.
Some show I guess...
Mama Doh Like (Bubalups Riddim)
Flava
Some kind of carnival music... I've heard HONK variants "Mama Don't Like" that must have similar roots.
Lua in my band mentioned he had a cassette tape of this, youtube was the only place I could find it.



The Suburbs (Continued)
Arcade Fire
Such a haunting song.
One of the youtube rips. I think Amber was a big fan of these guys.



Still Alive (From "Portal")
The 8-Bit Big Band
Big Band cover of the brilliant video game song - really captures the sense of menace in it.
I think this was on the youtube list, but I was able to find a copy to buy.



Movin' On Up
Mama Digdown's Brass Band
Cover of the old Sitcom Theme - I had thought it would be a good band song for a long time.
A recommendation from the automated music system gnooisc I think I seeded it with Deee-lite, Pomplamoose, Rebirth Brass Band
Claw or Friend
Robbie Down
Indie sound.
Another recommendation from the music system gnooisc...



Tennis Ball [Explicit]
Hello Peril
Funny hiphop
From the movie "Always Be My Maybe"



Welcome (Homecoming Live)
Beyoncé
Intro to her Coachella show - loved the giant band version "Do Watcha Wanna"
I can't believe this musical goddess going full on HBCU Marching Band flew under my radar!



Catastrophe Theme
Youtube
Theme to the show Catastrophe... eclectic mix, banjo, yodeling... there's a lot going on here...
Another "find or rip"
Formation (Homecoming Live)
Beyoncé
More Marching Band cover.... always love "Come on ladies, lets get in formation... come on ladies lets get information..." Adds some slow ponderous weight to the original..
From her Netflix special.



No Children
The Mountain Goats
Kind of beautifully cynical and bitter indie song.
From this tumblr entry "why would you watch marriage story when instead you can get just speedrun the experience of divorce angst by listening to the mountain goats’ ‘no children’ which is both more dramatic and also under 3 minutes long"



Sweet Dreams Seven Nation Army Mashup
Pomplamoose
Great mashup - love how it swaps one melody with the other's bassline...
JP Honk plays both of these... maybe we need to try this mashup...



Lilac Wine
Nina Simone
Stunningly haunting...
Used during the behind the scenes part of Beyonce's Homecoming
No One Lives Forever
Oingo Boingo
New Wave... I like the macabre lyrics a lot more than the sound.
This tumblr post.



Way Down in the Hole (87)
Tom Waits
Man, Tom Waits.
Background music in "Tiger King"



How Naked Are We Gonna Get (Live at Trainstation)
The Blow
Beautiful trainstation cover of their own song... I just love the gentle, tentative sexiness of it.
Youtube rip, from way back.
The Gunslinger
Tommy Guerrero
Like "News Background A", this seems suspiciously background-music friendly...I still dig it.
Background music in "Tiger King"

We are star mud, just a little wet star dust.
Tom Munch
(responding to the Bokonist and Babylon 5 quotes on my mortality quotes page)
me in front of my new virtual wallpaper, in a zoom hangout...

from New Music Playlist February 2020

2020.03.04
Pretty good month for music! One 5 star even...
Concrete Pony
Ghostpoet
Dark and cool but kind of weird similarity to Rock Me Now in terms of the piano chords...
Michael at the work Slack #music channel said he was addicted to this...
Get Up (DJ Premier Edit)
Vernon Burch
70s funk Deee-lite sampled from...
got it from the "who sampled" page for Groove is in the Heart, some of the beat and the slide whistle...



Happy Valentine's Day
Outkast
Great 2000s funk, lot of neat influences well used.
Played over the credits to the Netflix series "Big Mouth"
Take Me to the River
Al Green
Classic soul
Saw the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense... they cover this song but this is the original.
Hungry Eyes (Remix Edit)
Paris Encore
80s cheese redone as 90s club cheese...
I recorded a few songs with local indie band "Sound Down Cellar", they have a song by the same title as this one...
Mi T-Shirt De La Nasa
Mexican Institute of Sound
Spanish pop!
Matthew G. was talking about this song at a superbowl party we were at, I think I was wearing a NASA hoodie.



WTF (feat. Amber Van Day)
HUGEL
Are they sampling "bitter/sweet"?
Came up when I was googline "nightwave" music



She's Not There
The Zombies
Classic rock.
This was caught in my band buddy Sophie's ear for no good reason.



Homegrown
Haux
So sorrowful sounding.
A season finale of Super Store had this shown with Mateo in ICE custody.



All My People Say
Atomica Music
Totally studio, but great and pop-y bubblegum...
From a Kay diamond commercial.
Grandmother's Song
Steve Martin
Novelty goofiness.
Band buddy Matt Morin mentioned he played this song as a novelty number..



Pompeii
Bastille
Good song but I think it's like begging for college a cappella groups to cover it. Not in a good way.
Superstore mentioned this as a song the young'uns would like



Birthday Cake
Rihanna
Very sex. Also I like the middle eastern minor key.
Played in the movie "Hustlers"
The Weight
The Band
Classic rock again.
Richard in JP Honk suggested we play this song.



Number One
Tove Styrke
Lot of nice influences, like both the Nikki Minaj sound and the old girl band "hey" shouts.
Played in the movie "Brittany Runs a Marathon"
Round Here Buzz
Eric Church
Country. Do like the line about driving that preacher's daughter crazy.
Mentioned in the book "In Defense of Elitism: Why I'm Better Than You and You are Better Than Someone Who Didn't Buy This Book"




Du mouvement social
La fanfare invisible
Protest song - super great energy! Love this a lot.
At an anti-alt-right counter rally, something like this came up.



Stand Up (feat. Shawnna)
Ludacris
Raucous hiphop.
People at the daily stand up meeting said this song got caught in their head, for obvious reasons...
Enola Gay
Orchestral Manoeuvres In the Dark
Anti-war New Wave
School of Honk has started playing this song.
Always (Original Mix)
Tin Tin Out
Club remix, very 90s.
On a trip to the British Isles with my family, I bought a CD "Dance Heat 95"- I think the rips of some of the songs got corrupted, so I got this one to replace the old one.

The fear is greater than the danger.
Japanese Proverb cited on Neon Genesis Evangelion, "Anzuru yori umu ga yasushi" - literally "Giving birth to a baby is easier than worrying about it"

from january 2020 new music playlist

2020.02.04
Huh. Either it was a really good month for music or I'm getting soft in my old age - only a few songs were less than 4-stars, and one was even 5...





Problem 99 (Jay-Z vs. Ariana Grande)
Rockit
Best of Bootie mashup - a lot heavier on the Jay-Z side... really started growing on me.
End of a pile of Best of Bootie I set aside.



F-cking Boyfriend
The Bird and the Bee
Frustrated pop...
Found while looking for Again + Again by the same folks.



Rosie the Riveter
The Four Vagabonds
Sweet little bit of patriotic a cappella... I was kind of happy such an early culturally important song was known for its performance by African-American artists... also love the "Rrrrrrrrrrr" sound effect.
Referenced at the WW2 Museum in NOLA.



The End
The Beatles
My Beatles lore has some odd holes, especially their later stuff.
Referenced in Every Sample from Beastie Boys' "Paul's Boutique"



Margaritaville
Jimmy Buffett
I'm not in much danger of becoming a Parrot-head but I appreciate the middle aged fantasy narrative of this one...
They had a singalong of this on a live podcast of "My Brother My Brother and Me"



September
Franny London
I'm always a sucker for female-vocalist covers, of a disco classic in this case...
Heard on the animated series "Big Mouth"



Underwater Temple, Underwater Monk
Ollie's Sonic Emporium
Goofy little joke hiphop piece, but catchy.
Via this tumblr entry
Hump Day
Miss Eaves
Super-direct and raunchy hiphop homage to women flickin' the bean...
Ending credits of "Big Mouth"



Compared to What
Roberta Flack
Beautiful lowkey jazz protest song. Great light percussion and bass.
My fellow activist bandmember posted Les McCann & Eddie Harris' version... more uptempo, and I love how you can see the musicians communicate in the video - but I love Roberta Flack's version, which is also a bit more concise.
No One Kisses Like a Tuba Player Can
Brett Harrington
"You ain't been 'til you kissed a tuba player, no one kisses like a tuba player can..." Corny hayseed music... makes me ponder on the cultural artifact of "kissing booths"...
Some youtube recommendation...



Talkin' out da Side of Ya Neck
University of Washington Husky Marching Band
Marching Band cover of hiphop. I dig the chanting.
The national champion LSU Tigers have a Marching Band that plays this, and there were articles about trying to get students to stop singing a dirty version of the lyrics... different Marching Band here tho.



What a Man
Linda Lyndell
The original that Salt N Pepa borrowed from...
I might have been looking for a version of Lena's cover? But like with "Shake Yo Thang"/"It's Yo Thang", I'm grateful for Salt N Pepa covers introducing me to such great songs...
In the Pines
Lead Belly
Old Blues. Known covered by Kurt Cobain, later.
Don't know where I heard about this, but it's interesting some versions are "My Girl" but the original might be "Black Girl", which has a different feel.



Darkness
Eminem
Low-key protest song about mass-shootings; the video is kind of an amazing pun that doesn't come out as much in the song.



Unchained Melody
Lykke Li
Lovely soft cover of the song we shmaltzily dance to in high school. (The one thing is the weird repetition of syllables (rivers flow, rivers flow, rivers, to the sea, to the sea, to the sea) - is that even in the original? ))
from the movie "Booksmart"



The Monkey
Dave Bartholomew
More blues. Interesting which verses the Dirty Dozen Brass Band version leaves out.
The "Fabulous Thunderbirds" cover was on the credits of Silicon Valley.



Bad Blood (feat. Clara C)
Kina Grannis
Really sad breakup song.
"Big Mouth" again.

Middle Age is the era of life where you've been doing everything for like at least 5 years, even the stuff that feels new...
Few situations are so bad that they couldn't be worse, which is cause for both thanks and alarm.

from December 2019 New Music Playlist

2020.01.05
Small number of new songs for December, because of Holidays and, ironically, a NOLA trip (in that case the best music was live...)



Oh My God
Ida Maria
Intense pop.
Not sure where I ran across this
You're the Top
Cole Porter
Old classic.
I vaguely remember the characters singing this in M*A*S*H. I gave up trying to find a recording of the "dirty version"...
Changes (feat. The Budos Band)
Charles Bradley
R+B cover of a Black Sabbath song. Great song but a little long.
From the intro to "Big Mouth" - it's authentically retro R+B sound and cover art fooled me- I was shocked to find out it's a cover. (Sort of like a reverse Tainted Love)
Jenny (Remastered)
The Mountain Goats
Lo-Fi Indie
On The Anthropocene Reviewed John Green rights about a random note he made:
2010: “Her eyes on His eyes on” - I assume this note was written when I first noticed the pun inside a lyric from my favorite band, The Mountain Goats. Their song “Jenny” is about a girl in love with a boy who has just acquired a yellow-and-black Kawasaki motorcycle. And one of the song’s couplets goes, “And you pointed your headlamp toward the horizon / We were the one thing in the galaxy God didn’t have His eyes on.” I don’t know why, but that line always reminds me of being in eleventh grade, lying in the middle of an open field with three friends I loved ferociously, drinking warm malt liquor, and staring up at the night sky.
Heebie Jeebies
Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five
Jazz, baby!
In New Orleans I was looking up the history of scat singing (kind of wondering why it got that name...) turns out this was on of the first recorded instances of it... and given they named the airport after him, I figured it was fortuitous.



Firewater
Big Chief Monk Boudreaux & The Golden Eagles
Kind of dark and mysterious song from the NOLA Mardi Gras Indians tradition.
At the NOLA club "Snug Harbor" they covered something like this song. Intersectionality-wise, the whole Mardi Gras Indian is kind of complex (to be honest I kind of ran it by my friend Cordelia of the Seneca people when I ran into her at a party, my take on her view is as long as you recognize the complexity and the long-standing appropriation you probably don't need to shun the derived works)
AP Touro
Rebirth Brass Band
New Orleans Street Band hotness. (googling this I just realized it's probably in honor of A. P. Tureaud, an NAACP legal activist.)
Oddly I saw Rebirth right *before* we headed down to New Orleans, but I shazam'd this song playing at a store in the French Market
Up On Cripple Creek (Remastered)
The Band
70s dirt
Playing at "Coop's Place", our favorite food from our trip to NOLA



Mrs. Claus
Little Jackie
Nice motown-style Christmas song
Playing at an outlet mall in NJ



Jambalaya
The Del McCoury Band & Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Tuba and Banjo jazz cover of the famous song
I think I heard Rebirth play this, looking for a good version I found this cover w/ the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, we stopped in the hall for the "All Star" set there...

Beautiful essay by Michael Chabon, the intersection of his fandom and creative work in Star Trek and sitting vigil by what would be his father's deathbed.

from november 2019 new music playlist

2019.12.02
What A Five-Star song???



Whole Lotta Funk (Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars vs. Led Zeppelin)
DJs From Mars
Fun mashup.
For some reason I've been stockpiling old Best of Booties.



Hypnotize Mama (Notorious B.I.G. vs. David Guetta ft. Nicki Minaj, Bebe Rexha & Afrojack)
DJ Schmolli
Hiphop mash.
For some reason I've been stockpiling old Best of Booties.



Tempo (feat. Missy Elliott)
Lizzo
Excellent hiphop. Wish I could roll my Rs.
Caught this on some random tweet.
Track Suit Kopanitsa
Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band
"Track Suit" is a popular song in the HONK crowd- this mixes it East European hardcore.
My friend Dave B had a copy of the new ENSMB album when it was still upcoming, we listened to it on the way back from PRONK
Backatown
Trombone Shorty
Instrumental, some sweet horns.
My young bandmante Ezequiel loves this song, we might try to work up an arrangement for our group.
Chun-Li
Nicki Minaj
I think there's a Street Fighter backstory I'm missing here...
this page on Tik-Toks
Under the Milky Way
Sia
Very pretty and romantic song.
Reading up the back story of that old VW "Pink Moon" ad, originally they were thinking of the original version of this, but I liked this better than "The Church"'s original.
Once In a Lifetime
Talking Heads
Kind of a classic...
Saw David Byrne live recently! Realized I didn't have much of his older stuff.
Atheists Don't Have No Songs
Rocky Mountain Jewgrass
I think Steve Martin made up this song maybe? But I like this version better.
Found a reference to it doing Blog cleanup...




To Turn You On
Nataly Dawn & Ryan Lerman
This song moved me greatly when first hearing it... it just captures all the energy of every post-breakup person I've chased after.
- found doing backlog grooming
Holy Water
Struggle Jennings
Kinda redneck hiphop, and I think Jesus-y?
from the end credits of the season finale "What We Do in the Shadows"



Super Good
Leningrad
Russian song - Melissa look up the translation, about how many of his peers left the country but the singer stayed behind and is doing "Super Good"
From "What We Do in the Shadows" orgy episode end music ...
You Spin Me Round (feat. Silver Letomi)
Auralnauts
The old How To Make A Blockbuster Movie Trailer had this song with "Introduce Unexpected Cover of a Classic Hit" (more specifically, 'creepy gal singing...' I'd say) - they released it as a single but honestly they left way too much movie trailer in it - a proper moody female vocal cover of "You Spin Me Round" would be awesome.
What More Can I Say
JAY-Z
Angry hiphop.
Seeing Trever Noah live, this was his walk-on music.



Stronger
Youngr
Beautiful modern stuff.
Heard in a New Jersey Old Navy



They Don't Make Em Like Me
Pigeon John
I adore the Motown sound of this, combined with modern stuff
This was background music for a new RAZR phone ad
A Thousand Miles
Vanessa Carlton
What am I, a young woman in the early 2000s? Maybe.
Some random Youtube recommendation.



The Wire
HAIM
Acoustically these folk are doing really interesting stuff, and the breakup theme, but from the breaker rather than breakee, is a good match to "To Turn You On" above.
This tweet: "What is the name for the mental disorder where you listen to The Wire by Haim five times in a row" --@bea_ker

As a liberal, do you agree with Donald Trump on anything at all? An interesting point about how Trump maybe has the benefit of challenging some of the presumptions of the global political status quo. Right now I'm reading "A Warning (by Anonymous)" and I think both that book and the Quora answerer also point out that- he does not study issues nearly deeply enough or listen to enough studied opinions for a person who wields as much power as he does.

Also, compared to the Neocons, he's less bellicose - GWB nostalgia is kind of weird given that whole Cheney Iraq trumped up thing.

(I am by no means a Trump supporter or fan, and I also recognize that focusing on his global political outlook is neglecting the damage he is doing to so many groups at home.)


To be an American is of itself almost a moral condition, an education, and a career.
George Santayana
via Eun Kim's "The Ying and Yang of American Culture: A Paradox", a turn of the millennium view of the USA from a Korean lens. (Found in a used bookstore in Maine)

from september 2019 new music playlist

2019.10.03
New music I added to my playlist, a little lighter than some months.
Thunder and Blazes
Big Top Orchestra
AKA "Entry of the Gladiators" or "that clown music" - I like the fast pace of this version!
Been on a small "brass music I know and/or played" kick lately



Funkytown
Lipps, Inc.
Famous song, it has some interesting bits acoustically speaking...
We play this in School of Honk. I sort of forgot it had lyrics....
Duramax (feat. Young Gunner)
Lenny Cooper
Good ol' boy Hiphop. Trucks blowing black smoke to own the libs is not my culture, but I like the use of the voice modulator and the fiddle
every noise has this as the exemplar for the genre "redneck".



Ride (EP Mix)
Cary Brothers
Wistful and longing.
I am so endlessly enamored of their cover of Something About You that I'll always keep my eyes open to them...



Where Is My Mind
Maxence Cyrin
Piano cover of the Pixies song (didn't realize it was a cover at first... not sure how I feel about that vs when I thought it was such a lovely sparse piano piece...)
One of the Chapelle specials used this



JCB
Nizlopi
Very sweet english piece about a 5 year old driving in a piece of construction equipment with his daddy.
The artist for this was in Belmont Porchfest, and namedrops Ed Sheerhan being influenced by this...



Booty Boogaloo
The Party Band
Love when this piece falls into cut time... Party Band taught that to folks at a HONK! festival song share session.
Saw Party Band play it live, bought their CD.



Mad World (feat. Gary Jules)
Michael Andrews
Sad version of a famous song.
Sam made up a ska-tinged version of this for JP Honk and I realized I didn't have this famous slow cover.
Like Dis, Like Dat (feat. Pop Sykle)
Young Droop
Raunchy slow groove hiphop.
Heard a song by the same name and similar spirit on "Derry Girls", but different song I found.



For What It's Worth
Crystal Bowersox
Modern country cover of "Stop, Children, What's That Sound"...
I was kind of hoping to find the cliched "woman singing slowly in a minor key cover" used in Jack Ryan Season 2 trailer but no luck - still this version is kind of neat.
I AM
Club Yoko
Fun but way-over-produced studio song...
From a Samsung Galaxy commercial I think.
Day Drinking
Little Big Town
Modern country. Kinda like how I like songs and jokes about marijuana more than I actually partake, "day drinking" in a social way always seems nice.
Mentioned on Jeopardy on this montage of Alex Trabek saying "genre"
Heck No! (I'll Never Listen to Techno)
Maldroid
Fun Indie-Pop...
Rediscovered the lite-brite video for this I posted a while back.



Mic Check
Aceyalone
Good hiphop. This video has a freestyle the my copy of the song lacks.
This artist was on the old Scion Mix CD ("Lost Your Mind)

from pleated jeans:

from august 2019 new music playlist

2019.09.02
Light month for the still new summary format... Janelle Monáe is superb as always, and the "Caravan" by The Mills Brothers was a great bookend.
Make Me Feel
Janelle Monáe
Love the almost ASMR sound of the mouth clicks - and this song has so many small little twists, I love it- Strong "Prince" vibe.
Some tumblr entry. Like her stuff in general.



Saber Dance
Harry James and His Orchestra
Heh, remember Peewee's Big Adventure?
I played this in college, maybe some other places...
Rock Star (Jason Nevins Remix Edit)
N.E.R.D
Uptempo remix
Liked this song, ran into the remix in this All iPod Ads video...



Paagal
Badshah
Blend of traditional India music and hiphop - was playing at Melissa's exercise class.
Saw something online about this - controversy where the video is maybe being discriminated against and deserves some record for most views, or maybe there was click-buying, or maybe every big video does that...
Something About You (Single)
Level 42
Famous 80s new wave
The brilliant Cary Bros cover of this made me look for other variants, so I went to the original.
I Think I See the Light
Cat Stevens
Harold+Maude's soundtrack had way too much Cat Stevens, though this one is pretty ok.
Hole In The Bucket
Spearhead
90s hiphop with a protest edge.
References in a band email thread about how to use our funds.



True Colors (Film Version)
Anna Kendrick & Justin Timberlake
An episode of "Superstore" had the original, thought this cover seemed more promising. Deep ambivalence about Lauper's original...
Blurred Ice (Vanilla Ice vs. Robin Thicke ft. Pharrell Williams & T.I.)
Ed Home
Mashup of some problematic songs.
I've had "Best of Booty" (pop-mashups, some truly inspired) tracks sitting around waiting for a quiet month for a while.
Them Basses
Big Top Orchestra
Marching / Circus Band music.
My bass buddy Kevin C posted: "Unpopular Opinion: Them Basses is not a very good march." But I remember playing it once or twice.



Gittin' Funky
Kid 'N Play
80s hip hop - missed the music back in the day, but now I think they were one of the bigger influences in the Christian rap I was listening to around then.
Work buddy Mifi was going to see "Hammer House Party", MC Hammer and a pile of 80s/90s artists including these guys.



Get Up Get Out (feat. Jstlbby)
Born Dirty
Big motivational music.
Someone on work slack did a push to all servers and sent a Spotify link to this, since it seemed thematically appropriate.



bad guy
Billie Eilish
The kinda sexy song that knocked "Old Town Road" off the perch. Love the "Duh".
Friend was playing during a getaway weekend
Nobody
Mitski
Song sounds a bit too studio clean.
The line "Give me one good honest kiss And I'll be alright" was on tumblr - here and here



Caravan
The Mills Brothers
Vocal-instrumental version of a jazz great.
Doing Blog cleanup I ran into it while doing blog cleanup - on /2010/02/15 my mom mentioned by grandfather Papa Sam liked the group.

Let's leave aside the fact that no divine entity or precept of natural law gives anyone the right to own an assault weapon. Let's also ignore the fact that it's entirely likely that gun control solutions would have denied the Odessa shooter easy access to the firearms with which he carried out his killings.

The most interesting question here is about evil intent. If human evil is the ultimate cause of gun violence–rather than the shocking ease with which modern firearms allow tense situations to escalate into deadly violence and unbalanced individuals to become mass murderers in a matter of seconds–then presumably there must be more bad people in America than anywhere else in the world.
I've been hearing "God-given right to own guns" in a few quarters. How the hell does that work? Either it's "well everything comes from God" (all things good and ill, I guess, if God is all powerful and lets 'em happen... and Gun Control would come from God too) or maybe just "well there's this amendment about guns and militias in the Constitution, and that especially in particular came from God".
Oh wow - MRI videos of what's going on with the mouth and tongue and throat when a trombone player is doing their thing! Here's my favorite:

from july 2019 new music playlist - new format!

2019.08.02
So, I know 3 people who claim to be a little interested in the "new music playlists" I posts, and Diane specifically mentioned she likes knowing more about the history. I used that smidgin of interest to justify a whole lot of codin'... (in fact I made a somewhat modernized version of the old database programs I use for so much of my personal information.)

So here's the result, feedback welcome. It's the song name, a possible link to a video, artist name, a brief description, and then where I ran into it, and then stars for 4 and 5 star things...




Philosophers East vs West
Epic Rap Battles of History
One of the more well-researched and clever ERBs.
ERB's new season made me hunt for an old favorite.



Sexy Nation Army
Azoo
Powerful little mashup.
References on tumblr
Three Little Birds (Stephen Marley & Jason Bentley Remix)
Bob Marley & The Wailers
Nice remix. I tried to make some lyrics more true to my philosophy, with mixed results...
The original was playing at a Panera.



Old Town Road (feat. Billy Ray Cyrus) [Remix]
Lil Nas X
I kind of think "Big + Rich" did the whole cowboy/hiphop thing better, but still good.
Once NasX said "deadass thought i made it obvious… " at the end of pride I wanted to grab this one...



Soul Thing
Tony Newman
Nice R+B Funk
Dave B introduced this as a possibility for JP Honk.
Eight Foot Two, Solid Blue, Has Anybody Seen My Martian Gal
Allan Sherman
Cornball joke song, I like the 1950s hightech aspect of it tho
A band in the Ocean Grove NJ 4th Parade were playing the original of this, and I thought of this version from my childhood.
Nevermind
Dennis Lloyd
Nice pop.
???
Had Some Drinks
Two Feet
Good slow grind.
Something on tumblr?
Carry That Weight
The Beatles
Classic Beatles (I've had a blind spot for some of their later albums)
Saw the Navy Band Cruisers OGNJ - a bit propagandish but not bad R+B. This was in a medley.
Screen
twenty one pilots
ok if weirdly juvenile-vibe hiphop.
This sarcastictonystark tumblr entry...
La Tortura (feat. Alejandro Sanz)
Shakira
Spanish pop
this tumblr post about her athleticism - scooching across the floor just using torso and butt muscles is pretty amazing!



Indomitable (feat. Northern Cree Singers)
DJ Shub
I always dig mixups of modern western music with classic First People's stuff- this is the first I've heard that has the traditional singing style with some English lyrics ("throw your hands in the air...")
"Tribe Called Red" announced a new song which I wasn't as crazy about, but it got me searching around and finding this.
Taste of the Good Times
Will Beeley
Lowkey country, and authentic by a guy who truckered for years...
Some public radio had a piece on him.
Stand Up Tall
Dizzee Rascal
UK Hiphop
Bassline Junkie was a recommendation off of one of my all time favorites Golddust but I couldn't find a download for it in the US, found this instead by the same arist.
Astral Weeks
Van Morrison
Gentle music... I remember hearing how someone played it the morning after a first night together, and the couple was married for years and years after...
Some novel mentioned this, maybe the Sally Rooney I was reading...
The Biggest Ball of Twine In Minnesota
"Weird Al" Yankovic
Heard this epic song live in Boston!
99% Invisible podcast talked about the biggest twine balls, and played this song which I hadn't heard for years.
Luigi
Supper Mario Broth
All 5 tracks of Luigi humming or whistling the Luigi's Mansion theme at various levels of scardness, all at once...
this Supper Mario Broth linked to this.



True Affection
The Blow
Art pop.
I really liked their live train station a capella version of how naked are we gonna get and figured they had other songs I'd probably like
Everybody Eats When They Come to My House
Cab Calloway and His Orchestra
Interesting rhyming game song - kind of like a prototype for "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"....
The Judge John Hodgman podcast mentioned the lyrics.



Forevermore
Katie Herzig
I remember the root of this song from my childhood
Most interesting version I could find on iTunes...
Fué en un Café
Los Apson
The classic spanish cover of "Under the Boardwalk"
Torito Pinto plays this song...



Boy Meets Girl
The Exploding Voids
Pop from Germany... I think with authentic, personal footage from a USA roadtrip
I might be this band's biggest American fan, because of my deep adoration of As It Comes (one of my top 3 ever songs).

Man, my muttonchops are going gray - but the gray is taking its timing moving forward, so I'm worried I'm going to look like I'm making a goatee which was never my intention. By the way full endorsement of short beard as an excellent compromise of laziness and not looking like an unkempt beast.

Rats have a "random mode" they gets activated in certain unfamiliar situations - they stop trying to make best guesses based on past experience. They think humans might sometimes benefit from a previous strategy... I can see it both in shaking free from preconceived notions, and also if playing against some kind of adversary, making oneself less predictable...
Wanna get me some ataraxia!

from new music playlist june 2019

2019.07.02
Pretty good month for new music! Felt really packed. A lot of hiphop. List below is newest first, 4 star stuff in red.

Diane said her primary interest is where I discover new music, so I tried to keep closer track. Not sure if there are real surprises- soundtracks (esp commercials/trailers and HBO shows), random tweets, tumblr entries, personal recommendations, youtube recommendations, or random impulses.

from May 2019 new music playlist

2019.06.01
Huh. Plenty of new music, but not much that I really loved. 4 star stuff (all low 4s) in red:

from April 2019 New Music Playlist

2019.05.02
New to me music I added last month. Decent month but only 14. In roughly descending order of coolness, 4 or 5 stars in red...

One five star: Melissa and I saw this in concert. It's a beautiful and melancholy song. Melissa finds the line "So I left home and faked my ID / I f***ed every man that I wanted to be" especially poignant, and there's also that "Baby, I'm afraid But it's not your fault"

Arun hosted a house concert, Caroline Cotter... an amazingly cool thing to do. I got these 3 songs: Two NOLA-style songs: Other songs:

from march 2019 new music playlist

2019.04.02
Music I added to my ever-increasing playlist last month - as usual, 4-star stuff in red, listed in decreasing "you need to hear this" order.
TIL we do not know the secret name of bears - not even our own word for it:
Our ancient ancestors were so worried about bears, they didn't even want to name them because they feared [the bears] might overhear and come after them. So they came up with this word -- this is up in Northern Europe -- 'bruin', meaning "the brown one" as a euphemism, and then 'bruin' segued into 'bear'. We know the euphemism, but we don't know what word it replaced, so bear is the oldest-known euphemism.

from february 2019 new music playlist

2019.03.02
Somewhat anemic February, music-wise, though I was glad to figure out how to tape songs off of youtube in a reasonable way... (chronological order, 4-star songs in red)
It seems odd that two tropes for the clearness of the eyes - "gimlet-eyed" and "limpid pools"- both sound a bit like the opposite of what they mean.
A cucumber - like, either end of an english cucumber - wrapped in a tortilla, and with some jalapeno mustard, has a remarkable tastiness and texture and nutrition (well, at least lack of un-nutrition) to fuss ratio, seriously off the charts.

from january 2019 new music playlist

2019.02.02
It's groundhog day. Again.

Last month was ok for music. 4+5 star stuff in red...

One 5 star: A lot of hip hop (much of it kind of raunchy) last month: Two songs my honk band is working on: Most of the rest came from shows I watched -
[For Trump] dominance does seem to rank at the top. "I love to crush the other side and take the benefits," he wrote in a book called Think Big. "Why? Because there is nothing greater. For me it is even better than sex, and I love sex." He went on to observe: "You hear lots of people say that a great deal is when both sides win. That is a bunch of crap. In a great deal you win--not the other side. You crush the opponent and come away with something better for yourself."
LOL President Conan the Barbarian - "What is best in life?" "To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women."

This is why he ok as a reality tv star or WWE guest, and a shit politician. I pray to god he is bluffing with declaring a damn national emergency... declaring national emergencies - like to paraphrase Archer: “DO YOU WANT A BANANA REPUBLIC DICTATOR? BECAUSE THAT’S HOW YOU GET BANANA REPUBLIC DICTATORS.”
"Oof, it's 18 degrees out!"
"That's not enough degrees. We need more degrees."
Melissa and Me.

from november 2018 new music playlist

2018.12.02
A lot of catchy songs in November, including a (relatively rare) 5 star.

5 Star: 4 Star: 3 Star:

from october 2018 new music playlist

2018.11.02
As usual, in roughly descending "you should hear this" order, 4 star stuff in red.
ZeFrank's Guide to post-Halloween Candy Trading:

I'd like to see an Epic Rap Battle of Brownie the Elf (short-lived mascot of the Cleveland Browns) and the Celtics' Lucky the Leprechaun but it seems kind of unfair from the outset.

from september 2018 new music playlist

2018.10.03
In some ways September felt like a lost month to me and I didn't run into much music. 4 star stuff in red
In Praise of Mediocrity (like with hobbies) Two thoughts come to mind - Vonnegut's "A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but the world's champions" and an old Demotivator:

It's good advice! Reminds me of how I'm trying to grow more comfortable but videogames on easy mode.

from august 2018 new music playlist

2018.09.04
4-star stuff in red. And there's a lot of it! So a good month but not much that really blew my mind.
A FB exchange from Aug 12 that stuck with me:
Nick:
"i'm listening to a radio production of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, and i'm getting kind of tired of it. the whole premise is that some "psycho-historian" predicted the fall of his own empire and invented some crazy 1000-year plan of 120dimensional chess that would "limit the duration of the time of barbarism that followed". because if you're smart enough you can set into motion a thousand-years-long conspiracy. and if you are not in a gigantic empire then you're in barbarism apparently.

am I going to feel this way whenever I read a sci-fi classic?"
Kirk:
In theory, I like the metaphor of a billiard ball, that the course of a few atoms were unpredictable but get 'em into a billiard ball and it was pretty easy, and that's how psychohistory works. I guess it doesn't hold water but I can't exactly explain why not. (Maybe because the real world isn't the metaphorical equivalent of a nice flat billiards table :-D )
Matt:
Asimov was writing in a world that had statistical mechanics (which he'd have encountered in his chemistry training) but not so much chaos theory.
I thought Matt's point was concise and quite probably correct. See also: the law of unintended consequences...

from july 2017 new music playlist

2018.08.02

from june 2018 new music playlist

2018.07.02
Am I getting to be an old softy with the stars? Lots of 5s and 4s this month.

5 Star

4 Star 3 Star
"Rules are made to be broken!"
"Ees exact OPPOSITE of what they are for!"
Deadpool and Colossus in Deadpool 2

from may 2018 new music playlist

2018.06.06
Music I "discovered" in May, 4-star stuff in red.
Me: I wish to spend an extended time rubbing my fingers over some small patch of pleasantly-textured surface. Perhaps the fur of an animal?
The miniaturized apex predator with which I share my home: [vibrates at a soothing frequency to encourage this behavior]

from april 2018 new music playlist

2018.05.01


--Josh Dahl says "This image is amazing. It should be used all the time. It applies to every situation. Use it far and wide." "COME Friends.... Let us go AWAY from this dumb place"

from march 2018 new music playlist

2018.04.02
8 of the 16 songs this month were 4-star (marked in red) and then "'Til It's Over" was 5, so pretty good month! Listed in a rough descending "you gotta hear this!" order.
Man. It is really impressive that such a precise looking behavior like this could evolve. (Not as impressive/unlikely as it being designed from scratch or taught to a little spider brain tho) I wonder to what level the spider brain is modeling what it's doing - I mean it must be at least a small feedback loop, since webs have to fit various-shaped places, and so it can't be just a tape-recorder like playback of movements...


Jon Batiste's "Battle Hymn of the Republic" features in my "music I added last month" playlist, a cover recommended to me after we flashmobbed with him.

The song is such a terrific earwig, yet terribly bellicose and apocalyptic. End-times Religiosity is such a damaging outlook, I'm kind of bummed in features so prominently in this song and the staple "Saints Go Marching In"

Mark Twain wrote some parody lyrics based on American Imperialism in the Phillipines:
"Mine eyes have seen the orgy of the launching of the Sword;
He is searching out the hoardings where the stranger's wealth is stored;
He hath loosed his fateful lightnings, and with woe and death has scored;
His lust is marching on."

Credit Cars finally giving up the security theater of signatures. Reminds me of the (defunct) ZUG site's Credit Card Prank and Credit Card Prank II where they went to see just what stupid stuff they could pass off as a signature without a problem (SPOILER: very stupid)
I wish there was an equivalent to the "bitch you live like this?" image for boring minimalist spaces:

Interesting point. Not sure I 100% agree (in theory if you do a really good job decluttering, over time the out of sight out of mind rule might kick in once and finally you can reclaim that focus but still...)

from february 2018 new music playlist

2018.03.02
Kind of a light month last month... bestest stuff in red.
I'm not the biggest basketball fan but Lebron's nutmeg and James Harden's "what are you doing" stare were both pretty great

From the makers of I Can't Believe It's Not ButterTM, Introducing:
-It Might Be Bread
-Let's Just Say It's Cream Cheese
-It Almost Tastes Like Jam
-Sure, it's 'Maple Syrup'
-Smells A Bit Like Eggs

I never knew a blacksmith who was in love with his hammer.
Max Wilkinson.
(Vonnegut cites that after Renata Adler defining a writer as somebody who hates to write.)

from january 2018 new music playlist

2018.02.01
New -to-me music, 4 star stuff in red.

I'm upset that my go-to for ripping otherwise unfindable music from Youtube seems like it's shut down for "music videos on my region".

from december 2017 new music playlist

2018.01.02
New music from the last month of 2017 (4 star stuff in red) A lot of this month was holiday tunes... Other songs....

from november 2017 new music playlist

2017.12.02
Good month for music, 4 star stuff in red, in descending "you should hear this" order.
Republicans are so full of shit. Even when they said they cared about the deficit. Not as much as sucking up to their corporate backers! (LOL Democrats opposed the bill because it was "too good" and they wouldn't get credit. Trump uses delusion the way a carpenter uses nails)

When every non-partisan group tells you your economic ideas are full of shit, that's not a bias in the groups, that's the bias of reality.

from october 2017 new music playlist

2017.11.03
Decent month for music, a lot of HONK!fest and tunes from "Baby Driver"... 4 and 5 star stuff in red, listed in descending order of "you gotta hear this"

from september 2017 new music playlist

2017.10.01
Decent month for music. 4+5 Star stuff in red, and in general in descending order of "you should hear this!"
Football isn't a contact sport, it's a collision sport. Dancing is a good example of a contact sport.
Duffy Daugherty

from august 2017 new music playlist

2017.09.03
Descending order of "you gotta here this", 4-star stuff in red.
trump promising $5 million for president obama's birth certificate but only $1 million to hurricane victims is as on-brand as you can get

from july 2017 new music playlist

2017.08.02
Decent month for me finding music, especially for funk and r+b. As usual in descending "man you should hear this!" order, with stuff I called 4 stars instead of 3 in red...
I don't mind that people wallow in ignorance, I just wish they wouldn't splash so much.
/u/Drusgar

Great point that rings true - Trever Noah: Donald Trump Is Everything People Thought A Black President Would Be

from june 2017 new music playlist

2017.07.02
Not the strongest month, but a few interesting bits.
Just watched "Get Out", great stuff.

Completely inconsequential lesson learned: women with bangs are like Clark Kent and his glasses for me. Would have taken me a long time to realize the actress was Marnie from "Girls".

from may 2017 new music playlist

2017.06.02
First off, you have to see this Betty Boop cartoon starring a rotoscoped Cab Calloway as Koko the Clown: Anyway, music I added to my playist last month, in rough descending order of "you should hear this", 4 star stuff in red.
I sort of love the the new version of Javascript uses "let"... reminds me of old school BASIC.

from april 2017 new music playlist

2017.05.06
Pretty good month for music, 5 star stuff in red....
I skipped yoga this week, but I did assemble two largeish IKEA pieces (with help from Liz) in relatively small rooms with lots of boxes... that's kind of the same thing, right?

from march 2017 new music playlist

2017.04.07
Pretty good month! Starting with one the relatively rare 5 star songs, and going down from there...

5 Star:

4 Star: 3 Star

from february 2017 new music playlist

2017.03.04
4-star songs in read, listing things in rough descending order of "you gotta hear this"ness.
I made a tutorial page about the blues scale and the 12 bar blues.

from january 2017 new music playlist

2017.02.01
4-star-ers in red; I feel like I might have been a little too generous. A ton of youtube rips - which is always my last resort, I'd rather pay and also get a good quality product, but sometimes you got to take what you can get. Arranged in rough descending "maybe you should check this out!" order...
Playing at a rally today, Safe Communities Coalition Against the Travel Ban
It is the arrogance of every age to believe that yesterday was calm.
Tom Peters, Wired 5.12, Dec 1997

from december 2016 new music playlist

2017.01.03
Respectable month for new music. 4 or 5 star songs in red.

from november 2016 new music playlist

2016.12.02
A shorter than average list, sadly I didn't hear much new music in Malaysia. 4 stars in red, check out the video for Carment
The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one!
Donald Trump, on Twitter in 2012 when he wrongly thought Obama lost the popular vote. Presumably he meant to say "the loser won" not "one".

Very mixed feelings about Trump scotch taping his tie.



advent day 2

Ugh, vague feeling of remembering "Oh I should put this down someplace where I'll remember it" followed by less vague feeling of being pretty sure I didn't.
The 52 Things I learned in 2016. Whoa.

from October 2016 New Music Playlist

2016.11.02
Interesting month for music. A lot of rips I made myself and a fair amount of religious-y stuff. Here in reverse chronological order, 4 star stuff in red.

from september 2016 new music playlist

2016.10.04
Pretty decent month. 4-star stuff in red.

from august 2016 new music playlist

2016.09.02
A surprising amount of 4-stars (marked in red) last month...

Hiphop

Mario "Old Stuff I Missed" Misc
Best daytime firework I've seen!

I think it's a "gerindola"

from second best photos of 2009 and july 2016 new music playlist

2016.08.02
Second Best Photos of 2009. Several years have had some bonus images thrown in, but 2009 was strong enough that I thought it could use its own runner-up gallery dozen.

Open Photo Gallery



With R+D we made a legion of homemade peeps and then puffed Totoros.


Ariana at the shore.


Amber with strawberries.


4th of July kayak.


Jane at Old Orchard Beach in Maine.


Me at Old Orchard Beach in Maine.


Spy Pond.


Amber at ICA.


Rockport Gull.


Jack O' Lanterns at Sarah's.


Steampunk Ariana.


Christmas loot.


Bonus: haunting child from Cozy Coupe box.


In its essence, technology is something that man does not control.
Martin Heidegger

It was a rough month for me and iTunes; I realized that 180 or so songs were just gone, so I had to spend a lot of time digging them up from archives and what not. (and it's frustrating, because I'd prefer to use "smart" playlists based on "Added" dates, but iTunes doesn't let you backdate files.) Not sure what caused that; my dalliance with Apple Music, some bungling on my part, or what, but now I'm out to be a lot more careful with my music collection.
4 stars in red.

from june 2016 new music playlist

2016.07.13
So-so month for new music last month.
61 glimpses of the future, starting in the Far East.
I'm not a very privacy-minded guy, but Waze kind of freaked me out the other day - I was used to it "helpfully" asking "Are you on your way [Home]?" (after I registered more or less my home address with it") at random times I thought maybe there was some heuristic about home and realizing I wasn't near there. The other day it asked me "Are you on your way to [Stony Brook]?" - where we have our regular band practice at that time... Now, I entered Stony Brook as a favorite just for that purpose, but man... that moves Waze from "take a guess" heuristics to low-key stalker.

from may 2016 new music playlist

2016.06.02
As usual, in rough descending order of "you should hear this!", 4-stars in red.

from april 2016 new music playlist

2016.05.03
An uncommonly good month for music, with me puting the first four listed at 4 stars.
"Not less than three times in his or her life should everyone read Don Quixote, in youth, middle age, and old age." said Aubrey Bell (I thought there was a longer version of this quote that compared it to viewing a lovely building in the morning, afternoon, and twilight but I couldn't find it.)

Anyway. I started reading Don Quixote, again.

Sigh :-D

from march 2016 new music playlist

2016.04.01
A middling-fair month for finding music - no 4 stars. Sorted in inverse "you gotta hear (or see) this!"
Seriously amazing Empire-centric, 80s-anime-style short Star Wars battle drawn and animated weekends over 4 years by one fan...

from february 2016 new music playlist

2016.03.02
New (to me) music I added last month! 4 stars in red.
Tuba travel planning. I find it charming , yet pragmatic, that multiple exemptions for musical instruments have been carved out for airline baggage policies.

And it's irregularly shaped to boot. "My hump, my hump, my lovely tuba lump"
Wow-- remember that old computer animation of a fantasy contraption, hundreds of spheres bouncing and playing (percussion, and impact-y strings)? Someone made that a reality!!

It's like a music box*100!

from january 2016 new music playlist

2016.02.03
Ok month for music to start the year. You GOTTA watch the alternate video for TOO MANY ZOOZ.

from december 2015 new music playlist

2016.01.04
Semi-decent month for new music last month, the first one listed is the only 4-star.
To discard the stuff we've acquired is to murder the version of ourselves we envision using it.
She also cites June Thomas labeling it as encouraging an "anorexia of things." (I guess the counter-argument is: that's true, about the "murder", but so often that vision of what "could be, maybe" interferes with our pleasure in "what is")
All FNORD Hail FNORD Discordia...
Amused that Google Maps for IOS clearly wasn't tested in a walking city such as Boston; even when on a walking route it gives you real time turn directions blocks ahead of time, as if you were zipping along in a car.

from november 2015 new music playlist

2015.12.04
Music I added to my collection last month, 4-stars in red.

advent day 4

"Show Your Work". I think I do that too much when I write: it's not enough to state what I believe, but why I believe it, because I have this subconscious fear that at any moment I might be held to account for it, and being Wrong is kind of Sin.

But in truth, no one (or at least a small select) gives a damn. The indifference of the universe is at once utterly disheartening and rather freeing.

"The winds blew and the clouds moved on as if they were oblivious to their mortal plight." <- best video game quote ever.
With a presumed life span of over 500 years, it's safe to say that every plastic bottle you have used exists somewhere on this planet, in some form or another.

after ordering a nice cheap pair of gloves from Amazon, I wonder what it will be like for kids who witness their parents doing this... I mean money and the worlds of commerce are already kind of mysterious for kids, I think-- witnessing parents who type at a computer and then two days later or so stuff just shows up on the doorstep... That's kind of weird!

from october 2015 new music playlist

2015.11.05
Arranged in descending order of "hey this is interesting!"...
You have the rights to my face. You do not have the rights to my lagoon of mystery!"
Carrier Fisher on what she said to George Lucas about an overly revealing action figure. (via)

from september 2015 new music playlist

2015.10.02
Music I added last month... 4-stars in red, the first four videos are worth a watch.

It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.
Hugh Laurie
(just to have it in text)

from august 2015 new music playlist

2015.09.04
5 and 4 star: And the rest...
No one's being jailed for practicing her religion. Someone's being jailed for using the government to force others to practice her religion.
See also: @NextToKimDavis... Davis is either terribly misguided or just trying to ride the Loony Conservative Gravy Train.

from july 2015 new music playlist

2015.08.03
This marked the month I fiddled around with Apple Music; never again. They should have made it a separate app, this whole conflating of music available locally and via streaming just sucks, and there are a number of weird glitches.

So, an ok month for music, here arranged in rough order of "harsh and electronic" to "soft and acoustic"... it seems like most of these songs fell on one side of that or the other. 4 stars and up marked in red, though as always it's more "stuff I'd like to hear" more than a judgement of the quality of the music.
Someday a few decades from now, some kid is going to ask me, 'Is it really true that you remember a time before the Internet?' and I'll feel like some wise sage who used to extract information straight from the Earth.

Feynman vs Gell-man. Ok, if digging on Feynman and his diagrams isn't hipster enough for you, you should become an acolyte of Murray Gell-man.

I do appreciate the Gell-man's knack for the naming of things, though I wonder if this article is remiss for leaving out Feynman's work on the Challenger explosion investigation.
It's weird thinking that almost all of what I consider both my adult life, and my recorded life (when I got into daily blogging, private journaling, and also started having a camera in my pocket at all times) happened in the aftermath of 9/11. And also, half of that happened before iPhone, and half after.

Time is weird.

from june 2015 new music playlist

2015.07.09
June was pretty decent for new music for me. If you check out nothing else, look at Super Spice Bros 2. Hip Hop / Electronic: Indie and Country: Funk and Instrumental:
via Gizmodo, housing values across the USA. I love how this looks like a beating heart energized by where people want to live.

Fascinating post-exit interview with a "Blue Man". We've gotten kind of used to them, but they've really assembled an amazing thing.
In defense of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. That was a fun show.
"dont say 'man up' say 'level up' because video games are cooler than gender binary"
2019 update: I think 'power up' would maybe be better. though ambiguous, a bit. 'use a power up'?
SO IT TURNS OUT Crown Royal on the rocks is kind of gross but Crown Royal neat alternating with Skinny Cow Chocolate Truffle popsicles is sort of awesome. WHO KNEW???

from may 2015 new music playlist

2015.06.02
In decreasing order of "you should hear this!":

from april 2015 new music playlist

2015.05.03
Only a few 4 stars, listed in red. The rest put in descending order of interestingness, either for the song or the video.
A few photos by Joni L, from JP Honk at yesterday's "Wake Up The Earth" parade and festival in JP. It was a LONG haul up Centre St but the chance to do a set at Stony Brook, and really walk around and through the audience, was special




from march 2015 new music playlist

2015.04.02
Ok month for new music... 4-5 stars in red. A lot more instrumental stuff than usual.

--from http://dogscantlookup.com/post/115268609033 ...

"C'est la Vie!"
accepting that
"this should not be!"
but coping
more stoically; philosophically--
"C'est la Vie..."
A poem I wrote 7 years ago...
I had forgotten about it, but really it was the same idea I rediscovered recently, the concept that if you expect life to be suboptimal, and stop demanding that it live up to all of your momentary hopes and expectations, it can be easier and less scary when small(ish) things do go wrong -- SNAFU usually won't lead to FUBAR.
[On worrying about "Skynet" scenarios] Humans are going to die on this planet. We're not going to go through a wormhole to another galaxy; it's just not going to happen. What will survive on our behalf is AIs--if we manage to create them. That's not problematic, it's desirable.
Alex Garland, talking with Wired about his new film "Ex Machina".
I really agree with his point here. (Also, is he getting a dig into the film "Interstellar"?)

from february 2015 new song playlist

2015.03.02
February was a pleasingly eclectic month for my new music playlist. 4-stars in red.

Jazz and Instrumental Alt Modern Hiphop / Club

from january 2015 new song playlist

2015.02.02
January was a low quantity, high quality month for new music finds

****: ***:
We were on defense.
Bill Belichick in his post-XLIX interview, when asked to second guess Pete Carroll's final play call.
Even when goaded with the "hypothetically", he's all "we're different teams".

from december 2014 new song playlist

2015.01.02
Two 4-stars (for me, YMMV) Some South Asian music came to my attention: Other songs, in descending order of "you gotta listen to this!"
TIL "50 Shades of Grey" was originally Twilight Fan Fiction.

I don't mean to be totally dismissive of Fan Fiction, but I got to say it explains my reaction to how it felt when I started reading it. There's just a clumsiness to it, with characters really clearly being just the way they are for the author's convenience (and a giant heap of Mary Sue-ism) rather than feeling grounded in some kind of reality and more generalized relatability. (Then again, the original Twilight felt the same way, kind of like it's its own fan fiction...) Though maybe I'm just not used to first person narration in general.
Alright, Aesop, but what happened after the wolf gave up on the sour grapes? Maybe he opened a grape farm. Maybe there's a type of grape that gives him superpowers. Are there other trees with different fruits? Maybe there's a Mrs. Wolf. You've crafted a very interesting universe here, Aesop, and we'd like to explore it.
James Harvey vs Fan Fiction

Director's Commentary for this year's Advent Calendar.

from ultimate mix tape

2014.11.05
My favorite personal tech site Lost in Mobile is running a Ultimate Mix Tape competition. Here's what I sent in to Shaun, webmaster, and music judge:

My ultimate mix has two sides,
attack side and regroup side
the final song on each kind of leads to the other group

Plus a bonus song, the titular kirk's best song in the world,
the one he's obligated to dance to each time he hears it,
if only for a little head snake.

attack side
  1. Chameleon - Maynard Ferguson
  2. All The Rowboats - Regina Spektor
  3. Might Like You Better - Amanda Blank
  4. Super Holla Tricka - Beastie Boys vs Gwen Stefani vs aSkillz Krafty Kuts
  5. Cool As I Am - Dar Williams
regroup side
  1. Buildings & Bridges - Ani Difranco
  2. As It Comes - The Exploding Voids
  3. Concrete Wall - Zee Avi
  4. Tenderness - Paul Simon
  5. It's Your Thing - Isley Brothers
bonus track
  1. Groove is in the Heart - Deee-Lite
It's pretty eclectic, but maybe you'll hear something you dig.
25 of the best photos of Mohammed Ali. I like that the commentary talks about what works and doesn't for each photo.

from october 2014 new song playlist

2014.11.02
In terms of important music videos this month, I think an honorable mention goes to Bootsy's Basic Funk Formula tutorial, it cemented and affirmed ideas I had been stirring up about what music appeals to me, and what just won't, no matter how much I think I "should" like it:
ONE two three four...

and you hit on the one ya know? ONE -- -- -- ONE.

And then you would try to fit your different notes, what you felt, in between that-- And that's the funk.

And you can change that! It's however you feel, but you just have to fit it between that little space that you got, which is ONE, two three four -- ONE two three four... ONE, two three four. And then you go back to your funk!

Here you go! And then you want to break it down. You got your basic funk formula there. You can do anything you want to do with it! Ya know?

Bootsy Collins
OK, on to the list, in super-rough descending order of awesomeness.
Jeez, was wondering why I am up at six. Having devices that are better at remembering the time change than I am is weird. Wish we had daylight savings all year long- Boston is too easterly to have Standard Time make sense.
100 Pumpkins vs a Snowblower At first I thought this was, like, a horror film for pumpkins. But then I remembered what macabre things are done to them, by individuals but on a semi-industrial scale, to make Jack-O-Lanterns-- every fall is a horror movie for them!
If the election goes as badly for the democrats as some fear, I'm kind of hoping to draw a metaphor with climate change; this winter's gonna suck, but that doesn't mean the climate isn't getting warmer. (I realize I just compared the democrats to global warming, but I mean in a good way)

from september 2014 new song playlist

2014.10.01
New songs I found out about last month, in descending "You gotta hear / see this!" order...

from august 2014 new song playlist

2014.09.02
Last month was oddly dominated by hiphop for me.

With everything listed in descending order of MAN you really gotta hear this, five things that I think are intriguing: And the rest:
Once or twice a year, I'll get a nice email thanking me for http://mortals.be/ and/or the comic I need to get off my but and find a publisher for. Sometimes I engage further with people who are still wrestling with angst of being mortal by nature, and finite in impact. Today I wrote this:
I suspect ultimately there will be no way to come to terms with the non-immortality of even our finest acts, and the corresponding "lack of significance" vs what our imaginations can posit, that of something eternal and everlasting, except by personal contemplation and reflection.

One thought I had... we want to be significant and remembered outside our "reference frame", the people who know us, and then MAYBE culture as a larger whole, and then, somehow, the space time continuum (I think I'm misusing physics terms like "reference frame" here). In a way, this seems as misguided, as at odds with the makeup of reality, as desperately longing to have an impact outside of our "light cone", that somehow we should be able to make an impact that would resonate instantaneously across all space and time, rather than propagating at the slow speed of light.

I think that's just the inversion of the same problem; we want to resonate not just instantly, but forever, and, ultimately, everywhere. It's a natural desire, and frustrating that even B-list celebrities will have a "bigger" impact than we will (as my friend Dylan put it, "it makes me said that cartoon character Dilbert will has more influence on this world than I do"), but even Elvis has a reference frame he will never transcend, never be known outside of.

25 Years Ago Today, I played tuba in the marching band for the first nationally broadcasted high school football game... it's kind of weird to think that I've been blogging daily for over half that time.

from july 2014 new song playlist

2014.08.02
July was terrific for music, especially R+B wise... The first 4 songs here I all rated 4 stars. I was contacted by local musician Chandler Travis, and asked if I could jump in for the Chatham 4th of July parade... here were 4 songs we did (plus Iko Iko, which I'm trying to bring back to my own Honk Band) Some acoustically interesting bits-- Novelty Songs... Misc

from june 2014 playlist

2014.07.06
Last month was pretty good for music... listed here in descending "you should really listen to this" order...
The conservative Supreme Court justices are sneaky, misogynist liars.
Sometimes on a freelance or independent project I get chuffed at how many esoteric little geek tricks I rely on. (Like using Perl, Processing, phantom.js, and general CSS mojo to get stuff prepped for a cool turn page effect library turn.js) Then I get worried that you know - this tool shouldn't be this hard, maybe I'm just doing it wrong. And then impostor syndrome slash general anxiety kicks on, and I think yeah, I can solve THIS set of challenges, but without a lot of wiggle room, what if the next ones aren't so amenable?

You know?

Ah well. Like Bogost says, "The solution to impostor syndrome is to accept that you are in fact a fraud and just get on with it."

from may 2014 playlist

2014.06.03
Check out "Coffee", if nothing else.

from playlist april 2014

2014.05.02
Few in number, not bad in quality, last month's songs. Arranged in descending order of "I really think you should check this out"

from march playlist

2014.04.02
An OK month for music. Video wise, Turn Down For What and the Pomplamoose Pharrell Mashup are definitely worth checking out.

Reverse chronological order for these, which is the way I listen to 'em.
Michael Jackson would lay out tracks a cappella...

from february 2014 playlist

2014.03.09
Songs I added last month. In reverse chronological order, which is actually how I listen to 'em.
Even my bedside clock (that also projects the time onto the ceiling... highly recommended) self-adjusts for Daylight Savings Time. I was psyched thinking I had caught up on some sleep before I realized that my clock, phone, and laptop all had automagically switched without mentioning it to me.
you are a fabulous arrangement
of whatever it is we
are made of


New Blender of Love

from january playlist

2014.02.02
New songs added. More "clumped" than some months, with a big row of awesome female vocalist cover and originals.

Soft Covers and Female Vocalists Harsh and/or In Need of Justification Classics of their Time Other
Too early to ask the Carroll vs Belichick thing? #kiddingithink

from december 2013 playlist

2014.01.08
Songs I added to my collection in December... ones in red are especially great.
http://www.xkcd.com/1314/ Today's xkcd reminded me of this quote:
Photography isn't about the pictures. Pictures never come out right. It's about the adventure.
Jason the Australian, as we climbed up and over fences on the roof of my mom's 17-story apartment building in NYC.

Re: global warming and the cold weather 'Liberals keep telling me the Titanic is sinking but my side of the ship is 500 feet in the air.'

from october 2013 playlist

(2 comments)
2013.11.02
No 4-stars last month. You should see An Interpretive Dance For My Boss Set To Kanye West's Gone if you haven't already.

from playlist september 2013

(1 comment)
2013.10.02
A lot of Youtube rips this month. Emeli Sandé's "Heaven" is the only 4 star-- great song, that.

from playlist august 2013

(2 comments)
2013.09.02
Busy month, not many new songs but some good ones. 4-stars in red.


Some amazing "motivational" posters from the 1920s

from playlist july 2013

2013.08.01
The songs I added to my regular rotation, not many this month so I kept them in the order I added them. 4-stars marked in red, interesting videos with a "!".
Gas prices don't seem so bad once you realize you're buying explosive liquid dinosaurs

New "prime the canvas" technique in art class.

from playlist june 2013

(2 comments)
2013.07.02
June was a relatively sedate month for new music... maybe I'm spending more time out doors, or maybe just getting old and curmudgeonly.

Three sound clips I had used a decade ago as intros to party mix CDs: No 4- or 5-stars. Exclamation points mark out the more visually interesting videos.
Ugh. The pilgrimage to Mecca could be a killer.
fuck this fake nostalgia bullshit, props to the 80s for drawing inspiration from the future, a time that DIDN'T EVEN EXIST YET

the closer-up the thumbnail, the farther from reality #aphorismsOfTomorrow

Amtrak, Assault, Axel, BC, Class, E-Z Rock, Flack, Fresh, Jay-R, Jazzy Jeff, John, M.I.F., Mc Fear, Moule, Mystic, Shadow, Steve Porter, Topcat #postyourDJs
Neologism from Wendy M: "Jackass of All Trades". I need to find opportunities to use that.

from playlist may 2013

(3 comments)
2013.06.02
May was a pretty lackluster month for me for new music. So few songs that rather than collate into genres I'm putting them in rough chronological order (based on the original versions, even when it's a cover.)

I would have hade 3 or 4 more, but I didn't get the gumption for hunting down some international songs.

No 4-stars, and as always exclamation marks point out better than average videos.
Yankees had a 111-year old fan in the stadium! Red Sox help pay tribute by winning 1-11.

Blender of Love
Now with FB likes...

Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It's the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.
Brian Eno

from playlist april 2013

(2 comments)
2013.05.03
The music I added to my collection last month -- Needing/Getting was fan-tas-tic. Exclamation points mark worthwhile videos.

Alt with Big Drums Other Alt Country/Bluegrass/Blended Girly Covers: Retro Female Hiphop
Slate on LOL Heh. Just like I'll never be really comfortable wearing a backpack with both straps because that was totally uncool in the late 80s, I will never be at ease using "LOL" because that's what the AOL noobs used in the mid-90s...
Likeness is a most slippery tribe
Plato

from playlist march 2013

(2 comments)
2013.04.07
March was a very solid month for music... I'm wondering if I'm too stingy with the 4 and 5 stars, because "So Fast, So Maybe" is so near a 5, and some of the other ones are close to a 4. Maybe I should start using 1/2 stars like people tell me I can now... (UPDATE: I decided to be a little less stingy. "So Fast" is 5 stars, and a few other 4 stars are marked in red.)

As always exclamation marks point out videos that are more than just static images.

Hiphopish Modern Stuff with Retro Forms Spoken Word and Misc 90sish Brass and Marching Band Related Covers

from playlist february 2013

2013.03.04
February is a short month, but it's a particularly short new playlist... as always, 4-stars in red, exclamation points mark interesting videos.

Retro Pop Indy/Alt

from playlist january 2013

2013.02.03
Janury was a relatively light month for finding music, but contiuned the kizmet of melancholy songs for me with two astounding covers... 4 or more star songs in red, exclamation points mark more visually compelling videos.

Amazing and Melancholy Covers Sexy Katamari -- songs from the video game. Novelty: Misc

New Saucony sneakers to help me and my flat as hell feet pound across the frozen tundra this Superbowl morning.

Apparently some people are living my dream, the one where I'm kind of soaring and flying:


Valentine's Blender of Love

GOOD THING ALL THOSE DINOSAURS DIED HELLA LONG AGO SO WE CAN SIT IN THESE CHAIRS MOVING 80 MILES PER HOUR ACROSS THIS DESOLATE WASTELAND

As an ex-Clevelander I have very ambivalent feelings about the Ravens. But my rules is, if I don't have a dog in the fight, root for the team in a city that seems less pleasant to live in. So, yay Baltimore Ravens!

from playlist december 2012

2013.01.01
December was only an ok month for me for finding new music. The stuff that resonated most was on the sad side, for kind of obvious reasons; but it felt like kismet or maybe some kind of synchronicity.

The four-star songs are marked in red; leading exclamation points indicate videos that are compelling (other than as a holder for the song)

Melancholy/Wistful Fun Covers Pop Southern -- again I'm bad at identifying/naming genres... all but the last one are from the Django soundtrack... (here's a website about the Django Unchained Soundtrack, Tarantino talking about my favorite "Unchained" starts at 48:00) Hiphop Electronic
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

Going to Facebook has become the equivalent of opening the fridge & staring inside, even though you're not hungry.

The night Kim Kardashian got pregnant is the night she told Kanye, 'Imma let you finish.'

Ha, the format of trying to predict this year's Xth anniversary of Y headlines, stock art, and lead-in sentence feels right on.

from playlist november 2012

(1 comment)
2012.11.30
November was a terrible month for me in most ways, but oddly enough a great one for discovering music, especially Golddust which you really need to watch.

All songs here I call 3 stars or better, 4+ star songs I've colored red. Songs with videos (vs just static image music uploads) are marked with an exclamation point, multiple exclamation points indicate extra goodness.

Club Comedy Hip-Hop -- all of these have kind of some crude (or worse) lyrics but man, they are some of the funniest videos I'd seen in a long while. Comedy Other Alt Retro Rural Hip-Hop

from playlist october 2012

(1 comment)
2012.11.01
Found around 25 songs ("3 star and up") in October. 4 stars in red, links prefaced with a * are particularly fun to watch videos.

Bigband and/or Bigdrums Love Found Love Lost Hiphop 80s/90s Retro Rural Other

What did the guy say to his glasses? I can see right through you.
Joke I made up this morning. While looking for my glasses.
Fetch from the stick's PoV:

We can't say that steroids caused any one home run by Barry Bonds, but steroids sure helped him hit more and hit them farther. Now we have weather on steroids.
Eric Pooley, VP of the Environmental Defense Fund, on Superstorm Sandy

fun visual puns about disney + star wars -- only 1 darth-in-mickey ears.
I will never apologize for America
Mitt Romney banner ad.
I will never apologize for the United States -- I don't care what the facts are...
VP George Bush
I hate Republicans. The idea that we are above apology is disgusting.

from playlist september 2012

2012.10.11
Amber pointed out that it might be more convenient if I did my "music I've found lately list" monthly rather than seasonal-y, that three month's worth of my music would be a bit much for anyone to run into all at once.

Seems like a worthy experiment! Turned out to be a lot easier to put together.

No 4- or 5- start stuff, just 3s all around though I bolded 1 or 2 videos I think are especially noteworthy.

Shouty Gals (is that a category? I think it should be.) Indie and Pop Brass Retro Novelty
Make love, not war. But also, if at all possible, make money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP5-iIeKXE8 - the Conway's Game of Life, run on a big copy of Conway's Game of Life
Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.
Bertrand Russell

A friend of my family's, David Knickerbocker, is a Christian pastor who runs a thoughtful little blog. I disagree with a lot of things with him, but I think he really is on the more compassionate and humane side of Christianity, so I feel a little bad for getting a bit snarky when he wrote about 42 and the Answer to Life the Universe and Everything
Fun topic!

I was gonna say 42 now performs the function of "geek shibboleth", a buzzword that shows you you're "in" the community.

And then I wikipedia'd up "shibboleth" and they quote Judges 12:5-6, where the Lord's army of Gilead (under Jephthah-- another funny word to say!) invented the use of the term:

And the Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan against the Ephraimites. And when any of the fugitives of Ephraim said, "Let me go over," the men of Gilead said to him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" When he said, "No," they said to him, "Then say Shibboleth," and he said, "Sibboleth," for he could not pronounce it right. Then they seized him and slaughtered him at the fords of the Jordan. At that time 42,000 of the Ephraimites fell.

42 thousand killed-- I almost fell out of my chair. God works in mysterious ways.
Again, I'm being a little disingenuous here, but the coincidence of it really did startle me.
For fun I did some music math... from 1992-2007, i.e. when I was buying CDs mostly, I added about 100 good songs a year, from 2007 on, when I started buying mostly MP3s, about 150. So now 2/3 of my good music is older, 1/3 newer - but that ignores the filler I leave off of my devices...

from playlist: season_2012 2 summer

2012.09.02
At the end of every season I make a list of the songs I added to my rolling "latest music" playlist, all stuff I consider 3 stars or above, and I dig up links and post it here so people who share some of my wide-ranging musical sensibilities can find more of what they might dig.

I found a lot of new music this past summer! Some really great stuff in all...

These songs were 4 stars: Bluegrass or Rural Tinged Hiphop Novelty Instrumental Softer Retro Clubbish Other/Alt
--from this list of submissions to Isaac Asimov magazine

from playlist: season_2012 1 spring

(3 comments)
2012.06.01
So by my idiosyncratic, school-year based way of reckoning, Summer is here, and so I can write up the three-star-plus music I added to my collection over the 3 months of Spring.

I kind of bunched these by genre, figuring that's the best chance of making this list useful to folks looking for stuff they like, but a really coherent categorization system is elusive. "Retro" is just "old", but not 90s old, which is a certain time when I was aware of music but not always going out and buying CDs. "Pop" tends to be a bit more polished and/or electronic than "Alt", but, well, you know.

4- and 5-star songs are marked in red.

One five star song: Completely Random. Hiphop Funny Retro 90s Pop Alt Chiptunes
The GOP Sees Dead People--Voting Voter fraud happens retail (if that) and Conservatives are purging voter registrations wholesale. This is not justice.
People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty.
Richard J. Needham

from playlist: season_2011 4 winter

(1 comment)
2012.03.03
Another 3 months gone, another time to round up music I've added to my collection... all these I've ranked "3 stars" or greater, with the 4 and 5 ones highlighted in red.

Unfortunately, the very best song I added to my collection this quarter, the only 5-star song and maybe one of my top 5 ever, I can't post here... it's not really released! It's called "As It Comes" by "The Exploding Voids", it was played over the credits of the same German artist's (Daniel Vogelmann) horror short "Wilt" (Welk, originally) and he was kind enough to send me an MP3. I will absolutely write more about it once it's out...

Christmas Hip Hop - one year for Christmas I got the kind of great cassette (it was the 80s) Christmas Rap (I blogged the Cover Art before.) So many of the tracks really stuck with me: When I ripped my whole CD collection, somehow I missed the "Blues Brother" soundtrack, which was HUGELY influential on anyone in a high school jazz band in the 80s and early 90s... some of the songs seem a bit too polished now, but they're still pretty awesome. Progressive, Alt-Rock, Softer... I dunno. I fail musical genres. Electronica, Party, Hip-hop... A few random songs with retro appeal: Two cool 70s instrumentals (rare that instrumentals make it into my playlists) by Ananda Shankar... Finally, weird and novelty songs.
Just remember: it's not true unless it makes you laugh. That is the one and sole and infallible test of all ideas that will ever be presented to you.
Hagbard in "Illuminatus!", Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

I always look for a place to pay for a (DRM-free) MP3, but when that fails beemp3.com is pretty good (Hot Chocolate, Shonen Knife)

from playlist: season_2011 3 fall

(2 comments)
2011.12.27
This year's advent calendar caused me to delay my seasonal music summary... not that there's so much of a clamor for it, but people who like this kind of music will find this a good collection of the music they like.

(Actually my tastes are a bit eclectic, but still, there's some fun stuff here.)

So, the one five star song in the fall was Might Like You Better by Amanda Blank, an incredibly fun and EXTREMELY raunchy song. Another great one was the cover of Addicted To Love by Florence + The Machine. (It was used on the ad for some TV show.)

Other songs by category:

Energetic Electronic or Mashup Hip-Hop Indie/Softer Retro 90s Leftovers from Video Games Funny/Novelty/Misc
A robot walks into a bar and says, 'I'll have a screwdriver.'
New York Times

from playlist: season_2011 2 summer

2011.09.11
Another new season, another overview of the music I added to my regular rotation over the last 3 months...

Starting off with a few four star songs: My friend Kjersten made me a big mix of music for my birthday called "tilkirke", here were the 4 I thought were 4 stars... Other songs from tilkirke I decided to keep in my regular rotation: Finally, some more decent songs I picked up various places:
The Washington Post on the women pilots willing to sacrifice their lives to knock down any more hijacked planes...
http://loveblender.com/2011september/ - new Blender of Love Digest, a tribute to an old stalwart Blenderite...
Man, that commercial with the Budweiser Clydesdale's doing that horse show bowing thing to NYC is just kind of creepy/weird.

from playlist: season_2011 1 spring

(1 comment)
2011.06.05
Another quarter gone by, another 40-odd songs discovered, or rediscovered...

FWIW, I slightly modified how I listen to this music. For a long while I've been building resetting my seasonal playlist at the start of each season. But that led to songs added late in the season not getting as much play, which in turn led to stuff like me holding off on downloading a song 'til the beginning of the next quarter, which kind of missed the point of an ongoing "new music in my life" playlist. So, now I mostly listen to a rolling playlist of the last 25 songs added. I also added a "last 25 songs, 4 stars or higher", which makes my the ranking a little more meaningful...

Anyway!

One five star track last season: A few 4 star songs: Other songs I liked enough to want to put into my collection:

from playlist: season_2010 4 winter

(1 comment)
2011.03.16
Every season I keep a rolling playlist of music I discover, and then I track down videos for most of them, to share them with you, and to keep around for my future self. Last Winter was a pretty good season for my music!

Recommendations from friends. Over the years I've grown to dig the Verve Remixed albus... I usually end up loving one or two songs from each. Songs I found out about thanks to sports. Songs from movie soundtracks... Songs from Internet Videos... We went to Francesca's Espresso Bar one morning, and I heard these-- A bunch of songs I rememnber from either my youth or a few years back... Songs I don't really remember how I found out about...
Finally, a bunch of mashups from Lenlow... I couldn't find videos for most of these but they're all great, especially "Do Your Thing to the Music" (I just love that "I don't need no tv, I don't need no news, all I need is a bumpin' beat to bump away these bl-bl-blues". I found this treasure trove looking for his mashup of Kanye and the muppets, "Kanye Mahna"... and it's amazing how much more I like these mashups than any of the originals of their own, a good mashup finds a real synergy. That's it! Lately I've gotten better at tracking where I hear music. A weirdly large amount of it is upstairs at the Copley Square CVS.
Kind of weird that the iPhone playlist has the album name before the artist-if you don't listen to the whole album, likely it doesn't matter
http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/video/xhkp04 - Tron "tween" vid, via miller. Weird to think that many of Tron's biggest fans are probably a bit faceblind; so Alan Bradly/Tron being the same guy is harder to "get"
Amber says that if she twittered it would be something like "Surprised Kirk hasn't made any 'Erin Go Braless!' jokes this year. Yet."

from playlist: season_2010 3 autumn... the fall of music

2010.12.05
Once again, here is the music I added to my collection this past season, acclimating myself to it via having a big playlist of just the new stuff. Managed to find passable videos for just about all of them. And I'm kind of proud of the weird eclectic nature of it...

A song that deserves to be more well known:
Ha-he (Just a Band (Kenya))
One of the more obscure choices, I heard of this on cracked.com's 6 Insane Foreign Memes That Put Lolcats To Shame
Random songs from my past, recently remembered:
Three Hits (Live From Eddie's Attic, Atlanta, GA) (Indigo Girls)
Had this one for a while but not on my playlists... heard it again, realized it's great.
Praise You [Explicit] (Fatboy Slim)
Another "oldie" but goodie.
Superstar (The Alan Caddy Orchestra and Singers)
Remembering how my (usually black techno digging) college roommate had a thing for the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack.
What's the Buzz (The Alan Caddy Orchestra and Singers)
iTunes has dozens of near identical versions of Jesus Christ Superstar versions.
A Summer Song (Chad & Jeremy)
This was on an old McDonalds promotional mixtape ("Shake Burgers and Fries"? Wish I could find the tracklist) I remember facetiously quoting
they say that all good things must end someday
autumn leaves must fall
but don't you know
how it hurts me so
to say goodbye to you
in a melodramtic way around my high school graduation.
Bang on the Drum All Day (Todd Rundgren)
This was like a staple of WMJI in the late 80s.
Sunny Came Home (Shawn Colvin)
I think Amber had this one. This was all over the gym I was going to in 1997.
Punk Rock Girl (Album Version) (The Dead Milkmen)
Vaguely remember this from high school. Maybe college.
Theme From "Shaft" (Isaac Hayes)
I mostly remember my high school jazz band covering this song.
Songs introduced to me from movie soundtracks, or tv shows...
Milkshake (Album Version) (Kelis)
"Mean Girls".
Threshold (8 Bit) (Brian Lebarton)
Scott Pilgrim soundtrack, nice-NES-era chiptunage.
I Heard It Through The Grapevine (Marvin Gaye)
Big Chill Soundtrack
Good Lovin' (Single Version) (The Young Rascals)
Big Chill again I think.
Take A Chance On Me (Abba)
Such a catchy still fresh sounding song, but it took this scene from the Office to remind me of it.
Songs introduced to me by friends:
Imma Be (The Black Eyed Peas)
Amber had this album last summer, when we first started going out.
Around The Bend (The Asteroids Galaxy Tour)
I think Kjersten had this, but they used it in an iPod touch ad
Sugalumps (Flight of the Conchords)
Miller introduced to me this song.
Too Many Dicks (Flight of The Conchords)
Again, thanks Miller.
Wonder Woman Theme-'E' Candy's (Radio Edit) (Carol Medina)
Amber has a thing for Wonder Woman, so I tried to find the best remix I could.
And the rest, mostly just making the rounds...
Get The Party Started (Shirley Bassey)
I previously posted this great Bond-ian cover
Sexx Laws (Beck)
This came up on Pandora when Amber and I were assembling IKEA bookshelves.
Hot N Cold (Katy Perry)
Heh, it was the too hot for Sesame Street duet with elmo that got me to find the original.
White Knuckles (Ok Go)
Already posted this. Love these minimalistic, smart, fun videos.
Cupid Shuffle (Cupid)
They were playing this in the afternoon at the Atlantic City boardwalk. Catchy!
F*** You [Explicit] (Cee Lo Green)
NSFW, but such bitter clever soul. The only one I ranked 5 stars this month.
Really, no idea:
New York City (LP Version) (They Might Be Giants)
Everybody (Radio Edit) (Rudenko)
Shut Up and Drive (Rihanna)
Dancing With Myself (Single Version) (The Donnas)
Ain't No Other Man (Christina Aguilera)
This one made it on my "psyched" playlist I use for non-distracting energy at work.
Survivor (Remix featuring Da Brat Extended Version)
God Is A DJ [Explicit] (P!nk)
Summer Girls (Lyte Funkie Ones)
I have nothing more to say about this one.

There can be a visceral pleasure in typing fast, to have your mind's voice's syllables to the screen in rapid fire succession. Even if I still "wanna live like I type, fast, and with lots of mistakes", it's fun to do.
The power of open competitive markets vs. ripoff retail at retailers: HDMI cables. $2 for 10 feet on Amazon vs $30-50 easy at say Best Buy.
Speed Racer: totally underrated movie. So super-saturated and hyper-kinetic; it feels like a lot of reviewers mighta missed the point.

from playlist: season_2010 2 summer, like double cherry pie...

2010.09.06
I'm knocked over by how much great music I can run into still. I really thank MP3 players for revolutionizing my relationship with it, and how I can buy songs piecemeal and then give 'em a few months to burn into my brain before they get thrown into the general mix. (I'm also knocked over by how I can find nearly all of them on Youtube...)

Anyway, here are the 3,4, and 5 star songs I added to my collection over the past three months.

Random Modernish Urbanish Pop - I just dig the sound and swagger. NPR had a piece on the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and they covered "Hit 'Em Up Style", which turns out to be a good song in its own right. I read a book "100 Best Beatles Song", and that introduced me to or reminded me of a few songs Last season's mix was really where I imported a lot of song from Amber's collection, but her music still has new finds for me... Q-Unit's Greatest Hits is 50 Cent crossed with Queen... kind of amazing stuff. I love the back cover art with 50 Cent sporting a Freddy Mercury mustache. In high school I was "Big Jule" in our production of Guys and Dolls, so I still have a soft spot for the music from it-- this is from the 1990s revival I saw in NYC with my mom, I think it had Nathan Lane in it. Random 90s "Alternative" Tuba-memory music... Songs from the Weird Al... Songs from "Shake Burger and Fries" -- McDonalds had some promotional tapes once in the 80s, mixtapes of songs from the 60s-- I've tried in vain to track down a playlist, but I remember some of the songs... Songs off of youtube videos... I've been seeing some IMAX at Jordan's furniture lately, and they have a thing for that 90s-era swing revival stuff... Random finds:

September Blender of Love is here!

from playlist: season_2010 1 spring

2010.06.18
So, it's once again time for me to post the 3,4, or 5 star music I added to my collection over the proceeding 3 months. I love how iDevices let me have a closer relation to my music, but I want to make sure new stuff doesn't get lost in the shuffle (so to speak) so every season I make a new playlist of just the new tunes that I listen to over and over so the songs have a fighting chance for long term familiarity with me.

I'm always amazed that I can find Youtube videos for all of this. I usually go for original version videos, but accept live when that's all there is. And, crazily enough, here I am, singing "Fat Bottomed Girls" at the sQ! alum show at Tufts' Goddard Chapel...
Err, I'm in the back left, behind the really tall guy, popping out from time to time. The "first generation" Qs sang the first verse, I guess we were supposed to mosey forward but this was crazily under-rehearsed... (though Amber got to hear me listen to sQ's and Queen's version over and over as I tried to learn it on the way back from Cleveland.)

So, in other music... two songs got a 5 star Rating (50 songs out of around 1900) I got a ton of music from Amber this time, she has some terrific mixes. (Mostly I downloaded fresh MP3s - it's finding out the music that's the trick, rather than saving a buck) Sometimes I'll remember a random song from Marching Band Days and hunt it down... Movie soundtracks are often great sources of new stuff, most of these were from "Whip It" or in explorations around there... And older stuff from "An Education" Random The thing is I had so much music this season tht for most of May I put off actually adding in the music I ran into, so the Summer playlist is probably a bit inflated from where it would be otherwise.

Anyway, this is all some great music. Let me know if you want an MP3 of anything...

I took a city that was known for pornography and licked it to a large extent.
Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, on his job as mayor of NYC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNREP5l4xTw - anyone know what version of "P.I.M.P" is playing behind Penny Arcade's Gabe drawing Boba Fett?
Come to think of it, I'm kind of bummed none of the virtual drum sets I encounter have a "marching drumline" soundset with 4 distinct bass drums and quads.

from playlist: season_2009 4 winter

(2 comments)
2010.03.08
Like I made after last summer and the fall, here is a list of the music I discovered or rediscovered and added into my collection over December through February.

(I like putting the new music in really heavy notation for a while, so it becomes more a part of my life than it would otherwise before going into the mix with the 2,000 other songs I deem iPod-worthy.)

So, most interesting is the (fairly?) new music I ran into: 3 cheers for Shazam and its ability to ID a tune, and 3 cheers for friends who keep me in mind in their own musical journeys and send me sugestions - or sometimes it's just "making the rounds" online. So there was a bunch of music that I remembered from my past: either I used to own it in a different format, or it wsa the 1990s and I liked the song but not enough to look for it on CD, or it's just something I wanted to own. And a few songs that I remembered from hearing them in "Boogie Nights".. My UU covenant group did a Valentine "pick a song you find most romantic" deal... (I thought it was going to be a difficult pick for me but then Amber reminded me of First Day of My Life. Duh.) So I burnt a copy of the play list for everyone, and these were 3 songs I added to my regular rotation... for some of these it was as much the description the group member gave than the song itself. So, probably the lion's share of songs came from Amber and I watching the 5 hours of the VH1 Top 100 Hip Hop Countdown Then I had some CDs that I had missed ripping... when Zune was introduced, one of the very few sample songs they included was from a group called Bitter:Sweet -- interesting future lounge feel to this. Then, jeez, Eminem's "Curtain Call". It was like 1/6 of the songs on this list, but it felt like even more. And then there was that DJ Santa outside of Macy's with good sounding remixes of Christmas standards -- basically an exercise in my theory that any song is better with a big old beat behind it. Couldn't find much information online on the cd I bought from him, but it had something to do with the slightly overly corporate DJBeats4Sale... Finally, last but not least, semi-famous artist Harvey James and his girlfriend do a lovely haunting duet... no video, just a link to the MP3... Pretty good season for music!
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
James Thurber

iPhone's Visual Voicemail raised the bar, but if Apple was really smart they'd stop showing a separate "missed call" if the caller left voicemail-- it's annoying to have to check two lists. Heck, even an answering machine knows better than that.
It occurs to me that when my cat licks me, I don't know whether that means I'm delicious or filthy.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-games-are-trying-to-get-you-addicted.html - B.F. Skinner, patron saint of video games. Scary stuff, I don't feel so bad about playing so few games these days. Plus, I know "novelty" is what I'm really looking for. Well, that, and the ability to fly a helicopter around.
I guess twitter gmail et al. are my skinner boxes of choice. At least their pellets are based on novelty!

from playlist: season_2009 3 fall

(2 comments)
2009.12.31
So like I posted after the summer, I've been rounding my new music into seasonal playlists - the season is just a coincidence, when I happen to discover or rediscover some music.

I tended to get music in big chunks this fall, as I ran into some CDs I had forgotten to rip back when I did the bulk transfer to MP3s...

The first few songs listed I particularly like, the stuff from Portugal is great as well.

I made some fun discoveries hunting up videos for these, like how you can find old Beavis + Butthead music videos on youtube, and the Goops/Mallrats "Buttercup".
http://www.doublex.com/section/life/tuesday-night-dinner-party-16-key-lessons-learned-slapdash-entertainment - "slapdash entertainment", neat idea...

from playlist: season_2009 2 summer

2009.10.15
I like music to come into my life my happenstance. I tend to dislike importing other people's musical collections all at once, I think you should take more time and get to know new music.

I prefer interesting singles to full albums.

I've started making smart playlists in iTunes of recently added music, starting a new one every season. And I thought I'd jot down what was in the music here, in case anyone wants me to send them an mp3 or two, and as notes to my future self if I ever wonder "how did I get into THAT"?...
Well, that's it. I wasn't expecting to be able to find Youtube videos for all of that! (Well, I didn't try for the TV themes -- either you know them or you don't want to.) Some of the links will probably be taken down, but for now it's a fun way to share.

For the record, I make an honest effort to pay for a (DRM-free) MP3 version of every song, but after that I have little compunction about ripping the music straight out.

It's kind of reassuring that I'm still discovering new music at a fair clip. For a while after college, I felt kind of disconnected, since college is such a good way of hearing new stuff. Now thanks to the Internet (often, background music for unrelated Youtube clips) I hear new stuff, plus have a way to get to buy singles for songs I liked in the 90s but not enough to buy a whole album.

Any new music discoveries for you?
Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.
Phyllis Diller

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/14/farewell-captain-lou.html - RIP Captain Lou Albano
http://www.wififreespot.com/mass.html - the free wifi spots around Boston
In Elizabethan slang, "something" and "nothing" were sometimes used to refer, respectively, to male and female genitalia. The title of Much Ado About Nothing is thus not simply a reference to the illusory conflict at the heart of the plot, but also a nifty dirty pun.

from the 29 bestest songs

(4 comments)
2007.04.14
Game of the Moment
Too make up for the terribly dull and self-indulgent entry below, here's a lovely and addictive flash game: Boomshine... kind of a cross between Missile Command and Maxwell's Demon. The urging on you do of your little boomshine circles to just hold one one...second.........LONGER is amazing.


Ramble of the Moment
I bought the red iPod, which gave a token amount to fighting AIDS in Africa. Also, this image is about half again as big as the real thing.
I finished sorting through and rating my iTunes music collection the other day. Out of the 6400-odd tracks in my collection, there were about 5000 I never wanted to hear in a mix. Of the 1400 I thought were ok, I rated 270 of them as stuff I'd actually be happy to hear when they came up in rotation, and about 30 of those as "great". Thus, my 37-gig collection got reduced to the 5.75 gigs that matter.

(Admittedly, my judgement is biased towards stuff that's good to do geekwork to, so energetic music tends to have an advantage over the slower stuff, and long jazzy or classical bits have very little chance.)

So I decided to grant myself one final birth day indulgence, or reward for sorting through all this, and bought an iPod. I had an iPod a long while back, but didn't really have a spot for it, the car radio adapter was more trouble than it was worth. But now that I've started walking to and from the T station and my work PC doesn't have a reliable sound setup, this one should be more useful.

It's kind of weird that the 8-gig Nano costs the same as a 30-gig iPod video, but still I went for the former. Besides better battery life, and not having internal moving parts, its petite minimalism just resonates for me.

And for your reading pleasure, and since I was on kind of a self-indulgence roll, I thought I'd blow a day on kisrael discussing the 29 bestest songs on my iPod.


Music of Every Damn Moment
The first three I identified as the Best. Songs. Ever. a long while back. They are Deee-Lite's Groove Is In The Heart (which I am morally compelled to dance to every time I hear it, even if just a little), Buildings And Bridges by Ani DiFranco, which is the most beautiful blend of dimestore profundity and musical grace I've ever heard, and It's Your Thing by the The Isley Brothers, the bass and piano that never fails to grab me by the cajones. (There's a bit more R+B in the Top 29: James Brown's I Feel Good and Soul Man by Sam & Dave.)

I've always loved Fever by Peggy Lee, and Shirley Bassey has a similar vamp effect in the Propellerheads' History Repeating.

Lately I've been getting into mashups, Tripper Trouble is dj BC mixing up the Beatles and the Beastie Boys, Groove's a Bitch by dsico is Groove is in the Heart plus She's a Bitch plus Just 1 Kiss, My Other Car Is A Beatle by Jay-R is an even bigger swath of artists. And before there was mashups there were covers and remixes, like Shake Your Thang, which really is how Salt-N-Pepa introduced me to It's Your Thing, and more recently JXL's A Little Less Conversation revived a sleeper Elvis work. Also two by Tom Jones et al.: Burning Down The House and Sexbomb.

Mystery Dance by Elvis Costello is the only song to appear in the Top 29 twice, it's short enough that both the electric and acoustic versions seem worthwhile.

Cake's The Distance always holds a special place in my heart as being my big solo in Tufts' sQ. Then there's a string of modern stuff... Smash Mouth's Diggin' Your Scene and the overplayed but great AllStar, t.A.T.u.'s All The Things She Said, the nostalgic drumline of Gwen Stefani's Hollaback Girl, and the cool retro-western-gogo of Legend Of A Cowgirl by a Imani Coppola

Slowing things down, Holly Cole's cover I've Just Seen A Face is just lovely, and I find Dar Williams' As Cool As I Am, Paul Simon's Tenderness, and Willy Mason's Oxygen can all move me to tears when I'm on the hunt for that kind of catharsis.

Finally, some oddballs: Johnny Cash's Riders In The Sky is just THE cowboy song for me, Maynard Ferguson's Chameleon is the only instrumental to make it here, and Madonna's Hanky Panky (Bare Bottom 12" Mix), with its giant percussion and naughty spanky talk is the best thing to have spun off from the movie Dicky Tracy.

I might be willing to make a mix cd or mp3 set if anyone is interested.

from make mine music!

(9 comments)
2006.03.15
So assuming all goes well, Tomorrow afternoon Ksenia and I will be headed for a few days in NYC! I think I've been there maybe once since 9/11.

I still haven't booked a hotel, hopefully that won't be a problem. Actually I haven't decided if it will be better to have the two of us take a bus there and back, or drive down and pay for a parking garage...any suggestions?


Kirkness of the Moment
Alright, self indulgent personal trivia...

A while back I assembled about 1 1/2 hours of MP3s as backgrounds noise for work. It needed to be energetic, and familiar so that it wouldn't be too distracting.) Plus, it needed to fit on my cheap 128meg MP3 player...

Here's what I came up with (in no particular order, I usually set it to shuffle...) Mostly I cribbed from my collection of party music (including stuff picked out by my ex- and Lupschada, which explains stuff like the Dave Matthews and "Crazy In Love")

I actually switched over to iTunes to listen to this, instead of WMP, because I remembered it would give me an estimate in amount of time, not just filesize. But that little thing iTunes does where it crossfades from one song to the next really makes a ton of difference...makes it feel like something DJ'd, not jus hacked together. I guess that's one of those little Apple-ish details that have kept them around so long...

So if anyone has been wondering what I've been listening too lately, over and over and over and over, well there you are.


Retrohumor of the Moment
Lileks take on Old Computer Promotional Photos isn't quite as funny as I had hoped... I think the caption for the first one was my favorite. Boingboing like #7. I think it's pretty amazing how there's not a single trailing cable to be found in the whole batch, though I guess some of them might be running 'em under the floor.

from much mix madness

(1 comment)
2003.07.25
Mixes of the Moment
So, previously I discussed my newfound philosophy of dance mixes and here's the latest and bestest incarnation of it--up to three CDs now. I like randomly theming mix sets, starting them with an appropriate .wav, and stumbled on a Star Trek theme...although I still like to push the best songs to the first mix, I used a very geeky method to assure all three were ok (divided the music into hiphop, covers, and misc, and then each of those into two tiers, and then as even a distribution as possible of the 6 categories...Captain Kirk got the first pick from each category though.)

When I posted my last attempt at the perfect dance mix, Deevaa wrote "I want a copy of your CD!!" in the comments section, so I sent her a set, all the way to Australia this morning.

Captain Kirk: The Mix
"But a woman..." (soundclip) Groove Is In The Heart (Deee-Lite) Burning Down The House (Tom Jones w/ The Cardigans) Bust A Move (Young MC) Baby Got Back (Sir Mix-A-Lot) The Bad Touch (Bloodhound Gang) Hip Hop Hooray (Naughty By Nature) Little Miss Cant Be Wrong (Spin Doctors) Like A Prayer (Bigod 20) Jump Around (House of Pain) A Little Less Conversation Radio Edit (Elvis vs JXL) Things That Make You Go Hmmmm... (C + C Music Factory) Summertime (DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince) Slam (Onyx) 99 Red Balloons (Goldfinger) Smack My Bitch Up (Prodigy) I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor)

Mister Spock: The Mix
"Logic is a little tweeting bird" (soundclip) All The Things She Said (t.A.T.u.) Sexbomb (Tom Jones w/ Mousse T) Stress (Jims Big Ego) Shake Your Thang (Salt N Pepa) Walk Like An Egyptian (Bangles) Take On Me (Reel Big Fish) Humpty Dance (Digital Underground) Unbelievable (EMF) Wild Thing (Tone Loc) One Way Or Another (Blondie) Push It (Salt N Pepa) Walk This Way (Run D.M.C.) I'm Too Sexy (Right Said Fred) Me Myself And I (De La Soul) It Takes Two (Rob Base & D.J. E-Z Rock) Ice Ice Baby (Vanilla Ice)

Doctor McCoy: The Mix
"not just a biological unit..." (soundclip) All Star (Smash Mouth) Gonna Make You Sweat (C+C Music Factory) One Week (Barenaked Ladies) OPP (Naughty By Nature) Tainted Love (Marilyn Manson) Funky Cold Medina (Tone Loc) Private Idaho (The B-52s) U Cant Touch This (M.C. Hammer) Hungry Like The Wolf (Reel Big Fish or Less Than Jake) You Be Illin (Run DMC) Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana) Parents Just Dont Understand (D.J. Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince) What I Like About You (The Romantics) Joy And Pain (Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock) My Sharona (The Knack) Now That We Found Love (Heavy D. & the Boyz)



Link of the Moment
You can click on the links above to hear the sound clips I found at Star Trek in Sound and Vision, a site with tons and tons and tons of audio and video clips from all things Star Trek. A really amazing amount of material.


News Line of the Moment
Slate.com had a great front page caption for their story on Blair: "Finally, a Politician for Grown-Ups (Too bad he's English)". I respect Blair a lot, though Bill the Splut was greatly amused when I mistyped his name "Bliar", given his involvement in the whole WMD spindoctoring.

Also the other day Slate.com had a good piece on typical summer jobs for teens, giving "They say you learn how to", "You really learn how to", "Upside", "Downside", "Wages", "Minimum age", "How do I get this job?", and "Hook-up factor" for each.

from birthdayayayay

(3 comments)
2003.03.30
So, sorry for yesterday's update, it was pretty lame. And today's might not be much better, just longer...in my defense, I was spending most of the day celebrating my birthday (and today I'm gonna write about it.) Lee had invited me along to Fun Spot, an entertainment center in New Hampshire with a ton of classic arcade games, all very well maintained. Take a look at the list of games...it's like MAME but with real machines. Plus, Lee's birthday gift was $20 worth of tokens (and they give you 125 instead of 20*4=80 for that--) I got through like half of the tokens, I'll use the other half when New England Classic Gamers meet there, I think some time this summer.


Quote and Mix CDs of the Moment
If you are a disc jockey, kindly remember that your job is to play records that people will enjoy dancing to and not to impress possible visiting disc jockeys with your esoteric tastes. People generally enjoy dancing to songs that have words and are of a reasonable length. Sixteen-minute instrumentals by West African tribal drummers are frequently the cause of undue amyl nitrate consumption and shirt removal.
Fran Lebowiz, from Disco Hints: The New Etiquette.
Previously in the passage she suggest people amyl nitrate should be consumed in one's truck, not in the middle of a crowded dance floor, and that fellow dancers interested in your progress at the gym will not be too shy to ask, one does not have to remove one's shirt, despite the warmth.

So I'm finally learning how to make optimal party dance mix CDs...the watchwords, as that quote reminded me, are A. danceability and B. familiarity. (Mix CDs for cars are a different story, there you can try to introduce people to new music.) Also, I've realized that each new generation of mix CDs can be a refinement of the last. To those ends, I loaded my two new mixes with late 80s/early 90s party hiphop, and a lot of modern covers of new wave songs:


Roaring Twenties Disc One:
Groove Is In The Heart (Kirk party mix neccesity)
Burning Down The House (Tom Jones cover)
Wild Thing
Like a Prayer (deep throated techno-ish cover)
Bad Touch ("like they do on the Discover Channel" song)
The Humpty Dance
Take On Me (Ska cover)
Shake Your Thang (Salt -n- Pepa)
Jump Around
Tained Love (Marilyn Manson cover)
Stress (Jim's Big Ego)
It Takes Two
99 Red Balloons (Modern cover)
Walk This Way (Run DMC/Aerosmith version)
Funky Cold Medina
Tainted Love (original, here by mistake)


Roaring Twenties Disc Two:
Baby Got Back
One Week
Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)
Slam
Unbelievable
Hungry Like The Wolf (funny lounge cover)
Things That Make You Go Hmmmm
One Way Or Another
Private Idaho
What I Like About You
Walk Like an Egyptian
Ice Ice Baby
My Sharona
I Will Survive
I'm Too Sexy
Smack My Bitch Up
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Vogue

Disc One is a bit stronger than Disc Two. In general, I try to arrange songs in descending order of coolness.