THE TOFU HUT

Whew! I've been working on this post (and the newly revised blogroll) for over FIVE HOURS STRAIGHT. Hope you like it.

We're a few hours away from droppin' a new CD on ya'll but there's some foundation work remaining to be done. In the meantime, we figgered we might as well cap off the "SOUL HUT" with a few funky tracks to get you swayin' yo' badunkadunk.

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glisten to da funk

Edwin Birdsong - "Freaky Deaky Cities"

Ed Birdsong is a recent discovery and one that has had me all but leaping out of my skin. Better known as a longtime Roy Ayers collaborator, Birdsong has released some five out-of-print albums of overwhelmingly joyous fusion freakydeakishness.

Heck, you're probably already familiar with one of his tracks already: this is a sample of the opening of Birdsong's 'Cola Bottle Baby'; Daft Punk lifted that cut pretty much wholesale for 'Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger'.

'Cities' is mindless disco bounce in the best possible way. I mean, "R2D2, Let Me Freak You"? Are you kidding me? Just wild. Great music to get naked and run around your room too.

Not that I've done that. I meant hypothetically.

Why this guy's rep languishes amongst the lesser-knowns of funk/soul is a TOTAL mystery to me; most of his material is just as good as what you're listening to here.

Birdsong's material is pretty hard to find, which is eight different flavors of a shame (positive feedback on this track will likely result in more E.B. postings; I also recommend you talk this guy up to everybody you know as I'd like to see a "Best of" set); you COULD buy "Evolution", Roy Ayers double CD 'best of' from Amazon, which features a DIFFERENT version of this track along with several other Ayers/Birdsong collabos.
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Learn a bit more about Edwin.
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Listen to hundreds of birdsongs.

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The Politicians - "Psycha-Soula-Funkadelic"

The Politicians were a Detroit based hard funk band that recorded only one album but BOY what a doozy of a title cut.

The anger and intensity of this is like a mighty giant; the instruments sound downright strained under the pressure of the funk. The vocal stylings and production really ain't too far from contemporary music, maybe even modern crunk. Heck, slip some heavier bass and a couple of "YEEEEAH!"s underneath and the possibility that this could be a Lil' Jon production is something less than, er, ludacris.

McKinley Jackson, the group's frontman (previously of the Originals) went on to be a major force in the music industry, arranging much of the Holland/Dozier/Holland catalog and siring Proof of D12.

Buy "Psycha-Soula-Funkadelic", the Politicians only release.
I can't lie; this IS the best track on the album. The rest is more of the same, only not quite as off the hook. Still a nice disc tho'.

...and what better way could there be than a track by The Politicians to segue into:
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When I opened my email and "George W. Pussy" stared back at me from the inbox, I had to wonder if my spam filter had been backdoored. Not quite. Here's what the letter said:

Dear Tofuhut,
Have never written to a music blog before today, so forgive any inexperience on my part. --In late August, I recorded a rap song called "George W. Pussy", a copy of which I'm attaching to this mail in MP3 form, and lyrics pasted in below. No, there're no obscenities in it really, just some "meowing" sound effects off the keyboard, etc., so there'll be no FCC problems. I borrow the riff from "Super Freak" (R.I.P. Rick James; I went to his 8/14 funeral service in Buffalo NY, touched his hand). There may even be subtle Sex Pistols references worked in...
If you're worried that the attached MP3 could be a virus (it's not), just mail me back right away with an address and I'll try to mail you the song in CD form. November 2 is coming up awfullll fast...
I wonder if the song or a video of it could even influence the 2004 election; there's no really memorable "Bush stinks" music out there, so that "George W. Pussy" could be the "Fahrenheit 9/11" of music (or even the "October surprise"?!).....there's even the Rick James nostalgia factor, believe it or not! Use of the "Super Freak" hook made a #1 hit for M.C. Hammer, and "George W. Pussy" is far more controversial/hypertopical than "U Can't Touch This", so should be able to do even better..... Though I've no distributor or promoter yet, so am looking around.
Anyway, please listen and let me know what you think; the song is a quick listen at 3 minutes, 9 seconds, though it packs in commentary about Abu Ghraib and everything else. Thanks. (And do play it loud, as the Pretenders say on one of their album covers!!) Will also be grateful for any mention, good or bad, on your blog. (I guess I don't have a link to "George W. Pussy" on my website yet, but could so do if critics think the song's worth listening to...)
I'm already working on storyboarding for the video, much of which involves Bush running around in a flight suit with the word "AWOL", "W" much bigger than the rest of the letters because he's "W" himself, on his chest, as he's running away and crying. I think that should get the message across pretty clearly, since people have to graphically be shown the truth: the truth that Bush is America's biggest sissy, the Coward-in-Chief.

Thereafter followed the lyrics.

"George W. Pussy":

Pussy pussy George W. Pussy
Pussy pussy (cat) George W. Pussy

Look under a bush, u might find a cat
Yo whatchoo think of that
He didn't fight in Iraq
Didn't fight in Viet Nam
9/11 sent those people to Heaven,
But buddy you couldn't even run a 7/11
How come you failed
Waving your bushy pussy tail

Wussy pussy George W. Pussy [voice in background: "Can't touch this"
Sissy pussy (cat) George W. Pussy [background: "Can't bust this"]

You sent those kids to go invade Baghdad
To look tougher than your Dad
Now they mamas sad
Their babies coming home in a body bag
So u was too naive
To stop Abu Ghraib?
The torture house
You're in Saddam's posse now

Posse pussy George W. Pussy
Nazi posse (cat cat cat) George W. Posse

(M.C. Hammer-style musical break, ending with "Halliburton time", not
"Hammer time")

You and Cheney in a little white carriage
That's what I call a real gay marriage
Sodomized by Halliburton whenever they please
You lucky you ain't got---venereal disease
And your pal running Californy
Groping women cos he's so horny
Arnold Fornicator, what a masturbator
Almost half as bad as Ralph Nader [voice in background: "Oh my Lord"]

Hussy pussy George W. Pussy
Scuzzy pussy (kit cat) George W. Pussy

Dick Santorum said gayz r like dogz
Well you're just a pussy cat, ha ha ha

Pussycat pussycat where have you been
Going to London to visit the Queen
We got England right here, Lynndie's her name
Why didn't you prevent America's shame
Playing kissy face with Tony Blair
Pussy and poodle, what a pretty pair
Maybe you're the real Queen flaunting your flair [voice in background: "God
Save the Queen"]
But the British homies tore down your statue in Trafalgar Square
[background: "His fascist regime"]

Missy pussy George W. Pussy
Hissy pussy (kit kit) George W. Pussy

(second M.C. Hammer-style musical break, ending with "Pussy time")

You should be ashamed
Y'all gang-raped Valerie Plame
George W. Pussy is your name
Cat in the dunce hat, you're the one to blame
Not to mention the election you robbed
And how come y'all lost 3 million jobs
Of course, I love Americans too
God knows I love them more than you

Woozy pussy George W. Pussy [background: "Can't trust him"]
Boozy pussy (cat cat cat) George W. Pussy [background: "Can hardly love
him"]

I don't care if you went to Hah-vahd
We'll send your punk pussy-ass back to Crawford
We ain't give you no mo pussy time
To commit yo pussy crimes
So let me represent
That y'all better repent
Cos you know full well
God sends bad pussy cats to Hell

Pussy pussy George W. Pussy
Pussy pussy (catty cat---) George W. Pussy

Hell??? ....Yeahhhhhhh.

---GEORGE W. PUSSY !!!!!

Copyright 2004 David Boyle All rights reserved

Needless to say, I was intrigued. To say the least.
Fluxblog beat me to the punch on this one (dang late nights! I'm taking steps to stop these missed posts; I'll tell you more later) but I think "G.W.P" is, um, interesting enough to merit a cross-blog pollination; so without further ado, I give you:

David Boyle - "George W. Pussy"

If we can get this guy a record deal, the power of musicblogs will have reached a zenith.
Stranger things have happened.

Visit Mr. Boyle's website, where you can sample "The Rapping of the Christ" and read an EXTENSIVE essay about David's disappointment with the Rings trilogy films.
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Heads be talking!
We love you David. Really. Any man who has the balls to touch the corpse of Tricky Rick is alright by me.
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At the Republican National Convention in 1988, (George W.) was asked by a Hartford Courant reporter about what he and his father talked about when they weren't talking about politics. "Pussy," Bush replied.

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glisten: Soul Hut... One Mo'gin?

Following the lead of O-Dub over at Soul Sides, I'm offering up the five gospel tracks I posted over at S.S. for a limited time only.
If you didn't snag em the first time, make it snappy.

1. The Fairfield Four - "Don't Let Nobody Turn You Around"
My (and O's) original commentary

2. The Sensational Nightingales - "Guide My Mind"
My (and O's) original commentary

3. The Brewsteraires of Memphis - "So Glad"
My (and O's) original commentary

4. Jackson Gospel Singers - "Heaven Bound Train"
My (and O's) original commentary

5. The Soul Stirrers - "He Knows Just How Much We Can Bear"
My (and O's) original commentary

Oliver has a new superfriend and sparring parter in Cocaine Blunts and they are concurrently rippin' it up, nastylike.

Best click your ass over there before the party ends.

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Meeting the Neighbors

Ready Rock Moe Rex runs a joint down the street with a penchant for world, dance and electronic music accompanied by beautifully lurid photos of street graf. The big draw is Matt's voice, which is unique, learned, reassuring and excitable. He's big on ear pudding, short on ear broccoli and a fun cat to have around the house.

Recent offerings include music from David Byrne, Diplo, ELO and Seu Jorge.

Ready? Rock!
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My name's Matt, and I'm 35 years old, happily married with two itinerant cats, a longtime San Francisco resident and generally overcaffeinated as a rule. By day I'm a software industry tech writer and while this profession enables a comfortable standard of living in the hyperexpensive Bay Area, there's a tradeoff: it encourages you to become very, very good at writing the dullest, deadest prose imaginable in the service of practicality and ease of translation. I began writing online in late 2001 as a strategy to save the more lyrical, creative aspects of my writing talent from atrophy.
I've also always been more than a bit of a musical obsessive--my wife, in rare moments of exasperation, refers to it as my "illness"--and I think that over the years my blog has continually reflected this. Back in February of this year, just as I was getting burnt out on the concept of yapping online about my mostly mundane life, I ran across Fluxblog and Said The Gramaphone. They blew my mind, and I immediately wrote a gushing post about my discovery. A month later (March 2, 2004, to be exact)--after weighing pros (personal satisfaction of sharing cool music) versus cons (possible legal ramifications) I took the plunge and converted my LiveJournal to the mp3 blog format.
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Where did the name of your blog originate from?
"Moebius" was my very first online handle, for a UNIX account that I had at UC Santa Cruz when I was a student there in the late eighties. To be brutally honest, the name started out as a typo: I intended it to be "Möbius," as in the famously one-sided strip, but was apparently too arrogant to check the dictionary first. However, I quickly warmed to the name: I liked how people would refer to me online as "Moe" for short, and I could sometimes get away with the implication that it was a tribute to the French comix artist Jean Giraud "Moebius."
I used "Moebius" as an online identity off and on throughout the following decade. The "Rex" and "Ready Rock" bits were added when I opened the LiveJournal account, to amplify the name's coolness quotient or something stupid like that.
Although I'm almost certainly going to move to a Blogger/Moveable Type/TypePad format over the next year or so, I'll probably keep "Moebius Rex" as the blog name. It's become a bit of a brand now, and I don't want to screw with that. You never know: this blogging gig might blow up into the stratosphere, and the next thing I know, Nike'll be on the line asking for permission to start up a new line of Ready Rock Moe Rex Airwalks or something.
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What are the criteria you judge a song by to decide if it's post-worthy?
Well first off, the song has to be the kind of thing that I would be listening to over and over again even if I weren't running an mp3 blog. A lot of the tunes that I post are tracks that have blown me away when they've turned up in my iPod magic shuffle--stuff that I may have overlooked on first listen, or in the context of a full LP.
I also tend to try to put together sets of songs that are united by genre or theme, or which complement the photograph heading up the post. The thematic cohesion really works at times--as it seemed to do with my Hanging On The Line and Native New Yorker entries, for example--and kinda fizzles out at others.
The hunt to find tunes that are both postworthy and underplayed in the blog scene can get kinda demoralizing. There are days when it seems like there's no fresh funk to be found. But that's just fatigue: the reality is that there's an ocean of sound to explore out there, and a flood of new music is constantly pouring into it. Just because I don't catch anything one day doesn't mean I won't be able to harpoon a musical Moby Dick the next.
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What do you do for kicks when you're not posting?
I'm an avid collector of books, comix, and music so I spend more time and money than I should shopping for and enjoying those things. Obviously I have a love of photography, and I regularly go on walkabouts around San Francisco and the Bay Area in search of postworthy images. And then there's going to shows (though not so many as I used to, sigh), seeing films, attending various and sundry noteworthy cultural events, and when I can, travelling. In a lot of ways my lifestyle now is pretty much what it was back when I was 25. However, this state of being probably can't go on much longer, lest I end up like the protagonist of an especially bad Nick Hornby novel.
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Do you have a favorite music critic?
These days I have to admit that Sasha Frere-Jones is a a bit of a lodestar for me. I first became aware of the guy back in the 90s, through his (now defunct, I think) band Ui. Then I mostly lost track of him 'till I ran across SF/J via Fluxblog. As a music critic, Frere-Jones is a bit of a pop thug, but as such his explanations for why we should give big money stars like Beyonce or Usher a serious listen are more compelling than just about any others I've read recently. As a result of his influence I've lately been experiencing an outbreak of "Madonna Moments"--personal epiphanies where I let down my guard a bit and discover value in stuff that I usually dismiss reflexively. This is part of a larger lesson that I'm constantly relearning: every time I jury-rig together an equation for What Makes Good Music, I am forced to admit that all of my rules and qualifications are, for the most part, bullshit: Nothing is true and everything is permitted. This realization, while initially destabilizing, ultimately liberates the mind somewhat. The world is a better place when you quit trying to find reasons to hate on every little thing. (Sasha's been a big influence in another aspect as well--it was his use of photography in his blog that inspired me to post photographs with each of my entries.)

Other influential music critics, columnists, and essayists: Phillip Sherbourne, Simon Reynolds, Gina Arnold, Camden Joy, Greil Marcus, Clinton Heylen, and David Toop.
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Do you consider yourself a "music journalist"?
The whole "bloggers as journalists" thing is such a loaded debate. It's the million dollar question that everyone wants the answer to nowadays: where does blogging end and journalism begin?
As far as I'm concerned, I'm not a music journalist. I'm just a guy who loves talking about music and sharing the music that he loves with others. But the definition isn't under my control. As long as I write about this stuff, people will define me as a music journalist simply as a way of categorizing what I do. And that's fine with me. Music journalism is a noble line of work, and sometimes, if you're very lucky, there's even money to be made from it. But I'm not holding my breath.
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What was the last track you heard that really changed your life?
I'd say it was "Float On"--the first track I ever downloaded from an mp3 blog (Said the Gramaphone), back in early February. It wasn't the song itself that changed my world (though I did love that single) so much as the medium that brought it to me, along with the instant realization that this was something I could do.
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How much does it cost you to maintain your site (in time/money/effort)?
The cost is fairly minimal, unless you count buying CDs, which I still find myself compelled to do on a distressingly regular basis despite the expense-busting opportunities offered by filesharing apps. Time and effort, on the other hand, fluctuate wildly. Sometimes I flail about a bit madly looking for inspirational stuff to post, and sometimes my posting windows are excruciatingly short due to the demands of my job and other responsibilities. It's a struggle to get more than two posts a week in, and throughout much of the summer, I've often had to get by on just one weekly entry. But I think that fans of my blog have found a tradeoff of quality over quantity there. I put a lot of effort into the posts I do put up and the feedback I get suggests that people appreciate it.
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Describe the space you do your writing in.
Well, right now I'm actually writing from The Atlas Cafe, a bohemian gathering place deep in San Francisco's Mission District that's locally famous for its terrific roasted yam sandwiches and liberal dog-friendly policies. But usually I do my blog writing and research either in my home office, with my towering music collection at my back and a cat purring on my lap, or from my cube at work, where I compose prose in stolen moments between the writing of user interface reviews and application programming interface documentation.
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That old chestnut dinner party is at your house and you can invite three musicians living or dead. Who are you inviting?
Brian Eno (for his imagination and ideas), Larry Levan (for anecdotes of the '70s underground disco scene and general party attitude), and Kathleen Hanna (for chitchat about art and 2004 politics).
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Is there any genre of music that you dismiss out of hand?
When I was a kid my category of Dreadful Musics was fairly large. Listed: country & western, classical, opera, showtunes, hair metal, and most british synthpop. As I grew older and more open-minded, I gradually found exceptions to all my rules, and for years I thought I'd pretty much opened my heart to all genres out there. And then I ran into a coworker who listened to nothing-- and I mean literally nothing --but Celtic music. OMG.
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Which critical darling do you find most overrated? Who's the most overlooked genius in the music industry?
All critical darlings have to go at some point or another. I've long been of the opinion that whenever the critics really start to focus their attentions on any one artist, that's generally a sign that the really interesting stuff is going on somewhere else, probably in a cluttered, sweaty suburban garage somewhere or in some nocturnal kid's bedroom music studio. But according to Newsweek this is apparently "All Hail His Majesty Bob Dylan" month, so forget all that. This is why the world needs mp3 blogs. In general, we couldn't care less about the faces gracing the cover of Spin at the moment. By the time a band gets that well known, they're old news to us. We're all about tunneling through the detritus of pop culture and mining out unpolished gems and forgotten treasures.

As far as overlooked genius goes, I'll just direct you to Sublime Frequencies, an interesting little label run by members of the Sun City Girls. Field recordings are going to be the next big thing. Just you wait.
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Are you much of a dancer?
As a child I developed a sort of herky-jerky, minimalistdance style that I eventually dubbed "The Dance of the Lonely Suburban White Boy." When I'm feeling particularly inspired, I can get some pretty funky hip and leg movement going, and even toss in elements from complicated dance moves like "The Tilted Windmill" and "The Shopping Cart"--but at best it still comes off like a bad version of David Byrne's "Stop Making Sense" choreography. All that said, I'm pretty shameless when it comes to dancing. Give me a beat and I'll find a way to move awkwardly to it.
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Recommend three other musicblog sites and give them a sentence or two of introduction.

1. Spoilt Victorian Child has quickly risen to the top of my mp3 blog heap over the past several months. Simon and Rowchie have funny and insightful writing styles, their musical interests are wideranging, and their collective skill for picking out the sweet sides from the towering stacks is awe inspiring.

2. Moistworks never fails to bring some good noise to my ears, and he fills my plate with amazing commentary to boot. He picks out a good mix of rare and familiar (but not too familiar) tracks, and even when I've heard the song before I want to find out what he has to say about it.

3. Benn Loxo Du Tàccu made its debut a couple of weeks back and so far I think it's one of the best new blogs to come around in quite some time. It's curated by an Associated Press writer in Senegal, and it (of course) features only the best African music you've (n)ever heard.
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Is there a major flaw in the way that musicblog sites function that you'd like to see corrected?
I think as the musicblog trend continues to expand it's going to become increasingly difficult for the more popular blogs to walk that line between being free-willed music enthusiasts and becoming seen as bought and paid for operatives of publicists, labels and media corporations. There's a bit of a punkrock DIY sprit to this scene, and it will probably falter a bit when people inevitably start crying "sellout." But in the long run, this will probably be a healthy thing--certain blogs will transcend the scene and move on to other spheres, making room for other blogs that "keep it real"--for the time being, anyway--to come up after them.
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Do you really think that posting music effectively promotes sales of the album?
All I can offer is anecdotal evidence: I know for a fact that I've bought CDs after downloading their tracks from mp3 blogs (such as the new discs by Wilco, Cut Copy, Superpitcher, and CocoRosie, to name a few) and my readers have reported doing the same after hearing stuff that I've posted. A close friend of mine who now lives in Prague came back to San Francisco recently to visit friends and family, and, among other things, shop for a copy of the debut Nouvelle Vague album, which I promoted early this summer, well before its offical release. Unfortunately for him, it's only available in the UK and France (as far as I know), but I know he's gonna track down that CD eventually.
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Can you list a few bands that you enjoy listening to that might surprise your readers?
Well, new readers of my blog might think that I listen exclusively to funk, disco, electro, and combinations therof. But only four years back my musical diet was almost entirely made up of alt-country/roots/americana/bluegrass. If I'd started this blog back in 2000, you'd probably. be hearing a lot of Old '97s, Red House Painters, and Son Volt. And if you look carefully through my blog entries from a year or two back, you'll find me ranting against some of the stuff that I tend to celebrate now. I went through a period where the whole eighties retro revival thing just irritated me to no end, and I kinda flipped into Grumpy Old Codger Mode for awhile there. Hey kids, that there's my decade! Put it down! Go out and find one of yer own! I'm constantly fascinated by the paths my musical enthusasm has taken me down over the years, though. And I never know what I'll get infatuated with next.
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Are you a proud member of the iPod Nation?
Man, sometimes I think that the iPod is the best invention to come along since the steam engine. It's totally changed the way I listen to and appreciate music. I've got a 10GB 2nd gen iPod that's on its last legs, batterywise, and I've got a brand new 4th gen 20GB pod waiting in the wings, ready to take over.
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Could you see yourself still running your site in five years? Would you ever consider selling the blog?
It's possible, but five years is a LONG time in Interweb terms. I have a feeling that by then the whole mp3 blogging phenomenon will have either played itself out or mutated into something markedly different from what we're looking at now. It'll be interesting to see where we're all at then. I'll probably end up as a bit player in the TimeWarnerFluxHut(For Robots) megamedia conglomorate, with my luck. Hopefully the benefit package will be decent.
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Drop on by betterPropaganda and pick out a track to hype.

Afrika Bambaataa - "Metal"

A brand new electropunk track featuring both Afrika Bambaataa and Gary Numan? Hell yeah! Fresh retro robofunk for the cyborg nation right here.

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spiffy

SIXTY-SIX new musicblogs (and more than a few of the old-fashioned variety) means that the sidebar is newly burgeoning with excess and quality.

But where to start? Here's a few iconoclasts worth investigating:

Jazz and Conversation FINALLY gives us a regularly updated and intelligently written Jazz musicblog. It's a little light for my tastes but ANY jazzblog is welcome.
J+C is run by Nick Francis a longtime radio DJ who looks to be in it for the long haul.
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According to Amber is an EROTIC blog about her (marital) sex life that features a mood setting track at the end of every entry.
The songs aren't my cup of tea but the idea of that much chocolate with the peanut butter amuses me to no end.
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ComboPlates has great writing, great taste (Jaki Byard up at the moment!) and a puckish tendency to mix in film reviews and recipes with every track:

it's not that i can't or don't enjoy an orange by itself. to me, an orange just always tastes better, more interesting, when eaten either immediately before or after a handful of dry-roasted peanuts. somehow, with that combination, the orange becomes more than just an orange; the citrus flavor gains more complexity, something with more sensory dimensions than just orange or peanut alone. it's just a fun way to eat. i enjoy discovering new flavors by mixing familiar ones together.

this is also how i listen to music.
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May I ALSO suggest Blogotheque, dozerblog, Tikun Olam, Benn Loxo du Taccu, Naugahyde Life, Aurgasm, Rustic Round Up, Tuwa's Shanty and Futurism Ain't Shit? These guys have really come out the gates rip-rarin' and a-huntin' for bear; give 'em a peek.
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New and highly recommended on the blog front: the rightfully omnipresent and hysterically funny Go Fug Yourself, Don't Wake Up (Nemo's bloggin' again!), Kotaku (the Gawker kids try their hand at a videogame daily blog with nice results), Phoebe Gloeckner (one of my fave cartoonists is a'bloggin!), Cooking for Engineers shows the logical recipe route, Girish Shambu calls us an "erudite house of immaculate taste" and I don't know whether to hope that Jon's Jail Journal is fake or real but it IS compelling.
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Newest (and highly appreciated!) trend in musicblogging: hiphop musicblogs showing up in a big way. Check out We Eat So Many Shrimp, Weave In They Hair, Weed In They Purse, Razorblade Runner, When Mad Was Tall and Phat Was Cold, Street Dreams and Government Names and school yourself.
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Michael Bell-Smith and Downhill Battle are seeking submissions for 3 Notes and Runnin', an online music compilation commemorating and protesting The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Case No. 01-00412. In the case, the court found that NWA violated copyright law when they sampled 3 notes of a guitar riff from Funkadelic's "Get off Your Ass and Jam" for their song "100 Miles and Runnin'". The ruling reversed a district court finding that because "no reasonable juror, even one familiar with the works of George Clinton, would recognize the source of the sample without having been told of its source", sampling clearance should not be required. To protest this decision, we are creating a forum for sample-based musicians and artists to share their own 30 second songs which have been created using only the sample in question. Your song must use only the designated two seconds of the intro to Funkadelic's "Get off Your Ass and Jam" as source material. You can slice it, layer it, loop it, stretch it, finger it, smack it up, flip it, and rub it down, but you can't bring any other sounds into the mix. Your song must be thirty seconds in length.

In under a month, Downhill Battle has amassed over 150 such tracks.

Curious to hear what you can do with a ten second sample? Stop by 3 Notes and Running and give 'em a listen.
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File under "new ideas in musicblogging":

due to the ridiculous difficulty of finding webspace, i'm gonna host all of my mp3s through the soulseek file sharing program. i wish i could due real audio to make it easier for you all but i'm running up against a lotta crap. my username is: razorjack look under the lunatic's asylum folder.

Click over to Lunatics Asylum and/or Soulseek to learn more.
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Greetings to those of you who are here via Podcast. I hope that once you hear a few tracks, you'll be interested enough to come and do some of the required reading as well.
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Scandanavian music master Avi Roig of It's a Trap! just released an introductory compilation disc: It's a Trap: Volume One for only six bucks! Get it now and be the first kid on your block to get heavy into Thirdimension and The Carpet People!
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Local group made good, Dirty on Purpose, will be opening for critical darlings Arcade Fire and the Hidden Cameras, November 11th at The Bowery Ballroom. I've been on the Arcade Fire and D.O.P. bandwagon for awhile; I can recommend you go get you some tickets.

Tell jinners Tofu sent you.