THE TOFU HUT

A hundred bucks don't get you very far these days, do it?

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Meeting the Neighbors Special: Hey DJ

I couldn't help but hear monju bosatsu, when in response to the big ol' audioblog list he cried out, "Yes, but which ones are the *good* ones?" Corralling a new audioblog is a difficult enough task; if the type of music is one that you're unfamiliar with, it can be downright impossible... without a guide.

Herein, th' Hut will take hold of your hand and show you the sights from a select few of my favorite audioblogs, each one chockfulla downloading goodness for those willing to take a few chances... and who knows? Jordi sez you just might learn something along the way.

Today's theme is ONLINE DJs: remixers, mashers and mixers who ply their quasi-legal music on the great big intarweb. Many professional DJs put a lot of their work online to try and attract offers to gig; there's also a whole buncha auters and amateurs who love to post their efforts for review, but separating the wheat from the chaff can be tedious work. Here's two of the very best of what the Tofu thresher has reaped, complete with some descriptive testimony and a list of suggested grabs available for DL!

DJ Dopplebanger
Dopplebanger's stock in trade is mashes: elegant portmanteaus of songs that generally share little DNA at all, engineered into great, lively Frankensteins. Dopplebanger's diversity of taste and genre produces some great ideas that function much better than they sound on paper; both Aaliyah and 50 Cent improbably benefit from accompaniment provided by Sonic Youth, to say nothing of what Prince's "Gett Off" does to accentuate Missy's "Work It".

Dopplebanger's work succeeds in two different ways; first, as in the aforementioned examples, he reinforces the thrust of a song by finding a brother in arms. These kind of mashes are to the ear what a double martini is to your sobriety: more simply means MORE. Other tracks subvert one, or sometimes BOTH, of the original meanings in favor of some sort of musical blackbird pie. The addition of DJ Villeneuve's house music to Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle" turns the two together into a delicate and sweet pastry; Mobb Deep is defanged by The Rapture, but not before they imbue the latter's double-dutch electro-pop an edginess that it could never accomplish on its own; the strange offspring of Khia, M83 and Aphex Twin (unimaginatively, but evocatively, titled "Pussylicker") is neither fish nor fowl, lurching wildly across the dancefloor like a wild beast.

DJ Dopplebanger is a mad beat scientist with a diverse and fabulous menagerie available at the click of a mouse; go forth and get down with the experiments.

Recommended tracks to DL: Don't miss the deceptively simple mashes of White Stripes with Biggie on "Hypnotize the Army", Vangelis with Grandmaster Flash on "Flash Runner" and A-Ha with the Jungle Brothers on "Take On Me Brotha"; the Usher over music from Clint Mansell's 'Requiem for a Dream' is a favorite that I've already hyped on th' Hut; there's also a brand new mash of Snoop and Justin's 'Signs' that ups the disco quotient considerably, leaving a potent ass-shaker of a track even MORE bootylicious than could be deemed possible.
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Pojmasta
A Poj remix is unmistakable; th' Masta likes to create "glitch" mixes, which is to say that everything is very finely chopped (and only lightly screwed). The final effect is that of an impossibly speedy and accurate digital dj, slashing songs into a thousand syncopated mini beats.

In theory, this sounds repetitive and unpleasant; but in practice, Poj's esoteric skills makes the spastic cuts amount to something more than just lost space. A listener familiar with the track will re-hear it again and be forced to reasses the music; a first time listener will discover an entirely different sonic landscape, filled with bumps and soundless valleys. This can be subtle, as on Poj's gentle doubletime beat mix of Massive Attack's "Teardrops", or revolutionary, as the violently jumpy reimagining of LL's "Mama Said Knock You Out" or the garage-meets-bebop remix Destiny's Child's "Jumpin', Jumpin'". Pojmasta mixes are often whimsical (the bouncing bass of the reimagined "Inspector Gadget"), hyperactive (the glitch-upon-glitch of the Madness' "Baggy Trousers") and imminently danceable (Kylie's extra slinky chopped-up "Slow"); the same holds true for his original electronic pieces ("D//E" and "Klapt" sound like early Richard D. James).

Poj's approach to DJing is downright zen: it's not what he adds to a track so much as what he takes away. By punching a thousand holes in a song, he has created a new readymade work of art. He also gets me up outta my seat; I think he'll do the same for you.

Recommended tracks to DL: The Poj take on "Toxic" long ago supplanted the original as my favorite, ditto for "Lucky Star" (the Basement Jaxx/Dizzee, not the Madonna). Even Diplo's 'Piracy' mix of M.I.A's "$10" pales beside Poj's. The long form "Scummer mix" provides thirty nonstop minutes of chopped and mashed excitement to liven up your run, party or bar mitzvah; I wouldn't want to live in a world without it.
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Next time we'll take a peek at DJs Osymyso and FakeID.

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Labels: meet the neighbors

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New Revolutions
In which we draw up the map to where the music be. Contact us at forksclovetofu@gmail.com if you've got a musicblog you'd like to see included in the Revolutions.

Borrowed Tunes offers Spin/Blender newbie hipster fodder. It's a practical service for those of us curious to see what the buzz is about.

Recent Offerings: Keren Ann, Bloc Party, MIA, Bravery, Devin Davis
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A Million Miles Away leans to obscurities and general catchiness, regardless of genre or time period. In much the same way that I do, 1MilMiles leans on the "hyper" in hypertext, often with great results.

Recent Offerings: Can, Lennie Tristano, Clarence 'Pro' McClam (The Professor of the Blues)
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Pimps of Gore is doing some really excellent work: long, well-thought-out and equally well written theme posts, crawling with music, linkage and informed, inclusive commentary. I'm not especially drawn to his music selection, but this is PRECISELY the direction I'd like to see more music bloggers take: up the writing quality AND the quantity and you make yourself a must destination for me.

Recent Offerings: Guided By Voices (lots!), Slint, Queen, Fiona Apple
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Worldly Disorientation is another in a thankfully growing sector of obscure, funky worldtrippers (a'la SUBURBS ARE KILLING US). He's been AWOL for a few months, but appears to be seriously back. If Cuban mambo, Viennese minimalist or Senegalese soul speak to you, go check that!

Recent Offerings: Ernesto Djedje, Joe Morris, Doris Monteiro
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Riff Central's schtick is to set up a faux-interview with an artist that "riffs" into standup. Afterwards, you get to listen to music by the artist bein' lampooned. I GET TIRED OF THE CAPS LOCK but Riff's been good for a giggle and a download for more than a minute now. But don't take MY word for it...

YING YANG TWIN#2: I WANTED TO CHANGE THE CHORUS FROM "AY BITCH! WAIT TIL YOU SEE MY DICK!" TO "HEY, WHERE'D MY DICK GO?"

YING YANG TWIN#1: AND I WANTED TO CHANGE THE OTHER PART OF THE CHORUS FROM "IMMA BEAT DAT PUSSY UP!" TO "PUSSY PUSSY PUSSY PUSSY"

RIFF CENTRAL: AS A TRIBUTE TO-

YING YANG TWIN#1: YEAH AS A TRIBUNE, LIKE A NEWSPAPER. LIKE I'M READING THE PUSSY
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RIFF CENTRAL: YOU CAN'T STOP BLOGGING CAN YOU

SASHA FRERE JONES: I CAN'T HELP IT. SOMETIMES I'LL JUST BE SITTING AT WORK GOOGLING MYSELF, OR INTERVIEWING A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN, OR LISTENING TO AN ALBUM THAT HASN'T EVEN BEEN RECORDED YET, AND I'LL JUST HAVE THIS INCREDIBLE URGE TO BLOG ABOUT IT

RIFF CENTRAL: IS IT TRUE THAT YOU HAVE EIGHT OR NINE DIFFERENT DESKS IN YOUR OFFICE AT THE NEW YORKER?

SASHA FRERE-JONES: WELL THAT'S A SILLY QUESTION. EVERY CRITIC AT THE NEW YORKER HAS FIVE DESKS. THE FIRST IS YOUR WORK DESK-- THAT'S WHERE YOU DO WORK. DESKS TWO THROUGH FOUR ARE FOR TAKING NAPS. TECHNICALLY YOU CAN TAKE NAPS AT YOUR WORK DESK TOO BUT IT'S FROWNED UPON. AND THE FIFTH DESK, THAT DESK IS YOUR FUN DESK. YOU CAN GUESS WHAT I USE THAT FOR

RIFF CENTRAL: PORN?

SASHA FRERE-JONES: YES
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RIFF CENTRAL: I SEE THAT YOU HAVE A GIANT BAG OF DEADLY DRUGS WITH YOU

OL DIRTY BASTARD: YES I WAS PLANNING ON TAKING ALL OF THESE

RIFF CENTRAL: I SEE

OL DIRTY BASTARD: MY GOAL IS TO HAVE SO MANY BAGS OF DEADLY DRUGS IN MY BODY AT ONCE, THAT IF I SO MUCH AS SPIT ON SOMEONE, THEY WILL BECOME PARALYZED

RIFF CENTRAL: LIKE THAT DINOSAUR FROM JURASSIC PARK?

OL DIRTY BASTARD: NO LIKE THAT GUY FROM INTERPOL

Recent Offerings: Diplo, The Game, Moby, Spoon
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Vociferous Slam is not so much eclectic as it is schizophrenic: obscure indie rock is cheek by jowl with country, 80's smooth funk, proto-electronic, country+western and '20's jugbands. Put on a big bib and line up for smorgasbord!

Recent Offerings: Billy Ocean, Martin Denny, Elizabeth Cotten, Okkervil River
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Radio Kurtodrome is a monthly blog that programs like a college radio station, offering links to legal downloads for each of the showcased artists. It's sort of a early evolutionary draft of podcasting, only without the rambling conversation.

Recent Offerings: 13+God, Dalek, Dan the Automator, David Byrne
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Last Night an MP3 Saved My Wife is a more concise MYSTICAL BEAST, mining the (generally) obscure and unknown for stand-out surprises.

Recent Offerings: People Under the Stairs, Jenny Bishop, Sebastien Tellier

SEE ALSO: Take Your Medicine (obscure/live/rare indie rock aggregator), V23 (in French and I had difficulty downloading, so your guess is good as mine), areseven (more talk than music but worth eyeing), Fifteen Minutes to Listen (Quasimoto, The Meters, Ry Cooder, Hot Hot Heat), Jump Out Your Window (also more talky than listen-y, but quite entertaining!)
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Labels: meet the neighbors

how else can i say it, i don't speak no other languages

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The Quarterbox
The Quarterbox is the Hut's clearinghouse for all manner of swag and shows; every connecting link should lead you to music and info...HOWEVER, as not everything here has been closely explored or listened to, we can NOT be held accountable for quality. We're just the middleman. Which is another way of saying "Caveat Emptor... but look at these prices!"
Contact us at forksclovetofu@gmail.com if you've a bit of hype you'd like to see included in the Quarterbox.

As previously reported, Feist is poised and ready to show up in America in a big way in April; I'm going with my gal to go see her live this Tuesday at the 9:30 show at Joe's Pub. I'm awful excited to see this show, anybody who'd like to meet up and say hi should drop me a line.
Tix are $15 at the box office for a 21 and older show with a two drink minimum; meet you inside.
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Adex Records' ridiculously busy website is awful hard on the eyes, but pretty easy on the ears.
Swing by and sample tunage from Bushwick Bill and KRS-1.
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Miami Hutsters should make it a priority to stick a nose in at the URB Village Show this week; Diplo, Matthew Dear, Boom Bip, DJ Reset and A Guy Named Gerald are spinning a free 21+ show... and they're giving out cocktails? Sounds like a good time.
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After a European tour, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings will swing back into the New Yawk Shitty in April for a two night gig at Southpaw in Brooklyn.
If you haven't seen them yet, put a post-it note on the calendar; it's a helluva good show. Personally, I got my ass pulled onstage at the Knitting Factory and had to get nasty with the #1 Soul Sista herself. She taught your humble narrator a few things; if I had been sharp enough to not lose her phone number, I'd have some REAL stories to tell.
When she's got it goin' on, Sharon be sexy as fuck, ya'll.
Bring two friends and be prepared to get your booty shaken, not stirred.
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I love the way people describe their bands.

Telstar hypes itself as "fresh retro, Belgian Britpop in the optimal sense of the word," James Apollo plays "a rootsy concoction of sweet pop and lonesome highway blues" and MiniLife is "very much like smashing pumpkins, mixed with trip hop, mixed with new order and (a male version of) pj harvey."
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Out of Tulsa, Oklahoma (and loved by Hanson!), give a listen to the rock stylings of Admiral Twin.
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Throcke is a Brooklyn electronic/avant garde/noise musician who offers his music for download; it's pleasantly Aphex-y stuff and worth tipping an ear to. If that's your cup of tea, Malaventura's ambient and deep house music is similarly engaging... and let's not forget scum music.
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Everybody and their brother wrote in with sympathy and suggestions when I told the sad horror story of my missing Mozilla links; much appreciated that y'all feel my pain.

One friendly fellow writes: "Whether or not you find your bookmarks, let me point you to an impossibly handy little app called wURLdBook."

"Briefly, it is a web-based service (so you store your bookmarks far from those Canadian firefox killers and can access them from anywhere). You can upload your current bookmarks, then search them in all kinds of ways. You can sort them into folders or use labels like gmail does. You can give them endless amounts of descriptive info, also searchable. You can add java bookmarks to your links bar and add new bookmarks to your collection as you come across them. You can publish them to a public page and/or an RSS feed. You can integrate that RSS feed into an offsite blog (like Tofu Hut). The list goes on and it's free, free, free."

I haven't testdriven; perhaps my more tech-savvy readers can say whether this is worth exploring?
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Jim Doran's World Fiddle Music site offers some simple fiddle lessons and dozens of examples of traditional string arrangements performed by Doran.
Some days a good reel is just the thing to get the blood going.
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MC Frontalot's whiteboy, nerdcore rap has earned him the hard-fought title "world's 579th-greatest rapper".

"Crime Spree" and "Nerdcore Hip Hop" are good places to start; see also MC Chris, Princess Superstar, Kool Keith, Deltron 3030 and Optimus Rhyme.

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New Revolutions
In which we draw up the map to where the music be. Contact us at forksclovetofu@gmail.com if you've got a musicblog you'd like to see included in the Revolutions.

Gojira69's Ephemeral Treasures and Hepcat Willy are part of the wondrous "dust collectors" collective; vinyl-ripper DIY archivists who post one-a-month, out-of-print, ultra-obscure thrift store finds for the good of mankind.
Gojira stomps your browser into a shaky little box; if you manage to dodge the initial onslaught, you'll find yourself facing the wonder of The All Freak Band's '76 LP "For Christians, Elves and Lovers" with its OBVIOUS (and abominably catchy) single, "Theme for Fellowship of the Ring."
Hepcat Willy steps up with forgotten whitebread doowop from the John LaSalle Quartet; the "Christopher Robin Is Saying a Prayer" cut simply could not be more precious.
Zip over and bag these trophies post-haste; who knows how long strangeness like this can last?!?
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The Ten Thousand Things is a delectably eclectic musicblog by Blake Leyh, crammed full of Morricone, Fripp and Eno, Bach, Turkish hiphop, Laurie Anderson and Caetano Veloso.
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Monkey madness makes my musicblog meter melt! Meet Monkey Funk and the Family Guy-inspired The Evil Monkey In Chris' Closet.
The former has been missing for a minute and the latter is as verbose as _I_ am; both are worth a peek over the next few months as potential future bigshots.
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One Perfect Green Blanket is dropping loads of music that the Hut has never heard which makes it as appealing to me as a crackhouse that serves sirloin. He's supposed to be back up this week; I've got my fingers crossed and am pounding the pavement outside waiting for more.
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Dark Funk is dropping entire bootleg shows from major 70's fusion jazz artists, including one apiece from Miles and Hancock.
A little looking around will likely uncover DF's own musical excursions, so stay awhile and try the coffee, eh?
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Ready for a little old-school metal?
Tinfoil offers a plethora of wax cylinder rips, none later than 1911.
Tin Whistle Tunes is a repository of HUNDREDS of tin whistle songs, performed by aficionados of the instrument.
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Bollywood for the Skeptical is an excellently annotated mix tape of Hindi showtunes. It's a great place for aspirant Bollywood geeks to go from clueless to clued in.
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Much gully linkage and music has found its way onto the Cuban Links; our hero's on vacation at the moment, but his Biggie tribute just put CL in my regular rounds.
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For Now We'll Just Call It Life seems to have been stunned into submission by the Hut's avalanche of info, but we have no doubt he'll get back on the horse afore long.
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Laundromat United pimp walks onto the blog scene with that COCAINE BLUNTS attitude, one good eye and two gold ears.
Beat Club, Goon Squad, Dipset and... Portishead?
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Ain't Nothin' Like The Real Thing; packed jam-full with RnB, blues and funky folk, the Real Thing really satisfies.

... and here's a few more: You Ain't No Picasso is the new indie rock aggregator on the block; homebrew Finnish musicblogging at Luptarkastaja; Village Voice's Bandwidth is corporate musicblogging as we knew it would come (maybe the only place I know of on the web to find showtunes, tho'); Club Lonely is where all the hip Stylus kids like to hang out and trade tunage; Konono No. 1, Aesop Rock and Elbow show up over at STEREOGUM-esque My Old Kentucky Blog; Art of Rhyme regularly drops new hip hop in Real Audio and there's primarily Korean poptarts in the toaster at Sound Science.
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Labels: meet the neighbors, music

I'm your Ice Cream Man like Raekwon

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365 Flavors of Unstoppable

Maybe you didn't notice, but you're in the new Tofu Hut. Yeah, I know it looks like the same old Hut but that's cause you can't see the proof in the pudding from where you're sitting. This old blogwriter done lost his patience with waiting for the big knock on the door. We ain't gonna sell out to the man. We ain't taking any ads (excepting our generous hosting providers/floor wax/desert topping RACKNINE, over there on the East toolbar). What we ARE doing is taking a glutton's approach to a pauper's problem. What we ARE doing is stepping up the game. What we ARE doing is showing up on your doorstep with the frequency of the Grey Lady.

That's right kids. It's on. We're going daily.

I can hear the naysayers now. Sure, Lord knows that I've been a little on the erratic side, but I've decided I'm gonna start making this a crusade. We'll talk about just WHY in the weeks to come. For now, just enjoy the ride.

Here's the schedule, starting today:

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday you can check in at the Hut for daily doses of glisten, fresh music to set your jaded ears to flappin'.

Tuesday and Thursday will be devoted to spiffy, th' Hut's clearinghouse of the best and the brightest memes, weirdness and wildness that the intarnewt has to offer. We'll also be starting back up the "Meet the Neighbors" feature, wherein we interview fellow musicblog geeks. Fans of the DL'able should also stop by; there may likely be some meat on these "T"-Bone days to gnaw on from th' Hut's contributing writers: the stunning Chantelle Fiddy (our UK connection to the Grime phenomenon), righteous curmudgeon Anthony Miccio (our pop-rockin' radio friendly naysayer, ready to defend the best bubblegum you ever chawed) and The Infamous Red Headed Stranger (country and western, new and old).

Saturdays will consist of precisely what you're seeing in front of you right now: a weekly capitulation of goings on at Hut Headquarters (expect big changes over the next few months!); a compilation of New Revolutions, the weekly roll-call of musicblogs, labels, bands and general freebies that be poppin' today; and The Quarterbox, where you'll have a chance to flip through unexamined tracks, videos, press releases and other ephemera that people send to the Hut.

Sundays? Sundays, I watch Deadwood. Get cable and find out why, ya bum.

That's enough yapping. Let's get to it.

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The Quarterbox

When you're a brand name like "Smuckers", it's gotta be good. So imagine what you get when you're "Tofu Hut"? Lots and lots of promos, press releases, bands on tour, labels with albums to sell, unsolicited demos, new ideas and new sounds galore.

What to do with this embarrassment of riches? Obviously, pass it on to YOU, the consumer.

The Quarterbox is the Hut's clearinghouse for all manner of promo swag; every connecting link should lead you to free music.

HOWEVER, as not everything here has been closely explored or listened to, we can NOT be held accountable for quality. We're just the middleman.

Which is another way of saying "Caveat Emptor... but look at these prices!"


Marvin Gaye/Bob Marley mashup: "Healing in Vain"
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From Chausette Verte's press release:
"This many years old 'next step progressive free cool tutti frutti contemporary jazz' band is active in Europe. It's an Italian-French free improvisation quartet, normally playing without a written theme. We play the tunes starting the improvisation from microfragments (one note, an atmosphere, a light). We are searching for an interplay, more co-operative than based on a competitive dialog. On july 2001 we recorded our first CD not believing we where going to sell a single copy: pure spontaneous improvisation is not so popular, and we are an about 40 years old too fat not a prettyface boy band. We have a fan club on vitaminic web site (OK, in there are just 20 fans, but they are 20 more than in our dreams)!!! Sorry for the Tarzan's style English, the adventure goes on..."
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From Danko Jones' Razor + Tie press release:
"Danko Jones is a hard-rock trio fronted by a guy named Danko Jones, from Toronto. Danko Jones has been on the road for nearly four years – first as a support act (for the Hives, among others), then as headliners and lately as a major festival draw. Jones recalls a seminal moment: 'When I was six, I joined the KISS Army...'"
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TVT Records, your crunk connection, provides us with the uncensored video for Jacki-O's single, "Fine".
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Yep Rock Records has a new album with Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray of Speedball Baby on the way. They're calling it "sort of stripped down rockabilly/r'n'r"; you can listen to the first single here.
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Brooklyn blog circuit darlings Dirty on Purpose are on tour; check the site to find out where they'll be and to sample some of their music to see if you'll want to meet them there.
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From the Scum Music press release:
"Our mission statement is to provide the genre of Dance/Funk/techno to the masses, but you could also add trance, breakbeat, ethnic vibes, and down tempo grooves to that. Influences are THE PRODIGY, THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS, THE DOORS, FLUKE, FATBOY SLIM, JUNKIE XL, JIMI HENDRIX... and everyday life."
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KCRW Radio is putting out the third compilation of live music, featuring tracks from Radiohead, Iron and Wine, the Flaming Lips and Sarah McLachlan. Give a listen to "Sounds Eclectic 3" here.

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New Revolutions

Those who've kept a half an eye cocked on the Hut will no doubt remember that I lost a precious pile of new musicblog links recently when Mozilla when berzerk on me and started coughing up data all over the bedspread. The poor baby still has a bit of browser bronchitis, so perhaps it's pertinent to purge rather than feed that fever.

Here's fifteen new places to find music on the web:

1: Between Thought and Expression
Similar in presentation and appeal to the legendary LARGEHEARTED BOY. Loads to explore and do; you'll find mad linkage, videos, essays and reviews out the wazoo. Taste is eclectic and the songs are provided by others (always a sign that quantity is more important to a blogger than quality) but the posting is consistent and heavy.

Recent Offerings: Basement Jaxx remixes, Jadakiss, Keren Ann, Kasabian, B.B. King
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2: SXSW Media
This is a "grab-it-while-you-can" collection of tracks from bands playing SXSW. See what you're missing.

Recent Offerings: Bruce Robison, the Silos, Mavis Staples, Bloc Party
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3: hushreality
Nicely designed Rockblog, updating once every few days.

Recent Offerings: Ambulance Ltd, Adam Ant, Human League, Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark
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4: DJ Earworm
A recent plug from WAXY has left Earworm inundated with response, but with catchyass mashup freeforalls like George Michaels vs. the Beatles vs. Aretha vs. The Scissor Sisters, who could eat just one?

Recent Offerings: Mashes with Depeche Mode, Eurythmics, Beck, the White Stripes, Dizzee Rascal
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5: Lemon/Red
Between the YouSendIt links, the hip hop/electronic tracks and the kinda prose what the Village Voice likes to call "thug-lite" (Yo COCAINE BLUNTS! Sounds like beef to me, kid), there's little doubt that Lemon/Red is the newest in a much appreciated flood of streetblogs. And it feels so goooood...

Recent Offerings: Junior Senior, Pitbull, ODB, Killer Mike
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6: Gathering Dust
"No particular purpose, except passing the dutchie around. And giving credit to underrated acts & missing links. In the old days, record stores used to hire passionate clerks who would guide us towards the light. Now we're on our own."

Recent Offerings: 808 State, Fab 5 Freddie, Arthur Baker
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7: Gloomybear
I fell in love with DJ Gloomybear after the eightieth listen to his remix of Kiss' "Crazy Nights", but I imagine you'll catch on faster than I did.

Recent Offerings: Mashups of Air, Missy Elliott, Mylo and New Order
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8: xanax taxi
Offering " Jazz, improvisation, fusion, funk (and the rest)" and not disappointing.

Recent Offerings: Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Al Green, Barry White, Chet Baker
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9: Rap Nerd
Does what it says on the label, dunnit? Solid writing and a clever ear make this rookie stand out.

Recent Offerings: Quincy Jones, Roots, Eminem, Isaac Hayes, Quasimoto
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10: Digitally in the Crates
More hip hop and hip hop/r+b roots for you. He's been on hiatus for a minute, but I got high hopes for DiC.

Recent Offerings: Lil' Flip, Pete Rock, Kool and the Gang, David Rudder
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11: ILMiXor
The big boys club over at ILM finally decided to join the MP3 revolution and are making collaborative mix tapes online. This is probably the hottest and most exciting new musicblog to hit in awhile; the writing is uniformly fascinating and excellent and you never know what might pop up. This is what happens when da revolution done come.
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12: The Hypertonics
Here's why The Hypertonics put up their complete discography online for free: "They don't charge money for Bibles and you don't charge your friends to hang out with you. When something is that meaningful, you don't want to be alone with it you want to share it. The circle of close friends here always get CD-Rs with the new demos, the live takes, the covers, the full catalog. Why not extend that circle of friends from 20 people to 1000 people? Hey friend, here's the new stuff, dig it. Take it, we made for you in the first place. We didn't make it just to claim possession of it, it's everybody's."
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13: diddywah
A slickly designed, excellently selected and well written vinylrip blog with an ear for themes.

Recent Offerings: Tose Feliciano, Tina Turner, Little Richard, Merry Clayton
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14: The Low End Theory
No more theories, here's the truth. More than just another hip hop blog for the fire.

Recent Offerings: Heavy D, The Perceptionists, Fat Joe, B.T. Express
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15: Baby Snakes
BBS as MP3 blog at Sounds Are Active Records.

Recent Offerings: Frank Zappa, Miles Davis, Jaco Pastorius, Soul Junk, I Heart Lung

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in other news

The long-dormant Uncritical raises its brontosaurus-like head from the muck for a look-see. He's promising much more content and a free biscuit with every box of mueslix.
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A belated RIP to Martin Denny, exotica king.
Listen to some background and trackground over at NPR.
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Ampari is a foreign language aggregator (Swedish? Danish?) that presents the days best tracks listed by artist and title, with a link to the blog that's hosting. It's simple, elegant and as useful as a swiss army knife.
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Whatever they're calling it, I'm still blown away by the new Ying Yang Twins single. Here's a WMA copy of "Wait".
Minimal, filthy and CREEPY.
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If you'll excuse me, I'm going to beat my computer (which has crashed at least seven times during the writing of this entry) to a silicon pulp and drink it with a handful of quaaludes.

Tally ho, ya'll!
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Labels: clicky, meet the neighbors, music, personal silliness

As always, it's not the SIZE of your joystick, it's how you use it.

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glisten: 8 + 16 bit edition

Time to put your quarter up, as the Hut is investigating the world of videogame music!

Some of the best music in the '80's on video games came from the Commodore 64. That machine had a revolutionary music chip called a SID, or "Sound Interface Device", that allowed for some fairly complex and beautiful compositions. Several sites still offer these songs for download in their original form, as SID files. To listen to the tracks, you'll need a SID emulator installed on your computer. You can find both an emulator and a VAST collection of SID tracks at the High Voltage SID Collection; give these a closer look.

Commodore 64 music was, for several reasons, generally much more highly regarded and artistically considered in the UK than in America; for this reason, you're more likely to find Brits with a familiarization with the composers and the sound than you are to find an American who would be able to remember what a C64 even looked like.

Here's a pair of some of the better tracks for the C64, by two of the masters of the genre: Martin Galway and Rob Hubbard.

Martin Galway - "Comic Bakery"

Comic Bakery, occasionally mislabeled "Cosmic Bakery", is a long forgotten Commodore 64 game. Even though this song is almost twenty years old today, Galway's synthetic bounce and echoing electronic harmonies are surprisingly contemporary.

The dischordant wave of sound that this track fades out to would make for a gorgeous DJ break.

Read these interviews with composer Martin Galway.
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Download .SID files of every song Martin Galway ever performed.
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Buy "Project Galway", a double CD collection of Galway's music, coded and performed and recorded direct from Galway's own Commodore 64 SID.

Rob Hubbard - "International Karate"

Rob Hubbard is generally considered to be one of the greatest video game composers. His work has already appeared on the musicblog circuit; his classic theme for Commando appeared earlier on last year on gabba, shows up occasionally on the web and is ubiquitous on soulseek.

Hubbard's distinctive and exciting sound is years ahead of its time; had he been born twelve years later, he would likely have been another Richard D. James.

As it stands, Hubbard's work seems doomed to be labeled ephemera, but here's one vote that this electronic pioneer receives his due from the IDM community. A retrospective compilation CD (say, from Warp or Astralwerks) would be much appreciated.

Visit this exhaustive Rob Hubbard fansite.
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Read this review of the "International Karate" game.

Richard Munns - "Blip"

"Blip" is a galloping, jaunty cut that strangely ends on a riff from the Police.

Anybody else hear "Don't Stand So Close To Me" in there?

Download a few more Atari 800 Munns tracks in MP3 format.
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Read this review of "Blip".

Want more? Here's a selection of some of the best places to find video game music for download on the web:

The Video Game Music Archives is an astonishingly deep repository of midi files (their banner claims over 18,000 tracks and I'm inclined to allow them that boast). If you want to hear the music to ANY game you've EVER played, this is the place to start.

Unfortunately, a MIDI file isn't really the best way to listen to the music for it's artistic merit; it's more just a suggestion of what the original track sounded like. Compare the tracks I have up today with their MIDI counterparts on VGMusic and you'll see what I mean. If the art of the song is what you're looking for, I can't recommend Overclocked Remix enough. You won't find much of the games original music there; what you will find is a thriving and dedicated collection of music and video game nerds tinkering with what they clearly believe to be the classical music of tomorrow.

OCR's mission statement defines the site as "dedicated to reviving the video and computer game music of yesterday, and reinterpreting that of today, with new technology & capabilities. This site's mission is to prove that this music is not disposable or merely just background, but is as intricate, innovative, and lasting as any other form." It's a pretty tall order and one that webmaster dj pretzel has done a helluva job of ushering into reality. He runs the place with an eye towards positivity but clearly goes out of his way to make sure that all the music posted has a definite professional sensibility.

OCR is a great site with amazing depth, wonderful interface and a real open sense of community; the remixers and remakers often work together on side projects such as this Donkey Kong Country remix soundtrack.

The music itself is, by and large, surprisingly good; often taking a musical riff and running it into a completely different direction. If you've never conceived of 'Zelda' as a bossa nova/orchestral piece/brass band/electronic rave/IDM/rock and roll jam... here's the place to find it.

NES Horsemen has a fine array of fighting music, most of it from the ill-considered flop that was the Neo Geo.

VGMP3 offers a selection of tracks in nice and clean MP3 format, along with guitar tabs for the aspiring musician.
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Speaking of video game music performers, there's any number of bands that specialize in live renditions of the blips and bloops of yore. Here's a few of the better known:

The Minibosses and The Advantage are probably the most notorious of the video game rock crews.

The Minibosses take their name from the slang term for the penultimate baddies that lay in wait just before a game's majordomo; the Advantage got their moniker from a nicely designed and justly-ballyhooed NES joystick. Both bands have MP3s from live and studio performances on their sites and both are worth a peek.

Ice Climbers take their name from the iconic Nintendo Entertainment System game.

Megadriver is "a Brazilian heavy metal band devoted to videogame music" who have whole albums of their material available on site.

8-Bit Peoples don't make game music, per se; they use the sounds and motifs of eight and sixteen bit game music to make their OWN music.

The Gameboyzz Orchestra Project use the Gameboy as an instrument unto itself, connecting the systems up to a soundboard and mixing from there. The result is surprisingly listenable.
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Read this brief annotation of the history of video game music (with plenty to DL and listen to).

One more:
Toshihiro Nishikado - "Space Invaders [Ambient]"

Space Invaders took over the world when it was first released, famously causing a shortage of 100 Yen coins in Japan... they were all being socked into the machine!

Even today, the sound of the aliens creeping slowly down the screen evokes anxiety and dread in anyone who ever fell under the arcade spell. Outside of the "weeeeeeeoooow-wunt-wunt" death of Pac-Man, nothing sounds quite so much like utter defeat as the crispy fart of the Space Invaders gun exploding.

Play Space Invaders at the Ultimate Space Invaders Online Shrine.
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Read this tribute to Nishikado's unnerving audio.
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Download instant nostalgia from Arcade Ambience: CD length recordings of 1980's video game arcade sounds.

learn more about urban artist invader

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BURNT POPTARTS

FORKSCLOVETOFU SEZ: Anthony Miccio is a poprocka and th' Hut's expert on all things big, radio-friendly and glistening that might otherwise escape our more rockist readers earholes.
Anthony dispenses wisdom and choice bon mots at Anthony is Right.
Prior to sending off today's overlooked punk/pop classics from the criminally underappreciated band SCRAWL, Anthony let me know that he was "gonna drop something CREDIBLE on ya! Gasp!". These tracks do drift a bit from Miccio's general popist stylings but as they're closer to INcredible than credible, I can hardly complain.
Let's hear it for th' boy!

Scrawl - "Charles"

Scrawl - "Public Image"

While Scrawl's 1998 release "Nature Film" was not a hit (in fact the band was dropped by Elektra weeks after its release and hasn't released anything since), I wish that more prolific indie acts would follow the album's template. Over half the songs are re-recordings of anthems written throughout their decade-plus career. Few of their midwestern indie-alt peers wrote numbers as straightforward as "11:59 (It's January)," "Clock Song" and "Charles"; frank, mature songs that deserved tighter renditions and a chance to be heard by fans who didn't have access to Simple Machines 7-inches and out-of-print releases on Rough Trade.

They also included a fierce performance of "Public Image," giving the classic star tantrum a more earned sense of frustration and defiance. Had the album come out in 1993, Nature Film might have been remembered alongside such seminal albums as Last Splash, Star and Exile In Guyville. As it stands, these songs wait for some younger groups to give them the same treatment Scrawl gave "Public Image."

Since Scrawl went on hiatus, bandleader Marcy Mays has led an AC/DC cover-band (always a hott idea) and performed solo shows around Ohio. I'd almost wish for a lyricist as impressive as Mays to wind up with a career like Linda Perry's, but I wouldn't want to see her forced to put her words behind an adolescent surrogate. There's been talk of new material for years but the wait has been excruciating.

Read this interview with Scrawl by Jenny Toomey of Tsunami.
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Buy 1993's "Velvet Hammer", the only in-print (that I know of) Scrawl release.
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Read these reviews of Scrawl's albums and EP's.

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spiffy special redux: THE MUSICBLOG HITS KEEP COMIN'

Two weeks. That's how long it took me to find another MASSIVE pile of musicblog tastiness. Honestly, if it's not reaching critical mass yet, I can only assume that we'll soon be near the point where it'll simply be impossible for me to keep up.

Until that day arrives, I'm going to continue trying to accumulate new links. I would appreciate it if any of you music afficianados/bands/labels would drop me a note at forksclovetofu@gmail.com if you start a new musicblog.

The only rule for inclusion is that you offer complete tracks on your site for download and that you try to be reasonably respectful of the artists/copyright holders in question (i.e. don't be posting full-length, in-print albums for DL).

Anyway, here's all the blog that's fit to print.

A Paper Noose Won't Get You Far but this rarely updated musicblog shows a bit of potential (Tori Amos, Cobra Killer); Music Forest is the first Japanese run musicblog I've found (tho' not the last, I'd wager) but there's no Japanese music to be found, just lots of Electronic and IDM (Aphex Twin, Plaid, Daft Punk); similarly, the French speaking among you may well dig the "éclectique et légal" musical-blog-Ô-logie (John Mayall, Camper Van Beethoven) or the somewhat more esoteric Blog Up (Will Shatner, Salim Nourallah, Hot Chip); We're Here To Help With Your Changes is all OVER, from offbeat Elton John to Oi! musicians Splodgenessabounds to the utterly filthy rnb of Andre Williams; mixing and mashing on the fly is reduced to a roux and then whipped up when you fly with the Iron Chef of Music (five dj's battle with six samples and two hours to cook, the results are posted); Bradley's Almanac offers a weekly selection of live and rare hipster goodies (Arcade Fire, Fugazi, Pedro the Lion); An American Parrothead in Canada is more than just Buffett... sorta (Joe Walsh, The Donnas); don't be skittish about checking into the Bates Hotel, you're likely to leave with a healthy knowledge of Norwegian pop music[!]; Cred Central explores albums and shares the cream of the crop (Pere Ubu, Martin Carthy, Gogol Bordello).

More (much more!) tomorrow.

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why so long between posts?

1: MIA at Knitting Factory (Fun! Thanks ever so, Eppy!
2: Ray (Shitty! Why didn't anybody tell me how bad this movie was?)
3: Football (No surprises, just an ugly three quarters of play.)
4: Work and general malaise.

I'm visiting my folks this week; hopefully I'll have enough backup posts ready that you won't even miss me.

So, why do we see YOU so rarely around here?

Labels: clicky, favorites, meet the neighbors, music

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Meeting the Neighbors

GOVERNMENT NAMES

Part of what makes musicblogging so appealing to me is how it gives voice to the voiceless. If you've got music that you love, that tells people something about who you are or where you're from, this is a way to share that with the world. Musicblogging also lends an immediacy to the music; there's the potential to put you on to what's hot RIGHT NOW.

Shamelessly few of us are just kids shouting out what's hot; most of us are long in the tooth musicgeeks in varying shades of jade. Not Government Names tho'. They're a pirate radio station that plugs you into an international underground rap world that doesn't wear backpacks.

Recent offerings include music from E.S.G, Chamillionaire, David Banner and Lil' Flip.

Spit that shit, gentlemen.

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My name is Dylan. I'm 20 years old. I drive a delivery truck for a living and I enjoy writing about rap music. Government Names was started by Al and me. It's become a collaboration between a bunch of people Who are interested in being down and can write. It doesn't have any consistent focus or goal, per se; we've written about everything. Our first post went up in May of 2004.

My name is Al Shipley. I’m 22 years old and live in Baltimore, Maryland. Six months ago, I started the team rap blog, Government Names. More recently, I started a solo blog (Narrowcast) just to have an outlet for stuff that wouldn’t fit on Gov’t Names. I’ve been writing about music in one way or another for a long time, mostly on the internet. It feels good to have an outlet that’s more semi-permanent and all my own. Over the past few months, Gov’t Names has really surpassed my expectations and everyone involved has stepped up to the plate to make it something we think is worth checking daily.

Why "Government Names"?
Al: Government Names is just a phrase I always liked. It’s used in hip hop a lot and evokes the hip hop life well without explicitly reference to it. I think I proposed some other really lame ideas to people before that one clicked; it was dlk’s idea to make it plural.
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What are the criteria you judge a song by to decide if it's post-worthy?
Al: It basically comes down to whether I feel like I have anything worthwhile to say about it. It also helps if it’s very new and I can be one of the first people to hype it. Usually if every other blog I read or associate with has already written about a song, I won’t bother with it unless I feel like I have a unique perspective or a dissenting opinion.
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Do you have a favorite music critic?
Dylan: Ethan Padgett is the only music writer that i take really seriously right now. I take most of how I do straight from him, from the way he's writing right up to the way I think on things.
Check the N.O. roll call and this early Master P roundup.
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Five desert island discs?
Dylan:
1) Nas - "It Was Written"
2) Nas - "Lost Tapes"
3) Nas - "Nastradamus"
4) Nas - "God's Son"
5) Sarah Harmer - "You Were Here"
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Do you consider yourself a "music journalist"?
Al: Not really. I take professional music journalism/criticism fairly seriously, which is why I don’t particularly want to go pro with it. I have had some writers I respect encourage me to pursue it professionally, which is flattering, but I like writing about music for fun. What little semi-professional experience I've had tended to suck some of that fun out of it.
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Recommend three other musicblogs.
Al:
1: Gel & Weave is kind of Gov’t Names’ sister site; they started right around the same time as we did and there’s a lot of mutual respect between us and them. Anyone who enjoys us should definitely be reading them.

2: Dip Dip Dive is Tom Breihan, a fellow Baltimore native and one of the only people in the blogosphere who I’ve actually met and get to hang out with now and then. He’s also a really good writer; look out for his work in Pitchfork, the Baltimore City Paper and Neumu.

3: Jess Harvell is another writer I respect and he just recently converted his blog to the MP3 blog format.
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Who's your favorite producer?
Dylan: Da superproducers: DJ Paul and Juicy J.
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What's the best live show you've ever seen?
Dylan:I saw G-Unit and Kardinal Offishall last year. Everyone was going wild by the time shit got started: looking fabulous and beautiful, fat little high school girls smoking weed in corners and kids fighting in the stands. The Whoo Kid gunshot sound effects were so loud over the arena speakers that it shook your ribcage. We snuck down to the floor and it was like a riot. Later on, we hit the Whoo Kid afterparty, where some Indian posse cats fought with G-Unit security and tried to snatch Young Buck's chain.

Al:Probably the Boredoms at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C.; June, 1999.
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Do you hope to someday make a living with something music? What's your Dream Job?
Al: I’m definitely going to be putting out records at some point in the future; whether I caever turn a profit off it is anyone’s guess. The only thing that’s less realistic than music to expect to make a living off of is the internet.

Dylan: I'd like to be a highschool english teacher, I think. I guess that's what I've always planned on doing.

I just finished a month working in a beef plant on a non-stop line, hundreds of cows a day. I was working at the station right after the hide gets peeled off; our job was to carve the neck out so the head was hanging on by the windpipe and esophagus. Then we'd secure the esophagus with an elastic band, cut the windpipe and hang the head on a rack to be cleaned and broken down by the head line workers. The money was really good but it's brutal work and you get soaked in hot blood.

The good thing about tedious manual labor jobs is you've got these huge stretches of time where your mind is free to wander. That's how i've always written things: map it out in my head then lay it down as fast as possible.
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Describe the space you do your writing in.
Dylan: Pale blue couch, laptop set up on leather footstool in a downtown apartment over the korean grocery store. Cute little asian girls from the university are buying phone cards to call home and nervous chinese ladies are slouched in idling lexuses, waiting for their husband to run back out. Kids are selling in our alcove and ducking in the stairwell when the pearly white Crown Vics roll past or wandering back from the circus tent the church sets up in the empty lot beside our block on Rriday nights.
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How difficult is it to maintain the site?
Al: Not very hard at all because there are several contributors; two of them are as prolific as I am. If I’m having a busy week, I don’t have to worry about not having anything new on the site for people to see because everybody else will hold it down.
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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?
Dylan: Shawnna. Eve. Remy Ma.
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What was the greatest motivation for you to create your site?
Dylan: Al and I wanted to write some bullshit about songs we were feeling. There weren't really many rap blogs when we started and most of the ones that have come up since then are still pretty lame. They're either for some sort of hipster guys or they're written by journalists that would rather be writing about movies or the war or money and NOT the music or they're just shitty. Or a mix of all three.

We just wanted to write about stuff we liked and not be lame.
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Has meeting with an artist ever left you feeling tongue tied?
Dylan: I don't know about tongue tied. Shocked, sometimes. With lots of southern dudes, it's pretty easy to get in touch with them. You just have to call them up or e-mail them and they're right there! Like I wanted to interview Fiend, so I just called the number for his record company in a magazine ad and he answered! I talked to him for like ten minutes. It was the same deal with pretty much everyone else but it still surprises me.
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Drop by Better Propaganda and pick out a track to hype.

Dylan: Paris - "What Would You Do?"
I like this. It starts with some George Bush chopped up speech talking about "we are mounting a sustained campaign to crack down on every american...." calm, fatherly voice over beautiful jazzy beat you'd use to talk about smoking weed on. -- interrupted by: "FEDERAL AGENTS WE ARE ARMED," kicked in door sound effects, thin-voiced hook girl, drum loop, spooky x-files theme keyboard. paris talking about bush administration opportunism. old man voice, deep and deadly serious.

Al: The Oranges Band - “Finns For Our Feet”
These guys are from Baltimore, and they do good work. All of their songs are pretty much the same jangly chug, and this one is as good as any.

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spiffy

Travis and Jonathan been doing that Jackie Harvey ish long before that mufucka broke his first EXCLUSIVE!

It's the ONLY place to get Rwaffles.

"Because you don't wanna offend anybody."
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Filboid Sudge is blogging Academy Award winning Tom 'n' Jerry animator Irvin Spence's 1944 day-by-day cartoon diary. It's really beautiful stuff and a healthy part of your daily blogroll.
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Prussian Blue and Panzerfaust.

I gotta warn you: racists REALLY don't keep a backbeat (lack of negro blood, dontchaknow). I couldn't find a single track I liked on the latter page and the lil' Klan Kiddies aren't nearly as good as the hype led one to believe.

Disappointed by White Power music again. Darn.
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Taking a step in the direction of Podcasting, I purchased a Playstation compatible microphone for use with the computer and also figured, what the hell, let's try this Get on da Mic that's been catching my eye for the last few weeks.

Do not make my mistake. "Get on da Mic" SUCKS.

Oh, the SONG SELECTION is incredible, no doubt. Rap along with Dizzee Rascal and the Ying Yang Twins? Where do I sign up?

Unfortunately, the game execution makes it absolutely unplayable. The voice recognition is so bad as to be a joke; I found that if I just screamed into the microphone for four minutes I'd ace the stage. SO weak.

I _am_ having some fun with my backup choice though.

Miccio, you karaoke "Burn"! Go get it!
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Sabadabada's Brazilian music is a must download collection. Don't, whatever you do, miss the Quarteto Em Cy!

Related topic: remember the mogambi giant post of new musicblogs from, oh, Friday? I've got another thirty or so since then.
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Herve Trouillet's animated trailers are very impressive.
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Shoegazing at Popstar Feets.
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Your assignment, should you choose to accept it is to tell me who sings this amazing theme song for Detroit's Monorail.

Heck, I'd settle for an MP3 file. Anybody?

"People Movin' to the Rhythm, Take A Ride Take A Ride!"

Would that we could.
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Bart Van De Vel Wallpaper
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Osymyso is dropping his new album, one track per week, online.

Rejoice!
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Late to link and this has already found it's way around the internet but if you haven't seen Hardly Art, Hardly Garbage's "Hip Hop Quarterbackin'", now's the time.

Labels: clicky, interviews, meet the neighbors

Don't Stop Til You Get Enough

spiffy special: MUSICBLOG REVOLUTION

It has been a grand total of thirty-five days since I've updated my blogroll.

In that time, I've acquired well over a hundred new musicrich bloglinks.

This is getting ridiculous. I knew that this MP3 Revolution was going to blow up but not quite like THIS! Not so soon! Not without me making money on it!

Ah well.

I'm going to continue trying to accumulate new links (and I would appreciate if you would drop me a note at forksclovetofu@gmail.com if you start a new musicblog) and I will occasionally update.

But I'm not sure how much longer I can reasonably try to keep my finger on the pulse. The blood, you see; the blood is POUNDING!

Without further ado, here's a brief rundown of what I've found just recently:

Coverville follows copy, right? except that they claim to HAVE the copyright (nice work if you can get it!); Kiddie Records is the latest GREATEST innovation over at basichipdigitaloddio, packed with a new classic kids LP every week; an order of progress offers great Brazilian tunage; Sweet Blasphemy brings pop glam and modern hipster ish; Blog this way is a french and BLUES HEAVY site; cool hand bak is eclectic modern redux; a best truth is mp3 filepile in Spanish; buscate un novio follows the same dictum and lingua but centers on female rock; adoru has longass dj mixes, hip hop and dance and rock and all things great and small; more multilingual fun at Rock de Siempre; NPR's All Songs Considered takes the most adult contemporary tracks from the Flux/Stereogum contingent and makes your mom and dad listen to them so that you can go "Holy shit, ma likes BRIGHT EYES?!?!"; Blog Alive fulfills an excellent niche need with his simple but cleverly designed musicblog devoted to live performances, both bootleg and officially sanctioned; Each Note Secure seems more like a business venture and an aggregator than a labor of love but they do have some interesting finds; fire of love's descriptions are brief but the music is well chosen and the insight is sharp and heartfelt; Good Rockin'Tonight dips into the well for some older rock selections; keep the coffee coming offers music from the perspective of "a more than middle-aged baby boomer looking at the world with increasingly blurred eyes and wrinkled features"; WFMU's 'On the Download' is that station's monthly-updated musicblog that puts the "excellent" in excellectica; P.S.M.Evenings and Weekends runs the gamut from the Pixies to El Vez and back to the Shangri-Las; Revolution in the Head is similarly all over the place with Manu Negro, Annie and the Breeders; Just for a Day, bedroom dancing, 7 and 7 is and Torr provide more hipster- and obscurist exploration; Melodia Records offers a rotating mix of tunes from the British label's indie archives; Play/Pause's bilingual (French/'Murrican) mush of rnb, disco and rock is sure to please OR Francophiles could go wallow in the 'lectric joys of Listoplay's selection of LCD Soundsystem, Chemical Brothers, Clinic and Fisherspooner.

Any blog that finds a way to link the Archies, Buck 65 and Carla Thomas is on my MUST list and the of mirror eye does just that; Yu-Mex follows the little known and FASCINATING saga of the 50's Yugoslavian obsession with Mexican music (seriously!); Upon First Listen tries new tracks with you and sums up his one paragraph initial impression; NES Horsemen has bridled up a team of Capcom games and groomed the tunes for your enjoyment; this Swiss Yodeling site is a joy and a boon for lonely mountaineers; while those of us afflicted with S.A.D. might want to live in The House of 250 Rising Suns; Throwaway Style's uber hipsterism and excellent design makes for a fun romp but perhaps you're more in the mood for some Polish Jazz?

From Steve Earle to Stetsasonic, nothing escapes IckMusic; Henry's Harmonious Head is a bitchin' online radio broadcast that starts with Rollins but doesn't stop 'til it gets to DJ Screw (and not even then); A Spoonful of Lester offers plenty of that good ol' fashioned navel gazing that blogs are famous for, 'cept this is well written and comes with a soundtrack; Buked and Scorned is even more of a genre whore than _I_ am, plus DJ/critic Mike McGonigal is considerably more knowledgeable to boot (no fair!); grab some luverly 1920's era shellac-ripped tunage over at Hot Dance and Jazz; you can probably guess what the 80's Tunes Livejournal community is into; I am absolutely in love with Bedazzled's warped and wondrous aesthetic, plus I'm floored by the quality of his/her offerings (i am, for the record, very PRO Kovacs); Spitzenschlager's rotating Hungarian vinyl selections should be all but guaranteed to be new listening; Ta Hu Wa Hu Wai is another welcome addition to the "dust preservation society", sites that offer a single complete obscure and out-of-print exotica LP for listening.

Reverend Frost's Spread the Good Word steps with a high concept: blend the spooky with the soulful and I LOVES IT; boomselection's gift of the STELLAR MIA/Diplo Piracy Funds Terrorism Mixtape is something better than Myrrh and Gold, any of you who don't have this are COMMANDED to go get it and play until your ears bleed. Then rush over and snag the cavalcade of hip hop vinyl scarcities, test pressings, remixes and general wonders at The Rookie, Freemotion, Steady Bootleggin' and Broke BBoys; these four are so good they make a man wanna cry; Scream(becausemusicisfreedom) purports to be mostly rock and metal, hunt for the music in the tiny box on the lower right; Milk Cocoon is rough and indie and kawaii; Domo DJ is on the scene with underground/backpack hiphop and world pop.

Don't dream that self promotion could possibly be dead; here's a list of sites either run by or about bands that offer eponymous music: The Pop Group, Alison Breitman, Splogman, StrangeView Productions, The Sermon, DJ Sherburne, The Revelators, David Sylvian, Sweet Billy Pilgrim, Hello Nurse, Pretty Flowers, Cracks in the Sidewalk and Kate Bush. Also, just for kicks, here's a group of labels that have MP3s of their artists available on site: Glorious Noise, Secretly Canadian, Thinner/Autoplate, Foul Country, TVT, 4AD, Beggar's Group, XL and Daptone.

Mr. Bassie's Notes and Comments is Jamaica exclusive and cracklin' hot; Evigan Funk's selection and writing couldn't be better; My Everchanging Moods comes out the gate with harsh words for our newly reminted Satan and some Rakim t' boot; Republic of Replicants is 80% comics and 20% music; BowBow2 is an aggregator with attitude; Deep Soul Junkie is stone cold funky; Shirley and Spinoza is where my radio dial lies these days and I recommend you join me on the strange side; bored with music has unceremoniously lifted my entire blogroll but you know what they say about the sincerest form of flattery (though for the future: a brief 'would you mind?' email prior to lifting my lock/stock/barrel would be somewhat appreciated); The Corduroy Suit is Silver Jew specific; forward-thinking label 'Secretly Canadian' is offering a complete new release by the Impossible Shapes for free for a limited time; Free Sample Zone follows the Comfort Stand business model and styles itself as a gratis, web-only label with a subversive set of copyright politics (fuck yes!); Shredding Radio has the best of both worlds: radio station AND downloads; Aural Pleasure and Track 69 are simple and direct and an excellent source for your RDA of Taco and MC Solaar.

Thirty-five years of homegrown tunage (if your home is London, Ontario) is available at the archives of 94.9 CHRW, it's fascinating to listen to the music change over time; look in on two OTHER very specific snapshots of musical history over at The Big City, a musicblog specializing in NEW ZEALAND music (you listening, Tracicle?) and Russian Recommended Records; ex-Veruca Salt frontgal Nina Gordon has been stirring up a tempest in a teapot as of late but it's the Youngblood Brass Band's collabo with Talib Kweli that's been turning MY crank; Trout Fishing in South-Central Wisconsin is one of Vinyl Mine's faves and it could be one of yours too; FRUITS OF CHAOS IS BACK, MOTHERFUCKAS! and in honor of Mel and El you should check out this slew of Japanese-/Chinese-/Korean-Pop sites: Broken Cadence, Angelfish, Bootleg, Music of Aodai, Crimson Stigmata, Mona Lisa Overdrive, momomomomomomomomo and Cardiography.

Tape Findings found sound is a sheer delight; Arjan Writes about house and club music, then provides you with clips of the songs; the recent digitization of the Smithsonian/Folkways archive is reason for celebration, go listen to samples and then load up your shopping cart and THEN spin over to Worldly Disorientation for yet MORE wondrous music from all over the globe; 510 to 514 is droppin GEMS and vinyl podcast takes old technology, adds it to new and hysteria breaks out worldwide!

WHEW! I'll try and update the sidebar over the weekend. In the meantime, go check 'em all out!

As long as I've got your attention, I'd like to say a few brief words about YouSendIt.com.

A growing number of musicblogs are eschewing hosting in favor of YouSendIt and similar sites. I've come to think of it as a ghetto alternative; YSI is free and easy to use but only allows for a scant handful of downloads.

I turned my nose up at this populist alternative at first but I have to admit that it's really served the musicblogging community well. So count me in as a provisional fan: those curious to start their own musicblogs should check out YouSendIt and consider it as a babystep toward building an audience.

But as soon as you start getting past the twenty-download-a-day threshhold, consider blowing ten bucks a month and getting some hosting, eh?

Labels: meet the neighbors

Still working on the text for that neat-o song I mentioned on Thursday.

Here's a few goodies while you're waiting.

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TALES FROM THE RED-HEADED STRANGER

It was late at night when I got the call. Four in the morning, I rolled over and picked up the phone and heard a gruff country twang on the line.

"BOY! What's this ah hear about you puttin' up music all hither and thither!?"

It was the Red-Headed Stranger, an old buddy from my ponderosa days.

"Oh, hey R.H.S."

"Don't you 'Hey Arr Aitch Hess' me! Ah heard you been puttin' music up on tha' intarweb and spreadin' it round so all sorts of people can hear! That right?"

"Well, yeah, R.H.S.; but I put up music with the intention of attracting new listeners to lesser known artists and unheard tracks, not to promote piracy or-"

"Boy, save that hawgwash fer th' Justice o' th' Peace! Ah don't give a gawldarn WHY you doin' it! Ah just wanna know why ah ain't seen no COUNTRY up over thar!"

"Um... well, I _did_ put up some Hank a while back..."

"'A while back'! 'A while back'! Son, yer momma must be sick over you! Don't you know that th' intarweb is a downright lonesome prairie when it comes t' country music?!?
Y' gotta OBLIGATION to let people know about good COUNTRY MUSIC, not this HARCADE FAHR flim flam!"

"But R.H.S., you know that modern country isn't my specialty!"

"Then consarn it, ah'll write th' damn thang MYSELF! Whut's yer email, feller?"

And that's how ah... I mean, _I_... came to find myself with a new contributor to the Hut. We're happy to welcome the erratic stylings of the mysterious Red-Headed Stranger.

Bruce Robison - "Traveling Soldier"

For me, irony finally, truly expired in March 2003. Dixie Chicks lead singer Natalie Maines made an offhand onstage remark about George W. Bush, and the group was immediately expunged from conservative-friendly corporate radio chains. The result: their current single dropped from No. 2 on the country chart to nowhere in one week flat.

Funny thing is, that single happened to be their version of Bruce Robison's "Traveling Soldier," an intimate portrait of wartime loss. The soldier of the song reaches out to a stranger, desperate to make an interpersonal connection before he goes to face death in Vietnam. The song reminds us that each soldier is a human being, and each casualty devastates someone on the home front – even if it's just one girl, crying underneath the high school bleachers.

With the ban, the Bush administration's attitude toward the Iraq war dead found a little-noticed macrocosm. The absence of "Travelin' Soldier" from the airwaves presaged the way the Iraq casualties would be ignored by an administration eager to make us believe the war was bloodless. We would not be allowed to see their coffins, and Bush would not be attending any funerals. Their sacrifice was to be lauded in the abstract, but their humanity was to be denied. I waited in vain for the American listening public to slap its collective head and say, "'Travelin' Soldier' got banned! Wow, that's really ironic!" This did not happen, and it hit me: irony is dead. It got fragged.

This is not to say that "Travelin' Soldier"'s power is tied only to its cultural context; it would have been a stunner in any year, just as it was when Robison himself recorded it on his 1999 sophomore album Long Way Home From Anywhere. Over a wistful melody, Robison carefully draws a picture of the way war annihilates possibilities for those dragged into it, both those who do the fighting and those who wait behind. Given that the song is written in the third person, it's instructive to note how the point of view shifts in the Chicks' version to the girl in the lyric, while with Robison we think more of the soldier.

Incidentally, Robison's brother Charlie (also a talented singer-songwriter; think of Charlie as the party and Bruce as the long walk home afterward) is married to Dixie Chick Emily Robison. George Strait and Tim McGraw have also had hits with Bruce Robison songs, even though he isn't related to them.

(THE HUT SEZ: I loved this song when I first heard it and was always curious to try the original. Must say that I find the woman's perspective much more engaging, not to mention the more lush (and expensive) orchestration that the Dixie Chicks provide.

Is it just me or do you hear a bit of REO Speedwagon floating around in the melody?)

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Meeting the Neighbors

VINYL MINE

Jim explains what he's doing much better than I could:

"For reasons I don’t fully understand, I dropped out of the music scene around ’93 and so I have this 10 year hole in my knowledge about all things underground. Mostly during this time I bought music based on a tune I heard in a movie or on TV or I just picked up new albums from my old stalwarts (Dylan, Elvis Costello). About 2003, I got into iTunes and that got me interested in new music again. And so I had these boxes of Lps hanging around and an iPod that was only 25% full so I started digitizing. Along the way, I‘m writing about it and throwing up samples of mostly out-of-print and obscure stuff for discussion."

Recent offerings on Jim's site include music from King Face, Bread, Junior Kimbrough and The Bags.

The canary's still kicking... let's go down into the mine!

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Vinyl Mine is part baring my record collection to the world (this can be embarrassing), part a “where are they now?” look at long-gone bands and part what am I listening to these days. I do an occasional “web jay” feature I call “Coffee and Cigarettes” in honor of that great Jim Jarmusch and Tom Waits in which I just go put together a mix of songs I have found on the ‘net.

I’m a 40-something living in Washington DC. I’m a amateur percussionist - that means I play nearly all the instruments in the percussion family including, of course, drum set. I used to play professionally (wedding bands, sleazy pick-up combos, polka even) and was also in some very obscure bands (Bikermutt, Fuktupmommy) that released vinyl and cassettes -- now I’m just a weekend jammer. I currently play in pit orchestras around town for beer, fellowship and, if I’m lucky, gas money.

In the ’80s, I published an obscure zine and contributed to a more prominent local zine (WDC Period) and to some others (Phfuddd!, Lowlife). Some of the high points of my ‘zine career (or low points) was doing an interview with Bret and Jimbo of Psycodrama, introducing the zine underground to the likes of Lisa “Suckdog” Carver and her madman lover Costes. I kind of credit myself with introducing Carver to Bill Callahan (Smog) who was then writing a zine up in suburban Maryland and joined them on tour if memory serves me right - he got serious about his music around that time. I also enjoyed meeting The Happy Flowers who had a faux-noise-goof band thing going on for several years - they were a blast.

My first post went up on February 15^th, 2004 and then I took a three month break trying to figure out how to do the digitization right (mostly I just procrastinated). During this time I discovered MP3 blogs and it reminded me of the energy and love of music from the ’zine community.

What are the criteria you judge a song by to decide if it's post-worthy?
I’m not always looking for the killer cut although its nice if I find something that's really cool - most of the time the cut should complement the post. As I said, I also tend to look for stuff that is out of print or might still be around but not exactly getting a lot of attention. My current hosting service also limits the size of my files to be less than 5 Mb (sometimes I have to adjust the bit rate down to fit). Finally, if the tune is available on iTunes or elsewhere, I generally don’t post it but I may link to it if its free or less than a buck to download. I don’t participate in peer-to-peer networks so I have no idea if the song is available out there.
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Do you have a favorite music critic?
Sure - Jay Hinman of Agony Shorthand, Christopher Stigliano of Black to Comm and Lindsay Hutton of Next Big Thing - thanks to Blogger, we can read them everyday where I used to have send several bucks in the mail to read their zines.
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Gimme five desert island discs.
An interesting question -- it doesn’t necessarily mean you pick your top five discs. Because you are picking stuff you have to live with the rest of your life, I would tend to go for variety and volume (that means double-CD sets - I’ll assume “box sets” are outside the scope).

1: Bob Dylan - "Live 1975 - The Rolling Thunder Revue (Bootleg Series Vol. 5)": This is my favorite period of Bob’s output so it’s like getting some of the classics, some Blood on the Tracks and Desire on one set.

2: "Frank Sinatra and Count Basie at the Sands" (1966): I’d build a wild bachelor pad hut deep in the jungle stocked with all the booze, baby, you can drink. This would be on permanent play.

3: Velvet Underground - "VU": A lot of the purists scoff at this one but I can groove forever on it, fuck you very much. Downside is liner notes by Kurt Loder, but hey you‘re gonna need toilet paper. My only “single disc” disc.

4: The Clash - "London Calling": I need something for late at night railing at the world and kicking at the sand. Can’t think of a better record for it.<

5: Husker Du - "Zen Arcade": My only caveat is that I haven’t listened to this lately but it affected me so much in the ‘80s that it seems perfect.
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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?
Screw the dinner party, I’d do a sequel to Field of Dreams invite the dead members of the Ramones to have an allnight jam (me on drums of course - sorry Marky).
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Recommend three other musicblog sites.
These three blogs aren’t on my blogroll although I have started checking them regularly and I’ll eventually get around to putting them up.

1: The best worst music in the world is on Bubblegum Machine. Every week this guy puts up songs that are so godawful that it’s almost the aural equivalent to slowing down and gawk at an accident. I listen to it to see how long it will be before I press the stop button. I kind of imagine John Waters checks this site out often. I think it’s a goof but for all I know the guy may be totally serious about this stuff - there’s a song out there for everyone, I guess.

2: I like what young Kate does on Red Lotus Radio. I think the reason we fugly Americans don’t listen to more world music is that there’s very few outlets to introduce the good stuff to us and so what little we hear comes from TV or movies and is generally drivel. Much as I like putting on the India or Iranian TV station, the music can be quite cheesy, and I usuallyturn down the sound and put on some other tunes. This is where I think music blogs are at the best -- I look forward to more world music blogs and even though this is emanating from Missouri (I think), there are plenty popping up in other countries.

3: Troutfishing in South-Central Wisconsin is a combo personal blog - music blog by a very creative person (and great web designer) -- music is central to the site and he almost always has a cut or a mix up that I dig. He also makes some cool dada-ist political cartoons.
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Do you really think that posting music effectively promotes sales of the album?
I personally don’t think it’s as significant as people want it to be - perhaps, I‘d say about a third of my buys are based on internet - but that includes those places where you can grab 30 second samples. It’s probably worth some study - some business school students could probably make a good term paper or project out the topic.
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Can you think of a few bands that you enjoy listening to that might surprise your readers?
I doubt it. But I recently purchased some remastered Fleetwood Mac from their mega-star period, that‘s pretty sad ennit? I always liked Mick Fleetwood‘s drumming and it‘s crystal clear in these new versions. I also listen to an occasional classical CD preferring the younger artists - Midori and Evgeny Kissin are in my playlist.
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Are you a proud member of the iPod Nation?
I wish it was louder. Did the lawyers make it so it would be hard to blow out your eardrums? That’s no fun. I’m asking for some in-ear phones for Xmas.
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Make a ten song mixtape playlist on the theme of:
Halloween Songs to Scare and Amuse You As You Hand Out Candy to Yard Apes

01: "The Banana Boat Song" by Harry Bellefonte
02: "Invisible Hands" by Joseph Arthur
03: "Worry About You" by Ivy
04: "Spooky Girlfriend" by Elvis Costello
05: "Curse of the Crying Woman" by Divine Horsemen
06: "The Hunger" by The Distillers
07: "It’s Bad You Know" by R. L. Burnside
08: "Women in Black" by Pepe Deluxe
09: "There’s a Ghost in My House" by The Fall
10: "Mary of the Wild Moor" by Johnny Cash
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Drop by Better Propaganda and pick out a track to hype.

Mogwai - “Hunted by a Freak”

A band that I hadn’t heard of until I checked out the Matador 15 year compilation but they‘ve been kicking around - they’re just not as cute as Interpol. On the Matador disc, they had some trance-electronica - a genre that I don’t mind going to sleep to or putting in the background but rarely go out of my way to track down a specific artist. Something about Mogwai piqued my interest, though. They seem to be using the genre rather than being used by it, if that makes sense. Here’s another cut that isn’t trance or electronica but more of a conventional rock orchestration that might be a deep album cut on a rock band outfit but it also could serve as a cool down cut after about a couple of hours of dancing.

As The Tofu Hut’s blogroll has decided, I’m an eclectic type so its no wonder I am falling in love with this group.

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unspiffy

Moistworks has been temporarily shut down by the IFPI.

James was not contacted directly or asked to remove offending tracks; instead, the IFPI decided to go after his host company.

I think further discussion is warranted.

EDIT: Mystery and Misery says it pretty damn well. I would only add that while I DON'T really support sites that post whole albums or piles o' files, codes of ethics are VERY subjective when it comes to musicsharing. I try not to throw stones if I can help it.

Labels: interviews, meet the neighbors, music, Red Headed Stranger