beta listeners wanted

To: family
Cc: friends
Bcc: blog

All,

Up late last night (again), but no hangover today. Haven't had a whiskey since 
Christmas. Didn't give up, just don't seem to drink it these days. 
But, I'm mumbling again't I ?

Anyway, Woke Up This Morning, Got Myself a Radio:
   I found the new song still playing on "Repeat Track".
   It's now dinner time, and I have only paused it for phone calls.
   So I need some less subjective criticism.

Let me hear what you think someday.

--
Al

PS (you know who are):

Are you sitting down ? Headphones ?

The album is on the LAN 
The Kylie mix is nearby.

New Intranet Issue:
    Redirect any music requests to here

New IT issue:
how do I insert a bloody link in this bloody thing ?
Is the URL enough ?


: s|But, I'm mumbling again't I ?|http://duckbrains.blogspot.com/| 
: post

Who's afraid of the RIAA ?

RIAA in good album shocker!

Not just good, this is brilliant, wonderful, ecstatic, genius, great, and all-over wonderful. Go listen yourself, the full album is available here.

I could go all anorak on ye, and start detailing the breaks and beats and meets and mashes and originals and quotes and synchrony, but the album is so good I've started blogging before I've heard it all.

Special mention must go to the very first minute though: David Bowie meets The Four Tops in a way that sounds like it is the original, the joins are more than seamless (seamlesser ?). A paragon of the mashup art.

This is what the internet is supposed to be about for music: If I want the new Alabama 3 album I'll go buy it, but from their site not from my local CD shop. If I want to find new music I'll stream stuff from my neighbours on last.fm (although I will have to skip a lot of Radiohead shite), or seed a list at pandora. But the best internet music is the stuff like this that you just come across serendipitiously.

What do you reckon the chance of me ever "just finding" this album in my local CD shop ? Zero or none ?

But I love music, and have heard a lot of new stuff today, quite a few of which I'll be looking to buy (as long as the artists have shops on their sites).

Hey it's not just me, they thought it was great too. And full dibs to Boing Boing for the link.

No more shocks, please

Of course if you really want to bounce you could do far worse than going to a Manu Chao show.

While you are waiting for the tour to arrive, I would highly recommend nearly all his albums. Denia from Proxima Estacion Esperanza just popped up on the headphones and caused much further bounciness.

And me with a bad back since the weekend - just the right level of slow sway required for gentle massage. (Better avoid the Manu Negra albums for a few days). And Bongo Bong on Clandestino is another great track - especially recommended when driving with kids.

But driving is another thing to avoid now. I'm convinced all the extra driving lately is what did my back in. After a few hours the left leg gets starts to get uncomfortable. After a few more it starts spreading upwards. And listening to Radio Bemba Sound System means you just have to bounce. So listening to that while driving only increases frustration, discomfort, cramp, ow, ooh me back.

There's another thing I like about music on the net: down here in the arse-end of somewhere we don't get a lot of musical choice - there is not a single Manu Chao album to be had in the entire town. But I got them anyway.

Boss In Good Album Shock

I love The Mystery Train:

So many times I have heard him play one track and gone off to buy (or more recently download) the album, and those ones always turn out to head up my album charts. Special mention here for some lesser known albums:

• "I, Lucifer" by The Real Tuesday Weld
• "Electrolatino" by Señor Coconut Y Su Conjunto
  
• "Burned" by Electrafixion

The trick is that the show gets me to listen to stuff I'd never otherwise notice. Consider the Brazilectro album I just found, and am off to download now: I found that because I was searching.

But I'd never search for Bruce Springsteen. I just do not like bombastic, worthy, earnest rock music. And The Boss has always been near the top of my list of "avoid like the plague" artists. Also near the top of my "I hate these even if everyone says I should like them" list. Up there with Bob Dylan and Radiohead.

But on Wednesday John Kelly opened with a great track, and on Thursday closed with and even greater track. And announced that they were both by Bruce Springsteen!

On Wednesday I thought I'd misheard, so I shut my gob. On Thursday It was smacked. On Friday I checked the show's tracklist, then went off and downloaded it.

And now, even as I type I am bouncing along to "The Seeger Sessions".

Bouncing !
To Bruce Springsteen !
Springsteen finally found out what spring is !

That's the really great thing about music - wonders will never cease.


Now, will someone please try to explain the phenomenon that is Radiohead ?

P.S. That Brazilectro album turned out to be not quite as I hoped: about as "electro" as the Springsteen album. I deleted the folder. YMMV.

I gotta not stop doing this

It started out so simply - lastfm showed I'd been listening to The King, so I went off Googling to see if he has a third album, and the next thing you know I find bringmetheheads, which is kinda cool, and left me with a queue of possible downloads, and then, and I really have to stop downloading the stuff. There is so much of it I haven't even listened to yet, and when you do, some of it sounds like Neil Diamond's new shite. (Very well produced, better than he's ever sounded, but you can't make a sow's purse out of a silk ear. I just can't help hearing the lighters all over it.)

But then you stumble across a bluegrass tribute to Pink Floyd, and well you just have to download that in its entirety, it screams out to be heard at reasonable quality.

While finding that I was on the trail of the more obvious Trance Remixes, but the joy of Pickin On them means I couldn't resist, and downloaded the full album there too. Well, it's gonna be hard to go wrong with my all-time favourite album mixed into loadsa Orb tracks. Well, then again, maybe it might, but I'll take the chance

Everyone's a ticker

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's a really stupid thing to want to do."
--Elvis Costello

So what's so stupid with dancing about architecture? What else are you gonna do? Gawk at it, and worship the Great God Architect?

Never trust a hippy - especially when he has short hair and a skinny tie.

The sun still shines

Rolling down the train tracks,
Oh Lord I ain't coming back
The man in me is a Man In Black