Capricious Horses

Agreeing with Tom Gabel's sentiment that this band would be one well worth joining:



One can only hope that the upcoming White Crosses will include such excellent Russian influences.

Serj Tankian, Eat Your Heart Out

(Via Cracked)

Finals Got You Down?

Not after you take a gander at this slice of awesome.



Didn't do the trick? Then you may have bigger troubles. Good luck to all who've got essays and finals due, and therefore lots and lots of problems.

Here's some Mangum to chew on...

...because the chances of you listening to a new Neutral Milk Hotel album anytime soon are about as big as the dot between these brackets: [ ] Yup, that big.



Love the live footage. Ten-year-old me probably wouldn't have known what to make of this.

(Via Pitchfork)

JFK Is the Reason

Forty-six years ago today, JFK was shot to death in Dallas, Texas, presumably by Lee Harvey Oswald. Unless of course you believe Oliver Stone, or your sketchy retired neighbor who has told you in confidence on several occasions that he was in fact the gunman on the grassy knoll.

Texas Is the Reason's 1996 magnum opus Do You Know Who You Are? (yes, I'm fully aware that their discography is rather limited) dwells on the conspiracy theories surrounding Kennedy's death, if only in that there are song titles like "The Magic Bullet Theory" and "Back and to the Left." Beyond these allusions, there's a lot of fantastic second wave emo to revel in. I mean, of records from this era, I like Mineral's The Power of Failing better, and I'm gonna let it finish, but "Back and to the Left" is one of the best songs OF ALL TIME. Kicks like an angry horse that had its hay soaked in pepper sauce, drank a couple cases' worth of energy beverage out of its trough, and oh yeah, the barn's on fire.

I think that's PETA on the line. I should probably go now. But I mean, if they can go after Barack over a fly, I should be able to get away with a metaphorical statement that happens to involve a horse to describe a song, right? Right? [If you need me, I'll be in hiding]

Texas Is the Reason - Back and to the Left

Buy 'em up:
Revelation

(I figured that posting a Dead Kennedys song would have been a super cop-out. I mean, if I wanted to go down that road, I could have posted Franz Nicolay's "Jeff Penalty," a song about the band named after JFK and RFK. But that would have been a bit of a stretch.)

-----------------------------------------------------------

That's news to me, Sunday edition:

• NPR did a roundtable discussion on the role of the label that's pretty interesting, you can find that HERE. (via Punknews)
  
• Also, apparently you can scrobble plays to Last.fm from within The Hype Machine. Good to know for those of us who are overly obsessed with quantifying the degree of their obsession with music.
  

----------------------------------------------------------- And a random video for good measure:

The Magic of Auto-Tune

The downfall of Western Civilization? You decide.

OMGZ ITZ JUSTIN BIEBER

Now I don't like to hate here, but I have to make an exception in this case, because this looks an awful lot like Aaron Carter version 2009. Plus he's got the Canadian X-Factor, which means that his reign on the pop charts is likely to be especially long-lasting and damaging, like Bryan Adams or Avril Lavigne.

As for the ethics violations present in this video, our prepubescent hero is chasing a woman around practically old enough to be his mother. It's like the music video version of The Graduate, but cleaned up enough so that it's safe for tween digestion.

(I've got one word for you, Justin: Plastics.)

God help us all.

(Video) William Elliott Whitmore - That Train That Carried Away My Girl

This guy has a awesomely deep, gruff voice and lives in a cabin on a farm in the woods, somewhere in Lee County, Iowa. Just a fascinating individual. Do yourself a favor and check out this Daytrotter session. (Also, watching this really, really makes me want to get a banjo/banjitar.)

New Ted Leo Song!?

I've counted myself as a solid Ted Leo fan since he came to Clark University back during the first semester of Freshman year. He had a pretty rough cold and one of his fingers was bleeding but he rocked ever so hard in spite of his varied maladies. Living With the Living was a fine record and although his label Touch and Go had to make some painful cuts earlier this year, he recently signed with Matador, and it appears he's been getting his write on and will have a new album out hopefully sometime in the Spring of 2010. Also, did I mention that he has a Twitter? Being one of Ted Leo's tweeps is a rewarding experience, I promise.

Somewhere under that hat dwells the most awesome Mohawk you'll never see. Cheers.



(Via donewaiting.com)

And Tomorrow We'll Take Aim / Just Like a Storm Waiting For a Calm.

It's weird how you can associate a song with stuff that has nothing to do with the lyrical content of the song itself, say what song came after it on a mix CD your friend burned for you in high school, or what was happening in your life when you first heard this song.

I can't say I'm a particularly big fan of their current incarnation, but old-school Against Me! was a beautiful thing. For me, this song is Spring break 2007 (Dirrty Jerz edition) encapsulated. Not coincidentally, I saw them at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville that same trip (here's a decent write-up). Bruce Springsteen was at the bar, no joke. Of course I had an X on each hand at that juncture. The crowd was nuts and my tiny friend Dana got sucked into the pit of despair and yet somehow emerged a few minutes later unharmed. The rascals would not get their gnome trophy that night.

Through the magic of Google, I tracked down a short clip of the encore, "We Laugh At Danger and Break All the Rules":



After 2007's subpar New Wave (which was still good enough for Spin magazine to name it album of the year [take that as you will]), I hold little hope for White Crosses. Prove me wrong, Tom Gabel. Prove me wrong.

Against Me! - Untitled (From The Acoustic EP)

Buy 'em up:
Sabot Productions

(Part Two)

Please don't get the idea that this is rapidly devolving into some glorified Mountain Goats fan blog (as near and dear to me as the band may be). This post simply serves as an addendum to yesterday's entry on The Life of the World to Come, which if I had been thinking clearly enough at the time, would surely have gotten tacked onto the end of that post. Better late than never I suppose, and thus I present to you now (in the event that you have not already viewed it) The Mountain Goats' performance on The Colbert Report from about three weeks back. There was an interview of John prior to the performance, which you can find here. After all, I wouldn't want to overwhelm the page with multimedia and so crash the machines of those brave few out of my legions of followers who are still running Windows 3.1, right?

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Mountain Goats - Psalms 40:2
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore

(Via Pitchfork)

Tonight I Burned the Lyrics, 'Cause Every Chorus Was Your Name

I've been listening to The Avett Brothers ever since I heard the track "Matrimony" off of 2006's Four Thieves Gone: The Robbinsville Sessions. So when they were featured on the NPR All Songs Considered Tiny Desk series a few months back (highly recommended podcast, BTW), I was intrigued. This is video of that performance. The first song, "Laundry Room," is pretty much dynamite. One of the songs that made up the soundtrack of my summer, for sure.



Oh, and their new album I and Love and You drops tomorrow.

P.S. The Swell Season's Tiny Desk session was also quite good. You know, 'cause Glen Hansard's kind of a baller.

Anti-Software Piracy, 1992 style

Props to Fardeen for showing me this. The bastardization of hip-hop culture is truly breathtaking. Also, check out the guy's hair at 3:13!



Remember kids, DON'T COPY THAT FLOPPY!

This video hits close to home in more ways than one.

Credit goes to The Glorious Hum, and in turn to Ryan's Smashing Life.

This team needs to have a melee...

...similar to this one.



Found this goodness over at SawxBlog.

Epic Fail and Epic Acting

So in my infinite feeble-mindedness I managed to forget to bring the power cable for my laptop home for spring break. Unfortunately I didn't realize this until I had drained about 80% of the battery. I don't know anyone else in my town that has a MacBook. Sounds like fodder for something to post on fmylife, eh?

So, I'm typing this up on the ol' Wal-Mart bought POS home computer. Due to my technological limitations, it seems likely that I won't be posting nearly as often as I had wanted to over break. Oh well, such is life. I'm trying to convince myself that doing without the laptop for a week and a half will give needed perspective to my existence. Of course, I don't actually believe that, but keeping myself half-convinced of its truthiness helps to dull the pain (well, that and the tequila).

But enough of my technologically-induced moping. I do have something good to report. Something very good indeed, courtesy of Eric Wilbur over at Boston.com. Let's just say that Dustin Pedroia appears to have been working on his acting chops when he wasn't working out at API, and that the results are hillarious...

Rainn Wilson Redux

Several months back I posted a link to an acoustic demo I did called "Rainn Wilson Stopped the Drought." Well, last night my band played at a battle of the bands at Clark, and we just so happened to play a radically reworked version of that very song. My good friend James was nice enough to get it on video:



If you want to look and listen to similar stuff, head on over to our MySpace page.

Satanism

Today's post was inspired by this excellent video, which if you know me I've probably already forced you to watch. For the optimal Satanic experience, if you haven't seen this video before, you should view it before perusing today's selections. Enjoy, and remember to be on guard for wickedness at all times.



The Mountain Goats - The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton (From All Hail West Texas)
The Mountain Goats - Satanic Messiah (From Satanic Messiah EP)
Funion - The Night the Devil Took Rathgar by Storm (From Wombat in the Reading Room, Badger in the Stove)
Colin Meloy - Devil's Elbow (From Colin Meloy Sings Live!)
Neil Young - Devil's Sidewalk (From Greendale)
Black Sabbath - N.I.B. (From Black Sabbath)

Buy 'em up:
Emperor Jones
Satanic Messiah Website
Funion Myspace
Kill Rock Stars
Warner Bros.