'Twas the final night of Piles' 5-week-long residency at the Midway Cafe.

'Twas a Tuesday, and it started out with Gabe Plays Drums, which consisted of a guy named Gabe playing drums . . . along to his mp3 player . . . with a playlist of songs ranging from Beyonce to Radiohead? And ending with guest singer Marty from Uncle Monsterface assisting in a rendition of the Buckaroo Bonzai theme song?!

The second act I sorta slept through -- this dude who calls himself Hands Of Fate sang soft sweet tunes with guitar. In retrospect, I wish I had payed more attention to him -- if only to see if the lyrics had any references to this 60's horror flop-turned-cult-fave (by MST3K of course).

Tristan Da Cunha went on next because Calumet-Hecla was waiting for some people/gear to show up. And of course leave it to this normally-maddeningly-schizoid-rock-trio to take it upon themselves to try to educate the kids on the out-of-print record by a '70s British band called Jet -- right, not that one -- who were notable for having ex-Sparks band members, scoring Elton John's tailor, and recording one (and only one) album's worth of a mishmash of glam-rock and punk-pop that would've influenced bands like the Buzzcocks . . . . if anyone ever heard it. Which probably not many people at PAs had, up until TDC played Jet's Roy Thomas Baker-produced, self titled album in its entirety (complete with fake-British-accented vocals) -- a set they also played during last month's Halloween show at O'Briens. This time, though, they came correct: not only did they pass out pamphlets on the history of Jet, they also recorded their performance for the listening pleasure of Jet's original bass player who TDC drummer Steve Budney tracked down and found now living in Germany. Speckfuckingtackular.

Next up: Calumet-Hecla, which -- due to never-quite-figured-out technical difficulties -- was a mess of pedals, feedback, driving drums and muted vocals except for some SK-1 sampling fun ("Piles sucks!").

Finally the guests of honor got on stage to exhibit their collective In Utero wet-dream cover set, which I have to say was only less impressive because these guys stole their thunder just a month ago. Piles does get extra points, however, for the distribution of kazoos into the crowd for guitar-line assistance during "Very Ape."

11/30/2005 7:18:00 PM by Tia | Comments [0] |  

Kim Fowley gives you the thumbs up: cool. Kim Fowley slides his other hand up your thigh: priceless.

Not only does her MySpace page open with a crazed R&B track from one of our all-time Crypt Records Back from the Grave-style faves -- the gospel-singing prizefighter Dave "Bunker Hill" Walker's "Girl Can't Dance," with an uncredited Link Wray on guitar -- (sidebar: BUNKER HILL HAS A MYSPACE PAGE?!), but GORILLA GOT ME host Sara J's also got the Hollywood Brats album in her profile. Whoa. Thanks to the magic of Podcasting, we quickly downloaded her last two shows and found yet another radio soulmate at 'MBR. Likes: Lemmy, Sun rockabillies, Killedbydeathpunk, '80s Prototallica, wild sub-Nuggets bubblegum and trash-rock from '50s-'90s, Aussie stoogepunk, reptilian lofi glamsleaze . . . plus superfun big stuff from new bands like Nagg and LiveFastDie. Wow. (We'd bet our Question Mark and the Mysterians t-shirt that she took the title from the Ideals' top-five-dead-or-alive track "The Gorilla," too.) Has our favorite Zodiac Mindwarp fan heard of this girl? Probably so, since GGM's guest today is a member of Radar Eyes, whom our old friend Sleazegrinder likes too -- amazing how even after we've both been outta circulation for a year, we keep ending up on the same one-sheets. Anyhoo: Sarah J's "Gorilla Got Me," Wednesdays from 2-4 pm at 88.1 FM, also streaming online for the rest of you poor fuckers who don't live in Boston, plus old shows in streaming mp3 here. OTD approved.

LISTEN: to WWBR in streaming audio.
LISTEN: "Gorilla Got Me, 11/23/05" (mp3)
LISTEN: "Gorilla Got Me, 11/16/05" (mp3)

11/30/2005 12:40:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

Wah-wah-wunh.

That terrible grunting and groaning you heard last week was the sound of everyone and their mother jumping on the Lady Sovereign bandwagon, and why not? Grime's been kinda dull since the Roll Deep album flopped, Run the Road 2 is a dud, and here comes white teen supermidget, ink not yet dry on her Def Jam deal, to save the continent. Who's gonna hold that itty bitty NYC show against her? OTD, unfortunately, was visited with a sudden case of the bird flu and was quarrantined by US Army officers at a secure location, thereby missing the tour kickoff show with Montreal's Ghislain Poirier (hopefully well-known to you from his Lemon-Red mix and also his Beat Research visit) and DJ Makka, a/k/a Oliver of Write To Eat fame. We're told that a few other notepads responded to the APB. Thankfully, our pal DJ PINKSWEATSHIRT was in the house and emailed us the following off-the-cuff report:

"The show did kind of suck. Oliver played a good DJ set to a bunch of dudes standing in front of the stage staring at him (an odd malady of djs playing on stage), that was made even better by the fact that one of his turntables didn't work. That dude from Montreal was awesome, he pushed more bass out of the speakers in the Upstairs than I've ever heard. Sov acted like a 19 year old that wasn't really comfortable onstage most of the time. There was some dancing up front but the feeling of not living up to the hype creeped throughout the back of the room. She rushed through Random and Chi-Ching (the latter was a pretty terrible remix) like a teenager tired of having to play the same songs over and over. There were some good moments and her banter was funny from what I could make out (the accent is a bit thick) but she talked too much between songs. I left before the set was over."

Damn. So it's over: buzz officially squashed. (After talking to several other witnesses, the least-faint praise we could wring out of anyone was, "She's pretty underwhelming.") The moral of this story is: you should go see Oliver DJ tonight at Enormous Room. Did we mention he's spinning with Ali Shaheed from A Tribe Called Quest?

11/29/2005 11:47:00 AM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

1. Ex-Belle & Sebastian cutie Isobel Campbell teams up with polar opposite Mark Lanegan for a duets album of sea chanteys and ballads. At first listen, not quite as in tune as you'd like: he's a little too haggard, and she's a little too scared. Stream the whole record here, or just our one-spin faves:

LISTEN: Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, "Honey Child What Can I Do" (stream)
LISTEN: Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, "Revolver" (stream)

2. OTD is well aware that the vast majority of the audience for this blog is unwilling to entertain the notion of a heavy metal band making the album of the year, let alone two of them. That said, don't be a dumbass: believe the hype, System of a Down are killing it. If you can't make it out to the store today to buy a weird, smart, funny, pretty Armenian thrash album, you might be able to find a few tunes online.

3. Jenny Lewis (of Rilo Kiley and Life with Lucy fame) has a solo album coming out which includes a Traveling Wilburys tune done by Jenny, Conor Oberst, Ben Gibbard, and M. Ward. It leaked. These people know about it. And if, like us, you find yourself wondering what the hell the Watson Twins are, now you know.

4. Stereogum posted a crapload of Gwen Stefani mashups

5. Black Sabbath, Sex Pistols to be inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Says our pal Sean: "But they still haven't inducted Van Halen. Jerks."

6. Mark E. Smith reads the local football box scores. No, this is not someone's pejorative description of his latest single. This is actually Mark E. Smith reading the local football box scores.

7. MSTRKRFT, the oft-mentioned-here production duo featuring one half of DFA1979, have some remixes up at Banana Nutrament.

8. Montreal electro-funk dandies Chromeo just released a between-albums mixtape of "rare dollar-bin crack funk gems," Un Joli Mix Pour Toi, as a Belgian import. Including Michael Jonzun, the Jets, Kleer, and a cult-fave Robert Palmer track. Just thought you'd want to know.

9. Grab some songs by OTD all-time faves the Oblivians -- unparalleled minimalist Memphis garage-punk played at maximalist volume circa 1995 -- at the unfortunately named blog Suckapants.

10. Terrible techno remixes of horrible classic rock songs. Wow.

11. Another addition to the genre of blogs putting up old, rare, OOP punk singles: 7 Inch Punk. Where else you gonna find the Touch and Go "Process of Elimination" comp?

LOCAL NEWS

12. Benzino busted by (Mass-office) feds for income-tax evasion. In protest, Busta Rhymes cuts off his dreds, and tapes it for posterity. (Causation there may be completely invented.)

13. The Acacia Strain may or may not be the next Unearth, but they're from Western Mass, they're on Prosthetic, and Killswitch Engage's Adam D is producing. They just posted a couple new demos, and of course we picked the one with the silliest title:

LISTEN: The Acacia Strain, "Seacrest Out" (mp3, via MySpace)

14. That Kudgel single recorded by Bob Weston? Downloadable online. And a hearty welcome to Strange Reaction, a new blog maintained by "a dorky 34 year old guy in Boston" with a taste for obscure punk rock. Good show, lad.

15. I (Heart) Music bucks the trend of mistaking Aberdeen City for a Canadian band, and instead pegs them as sounding British, "only good." And this dude, who I don't even think lives here, proclaims their album "#1 debut of the year." Meanwhile, Brooklyn bloggist hearts Bon Savants.

16. Thanksgiving morning was going along just fine until the Click Five boys showed up in the Macy's parade on a gas station float. "H-E-S-S," spelled one prescient five year old in the room. "Does that spell 'Hives'?" (Not to get all petty, but they were totally upstaged by Natasha Beddingfield singing "These Words" with a grade-A dancing rhinoceros, and by the earlier spectacle of Rihanna rocking the Animal Planet float.) More snark available in PopJustice's deconstruction of the ridiculous video for C5's "Catch Your Wave."

17. Back in March, Mike Miliard shouted out cryptic bedroom pop group Pants Yell!: "If singer Andrew Churchman were a Richman, he’d barely be able to top a line like 'I cried while walking through the Public Garden, because I make things mean too much to me.' And their debut full-length, Songs for Siblings, is a humming, glowing gem of jaunty organ trills, bright and trebly arpeggios, and guileless lyrics for modern lovers." Word finally beginning to filter out: they're opening for the new Unicorns band Islands on December 7, and they've just been blogged by You Ain't No Picasso.

18. It's been a while since we've seen them, so we kinda forgot that Isis are doing it, like, really, really big. Reminded because someone's shooting a tour documentary. Watch the trailer.

CHRISTMAS

19. Just in time for the holidays: a pseudonymous Christmas tune, circa mid-'70s, by the sleazy protorap R&B great Andre Williams (whom we got to hang out with a couple years ago in a studio above an escort service in Malden. The man is hustle incarnate).

20. Pas/Cal takes on the George Michael x-mas atrocity "Last Christmas."

21. The Sufjan Stevens Christmas albums, all in three tidy zip files.

COMMERCE

22. Television Commercials Are the New MTV, Part 137: the Argentinian/Swedish singer-songwriter Jose Gonzalez, who in addition to his own tunes performs haunting covers of Kylie Minogue and Joy Division, has a semi-hit with a cover of a remix of a song by a group called the Knife. (David Day explained this a while back.) Now that cover has become the soundtrack to a quite beautiful, magic-realist advert involving thousands of superballs. The product doesn't indtrude til the very end:

WATCH: Sony Bravia commercial (plays in Quicktime)

11/29/2005 2:47:00 AM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

Groovy hate fucks: AIDS Wolf, Made In Mexico, Some Girls, Liars

1. LISTEN: AIDS Wolf, "We Multiply" (mp3)
2. LISTEN: Made In Mexico, "Farewell Myth" (mp3)
3. LISTEN: Some Girls, "Dead In a Web" (mp3)
4. LISTEN and WATCH: Liars, "It Fit When I Was a Kid" (real audio) (windows audio) (real video) (windows video) (might be some mp3 juice left over at Razorblade Runner)

1. 2006 is already shaping up to be the best year for sexnoise since Pussy Galore's Groovy Hate Fuck came out back in '86 -- and heck, we don't even have leak links yet for the Gossip's Standing In the Way of Control . (It rules, BTW.) In a pop sphere where it's damn near fucking impossible to get a decent lurid fantasy worked up over anything passing as rock and roll, we had all kinds of swelling in our loins before we even popped The Lovvers LP, AIDS Wolf's debut, in the player -- thanks to the full-frontal-nood album art, which unveils not only the singer's breastesses but also her bandmates' man-bushes. Modern-primitivist mudbaths aside, holy shit is this record retarded. Needling, clawing, fingernails-getting-ripped-off screech and fake-algorhythm bleep and air-raid-siren plunge and throbby death rattle and Chloe alternating between fuck-me uluation and fuck-you howls. When they title a song "We Multiply," you don't have to ask how. (For pictures of AIDS Wolf with their clothes on, you can revisit Tia's post from when they played Great Scott this past summer.)

2. Where AIDS Wolf take their power from volcanic libidos unleashed, fellow girl-fronted man-noise band Made In Mexico deal with sexual tension the old fashioned way -- by Kegel-squeezing repressed desires til the juice runs down their legs. They're from New England, of course, birthplace of American frigidity, except for the singer, who was plucked off a bus from Oklahoma. She sings -- kind operatic and gothy, though the rest of them are decidedly not -- about serious stuff, like death and cruel gods and starvation. The fake-folk intro on "Farewell Myth" makes you think star-crossed, sitar-happy hippies, but as with every third pose on their upcoming Zodiac Zoo, it's just another headfake to throw you off the trail: they're all about tin-can metal licks, vaccuum-cleaner feedback, and AmRep pigfuck drumbass throttle -- more Harry Pussy than Pussy Galore, which is pretty much what you'd expect from a La Machine rhythm section and an Arab on Radar on guitar. Thanks to which they've been branded by Skin Graft hype prince Weasel Walter as the "Post-AOR Sweepstakes Award Winner." (Really, though? What about Chinese Stars -- who traded AOR treblesquawk for dystopian discopunk and made some really weird shit -- or Athletic Automaton's sweatbands-and-polyester spazzrock?)

3. Anything over 45 seconds is borrowed time for Some Girls, and on their upcoming Heaven's Pregnant Teens, they pack small-peckered hardcore ultraviolence into quick, nasty bursts of premature-ejaculation thrash. Nothing will top the eros that Karen O brought to "The DNA Will Have Its Say," but no one said sex was supposed to be pretty, or even nice. Thus "Dead in a Web": vengeance black-widow style, an epitaph for when they fuck you and eat you. Just one question: why/howthefuck do they have beef with Converge?

4. Noise don't mean shit without a wrapper to tell you so, so let's just purposefully confuse the gay-porn packaging with the thunderdrum object of Liars' new single "It Fit When I Was a Kid" (which sounds pretty NAMBLA, no?). That way, we can pretend the song is sexy and noisy -- which they've been in the past, prattling on proggishly about witches -- instead of dubby and Doors-y and voodoo-ish. Tribal thwumps, sinking ocean liners, Jim Morrison-y chanting, peglegs, cowboys, zombies, and undead tacos: this is the way they dance across your lawn and leave you in the woods for dead.

11/28/2005 9:32:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

Top 5 greatest lines in R. Kelly's "Out of the Closet":

1.
Then I said
Imma pee on you
Drip, drip, drip
Oh, and that's all I could say was Oh
She said, I can't take no more
She screams!

2.
Now I'm in this darkest jail
Then a voice yells, Good mornin' darlin
Shit, think, shit, think
Then a man comes out and kisses me

3.
No, and that's all I could say was no
He says yes I says no he says yes
Then I say no I'm standing up
Then he's like, I'll fuck you up your crazy ass!

4.
Well
I said, I love you
Chuck said, I love you too
Then a tear fell up out my eye
Then I called him my sunshine

5.
Then I said, There is something that I must
Confeeeeeeoaoaoauiuisss
I don't like girls
I do like guys
Not just in jail
But all the time

LISTEN: No Film School, "R. Kelly's Out of the Closet" (mp3)

Yes, this is silly. But it's also a little teeny bit more than just silly. What's so great about this is the way NoFilmSchool takes advantage of the glitches in sexual identity that were hard-wired into the original "Trapped" narrative: with R. singing all the characters, both male and female, he'd put himself in the position of the song having homoerotic consequences when he performs it live. Go back and watch him do part 6 on the VMAs: R. does a wonderful mime right up to the moment when Chuck and Rufus have their big climactic kiss -- at which point he rolls his eyes and gives the audience a smirking double take. He might be singing a story about two men in love, but damned if he's gonna kiss another man -- even an imaginary other man -- on national television.

This kind of plunderphonia has been around since Burroughs, and is often employed by political radicals seeking to put funny words in famous people's mouths. Thanks to some Swedish guy, you can play along at home, too -- on "Let Them Sing It For You," famous singers sing your words, free! (Spotted via boingboing.)

LISTEN: We are the world, and you are listening to On the Download

11/28/2005 6:51:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

This post has a facetious title, but when two Times op-ed writers use the same idea to support opposing arguments in the span of two weeks, we need guidance and we need it fast. OTD has been mulling this one over for a while, and the trigger went unfingered because it seemed like a moot point, and because we didn't really have a point to make, just a question to ask. At least until the following news item came over the wires as we were shuffling off for the long Thanksgiving weekend, and then it seemed like a question worth asking.

"[R]appers and rap groups in France are facing legal action after being accused by lawmakers of inciting the country’s riots through their raps. 200 lawmakers signed a petition on Wednesday (Nov. 23) that was co-signed by 152 Deputies and 49 Senators and presented to Justice Minister Pascal Clement, singling out seven rappers/groups. The rap groups could face legal action and are specifically accused of inciting racism and hatred. The petitions sponsor, Francois Grosdidier, claims rap music conditions listeners who could become violent in the future."

-- Allhiphop.com, November 23

Let OTD preface the following excerpts with the admission that we know very little about French hip-hop. Seriously, like what we know about contemporary French rap is limited to that silly Dipset album and the buzz about and mixtape from the (mostly) white, (mostly) goofy, Dipset-loving French rappers TTC, who reached the shores of alt-newspaperland in September. The ones the Voice's young bloggist sniffed and destroyed: "They might be huge pop stars in France, but I doubt it; they seem more likely to be the sort of group that's a hipster curio all over the world, a gift from God to cultural studies undergrads writing thesis papers about the globalization of pop culture." [read the full review]

Then on November 10, the New York Times's conservative columnist David Brooks set off a mini-meme when he blamed French rioting on American hip-hop, thereby infuriating rap fans with blogs everywhere. Just one problem: Brooks may be ignorant, but he's not stupid, so a bit of caution is required in responding to his rhetoric. A couple of his paragraphs sounded like they could almost (ALMOST, he said) have come out of, well, a Fader piece on TTC, or a pandering Rolling Stone piece on Rage Against the Machine going to Cuba, or (redundant, sure) a cultural studies undergrad writing a thesis paper about the globalization of pop culture:

"American ghetto life, at least as portrayed in rap videos, now defines for the young, poor and disaffected what it means to be oppressed. Gangsta resistance is the most compelling model for how to rebel against that oppression. If you want to stand up and fight The Man, the Notorious B.I.G. shows the way.This is a reminder that for all the talk about American cultural hegemony, American countercultural hegemony has always been more powerful. America's rebellious countercultural heroes exert more influence around the world than the clean establishment images from Disney and McDonald's. This is our final insult to the anti-Americans; we define how to be anti-American, and the foreigners who attack us are reduced to borrowing our own clichés." [read the full Brooks piece]

Countercultural hegemony may already be a well-worn cliche, but the point is that it's usually a cliche used for -- well, for lack of a better phrase, for good. Brooks is using what sounds like a familiar boast about hip-hop being a worldwide music (see -- oh, Lord, I'm gonna say it, please stop me -- M.I.A.), and attempting to flip it into yet another political liability for rap music.

November 10, 6:45 pm: Slate's Jody Rosen delivers what everyone takes to be the final word in blowing Brooks' argument to smithereens, including the revelation that Brooks appeared to lift examples for his argument from a Weekly Standard piece dating from September, just after the London subway bombings -- an article which, much like Brooks's Times column, tries to brand minority French rappers as "racists" and link them to a worldwide plague of radical Islamists (read: suicidal terrorists). But when Rosen dismisses Brooks's critique of rap's "global hegemony" as simply a remix of the late-'80s Ice-T/Time Warner/William Bennett culture wars -- "Picture Brooks, in the heady weeks after the Los Angeles riots, frustrated that he couldn't shoehorn his gangsta-rap riff into a piece on Andrew Morton's Princess Diana biography. It's been sitting in a desk drawer ever since, just waiting for some inner-city unrest to come along. Et voilà" -- I started getting itchy. Because there is some geniune ambivalence here. We want to refute the idea that hip-hop is responsible for French riots. What we don't need to argue is that hip-hop IS NOT the music of global resistance, at least sometimes . . . uh, right? (The problem being that, well, of course some French rap groups are influenced by American hip-hop's gangster style -- maybe even, as Slate pointed out, 13-year-old gangster style. But do we have to refute hip-hop's global reach in order to argue, "Hey, by the way, So Fucking What?" Which brings us to Times op-ed employee number two, and a piece that was widely overlooked in this context:

The food court at Jaam-e Jam, an upscale shopping mall in north Tehran, looks like a shopping-mall food court anywhere, with its colorful plastic chairs attached to glass-topped tables. An array of counters sell fast food that is billed as Mexican or Italian but invariably tastes more or less Persian. Nevertheless, it is one of the more expensive places to eat in Tehran, and it is a gathering spot for fashionable Iranian girls, who come in their skimpiest hijabs. I saw young women wearing three-quarter-length sleeves, cropped pants, and high-heeled sandals. One young woman had a sequinned purse and a tight denim manteau that had jeans-style pockets on the backside.

A man who asked to be identified as Arash, a twenty-five-year-old from an upper-middle-class family, was trying to help me identify “Javads”—a common male name that has become derisive slang among Iranian youth for people who, as Arash put it, “think they’re very modern and very cool and great but are not.”

“Five years ago, the sure sign of a Javad was driving a Nissan Maxima,” he explained. “In non-Javad communities, that was a sign that your dad was a motherfucker who had become very rich after the revolution, but who was from a
poor-culture family.” Today, with the relaxing of the dress codes, Iran’s nouveaux riches are harder to spot, but Arash offered some additional examples: “A girl who has some enormous makeup that’s unnecessary for the situation, high heels, but she’s a virgin and has no boyfriend and wants an arranged marriage. Or a person who looks very modern but can’t speak English, and who likes Farsi music from Los Angeles.”

For Arash, who has never been to the United States, being truly modern was all about being American. Born the year after the revolution, he speaks profane but excellent English, littered with slang he has gleaned from contraband hip-hop. The rappers 50 Cent and The Game surely never imagined that the line “the underdog’s on top,” from “Hate It or Love It,” a gleeful rap about their own success, would capture the frustration of the onetime Iranian élite under the rule of backward mullahs. But, to Arash, American hip-hop is rich with Iranian social criticism.

-- From "Fugitives: Young Iranians confront the collapse of the reform movement," written by Times op-ed page editor Laura Secor in the New Yorker, November 21, 2005.

It's worth noting that Secor's article is linked as -- presumably -- recommended reading on the web site of the Committee on the Present Danger (a recently-resurrected neo-con non-profit that used to do commie-busting and is now doing freelance anti-terrorism propoganda, with the assistance of a guy who did some legal work for a Nazi sympathizer/friend of Saddam.) Point being: the conservatives can't decide if hip-hop's cultural hegemony is a good thing for America (as it is clearly portrayed in Secor's piece: in another excerpt, Arash tells Secor, "I’d give my life for America, but not for Iran") or good for the terrorists (as is strongly suggested in Brooks's piece). So the question isn't so much which is right or wrong, as it is a question to hip-hop fans and scholars and all-around smart people (you know who you are): can someone on our side draw up a talking-points memo? It's becoming increasingly clear they've got one across the aisle, even if it doesn't exactly make a whole lot of sense.

11/27/2005 10:16:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

Dagha and Edan

That dude Edan has been shouting out Dagha's solo material for a minute, and before that the Humble Magnificent was a vocal supporter of D's old supergroup Electric -- a/k/a Electric Company -- even shouting them out in a Phoenix top-5 list about a year ago. Dagha -- Dwayne Simmons to his moms -- has a long resume in groups that get no respect from douchebag indie-rap kids, but some of those limpdicks know him anyway thanks to his verse on "Rock and Roll," that stand-out, lysergic-guitar-blasting psychedelic smash on Edan's recent Beauty and the Beat. Now D's got his own joint: the solo debut, Object In Motion, teams him with production and guest verses by his old Electric Company mate Insight (with whom he also founded Knights of the Roundtable, a Dorchester group who briefly included a young Mr. Lif). Insight's been stacking paper in Germany, but he's coming back to Boston with Dagha and the Project Move dudes (Moe Pope, Mike Anonymous, and Raheem) for an Electric Company reunion at the Paradise Lounge Sunday night (November 27). Insight also makes a cameo on the Dagha solo track below, which is sort of like -- apologies to Gary Glitter -- "Rock and Roll" Part 2. And we mean that in the best fucking possible way. If we were in the paper right now we'd try to wax lyrically about how hot the record is and everything, but since we got the mpfree, we're gonna shut up and get straight to the audio. Killing you . . . now:

LISTEN: Dagha, "Skoolhouse Rock (feat. Insight)" (OTD MP3 exclusive)

BUY: Object in Motion at ughh.com
LIVE: Sunday at Paradise Lounge, 969 Comm Ave, Boston 7 pm $10 617.562.8814. Also look for Dagha to join Edan and Insight for a UK tour in January. And be sure to check Dagha's solo instores at Massive Records (December 2) and the UndergroundHipHop retail store (December 3).

11/26/2005 4:12:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

At left, Chris Brokaw

"Rock musician Chris Brokaw" -- in NPR-ese -- got the "Here and Now" treatment over at WBUR on the occasion of his solo-with-band album Incredible Love. (Those of you who've been wondering when that Codeine/Rodan/early Karate sound was gonna make a comeback, serve yourself.) If you've got eight minutes, take a listen:

LISTEN: WBUR interviews Chris Brokaw (stream, left click)
LISTEN: Chris Brokaw Rock Band, "Move" (mp3)

TONIGHT:

1. It's a testament to how the economics of the music biz have changed that it's now cheaper on the front end and profitable on the backside for a label like Side One Dummy to invest in a full-length DVD loaded with extras for a band like, oh, PIEBALD. Then again, maybe they just used all that money they saved by running the tour van on vegetable oil. (Hope we didn't jinx 'em: a couple days before Thanksgiving the fuel pump burst.) In any case, the North Shore expats will be toting their new Killa Bros and Killa Bees tonight at the Middle East, 480 Mass Ave, Cambridge 617.864.EAST.

2. AQUALUNG's Matt Hales used to put food on the table by writing TV-commercial jingles for the likes of Mitsubishi and Wrigley's. So no wonder he got his big break a couple of years ago when Volkswagen used one of his Aqualung songs in a British Beetle advert. The fervent response on Internet message boards and the like and his subsequent record deal with Columbia are further evidence that nowadays, having an in in the advertising world can be more valuable to a musician than connections in the record industry. In support of his debut stateside release, Strange and Beautiful, an album that borders on both lite adult contemporary and Brian Wilsony brilliance, he's at the Institute of Contemporary Art, 955 Boylston St, Boston 617.266.5152.

LISTEN: Aqualung, "Strange and Beautiful" (stream)

3. As we told you back in May when ARMOR FOR SLEEP were opening for the All-American Rejects at Axis, singer/guitarist Ben Jorgenson pushed his band up above the emo hordes on their then new What To Do When You Are Dead (Equal Vision) by packaging his earnest tales of heartbreak as one big ghost story, concept-album-style, like Coheed and Cambria. They're back on the road, but they haven't quite become the headliners we thought they'd be. Instead, they're opening for MATCHBOOK ROMANCE at Axis, 13 Lansdowne St, Boston 617-228.6000.

LISTEN: Armor for Sleep, "The Truth About Heaven" (mp3)

11/25/2005 4:15:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

11/23/2005 4:51:00 PM by Mike Miliard | Comments [0] |  

"Here are the 700 hobo names you have requested."

John Hodgman. So considerate.

This is one PROFESSIONAL WRITER -- now with blog! -- who takes seriously his duty to provide the public with knowledge they may never have known they needed. He imparts his vast erudition over the airwaves on This American Life, in the pages of McSweeney's and The Believer, and in his own "Little Gray Book Lectures."

Now, in his new omnibus compendium of obvious falsehoods, The Areas of My Expertise, a mock almanac chock-a-block with "strange facts and odd-ities of the bizarre," Hodgman deposits the fruits of his cogitation between two sturdy covers. Learn here the menu of the first Thanksgiving repast. Engross yourself in a brief timeline of the lobster in America. Puzzle over lists of failed palindromes and jokes which have never produced laughter.

Hodgman's writing is touched, as Dave Eggers puts it, with the "meticulous consistency of the deranged." And perhaps no document is better testament to this than his exhaustive list of 700 bona fide hobo names.

1. Stewbuilder Dennis ... 29. Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick ... 120. Cincinnati O'Gurk ... 564. Elihu Skinpockets ... 697. Smokehouse "Frankie" Jowl-Poker.

Perhaps even more unsettling is Hodgman's yen to read this list aloud. All 700 names. In a peroration that lasts for 53 minutes and 49 seconds. His endurance is matched only by Jonathan Coulton, who provides dulcet acoustic accompaniment throughout.

Download it here. Put on a pot of coffee.

LISTEN: John Hodgman, "700 Hobo Names" (MP3)
WATCH: John Hodgman on The Daily Show (Windows Media)

11/23/2005 3:32:00 PM by Mike Miliard | Comments [0] |  

No idea who these kids are, but they're doing it real big, like Grandma's House big. Let's have a vote. The best part of the following email is (a) the "144 cans" of Crunk Juice; (b) "T.F.D.S. (Truly Fucking Doing Something)"; the Mexican restaurant called "No Problemo"; (d) dudes raffling off Thanksgiving dinner with their families. There are no wrong answers here.

Wednesday November 23rd @ The Freetown VFW (Downstairs) 89 Middleboro Rd
East Freetown, Mass. "CRUNKSGIVING!" 9:00pm - 1:00am All Ages - $3 100%
OFFICIALLY SPONSERED BY CRUNK JUICE! CRUNK JUICE ENERGY DRINK IS SENDING 144 FREE CANS FOR THIS EVENT! FREE CRUNK JUICE ENERGY DRINK ALL NIGHT LONG WHILE IT LASTS ! WITH DJ's : E-Marce Cool Shadez & Nick Bishop spinnin' the hottest club bangers hip-hop, electro, indie, new-wave, 90's, top 40, miami booty bass + more + Live performances by LORD & FRESH & NICKBISHOP: T.F.D.S. (Truly Fucking Doing Something) + SECRET SUPRISE GUESTS (NOT to be missed!!!) + FREE RAFFLE ( everyone who comes gets a free ticket ) 1st Prize: EAT THANKSGIVING FAMILY DINNER WITH ERIC MARCELINO OR JUSTIN OLIVER (YOUR CHOICE) & THIER FAMILIES ON THANKSGIVING DAY !! Runner Ups: - Gift Certificate for No Problemo Mexican Resturant - No Problemo T-Shirt ( 813 Purchase St - New Bedford,MA ) - Crunk! Juice Mesh Cap - Crunk! Juice Mix CD's - Astralwerks CD's / DVD's ( The Faint / The Beta Band ) + more!

11/23/2005 2:57:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [1] |  

RIP Chris Whitley.



LISTEN: Chris Whitley, "Made from Dirt" (mp3)
LISTEN: to more songs at Messenger Records
READ: [Bio] [Obit, by Billboard's Bradley Bambarger] [ILM thread] [other blogs]

PREVIOUSLY IN THE PHOENIX:
Soft Dangerous Shores by Ted Drozdowski
Live at Passim, 2004 by Ted Drozdowski
War Crime Blues by Ted Drozdowski
Hotel Vast Horizon by Jonathan Perry
Rocket House by Matt Ashare
Interview, April 1998 by Matt Ashare
Interview, May 1997 by Ted Drozdowski

LAST NIGHT:
So, just checking: does Omarion get a ghetto pass for performing the Urrsher Memorial (formerly the Justin Timberlake Memorial) Michael Jackson Dance Routine Homage or what? Because that was definitely some worse lip-synching than Ashlee Simpson. Also, just us or did that thing with him and (his mans and them?) Ciara and Bow Wow take place on Sesame Street?
AROUND HERE:
AP reports: gunman fires at, misses Poison's Brett Michaels prior to benefit at the Rumbleseat Bar and Grill in Chicopee, MA. [Details at Blabbermouth]. It's like Mark Thompson says: "You just can't kill cock rock." Hip-hop fan makes good point: the white media thinks rap shows are dangerous?!

ELSEWHERE:
1. NYAG Eliot Spitzer bags a Thanksgiving turkey: Warner Music becomes latest major label caught in the new payola scandal, agrees to pay a $5 million fine. [FOX News] They got off easy: SonyBMG got $10 million.

2. Hollywood, Bit Torrent announce detente.

ON THE INTERNET:
1. Arnold's new tune. Arnold Schwarzenegger is reportedly "dreading" the decision over whether to commute the sentence of Crips co-founder Tookie Williams. But we guarantee he hasn't been dreading it as much as he's been dreading this. Courtesy of Disco D, who you may recall had the internet (not to mention, like, half the MSM) going nuts because he leaked a snippet of one of the K-Fed tracks he's working on. Also via Hollerboard: a Johnny Cash megamix, and dueling Laffy Taffy blends.

2. Newbury Comics is selling the Black Crowes live CD with their Devendra Banhart cover. Check out the disc here, or just go download the track from the Buddyhead dudes.

3. Just in time to upstage that Beatallica show at the Middle East: Q-Unit. Yep, G-Unit meets the songs of Queen:


!!!

LISTEN: Q-Unit, "Crazy Little Pimp Called Love" (mp3)
LISTEN: Q-Unit, "Candy Bottom Girls" (mp3)

4. Speaking of which, now we can ask: who goes better with Queen, 50 Cent or Green Day?

LISTEN: Q-Unit, "Bohemian Wanksta" (mp3)
LISTEN: Dean Gray presents American Edit, "Novocaine Rhapsody" (mp3)

5. Who shot 50 Cent? Keep expecting to hear someone showed up to court in a "Stop Snitching" t-shirt. (Sidebar: this domain is owned by Boston rap vet Tangg the Juice? Good looks!) On the same topic, anyone find it more than coincidental that "Stop Snitching" became an MSM meme during the same time that Judith Miller was locked up? Thank Wonkette for the following t-shirt sequel, the perfect gift to (or make that gift from) your favorite Deep (or shallow) Throat. Bob Woodward, what's really?



6. Via Jace Clayton, Beethoven's 9th chopped and screwed. Well, OK, not exactly, but similar concept: in this case, the most recognizable symphony on earth has been artificially stretched out until it's 24 hours long.

7. ONTHEDOWNLOAD: Velvet Underground demos; Gang of Four, "Anthrax (Blood Brothers Remix)"; if you can still remember which band they were, there's a new song by the Futureheads called "Area"; Harry and the Potters go head to head with Jarvis Cocker's Harry Potter band; Yeah Yeah Yeahs remixed by the Faint; and spooky Nick Cave songs from the spooky Nick Cave soundtrack to the spooky Nick Cave movie The Proposition.

11/23/2005 3:09:00 AM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

Piles.
Piles?
Piles . . .

LISTEN: Piles, "Radiomir" (mp3, left-click)

11/22/2005 6:04:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

From the inbox, pt. 2:

DINOSAUR JR.
ADDS SECOND BOSTON SHOW
ON MONDAY, DECEMBER 5 AT THE MIDDLE EAST.

Sunday, December 4th @ 9:00pm (Doors @ 8:00pm) SOLD OUT
Monday, December 5th @ 9:00pm (Doors @ 8:00pm) JUST ADDED
Middle East 480 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Tickets $15.00 / Ages 18+

THE BAND WILL BE FILMING THEIR FIRST EVER DVD – TO BE RELEASED EARLY 2006 – AT SHOWS ALONG FALL TOUR.

READ: Dinosaur Jr.'s 2005 homecoming at Avalon
READ: Dinosaur Jr. bury the hatchet

11/22/2005 5:00:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

"Weeeeee are the chaaaamp--" "No no no! waitwaitwait, dude . . . "

2:31 pm:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 21, 2005

TRIVIUM WIN!!!!!
CROWNED YAHOO! MUSIC’S DECEMBER “WHO’S NEXT?” CONTEST WINNER
EXCLUSIVE PERFORMANCE AND INTERVIEW TO BE AVAILABLE AT YAHOO.COM THE MONTH OF DECEMBER

The awards and accolades keep coming in for TRIVIUM who have just been named Yahoo! Music’s “Who’s Next?” winner for the month of December. Accumulating 37% of the votes, Trivium have won an exclusive performance and interview that will available at yahoo.com. The band will be stopping by Yahoo!'s LA studios on November 28th to perform two songs from Ascendancy, along with taping an interview. “This is absolutely amazing,” says Trivium frontman Matt Heafy. “Never in our wildest dreams did we think we would win this thing. We are honored and humbled by it.”

4:25 pm:

Dan Forman would like to recall the message, "Trivium Win -- Crowned Yahoo! Music's December Who's Next Contest Winner."

4:42 pm:

OTD's vote for 30 Seconds To Mars tallied.

11/22/2005 4:39:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

It's not like we've been away or anything, but we feel a little off our game. All good, just busy. OK, some updates . . .

1. BIG BEAR NOMINATED FOR METAL ALBUM (???) (!!!!) OF THE YEAR. Also feel free to hit the Plug Music Awards site and click in a vote for fellow Bostonian Edan for hip-hop album of the year; ex-Mass laptop commuters Mobius Band and Boston-raised, New Hampshire-based robodisco dad the Juan Maclean for Electronic/Dance Album of the Year; secretly-from-Boston indie-nerd faves Clap Your Hands Say Yeah for Indie Rock Album of the Year; Boston mixtape kingpin Clinton Sparks (not mentioned as the DJ behind Clipse's) We Got It 4 Cheap, Vol. 2 as DJ Album of the Year; local IDM deity Keith Fullerton Whitman for Avant Album of the Year; and jaded so-LA-not-Boston girlyfolkie Aimme Mann for "Packaging" of the Year. So true.

2. Hollerboard is back like Jesus, bitch!

3. You may have heard about some controversy involving a New York Times columnist claiming that American hip-hop has exerted undue influence on the French, especially the Rioting French. But what about the nasty influence the French are having on American hip-hop? First there was that Dipset-in-French album, now this: DMC leaves Adidas for Le Coq Sportif!

4. This didn't get mentioned on the old Hollerboard, but maybe we'll go post it now: if you missed it, Lemon-Red's Caps + Jones story was really awesome. And for New Englanders, the Brooklyn Kid is back for preturkeytronix at the Red Door in Portsmouth, nohomo, TOMORROW like TUESDAY.

5. Co-signing the assessments of Turntable Lab (ex) employees, the Second Cousins mix is fire. "Smarter than you" "relentless," "coke party music," etc.

6. While we stepped away from our aggregator, Jeff Tweedy covered Neutral Milk Hotel, Rogue Wave covered Nirvana, Bright Eyes covered Feist, the White Stripes ran out of songs again and, instead of covering another Tegan and Sara joint, just started covering their opening bands. And DFA1979 covered the same Danzig song as Sleater Kinney. Oh, and thanks to Stereogum for posting that DFA1979 cover of La Peste we told you about, with bonus-track posting of the original version. And just for total gay-for-DFA1979 overload, here's Music For Robots discoverees Canser de Ser Sexy (of "I Wanna BeYr J-Lo" fame) doing a song called, apparently, "Let's Make Love and Listen [to?] Death From Above."

7. Also, the new Ryan Adams album leaked. No, not the one that came out a couple months ago, the new-new one.

8. Some members of the OTD household have been Hives fans since they were in diapers, and can recite stage banter from the fuzzy live show we taped off cable three years ago. So: don't have to exaggerate about how psyched we are for this thing.

9. The song that didn't make the new Madonna record. And you thought her "New York"/"feel like a dork" couplet was embarassing.

10. The really depressing thing about this King Diamond post is that it doesn't include the very, very amazing Christmas song displayed on the record cover at the top of the post. A song, we'll point out, that we keep putting on holiday mixtapes over and over again, long after friends have threatened us with physical violence if they're ever forced to listen to it again. So instead, we'll have to kick off the holiday season with something completely un-metal, like, oh, how about some authentic-sounding Spectorific Fa-La-La-La-La from NYC hipster-rock tramps Tralala? Just in case anyone's wondering what we want for X-Mas: the MCR action figures, a Joan Jett song for JoJo the Foxboro pop queen, and a Babyface-produced Fall Out Boy album, amen.

LISTEN: Tralala, "Everybody Christmas Time" (mp3)
LISTEN: Tralala, "Christmas Never Comes" (mp3)

11/21/2005 8:35:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

Boston yr my bounce: MicL PTVN, DJ C, Wayne & Wax

bashment* (n) (1) Reggae/dancehall music. (2) A West Indian party where reggae music is played excessively. (3) A definition of something wicked. (4) Getting some sex or having sex. (5) Loving someone. (6) UK term for hash.
* paraphrased from UrbanDictionary.com

1. LISTEN: MicL, Soundystem 440 November Mix (mp3, see def. 3, 4, 5)

Cassette's Michael Potvin quit Cassette, but took Wendy with him and is readying a new duo called Eject. (First show opening for Certainly, Sir at T.T.'s on December 3). More on that soon. Bigger news at the moment is that he's put together an hour-long mixtape that picks up where Mark E. Moon's Crunkin' Donuts mix left off: like that one, this one features stars of the Compound 440r agit/dancepunk/synthpop/partyrap underground -- Squids, Crystal Understanding, Cassette, Plunge Into Death, and Big Digits, plus 440r affiliates like Cyanide Valentine and Westward Trail -- but puts them in the context of, y'know, all that other great stuff that's not from Boston: NIN/DFA, Annie, Missy Elliot, Outhud, Gang of Four, and the baile-metal meme "Popozuda Rock N Roll." (Also: someone over there in 440 land oughta follow up on MicL's juxtapose and do a full-on mash up of "UV Protection Theme" and "Toxic.") This is a really stellar mix, and hopefully the beginning of a monthly, Lemon Red/Certified Bananas-type series.

2. LISTEN: DJ C, "Boston Bouncement" (mp3, see def. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

On "Boston Bounce," DJ C gave a coming-out party for the mix's eponymous beat -- developed and adopted by local beat researchers and riddim methodists, it felt like a universal adapter, adept at plugging grime into ragga into crunk into dubstep. On this follow-up, he begins with a new Boston bounce mix -- plugging Lady Sovereign's "Ch-Ching" into the instrumental from his remix of MIA's "URAQT," then hits rewind and breaks down the polyphonic B-bounce into its component parts: 55 minutes of future-shocking buzzgrind that peels back layers of dubstep, hip-hop, grime, and dancehall. The first section is all female vox from the likes of Sov, MIA, Ms. Thing, and Shystie. (C swears the all-girl section was a coincidence. "They seem to like riding on top of those sexy kinda beats," he told us the other day). In a middle section he pitches the mens' voices up (intentionally fucking with gender, we hope?) and in the end they come crashing down hard again, including a deep, severe Boston Bounce reprise by Quality Diamond, a Jamaican vocalist living in Bristol whom DJ C fans will remember from the "Let It Billie" single on Scandalbag. The rockist in us isn't very good yet at describing how DJs do that thing where the music gets all revelatory and makes you feel awesome and stuff, but trust us: this is really, really good.

Also, DJ C and DJ Flack hold their weekly "Beat Research" residency tonight at Enormous Room with Ryleseven, who we don't know. The Researchers vouch for him, though: "last Beat Research set, which mixed hip-hop, experimental disco, electro-clash, and straight up electro, got everyone off their plush cushions and on the dance floor, where people were bumping and grinding until the the lights came on."

3. LISTEN: Wayne & Wax, "Dubble Dub" (mp3, see def. 1, 3, 5, 6)

Wayne & Wax has finally found a way to improve on the great works of dub reggae. The answer: MORE DUB. For this 35-minute mix, as he explained over at the Riddim Method, he's taking a bunch of classics and "treating them as a dub producer treats individual tracks in a mix, applying plenty of echo/delay and reverb and working with layers of sound as layers of sound. I also apply some digital-age tricknology, cutting and looping fragments of tunes and often time-stretching tracks to maintain a steady tempo for much of the mix. Because the tunes are already dub tunes, many of them brimming with effects and edits, i’m essentially doubling-up on the dub," thus, of course, the title. Which is clever enough, but the real bump is that he's building to a finale of -- spoiler alert! -- a likkle "Drive"-by from the Cars?! Genius.

11/21/2005 3:26:00 PM by onthedownload | Comments [0] |  

Taking a break from war