Welcome to my side of the 'net. I ruminate over music, books, movies, places, or people that have somehow made me what I am or continue to influence me to this day. I usually post links to mp3s of songs I find interesting.
ATTENTION:
The mp3s linked to this site are for evaluation and sample purposes only. The files are only hosted temporarily, so if they're unavailable, it's gone for good. If possible, some of these links are sourced back to the musicians's official website. Please make sure to support the musicians featured herein by buying their records, going to their shows, and purchasing their merch.
Yeah, how about another post today to make up for the drought? Here's a great video I found which reimagines Iggy and The Stooges' I Wanna Be Your Dog in peculiar fashion (yes, pun intended).
First off, allow me to apologize for not posting for a while. It looks like some malicious shit was happening to blogdrive's servers, redirecting all the client computers to an unscrupulous search site--screw the opportunists for this, I hope The Feds bring down the hammer on the bastards for their shenanigans.
Anyway, I'd like to extend my congratulations to all awardees at this year's NU 107 Rock Awards. Bamboo seemed to have taken quite a bunch of the awards on the individual achievement departments (even if I didn't care much for their covers album--maybe save for last year's Tatsulok single). I'm glad that there's diversity as evidenced by Radioactive Sago Project (this band, IMO should've gotten more awards) and Sinosikat? bagging some of those accolades. I'd like to really congratulate Marie Jamora again for taking the Video of The Year award for DVDX. It couldn't happen to a better person who also happened to be my music/CD trading contact in Manila way before the days of more convenient P2P filesharing, Youtube, and mail-order (girlfriend, I still have those copies of the Eraserheads fanzines you edited!). Anyway, check out the results:
Best New Artist - Hilera
Vocalist of The Year - Kat Agarrado of Sinosikat?
Guitarist of The Year - Ira Cruz of Bamboo
Bassist of The Year - Nathan Azarcon of Bamboo
Drummer of The Year - Vic Mercado of Bamboo and Mark Escueta of Rivermaya
Best Live Act - Bamboo
In The Raw Award - Reklamo
Song of The Year - Will You Ever Learn by Typecast
Album of The Year - Moonlane Gardens by Orange & Lemons
Artist of The Year - Bamboo
Video of The Year - DVDX by Sandwich (Director: Marie Jamora)
Best Album Packaging - Sarah Gaugler and Clementine for Moonlane Gardens (Orange & Lemons)
Producer of The Year - Lourd de Veyra and Francis De Veyra for Tanginamo Ang Daming Nagugutom Sa Mundo, Fashionista Ka Pa Rin
Listener's Choice Award - Bamboo
Hall Of Fame Award - Mike Villegas and Angelo Villegas
If you don't have anything to do tomorrow...and are inclined to brave the cold weather (not to mention the potential snow dumping we may get), head on over to Neumos to check out Portland's The Thermals. I'm sure they'll be playing quite a bunch of songs from their latest, The Body, The Blood, The Machine. The whole album is a skewering of the overzealous religious right and their influence over the current state of affairs we have all over our country. Makes you think about how some folks in this part of the world aren't that much different from the Taliban, huh?
Carbon/Silicon has been Jones' on-and-off project with ex-Generation X man Tommy James. Their latest release is the mini-album The Crackup Suite. I pretty much like all of the tracks, some of which actually remind me of The Replacements in some parts. I've only got a few reservations about Falun Gong Love Song--some of the lyrics just seemed hastily put-together and not entirely fleshed-out. Who am I to judge though? These guys have been at this whole songwriting business while I was still learning to walk, so I'll shut up now and let the music do the talking.
In between dating supermodels, appearing on various issues of OK! and NME (for mostly unrelated reasons), and taking hits of...whatever poison he's into right now, former Libertine Pete Doherty managed to whelp out a helping of songs for a second album from his present outfit, Babyshambles.
The Babies seem to enjoy more of a Stranglers/Kinks kind of vibe as opposed to the nervous jangle and swagger that we got from the Libs. What remains the same though is Pete's amazing ability to come up with lyrics that are strung together as wordplay but still connect with wit. Another thing constant with these bands apart from Pete is that this new record is also produced by Mick Jones of The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite, etc. The Robert Downey, Jr of rock seems to hit it out of the ballpark again with these familiar musical phrases coupled with catchy wordsmithing.
If You Talk was twice as fast, it would be a Libertines tune. My opinion.
Dave Gahan recently released his second solo album called Hourglass. The music on this record doesn't stray much from the programmed beats and blips that people the world over have heard with his day job fronting Depeche Mode. That observation isn't a bad thing at all. Sometimes the fans wouldn't mind familiarity. Some solo albums by artists associated with a certain sound get the cold shoulder from long-time loyalists because of how "off" the music sounds due to sonic references.
I think the payoff to listening to Dave's solo albums is that he gets more of an outlet to exhibit his lyric-writing prowess. He doesn't get much of that chance to show it off in DM since Martin Gore is in charge of that task. I've also enjoyed the arrangement and production on Hourglass thus far. I got to really listen to this record on the ride home from the Thanksgiving Day weekend. Today's download from the new platter has kind of a NIN vibe to it with it's quasi-industrial feel.
Hope you guys had a good fill of turkey, stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sauce (I know that the house cranberry sauce this time around is what did me in). We're still celebrating the company of family but I thought I'd take a break from that and clue you in with what I've found on the net before really capping the week.
Just when you thought you've had quite the news about the new Urbandub album, vocalist/guitarist/lyricist Gabby Alipe's more distortion-free guitar side project called Beachhead rears it's head. This is where the easily identifiable frontman can let loose with musical ideas that couldn't necessarily fit with his day job. It seems like he's also been influenced by the likes of Jack Johnson just as much as Jeff Buckley. You can check on the Freestyle video yourself.
Last night's Band of Horses show was really fantastic! The Showbox show was the second evening of a two-night stand for the collective that was formerly based in Seattle.
Aussie band The Drones showed the local crowd what roots rock is like from the land down-under. Bassist/vocalist Fiona Kitschin seemed like the shy type as she had her back turned to the audience for most of their set. This didn't deter me from enjoying their songs. Gareth Liddiard's guitar work was from the let's-play-it-until-we're-close-to-going-off-key school. Manic, unhinged, yet controlled--that's what The Drones' music is like live.
The Drones at The Showbox
I really relished this first time to see Band of Horses. Ben Bridwell's hypnotic vocal-work is what does it for me and this group. This foundation seems to also drive the rest of the band to take things to new musical heights with their respective instruments. The Southern-flavored readings of their originals like The Funeral and The Great Salt Lake off the debut were crowd pleasers. Equally well-received were the newer numbers like Is There A Ghost and (my personal favorite off Cease To Begin) No One's Gonna Love You. I can now see why tickets to their shows are always sold-out when the group comes to town.
Well, hope all y'all have a nice Turkey-day weekend. I can't make any promises about posting for the rest of the week. Let's just say I'll have to play things by ear. If anything, I'm sure you'll hear from me again come Monday. Cheers!
Southland Tales has got to be the movie that would take the unenviable title of Most Misunderstood Picture Of The Year. Richard Kelly's follow-up to Donnie Darko is perhaps a film with layers and layers of scenes, characters, and circumstances with multiple meanings. Because of this kind of storytelling, the viewers may have been left with a very confusing mess. Maybe in a way, Kelly's work was trying to be like a David Lynch picture. This may have been universally panned by critics so far, but I think I owe the guy to at least check this one out, especially after the repeated viewings I had with Donnie Darko just to really peel away all the subtleties of that film. If I was frustrated then finally "got" a movie like Primer, maybe I have a chance at liking this one as well after more than one sitting.
So what does this have to do with our download of the day? Well, it seems Kelly is very much a fan of the Pixies so much so that he entitled all the segments of Southland Tales after famous Pixies songs. His film soundtrack selections are also part of why I enjoy this guy's work.
