Category: Music

Tech Songs

Kevin Maney, USA Today’s tech writer, is also a songwriter. He has posted a couple of his own tech-inspired songs on his blog, including the excellent Found It On Google.

The other day he posted in search of tech-related songs. I emailed him a link to Lost in a 403, a song Ronnie Jeffrey and I wrote a couple of years ago.

He mentioned it in a post today. Many thanks, Kevin, for the link.

Look for more Tech Songs every Tuesday on Kevin’s blog. It’s one of my daily reads- for the tech and the music.

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Jukebox, Annotated

You know the drill. Open up your jukebox of choice, point the shuffle feature to your entire library of songs and list, without exception, the first 10 or so songs that play. Each week, I add a little commentary about some of the artists, songs, albums, etc.

Maman Rosin – Beausoleil (Vintage Beausoleil) (1)
Papa Gene’s Blues – The Buckets (N/A) (2)
Let’s Live Together – Robbie Fulks (Country Love Songs) (3)
Moonrise – Charles Brown (The Classic Early Recordings) (4)
Boot-Leg – Booker T. and the MGs (Stax Set) (5)
4th of July, Asbury Park – Bruce Springsteen (The Wild, the Innocent…) (6)
Bungle in the Jungle – Jethro Tull (War Child) (7)
Standin’ – Townes Van Zandt (High, Low and in Between) (8)
Fleetwood Mac – Fleetwood Mac (In Chicago 1969) (9)
One of a Kind – Moe Bandy (Honky Tonk Amnesia) (10)

(1) I rember going to hear Beausoleil at the Bon Ton Room back in the eighties. I also saw them at the Festival Acadians in Lafayette, Louisiana in 2003. Great cajun band- a little better live than on record.

(2) My friend Ray sent me some MP3s a couple of years ago. They were supposed to go on his band, The Buckets, second album. Their first record is available from Amazon. Unfortunately, the second one never got made. Another great alt. country, slightly Byrds-like song, from one of my favorite songwriters.

(3) An original that sounds like a classic country number from his first record. I like most of his songs, including this one. Some of his satirical, trying to be funny, songs miss the mark a little with me. But at least half the songs off of any of his records will be excellent.

(4) Charles Brown is one of my favorite piano players, behind my all-time favorite Otis Spann. This is an old, old song and it sounds like it. But even your grandfather’s Charles Brown is good stuff.

(5) Booker T. rocks on a lot of stuff, including this one. Folks that only know him from Green Onions should check out more of his stuff. Funky, funky, funky.

(6) I just wrote about this record as a part of my Favorite Records series. Great folky, funky sound.

(7) I really like Jethro Tull. Raina says they were by far the worst concert (out of many) that I’ve drug her to. This one, while a little tired from too much airplay on the classic rock stations, has everything that makes them a fine band.

(8) I bought every one of his records, until he died and people started repackaging and rereleasing records that may or may not be previously unheard stuff. High, Low and in Between was the second Townes record I bought, and its a good one. This one gets lost in the shuffle among the many excellent songs on this record, but it shouldn’t because it’s a fine song.

(9) Most people don’t realize that before they became a gigantic rock band, they were an awesome blues band lead by the great Peter Green. Well they were and this record is proof of that. Recorded with blues legends like Otis Spann and Willie Dixon. One of my top 10 blues records of all-time.

(10) I grew up listening to country music before it became the regurgitated pop music that it is now. This is a great cheatin’, drinking, honky tonker that makes me remember why I love country music.

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Some Bands

I’ve got 3 potential new bands to add to my good list.

The other night I was driving home and listening to XM-12– the mostly but only in a real middle of the road kind of a way alternative country, Americana station on XM. I listen to it a lot, mostly because I can’t map out the difference between Lucy, Ethyl and Fred (Lucy seems to be the best, but only on some days- it’s very confusing to me). Anyway, they had this live show thing on and the band was Cigar Store Indians. They were recorded, as far as I could tell, playing live in XM’s studio in front of little or nobody. Anyhow, they were really good. And then they played a “love song” the singer wrote to his kids that really blew me away. Two things: (1) having written songs for both of my kids, I dig songs about kids, and (2) this song (his, not mine) is a damn fine song. The first time I heard the line “You’re gonna try to live your life kind of like a script, like you’re in a movie, like your watching it,” I literally teared up. So I bought the record from CD Baby (sorry, baby, but only because Amazon didn’t have it- I dig the Prime). I sampled some of the other songs and they sound really good. I’m a little worried about the rockabilly references, but the sound was more alternative country than rockabilly and that’s what I’m hoping for.

I also heard a really good song by a band called Bucktown Kickback on XM-12 the other day. So I bought their CD too. More on both after they arrive in a week or so (more than the 2 days it takes to get stuff from Amazon thanks to the Prime). I really dig the Prime.

CD Baby, here’s what you do. Get some shipping thing like the Prime going, and then allow me to download MP3s of the records I buy. That and the pay by Paypal option would lead me back to CD Baby. Also, get better servers- your site is slow, slow, slow. But you’re supporting the starving artists and I’m one of those, so you’re still good with me.

Finally, I got exactly the kind of email an artist should send if he or she wants me to listen to their stuff.

I got an email from one of the guys in Chuckanut Drive. First of all, the email had a link to a page where I could hear full versions of all of the songs on their new record. Second, he described the band as “a mix of Exile Era Stones/Gram Parsons with the Byrds and a touch of Stax Soul thrown in for good measure.” So either he’s been reading my blog and has condensed my musical taste into 22 words, or this is my kind of band. I listened to a few of the songs, and they are very, very good! My favorite so far is Pittsburgh (I put it on my server to keep the location provided to me private and so I wouldn’t be stealing bandwidth). This is a mighty good song that will be in the Rancho Radio rotation next time we update. It might even get on the upcoming City Names edition of our RanchoCast. I’m looking forward to hearing all the songs over the next few days.

As a songwriter, musician, sometimes entertainment lawyer and Grammy voter who has an internet radio station and does a podcast, I get a lot of music sent to me. Most of it is of less than Uncle Tupelo quality (to put it delicately) and some of it is too hard to access. Within about 3 seconds of reading this email, I was listening to some mighty fine music.

Anyhow, check out Chuckanut Drive. I’m going to.

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Hawk on the Cat

Thomas Hawk has a good post today about the Record Label Cartel’s never-ceasing effort to Stuff the Cat Back into The Bag.

I stood up and shouted Amen when I read this passage from his post:

What the media companies need to understand is that for years and years they gouged us over and over again. And now they are still trying to gouge us and at a certain point the anomosity that they have deservedly heaped upon themselves turns into outright hatred. So when the RIAA sues their customers, pouring even more gasoline on the fire, it’s amazing that they cry foul when people shun them altogether and pursue the free and illegal routes.

catoutofbagAs I’ve said over and over, there’s a way to defeat the Cartel without stealing anything. Some smart person needs to create a company that duplicates CDs and creates and duplicates the associated packaging the way Qoop produces photo books. The same company could distribute the music on CD either by itelf or via Amazon and other online stores. The same company, or even the artist himself or herself, could distribute the songs electronically via MusicMatch, Yahoo Music, etc. Take out the middle man, and all the right people benefit.

Let the cat run. Down with the Cartel. Death to Videodrome! Long live The new flesh. And all that.

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My Favorite Records:Bruce Springsteen – The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle

This is the ninth part in my series of favorite records.

Yes, I know that I am still in the Bs and that my final list is going to have a lot more than 50 records on it, but what can I say. I keep finding excellent records on my music server.

I remember the first time I saw Bruce Springsteen in 1975. I didn’t know that much about him prior to the concert, but afterwards, I knew I had discovered something special. Almost any of his records could make this list, but I’m goung to pick The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle.

Bruce had a lot of great songs in the bag when he started making records, as evidenced by the fact that this one was released only eight months after his first one, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. (also an excellent record). One The Wild, the Innocent, Bruce did a wild, funky, keyboard driven fusion of folk, jazz and rock- and it worked. There are only 7 songs on this record, but most of them are 7+ minutes long, so there’s a lot of music to enjoy.

I’ve often argued with my music buddy the G-Man about the use of horns in a record. Sometimes they absolutely make a song (like most of the ones on this record and some Van Morrison numbers). Sometimes, they just sound like a throw in to hide mediocre songs- like on some of Bill Morrissey’s later records. G-Man seems to like all horns, but I definitely do not. But from the first note of the first song, The E Street Shuffle, you can tell that funky, funky horns add a whole lot to these songs.

Even the mellow songs, like Wild Billy’s Circus Story have some funky horns, and it really adds to the vibe of this record. Much like his first record, these songs sound like (and probably are) songs Bruce wrote about actual friends of his and stuff they did growing up.

An excellent record that belongs in every record collection.

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Pot, Meet Kettle

potkettleYou know, just about everyone is free to join the hue and cry against the DRM software that Sony BMG was installing on computers until the bloggers and feds shamed them into stopping, but when the CEO of the greatest example of bloatware and computer hijacking in the history of software starts adding his two cents I start feeling like defending Sony.

In this article in USA Today, Rob Glaser, CEO of RealNetworks says (talking about iTunes):

“Consumers should say, ‘Apple, we won’t buy your music until you make your DRM interoperable.'”

Never, ever have I experienced anything (including DRM and the BSOD) as irritating as all of the crap that RealNetworks software installs on your computer. I am still getting these little pop-up messages from RealNetworks on my downtown office computer, and I have no idea how to get rid of them. In fact, I’d rather not hear something than have my computer overrun with RealNetworks software and messages and whatnot just because I try to install Real Player.

And don’t even get me started about how RealNetworks ruined Rhapsody by buying it. Or how you have to call a number to cancel your subscription.

I’m not a big fan of RealNetworks, in case you can’t tell.

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Microsoft to Remove Sony Spyware

I thought I was through with this story, but I have to add one more nugget. I and others previously wondered if Microsoft might add the Sony BMG spyware to the list of bugs removed by Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool. Well it seems it will.

According to this post on the Anti-Malware Engineering Team blog:

We are concerned about any malware and its impact on our customers’ machines. Rootkits have a clearly negative impact on not only the security, but also the reliability and performance of their systems.

The post goes on to say that removal of the Sony software will be included in the upcoming editions of the Microsoft programs.

Good job Microsoft.

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RanchoCast for 11/12/05

I did another podcast last night.

The theme for this one is cover songs. I play some great covers by X, Iris Dement, Gerald Collier and even a cover of a song that Ronnie Jeffrey and I did a few years ago.

A word about the music files: I am a songwriter and musician, and I have no desire to take money out of anyone’s pocket. To the contrary, I am trying to promote some great music that you likely won’t hear on mainstream radio. These are low bitrate MP3s, and none of our prior podcasts are archived. In fact, the only RanchoCast that will ever be available is the then current one. In other words, I am experimenting with this technology as a way to promote alt. county music. Go buy these records. You’ll be glad you did.

30 Years Ago Today

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The gales of November came early.

In my considered opinion, the single most chilling song ever written is Gordon Lightfoot‘s The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The story of the ship and its tragedy can be found here.

While I think every line of the song is perfect, there are two parts that I think are incredibly powerful:

One is the faces and names line:

They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters

and the other is the ice water mansions line:

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice water mansion

Every time I hear this song it gives me chills. Today, the 30th anniversary of the tragedy, would, perhaps sadly, be a non-event if not for this excellent and timeless song.

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