A Great Find

You can watch live shows of some really good bands at Fabchannel. I can't believe I didn't find this earlier!

More David Ford

Last night I spent some more time looking for videos of songs by him. He is very good. I really like this tune: Song for the Road.

I was about to order me a CD when I read on his myspace profile that he is signed with columbia. Oh well... it is download time!

David Ford - The State of the Union

Let the facts have no bearing on public relations
For real, it's surreal, it's so real...

Very good tune. It reminds me of Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls, only with much better lyrics. He is a master of the loop pedal! That scores brownie points in my book, of course.

Look it up in youtube. So far I like this live version the best.

Ribbons on your SUV!

Tragically funny. Disturbingly relevant. These guys are good.

The Beautiful Girls - We're Already Gone

Few people if anyone at all know my musical tastes better than Sharon. For my birthday she gave me two CDs one of which is We're Already Gone by The Beautiful Girls. It has been on heavy rotation in my playlist as it is quite good.

The first minute or so of the record is a jazzy musicgasm. They couldn't have started on a better note.

The record is mostly reggae mixed with a bit of blues and perhaps some hard-funk (think Just Like Larry) all infused with a splash of jazz here and there. The bass-lines are phenomenal and I really like the Harperesque feel to Mat's voice (I think he is the lead-singer, but not 100% sure). There is also a couple of acoustic songs that are very good. At several points the songs remind me of a nostalgic version of Sublime. Specially when the lyrics read "crazy, crazy fools" Duh! :-)

The infusion of jazz into the reggae really deserves some mention as it is quite a difficult thing to do and they pull it off really nicely. I wonder if they have horns at their live shows. Looks like I won't be finding out for a while as the North American tour has just been cancelled. :-/

The lyrics are mostly good. A few songs here and there that are of the I-love-you-baby-girl type which needless to say are not my favorite. However, Let's Take the Long Way Home has a strange hold over me. I'll go ahead and refuge my musical ideology under the harmonica riffs in said song. The other songs have a very urban social consciousness going for them. The lyrics could be a bit more poetic, but I also like that they aren't.

They are independent so brownie points there. I think they have some free stuff at their site, but I recommend buying the record as it is one of those that gains something by being listened to from beginning to end.

Black Cat John Brown

Such a good song, so well executed, voila...

En el armario, en el abecedario....las revistas y la radio

It must've been about 5 years since I last watched MTV. I couldn't sleep a couple of nights ago and after much flip-flopin' I finally gave in and turned on the tv. I was surprised to find that I received the dreaded channel (that has been fixed since). I left it on for enough time to watch a commercial. It had something to do with the VMAs and how Shakira is nominated for some award. They were doing one of their "street-polls" and two women said that they'd vote for Shakira because those hips don't lie or some similar bull. So sad. Donde estas corazon...?

When I was in high school Shakira was unknown in the States, but very popular in Latin America -- and rightfully so! When I was half way through college we started hearing about her over here and since then she's become a musician turned booty-shaking-pop-product. ...en las revistas y en la radio?

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm the fiercest anti-pop advocate. So, when Shakira started gaining terrain up north and someone would find me listening to Antologia, Moscas en la casa, Tu, Pies Descalzos Sueños Blancos or any other of the so many of her tunes that I like, they'd ask who it was. The response to the reply would be a completely shocked "YOU listen to Shakira?!? Who are you and where is Rigo?". ...en dos mil religiones, te busque hasta en mis canciones!

You see, way back when, sure she was poppy, and she wasn't independent (I think she was with sony), the lyrics were, well... mostly sophomoric. Whatever. She was 16! It was reasonably good pop. When Donde estan los ladrones? came out the lyrics had matured a great deal, they still had the same love-gone-wrong or teen-emotion feel to 'em, but she was also singing about not liking 'Carlos Marx' and 'Jean Paul Sartre' along with god being one of us. (Not sure if Joan beat her to that one or not...) Furthermore, she was also singing about how disgusting is "high society" in Latin America a record before that one -- that track along with Mana's Me Vale were my anthem when I was 16. The music was very good, mostly written by her (her producer helped, I think). The whole package was very good. I never had the pleasure of seeing her live. She was also beautiful back then...



Compare to the first page of google images results nowadays. ...en el negro en el blanco, en los libros de historia?

Yuk, dude. I miss the old Shakira.

tan faltos de aire
tan llenos de nada
chatarra inservible
basura en el suelo
moscas en la casa

...

Donde estas corazon?