his royal badness

so recently i, yes i, the hef (ahem. dammit.) jeff was surfing the internets.

as you do.

and i found this great tribute to sxsw, tiger beat magazine and the purple one all rolled into one fabulous package at blackbook. i found it on my own without the assistance of my super fantastico wife who i never thank enough for all the internets goodness she sends my way. just sayin.

the musicians interviewed were asked what prince song is their favorite. most of these rockers picked songs off of "purple rain". which is cool. just not very punkrock. unless one were to choose "the beautiful ones" which is always punkrock.

anyway, i thought it would be interesting to force her to blog while i'm playing with the cat in the other room. DAMMIT. i mean, i thought it would be fun to let you know that my favorite prince song is rockhard in a funky place from the black album. check it.

then perhaps you would like to join the discussion by sharing your favorite prince rogers nelson song with me.

regards,
zombie wife...DAMN. IT. Jeff.

If That One Is Not Your Taste...

This is a Page France song I got from either Alex or his wife on January 16th.

MP3: Chariot

Give me a pony

One of the best bands I saw at SXSW was Brakes, who comprise members of Electric Soft Parade and British Sea Power. Since that gig, the missus and I have been rockin' out to their album from last year, Give Blood.

First, there's "Cheney", a nice little 7-second long palate cleanser with some thoughtful, insightful lyrics regarding United States Vice President Richard Cheney.

And then, for another angle, there's "NY Pie", a pretty and enjoyable little song that the missus is convinced Chewy will particularly dig on.

MP3: Brakes -- Cheney
MP3: Brakes -- NY Pie

Jazz fans are an audience that is relatively underserved by the blogosphere. That's why it's been great to find Jazz Pour Tous, who are serving up full albums of classic jazz (mainly bop stuff). They've got Hank Mobley's Soul Station up at the moment (Wynton Kelly, Art Blakey & Mr P.C), some hard to find Ornette, and -- in the archives -- tons of my man Herbie Nichols.

The archives are sick. These guys are truly prolific, so be sure to search and browse through a little to get a feel for the full breadth of goodness at your disposal.

Mas Matt Por Glycerin!

Wired All Wrong

Selfies.com

What's New?

I'll tell what... 50 versions of Body and Soul courtesy of punio.blogspot.
Got me thinking, what do I have?
10 versions of What's New? That's what!
Remember when that record dropped in 1983? Linda Ronstadt!
Well, it actually dropped in 1939, and was written by a bass player: Bob Haggart

So I give you: 10 What's New-es-es MP3s



And some more Evan Eisenberg:

Only at home is it generally possible to listen to classical music through an uplifting fog of liquor, cannabis, cocaine or what have you. While such an atmnosphere might not fit the strict contours of Bach or Hindemith it might do very well by Berlioz or Wagner, recalling the opiated air they themselves breathed.
The situations of the jazz listener is just the reverse. In bars and nightclubs and dance halls teetotalling is deviant behaviour, so live jazz has usually been heard through the filter of liquor or dope. But the phonograph and radio allowed us to listen to jazz analytically and in this way (among others) convinced us that jazz was not just entertainment, but music.

You saw School of Rock and loved it, right?

Well this is the real thing, but for girls! Woo hoo!

* * * * * * * *

Dear Friends of Rock: Good news! We've finalized the dates and location for Rock Camp 2006
sessions! The dates are as follows:

Session 1: July 17- July 21, Final Showcase July 22
Session 2: August 7-August 11, Final Showcase August 12

Both sessions will be held at the Brooklyn Friends School Annex, at 55
Willoughby Street, Brooklyn.

Also, we're very excited to offer our first annual Ladies Rock Camp this
summer! If you have always wanted to learn to play an instrument, if you've
wanted to be in a band, or if you're already in a band but want to try a new
instrument with new bandmates, this weekend fundraiser event is your
opportunity to try it out. Ladies Rock Camp will be held at the Brooklyn
Friends School the weekend of July 28-30.

Please check out our newly redesigned website for applications, deadlines and
more information: www.williemaerockcamp.org.

Finally, come party with us tonight!
Volunteer Thank You Party
Cattyshack
249 4th Avenue, between President & Carroll in Brooklyn
Thursday, March 23, 6-10 pm
Come join us for a special bash in honor of Rock Camp Volunteers of 2005! DJ
Rekha, special guests, prize give-aways, hot-off-the-press news about Rock
Camp 2006, and thank you gifts. Beer's on us for you and a friend (or two or
three) from 8 -10 p.m. (Come early and enjoy Cattyshack's 2 for 1 Happy Hour,
6 - 8 p.m.) Bring a date, a friend who might want to volunteer at rock camp
this summer, your significant other, your mom, anyone you want (21 and over
only, please!).

juggle star employing the power of music

I'm watching this guy and he's great and very talented, etc. and the whole time I'm thinking....

Man, this is a really great song.

They cheered for a drum machine!

I saw something last night that I never thought I would see. A rock music crowd cheered for the entrance of a drum machine at a Stereolab concert. I think it was during "Need To Be", although I can't be sure. The drummer had been doing all his parts. He was the audience favorite, really. But all of the sudden he just stopped and the audience went crazy as the sequenced drum part started. Whoever started this trend years ago (Madonna? or maybe further back -- Keith Moon -- Baba O'Reily) would be so happy that audiences are actually excited about the unholy marriage of computers and animal skins.
That being said..
It was a wonderful show. Thanks to Michael W. for giving us the tip. Laetitia Sadier is an inspiring performer. You don't know rock until you've seen a singer go from trombone to moog to coloratura soprano in 5 seconds. Marathonpacks does a good round up of what we witnessed. I'll just say that it began with this gem:

MP3: Come And Play In The Milky Way

and did not disappoint the rest of the way. At the end Michael A. said that he felt like he had had a massage. I concur.

And on that very subject, a quote from my most favoritist book- The Recording Angel, by Evan Eisenberg:

(Concerts) format is perfect for catharsis: you sit down and let the sounds squeeze you, you stand up and let out a burst of vigorous applause , and it's over. The soul has had its sauna. (As Aristotle said) we all carry around our quanta of pity, fear and other unsettling emotions whether they are unsettling us at the moment or not, the scattershot approach of the public performance has its effect. Humours surface and are dispelled.

I'm a joker, I'm a smoker......

Check out the cover of The Joker by Fatboy Slim, by watching the video of it here, and try not to have anyone witness you laughing out loud when the kitten gets on the mini train to go to work. that's all I'm saying.

Oh Jenny

The aforementioned Jenny Lewis-on-KCRW set is available for download here and (part II) here. That is all...now off to a SXSW party to see Tapes 'n Tapes and Spoon....

BYOF

Someone stop him, he's gone crazy, posting twice on Ranh Ranh in one day!

I'm just picking up the thread of Radiohead covers. This one is pretty unusual:

Mark Ronson feat. Alex Greenwald -- Just

Whereas Radiohead rarely can be found in possession of the funk, these nice lads have been kind enough to BYOF.

And sorry Jeff, my better half is the one with the string quartet version of No Surprises.

All Women, All The Time

The One Kiss Can Lead To Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found box set is astonishing. I'm only on Disc 1 and already I'm blown away by how great these obscure songs are. Rhino did a good job of casting a wide net -- it's got The Marvelettes and The Chiffons, of course, but it also has early (I mean early) Dolly Parton, Dusty Springfield, Wanda Jackson...and dozens of short-lived groups who faded into obscurity, but not without leaving joyous, moving, emotional music for me to listen to and marvel at in 2006. It also has the originals of many songs that would later be hits for The Moody Blues, The Zombies and other latecomers with the taste to cover them and the fame to ensure they got heard.

The closest analog is the Beg, Scream and Shout box set, in that it provides a window into a music scene that boasted way more talent than the tip of the iceberg represented on our oldies stations. I loved Be My Baby, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, and all those other classics, but I really had no idea there was so much bench strength in the girl group scene.

The remastering is gorgeous. I've certainly never heard such vibrancy and immediacy in recordings from this time period.

It's hard to pick tracks from this, but here's a sampling:

The Cookies -- I Never Dreamed
Ellie Greenwich -- You Don't Know
Bessie Banks -- Go Now

Some other things I've been digging on lately:

Casey Dienel -- Dr Monroe. I'll see your Nellie McKay and raise you a less precious, more interesting jazz-influenced-but-not-enslaved piana-playin' songwriter

Shelley Short -- Like Anything, It's Small. Charming.

This is the best new song...

that Neko Case has done in years!

The Big Guns

Just Kidding Alex!
We watched Morning Becomes Eclectic yesterday and I got chills.
She is better live then on record. And what great guitar playing.

Jenny Lewis On Video

And Alex, you're home alone aren't you?
You better blog you Mother Fucker!
And Glycerin is at this person's wedding I believe:

Blog: My Life With Garlic

Hello to all!

Play It Again Sam

This is what I have been doing lately. Playing the same song over and over till I can't stand it anymore. It started on the airplane. If I found a song that works well for me I just go with it. On the way back from Mexico it was "Lively Up Your Self". Yesterday at the Post Office it was this:


Correo Aereo: La Llorana

After years of shuffling up my favorite music I have been trying to concentrate more lately. I might even go back to listening to whole albums. I tried Bach's Mass in B minor this morning but that was probably biting off more than I could chew.

I am reading an amazing book: The Recording Angel by Evan Eisenberg. I am going to put up some of my favorite quotes in the next week or so. Stay Tuned!

Just a thought....

Judy Garland---Barbra Streisand---Whitney Houston---Mariah Carey---Christina Aguilera

Are you amplified to rock?

I can't let this go unlinked upon: Dylan at Pimps of Gore has undertaken the thankless task of choosing The Guided by Voices Top 100 complete with MP3s! He spread it over 5 posts, and I've linked to the last -- check his archives for more.

Of course I don't fully agree with his selections, but dammit -- there's at least 40 stone cold classics on there. If you don't know what to choose, anything from Bee Thousand or Alien Lanes is a can't miss.

So a certain Mr. J. Tweedy woke up this morning and thought, "What would be the perfect song I could write and perform in honor of Ranh Ranh blogger Jeff's birthday? Hmmm...well I guess it would have a total '70s AM classic rock radio vibe that would summon his (ever-dwindling) youth, along with some crazy time signatures thrown in to sate the lusty music student heart that beats within. Yeah, that sounds about right. Kolache, get the drumsticks out."

And lo, there was "Hey Chicken" from Tweedy (and Kotche and O'Rourke's) side project Loose Fur (say it out loud for the pun).

Happy Birthday Jeff!

IN response

Well Glyc, I'm checking out Radio KIFF,

The first question I have is "What kind of politician was he?"

Cause I'm thinking it was the politics of dancing!

First of all, every artist should have his own radio station. This is cool. Do you think the edits are randomly selected? Or is it part of some master plan to get us to go immediately to itunes and buy his record? I want to know the machinations that spin the music industry go-round!
I think he probably loves the same Doobie Brothers records that we do. He knows that hair product is important. He likes a snare that really "POPS". Every song must have a bridge. Jamie Cullum makes a shit load of money. Is it just 'cause he's English? Can a Bay Area Politician get some of that love?
Can HE?!

Go see him and do some live blogging for us, PLEASE!!

As for Alex, let's keep up the Radiohead covers:

MP4: Exit Music (For A Film) Brad Mehldau