Wilco On Colbert!

Apparently they wrote this song custom for The Colbert Report, but it doesn't sound like some tossed off quickie, it sounds like a fully developed totally sweet Wilco tune. Check it...

Ras Trent

This is hilarious! A DVD of Cool Runnings!

"Channel" - The Owls

The Owls "Channel" from Magic Marker on Vimeo.


I know almost nothing about The Owls other than what I just read over at the AMG blog (great great blog by the way). But if this song is any indication of the rest of their music, I'm really excited. This song is really easy on the ears and the video is pretty cool too.

The Owls on myspace

"One Hundred Years From Now" - The Byrds

I was listening to Sweetheart of the Rodeo the other day and when this song came on, I was completely struck with how relevant it seemed to be to the times.

One Hundred Years From Now

Pavement / Spike Jonze - Shady Lane

This video was not included on the Spike Jonze video collection that came out a while ago, but I think it's totally sweet and should have been. It's also one of my favorite Pavement songs, enjoy!

The Monkees - Porpoise Song (Theme From Head)

The Monkees off the wall experimental comedy Head could have only been made in 1968. Written by Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson, (Rafelson also directed) it goes out of it's way to subvert the manufactured nature of The Monkees fame to hilarious results. Whether The Monkees were truly in on the joke or not remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure, this is the coolest music they ever made. The Monkees tried on a lot of popular-in-the-moment sounds (to great success) during their run, but who would have ever thought they wore Psych Pop so well?

Porpoise Song (Theme From Head) mp3
Head Soundtrack - Amazon
Head DVD - Amazon
youtube links from the movie (check out the Frank Zappa cameo!)

Harry Nilsson - Sandman

Every 2 or 3 months I find myself re-obsessed with Nilsson's music and I go on a binge where I listen to him almost exclusively until I can listen no more and then I finally move on. It's been going on for 6 years or so, since I first discovered Nilsson Schmilsson in the dollar bin at Ameoba. The deeper you get into Nilsson's music & mythology (and the two are almost inseparable) the more you appriciate the post-Lost Weekend output less as just artifacts from a crazy man's career and more as someone writing music for an audience of his friends and devout fans. Usually, I'd say that's a bad thing, but since I believe EVERYONE should be a devout fan of this guy, Harry is the exception that proves the rule.

There's a lot of weirdness on this album, but underneath it all is a master songwriter who is still comfortable exploring the very fringes of his craft. Part of what makes this album so amazing is that at any second Harry could go off the edge completely, but somehow he never does, even as far out as he goes. But maybe I'm painting a too inaccessible picture of this album, after all there are plenty of songs that are just plain easy on the ears, and those also happen to be my favorites. Below grab I'll Take A Tango, Something True, and (Thursday) Here's Why I Did Not Go To Work Today. Enjoy!

Zip!

Amazon Link

Grant Green - Live at the Lighthouse

Doesn't Grant Green have the coolest album covers! This one is particularly brilliant. Live at the Lighthouse, like everything after '69, is very different from Green's early Blue Note albums. The bebop sound has been replaced with funk, but Green is still Green wherever he hangs his hat. Every song on the album finds him digging in with profound results. The album alternates between jumpy numbers and slow jams throughout. My personal favorite from the latter category is Betcha By Golly Wow, which I have posted below.

Betcha By Golly Wow

Amazon Link

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich - Zabadak 1968

Remember that part in the slow moving first half of Death Proof where that girl starts dropping knowledge about how Pete Townshend would have ended up in the band Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich had he decided to quit The Who? No? Here's a link. I'm grateful for that part, (and by the way, once that movie gets going, it's totally great, don't listen to the haters) because without it, I (and several others) probably would have never heard of these guys, and that would be a damn shame. Anyways, enjoy this old psychedelic live black and white recording of Zabadak. Every time I see how they used to shoot bands in the 60's & 70's on television it makes me wish that aesthetic had never left. Keep your Hi-Def technology, give me rear projection and fish eye lenses anytime!

Rock Snob Coffee Table Book

Snobsite.com bills itself as "The Online Home of Cultural Snobbery" and I think they mean that in a good way. I'm definitely going to pick up a copy of their Rock Snob Volume, one look at these selected entries will probably do the trick for yall as well. Sure I could use my reading time more wisely perhaps, maybe finally finish Moby Dick or start (but never finish) Infinite Jest, but eff that ess, I want to read about rock music man!

Amazon Link

Animals - Minilogue

Minilogue - Animals from ljudbilden on Vimeo.

Totally brilliant little video. Found this over at Kitsune Noir. Enjoy!

John Lennon - Nobody Told Me

Been listening to a bunch of Lennon lately which inevitably lead me to youtube which lead me to this sweet goof around video for Nobody Told Me that I'd never seen before. Check it!

John Lennon - Nobody Told Me
Uploaded by hushhush112

NPR's Weekly Jazz Sampler

I just discovered this and I have a feeling I'll be tuning in regularly. Every week the NPR site picks a Jazz Theme and streams five songs tied to that theme. This week is West Coast Cool: The Jazz Sound Of '50s California and I highly recommend all five tracks, especially Stardust by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. I always enjoy music so much more when I understand it's context and the site does a great job of briefly, but effectively, providing a context. Here's what they wrote about Stardust:

Unlike most of the musicians associated with the West Coast jazz sound, Dave Brubeck is actually a native Californian, as was his most important collaborator, saxophonist Paul Desmond. Both were born in the San Francisco Bay area, and the music they made together remains some of the most lyrical and popular jazz ever recorded. Brubeck was one of the first musicians to bring jazz to college campuses; his Jazz At Oberlin, recorded in 1953, is one of the quartet's earliest and finest live recordings. In their version of "Stardust," no one in the group ever plays the melody: Desmond and Brubeck imply the melody and explore it beautifully in their improvisations without specifically stating it. This recording is thought by many to be one of the best examples of Desmond's exceptionally lyrical playing.

Link - Take Five: A Weekly Jazz Sampler