Archive for January, 2007
Escort “Starlight”
by teabog on January 29th, 2007
Escort
“Starlight”
I don’t remember where I got this, as I downloaded it long before I ever bothered to listen to it. From what I’ve been able to piece together since actually playing the track and realizing that Escort rocks, here’s what I found out:
Escort are a modern day band that play music that your parents will fucking swear came out in the 70s. They are mostly white people and they use entirely live instrumentation, no samples. They have no official album aside from a vinyl EP with a bunch of remixes that you’ll only be interested in if you’re a DJ.
As for the track itself, it’s pure disco, but it’s disco in a good way. Like, disco that’s made to listen to first and dance to second. Disco that’s been written by Quincy Jones. Actually, it sounds an awful lot like a throwaway track recorded during the sessions Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall,” with only Michael’s backup singers on it.
Disco
Sounds like: Early Michael Jackson, only with different singers.
Golden Shower
by teabog on January 27th, 2007
Golden Shower
“Video Computer System”
Golden Shower is a group of electronic pranksters from Brazil. I don’t quite remember how I first came across their website, but it might have had to do with my habit of going to google and then typing in the name of a random country along with the name of a random sex act and seeing what wonderful things came up. I gave up this hobby a long time ago (the horrors of “Paraguay Donkey Punch” still haunt me to this day), but nonetheless kept a file full of the more “interesting” sites and sound I came across in my misadventures.
Far and away the best (and, oddly enough, least offensive) of all of the things I found was Golden Shower, the band, from Brazil, the country. They’ve never released an album and they’ve never toured, but they have a whole website that’s full of MP3s.
The song posted here, Video Computer System, was created entirely using a Commodore 64. It rocks. The rest of the songs on the site are patchworks combinations of protools beats and sound clips from film and television—pretty much like every other internet-only electronic artist only way better than just about every other internet-only electronic artist. If you should happen to visit their site, I recommend you download “Kiss the Cow.” It heavily samples Tex Avery cartoons.
Electronic
Sounds like: If M83 played their music on a Sega Master System. Or, if the theme to Streets of Rage 2 was supposed to make you want to dance instead of kill.
Golden Shower’s official website with a ton of free, legal mp3s.
The Residents “Fire”
by teabog on January 25th, 2007
The Residents
“Fire” (From the “Santa Dog” EP)
Santa Dog was the first release that The Residents ever spent money on and tried to go public with. It’s also the release that gave them their name, and most of the many copies that were returned opened were simply addressed to the “residents” of their home address. Get it?
I love this song for the same reason I love all of the Residents commercial releases: it’s good and it doesn’t quite sound like anything else. The tune starts with the singer repeating “Santa Dog’s a Jesus fetus, Santa Dog’s a Jesus fetus” in a combination of a sing-songy, kindergarten teacher voice and the huff of a child-molesting sailor. Then the screechy, sparse instrumentation kicks in (sounding very much like their commercial debut). The whole thing is surprisingly catchy and upbeat, and this track serves as a great introduction to the band.
Experimental
Sounds Like: Early Residents
Buy Residents Albums
Alarma Man
by teabog on January 24th, 2007
Alarma Man
2006 was the year of the Swede and, like a Viking funeral, it ended with us all being kicked out to sea aboard a flaming boat. That boat’s name? Rock and Roll. And this mathpunk quartet provided us with all of the music.
As they belong to a band that uses “math” as a prefix while describing their own sound, it should come as no surprise that this instrumental rock is fast, zig zaggy, and jerky. What separates Alarma Man from just about every math… band I’ve ever heard, though, is how well the jerky guitars coalesce over one another to form a blurry and beautiful whole.
Foreign/Punk/Instrumental
Sounds Like: Man or Astroman (their later stuff), and kinda like Don Caballero if Don Caballero didn’t suck
Official Website of Alarma Man
Eddie and the Cyclones and a warm Welcome
by teabog on January 23rd, 2007
Welcome to my MP3 blog. Here, I’m going to be posting a wide and varied selection of rare, out of print, up & coming, foreign, or otherwise exceptional music. Some of the songs presented here will be culled from other blogs, but most of them will be things that you won’t be able to find anywhere, including a large amount of Found Sound that I am in the process of ripping from vinyl to MP3.
I’m going to be going through the code over the next few weeks and tweaking the appearance of this blog (or at least finding a better-looking template), so look for changes. Until then, here’s a couple of songs to tide you over:
Eddie & The Cyclones
Fact: In the 1950’s, 78.4% of all problems faced by teenagers were somehow hop-related. The music of the era reflected this problem, as early rock and roll is filled with literally thousands of forgotten songs about finding one’s way to the hop, meeting one’s baby at the hop, wanting to exit the hop, getting banned from the hop, having too much of a good time at the hop, and having one’s parents preventing one from attending a hop. This song, by a more-than-forgotten group called Eddie & The Cyclones, is a rare exception to the rock standard, as it is from the point of view of the parent of a hop-crazed youngster, not from the youngster herself.
The song has got more everything I look for in a 50s tune: it’s fast paced, the lyrics are wonderfully corny, and it’s got one hell of a good hook (a young girl repeatedly squeaks the song’s title to her father, who jumps and jives about why exactly she is in no way deserving of the pleasantries of the hop).
“Forgotten 50s”
No links available.
Sounds like: The Big Bopper, kinda.
A similar disclaimer will soon appear permanently at the bottom of this page, but this should work for now: All songs posted on mynieblog are posted for promotional use only and whenever possible come with links to official artist websites and sites where the music can be purchased. A large amount of the music on mynieblog is in the public domain, and the majority of that which isn’t is taken from official artist sites and so is otherwise freely available for promotional download. Nonetheless, all songs on mynieblog are posted for a limited time only Any persons wishing to see songs removed should contact the webmaster immediately.