Three Minute Record

It's Moving Time

2010-05-10T15:56:00.002-05:00

In order to give Three Minute Record the rebirth it truly deserves, it is time for TRM to move. Now you can find Three Minute Record at it's new home.... threeminuterecord.wordpress.com

The new site is easier for comments...SO LEAVE SOME. There is a new look. Same old reviews and personality. The time for the rebirth has come, and it starts now. See you there. So long blogspot you've been good to us.

Taking Matters Into My Own Hands

2010-02-21T23:34:00.006-06:00

So I was sick and tired of every time I wrote about my favorite Louisville band, The Deloreans, there were no songs to stream or videos to show off. Well, that had to change, and I took it upon myself to do something about it. "Call Off The Pain" is probably The Deloreans' best track to date, and has me pretty psyched about their upcoming sophomore album (hopefully it will drop just in time for late spring and early summer rockin' with the windows down). "Call Off The Pain" can currently be heard on the final installment of Louisville Is For Lovers: Goodbye. I personally think the video is pretty damn cool, but I mean I did put it together so of course I do. I wish it were a little more original, but you have to work with what you have, and all I really have is editing software and the internet. Daydreams is an old silent film by the legend Buster Keaton, and well it was free on the internet because it is now in the public domain so it was a perfect choice for the video. The film itself runs 18 minutes long, and see's Buster's character get himself into many, many, many more mishaps than I had time to put into this video. You can check out the whole film over on the Internet Archives, a kick ass site for all kinds of old films that are now in the public domain (also, there is an entirely different ending in the original film that might make it worth seeing through to the end). Ultimately, I just pieced what I could of the film together so that it made some kind of sense, sent it over to the band for approval, and now here I am begging you to check it out. The Deloreans are the most fun band in Louisville, and with their growing sound hopefully the will soon expand their popularity past the Jefferson County line.

Louisville is for Lovers: The End

2010-02-19T15:10:00.007-06:00

Various Artist - Louisville is for Lovers Volume Ten Collectors Box

Self-Released (2010)
Ratings:
Goodbye: 8.3
Bonus Download: 5.1
Anniversary: 9.2

Last year as an act of rebellion against my friends who wear on my nerves from time to time, I decided that it was time to get into the local music scene. These friends believe the Louisville music scene is terrible, and all the bands save maybe two are terrible, and they hate and hate and hate. So I went out and bought my first Louisville is for Lovers, and it was Volume Nine. Volume Nine is amazing, and stands as, in my opinion, on of the most precisely and thoughtfully executed compilation albums of all time. Louisville is for Lovers Volume Ten dropped early in February, and I was saddened to find out that Ten would be the last. Volume Ten is much like Nine in it's feel and it's ebb and flow. However, there is much more LIFL to go around this time. The Collectors Box comes with Volume Ten and an Anniversary disc, as well as a whole discs worth of bonus material in MP3 format. Let us start with the actual LIFL, called Goodbye. Goodbye is fantastic and it is good, but it isn't great like Nine. Where Volume Nine was great start to finish, Goodbye features quite a few missteps. Saredren Wells opening track "Prayer for Forgiveness" pales in comparison to The Come Hithers opener on Nine, Wells song also pales in comparison to his own song from Nine which is easily on of that collections best. In addition, The Mack is the really The Worst. The last thing Louisville needed was it's very own Kings of Leon, but The Mack apparently didn't get the memo. My Morning Jacket makes two appearances on Goodbye, well the real My Morning Jacket makes one appearance with the sparkling "Good Morning Dove" (their best track in years), and then there is Adventure whom apparently (based on this is one song) think the best way to make it out of KY is to sound exactly like a band who has made it out of KY. Or what about Trophy Wives, a crazy cock rock band that decided to channel their inner Elliott Smith with their very own blatant "Needle in the Hay" rip off...terrible. Then there is Eremey Jirvin, member of the decent Second Story Man, who continues this sudden new movement in KY to move cheap ass Jack Johnson-esque fratboy folk songs. Eremy Jirvin's "Lonely People, is the worst song on the compilation, and is the first LIFL song that I actually skip every time it comes on...I mean seriously "Derriere at the top of the stairs, they got underwear that matches their hair"? Are you fucking kidding me? Enough with the hate, because there are 5 bad songs on Goodbye, which leaves 12 good to great ones. Several bands on Goodbye actually brought better songs to the table this time around. The Deloreans, who are my favorite and are among the Top 5 best bands in Louisville, do the unthinkable and out do the classic "La La La Love" with "Call Off the Pain". The lyrics remain light and playful, as is The Deloreans' M.O., but the music is larger and more expansive. The addition of new members seems to be allowing The Deloreans to expand their sound in a way that was merely hinted at in the beginning. Sandpaper Dolls, an acapella girl group, continues to stun and intrigue with "Spider", a song that remain vocals driven, but adds effects to create an all new feel. Whistle Peak do not out do their Volume Nine contribution, but instead remain steady and mesmerizing. Joe Merideth shows up twice, first solo with the killer track "You + Me" and then smoothly flows into his band Invaders' "Sugar Pie". "Sugar Pie" closes out Goodbye (well, there is a hidden track but whatever), and stands as Goodbye's best track. "Sugar Pie" is HUGE and noisy, it takes do-op and r&b and runs the two sound through a meat grinder of distortion and layers. The fade out at the end features low end bass, that in my car with the sub woofer my brain literally rattles and feels weird and gooey.
Then there is the Bonus MP3 album, and all I have to say to this album is go away somewhere and die. You know why these songs aren't on the main show? Because they are bad, oh so very bad. Yardsale is easily the worst and lamest band in town. Hitchhike is the worst nineties college rock revivalist noise I've ever heard. Murals sounds out of tune, lazy, jumbled and bad (someone teach these kids to play together and write a song). Seriously every song is bad, so not so bad, but bad none the less.
The real gen of the Box Set, however, is the Anniversey disc. Every song is fantastic and wonderful, and I've listened to this disc 3x as much as Goodbye, and 1billionx more the Minus...I mean Bonus disc. The Anniversary disc is culled from live LIFL showcase recordings, songs from previous Bonus discs, LIFL side projects, and previously unreleased tracks by LIFL favorites. The first four tracks are beautiful soundscapes that feature no vocals and make me wish that LIFL would have released a compilation called Shut Up. The first song with words is "Moonage Daydream" from the LIFL Ziggy Stardust compilation, and is performed in a moody and smoky way by The Gallery Singers. Joe Manning's "Battle Hymn of the Bank Robber" is a country song to rival any other modern country song I've ever heard. The Deloreans' drop by again with "American Craze", a flourishing Vegas crooner anthem. The best track though...Team Totoro "Rompin' and Stompin'". Dude, I'm going to buy a three finger ring and drive around all summer BLASTING this song. I'm even going to try to get my friend GenticPoetic to cover it with me at one of his shows. It's old school hip hop with a dark scary edge.
LIFL will be missed, but now I have an excuse to go back and get all the old ones so...Support local music. Don't be a bitch, and think oh I'm too cool for that, because trust me...your not.

The Deloreans - Call Off the Pain

If My Memory Of Her Has An Expiration Date...Let It Be 10,000 Years.

2010-02-09T12:19:00.006-06:00

Chungking Express (1994)
Director: Wong Kar-Wai
Rating: 8.8

I've been on an art film kick lately. Actually, I go on an art film kick every winter, and a ridiculous action kick in the summer with a sprinkle of art flicks here and there. For those of you who did not read TMR in the olden times, I only review films when music plays a predominate role (this being a music blog and all). Last night I watched Chungking Express the modern classic by Wong Kar-Wai. Going into this film I wasn't really expecting much because I was not a huge fan of the only other Kar-Wai film I had seen 2046. Well let me just say that Chungking Express won me over, it took awhile, but it won me over in the end. Chungking Express is basically split into two stories of two heartbroken Hong Kong cops. The opening half, Cop 223's story, was hit and miss for me, and honestly it was the woman in the wig that was killing it for me. There was something about her visually as a character that was wasn't working for me, but the frenetic camera work during the chase and scenes, along with the general story line of Cop 223 saved it. Cop 223 is beautifully played by Takeshi Kaneshiro, who grasps the characters sadness, naivete, and hopeless romanticism, and projects these feelings in awkward smiles and body language. Cop 223's obsession with buying a can of pineapples with the expiration date of May 1st for every day of the month of April, and then consuming all 30 can on May 1st to memorialized the one month anniversary of his recent break up is one of the funniest and most heartbreaking story lines in modern film. Throughout the first half of the film, chaotic Indian sitar-based music gives chase and market scenes an overwhelming audio energy to match the overwhelming visual energy the hand held motion creates. The use of the reggae tune "Things in Life" by Dennis Brown throughout the woman in the blonde wig's story line probably had an impact on every song Tarantino every put in his film, and the song adds a bazaar touch of whimsy when woman in the blonde wig violently overcomes her own May 1st expiration date.

When Cop 223 bumps into Faye the new employee at the Chungking Express snack bar, and the second half of the film begins...this is where Chungking Express won me over. The story of the relationship between Cop 663 and Faye ranks as one of my all time favorite romance/love stories in cinema history. The heartbroken obsession, and ritualistic behavior of Cop 663 is human longing in its most fundamental form. Tony Leung (who is the best part of 2046 and Hero) gives Cop 663 a hardened sadness that is only eased when in the presence of Faye. Faye, played by Faye Wong, is...well...wow. Wong brings a wide eyed curiosity to Faye that is instantly engaging, and undeniably irresistible. When the second half of the film opens with Cop 663 and Faye meeting to the sounds of the Mamas and the Papas "California Dreaming", and Faye dances her way through work, the scene is mesmerizing and will change the way you hear the way you think of the American standard (see the clip below and you know what I mean). And when Faye secretly immerses herself in the private world of Cop 663 to the sound of a Cantonese version of the Cranberries "Dream", sang by Faye Wong (which is a little weird in my opinion), the film is instantly dated (in a good way), leaves you wondering if they changed the lyrics for a reason or if the English subtitles are poorly translated, and adds sense of lightness that falls over the images of Faye's efforts to become part of and slightly change Cop 663's habitual life. The real star, other than Faye, of this film however is "California Dreaming" which plays a prominent roll throughout the last half and helps in moving the plot forward and connecting the dots. The last half of film is subtle and sublime, and sells this film has a modern classic in my opinion. There are few films about heartbreak and recovery this slight and powerful, and few romances as vivid and resonating as that of Cop 663 and Faye. I highly recommend Chungking Express to anyone who understands the difference between a film and a movie, has ever been in and out of love in the city, ordoes not consider Nicholas Sparks to be a romantic genius.

She'd Bruise So Black They Watched It Fade Through the Full Spectrum of Colors

2010-02-07T14:43:00.004-06:00

Los Campesinos! - Romance is Boring

Arts + Crafts (2010)
Rating: 9

I typically try and avoid writing two posts in a row about the same band, but after two weeks of seriously good releases it's a little slow recently. I had hoped to use this post to discuss Louisville is for Lover 10, but despite the fact that I pre-ordered it I still have not received it (almost a week after it was released in stores). So here we are with another post about Los Campesinos!. Romance is Boring is a whole new beast for the massive group indie-pop-twee-punk septet, and honestly it is my favorite in their catalog and their most musically expansive. For one second let me leave the topic at hand, and return to the septet part of this whole business. Individually the seven members of Los Campesinos! are physically, stylistically, and personally (I don't know them, but each writes on a band blog) a living breathing wall chart of every type of person who frequents the bars I do, and well generally the entire hipster generation (included a video below that isn't from this album, but makes this point). Back to the album at hand, and man what an album. I bought this album after seeing videos for the first three of the singles, and realizing that this was the screaming along in the car album I've been needing for months now. "Romance is Boring" and "There Are Listed Buildings" are pop-punk sing-alongs at their best. "In Media Res" and "We've Got Your Back" are twee-punk (a genre that I grasp the sound of but have no idea what it really means) like Los Campesinos! albums past. What makes this album the bands best are the layers upon layers of strings, electronics, and organs that take songs that would typically stand out merely as great fist pumping anthems and elevate fantastic all round rock and roll songs. Add to the mix fierce songs like "Plan A" and "I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know", that frantically skip along on the back of stabbing heavy guitars and an overwhelming sense of doom before exploding into Los Campesinos! trademark group sing song chorus. The lyrics of Los Campesinos! songs have long been of a dark nature, but many of these new tracks add a foreboding musically atmosphere that takes Romance is Boring to a new level. The true standout tracks on this album, however, are the couple of track that deal with the darker side of the sexual and physical relationship between guys and gals. "The Sea is a Good Place to Think About the Future" deals with a female lead who has an eating disorder, and how her lover deals and struggles to help/understand. Then there is "Straight in at 101", by far my favorite track, that deals with a sexual relationship that is crashing down all around the "lovers". "Straight in at 101" contains a line that should stand as one of the most telling lines of this entire generation: "I think we need more post-coital and less post-rock, it seems the build-up takes forever, but you never get me off." Sick burn hipster Casanova. Romance is Boring is almost a sarcastic statement, because the album is case study after case study of romance that are anything but boring. Romance on this album is seldom (never) happy or punch drunk, but it is always exciting, engaging, and fun.

Straight In At 101 - Los Campe...

This track is from Los Campesinos! first album Hold On Now, Youngster, but makes the point that this band IS the hipster generation incarnate.

LC!

2010-01-28T13:36:00.003-06:00

These folks are one of the more dark and fun bands going these days. Los Campesinos! is a careful mix of punk pop excitement, and noir dark humor and imagery. The video below for "Romance Is Boring" is a perfect example of the sing along po-go fun of the music, and the images that the lyrics typically evoke are captured in the images throughout this video. I haven't had a chance to listen to their new album yet, and the last one was kind of a disappointment. However, the first to singles of the new one named after this single Romance Is Boring are fantastic. Good, sad, dark times all.

They Say We'll Go Far, But They Don't Know How Far We'll Go

2010-01-26T12:23:00.003-06:00

Beach House - Teen Dream
Sub Pop (2010)
Rating: 9.3

So it took four weeks, but we finally have the first great album of Twenty-Ten (come on kids, Two-Thousand Ten is for lames), and I guess technically The Tens. Beach House is a band that has shown promise for a few years and a couple albums now, but were still too lost in their own haze to warrant extreme praise. As a matter of fact, I personally felt that they took a few steps back from their self-titled debut release to their sophomore album Devotion. I basically wrote Beach House off, and dismissed the warmth and promise of their debut as one of the many one off flukes in modern indie music. Out of nowhere at end of 2008, Beach House put out a single song called "Used To Be", and just as quickly as I had wrote them off Beach House was reborn. "Used To Be" cleared the fog that lay over every note of Beach House's previous releases, and the mix for the first time felt as though they had taken great consideration to what sounds complimented one another, and what sounds drowned out the other. A whole year later Beach House comes full circle, and finally cashes in on the promise that is four years in the making. Teen Dream is a prime example of an artist or group growing more comfortable in their sound, and as a result perfecting that sound both sonically and emotionally. Beach House has accomplished the near impossible feat for cleaning up their sound while keeping their overall resonance and atmosphere, in effect they have traded moppy foggy haze for a more crisp dreamlike haze. Each track bristles and churns, surges with emotion and a dark sense of euphoria. I cannot express the importance of the mixing on this album. On previous albums, Victoria's voice often felt buried alive, but on Teen Dream her luscious voice soars above and carries each song to new heights. She is a cross between Stevie Nicks and Hope Sandoval with a rasp of Beth Gibbons, and as a result she creates a towering new voice that is among the most relevant and heart rendering in modern music. The message of most of the songs on Teen Dream are lost in the beauty of the delivery, and for some artist this is a problem, but in the case of Beach House it is par for the course. Beach House is about the feeling and the space a song takes up in your room, mind, heart, whatever. The guitar and vocals ride the wave of synths, and wash over you crash after crash. "10 Miles Stereo" crests and falls, and crests and falls, the whole while remaining rooted in its original synth drone. "Used To Be" makes an appearance midway through and acts as the link between Beach House past and present. "True Love" is mood music of the highest form, I can't tell what Victoria is saying on most of the track, however, the sound and delivery of the song as a whole is hipster makeout music the likes of which a whole generation has been deprived. It's smoky, aching, and primally carnal. "Silver Souls" could have been on either of Beach House's first two releases, but with an execution that those albums lacked. "Walk in the Park" suggests that part of Teen Dream's new found respect for the engineering aspect of album making is due to the time Beach House has spent with sound perfecting Grizzly Bear. Victoria's synth stomp on "Walk in the Park" is the long lost cousin of the piano stomp on Grizzly Bears "Two Weeks", and not since Veckatimest has an album been so sonically spot on to create a specific tangible sound. While the emergence of Victoria's voice in the mix is the star of Teen Dream, it isn't the only star. Alex Scally is no guitar virtuoso, but he understands the gravity a simple longing slide riff can bring to any song. Track after track Scally's mournful, entrancing guitar slinks through, and adds a resonance that cannot be described or properly celebrated. It is the subtleness, the absence of bravado in the riffs that grounds each song, and Teen Dream as a whole. Teen Dream is a meditative album of the highest caliber, beautiful, striking, and engaging without ever being over powering. There is a classic element to Teen Dream that suggests a staying power that few modern albums have. Some may have complaints about the tinny drum machine that carries the album along, but ultimately that drum machine is the cornerstone that cements Teen Dream in the Beach House sound despite the vast improvements across the rest of their musical landscape. Victoria sings "They say we'll go far, but they don't know how far we'll" in "10 Miles Stereo", and no line on Teen Dream cares more weight because it is a summation of the band itself. We all thought they would go far, but few knew it would be this far.

10 Mile Stereo - Beach House

Oh, to be Young and Beautiful Again.

2010-01-23T12:15:00.003-06:00

Thanks to Whitney over at The Look See for putting me up on this band. I just heard about them, seriously, like 10 minutes ago from a Facebook status of his, and now I can't stop tearing through ever song and remix by Miami Horror I can find. Apparently, they are from Australia and the album this song is on is coming out in early 2010. To be honest that is all I know, so here is a killer song and video. Put on your dancing shoes for this one.

Miami Horror - Sometimes from PEDESTRIAN.TV on Vimeo.

Rockin' In The Green Headphones: January 2010

2010-01-23T00:33:00.011-06:00

Here's a smattering of what was blasting in my Green headphones (kick ass aren't they...thanks Margarita) this month. Full reviews of other albums to come.

Vampire Weekend - Contra
XL (2010)
Rating: 8.3

Contra is a welcome new step for Vampire Weekend. The catchy hooks and nonsensical lyrics are still sang with the glorious uptight voice of Ezra, but the rest of the music is all over the map. Both electronic and warm, eclectic and familiar. Contra feeds the back lash, and I love it. The line "I think you're a contra, I think that you lie. Don't call me a contra, til you've tried." about sums it up.

Diplomat’s Son - Vampire Weeke...

Spoon - Transference
Merge (2010)
Rating: 7.9

Transference is a grower, and it's taking it's damn sweet time growing on me. Some of the songs are instant repeat tracks, but a good number are still working there way into my life and heart. I'm sure there will be more to be said about this release in the future. For now fantastic album cover.

Who Makes Your Money - Spoon

Telefon Tel Aviv - Immolate Yourself
BPitch Control (2009)
Rating: 8.7

BPitch Control is a label that I don't follow close enough, but have resolved to do so in the new year. Year in and year out BPitch Control drops electronic albums that blow my mind, but it takes months and even years sometimes for me to take notice. Immolate Yourself is the prime example. Chill, haunting, and enjoyable in every setting, Immolate Yourself is the electronic album I've been needing in my life for...well since it came out on January 20th 2009!

The Birds - Telefon Tel Aviv

Belle + Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
Matador (2006)
Rating: 9.4

One of my favorite bands of all time, and one of my favorite albums by that band. Belle + Sebastian hit their pop rock stride on what is still their most recent album. The great thing about Belle + Sebastian is that you go back to their albums for specific songs, and then fall in love with entirely different songs along the way. I put The Life Pursuit on to hear "The Blues are Still Blue" and "Sukie In The Graveyard", and left it on multiple times a day this week for "For The Price Of A Cup Of Tea" and "Dress Up In You".

For The Price Of A Cup Of Tea ...

In Defense of Unabashed Lameness: Exhibit A

2010-01-22T15:04:00.003-06:00

There is a massive wave of hate and backlash that has threatened to crush Vampire Weekend for the past few years. I understand it, but don't condone it. Vampire Weekend is what it is, and I love them for it. A perfect example of this unabashed lameness that makes Vampire Weekend so fantastic, check the dance moves of Ezra in this video for the Very Best song "Warm Heart of Africa". The song bangs, and trust me you will see me doing these moves on the dance floor before too long. I'm a move thief.

The Roll Off and Rediscovering Cornershop

2010-01-19T19:30:00.000-06:00

I haven't listened to Cornershop since they release When I Was Born for the 7th Time, way back in 1997. Apparently, they have released a few album in the interim. I just stumbled upon this video for "The Roll Off Characteristics (of History of in the Making)", and it has everything that I loved about Cornershop...sitar, dance beat, rockin guitar, and unique vocals. The video itself is one of the most beautifully shot videos I have ever seen, and it makes me want to give Slumdog Millionaire another chance (though I'm pretty sure I will still think it is a Disney version of City of God). Seriously check this video both music and film lovers, it is wonderful in both ways.

The Roll Off Characteristics - Cornershop from Khushi Films on Vimeo.

Top 50 Break Down

2010-01-17T17:08:00.003-06:00

The Top 50 Albums of The Zero's are done, and here is the year by year stats

10.) 2009 - 0 (Just too early to tell what will have staying power.)
9. tie) 2008/2006/2005 - 3
6.) 2003/2004 - 4
4.) 2007 - 5
3.) 2001 - 7
2.) 2000 - 9
1.) 2002 - 12

2002 was by far the best year of the decade for music. Not only did it boast 12 albums in my Top 50, but it also gave us my #1. I did some research, and there were a ton of 2002 albums just outside the Top 50 like White Stripe Elephant and Cursive Ugly Organ. The last half of the decade did not far well with only 14 albums combined from 2005-09. Well let the hunt for number 1 in The Tens begin, reviews coming soon.

The Zeros -- Top Fifty Albums of the 2000's (15-1)

2010-01-16T23:30:00.004-06:00

And now for your pleasure my Top 15 Albums of The Zero's.

15.) Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary (2005)

Wolf Parade man, what can I say? Some band featuring members of this band rocked my world each year for the latter half of the decade. Whether it be Wolf Parade proper, Sunset Rubdown, or Handsome Furs, the voices of Wolf Parade became maybe the most lasting sound of The Zeros. Of all the incarnations, the first is still the best and most powerful. From the ruckus opening of 'You Are A Runner and I Am My Fathers Son' to the rumbling slow burn of 'This Heart's on Fire', Apologies to the Queen Mary is a bold mold of what rock in the 21st century is and will be. Infectious, raw, dirty, and unique in nearly every way. You can still hear Apologies rocking in my car at least a couple times a month to this day, and the way I burn through music that is saying something.

Grounds For Divorce - Wolf Par...

14.) Spoon - Girls Can Tell (2001)

Simply Spoon at their best, and it is because it is Spoon at it's simplest and most straightforward. The songs shuffle and throb, and the vocals cut and dance across the guitar jabs, marching bass, and twinkling organ. There is no other Spoon album I can readily listen to at anytime, and few that I can actually get through from start to finish. Girls Can Tell is the only one that I would outwardly recommend to anyone. A band that should be more popular than they are, and a band who's popularity stems from some of their lesser works. Any modern music fan should listen to Girls Can Tell, and try not to fall for it like a high school crush. I dare you.

Believing Is Art - Spoon

13.) Menomena - Friend and Foe (2007)

Easily the most underrated and sadly unknown album of The Zeros, and if you need any further proof, Friend and Foe isn't even on LaLa which is pretty crazy. The Zeros were the decade that the Flaming Lips rose to prominence and the sad thing is Menomena should have been getting all that hype (at least from a musical prospective). Don't believe that statement? Listen to Friend and Foe, and then listen to the Flaming Lips new album and you'll see it took the Lips a few more years to get to the same place. Friend and Foe is weird, but accessible, artistic but listenable. On top of everything, the cover is possible the best of the decade (especially the vinyl with the spin wheel).

Menomena - Wet And Rusting from CitySlang on Vimeo.

12.) Sleater-Kinney - One Beat (2002)
There is a furry to One Beat that some say stems from the post 9/11 mindset, and while there are references to post 9/11 issues I would argue that there is something deeper. One Beat burns on the fuel of human societal interaction, be it political, communal, or sexual. I mean take the overtly sexual cover, and explain that using 9/11 as an inspiration. One Beat is the case study of the human psyche in general during The Zeros, and it buries it in fear, anger, confusion, and raw nervous emotion. One Beat should be taught in high school social studies classes, and studied for what it is...The Zero cliff notes.

One Beat - Sleater-Kinney

11.) Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica (2000)
There is a reason that while The Moon and Antarctica isn't the album that broke Modest Mouse, it is the album that all the critics are putting on their end of the decade lists. Because it's their best...period. You're frat brother, or you're urban hippie sister might disagree, but that's because they are stupid and don't know any better. The Moon is epic, expansive, while at the same time remaining intimate and tortured. While I did blast Modest Mouse two major label albums, and still fucking love them, nothing and I mean nothing compares to the feel and power of The Moon and Antarctica. Issac Brock wants to go back to this time in his life, and you can see it in their recent EP, but this is one of those albums that you just simply can't recreate. The Moon and Antarctica is and can never be again.

Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes - Mo...

10.) Jay Z - The Blueprint (2001)
For whatever it is worth, without The Blueprint there would be no Kanye West. That's a giant claim for The Blueprint. Jay Z is great, he is one of those artist that has transcended his genre, but without The Blueprint you could argue there would be no modern day Jay Z. The Blueprint separated Jay from the Nas's, Ja Rules, and DMX's of the time and put him on a podium that hadn't even been approached since the death of Big and Pac. The only hip hop album I see as an important part of the modern music landscape, The Blueprint is the blueprint for how to make hip hop equal parts radio friendly, street savvy, and artistic statement. Long live Jay, even if he never releases another Blueprint (I don't mean in name, I mean in quality).

Heart Of The City (Ain't No Lo...

9.) Miracle Fortress - Five Roses (2007)
Magic. That is the best way to describe Miracle Fortress' Four Roses. The textures and layers wash over you like a spell, and then the harmonious vocals sweep you away. Another under received album, there is no better experience than listening to Four Roses as the world enters the rebirth of Spring with the windows down, the cool air on your skin, and colors of the plants as they shake off Winter's cruel embrace. "Next Train" IS MY FAVORITE SONG OF THE ZERO'S. There won't be a list for that, but now you know. Something about that song grabs me by the neck and throws me to the ground, maybe it's the vocals, the finger snaps, the flourishing chorus, the jaded lyrics, or the way the song explodes at the end. Whatever it is according to all my iPods and smartphones I've owned in The Zeros, there is no other song I have listened to more in this decade, and the second track is some 30 listens behind.

Next Train - Miracle Fortress

8.) The Libertines - Up the Bracket (2002)
If the Clash had been lazy, uninterested slackers they would have been The Libertines. What a disappointing band, and cock tease album. Up the Bracket set The Libertines up to be a powerhouse in the rock scene of The Zeros, and just as fast as Up the Bracket put them on the map drug habits and in fighting knocked them off. There is more pure energy and promise on Up the Bracket than almost all the other debut albums of The Zeros combined. No album of the decade was this sloppy, but at the same time tight and concise. Up the Bracket made we want to be a British hooligan, and the tabloid stories about the band that followed made me change my mind.

Up The Bracket - The Libertine...

7.) Elliott Smith - Figure 8 (2000)
What a sad, sad story Elliott Smith is. One of my favorite artist from the day when 16 year old me bought XO because it was dirty cheap at Best Buy, and I only had a 20 dollar gift card and wanted to buy two cds...budgeting has lead me finding some of my favorite albums ever. Figure 8 was somewhat of a disappointment when I first listened to it, driving home to Muhlenberg county from Owensboro the day it came out. I was YOUNG then. In the years that followed I listened again and again, and as I aged, matured, and experienced real heartbreak and depression Figure 8 opened itself up to me. On the day I heard that Smith had stabbed himself twice in the chest, I put on Figure 8 and it was terrifying. Smith was tortured, and Figure 8 his Smith's attempt to explain himself. 'Everything Means Nothing to Me' is still hard for me to listen to. A pop sensibility that is rarely seen in singer song writers, Smith made the darkest and most listenable pop suicide note of all time, and he wrote 3 years before his death. From the sound of Figure 8, it was three years longer than he expected.

Son Of Sam - Elliott Smith

6.) D'Angelo - Voodoo (2000)
Easily my favorite R&B/Soul album of all time. With all do respect to the greats, but Motown lacks the raw intensity and beastly sexuality that Voodoo boasts. Possibly the only modern R&B album to be made with a live band, and songs that expand and grow like the genre seldom sees, Voodoo is scary, hot, and bothered. D'Angelo please come back and save your genre, and give us some more of that silky mumbling voice. The love making album of the decade, Voodoo takes a look at everything from greed, sin, and love to well of course sex. The sex of Voodoo comes from the groove created by ?uestlove and company, that feels like a pounding, wavy water bed. Voodoo needs to make a comeback, and kill all these auto-tune wanna-bes, because the world needs it now more than ever.

Devil's Pie (Explicit) - D'Ang...

5.) Daft Punk - Discovery (2001)
Who knew the future would sound so much like the disco of the 70's, Daft Punk did. Following their break through Homework, Daft Punk dropped the rough and loop driven dance music for light and hooky electro-disco. You could argue that Discovery is the lamest album to come out in The Zeros, and really you would probably be right. The lyrics as sugary cheese, the synths are slightly dated, and Discovery led to an animated electopera love story set in space about a made up intergalactic band. For all that it has against it, the one thing you can say is that Discover predicted and preceded what the musical landscape would resemble in the few years that followed it. Look across the board, and you will see the synths that Discovery was boasting in 2001 were the synths that over took newly every genre, the cheesy lyrics foretold the coming sentimental rebirth that sensitive indie kids wrought on the world, and well animated electoperas aren't common place yet, but give it time. Nothing gets the party started like Discovery, and no album grew on a generation like Discovery which actually didn't get its rightful love until around 2007 when Daft Punk was everyone's sudden favorite band.

Aerodynamic - Daft Punk

4.) Califone - Roots and Crowns (2006)
Folk music rarely sounds like experimental music, but in the hands of Califone you could argue that experimental music sounds like folk music. Never mentioned in all the 'freak-folk' hoopla, and for good reason, Califone weren't personally freak characters but rather let their music be the freak. In comparison, every freak-folk artist sounds tradition. The songs on Roots + Crowns are traditional folk songs at heart, but it's the body of the songs that makes them more. The songs grew, they bubble, and get lost in the noise. No album of The Zeros is more dizzying and percussive. Roots + Crowns masks it's straight forwardness in the glow of it's other worldliness, and as a result makes for the kind of journey in which the best parts happen when you get lost off the beaten path. Sadly under appreciated, Roots + Crown is a seminal and important piece of work that will reverberate throughout music for years to come, and influence artist masses will love in generations to come.

Black Metal Valentine - Califo...

3.) Kathleen Edwards - Failer (2003)
I have my music crushes that come and go, but none have been so equally precieved because of looks AND music. Kathleen Edwards is possibly my favorite female artist of all time, and she makes country music, how about that. Failer is heartbreaking, outlaw baiting, and hits me in my roots like no other album before. A country boy by upbringing, I have to say that Kathleen Edwards is the only person who made real honest to goodness country music this decade. I can't even begin to explain my love for Failer, because it's almost impossible to make anyone really understand. The songs are raw and unpolished, and the lyrics makes me want to move back to a small town and open a diner. The lyrics of "Six O'Clock News", the opening track, explain best what I love about Kathleen Edwards. It's a song about a woman who watches her lover (and father of her recently created baby) in a stand off with police on the six o'clock news, SPOILER, and all she can do is watch him get gunned down and do nothing about it. That is Failer in a nut shell, broken characters at rock bottom and the point that breaks them. Jesus I love this album.

One More Song The Radio Won't ...

2.) Radiohead - Kid A (2000)
What can I say about this album that every end of the decade list hasn't already. Well I can explain that it isn't my #1 because well it's not my favorite album of the decade. It may be the most important, the most musically advanced, and the most singularly decade defining, but it didn't mean as much to me as my #1, it doesn't hold the same place in my heart. Kid A is the most important album of the decade because it defined how music would be made for the entirety of The Zeros. Give it one listen and you will see that it is leaps and bounds more musically advanced, deep, and overwhelming than any album of the decade. That is exactly why Kid A is #1 on everyone else's lists, here is why Kid A is #2 on mine...

The National Anthem - Radiohea...

1.) Iron and Wine - The Creek Drank the Cradle (2002)
While Kid A can claim it's importance and what not, the place it holds in my heart is a technical one...Kid A defined what would be "good" music for me for The Zeros. The Creek Drank the Cradle filled a far more important, and vital place in my heart...an emotional one. The specific emotion I can't exactly explain, but I will say that listening to it is a beautiful feeling similar to listening to Grace or XO. The Creek Drank the Cradle is a Southern lulaby, the kind that you put on in the Summer as the sun is setting and the humdity is thick, with the windows open and the locusts chirp you fall asleep to the feeling of home. It's muffled, its homemade, and most of all it is warm. Each song is personal, and intimate in a way that Sam Beam hasn't even been able to recreate. No album this decade could so easily bring me to welcomed tears like The Creek Drank the Cradle can, and it is simply because the atmosphere it creates is something that is written in my soul and upbringing. It reminds of the back road of Muhlenberg county, the stars reflecting off the lake, it reminds me of the trails my father and I used to walk, and it reminds me of the smell of a campfire late at night, and all without every literally being a part of any of those situations. The Creek Drank the Cradle unlike so many other albums is not tied to specific events, but rather it transends time in my life and takes to places it has never been through sound and emotion alone. The haze of the production is the humidity, the twang of the guitar and banjo is the accent, and the whispered voice is the cool quite breeze that keeps small town South sane despite all of its flaws. I have long claimed that The Creek Drank the Cradle is one of my top 5 favorite albums of all time, and most people think I'm crazy but there is a romance in music that I cannot readily explain, but that jolts me with hope and fear in a way few records could ever imagine doing. The Creek Drank the Cradle is a four-track love story of who I feel I am, and want to be going forward in life.

Upward Over The Mountain - Iro...

Foreverness!

2010-01-10T21:22:00.002-06:00

Is it 1995 or what? Mos Def recently put out a video for the song "History" from his killer album The Ecstatic. The only problem with the song "History" is that it isn't on a new Blackstar album. Talib shows up in the middle of the track, and the feeling of "damn I miss Blackstar" is overwhelming. Add to it the throwback black and white video, and you have yourself a song and video that will take you right back to the time when you could actually watch videos on MTV just before you rushed off to hop on the bus to school. I'm sure it's a good thing that Blackstar only grace us with a track here and there because the expectations for a full length Blackstar album would just simply be too heavy, and we'd all be crushed. That being said, let the nostalgia roll...

Mos Def - New Music - More Music Videos

Go Pack!

2010-01-10T15:00:00.000-06:00

My boys, the Green Bay Packers make their first post-Benedict Farve playoff appearence. I honor of the event, here is the HORRIBLE, I mean make you ears bleed from terribleness, theme song that plays at Lambeau Field...No seriously like every 6 plays. Hope we play better than this song today. Go Pack!

The Zeros -- Top Fifty Albums of the 2000's (30-16)

2010-01-09T12:47:00.007-06:00

Round Two! Fight!

30.) Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker
Ah to have this Ryan Adams back would be a delight. Made one more decent album, and then began to rot from the inside out. You continuing Adams idolizers need your ears fixed.

Damn, Sam [I love a woman that...

29.) Burial - Untrue
Like Roni Size's New Forms in the 90's, Untrue has the best shot at remaining the most listenable electronic album for sometime to come.

Etched Headplate - Burial

28.) Beck - Sea Change
The definition of heartbreak and lose. One of the more compelling back stories of any album, and the album I'll listen to if I ever get married and then divorced.

It's All In Your Mind - Beck

27.) The Walkmen - You + I
No album has ever grown on me the way You + I has. Good the first time, great a year later, and I toyed with the idea of a Top 10 spot when I listened to it two days ago. Amazing, epic, and subtle, You + I is an album I'll be listening to for decades to come.

Donde Esta La Playa - The Walk...

26.) Danger Mouse - The Grey Album
The illegal album that put the Producer of the Decade on the map, and made mash-ups an art, not just a lame digital mishap.

Download Mixtape | Free Mixtapes Provided by DatPiff.com

25.) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell
Probably one of the roughest and rawest albums of the decade, with a centerpiece that is sad, fragile, and forlorn.

Date With The Night - Yeah Yea...

24.) The Strokes - Is This It?
Like so many in my generation, this is the album that made me a hipster prick. Is This It? and Wes Anderson made pretense the staple of my generation. The banned in America cover (below) is still on of the coolest, most rock n roll cover ever.

Is This It - The Strokes

23.) Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
Probably one of my most listened to albums of all time, Turn on the Bright Lights brings to mind images from every place I've ever lived, job I've ever hated, and girl I've ever dated in The Zeros.

Stella was a diver and she was...

22.) Desaparecidos - Read Music/Speak Spanish
Emo-power-pop-punk by Conor Oberst, and the album that really made me rethink corporate America and it's place in my world. (Especially considering I was slaving away for American Eagle when I got into this album.)

Mall of America - Desaparecido...

21.) Outkast - Stankonia
Most expansive and important hip hop album to drop while I've been alive, and listenable to this day.

I'll Call B4 I Cum - Outkast w...

20.) Kathleen Edwards - Asking For Flowers
Maybe my favorite artist of the decade. Would call her the female Ryan Adams, but he's actually the male Kathleen Edwards in my world.

Oil Man's War - Kathleen Edwar...

19.) The Notwist - Neon Golden
The Postal Service, with more talent, staying power, and quality.

Trashing Days - The Notwist

18.) The Shins - Oh, Inverted World
An all seasons album, Oh, Inverted World gives me a different feeling and atmosphere depending on the season.

The Past and Pending - The Shi...

17.) Drive By Truckers - The Dirty South
Reminds me of home, the album I listened to 1 out of every 3 times I drove back to Muhlenberg County since moving away.

Tornadoes - Drive-By Truckers

16.) Sleater-Kinney - The Woods
A band I got into tragically late, but at least I got to see them live before they went on "hiatus".

Entertain - Sleater-Kinney

Well folks, that just leaves 15-1, and that will take some time to put together because I plan to devote more than a few sentences to each. So soon the Top of the Top will be known...patience.

The Zeros -- Top Fifty Albums of the 2000's (50-31)

2010-01-07T08:34:00.010-06:00

Snow got me out of traveling all across this glorious state today, so I figured I would get this business started. If I tried to do this as on big list it would just be too daunting, and a few different posts gives you more reason to return. The Zero's or O's were arguably the most important decade in my musical listening growth. That is not to say it was a better decade than the 80's or 90's (though it may be in some respects), but it was the decade when people my age were making the music I loved. The Zeros were the decade in which the music that was coming out was my music, the music intended to attract my generation, and create our musical identity. There are sounds and movements that I simply couldn't get into (i.e. Animal Collective, lo-fi), but that have a very important place in the musical landscape of my generation, but not on this list. These are my favorite albums. These are the albums that I listened to over and over, and will continue to listen to over and over for the rest of my life. These are the albums that I studied for college finals to, went to my high school's prom to, got my first real job to. These are the albums that I turned to in times of great loss, both personal and national, and these are the albums that helped me make sense of all that was going on around me. These are my albums, each for different haunting and fantastic reasons. These are the albums that will elicit specific, though not always crystal clear, images of times that made me who I am. The final three years of the 90's pointed me in my musical listening direction, and The Zeros were the final destination. With no further ado, the albums that were the soundtrack of my first decade as a legal adult.

50.) Gorillaz - Demon Days
Nothing says The Zero's than a side project band of cartoons that make funky electro pop songs.

November Has Come - Gorillaz

49.) Justin Timberlake - FutureSex/LoveSounds
Only the late great Michael Jackson was able to so effectively shake the boy band label like this album did for Justin Timberlake. Dance Party!

FutureSex/LoveSound - Justin T...

48.) Queens of the Stone Age - Rated R
Stoner rock from a time when that was exactly what I was looking for.

Better Living Through Chemistr...

47.) Wale - The Mixtape About Nothing
Best mixtape in a decade when hip hop went back to it's mixtape roots. Made Wale my favorite rapper ever.

Nike Boots - Wale

46.) Brokeback - Look at the Birds
Nothing will remind me of late late night study sessions, and last minute paper writing like this underrated Thrill Jockey release.
(Sorry no stream go to Thrill Jockey to check them out.)

45.) Bruce Springsteen - The Rising
I will forever be a Boss fan, and no album of the decade better captures the post 9/11 sense of loss and hope than The Rising.

The Rising (Album Version) - B...

44.) PJ Harvey - Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
Harvey took the edge off for one album, and created her most beautiful and easy to listen to album.

The Mess We're In - PJ Harvey

43.) Death Cab for Cute - Transatlanticism
From the first note I am instantly transported back to the American Eagle stockroom in Owensboro, and it is a wonderful feeling.

A Lack Of Color - Death Cab fo...

42.) Bjork - Vespertine
One of the few 90's acts to carry over in a significant way, well at least for the first 3/4 of the decade.

It's Not Up To You - Björk

41.) Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Wonderful back story, and musically expansive for the band, but just not as seminal as most would have you believe.

Jesus, etc. (LP Version) - Wil...

40.) Kanye West - College Dropout
Oh Kanye, how I wish you could go back to a time when you rapped and I didn't hate. Sorry you just can't.

The New Workout Plan - Kanye W...

39.) Bright Eyes - Lifted or the Story is in Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
Once Conor Orbest was the emo king of the world, and then like so many of my generation (myself included) he fancied himself a cowboy and lost something.

Bowl of Oranges - Bright Eyes

38.) TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Still curious to see how this band's work will age, but regardless it was very very important in it's time.

I Was A Lover - TV On The Radi...

37.) The Streets - Original Pirate Material
Tony Hawk 3, Bowling, smoking, and sledding after midnight in a small town...what a weird set of images such a distinctly British and bizarre album conjures.

The Irony Of It All - The Stre...

36.) MIA - Kala
I didn't get MIA for awhile, but I sure did get her well before Jay Z and his boys did for whatever that means.

The Turn - M.I.A.

35.) Radiohead - In Rainbows
Time will tell if the hype surrounding this album will really change the face of music distribution, but regardless Radiohead's best straight forward album in over 10 years.

Bodysnatchers - Radiohead

34.) The Avalanches - Since I Left You
One of the few groups that I wish I could do what they do. Complex and original, without a single original note.

Since I Left You - The Avalanc...

33.) Arcade Fire - Funeral
Amazing upon release, more moving than any thing in the decade at the time, but for me time is not being so kind on this release.

Neighborhood #2 (Laika) - Arca...

32.) The Roots - Phrenology
One of the most flawlessly executed hip hop albums of the decade. I'm still not sure how Jimmy Fallon pulled it off.

Quills - The Roots

31.) My Morning Jacket - At Dawn
The first band I literally watched blowup and go "mainstream". At Dawn still stands as a prime example of everything that is currently wrong with this once promising band.

Phone Went West - My Morning J...

30-whatever I feel like doing coming soon.

Listening Habits

2010-01-04T21:02:00.006-06:00

For whatever reason, people go through listening phases. You know you'll spend one whole week listening to the dirtiest gangsta rap, before going on a month long classic country kick, only to follow that with a few days of sad-sad singer songwriter mess. Well for whatever reason I've been in this grungy-pop-drone-ish rock phase. I recently gave two much discussed early eighties and nineties bands a listen, and now I can't stop listening to several of their albums. Galaxie 500 and Luna are two of the many bands that Pandora has recently turned me onto, and although I've been reading about how they influenced this band or that for most of my life I had never really paid attention...my lose I guess. Cool facts, the guitar player for Galaxie 500 founded Luna following the break up of the former, and the drum kit played on the early Galaxie 500 albums (including the song below) was Conan O'Brien's, a classmate from Harvard. The other band is an old Louisville band called The Pennies that Velocity talked about a few months ago, but I didn't really care to hear until ear-xtacy had their debut on the front counter for $1.99. Anyway...always good to hear some new nineties rock. Almost done with my Top 50 albums of the 00's, expect it by weeks end.

Slash Your Tires - Luna

Blue Thunder - Galaxie 500

The Pennies...as always no stream for Louisville bands...wish I could.

The Zeros -- Top Twenty Films of the 2000's (Well Technically 22)

2009-12-31T16:43:00.014-06:00

So as anyone who read the first incarnation of Three Minute Record, or anyone who actually knows me can tell you...I love my lists. I was inspired the other day looking a my friend over at The Look-See's blog to actually post a list I've been mentally compiling all decade...my Top 20 Favorite Films of the 2000's. As always my lists are my favorite, and in no way imply quality but rather which I like best. I'm selfish like that...

20.) Man on Wire (2008)
There had to be a documentary on the list, and there is no more entertaining doc than Man On Wire.

19.) Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
A love triangle between Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna, and a gorgeous middle aged woman...what else do you need.

18.) Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)
The standard barer for fantasy trilogies...should be the only one.

17.) Lost in Translation (2003)
From the opening frame this film had my attention, and never let go.

16.) Sugar (2009)
My favorite baseball (maybe sports) film ever made, does Lost in Translation one better in alienation and devastation.

15.tie) Sideways (2004)/Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
The Buddy Flick and Romantic Mind Fuck of the decade.

14.) The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

The new Bond standard...even in a decade that saw a much needed Bond revamp.

13.) Don't Come Knocking (2005)
Wim Wenders' beautiful, aching, and underrated road trip western of redemption and reconnection.

12.) The Dark Knight (2008)
I don't even have to explain this one.

11.) City of God (2002)
The film Slumdog Millionare wishes it was.

10.) Kill Bill Volume 2 (2004)
Better than the first volume, because it actually feels like a Tarantino film.

9.) Punch Drunk Love (2002)
No film this decade did more with color, sound, and Adam Sandler's inner rage than this one.

8.) O' Brother Where Art Thou? (2000)
The Coen's best, in a strong year for the Coens.

7.) Amores Perros (2000)
The most brutal and haunting film of the decade.

6.) Almost Famous (2000)
Greatest Rock n' Roll film in history.

5.tie) Pan's Labyrinth (2006)/The Devil's Backbone (2001)
The only two reasons I'm psyched about the upcoming Hobbit films.

4.) Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Fun and sad all at the same time...not an easy achievement.

3.) Spirited Away (2001)
Still the best animated film ever made in my opinion.

2.) Childern Of Men (2006)
A Sci-Fi flick with more humanity than science or fiction.

1.) There Will Be Blood (2007)
One of my favorite films of all-time. Daniel Plainview is the greatest ruthless businessman since Charles Kane. PT Anderson created the most ruthless and wrenching film in a decade that was an exercise in violence, shock, and awe. Simply brilliant, and one of the few films of the decade that will only grow more resonant in the coming years and decades.

DRAINAGE! I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE! Top Albums of the Decade coming soon.

Let's Try This One Last Time...TMR The Rebirth Part 2...Top 20 of 2009!

2009-12-30T13:42:00.010-06:00

End of the year list will always bring me back to blogging. With that said, let's see how long it lasts. Here at least are my Top 20 Albums of 2009. Enjoy.

20.) St. Vincent - Actors

Marrow - St. Vincent

19.) The Rural Alberta Advantage - Hometown

Sleep All Day - The Rural Albe...

18.) Thao with the Get Down Stay Down - Know Better Learn Faster

Body - Thao with The Get Down ...

17.) Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Lasso - Phoenix

16.) Micachu + the Shapes - Jewellery

Just In Case - Micachu

15.) Fever Ray

When I Grow Up - Fever Ray

14.) Handsome Furs - Face Control

Evangeline - Handsome Furs

13.) Mos Def - The Ecstatic

Quiet Dog - Mos Def

12.) YACHT - See Mystery Lights

Psychic City (Voodoo City) - Y...

11.) Girls - Album

Lauren Marie - Girls

10.) Woods - Songs of Shame

To Clean - Woods

9.)The Deloreans - Love Outrageous
(Louisville band that isn't on Lala, so no track for them. Sorry.)

8.) Panama! 2

La Murga De Panama - Papa Bran...

7.) Wale - Attention Deficit

90210 - Wale

6.) Califone - All My Friends Are Funeral Singers

Buñuel - Califone

5.) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!

Dull Life - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

4.) Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer

Black Swan - Sunset Rubdown

3.) Louisville Is For Lovers Volume 9(No Louisville For Lovers stream either)

2.) The Flaming Lips - Embryonic

Watching The Planets - The Fla...

1.) Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
Veckatimest is just simply too good. Sad, sweet, and beautiful. Breaks my heart every time I listen to it.

I'm Back! and a Califone Review

2009-10-10T00:45:00.006-05:00

Look I've been gone awhile, and really it's just because I became overly burnt out with the whole blog process. Now following nearly a whole year of pondering my return...it's finally time. In defense of my sanity I will try my best to shorten the process, but really I'm back because I love spelling out in detail what an album or song makes me feel or think. I'm about to start a new career, I'll finally have more time to listen to full records, and I just need that outlet. So lets get things started with a review of the new Califone album All My Friends Are Funeral Singers. Hope I didn't stray so far you won't come back, and to those who did return...thanks, it means a lot.

Califone
All My Friends Are Funeral Singers
(2009)
Rating: 9

From the outset of Califone's newest album, it is clear that there is something new and mechanical happening here. AMFAFS remains the dizzying mind-bending folk record that Califone has come to master over the past decade, but there is an expansion of soundscape and melodic nature afoot that is welcomed, nay necessary. There is no real, or at least obvious, overarching concept to the album despite the fact it is a soundtrack of sorts to a film of which it shares a name and creator. AMFAFS is concise and warm, while the percussive and disarming musical approach is easily the most accessible of the Califone catalog. Opening track 'Giving Away The Bride' is jumpy and catchy in a literally clear way Califone tends to shy away from. '1928' is sad, electric, and chanting; while 'Funeral Singers' is as close to by-the-books folk AMFAFS is ever able to muster, all acoustics and banjos until the song breaks free at around the half way point. 'Bunuel' is the catchiest and most sing-along ready track to be found, if for no other reason than simply saying a name like Luis Bunuel is plain fun, oh and it has lyrics like "Luis Bunuel made bullets and guns at home to pass the time away/with careful fingers and eyes getting old/smoking the whole time". The stand out track, however, has to be 'Ape-like'...I mean hell I made it my ringtone. 'Ape-like' starts strong and ends strong, strummin' stompin' and expandin' all the way through. Califone must have understood the power of the song because it is used as the backing track to the All My Friends Are Funeral Singers film trailer. While AMFAFS never truly reaches the artful dreamlike levels of Califone's masterwork Roots and Crowns, AMFAFS is an easier listen and has a much higher replay factor. Following the power of Roots and Crowns it would have been easy, and maybe even expected, for Califone to stumble on the next go round, but All My Friends Are Funeral Singers is a damn good showing and none too soon.

All My Friends Are Funeral Singers Trailer from Califone on Vimeo.

Thirty-Two Favorite Albums of 2008

2008-12-01T23:43:00.019-06:00

Let it be said from the very beginning that this is a favorite list...not a best list. Who can really determine what is best? I'll leave that to the "professionals", all I can do is tell you what I liked. I'm gonna keep it rather short (and early) this year. I may have lost that bloggin' feelin'. However, I would never miss a chance to release an albums list in December. So with no further haste, My 32 Favorite Albums of 2008.

32. Brightblack Morning Light - Motion to Rejoin

31. Girl Talk - Feed the Animals

30. Throw Me the Statue - Moonbeams

29. Hecules and Love Affair

28. Alejandro Escovedo - Real Animals

27. Nick Cave - Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!

26. Air France - No Way Down EP

25. The Kills - Midnight Boom

24. The Cool Kids - Bake Sale /That's Stupid Mixtape

23. Jay Z and Chief Sneed - Native American Gangster

22. The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust

21. Crystal Castles

20. The Notwist - The Devil, You + Me

19. The Black Keys - Attack + Release

18. Portishead - Third

17. Ratatat - Remixes Volume Two

16. Love Is All - A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night

15. The Roots - Rising Down

14. The Hold Steady - Stay Positive

13. Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III

12. Black Mountain - In the Future

11. Wale - Mixtape About Nothing

10. Beck - Modern Guilt

9. The Walkmen - You + Me

8. Okkervil River - The Stand Ins

7. Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

6. Vampire Weekend

5. David Vandervelde - Waiting for the Sunrise

4. Blitzen Trapper - Furr

3. TV on the Radio - Dear Science

2. Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson

1. Kathleen Edwards - Asking For Flowers

The Cheapest Key - Kathleen Edwards

If Springsteen were a strong feisty woman he would be Kathleen Edwards. I'm sure there will be a lot of blah blah about this pick, but whatever, I like what I like. For those you who take issue with Kathleen at number one...wait until you see her put three albums way up on the decade in review list...the most consistently excellent female artist of this decade and long due.

Other Honors:

Favorite Reissue:

Julie Doiron - Loneliest in the Morning

Favorite Discoveries:

Elton John - Tumbleweed Connection

Sonny Rollins - Way Out West

Most Listened To Songs of 2008 via iPod (doesn't include the milli of times I heard every song from Lil Wayne on local hip hop radio at work)

1. The Cool Kids "Oscar the Grouch"

2. Vampire Weekend "Walcott"

3. Love Is All "Wishing Well"

4. Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson "Buriedfed"

5. Blitzen Trapper "Black River Killer"

6. Wolf Parade "Call It Ritual"

7. Matt and Kim "Daylight"

8. Vampire Weekend "Oxford Comma"

9. Women "Black Rice"

10. Wolf Parade "Language City"

Well that's all the time we have for now. Next time I get to do this...I will really go all out it's the end of the decade list baby (I've been compiling the short list for 8 years now...I'm getting ready)...so here's to next year.

Mood Music For the Fall

2008-09-10T15:45:00.000-05:00

The Walkmen - You & Me
(2008)
Rating: 9.0

I'm not a fan of The Walkmen. I've only heard a few songs, never made it all the way through an album, and can only name or claim to like maybe two songs even a little bit. So when all the hype started spinning around this new album shortly before its release, I wasn't caught up and really had no plan to ever listen to an of it. Then the other day the video for the track "In The New Year" was posted online, and I instantly thought, 'What's up with indie kids and making songs about New Years...I guess I better check it out." I was instantly smitten, and what shocked me most was that I was actually more smitten with the song than the video. The driving beat, throbbing bass, haunted house organ, and indie rock Rod Stewart vocals stopped me in my place, and I had to hear the entire album. You & Me is the moody pulsing album that comes along each year that grows and grows on you as the weather gets colder and colder. The opening track 'Donde Esta la Playa' has a bass line or guitar riff (I can't decide which) that sounds more textured than any guitar sound all year, and the fractured guitar that comes in is indie cookie cutter, and pops up only long enough to sound just slightly off enough to make the song one of my favorites of the year. The album then moves to a short instrumental called 'Flamingos (for Cobert)', and you get the understanding that this album is to be put on, let fill the room, and then soaked in--not listened to. Then the bass line of 'On The Water' pushes the album forward and instantly sucks you in...only to have 'In The New Year' step up next and seal the deal. The songs of You & Me are overly layered, in a way that makes them simple in a very complex way, and wonderful in a very simple way. The guitars are jangly (i.e. Interpol), such as on tracks like 'Seven Years of Holiday' and 'In the New Year', but are never the centerpiece of any given song. You & Me is a break up album, it's a hangover album, it's a make out album, it's a wine party album, it's a rainy day on the couch reading album, it's a driving in the dark with the windows down on a cool night album. The mood and environment created by You & Me is more important than the sound or songs of You & Me. You have to work at You & Me, but the end result is excessively rewarding and fulfilling. At fourteen tracks it could be argued that the album is too long, and that most of the tracks never stray very far from the tracks before or after, but I would argue that the latter is part of what makes it such a good album. You & Me is a sound and feeling, and if it were all over the map all of that would be lost in the constant jostling of noise. When horn sections, such as in 'Red Moon', appear it is like a New Orleans funeral precession for the saddest man in town. I'm a FAN of a horn section, and The Walkmen's execution of sorrowful marches is among my favorite aspects of You & Me. The vocals can sometimes be overbearing, but there is a crack that breaks out in Hamilton Leithauser's voice that really does remind me of Rod Stewart from time to time, and I plain and simply love it. Considering I just start listening to this album last week, and the weatherman says that temperatures should be cool for the next few weeks I can all ready tell you that You & Me is going to grow into one of my favorites of the year. There is just something about those albums that make you feel like the fall season, and the emotion that they pull from you. I can't wait!
Canadian Girl

In The New Year

The Man...The Legend...D'Angelo!

2008-09-06T18:40:00.002-05:00

R&B is a lost genre. It got lost a few years ago when it's only modern genius fell on some super hard times. D'Angelo has made the only two R&B albums I can ever listen to all the way through, and Voodoo is one of my favorite albums of all time. Over the past seven years D slipped into obscurity due to a substance battle and bad turn after bad turn. Then early this week word got around to me that there was a new D'Angelo song floating around. My first reaction was surely not, I mean I'm more prepared to believe the man died than is making new music. Believe it or not...there is a new D'Angelo song floating around. Little is known about the track, debates rage over whether it is a demo or not, if D has a new album in the works, is his voice gone from years of abuse. All that is known is that ?uest Love apparently leaked this new track the other day, and D has put on some POUNDS since the 'Untitled' video (I'll save him the disgrace of showing that off...you can look it up yourself). Here is the new track, I hate the guy talking over it, but whatever...it's new D'Angelo. Here's begging and praying that D'Angelo will rise up and place the crown of R&B on his rightful dreads.
Really Love

You Should Name Your Horse Something Macho...Like John Wilkes Booth.

2008-09-04T23:40:00.003-05:00

So I just got done watching the best B, maybe even C, Movie I've ever seen. It's a "rock and roll western", made by a few super super super small bands. The movie is called The Legend of God's Gun, and it is funny for all the reasons B-Movies are supposed to be: the acting is laughable, the story line is outrageous, and it has a sense of humor about itself. Visually The Legend of God's Gun is amazingly trippy, and it makes you wonder how long it took sitting at a computer in post-production tweaking and adding ridiculous effects. I recommend it to anyone who loves: B-movies, rock and roll, western, or something crazy to watch when you are stoned. If you like all these things rush out and find The Legend of God's Gun. It's at Wild and Wooly in the Ville, for everyone else good luck in your search...it's that underground. Here are two music videos that are featured in The Legend of God's Gun. The first is a video for an amazing song that runs during the credits and is directed by the Mike Bruce who directed the movie. The song 'Devil's Playground' is performed by a Cali group called Gram Rabbit, who apparently play wacked out electronic music (I will be look more into this), and the video starts with actual parts of the movie before freaking out and leaving the movie behind while keeping some of it's tripped out imagery. To give you a real taste of what the movie looks like, the second video is for the song 'Conversation With A Gun' which actually plays in the middle of the movie as the 'Intermission'. In this video you will see all the main characters, and get an idea for both how funny and tripped out this movie is. Enjoy.

Gram Rabbit - Devil's Playground

Conversation With A Gun (From The Legend of God's Gun)

A Country State Of Mind

2008-09-03T23:30:00.003-05:00

As a young man who was brought up on country music, I from time to time find myself slipping back into a country state of mind. The past week has been a kind of super immersion with basically everything I listen to having some form of twang or another. I guess it started with a recent trip back to the homeland of Muhlenberg County, and my first introduction to The Byrds Sweetheart of the Rodeo. So here are a few selections I have been listening to lately, as a sort of reference for the next time you find yourself in a country state of mind.

The Byrds - Sweetheart of the Rodeo
How this album has escaped my listening radius for so long is beyond me, but not that I have gotten my hands on it I can't get enough. Twangy, folkie, and harmony-tastic this is a, if not the, masterpiece of the country/folk rock genre. I dedicate this song to my friend Jeremiah, who found a better life by becoming the songs narrator.
The Christian Life

WRKA - Country Legends 103.9 Louisville
I HATE modern country radio, and cry inside because I live in an area were all you get is bad country stations, bad hip hop stations, and bad classic rock stations (oh, wait, that is all of America now). However, I recently saw a billboard for a radio station that seemed right up my current listening alley, and boy was I right. WRKA is exactly what it says, the home of Country Legends, and listening to it in the car is one of the most fulfilling experiences I've had in the Ville. For instance, this morning on the way to work here was the playlist greeted my woeful journey: CCR - Bad Moon on the Rise, John Conlee- Friday Night Blues, and the always lovely Tammy Wynette - Stand By Your Man. Visit the site to listen live, and see for yourself just how far country music has fallen in the recent decade. Here is a silly, yet cool video for all of you who have no idea who John Conlee is or what the song Friday Night Blues is.
John Conlee - Friday Night Blues

David Vandervelde - Waiting For The Sunrise
Vandervelde is one of my favorite new faces on the music scene, and I'll make this short because I'm sure there is a full review of this album coming down the pipeline. Waiting For The Sunrise is the first new album I've ever heard for the first time on vinyl, and it couldn't have come at a better time. Vandervelde's debut found him channeling T.Rex and Bowie, but Waiting For The Sunrise finds Vandervelde living in Nashville and channeling Tyrannosaurus Rex and Gram Parsons. Modern twang for space aged cowfolks.
California Breezes

Elton John - Tumbleweed Connection
Yet another album I can't believe I never heard until recently. A country concept album of sorts, Tumbleweed Connection contains possibly all of my new favorite Elton John songs, as well as on that was already on the list 'My Fathers Gun'. The day my dad passes I will put this song on repeat and weep my eyes out. Tumbleweed Connection is bluesy, folkies, and saloonish with that twang you've been hearin' me talk about this whole post. Recently reissued check it out, you will not be disappointed.
Ballad of a Well Known Gun

Pieta Brown - Daytrotter Sessions
Pieta Brown is a little too polished and Sheryl Crowish on her studio albums, but her recent Daytrotter Session is moody, dark, and warm lost country night made of music. Each track could possibly make the soundtrack to the modern boarder romance that I've been dreaming up in my head, and as a whole the six track session it works as maybe the best country rainy day listening in recent memory. Check it out in it entirety and download all six track for FREE at Daytrotter.

In My Mind, I Was Talking To Loretta

See you later space cowboy.

TMR-TV: Crystal Castles - Crimewave

2008-08-30T17:28:00.006-05:00

Crystal Castles is the most punk rock of all electronic acts out today. Their songs are rough, jolting, and nerd all with an aura sexy and apathy. There are apparently two videos for the track "Crimewave", and considering this is one of the best tracks of the Summer (which ends Monday for Americans, but not planet Earth) and I think both videos are raw fantastic awesome I have decided to post both. Yesterday there was a Zombie Parade in the Ville, and as some friends of mine and I drove down Bardstown the zombie jokes were coming a mile a minute--often to fast to even reconsider is each was funny at all. Anyway the Za-mbie (hahaha) in the first video for this song is the epitome of sad emo zombie. The other video from "Crimewave" is a prime example of just what I think Crystal Castles sounds like, a drunken, slobbering, raunchy makeout-fest. One thing is for sure, Alice Glass is amazingly, overwhelmingly rocking roll sexy to me in this video in a burned into my fantasy mind kind of way--mesh and all. I will add for whatever reason that this is actually a remake of a song by the name HEALTH, but I think they suck so onward. "Crimewave" can be found on Crystal Castles debut album, and if you love or even like electro music it is one of those albums you can't miss. Watch the videos or half of each at least and see which is your favorite. Mesh is the new veil.

Crystal Castles - Crimewave (Crystal Castles VS. Health) | Music Videos | SPIKE.com

Crystal Castles Crimewave

TMR-TV: Mad Men Intro

2008-08-23T23:21:00.004-05:00

TMR is limping right now, and I'm not sure when or if I will give it the attention it needs. From here on out you may get random posts, followed by streams and waterfalls of posts, or for all I know this could be the last one I ever post. I simply have other things I've been doing, and well I feel like no reads it anyway so why bother... What brings me to TMR for this random post is the most amazing show I've seen in years. Everyone is talking about Mad Men, and everyone is just making sweet love to it in every review and reference I ever see, so I had to check it out. Mad Men is simply amazing. Period. It is the most well produced, thoroughly thought out, smart, hip, and beautifully entertaining shows I've seen, maybe ever. Now this is not to say that it is the best show of all time, but Mad Men is a period piece, and a study of a dying American generation told with vigor, romance, and unapologetic crass. The women are beautiful, the men are brash, and like Margarita says Mad Men makes you feel. There may be a lot of shows out there that are simply more entertaining, more suspenseful, or even more accessible, but no show on television is this good. Period. Jon Hamm as Don Draper is my new role model, idol, and man crush, and January Jones as Betty Draper is the new pin up housewife of my heart. The cast is simply pitch perfect in every sense and understanding, and the scripts and mood are timeless and vintage all at the same time. If you haven't seen Mad Men, go out...rent the first season...watch it all (the season finale is one of the best single shows I have ever seen). Then watch the first five episodes of this season online...trust me it's out there if you look hard enough (or you could just go to watchmadmen.org). Not since the Sopranos has television been this good or this important, and I'm surprised it's not an HBO show to fill its shoes. From the very open with its amazing James Bond-esqe intro to the closing credits, Mad Men never misses a beat. Here is the fantastic intro and its equally amazing RJD2 theme song, as well as one of my favorite scenes from season one (warning it starts with no picture, but it comes in after a few seconds)...Don Draper is god.
Intro

The Carousel

We Will Carry The Fire.

2008-08-01T11:57:00.012-05:00

Cormac McCarthy - The Road
(2006)
Rating: 9.8
Black Mountain - In The Future
(2008)
Rating: 9.1

Apparently, Cormac McCarthy's The Road is being made into a movie, and it could go one of two ways (all movies really): it could stay true to the book and be brilliant, or it could Hollywood it up and be miserable. My fear is that the latter will be the case, for the imagery of The Road lends itself well to film adaptations, but that's about it. According to IMDB's movie page the number of character is about right, and the description of the characters is about right, and the fact that none of them have proper names is exactly right. The thing about The Road is that in order for the film to work the way the book does, it will have to be virtually a silent film for a good portion of the film. 80% percent of the book is spent is silence as a father and son traverse the wasteland of end of days America. You see the ash that rains down at all time, the immense forests burned away to silhouettes of their former selves, and the corpses of those long forgotten like landmarks, mummified by the side of the road as reminders. The Road is dark and unforgiving in its look at what the world may soon become in the future. Which brings me to my soundtrack to The Road, Black Mountain's In The Future. In the Future is a prime example of not giving up on an album, and rediscovering it months later only to rejoyous in how amazing you now find it to be. In the Future is metal in a more thought provoking way than one might expect, and is sweeping and moving in ways metal seldom is. As I would read about the father and the son as they rushed into what was left of the woods to hideout from flesh eating hordes, Black Mountain would seemingly on cue stomp into vicious riffage. Yet when the father and son would eerily wander through a long unpopulated town searching each building for any scrap of food to be found, Black Mountain would settle into a dark and menacing movement of organ drone. What makes these two such excellent partners in human sorrow and lose is that the both seem to find a stark and searing beauty through all of the darkness. The world created by McCarthy is a damp grey world in which the sun and moon are permanently shut out, but from this harsh reality the innocence of the boy provides a somewhat naive, but ultimately touching sense of hope. Black Mountain keep it dark throughout, but it's the voice of Amber Webber (who blew my mind last year with Lightning Dust) that adds the slightest touch of angelic resurrection among the demons of tyrants and evil ways. The Road has one of the most heartbreaking and tear rendering endings I have ever read, while In the Future ends with 'Night Walks' which features Webber in a slow walk through and the acceptance of the darkness. As 'Night Walks' played and I read the last few pages I must admit that tears rolled down my face and I imagined a closing scene to a movie that the real life film will never be able to touch. The Road is one of the best piece of contemporary literature to date without a doubt, and is deserving of the Pulitzer it won like no Pulitzer Prize winning book that I have ever read. In The Future is fantastic and a true keeper of a metal album, but we will see how well time treats this Black Mountain opus. For all we know the end could be near, and I'll see you on the road.
Tyrants

Click! Wale.

2008-07-23T11:00:00.012-05:00

In the void that has become the hip hop scene, there is a desperate need for a savior to rise from these streets. Someone who can blow your mind lyrically, and even possibly sell a few milli records. Sure there is Wayne/Weezy/Whatever, but while he can make you laugh it's very very very very hard to take someone who drinks that much cough syrup and laughs at so many of his own rhymes seriously. From the nations capitol is rising the new intellectual voice of hip hop, and he goes by the name of Wale ("My names Wah-lay, don't say Wally"). On his two mixtapes 100 Miles and Running and the recent Mixtape About Nothing, Wale has paved the way to claiming the crown of best lyricist in the land. He's been on a Roots track (including my favorite line from the whole Roots album, "Some good rappers ain't eatin' they Olsen twinin'"), been of remix after remix (Justice, Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse), and caught the eye of the who's who of the music industry (Jay Z, Mark Ronson). Wale has done all of this while being unsigned (though he did recently sign to a division of Interscope), and unsigned by choice as he makes apparent on rhymes after rhyme. Wale wants to be more than hip hop has reduced itself to, he wants to be the voice of a generation and say something that means something. His track "The Kramer" from Mixtape About Nothing may be the most lyrically significant track of the year (I bet you can guess what it's about), and "The Perfect Plan" puts the blame for the death of hip hop right where it ought to be. Wale is the bright shining future for hip hop, and lets just hope that all those years spent unsigned keep him grounded when he finally drops his first real album. Go to his Myspace to download both 100 Miles and Running and Mixtape About Nothing for free. Click! Listener discretion is strongly advised!

The Kramer

The Perfect Plan

TMR-TV: The Showbiz Pizza Band - Love In This Club

2008-07-23T00:20:00.003-05:00

And here I thought it was hilarious watching Usher dance to this "banger" on SNL...Nevermind...this is the real funny. Words can't even express...go to youtube and check all the Showbiz Band Video. It gets old after awhile, but funny still. Here's The Showbiz Pizza Band playing Love In This Club...right here on TMR-TV.

TMR-TV: Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings - Live at Amoeba Record Store

2008-07-22T01:40:00.003-05:00

Had Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings been around some thirty or forty years ago we would be talking about them with the same reverence reserved for acts like Aretha, James Brown, and Billie Holiday. Lucky for us Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings are around right here and now, and while their influence by not be as far reaching as those who came before, musically I say they stand on equal footing. In this full length concert from Amoeba Record store in California, you get to see just what control, power, and emotion these funkin' soul revivalist really have. In classic soul form the band, who is tighter and more precise than any I've seen in some time, bandstand for a few to make for a grand entrance for the voice, the glue. Jones voice is crushing and never waivers as she and the band stomp through thirty minutes of songs that if you didn't know any better (and you might not) you would say were straight out of the 70's. With all these horrible acts like Amy Winehouse being lauded with honors for "reviving" soul/doo-op, it's good to see that there really is someone out there truly creating soul/doo-op, and doing so well. Go check out Amoeba's web page to find all kinds of cool full shows from bands you love. Here is Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings...Live from Amoeba Records...Right here on TMR-TV.

I Believe In Harvey Dent Too!

2008-07-21T18:12:00.004-05:00

Look you've read all about it...all over the interweb...the newspapers...seen it all over the television. Go see The Dark Knight. I mean seriously...GO SEE THE DARK KNIGHT! Sure Ledger steals the show, but Christopher Nolan is the true genius, and the rest of the cast is spot on. I'll say no more because this is a music site, and with that in mind here is some surf rock style Batman theme song for you to enjoy. It wouldn't really fit the mood of The Dark Knight, but I was still greatly missed. GO SEE THE DARK KNIGHT!!!
Batman Theme

One Track: Yoko Kanno - Tank!

2008-07-18T01:01:00.008-05:00

Tank! - The Seatbelts (written by Yoko Kanno)
(On Cowboy Bebop OST - 1998)

There are always songs that float through life, and you just want to tell people about them, but how? Well, Three Minute Record is proud to present an all new feature that will help to remedy this situation...at least for me. The new feature shall be call One Track, and it will be just that one track, and it comes with one super cool graphic of an old school slot car track to boot. To start One Track off is the song that is my favorite theme song to a TV series ever and one of my Top 5 favorite Jazz songs of all time. The track is called 'Tank!' and it is written by Yoko Kanno and performed by The Seatbelts, and is featured as the theme song to the best animated series ever Cowboy Bebop. I have recently began to rewatch this epic and amazing anime recently with Margarita, and every episode we must watch the Leone spaghetti western-eque intro simply because I just can't get enough of this track. What's more is that I went to see Once Upon A Time In The West last weekend, and they repeatedly played this song before the film started to my surprise and joy. I'm even trying to get the leader of the Jazz band I go see ever Wednesday night to listen to it so that they may one day learn to play it. While the Simpsons is the most important cartoon of all time, Cowboy Bebop is better in that it is twenty-six episodes that complete a whole story. Spike may be the coolest character ever created, and the storyline and characters are better than you'll find in any show not on HBO. American television should be made this way, and HBO should decide when they are going to end TV series like 'Deadwood' and 'Carnivale' so that they can be this powerful and moving without leaving you feeling cheated when the last season ends on a cliff hanger because it is cancelled. Anyway I just wanted everyone to hear this song, and wanted to get this new TMR feature arollin'. So here it is 'Tank!' by Yoko Kanno and played by The Seatbelts. Okay three, two, one lets jam!
Tank!

TMR-TV: Girl Talk - Shut the Club Down + Still Here

2008-07-18T00:43:00.003-05:00

I was never really a big Girl Talk fan, and was a despiser of mashups in general. Then along comes Girl Talk's amazing new album Feed the Animals, and I can see where the fun is in the whole game. Nothing beats sitting around trying to name all the songs you can hear in any given track on Feed the Animals. Because the new album focuses on rather modern tunes, it should make for quite a fun drinking game for kids of my age. Some crazy person on Youtube who goes by the name Bunnygreenhouse, has begun what will surely be a monumental task, and that is to create a video for each of the fourteen tracks on Feed the Animals by splicing together clips from each track sampled on each track. The result is genius and worthy of a watch just to see how well he cut these very different videos together. My favorite, which is my favorite track on the album, is 'Still Here' which features the always awesome 'No Diggity' video mixed with Kanye's crazy 'Flashing Lights' video and Radiohead Live from the Basement. The way it is cut to make it seem like Thom York is singing the "No Diggity!" is priceless. Watch and enjoy and go get the album which is available in the ever growing pay what you want format at Illegal Art. Now here are bootleg videos for Girl Talk tracks 'Shut the Club Down' and 'Still Here'...right here on TMR-TV. Viewer Discretion is advised.
Shut the Club Down

Still Here

The Most Divisive Band In The Land

2008-07-18T00:00:00.001-05:00

The Hold Steady - Stay Positive

(2008)

Rating: 9

One complaint some have levied at me over the time that I have written this blog is that it seems like I love everything. Truth be told there is very much, especially about this years crop of albums, that I despise and loathe. In my opinion, however, what is the point in wasting the precious time of one's life it takes to write a blog or message board comment about something you don't care to give the time of day in the first place. While this blog comes as a sort of retort to a friends recent blog, it really stems from reading message boards today and seeing just how many fools have nothing better to do with their lives than tear things they hate down (while other fools waste time defending that which they love). The title of this blog is a little deceiving because I would argue that The Hold Steady is tied with Vampire Weekend as the most divisive band in the land, but seriously go to any of the hipster rock rags and just look at the vulgar, adolescent battles that take place in the name of all things...bands. Furthermore, who cares if a rock rag gives a band you hate props if you bad mouth all rock rags as ignorant and a waste of time in the first place. I don't know a single music fan who truthfully puts any weight in the opinions of those who write reviews of anything, but if too many reviewers jump on board with a band they hate suddenly everyone is up in arms. Folks the beautiful thing about music is that some love something, and just as many people hate that very same thing. Music taste speech, in my opinion, should work much the same as capitalism, if you don't like something don't buy it or say anything about. The thing is, for each time you say something bad about something, you create a new fan who would have never checked a band out except to see what all the fuss is about. Like they always say there is no such thing as bad press. Now that I have made my rant, I will copy and paste it on to as many discussion boards as I can find, and move on to the real business of the day...The Hold Steady and Stay Positive. I love this album, and the one before it, and not so much the one before that, and I'm not sure if there are any before that. The thing is, everyone who rants and rails against The Hold Steady is exactly right...it's cheap, it's simple, and it's varying degrees of cheesy. What they fail to realize is THAT is exactly why so many people love The Hold Steady. In an age where pretense has become a way of life for any and every band, a group of geeky kids from the Midwest moved to the hipster haven of Brooklyn, and in the face of the multitudes of too cool for school scene kids remained a cheap and easy drunk of a rock band. It is refreshing to hear a band that blatantly cares not what anyone thinks of them, plays crude remakes of the music that inspired them, does so poetically, and just asks that the beers are cold and the double whiskey cokes come with no ice. Lyrically The Hold Steady are surpassed by none, and it's because they have learned to lose all the clutter and tell the story of a generation in a bare knuckles way that would level the parents of every person between the age 16 to 28 to tears. Anyone who can listen to a Hold Steady album and claim to have never lived some part of it is lying to themselves or simply isn't living in these days and times. Stay Positive is a continuation the tale of this lost generation, who will be left a shit world and from all I can tell crumble under its weight. 'One For The Cutter' is a must for any parent who has a child, especially a young woman, heading off to college. The tale of a girl who parties with townies when her college friends are busy is like something ripped from the life of everyone who went to school in a small college town. Craig Finn growls "When there weren't any parties, she'd park by the quarry, walk into the woods, until she came to a clearing, where townies would gather and drink until black out, smoke cigs til their sick, pack bowls and then passout." I know this situation from both sides of the track, and lived my college days for sometime: drink, smoke, smoke, sleep. All the while a harpsichord chimes adding a haunting effect to the tale of violence before bar band riffage clears the way for the truthfully crushing final declaration: "Mom do you know where your girl is, a sophomore acompliss in a turtleneck sweater. Dad do you know where your kids are, sniffin' that crystal in cute little cars, getting nailed against dumpster behind townie bars, it's a cute little town, boutiques and cafes. Her friends all seemed nice, and she was getting good grades, but she came home for Christmas, she just seemed distant and different." Through out Stay Positive, The Hold Steady repeatedly references what just may make them so beloved...they write sing along songs. The title track is a prime example with it's "oh oh oh you gotta stay positive"s and declaration "these sing along songs will be our scriptures". 'Stay Positive' is a wonderful expose of the down fall of a scene and the aging of a hipster. 'Joke About Jamaica' is the tale of many girls I know and have known who hate it when the boys start talking about rock and roll, and all the useless information that they had no idea even existed within the music. The Hold Steady close Stay Positive with one of the more telling tracks which suggests that there are certain places, actions, and situations that only have to be mentioned for family and friends to already know what happened next. Craig croaks "Don't drop little hints, I don't want them to guess. Don't mention Tampa, they'll just know all the rest. Don't mention blood shed, don't tell them it hurts. Don't say we saw angels, they'll take us straight to the church." While Radiohead is by far the most important band from a musical perspective of this generation, the importance of The Hold Steady is real and is ever growing, for someone must take record and tell our stories, especially the dark ones. For those of you who don't understand, The Hold Steady doesn't ask you to, they'll tell your story anyway. As Craig Finn says "There's gonna come a time when the true scene leaders, forget where they differ and get big picture!"

One For The Cutters

Stay Positive

Straight Flush Over Full House, A Hand For The Ages

2008-07-15T02:08:00.000-05:00

Rudolph Wurlitzer - The Drop Edge of Yonder (Book)

(2008)

Rating: 10

Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited

(1965)

Rating: 10

I recently read, or more precisely devoured, a book by the title of The Drop Edge of Yonder by Rudolph Wurlitzer. Seldom do I get so engrossed in a book that I read it with such a blitzkrieg assault as I did this book in the twenty four hours it took be to read it cover to cover. I'm a slow reader, and have been know to finish more first halves of books than entire books. Needless to say I think The Drop Edge of Yonder is a masterpiece, and it now stands as one of my favorite books of all time. Released earlier this year, The Drop Edge of Yonder is the story of Zebulon Shook, a man who may have very well passed The Man With No Name as the most kick ass Western hero of all time. Set in the 1850's, no book I have ever read has so effectively made me feel like I was in the exact mindset of the main character. Within the first six pages Zebulon is cursed by a half breed to "drift like a blind man between worlds, not knowing if you're dead or alive, or if the unseen world exists, or if you're dreaming." For just under 300 pages you float through a tale that never really feels of this world, that world, or the other. For sake of saving you from an even longer blog than this one is already destined to be, I will just give you this link for a brief synopsis and where you order this MAGNIFICENT book for yourself (if you live in Louisville, Carmichael's has several copies), from Two Dollar Radio Books. Moving on, once I finished this book I jumped in the shower, and put on Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited for some good ole shower singin' fun. However, as each track passed it seemed more and more like Highway 61 Revisited and The Drop Edge of Yonder were distant mountain lunatic kin. Now I understand that if you haven't read the book none of this will make any sense, but the connections that popped into my brain with each line of Dylan's poetry so immediately sent images from Wurlitzer's prose to my memory that I simply had to write some of it down where others who eventually read this modern classic can maybe go back and see if they make the same connections. To start, it must be acknowledged that comparisons have been made between Wurlitzer's writing and Dylan's lyricism, but not a direct connection between specific albums or songs. Also, let me say that this blog has been edited down because I don't feel I have the time or the patients to do it thoroughly, so I will just hit some main points and be done with it. Let's start with Dylan's title track 'Highway 61 Revisited', in which Highway 61 is a place of sacrifice, redemption, and to dispose of that which you no longer need, much like the state California for Zebulon and those around him in The Drop Edge of Yonder. The song even boast whistles that are reminiscent of the bullets that fly throughout the book, and even a broken gambler as nearly every character of the book finds themselves at some point along the way. The whole of the album has a dream like feel that is ultimately more pleasant than the dreamlike feel of The Drop Edge of Yonder, but only slightly. Highway 61 Revisited, lyrically is just as disorienting as the prose of The Drop Edge of Yonder, with words painting pictures and ramblings inducing visions. The track 'Ballad of a Thin Man' is the story of Zebulon, and is a prime example of how Dylan's lyrics can be telling of the books character, while also creating a sense of being stuck between that which you know and that which you don't. Lines like:

"You raise up your head

And you ask, "Is this where it is?"
And somebody points to you and says
"It's his"
And you say, "What's mine?"
And somebody else says, "Where what is?"
And you say, "Oh my God
Am I here all alone?"

Are basically the exact interactions between Zebulon and the Mexican boy everytime Zebulon wakes seemingly from the dead in a ditch over and over and over...three times to be exact. The first two tracks of Highway 61 Revisited gave me one whole page of notes, but here are just a few of the main points. 'Like A Rolling Stone' should be called The Song of Delilah, the half-breed African queen of the book, because it reads like her life story. As a girl she lost her home, and over and over again she finds herself, both literally and emotionally, alone, and as a result of her exotic bloodline she wanders the early West of this historically racist nation as an unknown, often ogled but seldom taken for anything more than a slave. Dylan spouts:

"You said you'd never compromise

With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?"

I myself couldn't have described the relationship between Zebulon and Delilah more poetically, and Dylan hadn't even read the book. Zebulon, the mystery tramp, and Delilah giving in to the mystery she sees in his eyes. Dylan then goes on to cry:

"You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat

Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain't it hard when you discover that
He really wasn't where it's at
After he took from you everything he could steal."

Again, Jesus Christ, Dylan you didn't even read the book and you just summed up the relationship between Delilah and Count Baranofsky, the "Russian" "Count" who won Delilah in Europe during a game of cards, and brought her to America. Well minus the Siamese cat. What struck me most immediately about 'Tombstone Blues' was the chorus and how it seemed to speak so well of the character of Zebulon, his Ma, and his Pa.

"Mama's in the fact'ry

She ain't got no shoes
Daddy's in the alley
He's lookin' for the fuse
I'm in the streets
With the tombstone blues"

Oh, poor Ma with nothing to show after Pa run off to California in search of who knows what, and all the while cursed Zebulon wanders the Earth never sure if he is alive or dead. Lyrics about the Medicine Man speak directly to the character Plaxico who reappears throughout the book, doing rituals and giving nearly every character a vision at some point or another. After a few listens though, the final verse really hit me, Dylan sings:

"The geometry of innocent flesh on the bone

Causes Galileo's math book to get thrown
At Delilah who sits worthlessly alone
But the tears on her cheeks are from laughter"

Delilah is alone in her heart, but there is never one tear. She is all that is devilish and innocent in this world, and it is all masked by her striking breath-taking beauty. This post is beginning to get excessively long so I will give you just some thoughts about one more song and then sum this business up. While The Drop Edge of Yonder is the tale of Zebulon, it is Delilah who creates the most drama, for with out her Zebulon is nothing more than brave mountain man. Delilah sets off nearly every incident, and for several characters in the book, not just Zebulon. More importantly, she is the comfort for the heart a few men in the book, and Dylan sums up her significance in 'From a Buick 6'. Every line is an exaggerated ode to the woman who moves The Drop Edge of Yonder along, and rather than paste them all here for you, I will just give this link, read them if you wish. The most striking and telling line in regards to Delilah and her relationship to three men in the book goes like this:

"Well, if I go down dyin', you know she bound to put a blanket on my bed."

She's always there, not always of her own will or desire, but these men are all she has as she longs for more. Each song has something I could add to this post, and even the songs I have already highlighted have many more references I could make, but this is just too long and most you have probably never read, and never will read The Drop Edge of Yonder. All I can say though, is DO, go pick this book up and read it. The Drop Edge of Yonder is the most fascinating book I have read in sometime, and maybe the most fulfilling and re-readable book I have ever read. I may just change my name to Zebulon because of it, and I'll see you on the bench in front of The Trail's End Saloon when it's all said and done. See you Space Cowboy.

Ballad of a Thin Man

TMR-TV: Radiohead - House of Cards

2008-07-15T00:10:00.004-05:00

So there isn't even much that can be said about this video other than Holy Shit That's Amazing...No Camera...No Film. I'll say no more. Most of you have probably seen it already...but I know you will watch it again. I included the making of video to because I mean really that's amazing. Here's the Legendary Radiohead, with House Of Cards. Right here on TMR-TV. Making of no longer here...sorry.

TMR-TV: Nas - Be A Nigger Too

2008-07-09T00:52:00.004-05:00

It's been some time since I have posted a new TMR-TV, and why not come back with a controversial post, and nearly nine fucking minute video to celebrate. I am a man who believes that words are just words. I feel that anger over words is ignorance, and for hundreds of years various words have led to anger which has led to ignorant acts. For this reason I love the use of the word 'nigga' hip hop artist, just as much as I love to throw the word 'nigger' in the face of a black person who wishes to call me a 'cracker' or 'honky'. Sure they have more of a reason to be offended, but really do they? They are just words people, and the longer we allow them to hold us back and be a wedge that drives people apart the longer we keep ourselves from move forward with substantial change. Same goes for 'bitch' for that matter. Get up in arms if you want to over my brash and white middle class male point of view if you would like, but take a long look at the world and wonder what we could have accomplished if we would spend less time debating the ills of words and instead spent time debating the ills of actions. This being said I recently witnessed this amazing new video from Nas, and while I think he feels where I'm coming from, I'll let you decide. The video you are about to watch is long and uncensored, and Nas the answer to your question is: Yeah, I would like to be a nigger too. I mean hell you say it yourself in the song...we all descend from Africa so who's to say I'm not. From a soapbox, here's Nas with 'Be A Nigger Too', right here on TMR-TV. Viewer discretion is advised.

There Are Two Kinds of Spurs, and Two Kinds of Men.

2008-07-07T01:32:00.005-05:00

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

(1966)

Movie: 10 Soundtrack: 10

When I was a young child, I found the movie genre of Westerns to be both boring and...well dated. My grandparents were John Wayne fans, and I could never quite understand why. Then came my first exposure to Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns, and I began to understand the appeal of Westerns. However, last night I had the awe inspiring privilege of seeing one of, it not the greatest Western of all time in glorious big screen theater fashion, and the now I understand completely where my grandparents were coming from. While I still think John Wayne is weak, and The Man With No Name would shoot him six times before he knew what him, the majesty and allure of the wide open West is a moving experience on the big screen. The Man With No Name is simply the most down right embodiment of machismo that one can ever witness, and seeing The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly as even my parents never had the chance, cemented Clint Eastwood's trademark character as my inspiration in life (minus all the shooting). I had seen the movie several times, along with the other two Man With No Name films, but from the moment the film opens with the old school MGM lion roar before fading into Ennio Morconne's landmark theme and Leone's trademark opening title sequence, I could tell this was going to be an all new experience. The horns and jangling guitars of Morconne's score are nothing short of masterful in their ability to instantly put the mind somewhere it has never been. The bright colors of the paint brush swiped titles make you sit up, and the "aw wa aw wa ah" kicks you in the face with a spurred boot of joy. Then the film opens with the mountainous dessert, before Tuco's would-be bounty seeker lifts his extreme close up sun worn face into the screen, and you are taken aback by understanding of the scale of what you are about to witness. What's more is this film was shown in an extremely small theater (by today's standards), and the reel the film was shown on must have been a hold over from the original 1966 release because the cigarette burns were there and hairs of dust splotched the screen throughout. For roughly three hours yesterday, I was in the sixties, and I was a little boy watching the epic tale of death and revenge that would cause me to incessantly demand a cap gun and poncho from the nearest department store. No Western comes close to touching The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and none ever will. There is a feeling that washes over you as each frame passes by your wide-eyed face of wonderment, that what you are witnessing is not just a film, but a statement, or more directly, to use a word that I have been using frequently lately to describe Leone's Westerns, a meditation. The film is in no hurry, and you are more than willing to wait as you watch this steady meditation of revenge, human suffering, and life in it's rawest and most dark form. And what can be said of Morricone's soundtrack that has not been said before. With the score to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Morricone created the sound that will forever stand as the gold standard for what music involving the Old West should be. I mean hell, as I sit here listening to it right now and type this blog, all I can see in my head are covered wagons and foes staring anxiously into into one another's eyes waiting for the slightest flinch toward the gun. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly's main "riff" is so well known that it has become THE theme for any face off, whether it be two men with guns or a women with here cleaning bottle staring down a stain (not sexist, just a commercial I saw once). Furthermore, Morricone's score has served to inspire countless musical artist that strive for a Western sound, among them Calexico, Califone, and basically every Tex-Mex rock band ever formed. Having seen The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in the theater I wonder how I could have ever fully appreciated it before, and more over wish I could see every classic film I love the way it was meant to be seen; huge, cramped, and grainy as all get out. If you ever get a chance to see your favorite old movie in the theater DO NOT MISS IT! Trust me you will regret it, or maybe not because you will never understand just what you are missing. The most important the to remember, however, is that "Whoever double-crosses me and leaves me alive, he understands nothing about Tuco", oh yeah and, "There are two types of spurs, my friend: Those that come in by the door, and those that come in by the window", oh and, "You see, there are two kinds of people in this world, my friend: Those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig." See you space cowboy.

Off the Cuff. Seven.

2008-07-01T01:00:00.002-05:00

It's been nearly a month since TMR was graced with a new, well anything. To be completely honest I have had the interweb in my fabulous new 100 year old apartment in Louisville for a few weeks, but just simply couldn't bring myself to fire TMR back up. Then after torturous months of waiting, and endless reading of countless articles slurping Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, the folks at one of America's Top 14 Independent Music Stores were awesome enough to cut my wait short by one day, and this kid Miles lit a fire under my ass. Now without any further ado, let Three Minute Record ring loud its resurrection bell. Enjoy Space Cowboys.

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson
(2008)

Just before the awful experience known as packing up your shit and moving on, I downloaded a track from an artist that every blog and music rag I read were hailing as the second coming of the signer songwriter Jesus--Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson. Before hearing the track I was already smitten, because his name is long and cumbersome, his live backing band is called the Black Boys, and he's sorta dreamy in a B-Rock Obama kinda way, and then from the very opening of this pre-release track 'Buriedfed' my heart broke into a thousand pieces in a way that is both glorious and sweetly aching. From this moment on, 'Buriedfed' became my new summer anthem and ultimately became the soundtrack (along with the new Weezy and Coldplay) for my new exciting life in the Ville. 'Buriedfed' opens Miles debut album, and sets the stage for what is simply the most beautifully moving and rough-edged album that I have heard in some very long time. The opening track starts slow and with the soulful and longing croon of Miles and his acoustic guitar, before the front door is kicked down and the song builds into a frantic plea for release. I'm not sure if the oh-so-cool hipsters that pass for music opinion makers will ever admit just how much the voice of Miles reminds them of Ben Harper, or Chris Martin for that matter, but what sets Miles apart from these radio ready songsters is his dark side doesn't just seep out of him, he forces the darkness out with conviction and jarring musical arrangements that hint to his friends he swears to never sing about again in the opening track (TV on the Radio and Grizzly Bear, members of both appear on the album)--"This is my last song about myself and about my friends...find something else to sing." 'The Debtor' is raw and furious, while finding a subtle semblance of a sing-along at the campfire of death. In the tradition of the great songwriter that came before him, Miles mules the desire for death with conviction and fear that is easily counterfeited, but seldom convincing. The people in Miles songs don't want to die because it's expected of them, they want to die because they just have to get out of this place, by any means necessary. 'Woodfriend' is the track that owes the most to TV on the Radio, and it's the jittery and jagged guitars and Martin-esque delivery that make this a song steamroller of a song, leveling everything, including you and your eardrums, in its path. The title of 'Who's Laughing?' sounds like a song Thom Yorke wrote or at least named. The opening sporadic plucks of the acoustic guitar speak to this albums desire to step out of the singer songwriter box, while the hushed desire to put lost love in the past pushes the album face to face with its troubadour kin. Following the opening verse the song skits and shutters, and the layers of Miles' voice glue the whole piece back together with every verse. At the half way point of the album, 'The Ongoing Debate Concerning Present Vs Future' hammers home the albums cutting grit, as wave after wave of thrashing guitars and feedback drown Miles in his sorrow and your heart in the bitter rage of sadness. This is noise rock the way it should be made...with heart and not a single shred of cool, 'The Ongoing Debate' is a centerpiece of centerpieces, and it's among the most primally moving tracks likely to surface the calender year. Where most singer songwriters get too caught up in their acoustics and jazz hands, Miles finds warmth in the disaster created by a distorted guitar and its tear filled squall. 'My Good Luck' is a Springsteen song with a modern edge that suggests this generation may someday find its musical savior, and is rock and roll at its emotionally rawest. Miles refuses to give up the acoustic devil, however, and this is a good thing as he strolls through with a slow strum heart breaker jam in the form of 'Written Over'. The song clocks in at just over two minutes (the shortest on the album), and boasts some of the most masquangelic vocal layers heard all year, and the result is eerie and crushing. 'Mountaineerd' is Miles' slow burn that builds and builds, and never seems to reach the top of the mountain. The guitar burst through halfway through the middle of the song and layer after layer of shred and dread pour out of the cowering speakers. Miles is trying to beat the demons out of his guitar and the music it cries and spits up are sonic and enraging in a Eli Sunday kind of way. 'Above the Sun' is a gospel ghost song in the vein of the darkest of moments on OK Computer (1997), it's a testimonial that never truly offers the release of the Holy Ghost or speaking in tongues. The organ is ominous and lurking, and the strings are dark and foreboding, and the feel is of a cathedral and the gargoyle's watchful eyes. Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson ends as it lived, first slow and brooding before descending into the noise waters of redemption lost or never attained. Miles' voice is so convincing that even lines such as "my tits drag in the dust" don't seem juvenile or crude. There is a heart and an overwhelming affect to Miles Robinson's debut album that I haven't felt in sometime, and to be honest I can name you all the times an album made my heart move like this--the first time you hear Buckley's Grace (1994), Beam's Creek Drank the Cradle (2002), Smith's Either/Or (1997), and Oldham's I See A Darkness (1999). What's more gratifying than anything else is the way the album just cuts out at the end, as if its constant plea for the end is abruptly answer. Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson is a mouthful, but he deserves you to give it a try. The short list for the end of the year list just got its newest member, and those who have spent the first six months of this year comfortably looking down on a weak year in music may have just found themselves being looked down upon. This album is greatness at its best and most effortless, and the new kid on the block proves all his press was beyond deserved.
Buriedfed

TMR-TV: Justice - DVNO + Stress

2008-06-07T10:50:00.002-05:00

As of tomorrow I will now be a proud resident of Louisville, and for this reason TMR will be going on a brief hiatus. Once everything gets settled (or I can afford of hook the interweb up) TMR shall emerge like a phoenix to reclaim its place as the dominate force in blogs only a few people read. When TMR returns there will be new contributors, a new look, as well as everything you've come to know and love from Three Minute Record. I will be moving heavy furnature up stairs all day tomorrow, but today I hope to give you a blog, two, or three to go out on...Here for example is a real quick TMR-TV before we put our cardigan back one and head out the door. This week I'm am happy to announce that it is actually a double feature coming to you from the beloved Justice! I'm not sure what it is, but electronic Dj's always have to sickest videos. Justice last two videos (not to mention "D.A.N.C.E." one of the best in the past few years) are freakin' fantastic and mind blowing. 'DVNO' is the 'D.A.N.C.E.' video reimagined as an EPIC homage to eighties and early nineties computer graphic titles, and it is retro fun for the whole family. Plus 'DVNO' is a sweet ass summer banger. The other video from the Ed Rec noise makers is 'Stress', which I warn you is not for the faint of heart. A cross between Grand Theft Auto IV and A Clockwork Orange, 'Stress' is the scariest and most disturbing video since, oh I'd say, Prodigy and 'Smack My Bitch Up'. Oh by the way, I love it, it's violent art at its best. So without anymore stalling here are 'DVNO' and 'Stress' by Justice...Right here on TMR-TV.

DVNO

DVNO - Justice

Stress

Stress - Justice

Off The Cuff. Six.

2008-05-28T14:56:00.000-05:00

Following the lull that is the first few months of the year, record companies are ready to start wheeling out the big guns in bulk. Coldplay, Weezer, Usher and of course My Morning Jacket are rolling out albums in June, and those are just a few of the big names labels hope can drum up some sales. I'm waiting on the Coldplay because I'm still not sure if I'm over the last Coldplay blitz that followed the release of XY (2005). Usher has been crackin' me up going all over television singing 'Love in the Club' (which I love and hope becomes a summer anthem just cause it is so damn silly) and dancin' like he wishes he had been molested by Michael Jackson. As for My Morning Jacket and the much anticipated and hyped Evil Urges...I'm giving MMJ the benefit of the doubt, right now, because I love them so much, and I'm giving Evil Urges more time to grow on me (but it's going to be an uphill battle). Which leaves Weezer, and their return to color coordinated albums. Make Believe (2005) is a god awful mess, and by leap and bounds the Weez's worst album so my expectations are low...let's see how "The Red Album" stacks up.

Weezer - The Red Album

(2008)

Let's just put this out there, first and foremost, I LOVE Weezer. The first four Weezer albums are among my favorite bodies of work made during my generation. However, even my favorite bands are not impervious to the dreaded career ending crap album. When I heard Make Believe, and the ridiculously horrid singles 'Beverly Hills' and 'We Are All On Drugs', my heart stopped as I listened to one of my favorite bands go down in horrible orange and blue flames. Just when I had written Weezer off, they go and pull a gimmick like titling their newest album Weezer and making the cover red. Those of you familar with Weezer know that this is a staple of Weezer albums, following in the proud tradition of the Blue Album and the Green Album (both amazing). So, as a true old school Weezer fan how could I pass something like that up, and all I could hope for was that it wouldn't simply suck. The good news is...the Red Album doesn't suck. In fact, I would go so far as to say it's actually reasonably good. To be honest I dig or like 7 of the 10 songs on the Red Album. One of the things that made Make Believe so bad and Weezer so overplayed was the mass number of Weezer sound alike bands that have appeared over the last decade and a half. Make Believe sounds like a Weezer rip off band and not Weezer, and that's what makes it so miserable. On the Red Album, Weezer have this same problem but in a different and far more limited way. Two of the last three tracks on the Red Album are sang by other members of Weezer than Rivers, and the result is no good at all. Both of Rivers sidekicks can sing well, but the resulting sound is one of a band who robbed elements of Weezer and then went out and got the most mainstream radio friendly lead vocalist they could find. What saves Weezer from being just mere radio fluff is Rivers and his voice, and when you do away with that Weezer becomes just another face on the radio dial. The songs with Rivers bandmates singing aren't bad, they just belong somewhere else and make this feel like half of a Weezer album. That being said...all 7 songs that Rivers sings on are fantastic (or are at least good Weezer songs), and the Red Album is far better than Make Believe yet still not as good as their first four albums. It seems that the more Harvard education Rivers attains, the sillier his song lyrics become and songs like 'Pork and Beans' and 'Troublemaker' are prime examples. Sillier doesn't nessasarily mean bad though, and both tracks find Weezer in classic form. The highlight for me after one listen would have to be 'Dreamin' which, for whatever reason, reminds me of something straight off of Pinkerton (1996). As I listened to the Red Album, I was extremely shocked that as each of the first 6 tracks passed I found myself unable to say that I hated any of them, and then came the aforementioned tracks 7 through 9, or 'Cold Dark World' (the weakest Modest Mouse rip off ever), 'Thought I Knew' and 'Automatic'. Just as quickly as I was ready to declare a new classic Weezer album, the Red Album was mercilessly dragged right back down to being just a decent Weezer album. The Red Album does close on a high note, however, with the most heartfelt love song to ever stream from Rivers lips. The Red Album doesn't change the face of music, it doesn't lift a great band of my generation to new heights, but it does reaffirm my faith in Weezer. If anything else, the Red Album is NOT the final nail in the coffin I had so feared it would be, and Weezer live another day and may still one day return with a new rock and roll classic. Until then I guess the Red Album will do...I say the Orange or Purple Album should be next...who's with me!?!

Dreamin'

Nineteen and Ninety-Seven: New Forms

2008-05-27T12:30:00.000-05:00

Roni Size + Reprazent - New Forms
(1997)
Rating: 9.9

As the heat of summer begins to creep nearer, and Americans catch Summer Fever roughly one month before Summer actually arrives, it is time to dust off the ole' summer jams. Summer makes me want to dance (mostly around my house), and in case you haven't noticed I'm on an Electronic music kick lately. With this in mind lets take a trip down memory lane to one of the electronic albums that first infected me with the electro-dance-virus back in my youth. Drum and bass music is often written off as repetitive and boring, and well, this is pretty much true. Of all the countless "drum and bass" albums that I naively sat through, there is but one (AND ONLY ONE) that knocked me back and made me re-evaluate where my music listening future was headed. In the glorious rock and roll year of 1997, Roni Size and Reprazent released what to this day stands as my all-time favorite electronic album, the grandiose epic sprawling 2 disc genre defining New Forms. As a two disc piece it works gloriously as a whole, however, each disc could also easily stand on its own as a benchmark in electronic music. Disc One opens with the most caffeinated and raw drum and bass the blossoming electronic music scene had ever seen, and marked the first time I had ever heard rhythms with a cockney accent...I was hooked. When the emcee spits the words, "Alright! Now we're gettin' into this sound, pick it up, shake it up, turn it up side down," and the opener gives way to the gnarly bass line of the seminal 'Brown Paper Bag', the rod was yanked and the hook set deep and permanent in my jaw. The first time I saw the video for this track was late at night on an old MTV show called Amp that I used to watch religiously, and well, read the TMR-TV below. 'Brown Paper Bag' can be described, like all other drum and bass song, as repetitious, but it's the warmth and realism in the sound of the drums and the bass that set this track apart. Truthfully, 'Brown Paper Bag' stands as the prime example of what makes New Forms such a master work, because like the rest of the album the frantic beat always feels fluid and unrushed, New Forms is a meditation on the haste of modern life not a victim of it. 'New Forms' boasts quick lipped rhythms that find a Snoop-esque stoner groove, and the music matches the mood with a restrained rapid fire beat and wobbly cuts floating in and out. There is something noir-futurismo but immensely now (and back then) to tracks like 'Lets Get It On' and the soulful 'Digital'. Time and time again New Forms wanders off to find its high octane groove, while all the while maintaining something innately human to the sound of the playing, and then just as quickly as one track melds to the next, Size + Reprazent float off to space carried off by waves of arrant sounds and a beat that never seems to be going quite as fast as it truly is. 'Watching Windows' is one of the best dance songs ever made, and I'm dancing as I write these words. The beat is infectious, the vocals are heavenly, and the constant assault of bass and cuts is simply as irresistible as a warm pie in your neighbors window, just ready to be snatched. 'Beatbox' is one of the most impressive human beat box performances on record (I'm sure some freestyler's got it beat). Disc one ends with a telegram and an arrival at the Upper West Side train station, and Disc two opens with the walk from the platform to the streets. On Disc Two, rather than bog the album down, as often is the case, Size + Reprazent take the extra time to move drum and bass, as well as electronic music forward. Where disc one would stand alone as a great drum and bass as fine pop album, disc two would stand alone as a great drum and bass as fine art album. Each track, from the hypnotic opener 'Intro' to the high octane and mesmerizing 'Hi-Potent' all the way through the freaked out and slightly industrial 'Electricks', carves an everlasting path for an over hyped genre. Starting with tracks on disc one and carrying over to tracks on disc two, New Forms achieves this ever growing feeling a looming fog. The fog gets thickest midway through disc two with tracks like 'Trust Me', 'Change My Life', 'Share The Fall', and 'Down' playing with the atmosphere of an old pulp detective story, you know the one that goes "Of all the joints she could have walked into, she walked into my place." The track 'Jazz' gives new meaning to the word, though I'm sure it wouldn't fly in most Jazz circles. When New Forms finally comes to an end, you come to the realization that you have been floating blindly through a breathtaking and absorbing testimony to the human struggle with the speed of life for roughly 2 hours and 20 minutes now, and the irony sinks in. Roni Size + Reprazent manage to slow down the steam engine of life, while keeping its rapid heartbeat a-racin'. New Forms uses music to literally bring your instant life to a screeching halt for over two hours, and uses that time to make beauty out speeding clock that's dragging you down. There is only one truly great album that EVER came from the drum and bass genre, and it's New Forms, and even Roni Size + Reprazent will never match it...it just simply cannot be done. There IS only one.

Watching Windows

Hi-Potent

TMR-TV: Roni Size + Reprazent - Brown Paper Bag

2008-05-27T04:00:00.000-05:00

In 1997, in September or October, in the wee hours of the some early morn, between 3 and 5, I was laying on the couch in the backroom of my parents house watching my favorite show on the television, Amp. The electronic music show had a short lived run on MTV in what I called the late night, but most tend to call early morning, and was 120 minutes of glorious Techno as I called it then. The show had sporadic start times, and whether it would air at all varied from month to month, but I was there regardless every night for as long as I could keep my eyes open. One night in September or October, however, a video came on that just blew my mind to tiny little pieces. The video was for a song called 'Brown Paper Bag' by Roni Size + Reprazent, and it was about to change my music life. The song whipped me into a frenzy that kept me up all night, and the video was a form of strange Nineties eye candy that I just ate up. The next morning I called every place I thought might sell the album in a 70 mile radius of my small hometown, and located the nearest copy in my old hometown about an hour and half away, with no drivers license to take me there. For weeks I begged and begged to go to this city that had this album that I must hear and must hear now, but each time I was rebuffed. Until one day it was finally time to go visit family still living in this magical town that actually carried my coveted album. To shut me up, we stopped at the record store first and I hastily rushed in and searched for what I was sure would be the only copy, and sure enough I was right. I paid my money, rushed back out to the idling car, tore open the plastic that hugged the CD case, and quickly put the album in the Walkman that I had brought along just for the occasion. First things first, I skipped to track two of disc one on what to my surprise was a two disc album, and eagerly awaited hearing 'Brown Paper Bag' for the first time in some long, agonizing weeks. My joy quickly turned to sheer disappointment, however, when I realized that the version of the song from the video that I had been playing over and over in my head was not at all what the song sounded like on the album. The fun rhythms that had first caught my ear were gone, and the souped up drum and bass beat was parred down and skeletal. I was so crushed that I turned the song off two minutes into its nine minute run, and didn't pick the album back up for over a month. When I did, however, finally give the album New Forms (1997) a chance I discovered something amazing. You'll have to read my next blog for that though. For now, here is the music video that caused all the fuss. Watch and see how anti-climactic it is now that I told this ridiculous story. Here's Roni Size + Reprazent with 'Brown Paper Bag'...Proudly right here on TMR-TV.

Brown Paper Bag

Brown Paper Bag - Roni Size Reparazent

Even Pop Music Has An Artistic Dark Side.

2008-05-23T16:00:00.002-05:00

The Notwist - The Devil, You + Me
Rating: 9.0
(2008)

The Notwist have apparently been playing together for nearly twenty years now, and to be honest, until 2002 I had no idea. Neon Golden (2002) is Postal Service before Postal Service, and sadly, Neon Golden will more than likely always cower in the shadows of Give Up's (2003) commercial success. Neon Golden is a masterwork of pop sadness. It's sad stings, and electro beats found a comfortable and youthful resonance in adult battles of the heart and soul. However, The Notwist do lose their way at the end of Neon Golden finishing the album on three rather weak electronic instrumental tracks. The Devil, You + Me sheds this cumbersome weight and in turn The Notwist craft a beautiful and wholly fulfilling dark pop album. Songs like 'Good Lies' are steady building songs of angst and fear, and the lament for secrets best kept. What keeps The Notwist from achieving the commercial success of Postal Service (other than the power of Sub Pop) is because most of their songs are just simply to sad to sell any products. Where Postal Service sounds like a whiny (though wonderfully whiny) adults looking at an old high school yearbook reminiscing about lost teenage lust, The Notwist sounds like deeply hurt adults trying to make sense of how lost teenage lust only lead to lost middle aged lust. 'Where in the World' sounds like a hold over from Neon Golden, and that is a shining compliment. It's dark and atmospheric, and lead singer Markus Archer sounds lost in the fog. 'Gloomy Planet' is a haunting robot Belle + Sebastian songs, with a sing-song feel and campfire acoustic guitars. If an song is made for television teen dramas or an iPod commercial it is probably the epileptic and crashing 'Alphabet'. The guitars sneak in after the first verse, and squall and screaming over an ever growing beat. The ferocity subsides, and Archer fights his way back to the foreground. When the lyrics like "I want to sing you Algebra"hover, wounded over the music, it's not the image of students in halls that is conjured, but rather the tired heart of the grey faced/haired math teacher. The title track has a redemptive quality that spring from the playfulness of Archer's delivery, and the field of flowers trip out the electronics and xylophone create. "This is what they see...It's the Devil, you and me." Portishead was aiming to make a song like 'Gravity' on their new album, but failed everywhere that The Notwist succeed. The Notwist have never been one to get caught up in the words at the cost of the music, and slip into beautiful electronic and classic instrument freak-outs on each track. 'Sleep' is a lullaby for the woozy slumber of the day tripper, and 'On Planet Off' is the stalking nightmare that quickly follows. At the core of The Notwist has always been a guitar band playing the part of electronic romantics, and on 'Boneless' they unleash their inner indie pop demons. The sound of the natural percussion and gently chugging guitars tag and war with the electronics that have crash nearly every indie rock album these days, and the result feels both free and effortless. There is a noir element to 'Hands on Us', and it makes the song play like a heartbroken black and white detective, scouring the streets for clues. The Notwist close The Devil, You + Me with a quite acoustic goodnight with 'Gone Gone Gone', which is a coming to grips with it being time to say goodbye. The Notwist are one of those bands who will inevitable fall through the cracks of the over flooded music market, and it's a damn shame. If you love yourself a sad pop album, and aren't afraid to admit it, then The Notwist is just what you've been looking for. The Notwist understand that making pop songs doesn't mean you have to give up on artistry, and their last two albums are living proof. I'm not sure if The Devil, You + Me is better than Neon Golden, but it is certainly more satisfying. The Devil, You + Me is a gem not to be missed, and you have to hear it to truly realize.
Alphabet

Gravity

TMR-TV: Genetic Poetic - Jabber Jaw

2008-05-23T00:00:00.001-05:00

You may remember Genetic Poetic from The Turntable a few months ago, and you may remember the man behind Genetic Poetic from the ridiculous rock of Undead Dammit, well, Genetic has stepped his game up. TMR-TV is proud to present, Genetic Poetic's debut music video for the sick ass cut 'Jabber Jaw'. It's a very grainy clip, but the rough aesthetic adds a sense of rawness to the video that matches the bedroom emcee feel of the track. The animation is twitchy and crude, and matched with the crazy music its like the cartoon of a serial killer. 'Jabber Jaw' as a track is catchy, and the music is semi-terrifying. The video is awesome really, and along with recent shows, adds a sense of realism to Genetic's previous Myspace-only musical existence. If you are in the Louisville area, try and check out a Genetic show, I'm sure it is insane and ridiculous in a good way. I have yet to see one, but when I move my happy ass to the Ville in a few weeks I'll see you there. Here's Genetic Poetic's first ever music video, 'Jabber Jaw', try and keep the chorus out of your head (after you finally figure parts of it out). Right here on TMR-TV. Viewer Discretion Advised.

Genetic Poetic - Jabber Jaw

Click! Ellen Allien.

2008-05-22T20:45:00.001-05:00

In case you haven't noticed...Three Minute Record has been having some technical difficulties. At one point the problems were so bad that it seemed TMR was doomed to suffer an early, and unceremonious death. Well after hours of hard work, the problem has been worked out (for now) and songs are once again streaming on Three Minute Record (just the front page for now). To celebrate this 'rebirth', Three Minute Record is proud to present an all new, fun filled feature: Click! The purpose of this feature is to give me an excuse just to introduce an artist or group that I think you should know about...through pictures. It's a silly idea really, but offers an avenue for short posts and the pictures are amazing. Rock stars are a cameras best friend, and some of the best photos taken in the world are of rock stars. What better way to start a new feature than the hot new raver way? Ellen Allien is the female equivalent of James Murphy. Like Murphy in LCD Soundsystem, Allien plays fantastic electronic music as a Dj, as well as sings from time to time. What makes her most like the DFA-founder is that Allien is the founded of her own electronic label BPitch Control. I have not had the privilege of hearing a vast amount of Allien's work (or as much BPitch as I would like), but the few EP/12 inch singles I have heard and her epic album with Apparat entitled Orchestra of Bubbles (2006) put her near the forefront of the electronic world and certainly leading way for the female Dj scene these days. BPitch Control is the tiny little electronic label that could, releasing several artist and countless EP/12 inch singles and label comp's. BPitch Control is were Feadz got his start, and boasts beat wizards like Modselektor and Paul Kalkbrenner. What's true for a woman with a drum set, guitar, or harp holds true for a woman with a sick-ass turntable there are few things sexier. Allien's work is ambient, glitchy, and honestly only going to appeal to true electro-heads, but those who are into electronic music will love Allien's fresh and challenging sound. Well view for yourself, and check out Ellen Allien. Allien has a new album set for release next week, and it promises to be the electronic sounds of the summer. Expect a review at some point, but for now enjoy this track from Allien's forthcoming Sool record, and enjoy some beautiful pictures. Click!

Ellen Allien - Elphine

The Future Of Hip Hop Is Now, Says Ratatat

2008-05-22T14:20:00.001-05:00

Ratatat/Various Artists - Remixes Volume Two
Rating: 9.4
(2008)

For whatever reason, the best hip hop coming out lately has been from beat-kids who get their dirty hands of some sick ass bars and remix the future of hip hop in their own image. The latest in this ever growing trend is Ratatat, and to be honest when I first heard the idea I was sceptical. Ratatat is, well should be, known for its riff driven electronic music. Hard as fuck or even just simple hip hop are not words that I would ever have thought to associate to any degree with Ratatat. Show's what I know. If rappers don't take notice of this recent flood of beat-kids remixing hip hop to new heights, and start getting them to make beats for their actual albums, the hip hop world is weak, stupid and scared. Kanye's 'Diamonds' gets spit shined and improved (lets face it as far as beats are concerned...Kanye is a one trick pony...it's found soul cuts in the future we get it), and I'll be damned if Kanye doesn't sound right at home over a track so futuristic it sounds like a Victorian Space Odyssey (harpsichord and all). Saigon + U.G.K.'s 'We Gon' Ride' get re-imaged as a new school West Coast jam. 'We Gon' Ride' is what Death Row would sound at this moment if it was still packin' the heat its roster boasted in the Nineties. 'Beans Freestyle' is the proud owner of Ratatat's finest beat on this mixtape. There is a crazy old school feel, but the synth effect and surf guitar rift give Beans' b-boy style a sinister edge. 'The Mule' is bangin' comic relief for an album of thuggin'. Ratatat rock the guitar, both strummin' and riffin', under overtly sexual lyrics about women who can't get enough of 'The Mule', come on use your imagination. The hook of 'The Mule' is the smoothest hook this side of Dre and Nate Dogg, and you'll sign it in all it subtle raunchy glory. Ratatat does wonders for the greats, especially Notorious B.I.G. and Jay Z. Biggie is re-imagined not once but twice (two and a half if you count 'Allure' with Jay Z) as a rock and roll hip hop star in the vain of old school Rick Rubin. 'Party and Bullshit' is fun and ruckus, like a street wise 'Fight For Your Right To Party', and Biggie has never sounded more cocky than in the final explosive over driven riff filled verse. Big's voice gets lost in the skipping beat and atmosphere only to re-emerge with a fury and a screaming guitar. While 'Dead Wrong' is the most Ratatat song on the entire album, it's Biggie that makes this cut so fantastic. Big is the immortal king he has become for a reason, and 'Dead Wrong' is one his most cutting and hitting tracks ever. When Big first sounds off with "Relax and take notes, while I take tokes of the marajuana smoke", and the riff heavy beat shifts on itself, you almost reach for a notepad and start to scribble down the wisdom of Biggie Smalls. Biggie tracks haven't excited me this much since I was in high school, and it's a refreshing feeling. What makes Remixes Volume Two so great is what it does for generic hip hop acts that I previous could care less exist, let alone listen to their songs any further than what I hear blasting from the club when I'm walking by. Young Jeezy + Bun B. 's 'Over Here' sounds like it was once a club banger, but in Ratatat's hand it opens up and is summery and somewhat French (I think it's the accordion/harmonica sample in the hook) sounding. The track most likely to blast from a club near you is 'Stomp', and it's easy to tell why. Here the Dirty South trunk rattler featuring Young Buck, T.I. + Ludacris becomes a cross between Justice, Timbaland, and well Ratatat. It's ominous and squalling, but at the same time throbbing and hard as hell. The MC's on Remixes Volume Two all sound like lyrical gods over Ratatat's beats, and I give Ratatat most of the credit. Rather than just make a beat and then just lay acappella bars over it, Ratatat build the music around the rhymes and the tracks move with the voices like a knife fight from the 'Beat It' video. What Ratatat has done is taken its riff driven electronic madness, and hardened the sound to a mean mug that would break even the hottest hip hop producer in the game today. 'Despot Freestyle' is the future sounds answer to 'Beans Freestyle', and its the slow burn of Despot's Aesop to Beans' Biz Markie. Beanie Sigel + Jay Z get a touch of breeziness on 'Glock Nine', and it resembles a Grey Album (2004) cut. 'Glock Nine' is probably the song most likely to blast from all cars this summer, but being that it's a remix on a mixtape it will never be the summer anthem it could have been. Slim Thug, T.I. + Bun B. provide the picture me rollin' track of the album with 'Three Kings', and its the combination of Ratatat's sense for mood and the head nodding delivery of the MCs that give you the feeling of the boulevard and riding just to show off (be it NYC or Central City between the Wendy's and Sonic). Props to Bun B. from dropping "trill", my favorite hip hop word, RE UP! Young Buck lends some G Unit swagger to the show, and Ratatat use the moment of bravado to bring out their oddest and most experimental beat. On 'Shorty Wanna Rid', Buck's chest out holla rides the crazy beat, while Ratatat's synth and hand claps create an Egyptian hood feel that position Buck as a street pharaoh who commands women at the clap of his hands. Memphis Bleek's 'Alright' is probably the weakest track on the entire mixtape, and well, it's damn fantastic. Ratatat seem to be channeling Chief Sneed on Native American Gangster (2008) for the track, and its furious. And for like the fourth track on Remixes Volume Two you're throwin' the Roc diamond in the sky like it was 1999 or 2000. It's Jay Z's 'Allure' that stands as the litmus test for this remix album. Jay Z has become the go to MC for beat-kids with an itch to remix some hip hop, and Ratatat want there shot. The result is that I have yet another all time favorite Jay Z song from a song that I never really liked before. 'Allure' is bad on The Black Album (2003), and so-so on the Grey Album, but Ratatat prove that you should never give up on any Jay Z track. Despite how much I still love the Grey Album, Ratatat have one upped Danger Mouse (at least when it comes to this song). Where Danger's remix used Beatles riffs to bring some fun to Hova's ode to husselin', Ratatat use sitar-esque guitar riffs to keep Hov's rhymes firmly rooted in the streets. What's more is that Ratatat take the song as a whole to a new level by seeking in a verse by Biggie that adds weight and even more cred to a song about the death grip of the game. When Biggie burst in, the music makes change no in tempo or feel, but suddenly the track feels drastically more urgent and furious. Ratatat's Remixes Volume Two is the new high water mark for remix albums, and in a year that saw Chief Sneed take Jay Z to higher levels that's saying something. If Chief Sneed and Ratatat don't end up with beats on the who's who of hip hop's albums its because the hip hop community is to afraid of alienating its core audience by making music that pushes the boundaries of what hip hop music is supposed to sound like. What's even greater is that Ratatat's Remixes Volume Two is available for download FREE and LEGAL at this link...seriously go there and download it, and treat yourself to your summer jams at a super discount price. Anyone who gets this album will have no choice but to bump Remixes Volume Two in their ride over the next three months because Ratatat have created the seminal rap mix for 2008, and they did it on their own terms. Remixes Volume Two is on par with The Roots Rising Down (2008) for hip hop album of the year, and they aren't even hip hoppers...that's impressive.

Saigon + UGK - We Gon' Ride

TMR-TV: Undead Dammit - Rare Instrumental (Rehearsal)

2008-05-09T15:40:00.002-05:00

Undead Dammit strike again! Today I finally had the time to put some long lost video of Undead Dammit onto a computer. There are a handful of videos that will more than likely make their way to the interweb sooner or later. Today I have the privilege of rolling out a rough and raw video of Undead Dammit rehearsing what I believe was the last song they ever started to write. The video is grainy (I think it adds something to it), and the audio isn't great, but this is the only recorded copy of this half song that exist anywhere. The members of Undead Dammit haven't even seen this video, and will probably see it first here. Without any further ado, here is Undead Dammit playing an ultra rare Instrumental track never before to see the light of day....right here on TMR-TV!

They Rode West, Just The Three Of Them, On A Wagon.

2008-05-09T00:45:00.007-05:00

Sonny Rollins - Way Out West
(1957)
Rating: 10

Move over Miles, there's a new sheriff in town. I introduce to you my new favorite jazz musician. Saxophonist Sonny Rollins. Now I know basically everyone in my generation just simply doesn't get Jazz, but I'm tellin' ya you're missing out. You must have the desire to tear through LP after LP, and pray you can find the thing that sets each giant apart (or watch documentaries that breaks it down for you). However, you should at least try. For me, I'm still in the baby knowledge stage of understanding Jazz. Mission #1: Learn EVERYTHING about Jazz music. I assume this will take me all my life, but focus is shifting to it now. Back to Sonny, a man who deserves all the spotlight the Sun can give a man. Way Out West finds Sonny front and center; with a small band of just Ray Brown on stand-up bass and Shelly Manne on drums to back him up. Rollins was a force in any sized band, but on Way Out West you really get to see just what made him heir to the Charlie Parker throne. Way Out West is, as it's title suggests, a Bebop album played on the back of an uncovered wagon headed for goldmines. The drums and bass move along like wagon wheels over rock and dirt, while the while Rollins bounces up and down on his horse's back. Opening track 'I'm An Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande)' is possibly the best example of what sets Rollins apart from those who came before him. Where Charlie Parker spits note after note in an easy rapid fire, Rollins actually takes it easy and settles for rhythmic satisfaction over virtuosity. Rollins creates the same bebop flare, with half the notes as he mossies through 'I'm An Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande)'. In full band recordings of Rollins, you can tell that, at anytime, Rollins hears no one else but the rhythm section. On Way Out West all other distractions are cast aside, and Rollins is right at home. 'Solitude' is more than a name for this track, it's a mood. Rollins sax weeps and cracks, as the bass and drums mop along. Each goes it alone, and when Rollins punctuates the last note that leads into drums solo you can't tell where the note ends and the drum crack begins. The band pick it up saloon style for 'Come, Gone', and it's as if Rollins is challenging any man who dare think he can play the sax as fast and articulately to a duel. 'Come, Gone' is Rollins playing the life out of his instrument for the instrument's sake, for all saxaphones sake. The percussion of 'Wagon Wheel' sounds like the title would suggest, but Rollins sounds like he's under the lights of the Chicago streets. The result is a song that sounds like the naive swagger of a Westward trip for a city slicker fresh from a shoe shine in the theater district. The thing is it works, and to great effect as you see the nervous sweat of a well to do man who fears losing face more than the Indians on the ridge. 'There Is No Greater Love' is the love song that plays as the brothel closes, and the girls call it a night. Somewhere in that brothel a broken down road agent is wooing the whore with the heart of gold, and Rollins' sax is the sound of their broken lives and longing hearts. 'Way Out West', the track, brings the piece to an end somewhere between the frontier and the glitzy West of the 1950's. Rollins works some of his finest miracles on 'Way Out West', such as the quiver he breathes into nearly every single note. It's the way he stops, waits for the drum to react, and then pounces right back on top of the beat that sets Rollins apart. The sax is like a percussion instrument on Way Out West. Ray Brown and Shelly Manne put on a show through out the entire album, but in a piece that is this bare bones it's all Sonny Rollins show. The music of Sonny Rollins in not elevator music, and the best Jazz never is. It's a common misconception that all Jazz is played in shopping malls and elevators, but in fact only the bad stuff gets played in these dubious locations for the most part. If you ask me, if they played Hard Bop or Bebop like Sonny Rollins' in the elevators the passengers would freak the fuck out. Rollins stacks notes on top of notes, and not one note is cut short or lost in the mix. They complete themselves with exacting efficiency to make way for the next note. Sonny Rollins is a man who got so down about the shape of his music that he left the scene to go play on a bridge near a train...only to reemerge better than he'd ever been. Not only that, when Rollins got hooked on heroin, as the vast majority of Bebop musicians, did he left the scene to work a labor job to fight his addiction...and won only to reemerge a better Jazz Man. That's impressive no matter who you are or what generation you are in. Oh yeah, and as always that may very well be my favorite album cover...EVER. That's the face of a man who only gives a fuck about three things: his instrument, his drugs, and his art.
I'm An Old Cowhand

Way Out West

It's Undead Dammit!

2008-05-07T13:01:00.008-05:00

So I got out of studying no I'm having trouble going back. Today's TMR-TV just wasn't enough blogging for me so I just thought I would do another for shits and giggles. Since it typically takes me forever to type a review or some such post, I will just give a little shout out to friends instead. In a few short weeks, I will be joining friends who have been far away for a couple years now. I simply can't wait, and can feel the rock and roll spirit boiling up in me once again. In honor of my soon to be move, and the rekindling of friendship with my closest rock and roll friends, here is a song by their former-chaotic-short-lived-turbulent band Undead Dammit. Undead Dammit had two separate forms and played two separate sounds, but this is a focus on the original Undead Dammit. The Undead Dammit that got its start in the cramped dinning room of 758 Park Street. The Undead Dammit that's songs were so pounded into my head through endless and sparadic rehearsals that I only have to hear one note and instantly know what song is coming. The Undead Dammit that shocked audiences at a feverish Halloween show that ended balls out, and sent pretentious religious coffee shop goons running for the door at the shit hole known as Spencer's Coffee Shop. Undead Dammit is truly dead these days, and it's probably for the best. However, Undead Dammit is a part of all of us who took the rock and roll lifestyle too far at 758, and always will be. Here's a rather rare track from just a few years ago, from Undead Dammit Volume One's first and only EP that basically no one has. The song was recorded in our dinning room...the vocals in our bathtub...most of the lyrics were written by passing a notepad around a room of friends with each writing a line...it's just simply a bunch of rock and roll guys playing rock n roll because they have nothing else worth doing. I'm not sure what the track was really called, and I'm sure after one of them reads this they will let me know, but until then we'll call it 'Cum Together'. The image below is a picture that I drew in hopes of it being the cover of the EP which never really surfaced for the public. Enjoy, and expect to see more about Undead Dammit in the future because trust me there is more to come. Including long lost videos and maybe even a release of both Undead Dammit EP's via Three Minute Record. See you soon guys.

Cum Together (Right-click, Save Traget As to Download)

TMR-TV: Okkervil River - The Okkervil River Song (from Pitchfork.tv)

2008-05-07T12:30:00.000-05:00

So here it is...the last Three Minute Record that I will ever post as a student. The last time that I waste time that should be spent studying or planning or scheduling to type a blog four people will read. It's the last time that what I want has to take a backseat to what I need for the future. Tomorrow I will step foot in a classroom one last time, turn in a test one last time, and see many people I've come to know for the last time. The saddest thing of all is that it will be the last time that I walk through campus and down the lovely streets that surround it listening to my right arm, otherwise known as my iPod. My favorite thing about college has always been when the song you are walking to at any particular moment matches just how you feel inside, the temperature of the air, and the light in the sky. I will miss you walks around construction sites blasting M.I.A., I will miss you trudging home in the flurries of a pitch black night to Iron and Wine, and I will miss you breezy spring strolls past the wonderful Dogwood and Cherry Blossom trees to Wolf Parade. The sun is setting on my college career, and I couldn't be more overjoyed. In honor of this setting sun, here is Okkervil River...live on a rooftop in New York...playing 'Okkervil River Song' in the glare of the setting sun. Here's to the past, and future scenes my iPod has and will score. Right here on TMR-TV.

Okkervil River Song (from Pitchfork.tv)

Off The Cuff. Five.

2008-05-05T13:00:00.007-05:00

There are three albums I am highly anticipating in the 2008 music year. The first arrived with Portishead's Third, which is by no means disappointing but isn't as good as it could have been. The other two are the new Wolf Parade album At Mount Zoomer (scheduled for late June release) and Beck's currently untitled new album which is being produced by producing god Danger Mouse. The wonder of the interweb has brought me At Mount Zoomer extremely early, and although I should be studying for my final finals of all time...this album is so good I just had to tell you about it. So here is a quick Off the Cuff, in honor of the new Wolf Parade album At Mount Zoomer, pick it up as soon as it comes out...you won't be disappointed.

Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

(2008)

There has been no band in the modern indie era with band members as prolific as Wolf Parade. Since the release of Apologies to the Queen Mary in 2005, various members of Wolf Parade have released a side project album each year, and some of them are simply amazing. For all the bonus side project material, nothing beats an actual Wolf Parade album. At Mount Zoomer is the best example of this considering it had me calling it the best album of the year thus far just 5 tracks in, and this is no exaggeration in the least. At Mount Zoomer is Wolf Parade at its best, and is quite possibly better than Apologies (#1 - Top 25 Albums of 2005). Zoomer opens with Wolf Parade showing the Strokes how it's done, with the dark and summery hit in 'Soldier's Grin'. The lead single 'Call it Ritual' has complex strings and sets the tone of the more artistic sound Mt. Zoomer establishes. Throughout Zoomer Wolf Parade send chills up your spine, track after track. The songs are beyond catchy, modestly artistic, and overwhelmingly well produced and structured. For those who think all indie rock sounds the same, Wolf Parade and Mt. Zoomer prove that you are both right and wrong. No band sounds like Wolf Parade in the current music scene, but when Wolf Parade do wish to delve into indie standard realm they prove that sounding alike does not mean everyone sounds equally as good or skilled. Wolf Parade do dark like the lights are out and there is a urgent need to find the light switch. My heart stops at some point during each track, and then breaks into a million pieces of frustration that Wolf Parade do not release a new album every day, and that the rest of the music world will never catch up with the forward movement of the genre Wolf Parade has begun. After a summer of sunny skies and driving around the city with the howling of Wolf Parade streaming from my speakers and my mouth, most other albums released this year will be hard pressed to beat Mt. Zoomer for the top spot in my 2008 heart. No album in my seven year college career has met my typically high expectations the way Wolf Parade have with Mt. Zoomer, in other words, this is the least disappointing album I've heard since I graduated high school (not only is it the least disappointing, it does not disappoint in the least, and actually is LEAPS and BOUNDS better than anyone could have ever hoped or expected). If you don't know Wolf Parade or didn't get into Apologies to the Queen Mary, go back and check it out...give it a chance or a second. Wolf Parade are making an argument for being considered the best indie band of this over stretched and over hyped 'genre' and time in music. Wolf Parade have been on the cusp of being my favorite band for a few years now, and after hearing At Mount Zoomer just once there is no longer any question. Wolf Parade are my favorite band going right now (Radiohead have graduated to classic level...like Springsteen, Tom Waits, Zepplin, Sleater-Kinney; who graduated to classic when they went on indefinite hiatus, and the Stones), and there is no band or artist within miles that has even the slightest chance to replace them. Long live Wolf Parade, all their side projects, and the ever lasting impact each has made on the music of the Y Generation (that's you and me if you didn't know, shitty name I know, I didn't dub us that). Oh yeah, and that is some of the slickest art work I've seen this year...and in a year more memorable for its graphic design than its music that's saying something. The streaming track below is dedicated to Margarita...Margarita just listen to the first few lines and you'll understand why (Check out Margarita's literary blog here...It's much better than TMR and far better written). DON"T SLEEP ON WOLF PARADE!!! YOU"LL REGRET IT!!! HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO TO ALL!!!

The Grey Estates

High Noon: The Roots' Rising Down vs. Portishead's Third

2008-05-02T15:00:00.003-05:00

It's new feature time here at Three Minute Record. Although the true rebirth of TRM is still a few weeks away, I figured I would roll out one of the new features in advance to whet your appetite. The new section is called High Noon, and it is an idea that came to me just two short days ago. The idea for High Noon comes from this weeks new releases, and the dilemma that they posed me. This week two of my favorite bands released much anticipated albums, that I have been waiting months to hear, on the same day leaving me stressed over which to pick up. With this in mind, and having heard both finally I came up with the idea for High Noon. In this section I will give short reviews of two albums (not always released on the same day, but for some reason that logically pits them against on another, i.e. The Grey Album vs. Native American Gangsta), and at the end I will name one the winner of High Noon for that day. It is important to point out that just because a record wins it's High Noon battle does not make it nessasarily a better album, but just better either at that time or for whatever reason they are posed against one another. Today's High Noon is a perfect example of this, but I will discuss that after the battle is decided. Today's duel is between the 10 years in the making return of Portishead, Third, and the world's eighth wonder, The Roots' Rising Down. When the clock hits noon...DRAW!

Portishead - Third

(2008)

Nothing takes me back to high school like Portishead. All that Ninties pop-rock and mainstream guitar mess remind me of school dances and singing in the car, but albums like Portisheads self titled album and Dummy take me back to the personal me. The me in the bedroom angstly waiting for that girl to call back or questioning the meaning of life and the future. So ten years on down the road, and the future within arms reach Portishead finally takes it upon themselves to release a follow up to Portishead. It's good, and I would go so far as to say it is very very good, but it's not great like the Portishead of yore. There are moments on, the poorly titled, Third (creative I like it) that jump up and hit you in the face the way Portishead once did, and to be honest those moments make up the majority chunk of Third. However, there are these other moments that make you step back and question what the Brit trio were thinking. One track has an overly modulated drum beat that runs continuously at a speed so fast it sounds like a fucked up MP3 making computer sounds in the speaker, while the opening track just stops after working up a fantastic groove almost like someone just forgot it was playing and hit stop suddenly. You have to wonder if some of these tracks weren't just phoned in and the label said, "Hey you're Portishead so it's cool with us." Sure it's darker...it's slow and sleep inducing in the middle, but that's beside the point. These are dark days, and Portishead has long been a dark band. As far as albums 10 years after the thought go, Third is the new high water for reclaiming your sound in modern times.

The Roots - Rising Down

(2008)

The Roots refuse to suck...they just simply say no. To see the Roots at their best find them when they are pissed off, and you won't have to look any further than Rising Down. Rising Down is borderline terroristic, as if the Eighth Wonder is angry at the US citizenry for being less pissed off than terrorist about the state of this world. The worlds ills and those who refuse to cure them find themselves as the punching bags for an album of crushing moving music, and fierce threat of violence lyrics. Rising Down is the sound of a world with no choice but to act out to try and claim some semblance of hope. I hate to make it about race, but it pisses me off that white folks aren't this pissed off. Some may argue that whites have less to be pissed off about, but most of the issues the Roots tackle on Rising Down are human issues not race issues. I'm pissed white people aren't more pissed off at themselves for being too petrified and weak to be this angry. In spite of or maybe as a result of their pissed off domineer, you won't find another hip hop album this year that is this hard in your face rockin, and catchy as all get out at the same time. Rising Down should be the zeitgeist of America right now, and it is only a matter of time before the ridiculous zealots on both sides of the aisle try to burn The Roots at the stake for having the nerve and desperation to say it.

And the winner is......

The Roots Rising Down win the first ever High Noon, hands down. Portishead brought a weak game on Third if you ask me...they could have cemented their place in music forever, but chose rather to coddle to the fans. The Roots are here to scare you, but if you've lived this entire decade too blind to the ills of this world to understand what would drive someone to die for a cause that their government didn't send them to die for...you MUST hear this album NOW!!! I don't condone violence, I'm a peaceful person, but if there continues to be people too stupid to understand how it could ever come to violence than there will never be peace. Replace your fear of terror with an understanding of its cause, and maybe we can build a brighter world after all. The Roots get it, and lay waste to Portishead on the battle of Tuesday April 28th Release. See You Late Space Cowboys!

The Roots - Singing Man

Portishead - Magic Doors