RIP: Captain Beefheart

Captain Beefheart is dead. I'm feeling very sad about this. I'll post more later.

Santa

Yesterday in the car my four-year-old daughter said to me "Daddy, I've been talking to the Easter Bunny, and he thinks you and Mommy are Santa." All I could think to say in reply was "Why on earth would the Easter Bunny tell you a thing like that?"

Anyway, thinking back on it, I can't remember a time when I actually believed in Santa Claus. Maybe I did at some point, but the earliest thing I can remember thinking about Santa was that it was a cute story that I should play along with because it made my parents happy. Actually, that's going too far. I certainly enjoyed playing along too. And maybe there was a part of me that wanted to believe. Maybe there was even the tiniest part of me that did believe. Maybe.

I remember one year my Dad climbed up on the roof of the our house on Christmas Eve and stomped around and shook some sleigh bells while my brother and I were in bed. I didn't for a second believe Santa and a bunch of flying reindeer had landed on our roof. On the other hand, the fact that I knew it was my Dad didn't make it any less exciting for me. I was practically peeing in my pajamas in anticipation of the next morning. And I only loved my Dad more for going to such extraordinary lengths to preserve such a fantastic fiction. And even though I knew the "truth," I never felt like I was being "lied" to either.

Despite my premature skepticism, or perhaps because of it, I insisted that I really did believe in Santa until a much older age than most kids. I remember coming home from school and saying things like "some of the kids say they're no such thing as Santa, but I know they're wrong." To this day I don't think I've once told my parents I don't believe in Santa Claus, and if they asked me tomorrow, I'd probably still tell them I did. Maybe that's because I still want to believe. Or maybe it's because there is some tiny little part of me that still does. Maybe.

The Ghosts Of Christmas Past, plus Snuky Tate!

I re-uploaded my Holiday compilations from 2008 and 2007 for a limited period of time. [Limited period of time now expired, sorry.] Download links can be found in the original posts. There's lots of Holiday fun from the likes of The Sonics, Detroit Junior, Bud Logan, The Louvin Brothers, Beck, Milton DeLugg and his Little Eskimos, Sonic Youth, Redd Kross, Shonen Knife, George Jones and others.

As an added bonus, here's a rather strange Christmas track from Snuky Tate. How do I describe Snuky Tate? Snuky started out as a punk rocker, but by the time he released his first album, BABYLON under PRESSURE, on Chris Stein's Animal Records in 1982, he was making music that was pretty hard to categorize. No Wave Reggae maybe? "Afreakmas" melds African style percussion and chanting with Christmas bells and a jubilant Yuletide message. "Merry Christmas? Merry Everything!"

Snuky has a Facebook page, despite having passed on in 1998. Lots of people stop by his page and say things like "Hey Snuky, remember me from that gig in Toronto in 1978?" even though the page is quite clear about Snuky's current whereabouts. I guess it is too much to expect Facebook to have an I.Q. requirement, since you apparently don't even have to be a living person to have an account.

a different kind of christmas

I skipped out on doing a Holiday compilation last year, but I wanted to do one again this year. You can download (or just listen to) some of the songs from the compilation below, or you can grab the whole thing from one of the two links below: [Songs and links deleted, sorry.]

1. "Merry Christmas Baby" - Southern Culture On The Skids
First up is Southern Culture On the Skids version of "Merry Christmas Baby." I think Ike & Tina Turner's version of this song is still my favorite. Southern Culture On The Skids can't match Tina's vocal prowess, but they do establish a nice, greasy, groove that is sure to put you in the Yuletide spirit.

2. "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" - Woody Herman & His Orchestra
One of the most beloved Christmas songs, "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" raises some troubling questions about Santa Claus that are rarely addressed in our consumerism crazed society. Namely, are the presents that we get from Santa on Christmas worth the price of having our privacy invaded all year long? I thought about this a lot when I was a kid, I mean the dude sees everything. That was something that was always very difficult for me to come to terms with. But as we get older we become more sophisticated and find other things to worry about. Like for example, even if we trust Santa Claus, how can we be sure that the data that he collects on us is secure and won't fall into the wrong hands? I mean, it's one thing to end up on Santa's naughty list and get nothing but a lump of coal on Christmas morning, but what if one of Santa's elves leaks the naughty list to Julian Assange? Do I really want the whole world to find out I've been naughty via Wikileaks?

3. "Jingle Bells" - Benny Carter & Swing Quintet
Another swinging visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past.

4. "Run Rudolph Run" - Chuck Berry

5. "I Want To Spend Christmas With Elvis (Heartbreak Noel)" - Debbie Dabney
Debbie Dabney says if she doesn't get to spend Christmas with Elvis it will be a Heartbreak Noel, but in a pinch she might settle for Gene Vincent.

6. "All I Want For Christmas Is You" - Foghat
What would Christmas be without Foghat? For most of us it would pretty much be a normal Christmas, but I've always enjoyed "All I Want For Christmas Is You," which is one of the five or ten best "you're all I want for Christmas" themed songs.

7. "There's Trouble Brewin'" - Jack Scott
I think I put Jack Scott's "There's Trouble Brewin'" on a previous Flowering Toilet holiday compilation. So what? Here it is again. This is one of the all-time great Santa Claus as sexual rival songs.

8. "Boogie Woogie Santa Claus" - Lionel Hampton & His Orchestra
More Christmas swing.

9. "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town" - Esquivel
I find the civil liberties issues raised by Santa's data mining techniques so troubling that I included a second version of this song on this year's compilation. Think about it people.

10. "Rocking Disco Santa Claus" - The Sisterhood
The American Song-Poem Christmas: Daddy Is Santa Really Six Foot Four? is one of my favorite Christmas albums, and I give it my highest Yuletide recommendation. Drawn from "song-poems" written by regular folks and performed by bored studio musicians, I find many of these songs both fascinating and strangely touching.

11. "Jingle Jangle" - The Penguins

12. "Jingle Bells" - Duke Ellington

13. "Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindeer" - Pony Poindexter

14. "Winter Wonderland [78 Take]" - Chet Baker
What can I say? I guess I'm in a jazzy mood this Christmas.

15. "Rockin' Santa Claus" - The Martels

16. "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" - The Three Suns
A Ding-Dong Dandy Christmas by The Three Suns is one of my favorite Christmas albums.

17. "Hark The Herald Angels Sing" - The Fall
Did I ever tell you about the time I went on a beer run for Mark E. Smith? Someday I will.

18. "Reindeer Boogie" - Hank Snow
Another popular formula for Christmas songs is to do a seasonal take on one of your big non-seasonal hits. So if you're Carla Thomas you might turn "Gee Whiz (Look At His Eyes)" into "Gee Whiz, It's Christmas." If you're Hank Snow you might rework "Rhumba Boogie" as "Reindeer Boogie." How could you resist?

19. "Daddy's Drinking Up Our Christmas" - Commander Cody
Another beloved Christmas classic.

20. "Sleigh Bell Rock" - Three Aces And A Joker

21. "Santa Came On A Nuclear Missile" - Heather Noel
Another one from the American Song-Poem Christmas compilation. I don't even know what to say about this song. You just have to hear it.

22. "Monster's Holiday" - Bobby Boris Pickett & The Crypt Kickers
At first blush this might look like another attempt to transform a prior hit into a Christmas favorite. But what would you say if I told you that "Monster's Holiday" actually pre-dates "The Monster Mash"? If you said, "I think you're pulling my leg," you would be right.

23. "Happy New Year Baby" - Johnny Otis & His Orchestra

24. "Presents For Christmas" - Solomon Burke
Oh dear, rest in peace sweet soul man. Solomon Burke will be missed.

25. "The Christmas Song" - Jack Teagarden
Somehow everything Jack Teagarden sings sounds old. Of course "The Christmas Song" is kind of old, but when Big T sings it, it sounds a couple centuries older than it actually is.

Happy Holidays.

Comcast Attempts To Block Netflix

It's pretty rare for me to ask my readers to sign a petition, but I encourage you to sign on to the Progressive Change Campaign Committee's petition to the FCC to stop Comcast from blocking Netflix's streaming movie service.

Net Neutrality sometimes seems like a pretty abstract concept. But here is a concrete example of why we want to maintain Net Neutrality. For $7.99 a month Netflix will allow you to stream unlimited movies into your home. We're not yet to the point where streaming offers the kind of selection or image quality I would want to abandon DVD and Blu-Ray, and Netflix service is not perfect (particularly if you are deaf or hard of hearing). But it's a good service that is still evolving, and offers good value, especially when compared to what cable companies like Comcast, Time/Warner and Cox offer.

Meanwhile, the cable monopolies are working under an outdated paradigm where you pay a lot of money ($50-$100 per month, or more!) to get a huge selection of stuff you will mostly never watch. And if you want to pick a movie to watch via cable, you get hit with an additional per-movie fee. So it's no surprise that cable companies like Comcast (who also have a stranglehold on broadband internet delivery) would not be pleased with the new model that Netflix has developed and would do anything in their power to stop it.

In essence, Comcast is attempting to block Netflix's streaming service by charging Netflix a new fee in order to maintain a commercial advantage over them for their own service. It's exactly the kind of predatory corporate behavior we need the FCC to protect consumers from, and hopefully with your urging they will. It's a question of who the internet belongs to. Does it belong to you and me, and should we be able to decide what content we want to access over it? Or does it belong to Comcast, Time/Warner and other big corporations, and should they get to decide how we use it?

For more details read Brian Stelter's report at the New York Times. Then sign the petition.

The Wishniaks (Again)

I rarely re-post material, but I'm making an exception in this case. A few years back I posted a little story about my attempt to book the Philadelphia indie-rock band The Wishniaks at my college, and some of the, um, snags, I hit. I also posted one side of the band's 1988 double A-sided single "Wicked Pygmy Summer"/"Wishful Thinking." Since then I've noticed comments from people about how much they loved the band, gotten a few emails about them, and noticed a consistent number of google searches for the band leading to this site. So here it is again, back by popular demand and freshly re-ripped from 7" vinyl.

A track from the band's album Catch 33 was featured on the Little Hits blog, and you can find more information about the band there. I don't have a whole lot more to say about them than I did last time, other than that I wish they reached a wider audience than they did and I hope you enjoy these tracks. Oh, and I never did get to see them live.

Amazing New Product!

What would you say if I told you there was an amazing new way to organize your CD library with the help of a PC (Personal Computer)? Probably something along the lines of, "No shit, it's called iTunes and it's been around since 2001, welcome to the 21st Century moron."

Okay fine, I probably deserved that, but you didn't have to be so rude about it. But believe it or not, I wasn't referring to iTunes, Winamp, MediaMonkey, fobar2000, or any other digital media player. No, I'm talking about BesTradeUSA.com's DC101 and DC300 (dig those jet age names!) CD Library - Automatic CD storage/retrieval system. I was amazed to read about these products in this Sunday's Providence Journal (though I cannot find a trace of the article on projo.com, I swear I'm not making this up, you can find the same story at Vindy.com). The DC101 and DC300 are state of the art solutions to an age-old problem that no longer exists: how do you organize and catalog all your Compact Discs?

For me, the DC101 CD Organizer's name brings back not only unpleasant memories of the classic rock station I was forced to listen to on the school bus, but also a horrific plane crash in 1982. Visually, the DC101's subtly contoured edges recall the elegant slide projector carousels of yore, or perhaps a yogurt maker. BesTradeUSA describes the DC101 thusly:

"The CD Manager/Organizer/Finder allows you to categorize and manage (storage/retrieval) your CD/DVD/VCD/CD-R/DVD-RW titles (e.g. electronic books, financial data, images, photos, video, audio, ..etc). It's only limited by your imagination."

That's right, no more fumbling for your Barry White's All Time Greatest Hits CD to set the proper mood. The DC101 hooks up to your Personal Computer via a USB input, so just type in the name of the CD you want, and let the DC101 do the rest! Your new special lady (or gentleman) friend will not only be impressed by how organized your are, and your unimpeachable sense of style, but also your easy command of the latest technology. I'm not saying the DC101 will get you laid but....well, actually, yeah that is exactly what I'm saying.

If, like me, you own more than 150 CDs, you needn't worry, the DC101 has still got you covered because you can stack and daisy chain up to 127 of them, allowing you to store and organize over 19,049 discs! I imagine you'd need pretty high ceilings to stack 127 of these units one on top of the other, and for stability's sake I would recommend separating them into five stacks of 21 and one stack of 22, or better yet six stacks of 18 and one stack of 19 (better safe than sorry).





If you step up to the deluxe DC300 model, you gain direct keypad entry, a built in USB hub, and CDDB update. But that's not all you get! The DC300 conveniently pushes your Compact Disc out entirely for easy, fingerprint-proof retrieval. Now all you need is a robot to put the CD in your Compact Disc Player, and your life will be as easy as George Jetson's ("Boy Rosie, these nine hour work weeks are killing me!").

The DC300 is available in either elegant almond, or stunning gray, and like the DC101 it can be stacked and daisy chained up to 127 times. The DC300 looks like the actual slide projector to the DC101's carousel, and its simple solidity will let the world know that you are a person of substance.

I have seen the future and it is called the DC101/DC300 CD Library - Automatic CD storage/retrieval system.

When you purchase your DC101 or DC300 organizers, you might also want to check out BesTradeUSA's amazing SNAP SHOT 2110 Digital Camera with 2.1 Mega Pixels (!) and 1.5" LCD display while it is on sale for the low, low price of $199 (MSRP $399). As BesTradeUSA says, "Digital Your Memory."

This heaven gives me migraine

How many times must irony be murdered before it is well and truly dead?

The problem of leisure
What to do for pleasure
The body is good business
Sell out, maintain the interest
Ideal love a new purchase
A market of the senses
Dream of the perfect life
Economic circumstances
Ideal love a new purchase
A market of the senses
Remember Lot's wife
Renounce all sin and vice
Dream of the bourgeois life
This heaven gives me migraine

AAUGH!

So Apple's big news is you can now download the Beatles albums (stereo versions only) from the iTunes store. Finally, the world will get to hear these legendary albums in all their lossy compressed glory.

The only thing I can see that is remarkable about this is that the Beatles waited until the CD was an almost dead format to remaster their catalog. Now they've waited until downloads are almost irrelevant to make their catalog available that way.

And it's pretty lame that Apple hyped it by referencing a McCartney solo tune that John Lennon famously hated. I mean, I'm not one of these "John is God" and the "real" Paul died in 1967 guys, but come on.

Update: I just browsed through some of the reviews posted on iTunes. It seems some people are actually very excited about this. Here's are a couple sample reviews of the Yellow Submarine album:

"Holy Firetruck this is awesome!: Wow. It's been so long. I've waited for this moment feels like forever. My English teacher will be really happy when he finds out it's here!"

or

FINALLY!!!!!!: YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! They are finally selling the beatles on itunes!!!!!now this is sweet!!!!!

What am I missing here? Am I underwhelmed simply because I'm an old fart, and I've owned this music on 45 rpm singles, cassettes, LPs, CDs, etc. and loaded all the albums onto my iPod long ago? (That's a rhetorical question, I know the answer). It's never been hard to get the Beatles into iTunes or onto an iPod, you just couldn't buy it from the iTunes store until today. Why does this matter? Is it because you can now purchase "Hey Bulldog" without also having to buy "Pepperland Laid Waste"? I'm not just trying to be snarky here, I really don't understand the fuss.

Major iTunes Hype

If you go to Apple's homepage today you will be greeted by the message above about an "exciting announcement from iTunes" tomorrow at 10:00 AM Eastern. Despite my recent complaints about Apple and iTunes, I must tip my hat to them for their mastery of the art of hype. No one has any idea what what the big announcement will be, but that doesn't stop everyone from guessing. Apple does an amazing job of keeping things secret and only letting the public know about new products and features on their own terms. Also, no matter how many times these announcements fail to live up the advance hype, people always get worked up over the "next big thing" from Apple anyway.

Bonus SAT answer:

Lucy with football is to Charlie Brown as:
A) Steve Jobs with 'big announcement' is to Apple fans.

There's really only one thing that, in my opinion, could live up to this level of hype: the announcement of an "iTunes Cloud" service where people pay a monthly subscription fee that allows them to access the entire iTunes catalog. As downloads continue to fall well short of making up for the revenue that labels have lost over the past 10 years, it's become increasingly clear to me that the industry will eventually move toward some kind of subscription-based model. iTunes and Apple, with the world's largest digital catalog and the most popular hardware devices that could access a music cloud (iPhones, iPads, etc.), are ideally positioned to be the market leader when this shift occurs.

So if that is the announcement, it would legitimately constitute big news, and a day worth remembering. It would signal a seismic shift in the way pre-recorded music is distributed, and forever change our relationship to it. A music "cloud" would represent a far bigger shift, in my opinion, than the move toward downloads did, because with downloads you still "owned" something. Sure it wasn't something physical anymore, but--in theory at least--it still belonged to you. Once we move to a "cloud" access model, the idea of owning pre-recorded music will rapidly become an anachronism. It won't wipe record collector geeks like myself off the face of the planet in an instant, but it will make the hobby appear even more quaint and inconsequential than it currently does.

Of course given the "just another day" reference, Apple may just be planning to announce that you can download the Beatles catalog from iTunes, which would be quite lame and forgettable. (But would they really reference a Macca solo song to announce acquiring the rights to the Beatles catalog? If so, that sound you just heard was John Lennon rolling over in his grave.)

So will tomorrow be just another day when Steve Jobs pulls the football out from under us and leaves us lying on our backs cursing our gullibility, or will something really big happen? Either way, I once again tip my hat to Apple's spectacular ability to generate hype.

Update: All Things Digital says a "cloud" announcement is not likely given that contracts with music industry companies would have to be in place, and as far as anyone knows that hasn't happened yet. It's also not likely to be a more limited "cloud" that you can upload content you already own to, as the music industry has been arguing that such a service would also require a new contract. In short, given the number of players that would have to be involved, a cloud announcement just isn't something Apple could surprise us all with.

One last thought: Paul McCartney recently moved his solo catalog from EMI to Concord Music Group, so the announcement might have something to do with that. As a result, HD Tracks recently made Band On The Run available as a hi-rez (96 kHz/24 bit) FLAC download (allowing you to choose dynamically compressed and un-compressed versions). But audiophile Macca releases seem like something that would be of interest to too small a percentage of the population to qualify as a big announcement.