Shit I already knew...

Mid-Week MP3

Jake Kaufman is the kind of musician we could all learn a thing or two from: he is a multitalented artist who works in a large variety of styles and genres, and he sports an unwavering dedication to his craft. His chosen profession is video game music composer, and his résumé is particularly fascinating to those who, like me, have an affinity for handheld gaming.

Jake, better known as virt, also believes in the age-old concept of something for nothing. He has an amazing variety of tracks for free download from his site. While his self-crunched MIDI works are things of beauty, I found myself particularly drawn to his arrangements of classic gaming soundtracks. This week’s Mid-Week MP3 is a chamber music take on the iconic sounds of one of my favorite 8-bit titles: Castlevania II. Enjoy.

virt – What a Horrible Night

Mid-Week MP3

Okay, so I’m not entirely sure who Rx is, but it appears he (or she) remixes audio files of US politicians and couples the “lyrics” with dance beats. The results are awe-inspiring.

Tim over at Radio Clash played a bit from Rx’s “Dick is a Killer” on his show last week, and I have since become totally enamored by the track. It’s full of crude humor, profanity, and is, at the most basic level, an attack against the current administration. In other words: it may be the best goddamn song ever!

Rx – Dick is a Killer

Mid-Week MP3

Not content to let a good thing die, this week’s Mid-Week MP3 is another from that mad bastard Mark Vidler of GoHomeProductions. This one blends TLC’s angsty anthem Unpretty with The Specials' seminal classic A Message to You, Rudy.

The result is soul-shaking as it blends the drama of the former with the pop sensibility of the latter. It’ll make you dance!

GHP -- Pretty Rudy

Mid-Week MP3

This week’s Mid-Week MP3 is yet another mash-up. (Could be I’m going for a theme here.)

This one takes Echo and the Bunnymen’s Killing Moon and unceremoniously weds it with Abba. I’m not sure why anyone would want to do that, but GoHomeProductions’s Mark Vidler did. It’s the kind of track that will have you bobbing your head and feeling really bad about it the entire time.

Check out Mark’s site for more bootleg goodness. Also, look for his track Rapture Riders on Capitol’s “Blondie Greatest Hits Sound & Vision” due out next month here in the states.

GHP -- Abba and the Bunnymen

Mid-Week MP3

As much as I abhor repeats, this week I’m gonna do one. Upon further reflection on Party Ben’s catalogue I found a song that is equally as good, if not better, than last week’s offering.

This mash-up blends the raucous ragtime of The White Stripes with the smooth beats of Eric B. & Rakim. It’s good. Damn good.

Now download it and then go directly to Ben’s site to check out his other offerings. I ain’t got time to spoon-feed you all his shit! ;)

Party Ben -- Pump Up the Doorbell

What kind of Pocky are you?

what flavor pocky are you?

[c] sugardew

Truthfully, I'd rather be Pretz!

Mid-Week MP3

Perhaps a mash-up of Destiny’s Child and Fugazi seems a bit sacrilegious, a bit heretical. Well, that’s only because it is. Fortunately for us Party Ben, formally of the San Fran’s “The Sixx Mixx” fame, busts it out real good.

While I’m not going to put Ben dead at the top of my list of favorite djs this track really does showcase the power and passion of a mad genius at work. Who else would’ve heard “Independent Women Pt. 1” and thought it’d sound better over “Waiting Room?”

Party Ben – Independent Room

Farewell Black Table!

As of last Friday, seminal NY crap culture online mag The Black Table has closed its virtual doors. Having written several weekly reviews for their Black List and one legitimate piece for BT, I can honestly say I hate to see it go. In a veritable sea of mindless webjunk, it was one of only a handful of destinations that I could depend on to enlighten and amuse without fail. From Eric Gillin’s journalistic imploration to clean your bathroom to Laura Lang’s warts-and-all look at the life of the functional addict, The Black Table offered something that few other sites do – a damn-near rule free environment in which to be creative and cozy up to your inner journalist. To Will Leitch and company I just have to say good show, and thanks for all the fun. The Black Table will be missed.

Ain’t that some shit?!

After months of speculation and hearsay Nintendo has announced the redesign of the Nintendo DS. It’s slimmer, it’s sleeker, it’s… Ipod-ey?

Screw it, here’s a pic:

Mid-Week MP3

Now that I have fully recovered from my New Year’s hangover, grappled with a double-dose of winter illness, and danced the two-step with my own mortality, we shall jump right back in to your regularly scheduled Mid-Week MP3.

The first track of ’06 is a delightful little mash-up of Queen and 50 Cent. It was one of my faves from the year-end party circuit, and I’m sure you’ll dig it as well. This one is brought to you by The Silence Xperiment and, obviously, the letter Q.

And remember, kids, support you local DJ.

Q-Unit – Under Pressure All the Time

Mid-Week MP3

Often lost among the glut of garage rock bands to hit the scene in the early 2000s, Randy Fitzsimmons, The Hives hit in the US with breakthrough album Veni Vidi Vicious, from whence this track hails.

A beautiful mixture of style, sass, and sarcasm, The Hives follow-ups never achieved as much success in the states, but are certainly notable for the evolution of the band’s sound to a more mischievous, mechanical level. Most Hives singles, stateside releases, and imports are still available. Buy one, damnit!

The Hives Declare Guerre Nucleaire

KK Slider is like the Dead... except his music doesn't suck.

Does Animal Crossing Wild World promote music piracy? I’d like to think so… It's funny how big this story has gotten. Is this some clandestine move to free our young charges from the bounds of the mega-corporate music machine? A clever marketing ploy on the part of Nintendo? Much ado about nothing? Who knows!

Mid-Week MP3 (Yuletide Edition)

I know you told me not to, but I got you a present. Seriously, go ahead and open it! If it's not your size I totally kept the receipt.

Mid-Week MP3

This week's Mid-Week MP3 comes courtesy of a self-revelation.

It’s recently come to my attention that I am an old man. One of the odd ways in which this age manifests itself is through the shifting of both principles and ideas. (And before anyone asks; no, 1mod ain’t voting Republican!) For a number of years I have been aware that the old “never sell out” punk rock ethic is, for lack of a better word, shit. Therefore, when a band, or a book, or a painter, or a… I dunno… style that I hold dear becomes popular, lucrative, or en vogue I no longer take it as a personal attack against those of us who were with it back in the day. That’s just the way culture pops, I suppose, and I’m not gonna slight anyone for taking advantage of it.

This also applies to hearing some of my favorite bands’ music in television commercials. While Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life seems a bit out of place in a Carnival Cruise Line commercial, I’m sure Iggy could use the scratch. And while hearing the Buzzcocks wailing over images of the Toyota Rav 4 seems odd, that commercial was actually pretty sweet. And thus, when I heard the new Levis spot featuring those mad lads from London I couldn’t help but get a little misty. I mean, who would’ve ever thought that you’d hear Madness during primetime here in the States?

1modernboy humbly requests that you use these MP3s solely as a means of evaluation. If you like what you hear, please buy records, CDs, t-shirts, or other merchandise to support this band/artist and his/her/their label-mates. Seeing them live probably wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
Should the features artist, or the related label or distributor take issue with my inclusion of the song file, please don’t hesitate to contact me, so that the offending file can be removed.

Madness-- It Must Be Love

Mid-Week MP3

This week's Mid-Week MP3 is from my pick for best album of 2005 (see below).

Bloc Party were signed thanks to forunate contact with Franz Ferdinand frontman Alex Kapranos and DJ Steve Lamacq, and their 2005 release Silent Alarm, while not quite the smash here in the states as it was in the UK, has garnered praise from all circles. It just goes to show that an album can be both critically praised and have legitimate artistic merit.

The band itself blends art rock with indie rock for an intoxicating blend of fuzz, whine, and rump shakin'. That being said, let’s all put on tiny t-shirts and gyrate rhythmically to the crash and wale of Like Eating Glass.

1modernboy humbly requests that you use these MP3s solely as a means of evaluation. If you like what you hear, please buy records, CDs, t-shirts, or other merchandise to support this band/artist and his/her/their label-mates. Seeing them live probably wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
Should the features artist, or the related label or distributor take issue with my inclusion of the song file, please don’t hesitate to contact me, so that the offending file can be removed.

Bloc Party – Like Eating Glass

1mod's Best of '05

Now that we’re safely within the chilly confines of December it is again time for that most fastidious flurry of finicky funkiness that is my picks of the year’s greatest. So, without further ado, I present The Best of ’05.

Album of the Year: Bloc Party – Silent Alarm
Generally, I don’t buy a lot of new records in your average year. I prefer to get my music the old fashioned way – by bumming CDs off my friends and ripping those bastards to my PC. This year, one album I went out of my way to purchase was Silent Alarm by Bloc Party. Why? Because this album is both lyrically sound and musically layered without sounding overly complex or artsy. And I like dance rock. And Kele Okereke looks like Buckwheat and sounds like Colin Hay with a lung full o’ helium.

Song/Single of the Year: Tegan and Sara – Speak Slow
Let me sum up: identical twin lesbian Canadians that rock like they ought to… And though their early solo-era Joan Jett haircuts and tendency toward folkyness initially put me off, Speak Slow was sufficient to kill Reverend Run’s Mind on the Road as my pick for Song of the Year. Ain’t that some shit?

Movie of the Year: The 40 Year-Old Virgin
There may have been films that I saw this year that I liked more than Steve Carell’s The 40 Year-Old Virgin while I was watching them, but none really followed me home from the theatre with as much charm and fervor. I still find myself mentioning bags of sand and the ubiquitous “Boner Jams ‘03” nigh daily!

TV Show of the Year: The Boondocks
As much as I love NBC’s take on The Office and the cockeyed behemoth that is Lost, as well as new fall season darling How I Met Your Mother (also known as that show with Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Doogie Houser), I have to give the nod to The Boondocks. Not only has Aaron McGruder finally brought Huey and company to the tele, he’s also given Uncle Ruckus, the self-hating black man, a suitably comical voice.

Game of the Year: Resident Evil 4
If you didn’t choose RE 4 as your game of the year you obviously haven’t played RE 4. With lush, eerie environments, spot-on character models, and an enemy AI that just won’t quit Capcom again managed to scare the hell out of me while all the while spurning me toward a climactic, and none-too cheesy, resolution. Best. Resident. Evil. Ever.

Website of the Year: Scary-Go-Round
I love Web comics, but there are so damn many to visit that I sometimes have to cut the fat. Scary-Go-Round is lean. Clean and lean and, occasionally, obscene. Okay, not actually obscene, I just got a bit carried away… Sorry. Anyway, with all the charm of a Monty Python animated short (without the over-sized feet) and all the style of a Cornershop single, John Allison's Scary-Go-Round is the site that I make it a point to hit each Monday-Friday.

Man/Woman of the Year: Old Grandma Hardcore
With all the press she’s been getting from MTV, Game Informer, the Washington Post, and others, my mention of Old Grandma Hardcore won’t garner her blog any more measurable hits than she’s already pushing, but I gotsta give credit where credit is due. This 70 year-old dynamo has beaten more games than you’ve played, and she will completely kill your ass for an Xbox 360. And that, my friends, is hardcore.

Well, those are my picks. What about yours? Feel free to omit/add categories as you see fit.

Mid-Week MP3

Earlier this year French duo Daft Punk released their fifth studio album Human After All. While I still haven’t picked this record up if there’s any justice on the world it’ll make its way into my X-mas stocking. While most critics and fans seem to agree that this is not their best work, I’ll still get it (one way or another). Why? Because the band that may me reconsider electronic music in general and House specifically as valid an emotionally charged forms of musical expression deserves no less. But I’m not here to debate their merits so much as to share my love of their music.

With that said, let’s all hop aboard the Way-Back Machine to 2001 when Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter took us on a dizzying adventure through the musical madness that was Discovery. The music from this album served as a joint concept piece with the brilliant animation of the legendary Leiji Matsumoto as demonstrated through the movie Interstella 5555: The 5tory of a 5ecret 5tar 5ystem. The album/film weaves an elaborate tale of love, loss, disco, and space ships, and nowhere is this more prevalent than in the single “Digital Love.”

For the love of God, buy Discovery! Hell, buy Interstella too! While Daft Punk’s earlier works are equally good, none have the emotional appeal of the tale of a band, a man, a monster, and the music that binds them all together. So at that, please enjoy this week’s Mid-Week MP3… and keep on dancin’.

1modernboy humbly requests that you use these MP3s solely as a means of evaluation. If you like what you hear, please buy records, CDs, t-shirts, or other merchandise to support this band/artist and his/her/their label-mates. Seeing them live probably wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
Should the features artist, or the related label or distributor take issue with my inclusion of the song file, please don’t hesitate to contact me, so that the offending file can be removed.

Daft Punk -- Digital Love

Mid-Week MP3

In honor of this week’s Thanksgiving Day celebration, here is a quick list of a half-dozen things that I’m thankful for:

*My wife and son
*The Rangers not sucking this season
*My Scion xB (Thanks, dear!)
*Cook’s Grand Spumante
*The Nintendo DS
*The enduring legacy of The Clash

That last one brings me to this week’s Mid-Week MP3.

The Clash have proven to be a band far more significant than their initial lifespan. Their ten year tenure as the ruling kings of political punk pales in comparison to the lasting relevance of their music and message. Originally composed of Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon , and Terry Chimes (plus Keith Leven, if in name only), the band didn’t hit full stride until Chimes’s replacement Topper Headon sat behind the skins following the release of their first album. From simply leftist to elaborately anti-racist and Marxist politics, Strummer and company sang about and for the counterculture, urging the nihilistic punkers of the day to stand up and be counted as a force for positive cultural change.

While initial success in the states seemed like a long shot, even we stuffy Americans could appreciate the band’s universal appeal, and today you can’t pass a high school without seeing some young buck in a London Calling t-shirt. No band before or since managed to succeed in the melding of punk, rockabilly, reggae, rap, dub, and pop to such a degree as The Clash. Though drugs and fame tore the band apart in 1983, individual members continued to participate in various artistic endeavors, with varying degrees of commercial success. Tragically, Joe Strummer’s career ended abruptly in 2002 when he fell victim to a heart attack at the age of 50.

This song is for Mick and for Topper and for Terry and for Paul and for Joe (R.I.P.) and for you. Consider it an early Christmas present. Enjoy, and save me some stuffing.

1modernboy humbly requests that you use these MP3s solely as a means of evaluation. If you like what you hear, please buy records, CDs, t-shirts, or other merchandise to support this band/artist and his/her/their label-mates. Seeing them live probably wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
Should the features artist, or the related label or distributor take issue with my inclusion of the song file, please don’t hesitate to contact me, so that the offending file can be removed.

The Clash -- 1-2 Crush on You

Uncle Ruckus

I was lucky enough to catch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on opening weekend, and I have to say I dug it. While the book was, in my humble opinion, the best in the series so far, the movie was a noticeable abridged version – more akin to a friend telling you about the book in a drunken, sometimes uneven and vehemently whispered conversation. Still, it was a keeper. The visual presentation and overall look was clean and consistent, even when the dialogue slipped, and the super CGI monsters and shit didn’t really take away from the story. I didn’t like it quite as much as Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, but it was a noble effort that I think most fans will enjoy.

In other entertainment news, if you’re not watching The Boondocks on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block, shame on you! Aaron McGruder’s comic masterpiece has made the jump to television with its wit (and all its venom) intact.