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03.17.07 by Widge @ 5:05 am  The folks at WFMU's Beware of the Blog have stripped out some of the voice samples and musical bits of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, giving you the ability to go and create your own. Crazy...the samples provided, such as "There is no dark side of the moon..." and well known to all Floyd fans, have never been so clear. Categorized as: Music
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03.14.07 by Widge @ 11:14 am  Whatever Harry Breuer is doing with that xylophone, it's making that poor woman try to hang herself. What, is Harry a Flash villain or something? Categorized as: Music and Stimuli
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03.13.07 by Widge @ 3:14 am  The band is Let's Go Sailing, and along with Filter, they've all made it possible for you to win the new album along with some other tasty swag. It's a swag-a-thon. All aboard. Categorized as: Contests and Music
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03.05.07 by Rob Levy @ 11:53 pm Thanks to all of you for taking time away from the silly Anna Nicole Smith news and Arena Football League season to read my column. It is much appreciated.  The Grammys were mighty boring. I don't really care two cents about them. They are decided on by people whose musical tastes have no bearing on mine whatsoever. Plus any excuse to not see Don Henley is fine by me. I don't really care about The Dixie Chicks but I don't think they deserved to win every single award, especially when Gnarls Barkley clearly had the Single of the Year. The Single of the Year should go to the song that crosses over and impacts the most people that year. "Crazy" clearly did this. It was on rock, urban and contemporary hit radio stations. It was played in The Gap, hotel lobbies, sports highlight clips, Starbucks and every car driving down the street. During the spring and summer months you could not escape it. Magically, despite the overkill, "Crazy" never wore out its welcome. It never made you throw your hands up in exasperation and scream "Enough already!" This is the trademark of a great pop single and Gnarls Barkley clearly deserved to win this. Categorized as: Books and Columns and Music
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03.03.07 by Widge @ 3:23 pm  The Whitney Music Box is a nifty little web-bit that spins dots around a line, triggering musical notes when the dots pass the line. There's several versions of it, and it sounds simple, but it's a timesuck of fairly staggering proportions. Be forewarned. Categorized as: Music and Stimuli
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02.15.07 by Widge @ 11:46 pm  Now fear this: the legendary strangeness that is Leonard Nimoy performing "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" just got stranger. Maidenwine has posted the online equivalent of a Criterion Collection edition of the thing: it comes with a full explanation of just what the hell it is and where it came from, plus the uncut video along with its original introduction. As a very wise man once said: "Too much. There's too much fucking perspective now." Categorized as: Music
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01.28.07 by Widge @ 4:35 am Okay, make a novelty song about The Karate Kid. Fine. Congratulations. But make a music video that combines not only tributes to that flick, but a Cars music video and the funniest film of the 80s, Raising Arizona? Now you have accomplished something. The band is No More Kings. The song is "Sweep the Leg." The fault lies with Ripp, who sent this to me. Categorized as: Music
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01.10.07 by Widge @ 10:11 pm  I saw The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets at DragonCon many, many moons ago. I was astounded to see a Lovecraft tribute band that ended their set with Cthulhu appearing and killing all of them. I was greatly impressed. Their album, Great Old Ones, has long been a favorite of mine. For some reason, last time I went to go look for them online, their web presence was a bit stagnant. I feared the worst. I must have been looking in the wrong place, though, because they appear to be alive and kicking. There's a new album called The Shadow Out of Tim. Sweet! And they've launched their online store, Dead Space God Central. To celebrate, they're helping out your friend and mine, Jhayne the Lady Porphyre, with her quest to develop an oasis of art in the midst of Vancouver. They're doing this with a pretty badass Charity Prize Pack. To see the full thing, check it out here. And to find out about Heart of the World, Jhayne's mission, go here. Categorized as: Music
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12.25.06 by Widge @ 1:10 pm  Rob brought us some sad news today...the Godfather of Soul has passed at the age of 73. What always impressed me about James Brown is that the man was so cool and funky, he didn't even have to sing a song if he didn't feel like it. He and his band (and at the height of his success, Brown had one of the most badass bands in the history of badass bands) could just vamp for eight minutes with Brown egging them on with various "HEY!"s and "Hit me!"s and screams. Anyone else, you'd turn that shit off. With Brown and crew, it's somehow eminently listenable. So we say goodbye to Reverend Cleophus James. Thanks for making us all see the light. Rest well. Categorized as: Music
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12.23.06 by Rob Levy @ 5:25 am As we slam the door on 2006 we look at 2007 with the usually end of the year suspicion. After all popular culture really floods the market right after the holidays In order to meet that first quarter profit margin. It's a dangerous time: books, films, comics and music are loaded with good things, bad things disguised as good things and completely useless crap completely undisguised. With that in mind caveat emptor! Upon deep reflection, the greatest Christmas song of all time is "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues. It took nearly two years to write and forced Shane MacGowan to "raise his game" in order to match the perfect vocals of Kirsty MacColl. Their duet about a drunk who won at horses and a terribly disenfranchised and pissed off lover somehow manages to snarl, scream and punch itself into a "aw shucks it's Christmas so let's figure all this out later" ending. It is powerful, poignant and ripped full of anger and rage. It's like a fistfight with a nice kiss at the end. Remaking "The Year Without A Santa Claus" is the dumbest idea since having a trilogy of Christmas movies with Tim Allen. The new version was pure excrement. There was something oddly fun about the Twisted Sister Christmas album. I am so glad their Xmas gift to the world was quitting. Categorized as: Books and Columns and Music
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