It’s the holidays, and I’ve too much egg nog in me to write anything meaningful, much less coherent.
While I’m off enjoying the love of family and friends, please enjoy these Christmas songs from some local San Diego talent:
[UPDATE: Songs removed. Good things like this only last a day.]
Normal posting will resume tomorrow. In the meantime, Merry Christmas! 
With Christmas fast approaching I thought I’d turn our attention towards one of the often overlooked and underappreciated holiday songs that sums up how I feel about this particular gift-giving season. Straight off their festive and upbeat 1984 sophomore album Hallowed Ground I present the The Violent Femmes’ feel-good song for the holidays Country Death Song.
Kinda brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it?
Reminds me of the days in high school where I was first exposed to music such as The Violent Femmes, David Bowie, Agent Orange, The Descendents, Yello, Bauhaus, Tom Waits, The Cramps, Dead Kennedys, The Damned, Kraftwerk, Oingo Boing, Talking Heads, and Tones On Tail. Man, those were the days where discovering music was really something special, when the term “alternative” actually meant something, and Friday Night Videos was still watchable.
…and this is where you might expect me to rail against the current crop of musicians as lacking in talent (and I so was tempted to do so), but the more I thought about it the more I realized that it’s not the fault of lousy bands for being popular. We all know it’s the fault of the record labels trying to turn a buck. There’s an amazing number of incredible bands out there that just don’t get the exposure that they deserve. Cases in point, here are some of the current releases that I’m listening to:
These are just a few of the bands that I’ve either recently gotten in to or have been following for some time.
To be blunt, the American top whatever lists are rubbish. It sometimes feel like we have absolutely no taste in music (of course that’s very subjective on my part, I know). In my experience I’ve found that visiting sites such as the UK Charts, the Indie Top 200, the Global Albums Chart, or spending some time on Epitonic.com / !K7 has yielded some amazing results. When possible I sample the music via iTunes then download from my sources of choice. These are just a few links for record suggestions. Slog your way through the ‘nets and find your own alternative sources for worthy bands. There are surprises around every corner, you just have to put forth the effort and look.
“T.V. preachers and creepshow features all night long…” – Alien Sex Fiend
At what point does religion become a source of entertainment?
Does proclaiming that God is “like a cloud”, and only if you pray will good things happen and “fall like rain” seem like a statement from a sane man? When did living a good life and following something so simple as the Golden Rule fall by the wayside in favor of blind obedience and an admission ticket?
How much do front row seats at one of these spectacles go for on Ticketmaster? You might be surprised…
I myself do believe in a God, and the idea of thousands of people paying hundreds of dollars to rock out at the altar of the christian pop idol of the moment doesn’t bother me one bit. It’s the idea that this man hides behind the moniker of religion to hock his extravagant money-making life coaching seminars that makes me think the idea of an honest and basic message that Christ preached has been lost in the shuffle of wealth and privilege.
When does the will to do good give way to the desire for prestige and power?
Bored during my one day off from work this week I found myself thumbing through my copy of Edward R. Tufte’s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information when I happened upon this old advertisement from a 1938 Johnson & Smith Catalogue hocking “Luminous Glasses”. Apparently these gimmicky eyeglass frames were coated with a layer of luminescent paint which, if worn in a dark environment, would glow in unusual patterns.
Was this some sort of a fad in the late thirties? Did people spend an unusual amount of their time in dark alcoves and gothic recesses, generating the desperate need for glow-in-the-dark eyewear? Was this fad akin to wearing an onion in your belt, swallowing live goldfish, sporting conk hairstyles, or wearing Member’s Only jackets?
This fad must have stayed in the public consciousness long enough to allow the manufacturer time to expand their eyewear line to include “Window Spectacles” and “Spectacles & Nose” models, the latter making the wearer look like some sort of twisted neoprimitive medicine man running wild on an all night bender of illicit stimulants washed down with Red Bull & vodka.
Ya know, the more I look at this advertisement, the more it gives off an awfully powerful psychedelic vibe making it seem more at home in a Timothy Leary testimonial, a Tom Wolfe / William S. Burroughs novel, or a Victor Moscoso poster than in a 30′s novelty catalogue.
Pitchfork has just released their top 50 albums of 2008. If you’re into indie music, you’ll want to check out their list. Of course there will always be albums that IMHO really don’t belong (there’s only so much emo whining I can take), but then again there are a few gems in here that I hadn’t heard of before.
Here are a few albums that I recommend you check out:
Get ready to download…
…and yes, I still call CDs “albums”. Can’t quite break out of that habit. Blame it on my LP collection.
Here are a few other interesting top whatever sites compressing happenings from 2008:
The Top Mug Shots of 2008
2008: The Year In Tech
The Top 10 Astronomy Photos from 2008
The Top 10 Space Photos of 2008
The Year in Photographs
The Top 20 Lists from 2008
Top 10 Most Dangerous Toys of 2008
The Most Popular Top 10 Lists from 2008
The Top 100 Companies To Work For in 2008
A competing Top 100 List of Companies To Work For in 2008
Collection of Top 8 Things Found In MySpace
Top Apple App Store Downloads from 2008
Top 10 Best Cars of 2008
A Massive collection of Top 10 Lists from 2008
Top 10 Dinosaur & Fossil Finds of 2008
Top 10 Most Pirated TV Shows of 2008
Top 10 New Organisms of 2008
Top 5 Amazing Astronomy Discoveries of 2008
2008′s Best Contest Photos You Never Saw
Buzzwords of 2008
Top 10 Web Games of 2008
Top 10 Green Architecture Projects of 2008
Top 10 Political Scoops of 2008
Top 100 Science Stories of 2008
The 10 Coolest Movie Posters from 2008
The 20 Best Music Videos of 2008
The 10 Hottest Tech Products of 2008
Wired.com’s 10 Best Galleries of 2008
The 20 Biggest Musical Flops of 2008
