Nugs.net is a good place to start for the uninitiated. There's a selection of shows available for download, and a live stream with a samling of shows. There's a good selection of different bands to check out, and if you're one of those visually-oriented types, a photo gallery.
Apparently people aren't even bothering to apply for it. You should, the application process is extremely simple. This is no hoax, even NPR covered it.
Part of his stage persona seems to be to get the audience singing and clapping along, then wincing (deservedly, naturally) at the horrible things the crowd does to the beat and the tune. Cody ChesnuTT (the opener) came on for a tune, and traded some vocals with BBB. That turned into an impromptu Blues school lesson for ChesnuTT. For his part, Cody noted: "Daddy always told me: when he got in trouble with Mommy, all he had to do was put on some Bobby Blue Bland..."
This is some orignal catchy soul rock. With a voice that could launch a thousand R&B ships, Cody croons one minute, rocks the next. He plays all instruments (except sax) on the record, but this one is about the songwriting. Some of the tunes are good-natured rock jingles (Look Good in Leather, When I Find Time, Upstarts in a Blowout), some are torchy psychdelic R&B with a healthy enough dose of that good-old-fashioned sexual redemption they'd make Prince or Sam Cooke blush (Serve This Royalty, Can't Get no Betta).
He opened for Bobby Blue Bland at BAM on Saturday. It's strange to see a live show which has the sound more filled out than the record, rather than less. That may be a bit of an understatement; the band wasn't afraid of the "power" in power trio. The show was mellow moreso than loose, with songs turning into jams apparently without notice, and plenty of between-song rambling and audience participation. Well worth the price of your ticket if he comes to your town.
5. Purple Rain
Well, you knew it'd be in there. Worth watching just for the horrendous acting. And the victory-through-rock'n'roll ending, of course.
4. Slam
Not about music per se, but anything really worth learning about hip-hop you can get from this flick.
3. House Party
What's a better party than the one you throw when the parents are out of town? Kid'n'Play's brightest moment.
2. Six String Samurai
This is a hard movie to find or describe. Okay, it's some time after nuclear armageddon, and the desert is ruled by travelling guitar slingers trying to get to Vegas to replace the recently deceased king of the wasteland. (Yes, that one.) Anyway, the good guy is basically Buddy Holly, and the bad guy is the Devil, but sure looks a lot like Slash. Low budget like a band in a garage, you gotta love it.
1. Hedwig and the Angry Inch
One of the great things about this musical is that the songs actually hold up as rock songs. And the story, of a sexually ambiguous East German obsessed with American music, both for the groove and the rebellion, is pure rock'n'roll.
Here's something odd. The video seems to have inspired a game: Attack of the Killer Ducks. (Gee, the ducks seemed much friendlier in the video.) You should probably watch the video before playing the game. I think that guitar riff, pleasant as it is, could drive you clinically buggo if you play the game for long enough.
I went to Cape Code one weekend and heard Susan on the radio at least six times. No less than you'd expect from someone who births a baby and record within 8 months of each other.
Incidentally, the domain of the site is based in Tokelau, a really small pacific nation with some big ideas about what to do with their country code.
5. Freddy's Dead - Fishbone
So good, that when you hear the low key guitar vamp of Curtis's original version, you hear Fishbone's power chord blowout in your head.
4. Otis Reddding - Satisfaction
The Stones version, while a great rocker, tends to sound in the end like a snotty Britsh superstar complaining about capital gains taxes or somethig. Otis now, my man sings about satisfaction like he knows what he means.
3. The Waterboys - Sweet Thing / Blackbird
Covering the Beatles or Van Morrison are two of the most dangerous things you can do. Out of abject fear, most artists just try to sound as much like the original as humanly possible (For reference, see the I Am Sam soundtrack). Pulling off a successful cover of both in a single track is no mean feat.
2. Save Ferris - Come on Eileen
Makes you realize that the Dexy's Midnight Runners tune was a ska song at heart all along. Who knew?
1. Prince - Just My Imagination
This one is from an obscure bootleg, but it's the best Prince bootleg out there. It was recorded at an aftershow from the Sign "O" the Times tour in Paris. With one of the tightest bands he's ever had behind him, Prince just tore the roof off, turning the old Temptaions song into a guitar anthem of a lifetime.
Sonia Dada is the synthesis of a rock band and an acapella soul act that met up (where else) on a subway platform. They were on hiatus for a while, but recently got back together for one live and one studio album, and both of them stream for you via realaudio from their website. If you're lucky (and I do mean lucky), maybe you'll catch them on the radio too.
You may have heard about the Berman bill, a proposal that would make it legal for record companies or their agents (such as the RIAA) to launch a DOS attack against anyone they felt was violating their copyright.
In case you were wondering about how they would go about it, or whether they were serious, check this out. A group which calls itself Gobbles has posted to security mailing list Bugtraq a claim that they have created a virus for the RIAA designed to spread through peer-to-peer networks and report back to the mothership.
If the Gobbles crew is for real, and HR 5211 passes, the RIAA is poised to go on the offensive. Pissed yet? Do something about it!
UPDATE (1/17/03): Turns out Gobbles was a hoax. Still, don't you think for a minute that the RIAA and their buddies aren't up to some dirty business.
Of course, there's nobody more obsessive than an obsessive Beatles fan, and those folks have had access to those tapes as bootlegs for years. Interestingly, there's a very informative review of the contraband in the New York Times. Not exactly a fringe zine.
But that's the problem; how can the next one improve on that? What if they whiff? What if it's another TTD debacle? Here are the five folks who best managed to beat the sophomore slump:
5. Suzanne Vega - Solitude Standing
This one brought us Luka and Tom's Diner, along with many other tasty morsels.
4. Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Like Bum Rush the Show wasn't fierce enough, this one stepped up the beats (and the beefs, the politics came to the fore here) by double.
3. Sinead O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got
Prince may have wrote the song, but he will never, no matter how he tries, sing it better, or even half as well.
2. World Party - Goodbye Jumbo
Some of the sweetest, toe-tappinest, funkiest pop music you'll ever hear. Play it once, you'll play it many more times. Play many times, you WILL start singing along.
1. A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
It's not easy following up a hit with tracks like Can I Kick It? and Push it Along on it. But it gets a hell of a lot easier when you call up Ron Carter and have the man lay down a damn symphony of bass.
And he's not done mixing things up in Brazilian music. In 1998, he released a record of delicate acoustic tunes while the same year he made available for streaming and download his song Peta Internet, a tune which updates a 1917 Brazilian song for the digital age.
Their most recent record was powerful stuff that generated some buzz and was well received by reviewers to boot. If you're going to start collecting though, the older records are where you get a good feel for their rock assault.
OnlineAthens.com has one of their greatest songs ever streaming in its entirety, and the band just produced a video for one of the songs on their forthcoming (recorded, shopping for a label) record. Enjoy.
Their music is now distributed by Fantasy, one of the labels that works with eMusic.
5. Faith - George Michael
Back in the 80's, there were two types of people. Those who loved all those perfect pop songs on George Michael's solo introduction Faith, and those who said they were above it all (and were lying.)
4. I Want Candy - Bow Wow Wow
Funny how many new wave bands were pretty much playing bubblegum rock from previous decades. (in this case a cover of the the Strangeloves from 1965.) The more things change, the more they stay the same.
3. Buddy Holly - Not Fade Away
Here's some evidence of the man's genius. Boppy and soulful at the same time. The Crickets drove a catchy as hell beat behind some very punchy and rhythmic singing for this one.
2. Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley
The song that started it all. Though the beat made it famous, that's not all it has going for it. That guitar that sounds like a rattly old boxcar with groove.
1. She's the One - Bruce Springsteen
Uses the beat to absolutely devastating effect. The sweet delicate piano riff lulls you, then the song kicks like a mule. This tune shows the power of bo-diddley: the beat by itself could be a little syncopated parlor trick, but in the hands of rock'n'roll, it roars down the highway with attitude and abandon. Sorry I couldn't find a sound file on this one; but heck if you don't own Born To Run already, you should.
It's the last refuge of the coward to describe music by noting similarity to other music, but Good Life makes me think this guy listens to some Jill Sobule; check out Rainy Day Parade. (More points to him, if true.)
Go ahead, help out Richard's cat.
Starting December 20, (sorry, found out about this late) he's putting them up again, one day at a time. As of right now, he's up to track 9, We're Going to Be Friends and Hotel Yorba is up as a bonus, too.
The bio isn't what matters though. Give him a listen and see why he's the Jamaican Otis Redding. Funky Kingston is proof that humans were meant to dance.
Don't forget to represent on your desktop.
