Urban Beaches

iTunes put up some old obscure favorites of mine- Cactus World News and the Woodentops. Bands I had on cassette, or taped or something ("Home Taping is killing music!!") and haven't been able to track down since.

Woodentops are a fast paced, strummed guitars band kind of like James crossed with the Alarm, and CWN did U2 better than U2. I saw Cactus World News here in Milwaukee somewhere....

Anywhere, here's a batch of music at ya, no friggin radios OF ANY KIND involved. So there's no channel surfing, just straight from the random generator and with some new stuff added.

Oh, radios may be fine for those who don't have a collection of any extent. It's all about the size.


Just shy of 30,000 songs, and 115 gigs of music. Sizable. Later today, maybe I'll zip out to the Apple store and get my $100 refund, then pop for the 160 gig 'Pod. No more selecting what goes on, just the whole mess can be carried around.



1. It Is Not Enough from the album "100 Flowers Bloom (Disc 2)" by Gang Of Four Contemporaries and buddies of the Mekons from back in school days. Also much more humorless. But it's some funky punking. Some good drum sounds too.

2. Solace Of You from the album "Time's Up" by Living Colour I love Living Colour (preceded the TV show). Seen them several times, and they are a smokin' live band. They always look like a carnival. Last year's show at Summerfest was woefully underattended. This is a pretty mellow song, with a funky rhythm guitar track.

3. I Thank You from the album "Chrome, Smoke & B·B·Q Box (Disc 2)" by ZZ Top One of the lesser songs from Deguello. Although a pretty hot live piece; I saw them on this tour in Madison, and they had a great, stripped down, and LOUD show.

4. More Human Than Human from the album "Ska The Third Wave Volume 3" by Skandalous All-Stars Fun little cover. Rob Zombie would be mortified.

5. Simple from the album "Winter Pays for Summer" by Glen Phillips Singer from Toad the Wet Sprocket. Great band, one of the worst names Evah. The members are probably really tired of industry scumbags telling them they could have been HUGE if they had picked a better name.

6. Play In The Sunshine from the album "Sign O' The Times" by Prince

7. 3.2 Flu from the album "In The Mud" by Split Lip Rayfield One of my favorite bands, tragically broken up after one of the member died from esophageal cancer. They play a kinetic, punk-inflected version of bluegrass, with the bass player using a truck's gas tank, and wrapping his fingers in duct tape when they start to bleed. The live shows are (were) furious events.

8. Vancouver from the album "1976-1982 Bonus Disc" by Genesis A mopey also-ran from when Phil's marriage was breaking up.

9. Can't Stop the Sun from the album "The Last DJ" by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

10a. Krakatoa from the album "The Complete Wooden Nickel Recordings" by Styx heh. early 70's prog-pomp and bombast. Setting the stage for Roboto, I'm sure.

10b. James from the album "Consent to Treatment" by Blue October I don't care what Zelmo says, I like these guys. They're like if the Cure got all hyped up on coffee and borrowed some guitar sounds from Trent Reznor.


That's all you get this week. Cuz you've been bad children and must be punished.