Fear and Whiskey

I was going to name this post "The Sound of Fear" from the eels, but really, when I've got the choice to use a Mekons title, what would you expect?

Or maybe Fear of Music. Tears for Fears. There's a lot of good ones, actually .

Just spent far too long deleting several hundred spoofed returned emails from the iPhone. the smart phones don't have the good spam filters like the computer. effin spammers.

Oh, but wait. We interrupt this Musical Poopery to bring some more politics. Howard Dean:

As we move toward the general election, the Democratic Party has to be the Party of ordinary Americans, not Washington lobbyists and special interests. So, as of this morning, if you're a federal lobbyist, or if you control political action committee donations, we won't be accepting your contribution.

OK, even if Obama is just as bad as the alternatives, as fish has been opining, at least he's done this. He and Dean have banded together to leverage the power of the intertoobz and community organizing to demonstrate that it's feasible to run a race without becoming a slave to moneyed interests. And anything that pisses off Terry McAuliffe can't be all bad.

You know, there's basically two blocks of power in this country; money and people. The money can deliver an election, but so can people, because in the end, ya gotta count the votes. Since Reagan, the Democratic Party has become more and more indebted to the money. But this presents a problem; the money is always going to flow more freely to the Right. ALWAYS. There's more consideration there. So the Ds become more and more Republican light, the voters said meh, not bothering to vote in a nearly direct proportion. Obama (and Hillary) demonstrate that when you can actually speak TO the people of the country, they will respond. And, not coincidentally, respond with money. Maybe it's small dollars compared to what AT&T can cough up, but it's adding up. And it's swamping McCain.

Hopefully, this can continue. The professional lobbyists and political consultants have oozed into the Democratic Party far too extensively, and if they can rediscover themselves as populists again, the voters will return.


1024 artists, 32260 songs, 86.5 days of noise. Whoah. I could listen to iTunes for nearly three months without repeating....

1. Pictures Of Matchstick Men from the album "Key Lime Pie" by Camper Van Beethoven From what I hear, they didn't like to do it, but this is still a kick ass cover of a pretty good song. I like how CVB transitioned to the major labels, although the label didn't apparently care for it. BTW, their reunion album, New Roman Times, is excellent. As well as being a facken concept album. Silent Mike and I saw them at Shank on that tour; they used a couple of iBooks rather than guitar processors...

I hear that Tori Amos has kissed off the major labels. Good. Another nail in the forehead of the anti-music brigade. It's long past time for the Music Industry to die a horrible, horrible death. Remember the 'Home Taping Is Killing Music" effort? Money and weasels were killing music. It takes a special kind of chunderhosery to decide that suing your customers is a viable business strategy....

2. Where You Going Northern from the album "The Big Shot Chronicles" by Game Theory Scott Miller always works for me. This is from the olden days, when even Scott could get a label contract (only a subsidiary, true). Scott once referenced his voice on the liner notes as 'miserable whine'. but that's a bit harsh. It may be a bit of an acquired taste, but only so much as Robyn Hitchcock is. Mellow little power poppery, even featuring a little falsetto.

I've seen Scott and whatever band he's got a several times, and it always seems that they come here from Cali in the winter. Weird.

3. Footprints from the album "Babylon And On" by Squeeze Ditched work one day, when I was working for some other asshole, to catch them do an in-store for this album. Brilliant popsters.

4. Station To Station from the album "Station To Station" by David Bowie Watched 'Velvet Goldmine' last weekend. Good flick, excellent soundtrack, and watching Christian Bale and Obi-Wan Kenobi making out with other guys made it interesting. There were so many obvious parallels to Bowie I'm SU-PRIZED he didn't sue....

5. Market Square Heroes (Alternative Version) from the album "Script For A Jester's Tear - Remaster (Disc 2)" by Marillion Fish is going to be at Shank next week; I can't believe the Z-crew is bagging because now he likes the new Marillion vocalist better after I dragged him down to Park West in Chicago to see the Marbles tour.... one of my taekwondo friends is former head of the Marillion worldwide fan club and definitely going, But I think I've gotta save a bit of money for Where the I Divides and Grand Parade ( A Genesis cover band) .... and, of course, Summerfest. If only Steve Jobs had hired me for his house....

6. Rollercoaster from the album "Honey's Dead" by The Jesus & Mary Chain Hey, look, it's Black Rebel Motorcycle Club!! JK. I actually kind of like BRMC. It's just so 90's retro though, once you hear JAMC.

7. This Beat Goes On/Switchin' to Glide by The Kings I gotta figure out how to make songs like this play consecutively on iTunes when it's playin the Musical Poopery. More old schoolish Power Pop. Sweet. One hit wonders can be sublime, indeed.

8. Big Money from the album "Power Windows" by Rush woah. Rush almost never pops up, it's like Jennifer exudes an anti-Geddy force that leaks all over here just through the link over there. The last time I saw them, they had a slide show of pictures on the screen behind them. There were some hilarious hair and fashion crises that represented this era from the 80's, but hey, who doesn't? Even funnier, though, were the pictures from the early 70's - long hair, platform boots, capes (!).... One thing about Rush, you may not like them, but the lack of self-consciousness and sense of humor is respectable.

9. Don't Pick It Up from the album "Ixnay On The Hombre" by The Offspring

10. Get Out Of This from the album "Without A Sound" by Dinosaur Jr

11. Driven To Tears from the album "Message In A Box: The Complete Recordings (Disc 2)" by The Police They're on tour again this summer, and even though I never saw them when they were originally fighting, we were probably going to give it a miss. Meh.

Until they added elvis to the bill. We can't miss Elvis. So not Meh, it might as well be a Take Five Pinko Brick.

12. Singapore from the album "Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years" by Tom Waits What's a Friday without Tom Waits?

13. Go Home Paddy from the album "Home Of The Brave" by Black 47

14. Stop The Cavalry from the album "The Stiff Records Box Set (Disc 3)" by Jona Lewie what the hell???

15. Wave from the album "A Man Under the Influence" by Alejandro Escovedo

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