Leave a comment with five songs to put on my ipod that you think are mandatory

I'll listen to pretty much anything. My latest has been that new Gnarls Barkley. I've been enjoying classic Iggy Pop, I always love 70s "sex you up" soul and I'm fairly sure Willie Nelson could sing the Constitution and I'd love it - although that Reggae album was not his best.

Feed my pod please.

The last week or so Cody has been repeatedly listening to a song that starts with "Her name is Noelle and she rings my bell." It seems to be about a little heavy metal listening teenager who's in love with an adult woman named Noelle that ignores him. I think? I'm not sure. Cody's at work and non-cohesive remnants of the song are stuck in my head tonight.

Which is annoying because I'm trying to watch the Independant Spirit Awards and finish that damn Jay sock.

I get a small bit of satisfaction that if it's a pop song in heavy rotation all my old boyfriends have to think of me at least three times a day.

You can ring my beeeeeeell.
Ring my bell.
My bell.
Ring a ling a ling.

I'm going to be a bit busy today tidying the house and preparing the guest room and bathroom for a visitor. The house is still recovering from the holiday insanity and leaving Cody and the pets to their own devices.

My friend Will (the one that lives in New Orleans - he's back there btw!) asked me call one of his friends that had evacuated and settled in Taos to let her know that if she needed anything to let me know. Well, she called the other night needing a place for her cat to stay for the weekend while she goes to a funeral in Chicago. This girl has had a very bad year. So I said "Yes! Of course!!" I thought I'd give this kitty her own suite since she's not used to other cats and dogs. The good news is she and her kitty will be heading back to New Orleans next week. Her apartment has been completely redone after being under eight feet of water. I'm just happy to be able to help.

Hush Mom she'll be back on Tuesday I won't be stuck with another cat I swear.

Carole posted a music meme the other day and I've been meaning to do it.

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your journal/blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to.

Delicate - Damien Rice
One of my more recent plaintive poet boy finds - I still love me some Bright Eyes and Eliot Smith.

Boogie on Reggae Woman - Stevie Wonder
No idea how old this song is but I found it on itunes right before Christmas then it seemed to follow me around - was on the radio in a clothing store in Birmingham, overheard on a car radio. Spooky!

F*ck the Pain Away - Peaches
Believe me I'm just as suprised as you are that I like this.

She Bop (new acoustic remake) - Cyndi Lauper
This is from a really interesting album released last fall where she collaborated with a variety of people like Sarah McLachlan, Jeff Beck, Shaggy...

In the Waiting Line - Zero 7
Any song on the Garden State soundtrack really.

China Girl - Iggy Pop
I've been rediscovering Iggy songs. Seems like I'd been listening to the Bowie version almost all my life. Then I heard the original. Damn.

Use Me - Bill Withers
I love Classic Soul. Just love it.

Lover's Rock - The Clash
I bought the Legacy Edition of London Calling last month and have been enjoying it like it's brand new.

The cold is still around. It's mostly in my throat and chest so I make deeelightful sounds that can gross out the whole family but at least it's getting out. I had an appointment with the doctor yesterday and he took my pulse, blood pressure, and listened to my heart. It's all working just fine! We made some adjustments to my meds (which I was expecting) and talked about some alternatives for the nastyass armour thyroid (I decided to stay on it for now and see how my levels are after six weeks). We also discussed me doing a monitored sleep lab sometime this spring to see if I'm breathing properly in my sleep. And yes we've discussed diet a bit. He's is a thorough guy isn't he? I like this new doc!

I'll post about what we think I've got someday. Just not up to it right now. And sometimes I get shy about talking about the more personal issues so publically. That's why I've focused so much on the knitting. Well, that and I've been spending most of my time doing a lotta knitting.

Well I finally found the time to sit and read the whole damned book. And the character I thought might be the one whose death we were all warned about did indeed die. And I still teared up because I'm a big SAP who takes very very long baths.

I've been listening to Spinal Tap a lot lately. These guys are geniuses. On our way to the in-laws dinner (at an Italian restaurant called Zios that is probably a chain but is still pretty tasty so you can stfu ye chain snobbies out there) we decided to "gird our loins" by listening to "Workin on a Sex Farm". Put me in a great mood and politics only really came up once! Yay!

To mourn the loss of any more Dead Like Me episodes I got season one and two on dvd. I can live with that.

Our Tivo broke sometime in June and I finally got around to calling tech support last week. Turns out our modem got fried. The only damned thing in the office without a surge protector. So we get to shell out 50 bucks and get a replacement shipped from Direct TV. But it's better than 250 at Best Buy. Now I just have to get around to calling them back to order the actual replacement because I said I had to talk with Mr. Man first.

The Life Aquatic was ok. Not Rushmore and certainly not The Royal Tennenbaums (still haven't seen Bottle Rocket) but, as always, Wes Anderson movies grow on me over time and get me obsessed with whatever music is on the soundtrack. In my defense, who wouldn't love Portuguese David Bowie covers, or Nico, or The Faces? But do I think Owen Wilson's absence in writing the script in Aquatic shows.

Oh yeah, and
BIG BOTTOMS, BIG BOTTOMS
Talk about Mud Flaps MY GIRL'S GOT EM!

This is what I spent my monthly 30 dollar allowance on. I've created an imix for it. I was in an ambient torch lovesong jazzy Gershwin/ Cole Porter mood. And I discovered the Verve remixed albums...damn.

Lido Shuffle - Boz Scaggs (Cody wanted this one)

Our Love Is Here to Stay - Etta James

I Like 'Em Fat Like That - Louis Jordan

Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby? (Rae and Christian Remix) - Dinah Washington

Summertime (UFO Remix) - Sarah Vaughan

Feelin' Good (Joe Claussell Remix) - Nina Simone

Manteca (Funky Lowlives Remix) - Dizzy Gillespie & Funky Lowlives

Spinning Wheel (DJ Spinna Remix) - Shirley Bassey

(Where Do I Begin) Love Story (Away Team Mix) - Shirley Bassey

Big Spender (Wild Oscar Mix) - Shirley Bassey

Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair (Jaffa Remix) - Nina Simone & Jaffa (this is a beautiful BEAUTIFUL song)

La Vie en Rose - Grace Jones

Samba 1000 - Ursula 1000

Butterfly Caught (RJD2 Remix) - Massive Attack

Summertime - The Twilight Singers

I Put a Spell On You - Natacha Atlas

Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby? - Louis Jordan

The Very Thought of You - Nat King Cole

It's Only a Paper Moon - Benny Goodman and His Orchestra

(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons - Nat King Cole

Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be) - Billie Holiday

Why Don't You Do Right? - Shirley Horn

Misty - Johnny Mathis

I've Got You Under My Skin - Diana Krall

Night and Day - Karrin Allyson

Gut Feeling - Devo

Funk #49 - James Gang

Israelites - Desmond Dekker

Haven't participated in one of these random mp3 memes for a long time but I'm feeling somewhat posty today.

All this research for the women in history posts has taken a lot of my computer chair time. But I'm sort of on a day schedule at the moment. (And I've almost used up my Pirates attention span)

It's a rainy day and we've already been to the grocery store (where we bought nominally healthy food) and on the way home I got a peppermint mocha coffee treat. Phunq has already had an escaping into the garage when we were bringing in groceries adventure, Zola's sleeping on her belly with her head in a toilet paper tube as usual, and Winter is incredibly gassy...again. Melon and Kurry are pouting because we didn't bring them anything.

Cody's working tonight and unfortunately I won't get to witness the hilarity of the rebellious cousin's wedding down in Belen. I actually am bummed about missing out watching these small town republicans watch a handfasting with the groom in a kilt - at Belen High School (not in the grassy knoll I was hoping for). I've been trying to explain exactly what the SCA is (with mostly a straight face because while I think they're kinda freaky I'd much rather go to one of their events than a monster truck rally or wrestling event) and that this guy really isn't all that unusual but they all think I'm a big artsy freak that married their freaky smart-assed cousin (six years ago last Sunday actually, but we had a surprisingly traditional wedding - almost a rebellion in itself it was so unexpected) so my opinion only counts for so much. They were just scandalized that it's taking place on good friday. DamndamnDAMN I wish I could go. Ah well. It'll be so much more colorful to hear about it filtered through these nice but simple people's eyes. I wonder if there's going to be mead at the reception..

So here's what I pulled up when I refreshed the itunes party shuffle sourcing my full library.

Right Here, Right Now - Fat Boy Slim
Seaweed - Fruit Bats
Love Me or Leave Me - Ruth Etting
Groove is in the Heart - Deelite
House on Fire - Assemblage 23
What Its Like - Everlast
Shut the Fuck Up - Cake
A Good Run of Bad Luck - Clint Black
Flesh for Fantasy - Billy Idol
Heart of the Sunrise - Yes
If I Loved You - Bernadette Peters

So after a few binges in the itunes store last year I realized that I have issues with controlling my spending habits. *Snort* This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that knows me irl. Fear of driving isn't the only reason I usually bring a shopping buddy when I go out - I need someone who can help me get a grip when I start to clearly get my spendy grabby self out of control in the Swell Section at Target. Despite (or maybe because of, who knows) my mom's mathematical prowess I am determined to be Math is Hard Barbie and this inability to add simple sums is most glaringly obvious when I've got a shopping cart. Even a virtual one that's doing the math for me. To be fair, though, when buying single products out of a saved shopping cart at itunes you don't know how much you've spent until you get the email a day later. And you'd be really surprised how quickly that 99 cents a song (plus tax) can add up when that clicky mouse finger gets going.

This has been the year of some financial restructuring in our household. Despite my supposedly saving around two thousand dollars annually from quitting smoking (Cody doesn't count since he's still spending money on the patch) we had a fairly rough year financially in 2004. Sure, there were some household things like restuccoing and major tree removal but we're homeowners and that's the cost of doin business when you sign on for the mortgage. The good news is neither of us ever tried to qualify for enough credit to get ourselves in serious trouble and we paid off his car three years ago. So the only real debt we carry is the house.

What's funny is while I have an inexplicable ability to handle money in the abstract - predicting good investments, tax shelters, etc - I have an equally inexplicable inability to balance a checkbook properly. So we've been trying a new way to balance our budget and so far it seems to be working. Don't want to go into it too much but basically it involves two accounts - one for the regular monthly bills and the other for food, pet expenses, and discretionary (gaming, video, website, music) funds. Manages to keep our tech spending from interfering with the regular bills that we kind of sometimes tend to forget to pay.

I've found a nice solution for the itunes store where my spending could be controlled but I wouldn't feel deprived. We used Cody's itunes account to set up a monthly allowance that sends my itunes account a 30 dollar credit every month - and I entered a dummy cc number on my account so I couldn't "accidently" spend over the thirty dollars. It's about what we'd spend on a movie and popcorn on a friday night at a new theater so it doesn't seem *that* unreasonable to spend on music once a month. And I get some fun music purchases.

I used to just go and pick out thirty or so songs from my saved shopping cart. But I started getting an error message last month and the apple customer service folks had to clear it out for me. So this time I had to pick the songs out one by one.

This is what I spent my thirty bucks on this month. (I made it into an itunes imix as well if you're interested - February's buys)

I've been in a strange alterna 80s / dentist office am radio in the 70s mood lately. And it shows.

Warren Zevon - Lawyers, Guns and Money
Bright Eyes - When the President Talks to God (this was free)
Skip James - Devil Got My Woman
Skip James - Hard Time Killing Floor Blues
The Police - Invisible Sun
Kenny Rogers & The First Edition - Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In)
Lou Reed - This Magic Moment
Björk - Army of Me
Gene Loves Jezebel - Desire (Come and Get It)
R.E.M. - Radio Free Europe (Original Hib-Tone Single)
Morrissey - November Spawned a Monster
Bob Geldof & The Boomtown Rats - I Don't Like Mondays
The Fixx - Red Skies (Alternate Version)
Happy Mondays - Step On
Peter Gabriel - Games Without Frontiers
Throwing Muses - Dizzy
U2 - I Will Follow (been thinking about when they were, you know, good)
Eagles - I Can't Tell You Why
Morphine - Gone for Good (my morphine cds are scratched to shit)
Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues
Alice Cooper - I'm Eighteen (please don't make me explain this)
Bob Marley - Redemption Song (I've been thinking about non-overplayed bob marley songs too)
Gene Loves Jezebel - Jealous (apparently I'm a fan and didn't notice before)
Matthew Sweet - Sick of Myself (I love him)
Gary Wright - Love Is Alive
Jackson Browne - The Pretender
The Spinners - The Rubberband Man (hee! I love the spinners I didn't know they did this song!)

Sorry about the itunes links but I've been barred from posting mp3s by the ever paranoid Mr Man and I still want you to be able to get them if you want.

Cody wanted me to burn a song I'd bought on itunes onto a cd so he could rip and convert it to mp3. The crap non ipod owners go through for portable music. I secretly cheer for the guy that's suing Apple. No, no one forced him to buy music through itunes and I don't think he should be awarded ridiculous damages. But it might make them change their assinine refusal to let other companies swim in their DRM paddling pool. That's really what cases like this are about, boys and girls, making corporations change something.

Anyway, I didn't want to waste a whole cd for one song so I burned a whole disc of songs. Not sure if I've mentioned this before but we usually hate each others' music. A lot. I tend to gravitate towards old-school punk, funk, 60s and 70s soul, classic rawk, glam, 80s alternative, album rock, old jazz and blues. Even classic country. He likes what I call Lezbean Rock: Natalie Merchant, The Indigo Girls, Melissa Etheridge. Of course I'm just teasing about the lesbean rock thing (I have absolutely positively no problem with lesbians I just like saying it this way because I think it sounds cute) but he sure has a thing for those gravely-voiced gals. He also likes what I call "novelty" music: Weird Al, Barenaked Ladies, They Might Be Giants. Lately there's been a lot of Dutch music listening too. And he's been learning to appreciate Punk.

Sometimes we agree: Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, The Stone Roses, and, oddly enough, Rosemary Clooney.

I've come to the conclusion that we have one very distinct difference in what we value in our music: I like how it sounds and don't usually care much what they're saying. He likes what they're saying and doesn't really care too much how it sounds. That's today's explanation anyway.

So we've been together since July 1997 and I've never made a mix cd or tape for him before. And here was my perfect chance. But I didn't want to put anything that he would ridicule too much. I wanted him to acutally like what I put on there. Mostly.

So here tis:
Goo Goo Muck - The Cramps
In a Funny Way - Mercury Rev
Psycho Killer - Talking Heads (that's what he wanted recorded)
Chariot's Rise - Lizzie West
I Want You Around - Ramones
Slide Away - The Verve
Gold Dust Woman - Waylon Jennings & Willie Nelson
Common People - Pulp
Fisherman's Blues - The Waterboys
The Boxer - Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
Ways to Be Wicked - Lone Justice
I Will - Alison Krauss & Tony Furtado
Shade & Honey - Alessandro Nivola (from Laurel Canyon)
Ever Fallen in Love - Buzzcocks
Sweetness - Yes
Take the Skinheads Bowling - Camper Van Beethoven
A Case of You - k.d. lang (see? I like lezbean rock too. when it's good)
Punk Rock Girl - The Dead Milkmen
Pale Blue Eyes (live) - Hole
When a Woman Loves a Man - Billie Holiday

Sorry about the lame itunes links rather than offering mp3s but mr man's been giving me a hard time about sharing music these days.

So my sister showed my patriotic Santa post to a crazy southern right winger friend of hers. But said right-winger couldn't make it through the whole article without, I dunno, praying or invoking the will of Limbaugh through crack pipe smoke and chant or something. I'm not sure what creeps me out more: the thought that my sister hangs out with crazy right-wingers or that she likes showing them things she knows will piss them off. You're so weird. ;)

Anyway, I'm leaving for bamaland in two days so excuse me while I start to freak out a little. I'm convinced Cody's going to forget to bring the hedgehog's water bottle when he takes her down to his mother's house next week. And won't remember to clean the litter boxes. Or remember the dog's little baggies of food and supplements. I'm scary OCD control freak pet mom!

Yes, the in-laws get to spend the holidays with their grand-hedgehog and lemme tell you, these people are really excited about it. Heh. no. But they're being very nice, will make sure she has food and water, and are going to put her in the back bedroom and keep the room nice and toasty for her.

All secret and hedge santa presents are whisking off to their respective destinations as I type. And I got a present from our friends in the Netherlands today. Thanks you guys that was a very nice surprise :)

Between getting everything clean and together to pack and getting the guest room clean enough for Jocelyn to stay there tomorrow night (mostly cat hair-free, clean towels and sheets and comforter! Yay!) I'm not sure if I'll have time to post again before I get to B'ham on Saturday so here's some special holiday cheer to keep you busy.

He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you right-click.

Willie Nelson - Pretty Paper

(buy the album)

Roy Shakked - Rock of the Toy Soldier

(buy the album)




The Dickies - Silent Night

(buy the album)




Louis Armstrong - Christmas Night in Harlem

(buy the album)




Roy Shakked - Latin Snow, Latin Snow, Let It Snow

(buy the album)




The Pansy Division - Homo Christmas
(this is not a homophobic song - just the opposite)

(buy the album)




Metal Mike, Alison, and Julia - Deck the Halls

(buy the album)




D.I. - Mr Grinch

(buy the album)




MXPX - Christmas Night of Zombies

(buy the album)




Spinal Tap - Christmas with the Devil

(buy the album)

In light of recent MPAA activity Cody's been making me really paranoid about the mp3s this week so I'm looking into broadcasting streaming playlists.

What I have in mind is similar to Gene Cowan's Radio 2 but haven't the first clue how to go about it. I've been researching podcasting, radioblogs, and shoutcast/live365 stuff but none of those do what I want. I just downloaded this MP3dj thing so hopefully I can get that to work.

As I understand it - offering a single song from an album as a sample for a limited time and encouraging the listener to purchase the album constitutes fair use. But I'm married to Mr Paranoid. Today I'm going to do this anyway but I'd love to hear thoughts or suggestions for what you think. Serious rationalizations are always welcome too.

pls rt-clk + sv-as thx mch xxoo

Blondie - Call Me En Espanol

Devo - Mongoloid

(buy album)

Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies - Danny's Song

(visit their site)

Kate Bush - Rocket Man

(buy album)

Tears for Fears - Pale Shelter

(buy album)

This is the surprise I found when I was searching the studio on Sunday.

---------

This week's theme: Purple Pain - a 1995 Prince cover album by Swedish (some of them punk) bands that's no longer in print


right-click and save-as or you'll definitely be feelin some purple pain, buddy

Refused - Let's Go Crazy (definitely my favorite of the bunch)
(buy used album)

Souls - Take Me With You
(buy used album)

Fireside - The Beautiful Ones
(buy used album)

Randy - Computer Blue
(buy used album)

Fly - Darling Nikki
(buy used album)

Starmarket - When Doves Cry
(buy used album)

Girlsmen - I would die 4 u
(buy used album)

Stonefunkers - Baby I'm a Star
(buy used album)

Teddybears - Purple Rain
(buy used album)

This week's theme: randomizer meme


Ri9H+-CL1ck 0R 1'Ll HUrt j00

Beastie Boys - No Sleep Till Brooklyn
(buy album)

Richard Thompson - A Love You Can't Survive
(buy album)

Sid Vicious - Chinese Rocks
(buy album)

Dead Kennedys - Kinky Sex Makes the World Go Around
(buy album)

Judy Henske - High Flying Bird
(buy album)

Morphine - In Spite of Me
(buy album)

Marianne Faithfull - The Ballad of Lucy Jordan
(buy album)

U.N.K.L.E - Rabbit in Your Headlights
(buy album)

Salt n Pepa - Tramp
(buy album)

Loretta Lynn - The Pill
(buy album)

music sidebar has been updated-

This week's theme: zoloft nation


right click! dilute dilute! ok!

Bessie Smith - Nobody knows when you're down and out
(buy album)

Visage - Fade to Grey
(buy album)

Brenda and the Tabulations - Dry Your Eyes
(buy album)

The Ruts - Babylon's Burning
(buy album)

Tom Jones and the Cardigans - Burning down the House
(buy album)

The Sugarcubes - Hit (Dragnet remix)
(buy album)

999 - Homicide
(buy album)

David Bowie - Across the Universe
(buy album)

Dead Kennedys - Holiday in Cambodia
(buy album)

ABC - How to be a Millionaire
(buy album)

Created a separate page listing my digital music collection here. It should be skinned with whichever one you've already chosen.

What better way to pass the time until the polls close than make an itunes playlist? That's only the songs Itunes recognized because my full list has 40 songs.

edit - Cody's still working on the little tool that converts itunes xml playlists to txt, html files, or html fragments for windows (there are already tools for this in mac). I just used a .002 version of it to export my playlist - check out the extended entry.

What's your voting angst playlist? Post it in the comments if you wanna and I'll publish it in itunes for posterity. It would be a good diversion for me.

Yes. I'm a nerd. I spent halloween night playing the sims and watching 'History of Halloween' and 'Burning times' shows on the History Channel.

geek
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V

It's a bit out of order but here it is...

I'm just going to wear a cybercostume tonight: the "South Park Me" in my Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo shirt.

We're getting a good number of trick or treaters this year. There's an interesting trend in demons and pale 'might be vampires might just be goth' costumes. I keep having to fight the urge to open the door and yell "Oh No! It's de Debil!" Nah I'm mostly just trying to assure these small children that Winter is actually quite friendly and they really can grab as much candy as they want. We always over buy on the candy. It's an old dream of mine to be the house with a lot of cool candy every year.

I'm building a huge Albuquerque-style house in the sims tonight. Hard to explain exactly what I mean by that but it's not Santa Fe. I'll post pics when I'm done and I might even add it to my really old Yahoo group.

New songs for the week! Be sure to right click please.

The Triplets of Belleville - Belleville Rendez-Vous (demo)
(buy album)

Ministry - Every Day is Halloween
(buy album)

Grace Jones - Walking in the Rain
(buy album)

Devo - Ohio
(buy album)

Tom Waits - Little Boy Blue
(buy album)

The death and rebirth of punk in 1979 with Mick Jones as mother and Joe Strummer as midwife?

The reissued box set of London Calling.

Does anyone else find it ironic that the new victoria's secret commercial has the opening of "Monkey Man"? Of course it stops right before the lyrics start heh.

Did I ever mention that I used to be a licensed radio deejay? Yeah I worked for a very small jazz station in Birmingham when I was in high school from 88-90. I did the "Alternative" Saturdays (had to bring in my own albums of course) and a few period jazz shifts. And these were the days when Alternative meant something...hahahahaha! As far as I know my fcc license is still valid but I haven't worked in radio since.

Sometimes I think about starting a shoutcast station. In the meantime I set up a little sidebar of downloads I'll change regularly.

a few technical notes:
Please right-click and save-as..no streaming please it's kinda rude. Feel free to post requests in the comments. No direct linking or I'll post a nasty file there instead. I also will keep changing the directory the songs are put in so don't bother direct-linking to that either. Please buy the album if you like the song. Sometimes the money actually gets back to the artist. note: The song files will be removed in one week. With all that said I hope you enjoy!

Excite News

Article about Johnny's partisanship.

For every family of Baldwins there's a Stephen, right?

But, hey, I can forgive him being a right wing mutherfucker. He was smart enough to help start one of the world's best bands. But hanging out with Vincent Gallo? That's just nasty.

Ramones - My Brain is Hangin Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitsburg)
Ramones - Chinese Rock
Like em? Buy the album

The upgrade went well now I'm just tweaking skinning cababilities and comment stuff. Still no friggin idea what's causing that javascript error in IE but I'll root it out eventually. I think it's google's fault.

Have I praised the beauties of Bullet Proof FTP lately? Wonderful little program there and well worth registering too. That handy interface for uploading files in ASCII or binary was really useful with this upgrade.

As did this nifty article for updating the comments to correspond with the new features.

I've decided to keep the comments in a popup window and not require Typekey registration to post unmoderated comments at this time. I know I'm reluctant to post on sites that require it (because I can never remember my login stuff) and I don't think my site's visitors need this kind of supervision. MT Blacklist takes care of the spammers for the most part.

I'm also trying to figure out how to set a cookie on your end to remember your preferred skin and use it in the comments but this is something I've been futzing around with for ages. I'm excited to have the archives skinned and sidebar-ed though.

So rather than a post with actual content I'm going to attempt to bribe you with good upgrade music. Hopefully this is a fun variety of songs that will distract you into doing the butt chair dance and not notice the mess I'm making here.

update 9/20 - files have been removed now

(please right-click and save-as and please don't direct link from your site or I'll gitcha)

Alternative TV - Action Time Vision
(like it? buy the album)

Carmen Miranda - Cuanto Le Gusta
(like it? buy the album)

Maxine Sullivan & the Cotton Club band- Ill Wind
(like it? buy the album)

Cropstar - Perez 'Prez' Prado vs Beyonce Knowles - Crazy Prado
(like it? visit the artist)

Dead Kennedys - California Uber Alles
(like it? buy the album)

Frente! - Bizarre Love Triangle
(like it? buy the album)

Joe Tex - Show Me
(like it? buy the album)

Adam and the Ants - Prince Charming
(like it? buy the album)

The Impressions w/ Curtis Mayfield - Man, oh man
(like it? buy the album)

Lambert, Hendricks & Ross - Twisted
(like it? buy the album)

Rhino Box Surveys Fertile '80s Underground

I think this list may be by the same John Moe as the one that's best listmaker on Amazon, ever .

McSweeney's

snagged from pop culture junk mail

My Way News

my birthday present to you

(file will be taken down in 24 hours)

Robert Quine was a founding member of the groundbreaking punk rock ensemble, Richard Hell & the Voidoids, creating the movement's anthem: "Blank Generation". But he's probably better known for his collaborations with artists such as Lou Reed, Brian Eno, John Zorn, Matthew Sweet, Tom Waits, Lloyd Cole, They Might Be Giants, and Marianne Faithfull.

Recently he'd released live recordings he'd bootlegged from various Velvet Underground shows as well as a compilation of Richard Hell & the Voidoids songs.

The cause of his death hasn't been confirmed though there are rumors of suicide. He had apparently been in a deep depression since the loss of his wife to cancer last year.

Here's the announcement on his official site where condolence emails will be forwarded to his family.

PS He had a law degree. ;)

I hadn't really been following music much the last few years. I converted a good portion of my catalog to mp3 and even did some kazaa downloading for a bit a few years back but with so many channels and Cody and I disagreeing on what to listen to I just slipped away from music for a while. Except every year I get a nice box set of music I like for Yule / Christmas.

So anyway last week I got in the mood to hear something new and started looking into those newfangled legit (ie probably paying for it) music sites. I asked Cody what he uses. Got my friend Jocelyn to ask her friend what he uses. The consensus was itunes.

I've downloaded many songs now, unfortunately. And I'm probably going to move my 6.11 gigs of mp3s over so it can all be in one place. And like a good demi-exhibitionist with a weblog/journal I wanted a big fat list of my music to show how diverse my musical taste is. Heh. Right.

But itunes only exports lists in xml! I don't do xml. :hiding her thrice-opened O'Reilly guide:

Remember I'm a kind of geek-by-association for the most part. Dad is an old-school geek, Cody is a geek, even Mom's a bit of a geek, sister Nicole's pretty geeky too. I was just an art school girl from hell that got a compaq in 1995 and got a bit addicted really. So consider me geek lite. Or hehe the Alice B Toklas of geeks sans mustache or the desire to cook very often.

I was utterly flummoxed by the xml thing and after a few unsuccessful searches I called Cody at work to ask if there was a standard aggregator program I wasn't aware of. Apparently not. But (and this is the cool kind of stuff you get being married to a geek to counterbalance the dead weedy yard and unfixed car) he'd helped a friend a few months ago with a similar question about converting xml to txt or html and he could whip a little program in vb on his laptop in a few days.

He showed it to me yesterday and it's pretty cool - it automatically goes to the default itunes folder and you can choose which fields you want in your list. You can export it as text, a full web page, or an html fragment if you just want to paste it into a page. He said in a few days after some polishing I can offer it for download here. Neat huh?

Robert Johnson left such a legacy of innovations in music that some thought he'd made a deal with the devil. His songs are still being played. A collection of his music won a grammy in 1990 and royalties for covers have been paid since the 70s but finding a legitimate beneficiary to the estate has been tough. Claud Johnson didn't know who his dad was until 1971 and didn't really think anything about it until someone approached him in 1998 after the blues singer's half sister died. After years of legal hurdles (and some rather unique testimony) Claud has now inherited his father's estate.

Considering I don't really care much for most of the celebrities with lists at itunes I'm not that surprised that I hate the songs they listen to as well. But I think Dan Kois was a bit harsh. Billy Corgan and Moby's playlists were quite good in addition to Thievery Corporation's - in terms of replayability blah. Was kind of sad to see Liz Phair listed her own songs too - or maybe John Cusack made her add them. I dunno sometimes I think I traded in my elitist music attitudes when I signed the mortgage.

Well except for Cody's penchant for what I teasingly call 'lesbean rock' I still think the Indigo Girls are shrill as all hell and Natalie Merchant needs to clear that air bubble of spit lodged in her throat. But it's one of our few points of contention and all couples have to keep conversations lively somehow.

link via Melissa via NewYorkish