Music

I’m now listening to the two new CDs I bought by The Pogues. They’re a lot better with Shane MacGowan, and their music goes well beyond Irish. Some of the songs on “If I should Fall From Grace” are just plain weird.

My neighbor doesn’t approve of her 8 year old grandson listening to Eminem, which is the only thing he wants to listen to. Thanks to LimeWire everyone’s happy now.

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Dee Dee Ramone and Ratt guitarist Robbin Crosby passed away with 24 hours of eachother last spring. One death, obviously, got way more notice. This recent article by Chuck Klosterman (author of Fargo Rock City) looks into the reasons why and, entirely unironically, talks about why Crosby’s death was significant. I don’t 100% agree with Klosterman here, but he makes some points. Plus it’s worth reading simply because it questions some of the underlying assumptions of most modern music writing. [metafilter.com]

MTV.com – News -Antibalas’ Afrobeat Party Jams Feed The Mind, Move The Booty

It’s often a hard pill to swallow when celebrities get all political on us. It can be heavy-handed, disingenuous, and, frankly, annoying. But the 15-plus members of the Brooklyn-based Afrobeat collective Antibalas aren’t celebrities, nor do they have any aspiration to be. In a time when few musicians are using their medium to change the world, Antibalas espouse their political views by rocking the house.

While virtually unknown to mainstream listeners, Antibalas have long been a spin-off favorite of hardcore “underground” hip-hop fans of Dead Prez, the Roots, Reflection Eternal and Mos Def, who himself has turned up at an Antibalas show or two.

Antibalas is becoming one of my favorite groups. If you like Fela, you’ll love their music.

Language as a product of cultural contact A linguistic approach to Fela Kuti’s lyrics

As I was listening to Red Hot + Riot I did a google search on some song titles & came up with this interesting page which translates & analyzes Fela’s lyrics. His songs are in a unique combination of standard English, Nigerian Pidgin, and Yoruba.

CNN.com – Clash star Joe Strummer dies – Dec. 23, 2002

Joe Strummer, lead singer for seminal British punk band the Clash, has died at the age of 50.

Strummer, who was the band’s guitarist, vocalist and songwriter alongside Mick Jones, died on Sunday at his farmhouse in Somerset, southwestern England.

A statement released by his record label said Strummer “died peacefully at his home.” It added that his wife Lucy, two daughters and stepdaughter “request privacy at this harrowing time.”

[now playing “London Calling” in iTunes]

aNOnym reCOrds is offering an Honor System license for lifetime personal use of their recordings:

To completely bypass the corrupted marketplaces for the distribution of
sound and ideas, let us be the first, (I think), company to offer you the
ability to pay online for a legal license to copy our recordings at home,
using our product, (or a legal copy of our product), as your source.
If you don’t own one of our CDs, but like the music, this is your chance to
legally copy your friend’s version of our product. No kidding.
To all of you who have purchased our products online or at a store, take
note, the following license applies to you. You own the product, and you
get to use it for life.

Read the license here:
http://www.anonymousweb.com/license.html

It gives you permission to make copies in any form for
your personal use, for your entire life, and permission to let others copy
the product, should they agree to pay for the license.
We hope you tell your friends to make a copy of your aNOnym reCOrds Mapfumo
CDs and get the license by paying for it online, or by sending us the money.

I just posted the list of my favorite CDs of 2002 at WorldBeatPlanet.

When I bought my iPod, it came with this sticker.

I just picked up (), the new album by Sigur Ros. If you’ve heard their last album, Agaetis Byrjun, this will sound very familiar. It consists of 8 untitled tracks, all 6 minutes or longer. It’s great ambient background music to listen to while working.