Digital Sextant

I have a terrible secret.  One of my favorite songs is the Dead Milkmen anthem, Punk Rock Girl.  At one point in the song, the singer and his eponymous girlfriend accost a record shop employee: We ask for Mojo Nixon They said, “He doesn’t work here” We said, “If you don’t know Mojo Nixon then [… Read More]

Recommended by Columbia colleagues Rob Lagueux and Doug Reichert-Powell:

I realized when I was doing my music write up on Friday that I never posted about one of my favorite bands from Jamendo, Intercontinental Music Lab. I’ve only listened to two of their albums (but I’ve now discovered a third that’s being downloaded as I write this. ICL brings together musicians from around the [… Read More]

emusic downloads: Koerner & Glover, Live at the 400 Bar – I’m a big fan of Koerner and Glover, whom I discovered among my father’s CD collection. They do old fashioned guitar and harmonica folk music, with good renditions of standards and their own twists on songs. My favorites on this album are “Goodnight Irene” [… Read More]

I know where I’ll be.

The Band Dick Tidrow: why did you only record one album? # The Ethicist coins my new favorite phrase: New fangled is my favorite kind of fangled. # Powered by Twitter Tools.

eMusic downloads: Apples in Stereo, New Magnetic Wonder: delightful TMBG-like tunes. I particularly like “Can You Feel it?” Jonathan Coulton, Smoking Monkey: I had a couple tracks from this album already, but here are the rest. I particularly like “I’m a Mason Now” and “Bozo’s Lament.” I guess because my name is Bozo, I was [… Read More]

“Nightgown of the Sullen Moon” is perhaps my favorite TMBG song.  Here’s a decent cover of it:

Saturday night we saw Unwigged and Unplugged: An evening with Christopher Guest, Micheal McKean, and Harry Shearer at the Chicago Theatre.  It was excellent.  Some thoughts: I liked this format much more than I would have enjoyed a Spinal Tap concert, as they could not only play the music from other ventures, like A Mighty [… Read More]

Quick bullets about the albums I downloaded last month. From emusic: Dinosaur Jr, You’re Living All Over Me. — I like J. Mascis’ stuff a lot. I think if his voice were less whiny, he’d be the biggest thing since Bob Mould. That said, this album is too feedbackity for me. Reel Big Fish, Monkeys [… Read More]

I’ve been meaning to investigate Creative Commons music for a while. <the story of creative commons> Lawrence Lessig told a story at the TED conference about the ASCAP vs. BMI fight that happened on commercial radio. In response to the outrageous prices ASCAP’s monopoly allowed them to demand, a group of broadcasters formed BMI. ASCAP [… Read More]

I can’t endorse this show enough.  One of my students recommended it and I’m obsessed.  I would go buy it right now, but I just watched it and wouldn’t want to over-watch it.  I’ll try to find a good YouTube to put here.  Go watch it.

I usually post about my week’s music on Fridays, but here it is on Monday instead: 1: Hootie and the Blowfish – it amuses me that people call Darius Rucker Hootie 2: Husker Du – I heard that Bob Mould has destroyed his ears 1: Impact – one of their songs has a Bill Hicks [… Read More]

This week’s music reflections, distilled to bullet points: Dire Straits and Dixie Chicks (1 Song each) – Songs from soundtracks 2: Django Reinhardt – A kickass gypsy guitar master who learned to play with his other hand after a car accident that I first learned about while writing a paper on wiener dogs. 2: The [… Read More]