It’s got commie zombies, scantily-clad women, cool Rodchenko-style graphics, Twinkies raining from the sky and a muscle-bound Gorby running around slaying the undead. In other words, it just may be the best music video ever.
Gorgeously-rendered esoteric comps like these are hard enough to track down for top dollar, so you’d damn well better go download them for free from the always excellent Egg City Radio:
[T]his three-disc Italian exploitation film soundtrack collection [Nate Thompson] made especially for his blog is too good to let fade away into the ether. Nate sez:
“Given the huge amount of great film music never commerically released in any format, I decided to cut together a series of suites of some outstanding titles that deserved some notice; here the spotlight turns on some of the great (well, in most cases) Italian composers whose work has often never gotten the credit it deserves. Taken from a variety of sources (video, M&E tracks, or whatever’s handy), these have been tweaked to sound as good as I can make ‘em; hopefully you’ll discover a few new gems in this three-part collection, entitled ‘Italian Blend’.
The Dixie Hummingbirds—“Christian Automobile”—playing 6/26 at Celebrate Brooklyn
HARRY NILSSON DOES POPEYE— I don’t know what’s weirder, the fact that I really like the Popeye soundtrack (probably never making it to CD) or that there are actually demos available ( and they’re even better than the final versions). Drink your spinach.
FISA HOLD ‘EM—I’m pretty much in the same camp with John Cole. Steve M. has it right, too.
THE BEATLES’ GET BACK—I’ve always had a soft spot for the Beatles’ Let It Be, which I’ve enjoyed a lot more than, say, the bloated ‘n’ silly Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (there, I said it) and this Glyn Johns mix, appropriately titled Get Back and replete with studio chatter, makes it even sweeter.
MATT TIABBI’S “FULL METAL MCCAIN”—“McCain is perhaps the first candidate in history to stump against two bills bearing his own name.”
I’m going to check out Medeski, Martin & Wood and Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog at Celebrate Brooklyn in Prospect Park tonight, so I got a hold of MM&W’s latest release Let’s Go Everywhere and was surprised to find out that it was children’s album. I’m a selfish, childless bastard, so that wasn’t what I wanted or needed, but the good news is that it’s a damn fine children’s album and something every parent of youngish thingees who reads this blog should look into snatching up. You can listen to four of the tracks at their MySpace page and I highly recommend you start with the FUNky “Where’s the Music?”, which just may be the best kids song ever (I can’t stop listening to it) and will surely worm its way onto my next mix CD.
MORE: You can download two MP3’s from the album, including “Where’s the Music?”, from here.
Fuck politics, let’s uke. Here’s Fin Raucous, the mad ukulele-strumming Scotsman, banging out a cover of “Stop the Rock” in his shed. This is just way too cool for school:
Here’s a video of the original (Fin’s version kicks its ass) and click here if you want to see more of Fin playing ukulele with his pal Gus.
Oh, yeah, today is my birthday. I just pulled this image off of my dig cam and figured it was perfect. Please do something nice today and pretend that you’re me while you’re doing it.
THE GIVEAWAY IS OVER! THANKS TO ALL WHO PARTICIPATED.
Folks, as promised last week, I have a pair of tickets to give away for the I’m From Barcelona & Thao Nguyen show this Thursday May 1st at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple (317 Clermont Ave, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY). I’ve heard and read really great things about I’m From Barcelona’s live show and I can tell you from personal experience that the Masonic Temple is an extremely cool place to catch a show.
If you’d like to enter to win a pair of tix, simply send me an email to “tips (-at-) rumproast.com” (or click on the “Tips” email link in the top right sidebar), write “Barcelona” in the subject and your full name in the body of the email before midnight tonight (4/29 ET). I’ll randomly select a winner and contact you via email if you’ve won.
This giveaway is courtesy of the fine folks at Boost Mobile.
In addition, tickets are still available at TicketWeb as well and you get a free six-month (23 issue) New York magazine subscription with purchase.
Peek below the fold for a few more Barcelona videos and one really cool claymation video from Thao Nguyen…
Sorry for the lack of blogging. I took a huge and tragic spill on a hill I had no business skateboarding down back when I was in college and, as a result, I occasionally throw my back out, so I’ve been laid out flat for the past two days. Here’s a quickee post for you to enjoy and then I’m going to crawl back on the couch.
Guitarist extraordinaire Gary Lucas hosted a “Beefheart Night” back on April 9th at the Knitting Factory here in NYC. Gary played with his fantastic all-instrumental Captain Beefheart cover band Fast ‘N’ Bulbous (their CD Pork Chop Blue Around the Rind is highly recommended) and several fans and friends of Don Van Vliet spoke in between the band’s two sets. David Lynch sent in a cool little video of himself reading ”Pena," too. The highlight was a surprise appearance by the legendary Robyn Hitchcock at the tail end of the evening, who performed three songs with Lucas accompanying him on the steel guitar. A few weeks ago I uploaded my video of them doing “Sure ‘Nuff ‘N’ Yes I Do” to YouTube and yesterday Lucas contacted me to let me know that both he and Hitchock really enjoyed seeing it, so I uploaded their version of “China Pig” today (unfortunately, I didn’t record their last song “Click Clack"). Enjoy.
“Faith Healer” from Big Dipper’s Boo-Boo, quite possibly the best EP ever released
Thank god I thumbed through the latest Time Out New York this morning or I wouldn’t have known that two of my favorite indie pop bands of the 80’s, Big Dipper & Great Plains, are playing tonight at Southpaw in Park Slope. Boston’s Big Dipper released their first three exceptionally solid pop masterpieces in the late 80’s on the legendary (and long-gone) Homestead Records label and Merge Records was recently kind enough to re-release all of that out-of-print material and a slew of great bonus material on an insanely cheap 3-disc box set called Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology. Columbus, OH’s Great Plains were under-appreciated fractured pop masters, churning out smart n’ snarky clingers like “Letter to a Fanzine” (chorus: “Why do punk rock guys go out with new wave girls?"), “Dick Clark” and “Martin Luther King/Martin Luther Drinking”. Old 3C’s wonderful 2-CD retrospective Length of Growth 1981-89 is unfortunately out-of-print and fetches $99 or more online, but you can obtain a CD-R version of it from the label and apparently MP3 downloads are still available via eMusic and iTunes.
ATTENTION NYC MUSIC FANS: Might as well shoehorn this in here ... Rumproast will be giving away a pair of tix for the May 1st show featuring I’m From Barcelona & Thao Nguyen at the Masonic Temple in Brooklyn in the very near future. If you want to go (or know someone who does), keep an eye on this blog for details.
I know I’m easy, but the fact that this video by the Carolina Chocolate Drops already has 37,000 views on YouTube gives me new faith in humanity. These guys are playing Celebrate Brooklyn on June 26th with the Dixie Hummingbirds. I’ll be there.
UPDATE: It gets better (worse?), she cornered poor Chelsea in Baltimore a few months back and sang it for her sans autoharp. I think that had to be an even worse experience for Chelsea than when she found out about you-know-what…
Tomorrow Rhino Records will finally release remastered and expanded deluxe editions of the Replacement’s first four Twin/Tone releases: Stink, Hootenany, Let it Be and, my personal favorite, Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash. I still think only one rock band has put out four better studio releases in a row and that’s the Rolling Stones (Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St.). Feel free to point out how completely wrong I am about that in the comments.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds—“Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!” (hi-res version here)
Nigerian Gangster—Matsuli Music brings you Chicago DJ Mike Love mix-mashing Fela Kuti and Jay Z. If you haven’t already started clicking on the link, you’re dead to me.
A Significant Part Of Obama’s Message—Kyle E. Moore of PA’s Comments from Left Field spells out what should be the obvious. (John Cole from Balloon Juice has been quite literally on fire on this subject, too. Just scroll down to “Hillary Clinton, disgrace” and read up from there.)
US electoral system explained—A hilarious rapid-fire flowcharted look at how people with funny accents view our electoral process.
Spider John Koerner & Willie Murphy’s Running, Jumping, Standing Still—The Heat Warps implies this underrated ‘67 eclectic ragtime-rock-romp album is better than Dylan & the Band’s The Basement Tapes (it’s not ... very few things are), but it’s definitely worthy of your attention. I’ll be listening to this a lot.
