Feed Your iPod: Alison Krauss and Robert Plant, "Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On)"

It might just be too much for my senses, one of my favorite rockers parrying up with #5 on the “Bushido’s Musical Crush List” cutting an album together (and produced by T Bone Burnett), Raising Sand and touring this summer (the Raising Sand tour-yes hippies, Bonaroo will be one of their stops) right after the news of Zep’s reunion rocking of the Garden. I just saw this video on VH1 (laugh if you must but if you are working on sketches and don’t have a sound-system hooked up on your room, VH1 plays some sweet tunes in the wee-hours of the morning) and ran to the computer to add it. I’ve heard a little bit of the album and it will certainly be an addition later today. Dang, what a great way to start a Friday.

Here’s a link to Rolling Stone’s Robert Christgau’s review of the new album

Friday Funnies: Dr. V, Boon and Muffin performing live @ the Dunes!

Ladies and Gentlemen: Without further adieu, I present to you the hardest working man in show-business, Dr. V, performing live at the Dunes Golf and Beach Club!



And of course, you can’t spell stag-line without Muffin and Boon! Sorry guys, I did what I could to fix the sound, (a camera phone will only do so much) but the acoustics in the room didn’t help. Well that and Jimmy (aka: Chris Farley’s skinnier stunt-double) was deep-throat on the mic, but I thought Muffin and Boon sounded pretty good. Enjoy their rendition of “My Girl”.

Mitchell's Report on Steroids today at 2 pm

With just 75 days from now until spring training, Major League Baseball will issue Sen. George Mitchell’s report on steroids today at 2:00 pm, catch it on the web or on ESPN. (Photo courtesy of misunderestimation.com)

Spoiler alert: there are a lot of players doing it, probably someone all thirty teams and you shouldn’t be surprised to know, they’re not going to stop doing it. As long as multi-million dollar contracts are paid to play the game, players will find the “edge” to put them in front of other players. Case in point, baseball came down hard on anabolic steroid use, but thanks to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) the “clear” a form of undetectable human-growth hormone was developed. It’s a basic human response; if someone tells you they can make you stronger, faster and extend your career without anyone finding out, nine times out of ten, you take the drug. Baseball players might look like gods or supermen hanging on the posters in your room or framed in baseball cards, but the thing is, they are human and they (just like everyone else) will make mistakes.

Wednesday's WTF? WTF is going on in Sia's "Buttons" video?

WTF is going on in this video? Now, you all know, I am pretty liberal, but even this made me scratch my head. If you haven't heard of Sia then you are missing out, granted her video "Buttons" earned this week's Wednesday's WTF? But I really dig her song (as well as performance at Boston's the Paradise) "Electric Bird" from her new album Some People Have Real Problems; enjoy!


Posted by The Bushido

The Beav has Scarlet Fever...

A little get well for the world's largest Superman fan, the Beav! Art work by Jim Trabert

The Home-Brew is done, now where do I get the bottles?

One thing I forgot to factor in was getting bottles in which to put this beer. Does anyone know of a place here in Charleston that sells empty bottles that would suite my purpose?

Imagine-Across the Universe, Reagan, Gorbachev, Rock and Roll and the fall of the Soviet Empire

Today is the anniversary of former Beatle, John Lennon’s death, ironically, a week after the anniversary of George’s death. In remembrance, I thought to add the trailer to the new movie, “Across the Universe”. I am not quite sure what’s the haps with this new movie: looks like a musical with Beatles tunes, and its’ probably one of those flicks you either love or hate, with no in between. That being said, I plan on checking it out this holiday season.

The Legacy
I was chatting with a red-rider friend of mine the other day and he made the remark, “Reagan won the Cold War between the US and the USSR”. To which, I must admit Reagan did play a part (as did the other presidents between Truman and Ronald Reagan) in stopping the spread of Communism. But there are other key players who led to the end of the Soviet Empire: Pope John Paul, Mikhail Gorbachev (probably the most influential leader with his granting of perestroika and glasnost) and of course, Rock and Roll. Indeed, the latter doesn’t seem to get the recognition as being a catalyst to help bring down the Iron Curtain, but when young kids in the Soviet bloc could tune their radios to the BBC and hear the latest Beatles, Credence, Stones, etc. a changing movement was happening, just as it was in the “free-world”. Which is something the “squares” just don’t get, change is bigger than one person, change takes sacrifice and an open-mind to change.

I was giving points to my sister Dani as I proofread her paper on interestingly enough, World Peace and one of the things I thought she needed to address was the universal characteristics of man-kind. As an example, I reminded her of the movie, The Long Way Around with Ewan McGregor, in which McGregor and his comrade “Charlie” ride their BMW motorbikes from England across Europe, through Asia, grab a plane to Alaska from Russia and then ride through Canada, and across the US arriving in NYC. And if there is anything that you should learn from this movie (other than the roads in Russia are rubbish and that America has the most dangerous roads in the world) is that the people across the globe are pretty much the same. We talked about the recent accord at the Annapolis Peace Talks (despite the past failures) to bring peace to the Middle-East between the Palestinians and the Israelis. And then she asked me the million-dollar question: what would it take to a lasting peace? My answer: for someone to give it a chance.

Friday Funnies: The Red State Update

(Warning, this skit contains foul language, “Huckabee, well F’__me," which is extremely fun for those young-parrot like children to repeat). Enjoy. For more of Travis and Jonathan, go to Redstateupdate.com or travisandjonathan.com/RedStateUpdate.

Feed Your iPod: Neko Case's "Live at Disney Hall

The G-Man sent me a copy of Neko Case’s performance “Live at Disney Hall” (11-16/2007) hosted on NPR and I must say, I have embraced Case’s Country noir-Indie style of music. Neko Case (real name) hails from Tacoma, Washington and graduated from the Emily Carr Inst of Art and Design in Vancouver, Canada where she collaborated with bands (i.e. The New Pornographers, The Sadies and Carolyn Mark-whom she tours with as the Corn Sisters) before graduating and losing her student visa.


Case moved to Seattle after school, cutting two records (The Virginian and Furnace Room Lullaby-2002) as Neko Case and Her Boyfriends before heading to the Windy City for a more conducive environment for her work. She dropped her boyfriends in Chicago and released Canadian Amp with six covers on the album, including country and folk legends Neil Young and Hank Williams. It was rumored that her next album, Blacklisted was in response to Case having a “wardrobe malfunction” while performing at the Grand Old Opry in 2001 and not being invited back, but evidently, that’s just part of the “mill”.


A few more collaborations, an election win (32% of the vote) as the "Sexiest Babe of Indie Rock" in a Playboy.com Internet poll, a spot on Austin City Limits in 2006 (see video) and now a performance now, “she’s going to Disneyland”. If you dig on Dolly Parton or the slow deep depression of Neil Young’s Harvest Moon, then pull up a chair and put on some headphones, because Neko Case will be your cup of tea, and while you are at it, go pick up her latest album, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood (2006) or get in the holiday spirit with her single, Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis or catch her on tour with The New Pornographers. (Photo courtesy of NekoCase.net)


Case’s performance on Austin City Limits, hosted by RSpaceball on You Tube:



LINKED IN:
Neko Case’s Official Site
Neko Case’s Myspace Page
Case Fan Site