In an effort to serve you better...

ok, hey, what's up.

so i don't know anything about the internet. i can only deal with automated mechanisms such as this blogger thing. but i wanted to put up some mp3s on this site, so i did a little "legwork," and found out some things and want to put them to use.

i was assisted in these matters by a few kind folk, one of whom is John Atkinson, an excellent musician and seriously pro blogger with whom i have previously rocked in Aa. John's blog, Chiasm, is a trove of great sociopolitical thought--i get smarter just skimming this damn thing--and insight on all kinds of good music that i don't know shit about. i spent hours listening to this dude's masterful mixes during long road trips, and i can assure you that the mf knows all there is to know about the hardest and most cutting-edgest grooves. so listen up fo' sho'.

the second helper man was Jonathan Harnish, who maintains the excellent site Built on a Weak Spot, which is sort of like the "Destination Out" site mentioned below, only devoted to awesome heavy and/or weird and/or just really good indie stuff from the '90s and on, with a real Midwest bias, which works just fine for me. also, dig that the title of the blog is lifted from a Quicksand song. (now THAT is a fucking band...)

anyway, these links are now enshrined over to your right and i very much encourage you to tap into the power.

*****

aaaaaaanyway, so thanks to the help of these goodly dudes, i'm going to try to get some actual music up here for you to listen to. for starters, we will do a sampler of the music that has been exciting me to the greatest degree in recent weeks/months. this is not a difficult list to make, b/c it basically consists of four esteemed organizations, those being Beefheart and his superfuckingawesome '80s Magic Band, D.C. mathdrama legends Shudder to Think, veteran Chicago TOTALMUSIC practitioners Cheer-Accident and teen-style-angst-turned-high-pop-art geniuses Xiu Xiu. you've heard me yap about this shit, now experience it and weep. here are five tracks to start with:

1) Cheer-Accident - "Failure" from "Enduring the American Dream" (1997)

one of the saddest and most sophisticated songs i know. you will think you have died and are listening to an angel. like a Broadway musical performed by your favorite prog band.

2) Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band - "Dirty Blue Gene" from "Doc at the Radar Station" (1980)

this is that scary-as-shit turbocharged '80s Beefheart shit i was telling you about before. jagged guitars draw blood and drums throttle with new-wave death-pulse.

3) Xiu Xiu - "Boy Soprano" from "The Air Force" (2006)

dark, sad, orchestral bedroom goth-pop drama. this is like if you could actually still listen to Nine Inch Nails and get the same chill you got in eighth grade.

4) Shudder to Think - "Earthquakes Come Home" (1994)

all the glory of the '90s is here. mindblowing melody and alt-rock crunch that will embarrass you. it will remind you of what you listened to on "120 Minutes," but you'll like it more than you ever liked that shit. Craig Wedren's voice has true wings.

5) Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band - "A Carrot Is as Close as a Rabbit Gets to a Diamond" from "Doc at the Radar Station" (1980)

gem of sunlit beauty and optimism. Beefheart piano-and-guitar enigma, delivered to you with pomp and circumstance on a gilded platter.