I Can't Seem To Shake This Feeling

So I'm browsing through audioscrobbler profiles tonight and it occurs to me that I just can't trust people who listen to Weird Al. Don't get me wrong, I owned a couple tapes when I was twelve, but if you are over fifteen and the man's music is a staple in your listening habits I don't trust your judgment.

We Meet Again Dr. Jonze

I just saw the most recent Ludacris video for "Get Back" and it's got to be the best video I've seen in ages. Obviously Ludie has a twisted take on things and working with Spike Jonze was the right move to take. Check out the link and enjoy the fights with dogs, a posse that Public Enemy could love, and the best drink cameo in memory.
Beyond that I got around to updating my live 365 station today and ran into a couple problems with track names. I usual use musicmatchjukebox to create mp3s because it came on the computer and it's easy to adjust to Live 365's standards, but their cd look-up info is just terrible. It misnamed and misspelled tracks off four cds in a row, and it just shouldn't be that stupid. Of course, I went to use one of the tracks Live 365 has set up on their site and it turned Prodigy's "Hot Ride" into "Hor Ride" and I think they get paid to host the file. Go figure.
It's now day two since getting "Push The Button" and I've listened to the album half a dozen times. Great stuff!

The Big Jump

So the new Chemical Brothers album came out yesterday, and like their last three proper albums I went to pick it up the first day, but this time I ran into trouble. Maybe I got their too early, but when I arrived at Tower around 2pm there was only one copy of the album, not with the new releases, and it was marked up at full price ($19!) so I passed on it. I went looking again today and only found two copies of it at Best Buy, but with a good price. It's just a bit odd, since both these places had tons of copies of recent Fatboy Slim. Maybe there was a distribution problem? Well, I am listening to "Push The Button" for the first time, and so far I like it. Someone else is bound to want to buy a copy too.
Just another note about the album, I was doing a search through Live 365 today, and was surprised that SlothRadio had a song from the album added to the playlist. The station is, after all, what Cosmicity called* "the most conservative place for synthpop on the internet," and here Slothdog is playing a song with no vocals.
Dealing a bit more with the exclusive club, which those lucky Chems belong, of musicians who changed my views on music it recently came out that Portishead did not actually break up! NME recently reported that Portishead are "close" to finishing their third album, and Geoff Barrow doesn't understand why people think the group have broken up. Maybe an eight year break since the last album, with a side-project album from Beth Gibbons, might be the reason Geoff. While I look forward to any new material, I'm not going to hold my breath. "Close" within the context of eight years is a long time.
Here's an odd thing. I was reading about Bez, the Happy Mondays' dancer, winning "Celebrity Big Brother" in the UK when I was shocked to discover that the hardest working woman in reality tv came in third. Brigitte Nielsen, who I vaguely remember, but can not recall having seen any of her movies is suddenly the "it girl" of reality tv. She did "The Surreal Life" a couple of months ago, and her relationship with Flavor Flav spawned "Strange Love" and somewhere in there she squeezed in this Brit show. Why? I suppose it's raised her profile, but I have no idea where she would take her career from here. Yet another reason I'm not a Hollywood agent.


*Quote taken from memory, so it might be off by a word, but the sentiment was there.

The Time Has Come To...

The new New Order single has made it's way on to the internet, even officially. The link may become inactive at any time, but for the time being you can click here to listen to "Krafty."

The X Factor

When the news broke that the forever uncomfortable as "Big Brother" host Julie Chen married CBS president Les Moonves, my wife congratulated me on calling that match. Quite honestly I had forgotten my stong conviction that Chen was involved with a network exec after she made it back for a second season of that miserable show but I‘m happy to take credit for it now. Even I couldn't see how deep this went, but the higher up you deal with the corporate ladder the better job security I suppose.
A couple of things that bugged me today. On one of the boards there was complaining about the New York Synthpop Festival that took place last weekend mostly about the headliner not being from NY. Maybe this a version of the whole “school spirit” thing, never really my thing, but I’ve always assumed that when there is a festival with a name in front of it they are usually talking about the place it is happening, Something like the San Francisco Film Festival doesn’t just feature films from San Francisco, but the event takes place in SF. I don’t know, it just seems like such an odd thing to get up in arms about.
Not to get back to my feelings on the whole mess with the guy from Provision disrespecting the synthpop.net reviews, but the revised review that Jason wrote up has one of the most hits on the site. It’s got almost twice as many hits as a high average review so someone must be directing traffic towards it. Is it Breye? It beats the hell out of me, but it’s strange…

I'm Mr. Countdown

Somewhere in my time off blogging I did a countdown of songs played on my radio station in 2004. It took me forever to compile the list, and was a bit bummed out that I didn't find 50 songs to list like I did in 2003, but still some great songs and I tend not to add stuff to my station that I think is getting too much mainstream exposure (well, when I add it). Here's my list, or you can see it with a green background if you prefer...


1. Faithless- Mass Destruction
2. Pet Shop Boys- Flamboyant
3. Scissor Sisters- Comfortably Numb
4. Client- Radio
5. The Faint- I Disappear
6. Prodigy- Girls
7. Kraftwerk- Aerodynamik
8. Erlend Oye- The Black Keys Work
9. Air- Cherry Blossom Girl
10. Ferry Corsten- Whatever!
11. Crystal Method- The American Way
12. Freezepop- Chess King
13. Radio 4- Party Crashers
14. Fatboy Slim- Wonderful Night
15. Phoenix- Everything Is Everything
16. The Killers- Mr. Brightside
17. Richard X- You (Better Love Me x4) Tonight
18. LCD Soundsystem- Yeah
19. Chromeo- Needy Girl
20. Zero 7- Speed Dial No. 2
21. Miss Kittin- Professional Distortion
22. Tiga- Pleasure From The Bass
23. Felix Da Housecat- Rocket Ride
24. Chemical Brothers- Get Yourself High
25. Orbital- Acid Pants
26. Swayzak- Keep It Coming
27. Bjork- Triumph Of A Heart
28. Lamb- Sugar 5
29. I Satellite- Where In The World
30. Gwen Stefani- Serious
31. Scissor Sisters- Music Is The Victim
32. Le Tigre- Nanny Nanny Boo Boo
33. The Lovemakers- Internet Girlfriend
34. Junior Jack f/Robert Smith- Da Hype
35. Client- In It For The Money
36. Tristraum- Shiver
37. Proper Filthy Naughty- Fascination
38. Junior Senior- Shake Your Coconuts
39. I Am X- Your Joy Is My Low
40. Chemical Brothers- Galvanize

Shameless

Alright, it's been awhile and there is something I‘ve got to get off my chest. This whole Amber Frey writing a book about her experience with Scott Peterson. Now, I've seen far too much of the Peterson story over the last couple of years, mostly I thought because it was "local" story with the trial taking place a couple towns over in the same complex I got my marriage license, but I've had the misfortune of watching (flicking past really) more cable news in the past few months where the trial got tons of publicity which is totally disproportionate to the amount "news worthiness" of the story (which I believe initially caught on because it's from the relatively small town of Modesto, big enough for a minor league baseball team and a rodeo grounds, where Chaundra Levy was from a couple of months after that whole situation was all over the press). I've gotten far too sidetracked, but during the trial I saw Frey's attorney commenting every day of the trial, which I found really odd because her client wasn't accused of doing anything by anyone at this point, and I figured something must be up. Maybe a book deal? Sure enough, she ended up doing a tell all book about her relationship just days after the trial sentencing. Classless? Completely. At least someone got some profit out of this murder and the endless parade of publicity surrounding it…