Sexy sea creature

This is the Brian Jonestown Massacre, "Anemone", off their 1996 album Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request. Groovy, dude. Needs some herb. Just sayin'.

- Badtux the Music Penguin

Dark mile

16 Horsepower, "Hutterite Mile", from their 2002 album Folklore.

The Hutterites are a sect of "primitive Christians" that try to live in much the same way as Jesus's apostles depicted in the Bible, who held nothing of their own but lived communally and devoted their lives to following Christ (damned hippies! Why can't they be good God-fearin' capitalists like Jesus Dollar Christ!). Their life is hard and full of questions in the modern world, which they live in more than the Amish, though they and the Amish came from the same basic tradition.

This is, if you read the lyrics closely, a song about a spiritual journey. But it is a rather troubled journey. As much as I find traditional religion distasteful, with its general attitude of "don't think, we 'spiritual leaders' will think for you", I must admit that it has inspired many a troubled journey that has led to many a great song by those honest enough to depict their truth.

-- Badtux the Music Penguin

Moonlight Days

Blaze Foley was one of those cantankerous characters who lived a short life full of drama and pain, mostly self-inflicted as he wandered around Austin as a semi-homeless minstrel who was drunk half the time and wore clothing patched up with duct tape. He wrote a lot of songs, but every time it seemed he'd be about to put an album out, something would happen -- the record label went under, someone stole the tapes out of his car, whatever, the only luck Blaze ever had when it came to getting his music out beyond the few clubs that would allow him through his doors was bad luck.

So anyhow, Blaze died in 1989 at age 39 under violent circumstances, leaving behind nothing but his guitar, which he willed to his friend Townes van Zandt (who told a story about having to dig up Blaze to get the pawn ticket to get it out of hock, but that's likely a Townes tall tale like the one he told about "Pancho and Lefty"). Except that folks remembered his music, oddly enough. And people like Merle Haggard, John Prine, and Lyle Lovett started covering his songs. And folks started thinking, "say, didn't I record him singing something?" and digging through their closets for tapes or, in one case, a videotape recording of a wedding party of all things where Blaze was the entertainment.

This is from one of those found tapes. This is "Moonlight Song", which has now been released as part of a collection entitled Duct Tape Messiah. Enjoy.

-- Badtux the Music Penguin

Sweetness

Ponderosa, "Heather". Doesn't appear to be on an album yet... let me check iTunes... nope. Not there yet. Still a neat song.

-- Badtux the Music Penguin

Young dead

The Black Angels, "Young Men Dead", off their 2006 album Passover.

-- Badtux the Music Penguin

The reality

I've done this one before, but this is a new day, so... James McMurtry, "We can't make it here anymore".

-- Badtux the Music Penguin

Murder ballad

Americana has a long history of murder ballads, dating all the way to Appalachian hill music and probably back to the Child ballads from which those were derived. Chris Knight does a mighty fine one with "Down By The River", off his album A Pretty Good Guy.

- Badtux the Music Penguin

Hrm. Blogger bloggering things up again. This was scheduled to be posted at 4:15PM, but for some reason blogger didn't do it. Wassup with dat?!

Rocket planet

Teenage Bottlerocket, "Forbidden Planet", off of their 2009 album They Came From The Shadows.

Err, yesterday was country, today was punk, what can I say. I'm feeling random.

-- Badtux the Music Penguin

Bad men

Robert Earl Keen, "Sonora's Death Row", off of 1993's West Textures.

-- Badtux the Music Penguin

World's youngest drummer?

Okay, this is just friggin' awesome. The little girl is five years old and has some righteous beats. The other two kids are 8 and 10 years old and handle their instruments quite well. This is a cover of industrial metal band Rammstein's song "Sonne", mostly in the original German. Happy to do my part to make this video go viral ;).

-- Badtux the Music Penguin

Black letter

Black Heart Procession, "The Letter", off their 2006 album Spell (Dig). These guys have been making music since the late 1990's, but apparently are well known only in Greece. Hrm.

-- Badtux the Music Penguin

Deep

Crooked Still, "Wading Deep Waters" from their 2008 album Still Crooked.

-- Badtux the Music Penguin

Coked hands

Woven Hand, "Sinking Hands", off their 2010 album The Threshingfloor.

- Badtux the Music Penguin

Indie grave

Mark Lanegan is the "n" in "indie", having lent his distinctive voice to a wide variety of indie projects over the years. This is "The Gravedigger's Song" off of his brand new album Blues Funeral.

-- Badtux the Music Penguin

They still don't give a damn, Spanky

This was a controversial minor hit in 1968 by the folk rock group Spanky & Our Gang, which was led by Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane with major assistance by lead guitarist Malcolm Hale who wrote most of the songs, did most of the arranging and handled most of the business end of things. "Spanky" was a contemporary of "Mama Cass" Eliot and had a similar big voice (and wasn't petite by any means, though not as big as "Mama Cass"), but there really wasn't much pollination between the two bands because Spanky was a Chicago band while The Mamas & The Papas was a West Coast band. The band released two albums, then Hale died and the band pretty much dissolved at that point.

I mentioned that this song was controversial in 1968. The title, of course, was one source of controversy. But there were quite a few radio stations run by right-wing nutballs who refused to play it based on its content too. Hmm, the more things change...

-- Badtux the Music Penguin

Electronic ghetto

New York electronica duo Creep meets the ghetto Tegan and Sara of rap, Nina Sky. The results? Uhm... odd. You have the electronica meeting the rap, but it's not quite trip-hop. This is "You", which as far as I know is only available on iTunes.

Yah, this isn't my usual fare. What can I say, this is where the connections led me, and it was striking enough to listen all the way through so (shrug)...

-- Badtux the Music Penguin

Heavy weight

Holly Miranda, "Slow Burn Treason", off her debut album The Magician's Private Library. She's one of those artists who, alas, sounds better live than in the studio because her music sounds too artificial without all the imperfections and roughness added by the live environment...

-- Badtux the Music Penguin

Miniature dreams

Asobi Seksu, "Miniature Cities", off of their 2009 EP Transparence. Gorgeous music from the seriously cute Yuki Chikudate and her sidekick James Hanna.

-- Badtux the Music Penguin

Systems of tuning

Equal tempered: a scale where each note is an identical frequency ratio step from the previous one.

Syntonic tempered: the frequency ratio of each musical interval is a product of powers of an octave and a tempered perfect fifth.

Meantone tempered: A system of syntonic tuning with a flattened fifth.

Well tempered: An attempt to create a tuning scale where any chord can be transposed to a new key without "wolf" notes that cause disharmony to the ears.

Evil tempered: Banjo tuning.

That is all ;).

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Earl Scruggs, January 6, 1924 - March 28, 2012

Of course, we all know the rule about banjo players and heaven:

Hopefully if there is a heaven, Jesus will make an exception ;).

-- Badtux the Music Penguin