Myspace Music

Myspace Music

Myspace is huge. It’s everywhere. Sometimes it seems that everybody has a Myspace page so everybody else needs to have a Myspace page just to keep up. While its gotten some bad press lately, Myspace is not just a bunch of old men trying to lure fourteen year old girls, or the police officers pretending to be them, out into mall parking lots for a Vladimir Nabokov inspired rendezvous. There is a thriving music community on Myspace, which I am pleased to say, I am a part of.

For every artist you hear on the radio, fourteen or fifteen times an hour, there are hundreds of independent artists who are infinitely more talented. Myspace Music gives artists an opportunity to showcase and promote themselves on a scale never before available to your average garage band. Bands and musicians from all over the world can post their gigs, MP3s, blogs, promotional material, pictures and pretty much anything else you can think of. They can also build up a community of fans, heroes and other likeminded artists around themselves who can take their names, their songs…and, for all intents and purposes, their futures to the “wired” and “unwired” masses alike.

There is so much great music out there that you are jut not hearing because the music industry in it’s current form, isn’t designed to allow it…or as more often than not is the case, chooses not to allow it. I guess this is my attempt to help inform the “wired” masses about some of the great music I’ve managed to find on Myspace Music.




Chelsea Williams:

http://www.myspace.com/chelseawilliams
http://www.chelseawilliams.com


Chelsea Williams’ MP3s were some of the first I downloaded and I was not disappointed. She has four tracks available for download on her Myspace Music page: Wait, Undecided, It’s Not Too Late and You Don’t Want To Know. They’re very simple tracks made up of just her voice and acoustic guitar and yet they are elegant in their simplicity. Chelsea Williams is a smart, intelligent writer with a sexy, jazzy, sophisticated voice and a knack for melody. Hearing her four songs makes me want two things. The first would be to hear what she would sound like in a more orchestrated and structured environment. I would love to hear a professionally produced studio album. It would be like putting a the right frame around a piece of art, the core is still there but you have the support that lends itself to making the work look even better. The second thing that I want when I hear Chelsea Williams is…more.




Gabor 13:

http://www.myspace.com/gabor13
http://www.gabor13.com


Gabor 13, from Hungary, is retro rockin’ lo-tech funk at its best. They have four downloadable MP3s available on their Myspace page: E74, Loose4, Love and Provaa…all instrumental and all worth a listen. All the tracks are sonically interesting and intense and flow with an amazing amount of energy. I’m curious to know more about the band as a whole as the only description on Myspace lists them as being from Hungary and their website does not provide any additional information, it does however provide additional MP3s for download. Listening to Gabor 13, I’d be curious to find out if everything was recorded live in studio or if any samples were used. Either way their four tracks are just fun to listen to because it’s so rare to hear something so raw and full of energy.


Jan James:

http://www.myspace.com/janjames
http://www.janjames.com


Jan James can sing. She’s got a deep, funky voice and just tears up the blues on her tracks. Her band also rips and who ever is playing guitar for her sounds like Gary Moore meeting Stevie Ray Vaughn in a dark alley. Three of her four downloads are samples of the full tracks and judging from Drive Me Home, Good Times Roll In and Hush the rest of the tracks should sound great. Rock Your Woman is a full length download and really showcases her guitarist. It almost has that recorded live feel to it. I’m sure a Jan James show would be something to see…and hear.


Late Nite Access:

http://www.myspace.com/lateniteaccess
http://www.lateniteaccess.com/core.html


Late Nite Access are pros. They play like pros, their recording sounds like a pro recording, their production is top notch, the band as a whole is tight and when it comes right down to it…they rock. They have three downloadable MP3’s available on their Myspace page, two samples and one full track. The full track, All Too Easy sounds like a demo, but still showcases Late Nite Access’ strengths. As I said before the band is tight, the vocals are strong as is the musicianship and the lyrics hold up too. The two sample tracks are Save Me and Money. Their tags list them as coming from an EP. If that’s the case it sounds like it was done by, you guessed it, a pro. The sound is crisp and clear and everything is where it should be. I can only imagine that a major label debut is sure to follow sometime soon.


Law:

http://www.myspace.com/lawsofmusic


Law is one of the more unique bands that I found on Myspace. There are shades of Ben Folds and Weezer as well as what might be an acid flashback to the late sixties. Law gives you four MP3s for download: Domino Effect, Headphones, I Couldn’t and Lets Meet all featuring drums, bass and keys with a sense of humor. If the Beach Boys, back in the day, ever decided to venture off into the adult industry I Couldn’t would have been on the soundtrack. All of Law’s songs are catchy and fun with good production value and would be right at home on your iPod.


Martina Axen:

http://www.myspace.com/martinaaxen


Martina Axen only has one downloadable MP3 on her Myspace page, but it’s completely worth a visit. The song is listed as the Xmas Song Demo. It’s Dark and heavy and sexy and in general...awesome. The track is tight and polished and the musicianship is out of this world. The guitars, in particular, are fantastic. It’s hard to really talk about an artist based on one track because there’s always the possibility that it was a fluke. But you know what? Based on this one track, I’d be more than willing to find out.


Mieka Pauley:

http://www.mieka.com/news.shtml
http://www.myspace.com/miekapauley


Mieka Pauley offers up four downloadable MP3s on her Myspace page and all of them are, in a word, brilliant. She effortlessly mixes genres like Folk, Rock, Blues, Pop and contemporary R&B. Her voice is soulful and bluesy and her writing is smart and full of feeling. The overall impression of the tracks is powerful, the production is transparent and doesn’t get in the way at all and the orchestration is perfect for the individual tracks. Mieka Pauley’s influences do show through on occasion in these four songs, but again, her delivery is so powerful that they meld into the songs that she brings to life. She actually has two EPs available on iTunes for download. The first is the Mieka Pauley (Acoustic) EP from 2003 and the second is the Out of Car Wrecks & Hurricanes EP released in 2006. The Way It Is, Stronger, First Stone and Run are more than worth the download time. If she doesn’t have a deal already…she should!


So there you have it. I could go on for damn near ever, but I have to draw the line somewhere I guess. Without having this turn in to a thirty-seven ("...in a row?") page review of everything I’ve found at Myspace Music, there are some other artists I would just like to quickly mention.

Once Just:
http://www.myspace.com/oncejust
A very cool and fun Ska band.

Kind Of Girl:
http://www.myspace.com/kindofgirldk
A cool band in the vein of Death Cab For Cutie.

Letters From Earth:
http://www.myspace.com/lettersfromearthband
http://www.lettersfromearth.us
A no bullshit hard rock band that should be playing the main stage at Ozzfest.

Slow Signal Fade:
http://www.myspace.com/theslowsignalfade
A great band with ambient soundscapes and cool guitar sounds.

Stephanie’s Id:
http://myspace.com/stephaniesid
A very theatrical band with a very unique take on their music.

Tiffany Page:
http://www.myspace.com/tiffanyhpaige
A great voice in contemporary female country music.

Ye Gods!:
http://myspace.com/yegods
http://www.ye-gods.co.uk
Your modern, classic metal band with a sense of humor. They may very well have influenced Spinal Tap. Douglas Adams would have loved these guys.

I absolutely think that everybody I mentioned here is great. I respect each and every one of them for doing their own thing and putting it out there for you and me to listen to. All of these bands, not to mention the rest of the unsigned, independent bands on Myspace Music are kind of like an alternate reality if you think about it. They exist, despite what the major labels and the chain stores and the video music channels and the radio stations of the world tell you exist. They exist because they love music and they love making it. The least we can do is listen.

Tool - 10,000 Days

Tool - 10,000 Days

I somehow have managed to live under a rock when it comes to Tool. 10,000 Days is their fourth studio album, fifth if you count their EP Opiate, and the first one that I’ve actually listened to. I think I may have been missing out.

10,000 Days is a dark and heavy album with complex rhythms and intense lyrics and is just about flawless in its execution. My only real complaint about the album is that the vocals are a little too buried in the mix sometimes, but other than that…nothing. Sonically, it’s great. The guitars have a great, thick, rich distortion that just rips and the bass and drums work here are outstanding.

The tracks are relatively long on 10,000 Days, with the exception of two clocking in between five and eleven minutes. You could think that with such lengthy cuts the album would drag, but it really doesn’t. You have the epic combo of Wings For Marie (Pt. 1) and 10,000 Days (Wings Pt. 2) clocking in at 17:25 total yet it still breaths and moves…without the aid of the fast forward button.

Those two tracks, in particular, are almost a metal version of ambient music. Both Wings Pt. 1 and 2 envelop you in their own “environment” if you will. They try to take you into the story they tell not just through their words, but through the music that makes up the two tracks. It would be easy to try and make a comparison to Pink Floyd as far as the overall feel of Wings Pt. 1 and 2, but I think that would be too convenient because they really do deserve to be listened to.


Another high point for me, no pun intended, was the track Rosetta Stoned. This song is basically a cautionary tale against Mulder and Scully ever dropping acid. Area 51, alien abductions, the chosen one or just a bad trip? Lyrically, the song is unique to say the least, and musically it’s intense and heavy and even comes with its own anal probe guitar solo. How can you pass something like that up?


In terms of a modern metal or progressive metal album, I really think this is the real deal. 10,000 Days just manages to seem bigger than most albums that I’ve heard in the genre lately…it’s aurally bigger, bigger in its intensity and bigger in its scope.

If the previous Tool albums are as good as this one is, then I have defiantly been missing out. I guess I know what will be “New: On the pod” next time…Opiate, Undertow, Aenima and Lateralus.

You can purchase 10,000 Days @

John5 - Songs For Sanity

John5 – Songs For Sanity

I guess that I have been holding on to a misconception as fact for quite sometime with regard to the modern guitar player. I’ve listened to a lot of music and I have labored under the delusion that modern guitarist really couldn’t play all that well, being a guitarist…that gave me hope, but I digress. I don’t mean that as a slam against today’s guitarist, I just mean that it seems as if the art of the guitar solo has been dying a slow death. Once in a while, you’ll hear someone take a lead, but they’re not really focused on as part of the song anymore, they’re more a novelty…hell, solos are even cut from radio versions of the songs they are in.

That little diatribe brings me to this…I recently read an interview with John5 and while I don’t really remember what was discussed, I do remember being very impressed with him. Granted, with a lot of what’s published today there’s always a spin on it, but I was impressed by the way he spoke about music and his playing. So…when I saw John5’s Songs For Sanity, I decided to give it a try. After listening to it and more specifically by the time I finished the song Blues Balls, I was not too proud to admit that I was wrong. Actually, my initial reaction was more like, “HOLY S@#%, THIS F#@$%# GUY CAN PLAY!!!”

I’ll be the first to admit that as an album, Songs For Sanity is a bit weird. It’s not terribly cohesive in terms of the tracks relating to each other, it doesn’t tell a story…actually it’s more like an album with a split personality. On one hand you have exactly what you might expect by looking at the cover…a dark, heavy, shred-fest with mood swings. However, after the first few tracks you’re presented with songs that end up being a bit more like that little red-headed kid you heard about from down south that spent a few years too many locked in the root cellar. Mom always said, “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.”



There are several tracks on Songs For Sanity that just drip with southern flavor like the proverbial gravy off a biscuit. Gein With Envy, Behind The Nut Love, Fiddlers and Death Valley, featuring guitar legend Albert Lee, all showcase John5’s amazing talents as a picker as well as what appears to be his deep appreciation and respect for the art form. The tracks are stellar in terms of their technical proficiency, but if you didn’t know what you were listening to you would think you had ended up on a Steve Morse album, not an album by one of the guys who played with Marilyn Manson.

Mind you his duet with Albert Lee is followed by Perineum, featuring the equally renowned Steve Vai. Perineum couldn’t exist in a galaxy further away from Death Valley. If these two tracks were kids in the same high school, they wouldn’t even look at each other much less get close enough to share an album. Between John5 & Vai, the speed of sound seems to be increased by a few mph. Just as a side note, I’ve never heard Vai sound less like Vai with the exception of his work on the Halo 2 soundtracks…maybe.

The remaining tracks on the album just fly by in really heavy (and really cool) rhythms and blurs of speedy melodic lines. I keep saying speedy, but there is a lot of melody here too. Soul Of A Robot is a track that mixes both, with plenty of those really tiny connected notes you see on sheet music but a middle section that has a very melodic theme, as short as it may be. You also have a track like 2 Die 4, that’s made up of a haunting acoustic guitar part backed by odd and eerie sample tracks.

In terms of an instrumental guitar album, it’s really right up there with the better one’s I’ve heard. I don’t think it will ever be as well know as say, Joe Satriani’s Surfing With The Alien, but players and aficionados of the genre will recognize Songs For Sanity for what it is…an amazing display of fret board prowess that is hardly one dimensional. I see lots of reader’s poll awards in John5’s future.

You can purchase Songs For Sanity @

New: On the pod

New: On the pod


Music:

Dixie Chicks – Taking The Long Way
The Wreckers – Stand Still, Look Pretty
Rik Emmett – Westwood One Live – Absolutely Tour
John5 – Songs For Sanity
Lisa Loeb – The Very Best Of
Obsession - Carnival Of Lies
Selections from Myspace Music


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Audiobooks:

The Ambler Warning – Robert Ludlum

Augustan Burroughs – Possible Side Effects

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Quick Audiobook Review:

Ben Bova – Saturn

On the surface, it’s a pretty interesting as far as Sci-fi novels go. A Theocratic government, or should I say governments, have come to power on earth. Some of the dissidents have fled to the lunar colonies but some remain. A mysterious donor has sponsored a mission to study Saturn and it looks like all of the remaining misfits are going to be on it. Below the surface, although not so far as you have to actually look, Saturn is an attack on religious fanaticism without any real ideas on how to fix it in the long term…still, it’s not a bad way to pass the time.

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Other Stuff @ On the pod

Well, a while ago I mentioned that I was writing music for a fashion show. It’s all done and actually I liked it so much that I had some CDs made up to try and schlep. If you’re remotely curious about the fashion show, check out a blog that I’m also working on for it at www.sogno-boutique.blogspot.com.



If you want to listen to some of the music, you can go to www.myspace.com/pseudojoe and sample some of the over 40 minutes of music I wrote for the show. If you like it, I should be selling a few CDs at the show on June 10th and eventually at that same myspace site.

In other stuff news, I got the official On the pod.net promotional cards yesterday and they look amazing. A big thanks goes out to SuzieQ @ Signz & Dezines by SuzieQ at http://www.suzieillustrator.com. If you are ever in the market for a graphic designer or just someone to help you with your business cards, she comes highly recommended by On the pod.net.

As far as reviews go, I just finished one for John5’s new album Songs For Sanity and I’m going to work on a group review for some of the music I’ve found on myspace. There are some really great musicians who have pages up at myspace music and they really are worth checking out.

You may have also noticed the Barnes & Noble links that have popped up around the site. I was looking for a way to make getting the music I was talking about easier so I wanted to link a store. I had a lot of problems with the Amazon website so I decided to use Barnes & Noble.

That’s really it for now I guess, so I’ll let you all get back to it.

Thanks for visiting On the pod.net

Joe

Neil Young – Living With War

Neil Young – Living With War

First and foremost, Living With War is a Neil Young album.

It’s good and bad for all the reasons that Neil Young albums are. There’s good writing and ok singing, but there’s also a lot of heart.

As for content, let me put it this way…I’m 34 years old, I missed Vietnam and the Antiwar movement of the late 60’s and early 70’s...which is why I’ve never heard anything like Living With War before.

You are presented with ten (nine if you don't count Young's rendition of America The Beautiful as the album's closer) melodic, seemingly "nice" songs that are orchestrated in such a way to add to that impression and yet within them, they contain such politically scathing lyrics that they just ooze contempt for the current U.S. administration and its policies.

Rather quickly, the term “Protest Album” comes to mind, and vividly at that.

I think Living With War, as an album, can best be summed up in the lyrics of one it’s songs…Let’s Impeach The President

“Let's impeach the president for lying
And leading our country into war
Abusing all the power that we gave him
And shipping all our money out the door

He's the man who hired all the criminals
The White House shadows who hide behind closed doors
And bend the facts to fit with their new stories
Of why we have to send our men to war

Let's impeach the president for spying
On citizens inside their own homes
Breaking every law in the country
By tapping our computers and telephones

What if Al Qaeda blew up the levees
Would New Orleans have been safer that way
Sheltered by our government's protection
Or was someone just not home that day?

Let's impeach the president
For hijacking our religion and using it to get elected
Dividing our country into colors
And still leaving black people neglected

Thank god he's cracking down on steroids
Since he sold his old baseball team
There's lot of people looking at big trouble
But of course the president is clean

Thank God”

If Neil Young wasn’t being listened to, watched or followed by the Bush administration before…he is now.

Good luck Mr. Young, good luck.



If you would like to listen to
Neil Young's Living With War in its entirety,
please click the album cover below.



You can purchase Living With War @

Halo 2: Original Soundtrack Volume Two

Halo 2: Original Soundtrack Volume Two

Composers: Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori



So Master Chief, Cortana and Sergeant Johnson walk into a bar…

If you don’t know about Halo, then odds are you’ve been living under the proverbial rock for the last few years as Microsoft has been hyping this Xbox game so much you’d think it was the second coming. I, being of the techno-geek persuasion, would tend to lean towards the second coming side of things myself, but that’s another story.

Halo was the flagship, the killer app if you will, of the original Xbox launch several years ago and has since spawned a sequel, three novels, a plethora of action figures, an upcoming big budget Hollywood movie and a soon to be released third game, which will be the reason I buy Xbox 360…like I said, I’m a techno-geek.




The second game in the series, Halo 2, told the continuing story of Master Chief, Spartan-117 or just John to his friends (uh, wait...he has no friends, they were all killed during the fall of Reach...oh, forget it), and humankind’s ongoing battle for survival against the forces of the Covenant, a theocratic alien civilization bent on eradicating all traces humanity from the annals of galactic history. (Apologies to all of my English teachers for the run-on sentence.)


With the release of Halo 2 in 2004 came the Halo 2: Original Soundtrack Volume 1. The album contained songs from and inspired by the game and featured artists such as Breaking Benjamin, Incubus and Steve Vai. There were portions of the score included on Volume 1, but the majority of music was supplied by guest artists. Now, two years after the initial release of the game, Sumthing Else Music Works has decided to release Halo 2: Original Soundtrack Volume 2. Written by Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori, Volume 2 is made up of the original game score from Halo 2.

I can hear you saying to yourself, why do we need a soundtrack album, much less an original score album from a video game? Ok, I can see your point...but if you’ve played Halo or any other video game in recent years, you will have already realized that game music is not what it used to be when you were pumping quarters into Ms. Packman back in the day. Technology has allowed game developers to include full, rich, dramatic and best of all, real music in video games. In Halo 2, the music is as much a part of the game as the visual effects are.

Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori have created some serious music here. Its music that could be, and would be, right at home with any film score. A full half of the album is presented in Suite form, giving you a lengthy view into the themes that made up a specific section of Halo 2. The remaining six tracks are individual, shorter, thematic slices of the game.

Volume 2, as a whole, contains an interesting mix of acoustic and electronic elements that give the soundtrack its own voice. From start to finish, you can find orchestral movements, choral movements, percussion pieces, electric guitars, tribal drums and several other unique elements. A stellar example of this is the Mombasa Suite. It begins with an orchestral piece that morphs into a modern drum and bass piece. From there you’re given a sampling of vocals, synth, electric guitars and drums which lead you into the percussion finale of the piece.


One of the more interesting facts about the album is that it was produced by Nile Rogers. Yes, that Nile Rogers…of the 70’s band Chic and producer for artists such as Sister Sledge, Diana Ross, David Bowie, Duran Duran, Madonna, Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck, The B-52’s, the Vaughn Brothers and David Lee Roth to name a few. Sumthing Else Music Works is actually Nile Rogers' own company.

With all that having been said, would I recommend you listen? Well, soundtracks aren’t for everybody and I would have to imagine that original score albums probably appeal to an even narrower group of people, but this album is a great example of what music for new media can be. It’s very lush and eclectic and intense. If you like soundtracks and scores, or if you’re looking for something a little different, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.

Personally, I hope that both Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori are tapped to write the score for Halo 3.


...and the film while we're at it.

You can purchase Halo 2: Original Soundtrack Volume Two @

New On the pod

New On the pod

Dead Can Dance - A Passage In Time
Dead Can Dance - Aion
Dead Can Dance - Into The Labyrinth
Dead Can Dance - Selections From North America 2005
Dead Can Dance - Spiritchaser
Halo 2 - Volume 2
Mattias IA Eklundh - Freak Guitar: The Road Less Traveled
Midnight Blue - Take The Money And Run
Mr. Mister – Live USA August 1986 (Live Recording)
The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
Soul Sirkus - Soul SirkUS 2005.04.05 (Live Recording)
Joe Stump – Night of the Living Shred
Vertical Horizon - 08/05/05 @ 930 Club in Washington DC (Live Recording)

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Audiobook: The Best of Fantasy & Sci-Fi Magazine (Listening Now)

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Quick Audiobook Review:

Kevin Brockmeier - The Brief History of the Dead: A really cool book about the living, the dead and the end of the world...and how they relate to each other. It’s based on the premise that there are two stages of death, the first being that when we die we exist on another plane as long as someone alive still remembers us and the second begins when we pass out of human memory.


B&N.com: The Brief History of the Dead

David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas: This is one of, if not the, most ambitious book I have ever listened to or read. This book is actually six individual stories woven into an expansive narrative that encompasses all of the characters in the stories. The book spans an enormous timeline that begins with a ship sailing toward an early San Francisco and ends in a future populated with clones and massive corporations. Each section of the Audiobook was read by different people, including Scott Brick, a personal favorite, adding an individual voice to each of the characters. It’s a really wild read.


B&N.com: Cloud Atlas

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Christopher Moore: Author

I know I mentioned him before, but I just finished reading Christopher Moore’s first book, Practical Demonkeeping and the book that came before A Dirty Job, The Stupidest Angel. If you have a slightly twisted sense of humor, or for some reason want to develop one, read his stuff. He’s just funny, no two ways about it.


Christopher Moore

B&N.com: Practical Demonkeeping

Christopher Moore

B&N.com: Stupidest Angel:
A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror

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Other Stuff: Part i

There’s a new On the pod.net podcast up over at Pod-O-Matic that you can check out. I posted it on Saturday (05/13/06).



Other Stuff: Part ii

Well, if you’ve been looking around you might have noticed some of the changes to www.onthepod.net. I’ve been busy updating some of the links for the page and adding new ones. I’ve also been working on the On the pod.net Myspace page @ www.myspace.com/onthepod and trying to make it look a little more like this one.

The Myspace thing is a little weird but I’ve managed to add a bunch of friends that may or may not be people I really respect in some form or another…and no, I don’t mean the girls with the pseudo-porn sites that keep asking for add’s. If you end up there, check them out…I think the list is kind of impressive. (Small and easy for anybody to do, but impressive)

Other Stuff: Part iii

In other non-On the pod.net news, but news I want to share none the less, yours truly was actually “hired” by Krista Camputaro, owner of Sogno, Boutique of Dreams to write music for a fashion show on June 10th as part of the Audubon Arts On The Edge Festival in New Haven, CT. The opportunity came along out of the blue and it’s just something I never thought of doing before. It’s actually going very well, but I am seriously crunched for time with the project happening so soon. Still, it’s very cool to be writing again and I can’t wait to see how it turns out, not just the music, but the whole thing.

If you’ll be in the area and want to check out the fashion show, as I said before it will take place on June, 10th 2006, which is also the kickoff day of the New Haven International Festival of Arts and Ideas, so there will be lots to see in the area.

The show itself will happen in front of Sogno, Boutique of Dreams which is located at 83B Audubon Street in New Haven, CT. It will begin at 4:00 p.m. and run somewhere between 40 & 50 minutes.


For directions to Audubon Street and Sogno, Boutique of Dreams, you can check out the Contact Us section of the Sogno website at http://sognoboutique.com/contactus.html or CLICK HERE.

Jake Shimabukuro – Dragon

Prairie Music

Jake Shimabukuro – Dragon


To quote Monty Python, ”…and now for something completely different.”

This is the best Ukulele album I’ve ever heard!!!

No, wait…come back!

Seriously though, Jake Shimabukuro’s latest release, Dragon, is amazing. You would be missing out if you wrote it off. I have rarely heard other instrumentalists capture the voice of their instrument as clearly and passionately as Jake Shimabukuro.

My introduction to Jake came from a friend at work who excitedly told me that, “You just have to see this.” “This” as it turned out was a video clip from youtube.com of some guy in Central Park playing While My Guitar Gently Weeps on the Ukulele. Enter, Jake Shimabukuro.



So, I watch the video clip and I’m just floored. I mean, this guy is just ripping it up on…the Ukulele. I have played guitar for nineteen years and I was just floored by this guy playing what I had always assumed to be just kind of a “toy.” This one video clip made me realize that I was hideously ill-informed and frankly I was kind of embarrassed by thinking of myself as a musician and yet being so ignorant about music.

The very first thing I did, after picking my jaw up off the floor, was hit the web and try to find out who Jake Shimabukuro is. I found his website at www.jakeshimabukuro.com. I did some digging and found out that he has had five albums out since 2002: Skyline, Sunday Morning, Crosscurrent, Walking Down Rainhill and his most recent, Dragon.

I stumbled on a copy of Dragon at a local Borders a few weeks later and instantly convinced a friend to buy it after a, “you gotta hear this” and a quick listen. We ended up splitting the hefty eighteen dollar price tag (why Borders, why?) and now I have an album to tell you about.

Dragon is not a Ukulele album. It’s a very well crafted instrumental album where the main instrument happens to be a Ukulele. You’re presented with twelve songs that showcase Jake Shimabukuro’s command of the Ukulele and also his very accomplished songwriting talents. The songs are all fleshed out with good structure and melodies, while his playing is incredibly fluid and spot on.

For any musicians reading this, if you’ve never heard two-hand tapping done on a Ukulele, listen to the title track on Dragon. Here’s another stray thought, I wonder if the distorted “guitar” track on Shake It Up! was done on the Ukulele? Hey, if Bela Fleck can have an electric banjo, why not an electric Ukulele?

If I had to categorize it for anyone without my iPod and their very own "Prairie Music" genre, I guess I would place it under the Jazz section. However there are echoes of several different musical styles on Dragon including Latin, Rock and New Age as well as Jazz.

Overall, Dragon, while having its roots in Jazz, is a very easy album to listen to. Its acoustic vibe doesn’t get overly complicated just to show that it can. Instrumentally, the album is flawless and sonically, I think you will be as surprised by what the Ukulele actually sounds as I was.


To Jake and all of the other Ukulele players out there in the world, I think I owe you an apology for taking so long to figure out what a great instrument you have.

You can purchase Dragon @

The Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! Podcast

Podcast

Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!


Here’s another podcast that I continually find myself listening to. If you’re a fan of NPR, specifically weekends on NPR, you’ve probably heard Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! If not, you don’t know what you’re missing.

The podcast is posted every Monday and essentially replays the preceding weekend’s radio broadcast. I know what you’re thinking…big deal, right? Well if you missed the show you can still hear it and, the best part is, it’s free. Other shows broadcasted on NPR are available for download, but several of them you have to pay for through services like audible. Don’t get me wrong, I love audible, but it’s nice not to have to pay for something once in a while.

Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! is based out of Chicago and is a “co-production” of Chicago Public Radio and NPR. It's hosted by Peter Sagal who is assisted by “Official Judge and Scorekeeper” and NPR veteran, Carl Kasell. Every week, you can also find a trio of panelists more often than not made up by Roy Blount Jr. (Author), Sue Ellicot (London Times/New York Times), Adam Felber (Writer/Performer), P.J. O’Rourke (Author/Atlantic Monthly), Charles Pierce (Boston Globe), Paula Poundstone (Comedian), Roxanne Roberts (Washington Post) or Mo Rocca (Contributor to all things great and small).


Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! is set up as a quiz show where questions based on current events are asked to the panelists and they are awarded points based on their answers. It may sounds dry, but with segments like Who’s Carl This time, Carl Kasell’s Way Back Machine, Listener Limerick Challenge and Carl Kasell’s Countdown, the silliness that is the world we live in becomes apparent. There are two listener call in segments and another called Not My Job where they have various celebrity guests try to answer questions on topics they know nothing about.

If your still reading this and think it sounds geeky…yeah, it probably is. But it’s entertaining. Think of it as fun for the educated masses…I mean, come on it is NPR after all. That being said, it’s funny and clean and topical and it’s definitely worth a listen…oh yeah, and you can win Carl Kasell’s voice on your answering machine.

The Little Willies – The Little Willies

Country/Jazz

The Little Willies – The Little Willies

The Little Willies, The Little Willies, The Little Willies…it’s just kind of fun to say, don’t you think? Well, the self titled album by The Little Willies is just as fun to listen to.

In case you were wondering, The Little Willies are Lee Alexander, Jim Campilongo, Norah Jones and Dan Riser with The Ordinaries singing background vocals and special guest Jon Dryden playing organ and accordion.

The Little Willies offer up thirteen songs, four originals and nine covers that are easy to listen to and feature an eclectic mix of country, jazz and bluegrass influences.

All of the recordings on this album sound as if they were done by people with huge smiles on their faces who really love what they do. Nowhere is that more apparent on this ablum than the must listen closing track, Lou Reed. I don’t want to spoil it for you but my favorite line of the song has to be, “He was just tipping them over, he wasn’t eating them.”

Like I said…fun stuff.

Here’s the track listing with writer credits for the album:

1. Roly Poly
(Fred Rose)

2. I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive
(Fred Rose, Hank Williams)

3. Love Me
(Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller)

4. It’s Not You It’s Me
(Richard Julian, Ashley Moore)

5. Best Of All Possible Worlds
(Kris Kristofferson)

6. No Place To Fall
(Townes Van Zandt)

7. Roll On
(Lee Alexander)

8. I Gotta Get Drunk
(Willie Nelson)

9. Streets Of Baltimore
(Tompall Glaser, Harlan Howard)

10. Easy As The Rain
(Richard Julian, Jim Campilongo)

11. Tennessee Stud
(Jimmy Driftwood)

12. Night Life
(Walter M. Freeland, Paul F. Buskirk, Willie Nelson)

13. Lou Reed
(Lee Alexander, Richard Julian, Norah Jones)

You can purchase The Little Willies @