Sorry baby but all I wanted for Christmas was Bonnie Raitt and a bottle of whiskey, right under that tree. I would have done everything John Lee Hooker told her he was going to do, twice. Before breakfast. This **** is BAD. – Davin Michael Stedman and his band, Staxx Brothers, wish you a Happy …
Thus far, this Quad City All Star Christmas CD from 1996 is the best Holiday album I’ve ever experienced. The 69 Boys and 95 South have so far been upstaged by female MCs K-nock and 24K. I’m not sure which of them rapped this verse. But I’ll tell you what, it knocked my dick in …
Thanks to Gordon Jack Schultz for this lovely piece of music.
While I have sung and played music since childhood, a number of mundane personal detours led me away from music, my first love, and into the corporate world. One day I peeked outside my cubicle and realized that music was still there waiting for me. So we kissed, made up, and ran off together. People …
Born in 1997 and 14 at the time of this video, singer Zara Larsson entered the public eye by competing and succeeding on a Swedish TV show similar to America’s Got Talent called Talang 2008 when she was ten years old.
Total Warr’s “Where Is My Mind” (Pixies cover) turns the hit into a buzzing, beat-driven jam complete with a sample from “Empire State of Mind.” The video builds from a simple live performance of the classic into an all out house party full of entertaining characters.
F*CK THAT! ERIN MCKEOWN'S ANTI-HOLIDAY ALBUM (2011) by Erin McKeown Singer-songwriter, producer, and dedicated activist Erin McKeown is gearing up to release her new album, MANIFESTRA, which brings together her political and musical selves. Funded by her enthusiastic fan-base in a mere six days via PledgeMusic, MANIFESTRA will be released January 15th on McKeown’s own …
Dani Shay is no stranger to the stage, having been a contestant on both NBC’s America’s Got Talent and the most recent season of Oxygen’s The Glee Project. With a handful of releases and viral videos already under her belt, the singer-songwriter has released her new One: The Winter EP today featuring three uplifting tracks, …
Meet Sophia Bastian. She sings because she loves Ray Charles and Tupac Shakur, or at least that what she says at the end of “Ways to Take it Easy.” She puts a jazzy spin on classic soul with tasty organ riffs and brawny horn stabs that sound as full as vintage Morphine to punctuate her …
Homer and Jethro were adept, first-rate jazz musicians (See Playing It Straight and It Ain’t Necessarily Square) but that’s not the music for which they’ll be primarily remembered. Instead Henry “Homer” Haynes and Kenneth “Jethro” Burns will go down in musical history as the creators of tunes such as “The Gal From Possum Holler,” “How …
August 1958, Chess Records, Little Walter’s version of the Big Bill Broonzy classic – Paul Butterfield said that when he heard this, it forever changed his perception of the relationship between the harmonica to the human voice. – Pat Thomas is the author of the recently released work, Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of …
A lovely, minimalist version of “In the Garden” from No Guru No Method No Teacher with Van’s inimitable voice surrounded by transcendant piano, bass and acoustic guitar.
In retrospect, “The Happening” seemed like the moment when Motown first lost its way: the beginning of the end. A theme for a painfully unhip cinematic attempt at hipness, written by Holland-Dozier-Holland with a Hollywood hand best known for TV themes (Family Affair, Gidget, My Three Sons).* It was a formal foot in the door …
Many thanks to Davin Michael Stedman and everyone at Staxx Brothers for premiering “Corn Rows for Christmas” on East Portland Blog two years ago. “Corn Rows for Christmas” is the tune which really put East Portland Blog on the map. Here it is in all its original glory: https://www.eastportlandblog.com/2010/12/21/its-here-staxx-brothers-corn-rows-for-christmas-a-world-premiere-original-song-free-download/
Merry Christmas from James Nicholson and me, along with all the other artists at Optional Art who made this one of the most fun musical projects I’ve ever worked on. Originally released in 1996, Cool Yule is still an annual revisit for many. Think of it as It’s a Wonderful Life meets A Peanuts Christmas …
Released in 1967 on Atlantic Records, this tune features John Hammond on vocals & harmonica with Robbie Robertson on lead guitar and Bill Wyman on bass, laying down a pretty decent groove… – Pat Thomas is the author of the recently released work, Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975. The companion …
Listen up, punk fans, there’s punk band out of Indonesia to look out for. Prison of Blues are a four-piece churning out throat grinding vocals, some manic guitar shredding along with manic drumming and a stand-up bass that plays so fast I wonder how the strings don’t melt from the friction. Their new CD Trick …
Being a musician is an exciting career, but it doesn’t necessarily pay the bills. While you’re busy setting up gigs and building a fan base, you also need to make sure that you have a steady stream of income available. This doesn’t mean that you have to resign yourself to sitting in a cubicle five …
LA based artist Conquistador, aka Alex Antebi, is a true one of a kind! His look– body suits, Russian hats, heels, and award winning moustache— is just the start of it. He’s a true champion of freedom of self-expression and is proud member of LA’s LGBT community though he is straight. He’s been the doorman …
You’ve heard Rod Stewart sing “Gasoline Alley” many times, but check out this 1970 German TV performance in which he sings a sublime, unaccompanied, a cappella version. – Pat Thomas is the author of the recently released work, Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975. The companion disc for the book has …
When stars start to dim, producers tend to flail about, and strange music can result. By 1975, as Muddy’s sales figures were in decline, he became the first customer for Levon Helms’ Woodstock studio. Backed up by members of his own band, together with Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Paul Butterfield, and some accomplished studio musicians, …
This may have been a small step for Van at the time, but it comes across as a giant leap for Vankind 30 plus years later. Recorded at the Montreaux Jazz Festival in 1980, here is a clip with top notch sound of Van at a late career peak– Common One had just come out– …
They Might Be Giants have perfected their deliriously catchy, original sound over the past three decades. The New Yorker has said they “combine a Dadaist sensibility with smart hooks” while the Village Voice crowed, “They make defiantly uncool look and sound unbelievably cool…” The two-time GRAMMY winning Brooklyn originals return with charming wit, electrifying pop …
Go here to view the vid. Thanks to Pat Thomas for the tip.
If somebody had told me that someday I’d appear in the same documentary movie as Chuck Dukowski of Black Flag and Keith Morris of the Circle Jerks talking about obsessive record collecting, I would have said “you’re high, you’ve very very high.” Yet today I was filmed talking about Black Power, they’re talking about Punk …
This tune is neither as immediate or as disarming as her cover of “Pursuit of Happiness,” but it has its moments. I’m sorry I missed this when it came out in twenty ten.
With an original single that clocked in at 8:30, one of the granddaddies of late-night, groove electronica. (For the last 20 years, it has served as the intro music to paranormal radio show, Coast to Coast AM.) It should be required that either you have to have the lights off or be in a car …
The paradigm for the first two Duran Duran albums… This is the shit right here, it doesn’t get much cooler than this. – Steve Stav
An interesting cover of the Radiohead tune.
Right at the beginning of Beware of Mr. Baker, the film’s director, Jay Bulger, is attacked by drummer Ginger Baker, physically, with a metal cane that draws blood when applied to the bridge of the filmmaker’s nose. Mr. Baker, whom we will subsequently encounter in less agitated moods, is upset about the direction of Mr. …