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Black Gasoline is the ultimate MySpace band, summed up in one sentence from the band’s MySpace bio: “With its debut album She Gave Us Magic, Black Gasoline demonstrates exactly why it has long been hailed as one of the most promising bands in Kansas.” They do have something of a Deep Purple/AC-DC/Grand Funk je ne sais quoi to ‘em–and let’s not forget that, despite those band’s shopworn licks and FM oversaturation, when they came out they were awesome. And some rock fans pine for the days when men were men, rock stars were rock stars, and guitars were loud. I, for one, give these working boys two thumbs up, and hope you do, too. Here’s a video of their song “Lady Iron Wing” from She Gave Us Magic released last November….rock on! |
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The ideas for M-A-MySp flow in from many directions. This week, cruising to 7:30 A.M. Easter Mass in the family road barge, the radio was getting scanned for March Madness knowledge and updates. The radio locked on “Steppin’Out Radio,” a show that, if you haven’t listened to it, you should give it a try: For people who have ever found value in a 12-step meeting, it will be like chicken soup; for those who haven’t, well it’s a tragicomic object lesson about what can happen to you if you let your own bad habits get out of hand. It’s a good listen, because the host Drew and his interviewees follow no script, and they don’t take themselves too seriously–i.e. they don’t moralize to you, they just explain how and why they messed up and offer encouragement to listeners in the same boat. Man-About-MySpace has never been to a 12-stepper, but he will never diss “Steppin’ Out.” Easter Sunday must be a big-time soul searching day for people with addictions, as they roll out celebrity guests willing to talk about their history. This week, it was former Utopia, Scandal, Meat Loaf and current New Cars bassist Kasim Sulton, a dude who’s toured with a lot of the “who’s who” of rock. He had one heck of a rock-n-roller-coaster ride, and we’ll leave it at that–listen to the archived broadcast that originally aired last January if you’re really curious. He plugged his MySpace in the interview, natch. After checking it out, it gets high marks: Excellent tuneage polished to a high production sheen, free downloads, video and extensive international tour schedule. He seems to be the rock equivalent of an interior lineman on an NFL team or that field-general catcher who has stone feet and no pop in his bat on a pro baseball team: No glory or even name recognition among average fans, but he’s a superstar among his peers. That’s a perfect “discovery” for MySpace Music. Here’s a little video slice of his composition “One Sure Thing,” performed live:
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This one’s for the club freaks out there, who like their music mixed and remixed, uptempo and downtempo. Radioactive Sandwich, an NYC duo, does the breakbeat-psychedelic thing MySpace style, and even offer tips and tricks for getting their records free on eMusic, a pay site. They make in the Man-About-MySpace space solely on the strength of one of their three album titles, The Earls of Sandwich. How awesome is that? Radioactive Sandwich—Slice One and Slice Two, their stage names—consider a ton of bands, rappers, and deejays among their influences. In fact, checking out that list on their MySpace profile, it’s easier to name who they don’t (Echo & the Bunnymen and Pat Boone, I think, aren’t on that list and that’s about it). Perhaps no two are startlingly contrasting as Black Sabbath and Crystal Method. Whatever. Check out a pre-prime time video experiment for “Svalbard Vault” (my first MySpace video embedded in the ESD blog…wish me luck): |
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Want to get your head caved in with a serious dose of 1960s-style guitar fuzz and simple-yet-addictive pop cuts that evoke a pre-digital era when the Beatles were king, a group like The Monkees could actually land top-10 hits, and not only could every kid dream he/she could be president one day but also start a garage band and annoy the neighbors? C’mon, we know you do. Check out Clearwater, Fla.’s Tres Bien, whose MySpace is loaded with great sample cuts. Best listened to with crappy laptop speakers cranked to “11,” to recreate the effect of hearing this awesome guitar fire and brimstone (and dramatic harmonies/countermelodies) as if it were 1966 and you’re listening to the AM radio on Lover’s Lane in your dad’s ‘58 Ford sedan…and bumped the tuning just off a bit while doing what Chuck Berry wanted to do in “No Particular Place To Go” if he hadn’t run into that blasted safety belt issue. Check out Tres Bien on the Fox reality show “The Next Great American Band.” |
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There are several ladies on MySpace who go by the moniker Sista B, but only one is a 56-year-old nun who releases records on CDBaby. Sister Rebecca Shinas, as she’s known in the ‘hood, might not be your average MySpace single or would-be recording star/American Idol contestant trying to get noticed by the system. But she’s also part of the MySpace culture, and could we possibly be good journalist-bloggers if we skipped over her and served up some hot band that’s being hyped everywhere else in the blogosphere? No way. We’re not saying she’s the second coming of Posh Spice, Led Zeppelin, the Guess Who, Pavement, or even Soulja Boy. We are saying, however, that she’s definitely one of the more peculiar unsigned artists on MySpace, and deserves a mention. Now give us seven hail Marys and shut the freak up. 
(Photo from her San Francisco Chronicle magazine cover shoot.) |
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Venerable pre-punk maniac Iggy Pop, who started kicking around Detroit almost exactly 40 years ago right now, is still alive and kicking, so writes Travis Hay of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. New tracks he sang with Northwest retro-garage grungies The Boss Martians will soon be flung up on the band’s MySpace page, so the rumors have it. It also looks like there’s photographic evidence of the Iggster on The Boss Martians’ page, but the guy pictured could also be Neil Young after going through a simlutaneous hunger strike, electrocution, and colonoscopy.  Wait a second. The Neil young scenario is highly unlikely. That’s gotta be Iggy Pop in them thar pictures. Iggy was insane on stage back in the day, with the Stooges, screaming, sneering, cutting himself, preening, writhing, and in general being what Perry Farrell wished he could be in his prime. Here’s a shot of “TV Eye” live in 1970—the best part of which is the play-by-play announcer trying to make sense of what was going on onstage. Give Iggy props for being, as high tech people like to call it, an “early adopter” of crowd surfing. This is unbelieveable stuff, when you consider it was filmed in 1970. |
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Few musicians the United States produced have had the multi-generational impact—yet are as little-known—as Professor Longhair. Pound for pound one of the most singularly ingenious and original jazz-blues-R&B piano players ever heard, ‘Fess inspired a gaggle of followers who evolved into titans themselves, players like Art Neville, James Booker, Dr. John, and Henry Butler. He didn’t like leaving New Orleans; in fact legend has it when he was “discovered” on a national scale and was offered a cushy ride on a big coming-out tour from sea to shining sea, he declined, saying something to the effect of “If they like me so much they can come to N’Awlins and see me at the club.” Baton Rouge was about as far as he normally traveled to play out. But why you bringin’ up this crusty old stuff today, Mojo, you ask? Lily Allen, man. You can’t get away from Professor Longhair. “Knock ‘Em Out” not only samples Longhair’s electrically charged riff from “Big Chief,” it makes it the cornerstone of the song. ‘Fess be universal, and a stunning fan MySpace celebrates his legacy with a quarter-cup of proper voodoo mysticism, which you can’t skip or logically ignore. Play his cuts, read the books, celebrate the music. Get edumacated. Before you head on over there to MySpace, though, here’s a priceless vintage clip of ‘Fess on the piano jamming out to “Big Chief” with Art Neville on B3, Dr. John on Rhodes and a gaggle of other New Orleans musical legends like Earl King. |
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If we did Thee Almighty Handclaps last week, why not stick with the same theme this week? Straight outta Brooklyn is Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, some sort of trainwreck between Pavement, Sebadoh, and a truckload of electronic effects. In this postmodern, post-Pavement, post-New Order new world order, guitars and melody are making a comeback. It’s how we rebel against the Soulja Boys of the pop charts and their annoying Fergalicious humpty humps in tow. Enter these guys, who shovel lots of great tracks to their MySpace, some of which have been played to death and others that are little treats for MySpacers who happen by. Not every band customizes content for MySpace; so many pages are little more than the same advertising for the latest release you can get anywhere on the web. Having built its popularity on the web before getting hyped by the likes of Rolling Stone, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah seems to work at making its MySpace a cool little club where people can hear new, cool, as-yet-unreleased music and video. Here’s a video of them on Letterman: |
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Few things warm the cockles of a garage-rock fan’s heart than discovering a current band that shares the lo-fi ethos of the crappy-sounding 1960s pop bands that recorded their best work on used-too-many-times Ampex reel-to-reel tape, accented with far too much staticky analog fuzz and reverb to comprehend the lyrics. You know the sound, as if it were filtered through an aluminum garbage can. Or four. Back in the 1960s, it was hard to make a good sounding record on a shoestring budget. Today, it’s hard to make one that sounds like crap, because digital technology’s so good and so cheap. You gotta deliberately make your albums sound absolutely horrible. That’s exactly what Iowa City’s Thee Mighty Handclaps do, and quite well, actually. Their MySpace has a couple unreleased tracks (perfect!) that pretty much tell you everything you need to know about the band and their outlook. Needless to say, their next record won’t be released on some namby-pamby audiophile label for the benefit of the $20,000-a-pair B&W loudspeakers crowd.  Only on MySpace can this band live…but not for long. They’re so cool, they can’t stay unsigned for too long, can they? Don’t forget, you read about them here first–now go out and up the pathetically low play count on those sample tracks, would you? |
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Oh my gosh. So, just poking around for new angles on MySpace Music led to a Digg article on Band Jammer spyware developed by devious hackers who, apparently, feel that there’s money to be made by busting into bad Dutch metal bands’ MySpaces. The Digg piece linked to this great FaceTime Security Labs breakdown of how Band Jammer preyed on MySpace Music pages, and who was the first victim they used in their example? Heh, heh. Why, none other than your Man-About-MySpace group of the week: A New Dawn, the Netherlands’ finest crap-metal band, which has apparently been unjammed, because there’s no evidence of spyware there anymore, at least as I write this tonight. Clearly the class of Europe, A New Dawn is loaded with babes on stage, including this beauty worthy of Bullz-Eye:  The music–a very 1990s beyond-Metallica hardcore sound, with very serious, solemn female vocals floating atop the familiar barking, growling thrash-guitar dude–probably isn’t many people’s cup of tea. But someone likes them, as A New Dawn’s racked up nearly 20,000 friends, and–like Motley Crue’s never seen a state-fair shed it wouldn’t play–appears to hit every single metalfest The Continent has to offer. But don’t take our word for it, check out this riveting performance of their composition “Veil of Charity” and judge for yourself : |
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“Rökning Dödar.” It’s on every Finnish pack of cigarettes, covering half the front panel. Big and bold. Finns know it to mean “Smoking kills,” but to us less literate English speaking music fans, man, doesn’t that sound like a bichen Deep Purple Deep Cut? One with Jon Lord going crazy-wack-psycho on the church-rockin’, pimped-out Hammond B-3 organ? With lots of smoke and dry ice and distortion…and wattage that would knock skulls on the next continent? Yes! That, obviously was the thinking behind insouciant bar punkers The Sharp Chuckies, an upstate New York band who named their latest record—you guessed it—”Rökning Dödar.” The music isn’t that great (although we’ve heard much worse), the homophobic lyrics are a little hard to take, and the band might be taken a bit more seriously if they polished up their act some. But they do sport an awesome album cover, complete with a Finnish pack o’smokes:  |
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Hey kids, not to be outdone by Radiohead, MySpace and Pennywise announced today that they’re going to team up and offer the Cali punk outfit’s next record–in its entirety–as a free download for two weeks upon its release next March. It could be a crazy gambit, this giving away music stuff. It also could be a shrewd marketing move by a band that realizes that it makes its money by getting butts in seats (or Converse in the pit, whatever) and their album sales are kinda icing on the cake. More records out there, more fans to like ya. More fans to like ya, more ticket sales/cover charges coming into the group’s till. It’s not like Mariah Carey or (insert chart-topping annoyance here), whose albums have so much marketing overhead–including big-budget videos–that giving away an album would bankrupt the label.  Pennywise’s Jim Lindberg is suddenly the most popular punk online. Either way, keep the group’s MySpace bookmarked and keep tabs on this saga. You never know if some record-industry force will block this, or if the band will get cold feet. Or it turns out the free MP3s are sampled at crackly AM-radio quality. Or if some other legal snafu comes up to make this bold step a non-starter. Three months is a long time for hitches not to develop. But in typical punk style, the band’s not afraid to go toe-to-toe with the old guard, the keepers of the purse strings–and this quote from the above-linked Pollstar piece sums it up perfectly: “We know that this will piss off a lot of people in the music industry,” said Pennywise guitarist Fletcher Dragge. “And what do we say to that? ‘Who cares?’ We’ve been pissing people off for 18 years. Why stop now?” |
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Boston’s best-kept musical secret probably will remain such forever. But you, now, are privy to this instrumental band that sounds kinda like Chet Atkins on acid. Or Les Paul on some sort of otherworldly speedball. Or some lounge band that’s played together in so many freaking velvet-lined, cigar-fogged rooms that they can’t help but be tight and perfectly well-practiced. “Rock/Surf/Lounge” is how the Weisstronauts bill themselves, but that’s just a way to pigeonhole them conveniently for the rock press. No, anyone who’s driven down the kitschy, cheezy world of U.S. Route 1–from the gargantuan gas tanks to the Prince Leaning Tower of Pizza to a Chinese restaurant bigger than two city blocks–knows that the Weisstronauts (who quote Route 1 in their album art) come from another place.  That damn monkey always shows up on their album covers in front of some Route 1 establishment of questionable repute. In that place there’s fuzzy distortion, weird sound effects, and damn fine pickin’ on the electric guitar. Their sound is sparse and melodic, catchy, and crankable to earth-shattering volumes on your hi-fi rig because it’s clean and beautifully produced. I love these guys and I wish they’d crank out some more music already, because nearly two years without a new record is two years too many. At least they live large on MySpace, where new fans can listen to sample cuts and track down their obscure records on an obscure local label. Long live the Weisstronauts! |
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While MySpace hosts plenty of original artists doing original music, there’s room for a lot more than that. Yeah, we’re talking about cover bands. Or “tribute bands,” as these tireless warriors of dollar beer weeknight gigs at every damned dive across America fancy themselves. And who’s to argue with these groups? Their work ethos, their dedication, their initiative to set up MySpaces, for gosh sakes, is not to be denigrated. Not here. Really, if you’re that into Depeche Mode so much that you’d devote your leisure time to covering their music, we’re not going to dump on that. It’s really pretty easy to find cover bands on MySpace that you can make fun of yourself. Or, if you’re into the oeuvre, seek out a nearby show because you wanna be rocked. Here’s the process, using AC/DC as an example: First Google “MySpace AC/DC cover band.” If that gets you nowhere, just hit a fan MySpace. Then look at their friends. The cover bands will be there. In the case of AC/DC, you get groups like New Jersey’s Dog Eat Dog, or Kansas City’s finest–KC/DC, naturally. Happy hunting. Really, get into this. Listening to the music is a fascinating study in musical anthropology, addictive stuff. Once you get your fill, jump over to YouTube and not just hear the stuff, but watch things like dueling Journey cover bands interspersed with actual Journey videos and the latest incarnation of Journey with the original members and the myriad lead singers they’ve found to replace Steve Perry, some of them found on–you guessed it–YouTube, as Schon confessed here. As Perry once put it, it goes on and on and on and on-n-n. |
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“Bomp is doing everything we can think of to salvage what’s useful from the music industry’s pending bankruptcy. We are trying to preserve the best of alternative music culture from the creeping mediocrity that always seeks to envelop it. We believe each generation is given a chance to make its mark; not every generation is born in revolutionary times, but it seems such times are rapidly coming upon us. We’re here to help.” - Greg Shaw  Greg and Suzy Shaw, circa 1968. He passed away in 2004 but she’s proudly Bomp!ing away still Pssst! MySpace music also hosts books about your favorite rawwwk as well as some labels. Now we couldn’t give a flying fudge (yeah, I’m G-rated today) about amping one major-label project or another, but damn–I mean dang–there’s a couple indie labels out there to whom I’ll give endless PR until they go under. Bomp! Records is one such label, and its MySpace catalogs the history of the label and its rock-loving founders Suzy and the late Greg Shaw since they began publishing fanzines in the 1960s. Their unending devotion to garage rock and psychedelia and the ensuing Nuggets, punk, power-pop, and punk-pop that followed was downright endless, and their label/distributing company keeps track of an amazing treasure trove of lost pop gems from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s that you just can’t find anywhere else. Caution: Once you start dipping into that catalogue, there’s no way out. Best to just admit the inevitable and get a high-limit credit card to begin with, and save all the denial and other issues that go along with it. Unless you really think you can resist the call of vintage English freakbeat. What, you say you don’t know what that is? You will soon enough. The Shaws have hooked many a more resistant rocker into their fold starting with the freakbeat… |
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