RIP Les Paul 1915-2009

There’s going to be some sweet sustain coming out the pearly gates tonight. God bless you, sir…

fromthevaultradio.com

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/08/13/obit.les.paul/index.html

Funkin’ up the mashup.

Now this is cool. This guy took a bunch of YouTube videos (mostly of people giving music tutorials on various instruments) and mashed them up together to create a pretty badass funk track.

This clearly took alot of work. And yeah…that’s a theramin.

[via AnimalMind]

Radio on the TV

I don’t know if any of you watch Life on NBC (you know, the one with Capt. Winters). it’s definitely one of my new favorite shows.

One reason is the music. The people picking the songs that backdrop each episode have got some serious game. Every installment has great stuff and it usually works perfectly with the story line.

So it was no surprise to me when last night’s show (in which the plot revolved around music) featured the following selections:

Click for the clips…

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

Sorry about the external links. Hulu doesn’t let me embed specific clips. Anyway…damn good show. Check it out.

My apologies.

Last night I proclaimed that pop-punk is the worst genre of music that has ever existed. I was wrong. This is…

That’s right, folks. White Crunk, courtesy of brokeNCYDE. Emphasis on ‘broke’. These winners make All Time Low look like Gilbert and Sullivan. That is, if the HMS Pinafore was a merchant vessel full of fine leather douchebags.

[DCiever]

Bow to your master. Now turn around.

This is getting ridiculous. Look at all these damn charges. Am I buying tickets to a show or a month of cell phone service? $4.75 for TicketFast Delivery. Which is the option to print the tickets at home. So by allowing them to save on printing and postage, I’m penalized nearly five bucks. Yeah, that’s fair.

Ticketmaster has officially become the David Putty of event ticket sales:

Putty: I just left out a couple things…uh, rust-proofing…
Jerry: Rust-proofing???
Putty: Transport charge, storage surcharge, additional overcharge, finder’s fee…
Jerry: Finder’s fee??? It was on the lot!
Putty: Yeah that’s right. Uh…floor mats…keys…
Jerry: Keys???
Putty: How you gonna start it?

It’s a synagogue for Christ’s sake. At least let me take my pants off.

The blue in bluegrass.

EFMF

Everyone knew that the McCain camp would begin pulling out all the stops right about now. The first act just started. It’s only going to get worse from here.

What about the other side, you ask? How is Obama going to make the most of the final weeks of this election? It looks like that instead of more negative ads, he just might go the other way. But everyone knows that making voters fear the other guy is what works in the home stretch. How do you possibly get anything out of a positive “change” ad?

Well, if you’re looking to turn around people in SW Virgina, for instance, you call on someone who is revered in that part of the country. Like maybe, perhaps, oh I don’t know…a bluegrass legend?

This is brilliant:

[TPM]

Jerry Reed 1937-2008

courtesy of dustyjumpwings

A sad, sad day for the Dude.

I can’t really describe how much Jerry Reed meant to me over the years. I must have listened to his greatest hits album more than any other in college. I still know the words to all those songs by heart. And let me tell you, they’re not easy songs to remember. Let’s just say Jerry had a knack for cramming alot of lyrics into very short songs.

Just the other night, I was with Elbows and our respective better-halves at The Green Turtle in Sneads Ferry, NC enjoying some dinner. Two guys were playing guitar and singing country songs. They entertained us with some Waylon, some Merle, and even a little Jimmy Buffett. They were taking requests and I thought about yelling out, “Jerry Reed!”. But I was too busy enjoying my She Crab Soup. Now I wish I had. I would’ve loved to hear some East Bound and Down.

I’m pretty busy at work right now…but I’ll probably expound on this later.

Until then…a moment of silence for the “Guitar Man”.

courtesy of thestranger

All your cash are belong to us.

Good lord. Isn’t this one of the first signs of Armageddon?

pic courtesy of gizmodo.

Ouch.

From this morning’s Express. Click for easier reading.

The third: Bo Diddley 1928-2008

Let’s hope it stops here.

Strange times indeed.

After the release of Magic Potion, their fifth album and first on a non-indie label, The Black Keys made it very clear that they were not going to be pigeon-holed as simply a blues duo. Their first three efforts were deeply rooted in the blues, but they wanted to branch out a bit. Magic Potion proved to be just that…them branching out a little bit. The bluesy riffs were still there, but there was an obvious movement towards unchartered waters. The question was whether they would continue down that path and leave the Mississippi Delta behind completely, or would they get homesick and run home to Mama?

Two things have dropped the hint that they have no intentions whatsoever in slowing down this metamorphosis. One, they announced that their new album would be produced by Danger Mouse, not exactly a bastion of hill country blues. Second and most importantly, they’ve released the first track from the new album, Attack & Release. I’d say it’s clear they’re still very much intent on exploring new things. After the jump, a little taste…

Download of the day.

Okay, so maybe Season 5 isn’t exactly living up to the hype. Which is particularly upsetting, since it took all these years to get everyone to pay attention. People finally come over and all they find in place of the show we love is a shell of its former self. I mean, not to be too harsh…but in the grand scheme of things, it sucks.

However, there’s one thing that has always remained consistently top-notch. The music. Just now, browsing around on iTunes, I find this diamond in the rough. …And All The Pieces Matter: Five Years of Music From The Wire. As we all know, the flagship tune of any given season is the rendition of “Way Down In the Hole,” performed by a different artist each time. Interestingly, the version from this season, as sung by Steve Earle (who has a bit part in the series), isn’t here. Eh, didn’t really care for it that much anyway. But there’s not just the opening credit songs, there’s the four songs that David Simon chose to play in the last episode of each season, which are all solid. My favorite is “Fast Train” by Solomon Burke, which Elbows and I were playing a little bit a couple weeks ago. I was particularly happy to see “Step By Step” by Jesse Winchester, which was previously unavailable anywhere online. In between are other tracks and even some key dialogue.

After the jump, a great excerpt from the included digital booklet.

Review: North Mississippi Allstars @ The State Theater

Hill country blues. It’s not a very well known genre of music in these here parts. Around the turn of the century, in the fields of north Mississippi, where sharecroppers worked the land by day and played music by night, a distinct flavor of the blues was born. A flavor driven by cheap guitars, gravelly voices, and gut-wrenching storytelling. Droning E-strings and syncopated beats, flying around what at best is a lackadaisical execution of a 12-bar progression. A kind of 12½-bar blues. A signature that to the untrained ear suggests perhaps a lack of rhythm…or talent…or both.

But in reality, it’s a characteristic of a once-obscure corner of the American musical experience – a lifestyle for that matter – that went virtually unnoticed for most of the 20th century. It wasn’t until a small Oxford-based record label put these sounds on tape and brought them off the farm, that the rest of the world lent an ear and took notice. Men like R.L. Burnside. Junior Kimbrough. Mississippi Fred McDowell. Guys who had been playing this music for all their lives. Not for money or fame. But to simply to unwind after a long day in the fields. After the jump, a look at the contemporaries of these men…these Bluesmen…and a review of NMAS from this past Friday.

The Black Keys

Well, the Black Keys are finally coming back to town after too long of an absence.  They will be at the 9:30 Club on May 15th and 16th (Thursday and Friday).  The tour is in suport of their Danger Mouse-produced fifth album, Attack & Release, which is also their first recorded in a proper studio.  Pre-sale (with reduced fees) for the show starts 1/11 at 10 AM.  Click here to hear them play at the 9:30 Club on their last visit to Washington in November 2006.

Not the Only Midday Ramble

Believe it or not, Midday Ramble (the blog) comes up higher on Google results than Midday Ramble (the band) or Midday Ramble (the song). In style, however, Midday Ramble (the blog) is much closer to Midday Ramble (the post), but with better punctuation. It seems only Mad Dog’s Midday Ramble (the workout) comes close to matching the intensity of the Midday Ramble (the blog), though the Midday Ramble (the box score) does suggest a reservoir of untapped manic energy out there.