50 indie rock bands, 50 free MP3s. Gah, here I am doing even more nice things for my loyal reader(s). I know you/they are out there. ~

After reading this list of ways to mke your web developer crazy, I started reading the digg comments associated with the post. I found this addition pretty funny, by user tazamore:

#27 Refer to individual web pages as “the part where it says”. Web designers have the uncanny ability to memorize thousands of page[s] of content and locate the exact document you want changed simply by knowing “the part where it says”, for example[...]“The part where it says more information change [it] to what it says on the second page.” is perfectly clear instruction to web designer.

Funny cause it’s true. ~

TLC has redesigned their logo, website, and branding. Looking pretty sharp. I guess that answers this question. ~

Everything you ever wanted to know about cracking your neck. For about two months I’ve been telling anyone who will listen that I need someone to pop my neck. Maybe not? (via Sport Center Austin) ~

Beatles for sale

When I was a kid I dearly loved the Beatles. Though I had missed their heyday by almost thirty years, and even their existence as a performing group by another five, I still placed them extremely highly on my list. As a unit they wrote and performed some of the best songs of any genre ever written, and managed to keep a sense of humor and humility while being the most famous people on the planet.
Any reading of the career of the Beatles is fraught with the peril of seeing the mask slip, however. There’s a story lurking underneath of bad financial dealings, greed, avarice and back stabbing to rival any other in rock. It’s saddest when it’s the Beatles though, because as a lover of music and a musician you want to believe.
In the late 1960’s the Beatles started Apple Corps, Ltd. for the same reason many bands start their own labels: they realize they either have been or will be swindled by their recording contracts with major labels and want not to be. It’s a noble enough goal, and in this case brought us many minor greats like Badfinger and James Taylor who might have gone unnoticed were it not for a watchful George Harrison and Apple Corps. Long after the disolution of the Beatles as a performing band, and the tragic loss of Lennon, Apple Corps continued on mostly as a royalties collecting limb of a now deceased enterprise. The eighties saw Apple Corps limping along essentially in receivership to its creditors, leveling hairbrained lawsuits at anyone with the misfortune of having a publically listed mailing address.
The eighties also saw the meteoric rise of one Apple Computer, the proverbial “rag tag” company on a mission to take mainframe technology to the masses. Upon the success of its initial offerings the company set out to create what would be called the “Macintosh”, and in the process it attracted the ire of Apple Corp who sued repeatedly in protection of their trademarked name. In fact if you look in the “Sounds” Control panel of any pre-OS X Mac you’ll find a system sound called “Sosumi” directed at Apple Corps; literally, “So, sue me.” Cute.
The lawsuits were settled out of court, with Apple paying a chunk of cash to Apple Corps and promising to never distribute music products, something no one dreamed a computer company would ever do anyway. Ahem.

Wait for it.

The launch of the iTunes Music Store in 2003 opened the floodgates at Apple Corps, and found them suing yet again. Now opening arguments are underway, and the end is not so easily seen as before. Apple Corps alleges all sorts of awful wrongdoings, including trademark infringement and trading on the Apple Corps logo. It looks as though one of the remedies they seek is that the Apple Computer logo be removed from iTMS in any and all forms. Because, you know, it’s so easy to confuse the two. And honestly I guess I could see some merit in this if Apple Corps had sold a single music product in something under a decade. But as they have not, and act purely as a fixed address from which Paul and Yoko may retrieve royalty checks I’m ready to call all this a load of shit. Paul’s already made the move onto my fecal roster after selling the rights to part of the Beatles catalog to Michael Jackson, then bitching about “Revolution” winding up on a Nike ad. It also took him about five minutes to remarry after poor Linda croaked. And don’t get me started on Yoko.

Dude, I mean it.

So Apple may again pay out of court just so that they can continue being a company that actually makes stuff for money, instead of waiting for people to land on Boardwalk and demanding the rent like Apple Corp. But this is one of the final nails in the coffin for me as far as my own Beatlemania in concerned. And looking back I should have known better. I mean, this is the band that tried to write a hardluck blues song about entering a higher tax bracket. ~

More little fragments of the background noise, courtesy of Ms. Case:

The needles the same its recorded and played /
As when you left me at the greyhound station the year i moved away /
And if i knew then whats so obvious now /
You’d still be here baby /
My baby /
Baby /
Thats why I never come back here /
Thats why they spit out my name /
Your ex is a part of the battle /
Trying to keep me away /
The sledge of tectonic fever /
The needle has landed again /
Let it play /

“The Needle Has Landed” ~

The master behind Snakes On A Plane is a blogger. And a damn funny one at that. ~

I’ve spent the day elbows deep in a very old codebase, coming upon comments I left for myself the last time I did any work with this particular project. And for the first time in many months I’m actually missing DC and my old office. ~

Oh, you scientists. Now you’re trying to make me love you. Well, making bacon into health food will get you everywhere. I already take Omega-3 every day. Does this mean I have to quit, or should I keep taking it and make my heart impervious to disease for a thousand years? ~

On a grey day, sing a happy little tune:

When you were young
You were the king of carrot flowers
And how you built a tower tumbling through the trees
In holy rattlesnakes that fell all around your feet

And your mom would stick a fork right into daddy’s shoulder
And dad would throw the garbage all across the floor
As we would lay and learn what each other’s bodies were for

And this is the room
One afternoon I knew I could love you
And from above you how I sank into your soul
Into that secret place where no one dares to go

And your mom would drink until she was no longer speaking
And dad would dream of all the different ways to die
Each one a little more than he could dare to try

– Jeff Mangum ~

15 best skylines in the world. It’s definitely time to commit this to my to do list: see all of these ASAP. One down, 14 to go. ~

I never really noticed singers before Neko Case. After her it’s hard not to concentrate on singing, and impossible not to see the voice as an instrument. Unlike other indie rock songstresses who shall remain nameless she actually writes for her voice, assuming it to be an important part of making a musical statement. A perfect example is my current favorite track on ‘Fox Confessor Brings The Flood’, “That Teenage Feeling” whose lyric is beautiful and complex and whose melody is equally so, conjuring up a bygone era when lushness was strived for despite technical limitations. This album should be drifting from the car radio of a 54 Chevy followed by nothing but the fingernail moon and its own dusty rooster tail. Her voice wells up in the reverb, piling up on itself in triplicate and crashing against the edges of the soundscape. It’s truly beautiful and unlike so much of what we hear, it’s musical.
Best part? She has no trouble live. Not a bit.
I’m hoping to be able to catch her at least one of the nights she plays Carrboro. Embedded in that hope is one that it won’t sell out, which has happened every other time she’s been here. We love our heartbroken torchsong bearing damsels here in the south, I suppose. ~

Lost. Found. Lost. Found.

Lost. Found. Lost. Found. - March 2006
1. Nothing Better - The Postal Service @ KCRW From the Morning Becomes Eclectic radio show a while back. Found at the fantastic M3 Online.

2. Save My Skin - Rainer Maria “I’ll find a way to save my skin/ that precious way it holds me in”.

3. Star Witness - Neko Case From her fantastic new record Fox Confessor Brings The Flood which I mentioned with great anticipation earlier this month. It lives up to expectations and then some.

4. She Smiled Sweetly - Rolling Stones Never fails to make me think of The Royal Tenenbaums.

5. Always New Depths - Bloc Party “All the pennies in the Thames/Will not make it how it was”

6. Sometimes Always - Jesus & Mary Chain Hope Sandoval is always excellent, and who doesn’t like a he said/she said song?

7. Heart Cooks Brain - Modest Mouse “We tore one down, and erected another there The match of the century: absence versus thin air”

8. Lit Up - The National “My bodyguard shows her revolver to anyone who asks
And yeah she comes to attention when you come up to me too fast”

9. Places To Go - Owen I love a song with a long fade in.

10. Sender - Pinback There’s still a pretty firm connection for me between this album and my daily metro commute. The level of concentration that I could muster on that ride is something I still wish for; what a perfect way to divide your work day from your life.

11. Les Yper-Sound - Stereolab French Socialist techno. Who doesn’t love that?

12. First Day Back - Braid “so i’m told that chicago’s cold
can’t be cool as california”

The current meme being advanced by everyone’s favorite fair and balanced news channel is that all this great stuff is happening in Iraq and that the liberal media–i.e., any network other than Fox–is refusing to talk about it. There’s lots of evidence of this campaign over on crooksandliars, and it’s interesting to see clips of Fox’s unbelievable spin snuggled up so close to additional clips of reality. I think the fact is that American journalism has swung back to the place it once was, where the conventional wisdom is that war is a very grave thing. Additionally the media has been battered and abused by both Bush press secretaries, has been blamed for everything from Plamegate to Katrina, and is now being blamed for the lack of public support for this nonsensical war. As a result it refuses to serve as a state run limb of the Bush body politic. Americans don’t need reasons to hate war anymore. They benefit from a media that’s fighting for its lunch in a cafeteria full of bloggers and other non-traditional journalists. A mainstream media in that position will push harder for the truth, and right now that “truth” is that the war is not going well and still has no justification. Josh goes further than that; he not only hates the war but believes pretty strongly that Bush is the worst we’ve ever had. ~

Paul Ford keeps on being a genius. Constants are good to have around lately, since things are changing minute to minute around here. ~

March has determined it won’t go without a fight. So for a few more weeks at least I’ll wake up to a rumble in the stomach of the house as the furnace kicks on. All the tree trunks are rain black and we burn our tongues on ever present bowls of home made soup. It’s the 21st and 41º, colder and later than I thought I’d find myself by this time of year. This is the year that lightning struck twice but still couldn’t be bottled. (I’m recording for posterity.) And speaking of recording… The audition became a recording session. Once everything is mixed down I promise to re-enact Thursday tunes so that interested parties can hear. ~

Google Finance:stocks::Google Maps:going somewhere. Wow. If I had any money this is probably how I’d look at my stocks.

Some good ways to pass the time on a rainy, icy “spring” day in NC: send off resumes to far flung record labels. Watch some Mr. Show episodes. Practice for your first band audition in five years. (By the way, if you happen to run a great record label I know a kick-ass designer with indie cred to spare…) ~

Just because you’re paranoid…Conspiracy theorists and the search for the truth behind the 9/11 attacks. Pretty good read from Mark Jacobsen. (Via New York Magazine. Here’s the whole thing in one long page- thanks, daHIFI.) ~

Nicholas Lemann on O’Reilly’s ‘Baroque Period’. As a “pugilistic conservative’ in a need of a ‘liberal foil’ in order to perform, how long can he keep it up? After all, it’s pretty hard to act like an outsider when you’re shilling for the party that’s currently in power, and fully support all of its policies without question. (via the New Yorker) ~

Oh well. What the hell. It’s isn’t Thursday and there’s only one tune, but it’s a good one. It’s “Over My Head (Cable Car)” (4.78MB MP3 Download) by The Fray and it sounds like Ben Folds meets Joe Jackson with a bit of John Mayer thrown in for good measure. I’ve heard it at the gym for three straight days now, and I’m kinda suggestible. So it isn’t indie rock. Sue me. Enjoy.