I'll Be Back This Sunday

Don't ask, but I will tell that I'll be back by Sunday night, the last day of the month.

RIP Wayman Tisdale

First off, no concert recap, as I never saw 2 Live Crew at that club. However, it was still quite a night... quite a week, as a matter of fact. Check out my MySpace blog for a detailed recap of all the madness and insanity.

It’s not always true but I at least try to have a variety of tune-age on here sometimes. The more variety the better, right? Well, the next few songs I plug will definitely be varied and genres that I haven’t really covered on here in a long time, if at all. The first one comes up now due to unfortunate circumstances.

On Friday, Wayman Tisdale passed away after bravely fighting against the ravages of cancer. If you don’t recognize the name, he was a really good basketball player who happened to retire and focus on his career as a jazz bassist, which he may have been even better at. A 6 foot 9 basketball player turned jazz bassist may sound like a cheap gimmick but he isn’t like most famous athletes who turn to a music career… he was great in the music field and received a lot of respect for his works.

I’ll post a song that for an easy-listening jazz tune I heard an awful lot a few years ago, whether it was randomly on a radio station or even at a Cheesecake Factory one time. It’s from 2006’s Way Up! album and it’s his cover of Kool & The Gang’s Get Down On It. It’s not too different from the original but it is awfully funky and it’s something you can tap your toe to; furthermore, it’ll prove my point about how good he was at what he did.

Wayman Tisdale-Get Down On It (3.57 MB, 128Kbits/second)

I'll be back next weekend with another tune to spotlight.

As Nasty As I Wanna Be

I’ll be posting two songs tonight, as they both tie into each other in an odd sort of way.

You see, tonight I’ll be attending Club Antigua in downtown Orlando as today is the birthday of the local legend, DJ Magic Mike, who literally has been doing music for at least 20 years now.

Anyhow, Magic Mike is celebrating his birthday there, and there will be some famous guests there. The guys I’m talking about… 2 Live Crew! No kidding. Also, this wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve seen them live, if you can believe it, but I’ll tell you that story and how this experience was early next week. I mean, I hope to get in. Last month, I was hoping to see the DJ known as Sharam* perform live at Club Firestone, but complications prevented that, mainly that club being terrible and somehow them not having enough room, so there was a huge line of people waiting to get in, and I wasn’t going to wait in line, dammit.

• Whom I’ve talked about before; one day I’ll post the full almost 11 minute album version of the song as the two links don’t work anymore.

The first song is a rather interesting tune they did with another famous group that’s known for sleaziness; Motley Crue! Yes, they did a song together. It was on Crew’s 1997 best-of album, Goes to the Movies: A Decade of Hits, and well, to be honest it was when both groups weren’t exactly at their peak (if it would’ve been recorded in, say, 1990, then it may have been awesome), but it’s still interesting as a curio. I mean, it’s really a version of Dr. Feelgood with rapping over it.

2 Live Crew & Motley Crue-Crew to Crue (4.1 MB, 128Kbits/second)

The second song is about partying, so it goes well with tonight, even though in all honesty the song has an apocalyptic little ditty. Most people probably know the single version of the tune and have never heard the full album version. It’s 1999, the title song from that 1982 album by Prince. It’s a famous song from that decade that everyone knows; now you’ll get to hear it in full, with added stuff that shows how dark it actually is. It also ends abruptly, I know, but it transitions right into the next song on that album, Little Red Corvette, so that’s why that happened. At least for tonight, I’ll focus on its party aspects rather than any “end of the world” stuff that the song also contains.

Prince-1999 (5.72 MB, 128Kbits/second)

I’ll be back early next week with a recap of my Crew experience.

Happy Cinco de Mayo

Yes, I've finally returned. I apologize for all the non-posts and breaks during the past 6 months or so, but it was due to my zany schedule. But, things should be more normal now.

I decided to wait until tonight as today is Cinco de Mayo. Sure, the past few weeks have been disastrous to the lovely country of Mexico for obvious reasons, but let's not worry about that today. I'll direct my attention towards this page, which is a post I did this past September. If you haven't already, you can download two versions of the song called The Mexican; what better day to do so, right?

Before I get to the song I'm about to post, I'll present you a video that is a song about to come out to album later in the month. It's a cover of Seven Nation Army. To me, just about every cover I've heard of that song is an improvement on the original, as the original is cursed with the GOD-AWFUL vocals of Jack White, but I don't want to digress there. The video is here and you'll see that the cover is by... The Oak Ridge Boys. Yes, the country group (formerly a gospel group) that's been together in some form since THE FORTIES and to me is best known for cheeseball stuff like Elvira. I found it on a messageboard and I thought, "What the hell is this?", but once I listened to it, it's pretty badass! A definite improvement on the original, even though you are able to get a good listen to the lyrics with this one and you realize just how crappy they really are and it's the beat that's the only thing that's good about the song... but anyway, they did a great job with it.

The song I want to put up is one from the 80's that you all know, but I bet that almost everyone knows the single version and has never listened to the full album version. That also describes the song I'll post this Friday, but that's all I'll give for a spoiler.

Tonight's song is Let's Dance, from David Bowie. It's the title song from that 1983 album. Given that the album version is almost twice as long as the single version, a lot was edited out. I mean, you get to hear extra trumpet work and even a percussion breakdown. So, I think it's worth hearing, especially if you like the single version.

David Bowie-Let's Dance (8.8 MB, 192Kbits/second)

I'll be back Friday night, like I promised already.

A Brief Sabbatical

Unfortunately, the excu.. er I mean reason why this is going up at this time is because of Internet problems. Yes, I just had them this past November and I thought I'd be done with them for months, but I was mistaken. But, it's working fine now. Problem is, for the rest of the month I will just not have the time to do this, so the next time I'll post a song here will be on Monday evening, May 4th. By then things will calm down for me and be much less hectic, I promise.

No More Standing Along The Side Walls

To start things off randomly, I was looking at the website for the House of Blues in Orlando and at first I didn’t notice it, but then I saw that they indeed still had Service Industry Night there, which is a Sunday night get-together where electro music is blasted and you can have a few drinks without spending a lot. I don’t even remember the last time I went to one of them, as another club in Orlando has taken my focus as a place to go to, although SIN is sure as hell a lot cheaper than that club on Church Street… anyway, I’ll be back at SIN sooner or later.

Anyhow, I was wondering what I could upload here and I realized that it makes sense to mention Marvin Gaye, as last week was not only would have been his 70th birthday, but unfortunately, also the 25th anniversary of his death, at the hands of his own father. What a sad way to go, but amongst all the personal drama he had to deal with, he also had an amazing career.

Instead of talking about that sad stuff, let me upload a happy song from him, about a guy who gets the courage to stop being a wallflower at a party and start getting down and having a good time. Yep, I’m talking about Got to Give It Up, and not the single version, but the full album version that was included as the one studio track on his Live at the London Palladium album. It’s great stuff, both the song and the album itself.

Marvin Gaye-Got To Give It Up (16.3 MB, 192Kbits/second)

I'll be back sometime next weekend with something new.

Free Bird!

I’ll keep it simple this time around and I’ll post a pair of songs from a famous southern rock band, as I don’t talk about that genre of music on here really all that much.

The most well-known band in that genre is-obviously-Lynyrd Skynyrd. In the middle of March, I was able to drive up to Jacksonville on my own for the first time, and I heard Free Bird while I was up there. It was appropriate, as that’s where they are from. You hear their songs on the radio often, especially in the Sunshine State, but they have quality songs that you don’t hear on the radio and yet deserve to be heard by you if you haven’t experienced them before.

The first tune is Swamp Music, from the Second Helping album. It is a catchy boogie about being home on the swamp, hanging out with a hound dog and name-checks Son House too. It’s a good old time.

Lynyrd Skynyrd-Swamp Music (4.85 MB, 192Kbits/second)

The second tune also happens to be on the Second Helping album. This one is called Workin’ for MCA and is an autobiographical tune as MCA is the company that released their albums and they talked about their history and how they were signed by that label. It’s another incredibly catchy tune that you probably will enjoy.


Lynyrd Skynyrd-Workin’ for MCA (6.59 MB, 192Kbits/second)

I'll be back sometime next weekend with something else to spotlight.